The Snow Man Cometh

A lot of people have been wondering what happened to this blog, and I'm going to tell you the truth. It all started with what was possibly the worst blizzard we've seen in a decade (at the time, soon to be outdone by what just hit us this weekend and what is coming down the pike tonight). A lot of people worry about milk and bread when a blizzard comes, but these people are fools and these things are tertiary at best. Beer is all you need.

The beer I was snowed in with was "Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale." Its got a big malty flavor and the logo is a jolly snowman in dark sunglasses - what more could you ask for? Oh right - a pleasant $25 price tag on the case. What quirky local brewery was pumping this stuff out? The quirky local brewery called Michelob. Surprise!

As far as macrobrews go, Michelob is probably my favorite. But this beer is really a feather in their hat. It's got a definite small-batch feel, with lots of character and an unusual taste. The beer pours a dark caramel color, and the flavor is loaded with nutty sweetness. "Bourbon casked" isn't just a clever name either - it's right there in the taste. Bravo to Michelob for putting out a bourbon casked beer.

Ah, but how did this jolly beer lead to a month-plus disappearance of Man vs. Beer? There was a problem to being snowed in with the Snowman. Although I really liked it, I found it hard to keep pounding them down in the sort of extended drinking session that a foot of snow demands. Also, heavy snow has always made me a little cagey. If we're ever in an airplane and it goes down in the Alps, you can bet your ass I'm eating you first. For all I knew, this snow might not stop for days. The weathermen are not to be trusted.

Stuffing my pockets with a few bottles of the Snowman, I bolted for the front door, leaving my girlfriend behind in stunned silence. She'll be okay until I return, I reasoned, and doesn't have the sort of stomach for what must be done. I leap from her front porch, my fall broken by the cushion of accumulated powder, and headed east towards the corner bodega in search of sustenance. Despite the snowfall, the bodega was open. I didn't trust this - people should be hunkered down at home waiting for the end, not running corner shops! I smashed through the window. The clerk started shouting something in Spanish, but I was on him immediately. I sunk my teeth into the warm, soft meat of his throat and he was soon silent. I felt simultaneously the pangs of remorse and the jubilee of triumph - this would be enough meat to keep me through the worst of the storm at least, but what a terrible fate nature had cast upon me. I offered a brief prayer on behalf of my fallen prey, and there amongst the various Mexican candies and delicious baked goods I ate my fill of the flesh of man.

My belly full, I found the thick malty goodness of the Bourbon Cask to be ideal at washing away the heavy taste of raw meat and the metallic tang of blood. After polishing off the bottle, it was time to bring home my quarry and ensure the others trapped inside the house would have food enough to weather the storm. I rigged up a makeshift sleigh from a jacket and several loaves of bread, loaded it with the dead Mexican, and started my trek home.

I was only a few paces from the door when I heard an unexpected sound - the unmistakable drunken laughter of a group of people leaving a bar. My interest piqued, I trudged through the snow towards the sound, sled in tow. As I rounded the corner, I saw the local bar was open and crowded despite the weather. If the bar was open, what I did in the bodega was pointless. I could have just gotten a cheeseburger. And maybe some wings. What have I become? How can I live with myself?

I rushed for home, chugging another beer as my ragged sled and its grotesque charge skipped across the ground, and... are you even still reading this? This is ridiculous. I give up. I'm writing a shitty blog, not a goddam Victorian werewolf novel. Why even bother trying to write my way out of this corner? There's no point. The beer is good - if you see it in a bar grab a pint but don't rush out to buy a case. The end. I need a beer.

Montana - Not Just for Raising Dental Floss

I am a grown man with a salaried job and very little debt. Therefore I have a roommate. And my roommate's dad loves to hunt. He's killed animals in all different parts of the country, but it seems like over the past few years he has harbored a special grudge against the animals of Montana. I'm not sure what they did to him, but every few months he's packing up the truck and heading out there to settle some scores.

It's rumored that my roommate's dad was some sort of covert sniper back in '69, really out there in The Shit, and that back then he answered only to the codename Wild Boar. Having known the man for many years, I believe this is true. I also believe that he is still under contract in some sort of Blackwater alphabet soup agency mercenary troupe, and that much of the mule deer sausage I've stolen from my roommate's side of the fridge over the years has actually been made out of human flesh. Be that as it may, Wild Boar's latest trips to Montana have been rewarded with something even greater than the usual pounds of processed manburger: bottles from Big Sky Brewing Company.

Big Sky is a great microbrew with a penchant for outstanding beer names and labels. Note to wannabe brewmasters out there: it was Moose Drool's name that first caught Wild Boar's eye... and his heart. The label has a glorious illustration of exactly what you'd expect, done in a colorful retro style reminiscent of Long Trail's label art. When I first saw Moose Drool, I have to admit I didn't have very high expectations. I mean, yeah it's an ideal name for a beer, but neither my roommate nor his father are exactly beer snobs: I've seen them willingly consume Iron City. But it turns out Moose Drool's pretty good! It's not bringing anything new to the brown ale party, but it was smooth and tasty. Malt, nut, and all the typical brown ale flavors abound, plus you'll look way cooler than the average schmuck sipping a Newcastle.

Similar comments can be made of the Pig's Ass Porter, which was the clear winner of the best label contest for its well-dressed, pantless, Victorian-style pig anthromorphs crowded around an old-timey bar. I felt the porter tasted a little thin, but it was definitely drinkable. My judgment of this beer is a little jaded by my recent discovery of Troeg's Dead Reckoning porter, which my friend Nathan describes as "the Best American-Made Porter" in what might not be an overstatement. But I don't care how good Dead Reckoning is, neither the name nor the label art comes close to Pig's Ass. This beer is worth buying just for the label art, and the fact that it's tasty is pure icing on the cake.

As far as flavor goes, I found Big Sky's Troutslayer Ale to be my favorite even though the label was rather mundane. I could easily see myself knocking back a barrel of this stuff by a lake somewhere, if only it were summer and I ever went fishing. This is a beer that begs you to drink more, with a really pleasant malty wheat aftertaste that reminded me of Molson Canadian. This beer has more heft to it than Canadian, but I still think you could pound quite a few of these without feeling the bloat. It is also a considerably better beer than Molson Canadian, and it has the word 'slayer' built right into the name, which is pure metal. Although a pale ale, it tasted and felt more like a lager, and I like lagers. A lot. If you're into that bread/biscuit/delicious malted grain flavor, grab yourself a Troutslayer. Just don't grab one of Wild Boar's Troutslayer's, because you might wake up with an arrow in your chest. And then I'd probably have to eat you.

Making Enemies of Beer Snobs

I spend a lot of time on this blog making fun of light beer, and with good reason. But there is a time and a place for everything, and when it comes to playing beer pong in a smoke-filled VFW, well, a selection of fine Belgian craft ales just doesn't fit the bill. One expects such pallette-pleasers as Natty Ice or Milwaukee Beast in a setting like this, but what I found in the keg at a recent throwdown was way better than that. PBR? No - I had drank a full red Silo cup without shitting myself, so this was not PBR. And don't fret, hipsters, I'm not saying that I don't enjoy the taste of PBR; I do. Well, sort of. It just has a special way of liquefying my guts like nothing else I've ever encountered. I could probably mainline Dulcolax and fill fewer toilet bowls than I would after a sixer of PBR. It's amazing, really. But I digress.

It turns out the the ket was filled with Michelob Light. And Michelob Light made the party. Michelob Light and me, of course, because I'm a lot of fun. A whole lot of fun. As much fun as the couple sucking face at the bar we went to later that night (after getting booted from the VFW), where she had him straddled with his flannel unbuttoned to the navel and her fingers wrapped in the tight curls of his chest rug as she tried to remove his Adam's apple with her tongue. I'm that much fun, and so is Michelob Light.

The beer had that classic "drink me by the case" body and a taste that compelled me to keep washing it down. I would have guessed the ABV at 3.5, but the Great and Powerful Internets declares it 4.3, which still falls into the category of "it takes a crap-ton to get drunk off these." That can be a good thing, like when you realize that your beer pong skills are covered in about 7 years' worth of rust, but the guy you're playing against insisted all the cups be about 3/4 full and you still have 6 hours of partying left to do. On a side note, I love Beer Pong. It's a true "gentleman's sport" and if I owned a bar it would have a beer pong table.

The smooth, easy-drinking taste of McLight was just as good while inverted for a kegstand. While I realize I am about 10 years too old for that shit, but so was everyone else and I did what had to be done to make sure that barrell went back empty the next day. Speaking of the next day, despite hours of pretty focused beer consumption and sleeping in a room where a menacing, oversized toy pony stared at me all night long, I awoke with no signs of headache or hangover whatsoever. Thanks McLight - I'm going to assume this is from your superior ingredients and quality control!

I have a lot of respect for Michelob and have been a fan of theirs for a long time. AmberBock is a good, solid beer, and Shock Top is probably my favorite of the macrobrewed wheat beers. I even have to admit to having some McLights hiding out in my beer fridge at this very moment, although they're not quite so good out of the can as they were on tap. Yes, I have a collection of exquisite 750ml Belgians quietly aging in my cellar and cans of Michelob Light in my fridge. I'm versatile. But when it comes to American macrobrews, I think Michelob is an often overlooked provider of Actual Decent Beer. So next time you want to hit the clubs and do a little Jersey Fist Pumping, don't say Miller or Bud, say Michelob. Obey me without question.

RICE VIABLE BEER COMPONENT!

This just in - rice actually can be used to make tasty beer. The people at the megabeer giants don't know this. They think rice is just a cheap alternative to barley, using it by the ton to make terrible beer because most Americans don't care otherwise. I've actually seen some commercial - I think from, Bud - touting rice as the key to "exceptional smoothness." Wow. That's just about as hilarious as Miller Lite trying to pass of "triple hops brewed" as meaningful or pretending that anyone drinks light beer for the flavor. Why don't all the domestic macrobrews just base their commercials on the truth - their beer is popular because it's cheap and it gets you drunk. My beer commercial would go something like this:

(A crowded bar in a hip urban setting. A ridiculously hot female bartender hands four bottles of Miller Lite to an average-looking white guy in his late 20s)
Guy 1: Keep the change! Miller Lite is cheap enough that I can afford to tip!
(he hands a bottle to his friend, another average white male, and one bottle each to two ridiculously hot girls in their early 20s)
Girl 1: Another Miller Lite! I think this makes number 14 for the night and I still don't feel full!
Girl 2: Thanks! We're so glad we met you guys here tonight. You're both soooo sexy. We didn't think so at first, but now we think you're like super hot.
Guy 2: Alright!
Girl 1: Yes! We're totally drunk enough to sleep with you now!
Guy 2: Alright!
Girl 2: (throws up on herself a little and everyone cheers)
All: (raising bottles in a toast) Thanks Miller Lite!

So yeah, rice in a beer doesn't impress me much.

Enter Trade Winds Thai Basil, an interesting concoction from The Bruery that uses rice in place of candi sugar in its mash. The mash is the part of beer making where sugars are extracted from grains to feed the yeast that lives in the beer and makes alcohol. The more sugar, the better fed the yeast will be and the more alcohol they will produce. SCIENCE! Extracting the sugars is done by soaking the grains in hot water, which also absorbs flavor from the grains - sort of the way your milk still tastes like Cheerios after all the cereal is gone. If you've ever been around a brewing operation, you know that the mash smells great and the leftover grains are delightful to eat. Think oatmeal vs. cooked rice and it's easy to see the difference in flavor between barley mash and rice mash.

Candi sugar is a popular ingredient in fancier, higher alcohol beers, but I'm not a big fan because it usually results in an overpowering sweetness that just doesn't do it for me. Trade Winds didn't have this unpleasant taste, and I believe the rice created a very smooth and well-rounded backdrop for the more interesting ingredients to shine against. The not-so-subtle but in no way overbearing ginger flavor made it a refreshing palette cleanser. This is a niche beer, and not something I would drink every day, but it was an interesting taste and totally worth investigating. It will also be my beer of choice next time I enjoy a BYO sushi restaurant. Mmmm sushi...

Fantome is nothing to boo! Foodery is!

Some beers are better than others. Yuengling Lager is better than Sam Adams Lager. Magic Hat #9 is better than Lowenbrau. Warm, salty piss is better than Budweiser (a fair analogy, since neither are actually beer).

Other beers are better than most - Saison Dupont, Guinness (don't let its bandwagon popularity turn you off - a good pint of the black stuff is still a treat), most of the stuff I've had from Dogfish Head. And then there are beers that are just on a level of their own - Dupont's Biere de Miel, for example, and possibly DFH's Theobroma (more testing required).

And then there's Fantome. At $24 for a 750ml bottle from the Foodery, I was fully prepared to be let down. Instead, I was elated. A note about pricing - I split the cost with my buddy Len of Philabeer, and from what I hear $24 at the Foodery translates to about $14 anywhere else. But more on the Foodery in a bit. Fantome turned out to be the kind of beer that changes my perception of a genre. It declares itself a saison, but it's unlike any other saison I've tasted. It had all the hop presence of a well-crafted farmhouse ale with just enough sour cheese funk to make my nipples hard. I think this was mostly because I'm a little lactarded and my body was fooled into bracing for the inevitable consequence of dairy consumption, but I was also pretty excited.

This was one of those beers where I regretted not having a second bottle handy the moment I took my first sip, and you should definitely spook up a bottle of it for yourself as soon as possible. See what I did there? Fantome - spook? HA! There was a lot going on in the glass, but it was blended and balanced perfectly. This could be a great introduction to the sour beer world, a stepping stone to training your palette for things like Oude Gueuze and some of the other exceptionally tart lambics. But to think of this beer solely as training wheels would be foolish, like thinking of Florida as anything other than America's Penis or believing the New York Yankees don't have sex with one another before, during, and after their games. Let's just say that dugout floor alternates between sticky and slippery with alarming alacrity.

As for the Foodery, this was my first trip there and I hope never to return. After all the hype I've heard, I was expecting to be blown away. I was not. They have a decent selection, but they are not the Beer Mecca people make them out to be. Realistically, they're about on-par with my local Wegmans but about 50% more expensive. Yippee. I was at the Northern Liberties location, but I don't think it would be much different at the original. The only reason to be impressed by the Foodery is if you've never been to a good beer store. Try Abe's in Bethlehem or State Line down in Maryland if you want to know what a true Beer Mecca looks like. Shit, just try a Wegman's. Anything but Foodery. Some of my most extreme beer geek friends are actively boycotting the Foodery, which is a good way to encourage lower prices and something I support fully. I also just like the idea of boycotting things in general, so take me with a grain of salt. Then boycott salt and grains in general. What have they done for you lately? UP WITH THE WORKING CLASS!

But in all honesty - serious beer nerds need to visit State Line. I wanted to weep the first time I went there. Weep and set up a small living space in their back room. Here's the link to their Belgian selections. If you click that link, you'll see 100 varieties of beer, arranged alphabetically and cutting off at Corsendonk. Care to guess how many hundreds of varieties they have? And remember, that's just their Belgian selection. They've also got just as much wine variety, if not more, in case you are a pussy.

And if you go, tell them Man Vs. Beer sent you. They'll have no idea what you're talking about. Then buy a bottle of Fantome for $16 and tell the Foodery to eat its own ass.

Sacrifice can be a good thing

Recently, I got drunk accidentally. This sort of thing happens, especially when you skip dinner in order to pick up a keg of Sly Fox's delicious Helles lager for a party. What starts as a relatively refined housewarming party slowly devolves into a Lady Gaga-fueled dance mash with a slideshow of hazy half memories in between. Of those hazy memories, one emerges clearly: Dogfish Head's Theobroma.

Theobroma follows in the Midas Touch tradition of "Hey scientist, analyze the residue of ancient beer we found on this impossibly old clay pot so we can remake it and get hammered." This time the recipe came from some pottery fragments found in Honduras. Theobroma translates to 'food of the gods' and is a rightful name for this brew. The recipe uses Aztec cocoa powder and cocoa nibs, honey, chilies, and annatto, whatever the hell that is. The important thing to notice here is the heavy use of chocolate, and the spicy addition of ancho chilies. According to the folks at the brewery, this recipe is the earliest known chocolate/alcohol drink, so all you folks who celebrate the holidays by adding a shot to your hot chocolate and all you drunks who mix your Nestle Qwick with vodka can thank these industrious Aztecs. Even though I'm pretty sure ancient Honduras was Mayan territory...

Anyway, the beer itself is dark and enticing, and while I don't recall too much (and haven't been to a beer store fancy enough to pick up a second bottle, yet) I remember the flavor clearly. There is a chocolate/honey sweetness that fades into a subtle hot chili burn. It reminded me very much of the "hot chocolate" ice cream available at the outstanding beer bistro Theresa's Next Door in Wayne, PA, where chocolate ice cream is mixed with cayenne pepper. Have some, it's unbelievable. And try some of their several hundred beers. Theobroma's chocolate/hot flavors weren't as pronounced as the ice cream, but they were what demanded my attention from the mix of goodness going on in my glass. Hot and sweet work well together - just look at any of the great hot candies available at your local bodega. Seriously - expand your freaking horizons already.

According to my understanding of Aztec sacrifice practices, which come largely from things I heard a long time ago and other things I've made up, the person to be sacrificed was treated pretty much as a god for a week or so leading up to the big day. Part of this would be the sacrifice getting to drink until they could drink no more, then flipping them over and pouring booze into their butt holes so the good times didn't have to stop. The Aztecs knew how to party. Not only did they invent alcoholic chocolate drinks, they invented the frat culture. Maybe it was all the Lady Gaga that came to play late night, but you could pour a bottle of this stuff up my ass any time. I'd much rather drink it, but hey, who's to argue with the Aztecs? Right - the Spanish missionaries.

Party Like it's 699 BC

A Wegman's recently opened up scant minutes from my Phoenixville home, and after logging 14 miles on a bicycle in shoes with the toes cut out I finally got the chance to sample their beer selection. If you're not a native Pennsylvanian, let me make a few things clear:

1. We have shitty Puritan leftover blue laws that make our bars close at 2 am and prevented us from buying beer on Sunday until this year.

2. In the Philadelphia region, our beer selection is amazing. Philly is the greatest beer city in the USA. Prove me wrong.

3. We can't buy beer in units smaller than a case unless it's from a pizza parlor with high prices and ass selection.

So I walked into this grocery store and bought some beer. Until about a year ago, this also was unheard of in our state. I know you can buy booze at gas stations in pretty much the rest of America, but being able to buy beer and EZ Cheez in the same stop is still a little novel to me. But, despite the novelty of it all, I was not overwhelmed by the treasures to be had. In fact, I was a little let down because my #1 beer in the whole wide world, Dupont's Biere de Miel, was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I got two bottles of Saison Dupont (suspiciously the only Dupont brewery offering to be seen) and my intended target, Dogfish Head's Midas Touch.

Dogfish Head is based out of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware but as far as I know is actually not gay. They make a lot of tasty beers, including the definitive overly spiced but still highly drinkable harvest-time brew, Punkin Ale. Their Midas Touch beer is something I've been waiting to get my grubby little paws on for quite some time - I've heard nothing but good things about it, and it's the sort of adventure in brewing that piques my interest as high-brow alcoholic. Here's the story of the beer: 2700 years ago, the real-life King Midas got buried in some sort of Turkish death vault with a bunch of kingly accouterments. Some of these accouterments apparently held beer. When Midas's tomb was excavated, plucky archaeologists found the residue of this beer on the iron remnants of these ancient coffers. Even pluckier beer nerds analyzed these residues, presumably while pushing up their glasses and sputtering Jerry Lewis-style mannerisms, calculating the ingredients which had made Midas's brew. Hooray for these beer nerds, and a bigger hooray for Dogfish Head for making it.

After one: Great beer. The first thing you notice is the bouquet - you can smell an open bottle of this stuff from across the room. And it smells like BEER. Like it triggers some primal yearning buried deep within the double helix of my DNA. These weigh in at 9% ABV, and in a testament to prehistoric manliness they make no effort to hide it. Instead, the alcohol flavor is balanced with the other ingredients as just another part of the flavor. The bottles declare that white grapes and saffron are part of the recipe, and I can totally taste them. At least the white grapes, because honestly I thought saffron was a color. Speaking of color, this might be the prettiest beer I've ever seen. It's a perfect golden color, darker at the top of my wine glass than at the narrow bottom. And yes, I am drinking this out of a wine glass. Get over it. The beer has a great effervescence, sort of champagne-like, and just a wonderful flavor. It's floral, but it never stops being a "real beer." I have no doubt that the 4-pack I bought will not live to see morning.

After two: Still great. If anything, I'm enjoying this one a little more because it's had time to chill a little longer than the first. The sensational taste hasn't changed much, although I think the more delicate grape notes are a little easier to taste. The honey comes through a bit more as well. The real mind-blower here is just how old this recipe is. 2700 years. 700 years before anyone had heard of Christ. Something like 500 years after the dinosaurs if you're a creationist. The Iron Age. Before Columbus. Before the Crusades. Before 9/11. This shit is old. And good.

After three: For some reason, I can't get Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" out of my head. A 9% beer is nothing to sneer at, and these ancient drinkers must have had a lot of good times on this stuff. I am starting to understand ancient mysteries. If you gave me a steady diet of this stuff, I really think I could drag enough limestone for you to build some pyramids. I wouldn't complain. It's tasty. Movin' my hips like yeah. Draggin' your giant pyramid stones like yeah.

After four: My first thought is how sad I am that these came in a four-pack, not a sixer. My second thought is how much good beer there must have been before the advent of Christ. Not that He took it away, but just that the brewmasters of the ancient world had a lot of free time on their hands to invent really tasty stuff. Also, I'm lit up like a Christmas tree. Not enough that I'm in any danger, but definitely enough that I could forget I drag stones for a dead king's pyramid for a living and have to do it again tomorrow morning, and every tomorrow morning for as long as I live. Actually, that might be better than what I do now. At least I'd get a tan and a totally ripped physique. Shredded like a Julienne salad. Attention potential monument-oriented slave owners - email me. Seriously.

Final thoughts: This beer held its great flavor throughout the session, and I can't wait to get my hands on more. Drinking something with such ancient roots is a pretty cool experience too. I got a little bit of the same chills I had when I walked up the Parthenon steps. I mean, humans have been around for a long time, doing the same stupid shit. Drinking what our ancestors drank thousands of years ago is the perfect way to pay some respects to the folks who had the good sense to get it on and keep the race going so that people like you and me could sit in front of our computers and write about beer. It's a little slice of the dream. And it's absolutely delicious.

Blasted for Breakfast

The other night I decided to dive into higher ABV beers, starting with the savory Founders Breakfast Stout. Thick, creamy, with a great coffee note and enough alcohol burn to remind you that you're drinking an 8.7 ABV beer, this is not for the feint of heart. I was mainly drinking such a high ABV because I'm trying to shed a few pounds and I figure if I can get blotto on fewer beers, I'll drink fewer beers. Perhaps I am gay. One Breakfast Stout is almost as much alcohol as three Miller Lites, and I'd bet it's fewer than twice the calories. Plus, Miller Lite sucks. Not as much as Bud Light, but enough about that.

The first stout went down like a good date and I don't know if it was a light dinner or what, but I could feel it. Oh sweet comfort coursing through my veins. I thoroughly enjoyed the blend of oatmeal and mocha - this beer could use a side of bacon! Is there a bacon-infused beer out there? Google tells me Brooklyn Brewery has one - something to look for the next time I hit an overly stocked bottle shop. But with no bacon beer in sight it was another round of Breakfast for me!

The second pint was still thoroughly enjoyable, but it was a slow-moving pint. It's a heavy beer that does not lend itself to quick drinking. I think it would be hard to stick with these for a long session without switching it up. So switch it up I did.

Meet Founders Maple Mountain Strong Ale. Sweet, sweet, sweet. Some people had a problem with this, but not me. Although I did only make it through two 9-oz glasses. The maple flavor comes through loud and clear and the monstrous 11 ABV is well-hidden. I believe this would be a good choice when you need someone to drink till you're pretty, because it was a popular drink with the ladies in my entourage. Especially Girlfriend vs. Beer, who I believe stuck with these all night long. 'Atta girl!

Ever since my PEI trip I've been thinking a lot on the delightful beer mixes they were inventing, and this inspired me to create something beautiful: The Maple Breakfast. I ordered a concoction of 3/4 breakfast stout and 1/4 Maple Mountain. A major win. The maple cuts the coffee flavor, injecting some sweetness into the brew and making it possibly a bit more session-friendly. I say possibly, because by this point I've already had four high ABV beers by this point, five after the mix, and I had to tap out. Boo midweek drinking. But give the Maple Breakfast a try and let me know what you think.

Gahan House, Cont'd

This is the much-anticipated continuation of my Canada trip. For the setup, read a few posts back. And click my banners on your way - I need to quit my day job you know.

The Mixes:
I had the good fortune of eating at the greatest restaurant in PEI and possibly the Western Hemisphere, Fish Bones. Fish Bones is the Gahan House brewery's sister restaurant, and as such the only beers they serve there are Gahan House beers. Win. Despite not being the actual brewery, they are a much better way to experience the Gahan brews because the food is phenomenal (I can still taste the salmon masala - yes curry in Canada) and because they have mastered the art of the Secret Gahan Mixes. As was explained to me in a chat with the head chef, who is currently my Favorite Male Canadian Not Named Matt Stairs, "The Gahan House takes themselves way too seriously and they would never do this. But the truth is, they're better this way."

He is in fact correct. It'd been a while since I had mixed beers, my Black and Tan phase having peaked somewhere around 2002, and to be honest I had kind of forgotten all about how good a mixed beer could be. I want to emulate these Canadian creations with some stuff on the homefront, so be ready to hear about some bizarre beer mutations on the horizon. Anyway, here's what they're drinking up there in PEI. Those lucky Canucks.

"Honey Brown" - half Honey Wheat, half Brown ale. This was my drink of choice, a perfect mix of honey sweetness and rich malty goodness with a smooth, refreshing body. The honey cuts through the thick flavor of the brown ale without taking away from the hops, sort of rounding out the overall experience into something much more friendly to the extended drinking session. And these sessions got extended. Especially when the Jagerettes marched into the restaurant in a surreal explosion of orange bob-cut wigs and black booty shorts, showering the crowd with shots of Jager and Jager goodies. I'm still a little bummed I didn't get one of the Jager-flavored condoms. My girlfriend doesn't seem nearly as upset about this, though I can't figure out why.

"Christmas in a Glass" - half Red Ale, half Brown Ale. This really did taste like Christmas - if I'm ever in PEI in the winter, you can bet I'll be living on these. It was warm and comforting like a Christmas sweater for your tongue, but not nearly as dorky or embarrassing. I wanted to sit in front of a fire, unwrap presents, drink about 10 of these, get into a screaming match with relatives over dinner, flip over the table, weep, then start hugging everyone. Ah the holidays.

"The Greatest Invention" - at least that's what we called it. Gahan makes their own root beer, and it is absolutely phenomenal with a double shot of Black Seal rum. This super-secret brew actually required the chef to trek across the street to the brewery since the restaurant doesn't keep the root beer in stock. I wonder why - I love microbrewed root beer. You can be sure that I'll be ordering Black Seal and root beer in the future, especially when I feel like freaking out a bartender. The sweetness of the root beer worked perfectly with the Black Seal, resulting in a light, refreshing taste with a little anise kick. And I'm not a licorice person, so my liking of this should be a testament to just how good it was.

I wonder if Fish Bones is hiring dishwashers.

Disappointment at West Chester's Iron Hill

I've never been crazy about Iron Hill Brewery's offerings, except for an oddly delicious dunkel weizen, but my most recent visit to the local chain brewery was a tremendous letdown. The beers ranged from bad to worse. At least the food was decent, although served at temperatures that left my greedy mouth completely burned. Talk about punishment for being a fatty!

Anyway, here's some beers to avoid:

Hoppy Hoppy Hefeweizen - Sub-par beer with an amazingly stupid name, but sadly the best beer I had all night. At least until I went to the next bar. With a name like this, I was expecting aggressive hoppiness straight out of the Stone brewery camp. It didn't have that. I think it wanted to have that, but it just wasn't happening. There were hops, sure, but it was not hopped enough to live up to its name, no matter how lame that name may be. Arrogant Bastard and other well-made overly hopped beers also have a lot of other stuff going on, subtleties that work to complement, enhance, and otherwise support the incredible amounts of hops. The Hoppy Hoppy Hefeweizen didn't. It was more just like "hey the new guy messed up and dumped a barrel of hops into the hefe vat, what should we do?" "Just leave it."

Something-Or-Other Saison - It doesn't matter what this is called. Don't buy it. Ever. Take your money and go get a bottle of Dupont's Saison or Foret. Or if you really want a Belgian Farmhouse Ale made by a mini-chain restaurant/brewery in Southeastern Pennsylvania, go to McKenzie's. Their saison is a surprisingly solid offering. I'm a big fan of farmhouse ales, but this was way overspiced. It's like the same jerk who dropped all those hops in the hefeweizen dumped a full rack of cloves in the Saison vat. At least I know now why Iron Hill recently had a Saison fest where they let their employees flavor the beer with whatever spices, fruits, or floor scraps they wanted - it's not like they could ruin anything. Saison? More like Failson. Zing!



The Ryesing - Iron Hill's (surprise) rye beer offering was, well, rye. It was very light and completely dry and I kept expecting some sort of character or flavor to develop, but that just never happened. My buddy Len, who writes his own beer blog which is very good and actually gets updated, had this to say: "it sort of tastes like vomit. Like the aftertaste of vomit." And he was right. I knew this beer reminded me of something: it tasted the way Mardi Gras smells in the afternoon. For those of you who have never been to Mardi Gras, try this simple simulation: find a dumpster outside of the grimiest bar in your neighborhood, wait until you've had at least five days of 85-degree or higher temperatures (22 or higher for our Celcius friends), chug at least 16-oz of grain alcohol, then stand next to the dumpster and take a big whiff. Preferably on the day before it's emptied. Then have friends throw beads at your head as hard as they can, while you pull your tits out. Congratulations - you're at Mardi Gras. And with this simple simulation, Mardi Gras can happen any time, my friends.

If this had been my first visit to Iron Hill, it was the sort of trip that would have me convinced never to return. But I've been to Iron Hill too many times to let one exceptionally awful outing keep me away. I'll just wait until their next batch of seasonals hits the taps, and I'll pray they're not equally atrocious. Either way, you'll hear about it.

Cheers!

Something You'll Probably Never Have...

unless you visit (or live in) Prince Edward Island. My recent trip to this North Atlantic paradise was fueled by a steady diet of flavorful beers, but my favorites came from PEI's own Gahan House brewery. Gahan (sounds like gone with an h in the middle) is PEI's main microbrew, and although you can buy growlers and kegs, the beer is not exported. So good luck getting it! Really, this means I could make up whatever I want about these beers and you'd never know the difference. Since this is what I usually do, you'll probably not notice any difference.

Gahan House resides in a charming, homey Charlottetown building with a surprisingly small bar (unless there was another hidden somewhere I didn't see) and a large dining area. Seriously, I think the bar had more taps than seats - and they had seven taps. Skipping out on the guided tour, which I'm sure is a good time, I was still able to check out the brewing vats housed in the basement while on my way to the washroom - that's Canadian for bathroom!

I did my best to try all seven of Gahan's taps, but my efforts were hampered by some of the varieties being unavailable. The bartender had no idea when they'd be back on tap. In fact, it sounds like Gahan House operates on a "we'll brew what we feel like" policy and that they don't try to keep everything in stock all the time. It's sort of like someone's backyard brewing that just blossomed into a full-time gig. Ah, Island Life.

Here's what I had to drink, I think in the order I drank it:

Island Red - pretty much a standard red ale, but tasty nonetheless! A nice balance between caramel malt and pungent hops. The Red Ales seem to be pretty popular in Canada, I believe because red is the only color featured on their flag.

Sydney Street Stout - this was a solid offering, especially on a rainy day like we were having. Dark black body with a mocha-colored head, it had the light body and robust taste you want from a traditional stout. There was a bitter coffee note I really enjoyed. The more I think about it, the more I wish I had had more of these over the course of the week - if only we'd had more stout-worthy weather!

Sir John A's Honey Wheat - This was probably my favorite of the bunch, but if you read this blog you'll know that honey beers hold a special place in my heart. Sir John A was the fellow who pretty much invented Canada or something and this sweet wheat was a fitting tribute to his genius and magnificence.

Coles Cream Ale - I was excited to try this, but it was all tapped out. I will continue to imagine that it tastes just like cream soda.

Harvest Gold Pale Ale - By the time I had this, I was three or four pints deep. 20-oz Imperial Pints. Of beers that probably sat between 5% and 6% APV. On an empty stomach. All I can say is that I only had one during the entire trip, so it probably wasn't very exciting. Side note: one of my favorite things about Canada is the Imperial Pint. Other side note: the women of PEI all are beautiful. Proof: My girlfriend pointed this out to me.

Iron Horse Brown Ale - Tasty, malty, and super smooth, with enough hop bite to balance it all out. This was a good beer, but its true strength came in mixing it with the other draughts. More on that later, like in another blog post. Man vs Beer teaches patience. In the meantime let me just say again how hot those PEI girls were. Like three out of every five were 9's. What's going on up there? And why isn't it going on down here?!

1772 India Pale Ale - Another beer I was excited to try, both because I like IPA's and it was heavily advertised as Gahan's newest brew. Unfortunately, this was another beer that was MIA. I think this is a good strategy for a brewery - just come up with names for beers and never actually make them. In fact, just serve PBR and food coloring out of different taps. That's it - I'm opening a bar.

Ballast Point Yellow Tail Ale: Beer of Confusion

My favorite bar in Phoenixville is The Pickering Creek Inn. The beer selection is always good, with some new treats every week. One of the new selections at my last visit was an offering from San Diego's Ballast Point brewery called Yellow Tail Ale. At 4.6% apv, it was one of the lighter beers on The Pick's menu.

I asked Matt the Bartender what he thought of the Yellow Tail, and he sort of shook his head. "Not my style," he said as he poured me a shooter-sized sample. I knocked it back, but honestly wasn't sure what to think. It's bitter, not sour, with a sort of creamy finish. Did I like it? I needed to do some further research.

The beer-to-head ratio was definitely better on a full pint, and it went down easily. The light body is made for session drinking, but I'm not convinced the flavor does the same. The head left a nice lacing on the glass and the gold color was pleasant and unembarrassing - always an important part of a beer. Still unsure that I liked it, I had to order another.

The second pint provided no further answers, nor did the third. Matt the Bartender, puzzled by my own puzzlement, decided to give the Yellow Tail another test tasting of his own. "Wait, I kind of like it now," he said, "it doesn't taste anything like I thought it did before." This is perhaps the most ambiguous beer of all time. By the fourth pint, I was questioning what else in life I might be this unsure of. Should I get an iPhone? Do I really prefer dogs over cats? Am I really happy? Did I spend too much time in the boys' locker room back in middle school? Gaze into the abyss too long, and the abyss gazes back. Needless to say, I cried myself to sleep that night.

The next day, some Internets Research revealed that Yellow Tail is Ballast Point's take on a Kolsch, which is a style of beer native to Cologne, Germany. According to Ballast Point's Internets website, there are currently no Kolsch-style beers being imported in America. Suddenly the pieces began to fall into place: American palettes are too Neanderthal to actually taste this beer.

Yes. That must be it. Years of pesticide-laced, salt-loaded fast food, mercury-laden seafood, and rice-based macrobrews have poisoned our taste buds to a point where we can't possibly appreciate the subtleties of a Kolsch. Our brains, struggling mightily to make sense of the stuff, are eventually driven over the cliff's edge into nihilistic oblivion.

Either that, or this beer just doesn't have much flavor.

Wacko: Just Beet It

Rain. Music. Sun. Music. Rain. Hippies. Good beer. Such is life at the Gathering of the Vibes, a wonderful little music festival held fittingly in the former offseason home of P.T. Barnum's traveling circus. When I signed up for a music fest, I mentally prepared myself for a weekend of sucking down overpriced, annoying, mass-brewed domestics. I never needed this preparation. Instead, I was greeted by the Magic Hat/Sierra Nevada tent upon my mid-monsoon arrival late Thursday night.

My beer of choice for the weekend quickly became Magic Hat's Wacko, a brew I knew only from this fun, Vermont-based brewery's summer sampler case. Wacko is a light-bodied ale with a full-bodied malt taste and a sweetness that was in no way overbearing or obnoxious even in long drinking sessions. Magic Hat uses beet juice to create an eye-catching red color that looks nearly purple in the right light. In the heat of the day it was refreshing and enlivening, and at night it hit perfectly with the cooler air. This was a damn fine beer. And at $6/lb, it was actually a deal as far as concert prices go.

Day 2: I've been subsisting primarily on Wackos and veggie egg rolls since my arrival at the Vibes, and I believe this could become my new permanent diet. That, and some sort of home-made chocolates the group camped next to us were sharing. I feel great; my senses are honed. I believe the beet juice is infusing me with power. Colors are somewhat brighter. I can feel each individual hair follicle react when the wind blows, and I can smell changes coming in the weather. Thunderstorms tonight. Could beet juice be the secret to better living?

Day 3: I didn't notice it until now, but this beer actually glows a little bit. No wonder it is giving me power. In fact I was too powerful to sleep last night. Instead, I soaked up some of the late night music and did a little crowd watching. Also ate some more chocolates. Sort of a funny taste, like they had popcorn in them or something. Still delicious. My generous neighbors also gave me some sort of mint, but it wasn't very good. it was a little piece of paper, i thought it would be like those Listerine strips but it wasn't. Just tasted like paper. Thought it was a dud so I had a couple more - all duds. Oh well, it was still nice of the neighbors to share. One thing I don't get about this festival is why they have it so close to the ocean - I mean it's gorgeous, but the water must come up under the ground because the whole campsite sort of rolls like it's floating. The ground here must be very thin. I can't believe they let us put tent stakes in it. Suddenly I am nervous.

Day 4.Four. Four. Four-Four. HOOVES. You understand me? This place is full of maniacs, I'm not sure who's left that I can trust. The girl at the beer tent seemed confused when I ordered two Wackos and immediately dumped one over my head, but I had to. The yellow police seahorse was coming again, and my only hope was to pose as a street lamp until it went by. My plan worked perfectly, of course, and I was able to drink the other Wacko unhindered. After four days I'm still not sick of the stuff, and I've even stopped eating solid foods. The nutrients from the beets are making me stronger than ever. The only side effect is that it's made my clothes really itchy, especially around my nipples. Must be some sort of thermodynamic reaction from all the glowing. I'd better take them off before my skin catches fire. That would be a real shame at a nice festival like this. Ah here comes that blasted seahorse again - time to sign off.

Conclusion: Drink Wacko!!! Beet juice may have some sort of mild hallucinogenic properties. Results not typical.

A Roll in the Clover Patch with HoneyMoon

I enjoy Blue Moon. I wanted to get that out of the way up front because Blue Moon seems to be a bit of a sticking point with the beer drinkers I know. It's decent, not great, but its popularity has driven prices up to a higher bracket it deserves. Still, I'm hard pressed to find a better beer on most tap selections, and if I'm looking at $2.50 for a Miller Lite or $3.50 for a Blue Moon, well, it's worth it. That being said, I was excited to spot a seasonal offering from the Blue Moon brewery, their summer ale "HoneyMoon."

After 1: No clever naming here - the taste is very similar to the usual Blue Moon wheat ale, but with a pleasant honey sweetness provided by real clover honey. This blends nicely with the orange accents and really rounds out the flavor, which is balanced by delicious malts, both pale and white wheat according to the label, for plenty of character. Despite being sweet, it is a very refreshing beer. The 5.2% APV is modest, this is not a strong beer, but it is by no means a sissy. It also goes down easily, so don't plan on having just one. The twist-off cap adds to this beer's candidacty as an outdoor, warm-weather selection.

After 6: This is not my first extended HoneyMoon session, and each time I've gone through a sixpack or so I seem to get a disproportionate case of the sleepies. Not sure if this is just coincidence, as a lot of times I find myself drinking these outdoors in the sun, or if the honey has something to do with it. I mean, it is real clover honey - Madhava clover honey from Lyons, CO (thank you, bluemoonbrewingcompany.com). Click that for more than you ever wanted to know about honey. After six it's easy to keep on going, but be warned - have a pillow ready. Maybe two pillows if you're really into softness.

After many: UNEXPECTED DANGER OF HONEY-BASED BEER: BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ

The Next Day: Wow, HoneyMoon, that sure was fun. You're taste like sweet candy, and those bees weren't so bad after you got to know them. Too bad I can't say the same for those bears that showed up at the end of the night. They were furry jerks. No matter, I'll definitely be buying you again. Although I wish the $33/case price tag would come down just a little. You'd be a great buy at $25, but in your current range there are a lot of other beers I might go to first. But if I see you on draft, well, you're just too sweet to stay away.

Man vs. Beer?!?!

Yes, that's right. Man vs. Beer. It's part beer snobbery, part overindulgence. And it's hopefully not just another beer blog. Sure, there are plenty of great (and even more terrible) beer blogs out there provide you with uneducated opinions of microbrews and fancy-shmancy Belgian farm ales, but I'm going to up the ante by detailing the effects of mass consumption of said microbrews and imports. It should be fun (for everyone but my liver) and hopefully we'll all learn a thing or two along the way. Thanks for joining me on this epic journey of self-discovery and self-destruction. So raise your glass, knock back a sixpack or two, and above all, have fun.

Cheers-
Matt