Like anything in American life, the IPA debate always gets whittled down to an East coast/West Coast thing and I won’t make a 2Pac/Biggie joke in the year 2010.  But there’s more to America than the coasts, than “flyover” country as us snobs call it, and the Midwest is making some absolutely stunning IPAs as well, the Eminems of the IPA debate if you will.  And why shouldn’t they be making good IPAs?  They have hops just like we do.  Then again, they have yeast and dough just like we do and their bagels still suck.

Abrasive Ale

9% ABV canned and tap

No matter how Beer Advocate classifies it, Abrasive Ale is not the much beloved 16 Grit simply repackaged and renamed.  Surly brewmaster Todd Haug told me as much.  It is recipe-wise very similar to 16 Grit though–a beer I unfortunately never got to try–and it is a magnificent beer.  Within a few hours I was fortunate enough to get to try batch 1 on tap, batch 1 canned, and an ever so slightly tweaked batch 2 on tap. Now while batch 1 and the first canned version I tried were both magnificent, both A level beers, batch 2, the batch that I suppose will be the recipe from now til iniquity, blew my mind and is clearly one of the best IPAs I have ever had.  This is a darker than normal DIPA, a rich and gorgeous caramel with potent smells of tropical fruits and hops.  The taste is as good as it gets–an over-explosion of hops with strong brunch tastes of grapefruit and sugar, a perfect combination that adds a kiss of sweetness to balance out the bite stripping the enamel from your teeth.  Wow.

A+

Tea Bagged Furious

6.2% ABV on cask

This has long been a most wanted beer of mine even though, like a dope, I didn’t even know what exactly it was.  I naively assumed it was your typical delicious Furious somehow infused with some tea flavoring.  Eh…I don’t know.  I now feel like some idiot 10 year old that never quite understood the birds and the bees until an older kid explained them to him.  Luckily, I finally did learn what the tea bagged refered to, right around the time I got to try this magnificent beer.  Tea Bagged Furious is simply Furious that has been dry-hopped in a firkin cask with various hop varieties in a bag.  OK, I think I get it now.  Kinda like Surly’s novelty answer to Dogfish Head’s Randall I suppose.  Whatever the case, this is a brilliant beer, packed full of juicy hops, made all the more interesting to enjoy on cask where that pesky carbonation doesn’t get in the way of your tongue picking up all those subtle flavors.  Not that this sucker is subtle in the least.

A

Town Hall Mango Mama

6% ABV on tap

A tap-only selection, pretty much only available at the brewpub, Mango Mama is another beer, another IPA, I’d long wanted to try.  I’m a typical “more is better and please Supersize that shit” American, so I usually skip right over IPAs and tell ‘em to make mine a double, but Town Hall’s regular 365 days a year offering, Masala Mama is a nifty little production, a no frills, incredibly drinkable and delicious effort.  The slightly rarer Mango Mama blows that one away and has to be arguably the best 6% ABV or lower IPA around.  I expected a sweeter IPA, but I guess I just don’t know what a mango is (most of my knowledge of fruit comes from the various Skittles packs, so that’s no surprise) because this was a shockingly citric and bitter IPA.  One of the more bitter ones I’ve ever had.  Seemingly no malt backbone or sweetness at all, this is just like straight fruit juice mixed with hops.  And that ain’t a bad thing.  Highly recommended.

A

Ale Asylum Bedlam!

Finally, we come to a Wisconsin IPA, and a Belgian one at that.  Bedlam!–I love when names of things force you to punctuate–is my first introduction to the brewpub’s offerings and one of my first introductions to citra hops, a semi-rare hop varietal that seems to add a somewhat green onion aroma and flavoring to the beer.  A not unpleasant and certainly unique sensation that makes you feel like you just got chives on your baked potato, scallion cream cheese on your bagel.  As we know, Belgian IPAs are pretty de rigueur right now and there’s several new and good ones on the market (Nebraska Hop God and The Bruery Mischief most notably) and this one stacks up for sure.  While not quite as good as those two, it’s certainly a unique offering as the citra hops meld with the overwhelming Trappist yeast for a nice bite and a silky finish.  Obscure, but worth seeking out fo’ sho.

A-

10.1% ABV from a 750 mL

Now beer bloggers are a loathsome lot.  They sit at bars avoiding social contact in order to furiously scribble tasting notes.  They spend forever getting the lighting just so in order to take a picture of their beers when you just want to pop the cork and split the fucking thing.  They slobber-ogle the stray female that accidentally finds herself in a committed craft beer bar.  They, also, shamelessly beg for free “review” samples all day long, perhaps the most loathsome part of the beer blogger ethos.  They’ll ceaselessly tweet their idolized brewmasters asking for bottles, they’ll e-mail them, they’ll harangue them at beer events.  It’s like a high school virgin begging for sex.  Just pathetic.

Though, just like the high school virgin eventually wears down his girlfriend, these beer bloggers typically wear down the brewmaster who’d like to just get back to, you know, making beer and the blogger gets the sample (and laudingly shillingly praises it online) and now no one–not the devirginized virgins, the beer bloggers, or anyone–feels good about it.

Not that I too won’t occasionally do that kind of thing.  (Hey, just because I’m a hypocrite doesn’t mean I am wrong.)

Sometimes, when a beer is rare or I don’t have access to it, I’ve had to tweet out a favor or two.  There’s another time I might try to get a review sample–when shit’s expensive and this Jew don’t feel like paying for it.  Such was the case with the ten-word titled beer I will discuss henceforth.

Nebraska Brewing had just entered the New York market within the past month and I’d greatly enjoyed their Hop God.  Hearing they had some bottles of it aged in chardonnay barrels (whoa!) I eagerly looked for the stuff.  Now, admittedly, it seemed to be pretty limited in the marketplace but I did see a bottle or two floating around in the $25-30 price range.  Quite a bit to pay for a beer from an upstart brewery, especially when said beer had only a half-dozen or so reviews online (even if they were all glowing.)  So, I danced around online and never outright asked for any, but insinuated that I needed some sent to me, man, so I could, like, review it officially and stuff.  No luck.

Finally, last week, while making a rare visit to the is-it-now-so-passe-it’s-no-longer-passe once great Gingerman, my drinking companion wondered, “Are there any expensive bottles here you’d like to split?”  I scanned the extensive menu.  “As a matter of fact, there is…”  And such is how I came to spend a mere $14 for a half-share of some ten-word special Hop God.

It was worth every penny.

I can’t think of many Belgian IPAs* nor many chardonnay barreled beers**, which certainly means I can’t think of a single chardonnay barreled Belgian IPA which makes this Hop God a nice oddball rarity in my book.

The taste was more God-like than hop-like, I didn’t get any hops at all quite frankly through the nose or taste, but that hardly matters.  This was one bottle of sour tart deliciousness.  Strong wood flavors come through with the oak and the Belgian yeastiness is accented nicely by some subtle wine flavors.  Just a hint of citric sour fruit flavors as well.  Tastes not Belgian IPAish at all, more like a wild ale, so while I feel somewhat silly filing this as a Belgian IPA I’m not sure there’s any Brett in the barrel to make this officially “wild,” if that would be the one distinction.

A good beer can never be priced too much for me once I finally see how good it is and this one falls into that category completely.  I nearly considered buying another bottle even.  Though I doubted their ways at first, now I greatly admire Nebraska’s aggressive release, distribution, and pricing strategies.  What a way to splash onto the scene.  If you know you got good shit, why wouldn’t you act accordingly?  Seek this one out, ladies and fellas, it’s really fucking good.

This beer was actually Nebraska’s third release in their Reserve series and I’ve heard straight from the owners’ mouth that the first two releases, Black Betty–a RIS aged in whiskey barrels–and Fathead–a barleywine aged likewise–may hit NYC soon.  Which means I will immediately start e-begging for those two bottles the second I hit publish on the post and tweet owner and brewmaster to “Hey, hey, check out my glowing post!!!!”

A

*Though adding “Belgian” or “Belgo-” to many Americanized styles is currently de rigueur in the industry.

**Though Google “chardonnay barreled beer” and only two breweries’ beers appear on page 1:  Russian River and Nebraska Brewing Co.  Not bad company at all, eh?

ABV unknown from a 750 mL

My friends that don’t exactly know beer often assume that I will one day actually run out of beers to review.  I jokingly always assure them that if I simply reviewed every single Brooklyn Brewery beer that I’d have more than enough work to do for the rest of time.  And, you know, sometimes it does feel like I’m a hired mouthpiece for the Brooklyn boys.  Yes, my home team brewery has so many great releases that it seems I have a new one to try and review each and every week.  Their Wild One was a uber-rarity I had wanted to suck down for ages.  Long available only at beer fests and those pricey pairing dinners that sell out in a second, I finally lucked out earlier this week at a nifty Brooklyn Brewery event hosted by Blind Tiger.

Served to me in an unlabeled corked-and-caged bottle, this beer is the always reliable Local One bourbon-barreled with Brett for nine months.  But, whoa, does that take a terrific Belgian pale ale and allow it to enter an entirely new stratosphere.  The smell is fresh and funky like a typical wild ale but the taste is completely different.  Bubbling and effervescent, of course, the initial tastes are likewise sour, but the backend finish is delightfully yeasty, bready, vanilla-like, and most notably sweet from the Local One influence.  I just loved the complexity of flavors and the nice sweet and sour game battling it out on my tastebuds.  It was too good to even savor, I greedily slurped it down like it was Gatorade after a long run.

I would stand in line in the freezing cold for this beer if it was released at a yearly one-off event, that’s how much I adored it.  I even went back to the bar for a second $26 bottle.  I am going to assume it is only lack of knowledge of its mere existence that prevents this beer from being one of the most coveted rarities on beer trading forums throughout America, because simply put, it might be the best wild ale I’ve ever had.

A+

9.2% ABV from a growler

Pretty much every American brewery has a neologistically hop-named beer, whether in the format of Hop ____, or ____ Hop, or even ____ Hop ____.*  Nebraska Brewing Company out of…uh, Nebraska, has their own hop-named beer, Hop God.  Great name for a beer, not necessarily a great name for this beer.  Though this beer is a pretty great beer, so a minor nomenclatural quibble.

The first and only beer I’ve ever had from out of Nebraska–the first and only beer I’ve ever heard of coming out of Nebraska–is a draught only offering that has just begun popping up around New York City in the last few weeks.  With a name like Hop God I assumed a classically bitter and uber-hopped San Diego-style India pale ale, but was pleasantly surprised to pop the plunger on my growler to be hit with that beautiful scent of Belgian banana esters just like a glorious Aventinus, which is a German beer actually, come to think of it.  The taste is indeed perhaps more Belgian, that of a golden yeasty tripel with an underlying silky hoppy taste and a nice hint of Laffy Taffy with a little spiciness and bitterness.  Imminently drinkable, I really really enjoyed this bad boy and went through my lone growler in a hurry.

I’m now excited to try more Nebraska Brewing offerings, and, luckily, they have a Chardonnay barrel aged Hop God which just sounds so inspired and delicious.  Bottles of this seem to be semi-rare, and I’ve started seeing them around town, but at a price point (don’t you hate when people say “price point” trying to sound smart–”price” will almost always suffice) of $25 minimum, I’m just not ready to take an economic gamble on such an as-yet-still little known beer (a mere four total reviews currently on Beer Advocate).  I’ll wait til some more people try it and hopefully rave about it before I whip out a Jackson and Lincoln for it.  Of course, if Nebraska Brewing wants me to be that guinea pig, they can always just send me a bottle for review (insert winking smiley face emoticon here).

A-

*A few favorites:  Hop Whallop, Hoptimus Prime, Exponential and Pure Hoppiness, and Me So Hoppy (the name for the nonexistant DIPA my as-yet-nonexistant brewing will brew.)

7.5% ABV on tap

Highlights

J was the most beautiful woman I ever dated.  Using an “out-of-10″ number scale was futile when discussing her, but she was about as attractive as a normal girl could be.  Then again, she came from the loins of two un-normal people–a small-time model and a smaller-time CFL player.  She was modelesque, statusesque, and ultimately kinda crazy.  I tried to force chemistry with her just because I liked having such a tall knock-out on my arm wherever I went.  This was during my more egotistical days.  Though we never had a future, even from the get-go, I wish I still knew her.  I just liked sitting across the table from her in a restaurant and staring.

A was the best in bed, which is odd, because she was a mere 22 years of age when we began dating.  Even though I was 7 years her senior, she schooled me in moves, leading me to wonder how she was so sexually educated.  The fact that she was a neo-hippie that liked to follow jam bands around the country during the summer made me think she probably spent a lot of time on her back in muddy tents at field shows, a bearded stinker on top of her, trying out a Kama Sutra of shroom-influenced positions.  It also made me realize why she had a fairly respectable bush for a 22-year-old in the 21st century.

K was the most sexually willing.  She had a voracious appetite–both sexual and food-wise, come to think of it–and simply could not get enough of me (or Thai food).  She was kinda lazy in bed though, not very flexible, and had some self-lubrication issues.  Yet she always wanted it.  My weekly prophylactics tab was extraordinarily high, my shaft was always chafed, my knees ached worse than a hard court tennis player’s, and I didn’t even need to work out any more, all thanks to her.

S was the ugliest girl I ever dated.  She wasn’t “ugly” per se–not by a long shot–she just wasn’t super attractive with her bland face and slightly doughy body.  Meeting up with her for our first date after having picked her up loaded one evening earlier in the week at a dive bar, I was a little stunned by my false remembrance of her beauty levels.  Nevertheless, I was a trooper and drunk my beer goggles back on before falling into bed with her that very night and then went out with her again and again and again and next thing I knew we had been dating for half a year and I’d given myself a six-month long bender.

P was the kindest and never got mad at me for any of the countless stupid and selfish things I am always wont to do (like writing a female superlatives catalog.)  In retrospect, she was actually kind of a doormat (and would have said nothing about me writing a female superlatives catalog–though would have secretly seethed.)

F was the sexiest and of course wasn’t American because, you know, the anti-jingoistic rumors are true–American women just aren’t that sexy typically.  Then again, when American men call a women “sexy”–a term American men rarely use because it’s just one of those embarrassing words to say unironically–they usually just mean that she has an over-the-top sexuality.  Which, again, few American women possess.  American women wear jeans and hooded sweatshirts and pony tails and flip-flops and subscribe to dumb time-frame rules before hopping into bed.  A woman like F wore slinky dresses and flowing locks where ever we went, whenever we went there, subscribed to no rules besides “tongue kiss any one and every one you find attractive,” and quite frankly made me feel inadequate and inhibited, which is never a nice feeling.

Q was the smartest girl I ever dated but I really don’t have anything to say about her because she was just so boring and never liked to do anything fun and actually was kinda more book smart than smart smart.  Which in retrospect makes me realize she was kinda dumb.  Because any one that is 30 that you are still calling book smart, even though they’ve been out of their US News & World Report Top 10 college for a decade, is probably not that smart at all.  It’s the “cute face” of backhanded intellect compliments.

L was the dumbest girl I ever dated.  I had to intentionally make myself about 40 IQ points dumber every time I spoke to her just so she would understand me.  I couldn’t really use polysyllabic words such as “polysyllabic” with her, which is not really a word one should ever use any ways, especially in romantic or sexual situations, but I was just making a point there.  Just like with ugly S, I had to always be drunk with L just so I could exist with her because:  her sober equaled me after about 15 beers IQ-wise at least.

B was the most annoying.  She never quit fucking talking and it wasn’t like she had a silky voice either.  Her voice was shrill and nasally and jarring.  I was embarrassed to take her in public, but alone it was like babysitting a toddler (not that I’ve ever babysat a toddler before, but I can imagine based on some sitcoms I’ve seen.)  There was really no excuse to ever even be in the same room with her except for the fact that I was bored and lonely at that time in my life.  I’m glad I’m no longer bored and lonely.

I’m not sure I’ve ever dated a truly funny women, but B had the best sense of humor.  And by that, I mean, of course, she laughed every time I said something funny, which is rare to find in a woman oddly enough.  But did she make me piss my pants in laughter?  No, of course not.

U was the best drinker.  60 pounds lighter than me yet no matter where we went she could match me drink for drink.  Buckets of beer, pitchers of sangria, shots of Jameson, didn’t matter.  She drank everything, quickly and thoroughly.  I’d have called her an alcoholic but she was far more responsible than me, never seemed to get hungover, never called in sick for work, and oddly seemed a paragon of health.  She may have been a drunkard of a superhero in respect.

And I had my first ever glass of Brooklyn’s Dark Matter with a new girl, which is always the best girl.  Yet another offering in Brooklyn’s stellar every-month-or-two, tap-only Brewmasters Reserve series, this is one of the best I’ve had yet.  Created in the same way as Brooklyn’s stellar Black Ops, though this time using an imperial brown ale for the Woodford Reserve bourbon-barreling as opposed to a big boy stout.  Boozy and rich, with tastes of caramel, vanilla, and oak, this is a quite worthy “little brother” companion to Black Ops.  Decent chilled, as it warms the flavors explode, more so than any beer I’ve had recently, and I’d advise just drinking it at room temperature straight from the get go.

A-

Note:  any characters with similarities to persons living or dead (cirrosis?) is purely not a coincidence.

You go to enough beer geek events and you start wondering what “Piano Man” might have sounded like had Billy Joel hung around some of these creepy events stocked with some truly depressing lifeforms.  The events never start as late as nine o’clock on a Saturday, usually more like two in the afternoon on a Wednesday when the regular crowd shuffles in:

No man is ever making love to his tonic and gin (a spirit?!), but I always see this obese man with a minuscule Beetlejuice head atop his body stick his schnoz all the way into his tulip for a good minute before imbibing.  The mulleted Irishman at the bar may be named John, but he’s no friend of mine, in fact, his only friends seem to be a coterie of mental ward patients only allowed off Shutter Island for special craft beer events.  He’s never quick with a joke, and I doubt he smokes (would F up his palate), but he sure will bitch about the over-maltiness of a Double IPA.  Davy’s not in the navy but it looks like he eats gravy for every meal (what pairs well with that?) and he brags about being the first in line at every Captain Lawrence release (”I know Scott”).  The fat fat fat Italian lady doesn’t discuss politics but she sure will bitch at you if you get a bar seat before her (perhaps she’s…eternally pregnant?) and after five pints will start ranting in Italian.  Most of the guys aren’t real estate novelists–most likely in computers, or unemployed–and though few women would have them they have no time for a wife because there’s fucking wild ales to drink!  The tiny scraggly Asian quickly gets stoned on samplers of bourbon-barreled stout and never makes eye contact with any one, instead preferring to keep his nose in sci-fi pulp.  Then there’s the guy who looks like Jerry Garcia and wears shorts no matter the weather and the skinny ginger dweeb always passing out business cards for his crappy beer blog and the (male) Indian slob with bigger tits than Dolly Parton.

And the bar looks like a carnival (of side-show freaks) and the smelly British bloke is surely homeless yet he likes to brag about having surpassed 2000 reviews on Rate Beer…all these folks are sharing a drink called loneliness, well I guess it’s better than being a Trekkie queer.

I said Bill I believe these dorks are killing me, as the smile runs away from my face, well I’m sure I’d be full of more cheer, if I wasn’t into such fancy beer.*

Honestly, I always expect the worst and trod carefully when I go to beer geek events but the Stone one at Blind Tiger last night was stupendous–perhaps because I got a coveted bar seat in the mob scene, perhaps because I actually had an attractive girl with me (a site rarer than a bottle of Midnight Sun M amongst this crowd), perhaps because I quickly got loaded and entered my Stoic state–and I had some great offerings. Like most beer connoisseurs Stone was one of my first “idols” but, sadly, you get to a point where you don’t think they can impress you any more, you almost forget to drink them even.  I was wrong to ever be so blasphemous.

Chipotle Smoked Porter and Smoked Porter with Vanilla Bean (cask)

Stone’s 5.9% ABV smoked porter is one of the best in the biz and I was curious to see what these additions would do to an already great beer.  A lover of spicy foods, the chipotles added a terrific zing to the brew which tickled my uvula and tingled the area behind my sternum as it went down.  Just liked Cigar City’s mindblowing Hunahpu’s Mayan Imperial Stout which is aged on pasillo and ancho peppers, I just love how these rich, maltier beers taste with a little chili heat.  (A-)  As for the Vanilla Bean, it had one of the best aromas I’ve ever encountered, just a luxurious and creamy vanilla smell, but unfortunately the taste didn’t quite stack up and was surprisingly mild in flavor.  (B)

Double Dry Hopped Double Bastard (2009)

Now I’m not exactly sure what double dry hopping means, but I do know that Stone’s highly limited, tap only Double Dry Hopped standard IPA has surged into the Beer Advocate Top 100, so I was intrigued to try this effort and it totally delivered.  A gorgeous ruby red grapefruit color but an incredible floral smell.  Kinda skirts the ground in between DIPA and barleywine, like a slightly aged Dogfish Head 90 Minute.  Whatever the case, an amazing beer.  (A)

Ruination w/ Simcoe and Amarillo (cask)

This DIPA was straight danky and just like pure liquid hops.  As I was drinking this, coincidentally, a vagrant passed by the open bar window smoking a spliff.  I gotta say, the joint paired well.  (A)

Old Guardian (2007)

Old Guardian was my first ever “favorite” beer and the beer that made barleywine my first ever “favorite” beer style.  Lately though I found each yearly release of Old Guardian to be a little “hot” (could you calm down on the scare quotes, Goldfarb?) and hoppy.  Thus, I was psyched to try a three-year aged version, probably the oldest version I’ve ever had.  This old friend had matured wonderfully into a silky, malty, cordial-like drink.  Lovely.  (A+)

Arrogant Bastard Aged in Bourbon Barrels

Gotta say, did not see this one coming.  How could such a glorious beer aged in bourbon barrels not be startling?  It was startling, just startling in the wrong way–this was easily my least favorite beer of the night.  The bourbony flavors simple did not meld well at all with the legendary strong ale.  (B)

Imperial Russian Stout (2007) and Imperial Russian Stout aged in Bourbon Barrels (2008)

Despite all the amazing beers I had last night, comparing an already monumental imperial stout now aged and/or bourbon barreled (!) to everything else I had was just not fair.  Not much else to say.  Both were as good as you could imagine, probably better.  (A+ and A+)

So I batted 16 for 16 last night and tried every single Stone offering, not to mention the swell Green Flash tote Le Freak (a very spicy, yeasty saison) (A-/B+) and Pallet (sic?) Wrecker (a tap only rarity that is one of the best DIPAs I’ve had in a while) (A).  I stumbled home and may or may not have watched three straight hours of “Life” on my DVR pretending I was on a drunken safari (”Look out, ostrich!”)

*I’m not exactly Al Yankovic but I’d love if someone musically talented out there could write this song.

11.8% ABV from a 750 mL corked and caged (#5517/11248)

I’ve become a big enthusiast of Boulevard’s terrific Smokestack series over the last year or so, and being a completest in all I do, I of course have wanted to try them all and anxiously wait each new release (these boys at Boulevard seem to have a new one on the horizon every other month!).  The only problem is, there seems to be no place online to find a complete listing of the Smokestacks.  Boulevard’s website fucking sucks–no surprise, most brewery websites suck, they all for some reason so obsessed with bad Flash–and is woefully outdated, still only listing their first five releases.

And, since no one else so far as I can tell has taken up the task, I decided to create a helpful repository for other folks to consult.  With a little drunken research, as best I can do, here’s my in order listing of the Smokestacks. (* denotes I’ve never had before)

#1  The Sixth Glass
#2  Double Wide IPA
#3  Long Strange Tripel
#4  Saison (retired)
#5  Saison-Brett
#6  BBQ
#7  Imperial Stout*
#8  Two Jokers Double-Wit
#9  Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale*
#10 Seeyoulator Doppelbock*
#11 Harvest Dance
#12 Collaboration No. 1 Imperial Pilsner*
#13 Rye-on-Rye*
#14 Dark Truth Stout*

Now BBQ is a beer I had long wanted to try and luckily my friend KH came through with a bottle for us to share just recently.  BBQ is The Sixth Glass quad fermented with cherries and bourbon which makes for a most unique effort and an initial taste I completely did not expect.  At first I thought it too boozy and sour but soon I was love.  This is like a suped up St. Bernardus with a nice underlying hint of vanillay bourbon and tart cherries.  Still, at this age, it was a tad rough around the edges and I wish I had another bottle to put a few years on.  Nevertheless, one of the most interesting and best quads I’ve had in awhile.

A

*Soooooooo, if any one can hook me up or help me out in getting these, I’d be your best friend.  Or, at least, you could be mine.

12% ABV bottled

You know, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I used to think that Founders Brewing Co. was, gasp…overrated.  The first two Founders brews I ever got my grubby little mitts on, oddly enough, happened to be their two most famous brews, Breakfast Stout and Kentucky Breakfast Stout, long-time Beer Advocate top 20 beers in the world*.  I was psyched to acquire these rare-to-me grown up sodas, so eager to suck ‘em down in all their glory, that when I tried them and didn’t spontaneously combust into knickers, I thought, “Ah, I see, another overrated brewery.”  Don’t get me wrong, I gave both those beers A’s at the time, I simply wasn’t OMFG floored.

So, whereas I tried my first two Founders beers with overly lofty expectations, I’ve tried my last dozen or more Founders efforts expecting nothing special.  But, damn, if those Grands Rapids boys haven’t won me over, and then some.  It started with their wet-hopped Harvest Ale, one of the most eye-opening drinking experience I’ve had in the last 365 days and a beer I’d put near #1 in the uber-hopped beer category.  I already can’t wait for the next release of it.

Every since that Harvest Ale, damn if every Founders beers hasn’t tasted absolutely glorious to me.  From their double and “triple” IPAs, Double Trouble (mind-blowing fresh on tap) and Devil Dancer, to their old ale Curmudgeon**, to countless more of some of the most disparate styles around.  They don’t knock everything out of the park–who does?–but they surely have a better slugging percentage than even a juiced-up Barry Bonds.

I’ve probably tried more different and new-to-me beer from Founders recently than from any other brewery and, now, my expectation levels are appropriate.  I now expect a good to great beer and I always get a good to great beer.  And since they seem to have a never-ending stream of releases, there’s always another Founders beer to try that I haven’t yet.  The only problem being that they don’t distribute in NYC at the moment.  Good thing I got good friends in Virginia, Minnesota, and other places who can hook me up.

My most exciting Founders acquisition of recent was their limited Nemesis release, the first in a new series.  I’d never had a wheatwine before, but as a barleywine nut, I was certain to like this effort.  And I did.  Probably not the most “normal” example of the style, Nemesis 2009 is maple bourbon barrel-aged using bourbon barrels which were once used to age local maple syrup.  The beer poured lighter for me than expected, much lighter than a copper barley wine, more the color of a golden ale of some sort.  The smell is straight boozy, just like I like it, with the flavor a combination of boozy bourbon, vanilla, oak, sweet syrup, and of course wheat.  Surprisingly more drinkable and less syrupy than I expected, this is a truly interesting creation.  I only wish I had another bottle!

A-

Founders Imperial Stout

10.5% ABV bottled

It’s heartening to try a delicious imperial stout that can actually be bought on store shelves!  That isn’t a limited release!  And more things to add exclamation points to!!!  This effort from Founders stacks up with the best of the style, limited release or not.  Amazingly complex and rich, with a mild roasted bitterness and a nice chocolaty booziness on the back end.  This beer is just so silky, I loved to let it dance on my tongue and gargle in the back of my throat.  Arguably the best on-the-shelves, non-barreled stout in the market today.  Though, unfortunately, not my market.  Come on, let’s get Founders in NYC!

A

Founders Porter

6.5% ABV bottled

As I’ve mentioned a lot recently, the porter has become one of my favorite styles, even though I’m still not quite sure what differentiates them from stouts.  Kinda like how I can’t tell a real blond from a bottle blond.  I don’t ask and just enjoy them both.  This is a great effort with another great label–besides making great brews, Founders is in the running for best labels in the biz too and I love their squat little bottles for even more plaudits!  Rich and tingly, a strong-roasted flavor with next-to-no sweetness, smokey and earthy.  Full-bodied yet drinkable, quite enjoyable.  This is a no-frills beer, but there’s nothing wrong with that sometimes.

B+

Now that I’ve fallen in love with Founders, now that it’s become one of my favorite brewers in America, in my mind one of the best in America, I’ve even gone back and tried those two famous beers, Breakfast Stout and Kentucky Breakfast Stout, with my now acceptable level of Founders expectations, and realized those two are truly glorious beers, some of the best of their styles.

In a world of such scrutiny nowadays, things aren’t overrated or underrated.  They are, for the most part, rated correctly.  It’s you, or me, that simply hasn’t encountered enough of the sample size to know that.  I know that now.  All hail Founders.

*Son of a bitch, why can I still not get a taste of Canadian Breakfast Stout?!?!?!?

**Or another old ale, Black Biscuit, for that matter?!?

“I would like to take this opportunity to formally apologize for the events of the night of the 23rd.  I’m not accustomed to drinking alcohol.”  –Max Fischer, “Rushmore”

I woke up near noon, still completely dressed in what I’d worn the previous evening.  Jacket, shoes, jeans with wallet, cell phone, keys still in it, everything.  My head pulsated in pain.  Not surprising considered I’d celebrated my birthday the previous night at Rattle ‘n’ Hum, chasing pints of 13% Bourbon County Stout with shots of Irish whiskey in a perpetual Mobius strip of aggressive drinking.  But even worse than the pain in my head, was the pain in my gut.  What exactly had happened twelve hours previous?  Had I scarfed down too many orders of fried calamari and Buffalo wings?  Yeah, probably, but that wouldn’t cause this kind of pain.  A pain so intense it hurt for me to sit upright and killed when I tried to piss.

Oh right, I’d entered myself in an impromptu gut-punching contest Friday night.

Seems that after drinking steadily from happy hour til midnight, after all the women and responsible men had left my party and the bar, leaving only a quintet of degenerates remaining, someone, probably me, had gotten the wise idea to start a quasi-Fight Club in our little corner and we began exchanging a series of gut punches with each other.  I’d never done something like this before, never even had such a desire to do something like this before, but I’ve never been accused of not having strokes of genius when too lit up to remember them the next day.  And, this gut-punching stroke, did I only barely recall engaging in.

I have a long history of alienating friends, ruining relationships, losing my dignity, and flat out humiliating myself on my birthday.  It’s an annual tradition.  But in this case it seemed like none of the above had occurred.  I spent the day writhing in pain, staying supine, and texting with my friends to recount the night.

How many gut punches had we exchanged I wondered?  About fifteen, recalled Tony.

How hard were we hitting each other?  About 75% our maximum punching power, thought Graig.

And why the fuck weren’t we getting tossed out of the bar for such childish shenanigans?  Because Rattle ‘n’ Hum is the most awesome bar in the world, thought I.  Though, honestly, because my friends were probably racking up a combined grand in drinking tab.  Never let any one tell you that money can’t buy you happiness.  Or the ability to have an impromptu gut-punching contest in a heretofore civilized establishment.

But apparently the night wasn’t completely peaches ‘n’ cream at Rattle ‘n’ Hum.  Sal chipped in that eventually, after about a half hour of gut-punching, some guy, en route to smoke a butt outside, had told us to cut it out.  And apparently, I had told said guy where to stick it.

Oh God!  Who was this man?  A bartender?  A manager?  Hopefully not…the owner!

Typically, I wouldn’t care.  Wealthy Charles Foster Kane wasn’t worried that his beloved newspaper was losing him one million dollars a year because, as he noted, “at the rate of a million dollars a year, I’ll have to close this place…in 60 years.”  And I’ve long realized that I can get 86ed from a New York bar this week, and one next week, and one the week after that, and at the rate of fifty-two 86ings per year, I’d have to move to a new drinking town…in 60 years.  But the circumstances were different here because Rattle ‘n’ Hum is my favorite bar in the world.

Now normally I’d just lay low for awhile til my statute of drunken limitations had expired.  But, in this case, that simply wouldn’t work.  You see, just three days later, Rattle ‘n’ Hum was having one of the greatest beer-drinking events in recent memory as the esteemed Tampa brewery Cigar City was coming to town to unleash more than their full lineup of beers.  There’s no fucking way I was going to miss this event.

I consulted with my friends.  Who exactly had I mouthed off to and exactly how mouthy had I gotten?  Was I truly 86ed?  Would I be recognized if and when I returned to the bar?

“You’re not exactly the kind of guy that people forget, Aaron,” noted Graig.  I don’t think that was a compliment.

After fretting all day, I had no choice.  I would have to attend the Cigar City event incognito.

In preparation, I shaved an uneven goatee into my scruff, wore some particularly shabby clothing (which is saying something for me, I normally dress like a hobo), put on a Syracuse cap pulled low as possible over my eyes and sharp eyebrows (my most prominent and memorable features), and even wore my nerdy reading glasses that never leave the house, just to have another thing blocking my face.  Of course, I had to fly solo, I couldn’t risk returning to the scene of the crime with any accomplices.

I felt nervous when I entered the fairly empty bar, especially when I saw the afternoon’s bartender was the very same kind Irish lass we’d had at my birthday.  I couldn’t recall if I’d been offensive to her as well.  I walked with an intentionally unconfident slouch, my head meekly drooping to hide myself further.  I looked down at the bar, never making eye contact, feigning intense nervousness as the bartender approached and slid a menu in front of me.

“What can I getcha, hon?”

My ruse had seemed to work.  She didn’t recognize me from Adam.  (If Adam was the name of one of the countless beer nerds that would be infestating the bar soon enough.  Damn, perhaps I should have stuffed a pillow under my shirt to create a faux-beer gut.  I didn’t need my flat belly giving me away.)

I decided to open my drinking with probably the manliest, not to mention priciest, flight of beers ever assembled, pictured above.  A straight boozy stout quartet of Marshall Zhukov’s Imperial Stout, Hunahpu’s imperial Stout, and their bourbon-barreled counterparts.

Marshall Zhukov’s Imperial Stout

This 11% ABV brew is bursting with distinct flavors of coffee, chocolate, toffee, and molasses.  A rich syrupy mouthfeel and great carbonation, this is an awesome effort.  (A)

Bourbon Barrel Aged Marshall Zhukov’s

I can’t believe I’m saying this, and I’m not sure I’ve ever said this in my entire life as I’ve long stood by the reasoning that awesome beer + bourbon barrel aging = awesomer beer but in this case I thought the incredible booziness here overwhelmed the subtler flavors.  Or maybe I’m just becoming a little pussy in my old age.  I’d love to try this one with a little age on it but even hot and young it’s quite good.  (A-)

Hunahpu’s Mayan Chocolate Imperial Stout

Currently resting at #38 on Beer Advocate’s Top 100 beers on earth after an amazingly meteoric rise, this 11% beer takes a base of Marshall Zhukov’s and ages it on pasillo and ancho peppers as well as vanilla, cinnamon, and cocoa nibs, giving it a nice little spiciness with a surprisingly sweet finish, and making it taste truly like no other imperial stout around.  As a huge fan of Latin spices, I absolutely adored this effort, and, for me, it was my clear stout winner of the day.  (A)

Bourbon Barrel Aged Hunahpu’s

Just like the bourbon-barrel Marshall Zhukov’s I think the intense bourbonness of this effort blocks out the awesome spices and makes it a less complex and enjoyable beer.  Having said that, it’s still quite good.  (A-)

After my first flight, I thought, let’s see, twenty-four total Cigar City beers available, if I keep flighting in out, I could knocked off the full lineup in only six total plate appearances.  Flight #2 coming up!

Creamsicle IPA

This sounded like an intriguing premise, an IPA that tastes just like a Creamsicle, but I doubted the execution was possible.  I was so wrong.  This straight out tastes like a bitter IPA backed by the orange creamy goodness of a popsicle.  Amazingly drinkable and quaffable.  (A-)

Flora IPA

This standard IPA with cedar and lavender added smells like a sack of weed and tastes like a flower garden.  And that’s a compliment.  Absolutely delicious and unique.  (A)

Humider Series Juniper IPA

I’d been floored by Cigar City’s Jai Alai IPA aged on cedar so I was excited to try yet another IPA from their exciting Humidor Series, and this was just as good.  Like drinking a box of wood.  (A)

Brandy Barrel Winter Warmer

I honestly ordered this one just to fill out the foursome, but it absolutely floored me.  The normal Warmer Winter Winter Warmer–an old ale I still hadn’t had at this point so I can’t compare–aged on Laird’s apple brandy, this would end up being my favorite beer of the evening and one of the best beers I’ve had year to date.  Silky, syrupy, and sweet but not cloying, this reminded me of J.W. Lee’s delicious Harvest Ale Calvados, but even boozier and more delicious.  A huge winner.  (A+)

At this point I was getting pretty drunk and began fretting I would soon break into Leonard-Duran gut-punching numero dos.  I really had to focus and say “No mas” as there is surely some demon inside of me that now likes me to get punched in the gut.  I had brought a paperback and had planned to quickly drink my beers with my head ducked into the book, but, ironically, I kept finding myself talking to people over the two hours I was there and even made two new friends.

I now realized that having all six flights was probably out, but I figured I could squeeze in two more.  Unfortunately, their pricey cask selections, of which they had several, were not available in flight form so I had to go with full pours.  The remaining beers I slugged:

Double Cream (cask)

When I prepared my drinking order the night before I’d flagged this 9% strong cream ale as one I was particularly excited to try, but its corn and honey sweetness simply didn’t fully deliver for me and it would go down as the worst (relative term) beer I had for the day.  (B+)

Mango IPA (cask)

This IPA loaded with dry hops, mango acai tea, and a hint of lavender was my third favorite effort of the day.  As it warms the intense mango flavors come through nicely.  Flawless mouthfeel and drinkability.  Amazing.  One of my favorite IPAs of the year.  (A)

Maduro Oatmeal Raisin Cookie

After the mild failure of Brooklyn’s far more ballyhooed attempt at making a straight-up cookie tasting beer I didn’t expect any one could execute in that regard.  I was wrong.  This brown ale does taste just like an oatmeal cookie as the tart raisiness comes through nicely.  (A-/B+)

Cuban Espresso Maduro

Wow, just like the previous beer, this 5.5% brown ale aged on Naviera Coffee Mills #3 Espresso blend with chicory tastes like a flat out iced coffee.  Intense and smoky, simply delicious if you’re a coffee nut.  (A-)

At this point, the major-league beer nerds starting filing in, wielding their note-taking pens like rapiers and setting up their cameras on tripods (tripods!) to take pictures and videos of the scene…and I knew I had to make my exit, stage left, before I caught anything.

I had twelve of the beers, coupled with three others I’d had in the past, meaning I’d tried fifteen of the twenty-four available.  A 0.625 batting average.  Not bad and I hope to some how, some day, try the ones I missed, especially their Peach and Papaya IPAs which just sound phenomenal as well as the standard Warmer Winter.

Oh, and I’m putting myself on a self-imposed one month ban from Rattle ‘n’ Hum.

10% ABV bottled

New York’s Worst Bars:  Lucky Strike Lanes Lounge

The first in a potentially ongoing series…

Meatloaf.  I was immediately assaulted with the odd smell of it.  Not Meatloaf as in Virgin Record’s recording artist, birth name Marvin Lee Aday, but meatloaf as in the gross shit your mom used to make when she was too lazy to put together a proper dinner for you.

I’d been invited to a friend’s party at Lucky Strike bowling lanes and, when he dumbly neglected to make a reservation for the Saturday night, we encountered a three hour wait and were forced to hang tight in the alley’s lounge.

Lucky Strike is so far west in Manhattan you’re almost to New Jersey.  I took a cab to Tenth Avenue, told my cabbie “It’s cool, I can walk from here,” and still took another fifteen minutes or so to get to the entrance on 42nd Street and the West Side Highway.  There’s absolutely nothing going on that far west on the island, not even hookers or drug deals, especially on a frigid February night, so it was especially galling when the three Neanderthals guarding the faux-velvet roped door scrutinized me to make sure I fit within the bowling alley’s lengthy dress code.

It’s bad enough that the sport of plebes has tried to be promoted to swanky in New York, but what’s even more annoying is when a piece of shit bowling complex situated amongst street meat Halal cart storage facilities and the Chinese Consulate (seriously), dares tell you what to wear to patronize their establishment.  Shitty bars in shitty cities have dress codes, not decent bars in New York.  Bars in New York that have dress codes have dress codes for one of two reasons:  they are trying to be “classy” or they are implicitly racist.

As one of the world’s great underdressers, I know a thing or two about defying dress codes.  And when the dress code at a bar such as Lucky Strike explicitly lists such no-nos as do-rags, hooded sweatshirts, jeans with graffiti on them, and sneakers, let’s just say…they aren’t trying to prevent a rich hipster in his American Apparel hoodie and Chuck Taylors from getting in.  Luckily, as per usual, I was wearing my black sneakers, the “trick” dress shoe for the elderly and lazy people that prefer comfort over class, and I easily slipped in the door.

The actual bowling alley portion of Lucky Strike is bad enough, disco lighting and garish scoreboards, but the lounge takes the cake.  Lucky Strike lounge is an upscale bar for people that think Heineken and Amstel Light are upscale beers.  For people that pronounce classy with the shortest short vowel a sound you’ve ever heard.  The decor there is strip club chic, gauche overstuffed pleather booths, tiny ottomans strewn about inexplicably, wall decor best befitting Henry Hill’s house circa 1977, and a bar with barstools screwed to the ground and countless bottles of flavored vodkas and the kinds of crappy overpriced tequilas only morons purchase.

The staff was truthfully not awful, no better or worse than any Manhattan bar, your typical handsome/pretty muscular/fake-titted wannabe actors/models/dancers that can’t remember drink orders, take forever to get your check, and spend most of the time playing grab-ass with their sexy cohorts.

Of course there was a DJ, a DJ so guido-rific he made Pauly D appear subdued in comparison, spinning the kind of hits that people found ironically funny no more recently than 1998.  Just like a playing of “YMCA” can quickly detect the idiots on the dance floor at a wedding, a bar’s playing of “Baby Got Back,” “Rumpshaker,” shit, any novelty song about big asses, can quickly identify the likewise idiots.

The clientele was even worse.  Of course gin-u-wine New Yorkers, real New Yorkers that is, not Gin-U-Wine as in the long-forgotten Southern rapper who, come to think of it, had one of the better songs ever written about big asses–or was that Juvenile?–would never set foot in this place unless invited for a party.  And I’m not even going to besmirch my beloved B & T brethren by acting like they formed the customer base either.  No, this was straight up tourists, and not the cool kind either.  These were the kinds of tourists that think, “If what I typically do in [insert crappy hometown] is fun, then that same exact thing must be even better in the Big Apple!”

“Eating at Applebee’s in Des Moines rocks, but in Times Square…?”

“Seeing ‘Stomp!’ at the Springfield Amphitheatre is a blast, but in the East Village…?”

“Bowling at the Brunswick Lanes in Tulsa is da bomb, but on the ass corner of Manhattan…?”

BLISS!

Around midnight or so, still an hour away from our bowling lanes being freed up, a man dressed like a giant bowling emerged from the lounge’s back room and started cavorting with drunken and overdressed tourista, much to their delight and amusement.  Many hilariously posed pictures were taken by the kinds of people that still used disposable cameras.  I’d had enough, needed to cut my losses and forget about trying to bowl my best game ever, and headed home to my actual good beer.

My last thought before heading back out into the cold was:  “Where was that fucking meatloaf smell coming from?”  I never found out.

Back home in a flash, I’d overzealously popped the top on Victory at Sea like I was returning to an old lover who had actually been at sea.  My man Jesse the Hutt hooked me up with this beauty and I enjoyed it for all it’s worth.  An imperial porter infused with vanilla and coffee this tasted to me like a liquidized Tootsie Roll.  Which is odd, cause I never really like Tootsie Rolls as a youth, but I loved this fucking beer.

A