More Adventures in Winter Beer

I've been a lot of places since Thanksgiving. At at most of those places I have consumed delicious seasonal beers. Let's get right to it.

On the day after Thanksgiving we found ourselves at Bar of Soap enjoying a can of one of their new winter beers. This is Unita Brewing's Yard Sale winter lager. While I enjoyed this beer I found it rather un-wintery. I mean, it is a richer, more malty lager than many of the light lagers we're use to, but it didn't have a lot of personality. That being said it was tasty and I would drink more than one in a sitting. The primary flavors would be best described as toasty, vanilla, and caramel.

I have found most of Unita's beers to be hit or miss. I like many of them quite a bit but the rest seem very middle-of-the-road. It is rare that I absolutely hate it.

On Saturday we decorated our house for [insert winter holiday here]. I love this time of year. I love the decorations, the celebrations, the food, and most especially the beer. So to get into the spirit of putting up our tree and dusting off those old holiday nick-knacks, we purchased Kasteel's Belgian Winter beer. Its brewed with real Belgian chocolate, you guys!  Seriously, what could be better. And it was exactly what I wanted out of this beer. The rich, dark beer has roasty and chocolate aromas which translated directly to the flavor. It is 11% alcohol, so don't take this one lightly. Drink with caution. It was absolutely perfect for a fun night at home setting up and decorating the tree.

Then earlier this week we went on a little adventure. Three places, three different seasonal beers. Our first stop was Hi Wire Brewing in downtown Asheville. This is such a great little out of the way brewery. They have several fantastic year-found beers as well as great seasonal offerings. Right now the Strongman Coffee Stout is on tap. I'll be the first to admit that coffee isn't one of my favorite things but beer like this might convince me otherwise. It isn't pretending or just playing around. This is serious coffee flavor. It is a creamy beer to begin with which blends well with the dark, rich, coffee flavor. While this isn't a holiday beer it certainly is a great seasonal. Because it is dark and comforting it fits in the winter warmer category. And, as it turns out, it is only 5.2% ABV which actually makes it a pretty responsible choice.

Then we wandered next door to Ben's Tune Up, a local Asian fusion restaurant. There we ate raman and miso and yummy fish tacos. But we also enjoyed Southern Tier's holiday beer, 2XMas. The bar area, where we ate, is dark which is great for atmosphere but bad for photographs so this is the best we could do. Their other "2X" beers are generally very hoppy so that is what I expected when I took my first sip. I was mistaken. 2XMas has plenty of hops but the hops they use are piney so the beer takes like Christmas trees instead. Plus lot of ginger. Like, a ton of ginger. Turns out there are other spices in there too, but mostly I tasted the ginger If you don't like ginger this may not be the beer for you. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Turns out Southern Tier makes a number of holiday beers including one called Krampus which I must now find.

Finally we ended our beer exploration at Catawba Brewing located in the Biltmore Village area of town. Catawba's seasonal beer offering comes in the form of King Winterbolt, It is an English style brown (or porter?) ale with some Englishy hops. I drank quite of bit of it last year as well. Kind of like Uinta's Yard Sale, I found King Winterbolt to be underwhelming but drinkable. It is a really really good beer, but it doesn't really have any flavor profiles that scream "holiday" or "winter" to me. I suppose when I declare my favorite beer of the season is a specialty brew with ginger and raisins you probably can't expect me to go ga-ga over something super basic. It is a really good beer but I think I would love to see some infusions to give it some kick for the holidays. It would taste great with cinnamon, chocolate, dates, or other flavors of the season. I'll be watching to see if they release any specialty versions of King Winterbolt over the next month or two.

What beers did you discover this week? What have been your favorites that you keep going back to?

Oh the places you'll go...with beer!

Quitting my job and moving to Asheville to pursue writing full time has proven to be most advantageous. Among my favorite new projects is writing for the Asheville Beer City Guide.  Seriously, check it out!

I began my exploration of all that Beer Week has to offer by starting the day at Mellow Mushroom. At 11am Tuesday they offered specials on Southern Tier; all two styles available. I enjoyed a 2XIPA, but that wasn’t the most exciting part of the experience. Talking to a colorful gentleman visiting from Atlanta about jail and leather bondage gear was way more fun. There is no limit to the things you might discuss with strangers in Asheville.

There are several more projects that I am very excited about and I can't wait to share them with you!

Great Beer Night

It has been a while since I've paid much attention to this blog. With my other projects, sometimes this one gets a little neglected.  Making beer is very much a repetitive process, so sometimes I don't feel the motivation to write about it after I've done it.

However, there has been another aspect to Beer and Now that I have been neglecting. The beer experience. I have certainly had some great ones this summer.  Last month, we spent an afternoon at Highland Brewery in Asheville.  We've also been spending some times at local Atlanta bars enjoying new brews. But last night was one of the best beer nights I have had in a while.  

After work, I picked Matt up at our apartment and we drove up to our favorite beer bar, and one of Atlanta's best kept secrets.  We had a mission, so we decided that while we were enjoying some tasty craft brews, we would also work on a budget for our project in South Africa.  We ordered our first beer, the Southern Tier Harvest, and some food. This past week in Atlanta had cooled down significantly after Hurricane Lee swept through and yesterday really felt more like a gorgeous Autumn day. The Harvest Ale felt like a great kick off to an early fall.  I don't usually associate ESBs, which is one of my favorite styles, with Autumn beers, but it was a really well done brew.  The color evoked the season perfectly with the orange-amber lights and the flavors were earthy and malty with just a hint of caramel.  We got some food too and chowed down before the table was cleared and we set up our laptops to work on the budget for the shelter project.

While we researched and set up our spread sheet, we were ready for our second brew of the night.  Matt had the Rogue Love and Hoppiness. He wasn't as impressed as he was hoping to be, but he said it was all right.  I, on the other hand, tried the Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale. Here is the thing about pumpkin beers.  They are either hit or miss - either they blow your mind or they taste like pumpkin flavored water. I asked our waitress her opinion before ordering and she said that this was the good kind of pumpkin ale - full of spicy flavors. I went with it and seriously did not regret the decision. She was right about the spices. The flavors of clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg were prominent and a fresh pumpkin taste. 

Nearing the end of our research, it was time to try our third beer of the night.  Matt got the Stone 15th Anniversary Black IPA, which our waitress said was super hoppy and really good. He agreed and my sip did confirm it as well.  But since I had been enjoying Fall Seasonals all night, I really wanted to keep it going.  So, I did the unthinkable... I ordered a beer I have already had before!  The Sierra Nevada Tumbler has long been one of my favorites. Since I do love a good brown beer, this one is a great Autumn offering and it was exactly what I was looking for.  It is just a solid brown beer with some nutty flavors.

We had already packed up our laptops and were finishing our beers when we asked for the check.  While that is normally the end of a great evening out, that was actually when the fun began.  Two guys who had been standing at the bar came over and said "Hey, we saw you were paying and we wanted to know if we could be vultures and get your table?" So told them they certainly could and they sat down in the other two chairs. They introduced themselves and we started talking. We started talking about beer, of course, because we were all enjoying fancy beers at a fancy beer bar. Then, it turns out, one of the guys is This Guy. Now, we went from talking about enjoying beer to brewing beer.  Matt and I told him we were home brewers and that we had a pomegranate wheat in the carboy. He told us that he started homebrewing and now he does contract brewing with Thomas Creek in South Carolina.  Then his friend asked us if any of us were musicians and Matt told them he had been a drummer since he was a kid and recently took up the guitar and singing. Both guys were also musicians so then we talked about music for a while.  And finally, somehow, the conversation got around to building and we talked to them about our cabin in North Carolina and about or project in South Africa. 

It was such a great night.  We got a lot of work done, drank some fantastic beers and met some folks who seem pretty cool.  That is one of the things I like about the "Culture of Beer".  There is something about this shared interest that can really open up those spontaneous social situations. Seriously, hanging out at the bar and talking to strangers is truly one of my favorite hobbies.  You just never know who you'll meet.