Beers of the Week: A Winter Warmer and a Porter

This was a pretty quiet week for beers. I mean, I drank but several of the beers I enjoyed throughout the week were ones I had already showcased here on the blog. Here are two for you consideration.

When I lived in Atlanta there were only a handful of breweries to choose from. Since moving I have learned that the industry is picking up, but alas I can't get most of it here. Sweetwater Brewing, however, is available throughout Asheville but not in too many places. The pizza joint Mellow Mushroom, itself an Atlanta-based business, has tons of beers on tap including several Sweetwater choices. And this time of year that means Sweetwater Festive. It had been a while since I tasted this beer and I was surprised to find it had a little bit of a sour flavor, but I'm not entirely sure that wasn't the fault of the tap line. It isn't a terribly heavy beer for a winter warmer but it does have cinnamon flavors and lots of rich malts. I was surprised that I didn't like this as much as I had remembered.

So, while a porter isn't exactly a winter seasonal it is a style of beer (along with stouts) that I crave this time of year. There are several local porters that are my go-to beers around town but there is also another North Carolina beer from another part of the state that I always forget about. Foothills Brewery is located in Winston Salem and they have several beers available all around Asheville. So when faced with a choice I decided to follow the path less traveled and have a People's Porter, which I never otherwise order. This is a version of a traditional English brown porter and it stays true to its style. I tasted some coffee notes along with the chocolate malt.

I expect that there will be more opportunities for some winter seasonals this coming week and throughout the holidays as we travel to Michigan to visit family over Christmas and New Year's. I am looking forward to some of their great beer choices as well since that state's craft beer scene is pretty epic.

The consequences of questionable decisions

There are a lot of poor decisions that beer consumption can lead to*. "Drink Responsibly" is not just a catch phrase in advertising for alcoholic beverages. Understanding your own responsibility when it comes to beer is probably the most important thing you can consider before enjoying that beverage.

There are some lesser infractions, however. This Super Bowl Sunday, I gave in to one of those. The "Free Beer Glass" decision. I love collecting beer glasses. I have a growing collection. Occasionally, though, it is probably a good idea just to say no.

As you may have seen recently, I just spent a week's vacation traveling in the south east. On that trip, with friends, we went to a local sports bar to watch the game between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Being a Detroit Lions fan, it is sometimes difficult for me to get really into the super bowl game. We arrived by cab at this sports bar a little before the game and planned to stay until about half time and get some wings and have a couple of drinks. The waitress approached and told us about her specials, which included "blah blah blah blah with free football shaped beer glass blah blah blah blah." I was sold. I didn't care what it was, I wanted that beer glass. She even told us that since we get to keep the glass after we drink the first beer we could just get pitchers of other beer and use the glasses. This sounded like the best idea ever.

Turns out, the beer was Coors Light. Now, if you enjoy Coors, that is fine for you. What ever you like, I'm okay with that. I do not, however, like it. Many years ago, our friend Dann (who we were traveling with) offered me a Coors Light style beer when we first met and I looked at him and said "No! Beer Yucky!" which he thought was hilarious. It was a shock to him when he learned I was enjoying beer at all. Well, for me Coors is the epitome of "Beer Yucky." But for the good of the Football Shaped Beer Glass (tm), I was willing to suffer through.

Thankfully, we did have that option to purchase pitchers to fill up our Coors Light glasses after the first sampling. We resolved that problem with Sweetwater 420. Interestingly enough, I am just starting to explore pale ales. I find that this Atlanta brewery's flagship beer is a very drinkable beer.

Later in the week, I felt the need to make reparations for the partially regretted decision to get the Football Shaped Beer Glasses (tm). While on a visit to the beautiful Biltmore in Asheville on the last day of our vacation, Matt and I enjoyed some Biltmore brewed beers and acquired a more sophisticated pair of pints. I enjoyed the brown ale and Matt had the pale ale.

I suppose this will not be the last time I fall victim for the free glass with purchase trap. Sometimes you get nice glasses, and sometimes you get Football Shaped Beer Glasses (tm).

*Please be aware that this video is pretty intense. No matter how intense it is, the Australian PSA might be one of the most powerful drunk driving commercials anyone can watch.

Two Beer Events in One Week

This has been a very good week in the world of beer for both Atlanta GA and Asheville NC.

On Thursday, January 20th we went to the Taco Mac in Kennesaw for the introduction of the California brewery Lost Abbey in Georgia. I learned about Lost Abbey earlier this year when there was some controversy surrounding their summer beer, Witch's Wit.  Throughout the online discussions, I often wondered whether or not the beer was worth all of the attention.  I had wanted to try it, but it wasn't yet available in Georgia, until this past week.

We met some friends at the Kennesaw restaurant and enjoyed dinner and conversation.  Then we dove headfirst into the beer selections.  The bar had several available on tap and a few bottles.  I tried the Lost Abbey Red Barn at first and honestly I didn't really like it.  That wasn't because it was a bad beer, but because it had flavors that I don't prefer.  It is a Belgian style beer with a lot of complexity, but it was heavy with the hops and I'm not a friend of hops. I want to be able to understand the intense flowery taste of hops more, but this beer featured more than my palate could really handle.  In fact, the taste was so strong it lingered after I finished this beer and may have affected my taste of the second beer that I tried. 

Which brings me to that second beer.  I had read about Gift of The Magi back in November and was quite intrigued.  It is brewed with Frankincense and Myrrh for Christmastime.  I wasn't sure if that would be gimmicky or good, so I really wanted to experience it.  As I said before, I'm not certain I got the full flavor profile because the Red Barn affected my taste buds, but I did enjoy the beer.  It was a spicy Belgian style beer that I believe lived up to my expectations.

However, the winning beer of the evening was the Couvee de Tomme which was enjoyed by two of my bar-going companions, Emily and Robin.  As you can see, Emily endorses it highly.   It is a strong wild ale with a heavy secondary fermentation with cherries which made it taste, as my friend's described, like a really good cherry wine.  Lost Abbey does consider several of their beers to be more wine-like than traditional beer, so I can see where this fit that description.  I tried several sips of the beer and while it was fruitier than I typically like my beer to be these days I can agree it is a very good fruit beer.  It is exactly the kind of beer I would have liked when I first started exploring lambics.

The second beer themed event that I attended this week was the Winter Warmer Beer Festival in Asheville.  On Saturday, Matt and I left for Asheville and arrived in town in time for lunch, which we enjoyed at the Twisted Crape.    From there we made our way to the Civic Center for the festival. The event had sold out, but we got there pretty early and were near the front of the entrance line.  Matt and I were both wearing our knitted Beer Hats, which as a side note we had no less than 4 comments on throughout the event.  We even pointed someone to our friend Susan's knitting website and told her to leave a comment about the hats because she wanted a pattern to knit one for herself. 

At the festival were all breweries from the South East.  Mostly North and South Carolina, two breweries from Tennessee and one from Georgia.  I make no excuses when I say that "Local Beer" is my favorite kind of beer.  I love local beer because it is typically the freshest available.  I love tasting local beer wherever I go.  There were some definite highlights.  We tried to start out with beer that we hadn't had before so we purposefully skipped over several of the Asheville breweries.  We had heard about a German-style brewery from Sylva, NC called Heinzelmannchen.  I had their Black Forest Stout which was a crisp beer with caramel and coffee flavors.  We also tried Lonerider from Raleigh.  Matt really liked their Peacemaker Pale Ale and I liked their Sweet Josie Brown.  The real star of the beer festival for us was a Tennessee brewery called Yazoo.  Matt had their Sue and I tried their Sly Rye Porter, which we shared tastes of with each other.  Both beers were premium examples of their styles.  We talked with one of the guys from Yazoo and asked them where they were located (Nashville) and where they were distributed.  He said they didn't distribute at all and the only reason they come to the Asheville beer festivals is because they love the people and the city and it is just fun for them.  I would definitely check out Yazoo if we find ourselves in Nashville. 

Once we had tried several new beers, we went back to some of the breweries that we were already familiar with.  Duck Rabbit Milk Stout is one of my favorite beers, so I couldn't pass that up.  Atlanta brewery SweetWater did not have any of the beers that I like so I tried their flagship beer, 420.  It is a pale ale and as I have mentioned I have not yet cultivated a relationship with hops.  I wanted to try more hoppy beers this year even if in the end I determine that I don't like them.  420 is not bad.  It isn't as hoppy as other beers I have tried and it is all around drinkable. I don't think I would have it a lot, but I might try it again.  However, out of the tried-and-true breweries I have to say I enjoyed Pisgah Porter the best.  This led to a discussion of what makes a really good beer.  One of the reasons I like Pisgah Porter so much is that no matter where I am when I taste that beer I know it is Pisgah beer.  It tasted like Black Mountain NC.  It has some IT-factor that I am not sure I can define.  We came to the conclusion that the flavor is actually "Consistency", but I think it might actually be, as cliche as it sounds, "Love."  Of course, we tried a lot of other beers as well but these are the ones I wanted to share here. 

All of the beer events this week were a lot of fun as well as an educational exploration of beer styles and brands.  This is why I love the art of beer.