It’s been a busy 2009 so far, beer readers. I’ve had time to sample some new brews, but I haven’t been able to tell you folks about them. My humble whatevah. Anyway, here’s a review for you. Enjoy with a side of beer.

Mission Street’s beers are very good. You may recall earlier this month when I discussed their Pale Ale. Well, what’s the logical progression? Yeh… India Pale Ale. These beers run you$5.99 a 6-pack. Good recession brew.

This IPA is a good kind of “standard bearer” brau.* Nice amber body and a dissipating white head in top. It’s very hop heavy, as is to be expected. Pine and floral hops dominate the aroma and initial flavor. The body has enough malt to stand up to the hoppy invasion** but this beer is not for those who don’t like hops. In the finish the character grows slightly more citrus in taste and the sip ends rather dry. The 6.1% ABV is surely adding a bit of taste to the beer but it’s subtle enough to remain anonymous. The active carbonation keeps the flavor movin’—serve it cold when it’s hot. Awwwwww yeah.

OK… so… Beck’s Premier Light:

Meh. Not so hot. Very light malt flavor, the littlest bit of floral-bitter hops in the finish. I mean, the beer has 64 calories—where is the flavor going to hide? It’s refreshing, it’s extremely “drinkable”* meaning… refreshing. That’s about it. But… when you add..

Hooooooowee that’s good sippin’! So the other day (OK like three weeks ago) it was some, oh, 80 degrees in January. So Mrs. Beer and I went for a long bike ride and worked up a summer sweat. Some of our neighbors had just moved out and while they will be missed, they left us beer. Beck’s Premier Light beer, to be precise. So in keeping with a tried and true German tradition, we took said lager and introduced to the beer a goodly dram of lemonade. OK look, no one is saying this was the least bit original or magical or anything… I’m just saying it was delicious. This process will kind of work with your garden variety cheap beers (not Natty cheap—think Coors or Miller) but in order to be really tasty, you need to use a real German beer. Or its American equivalent. Or beer from any other country that makes a similar beer.

But if you want a guaranteed good refreshing beverage, go with:

+

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Uh…

Well, it’s damn good.

Captain out!

*When did that become an issue? This whole Bud Light “DRINKABILITY” campaign makes me vomit with rage!

This is one of the best stouts I have tried in months. It hangs right up there with some of Rogue and New Belgium and other such top-tier brewery’s offerings. It’s… delicious. Go… go get some. Don’t bother reading this post, just go—hey get back here! OK. That’s better. Have a seat… relax…

Alaskan’s Oatmeal Stout has all the right moves, see? It’s a deep brown when viewed in bright light, black in twilight haze or a tavern’s gloom. Or like… like if you’re at home but don’t have many lights on. Moving on. A nice tan head sits above the dark body, dissipating by the time you’re a third or so of the way in there.  And by the time you’re that far in, you’re well aware that this is a damn good brew.

The oatmeal, while not providing noticable flavors (which is pretty standard) gives the beer a rich, silky smoothness to the body that I found almost unique. Sure, I’ve had plenty of other rich stouts before, from creams to oatmeals to smoked etc etc… but this beer’s texture and mouthfeel stands out from the pack.

And the taste… is good. The aroma is roasty bread and a touch of caramel with a low bitterness profile. In the actual drink and finish the hop prescence asserts itself more, blending nicely with the malt notes. The flavor maintains the toasted bread and caramel aspects from the aroma, adding a coffee and burnt biterness in. Keep in mind all this is swirling around on that amazing body and be glad this beer comes in a six pack.

All I can think of at the moment is that scene in Dances With Wolves where Kevin Costner is yelling “Tatonka!” and making little horns with his fingers. Always good for a larf. Watch that movie and see how many times he flops onto his back in a comical manner… I believe the count is 4 which may not seem high but when you focus on it, it… is.

OK… on to the beer! BJ’s, a limited California chain, has some great food and some damn good beer, not to mention excellent prices on their 5 and 7 glass five ounce beer sampler flights. A great way to have a lot of great beer. I could (and likely will eventually) write at some length on each of their 6 standard beers and rotating seasonals, but I’m going to focus on their Tatonka Stout this time. Thus the heading of this review. Yeh…

The Tatonka Stout is BJ’s darkest and most, shall we say, serious offering. It is in the Imperial Stout style, meaning a few things: it is high in ABV (just a hair over 8%—bam!), it is dark as the bajeezus with a thick, creamy head and it is big on flavor. Let’s start with the head and body. That thick creamy foamy top stays with you the whole way. After each sip, you can see a new ring of caramel-white foam clinging to the glass, telling you the history of your beer like so many tree’s rings. The mouthfeel is, in typical Imperial (or “double” sometimes) stout fashion, full but not heavy. It almost has a light milky quality, silkily gliding around until you quaff the beer down.

The taste… big, deep, roasty malt dominates the flavor. The brew has notes of burnt grain, coffee and black bread to it. Those bold flavors are balanced by a bracing hop bitterness that begins to overtake your your tastebuds after the finish*. I love it, but for the more timid, callow, foppish among us, the powerful flavors and unique body of this Imperial stout may be too much. Not that their opinions count.

* Awesome alliteration as always, Captain!

I’ll start as I usually do when discussing a beer brewed by a macro-brewery—I had my reservations, I prefer to support smaller breweries, I didn’t expect much, etc etc. Well… this is a good beer.

Anheuser-Busch, hiding beneath the cloak of Michelob and rakishly twirling its mustache, does some things right every once in a while. It’s almost as if Michelob is their Mr. Hyde who only comes out at night, makes decently good beers, and then recedes into the Dickensian, foggy streets of a watery beer London morning. Or something. You get the picture despite my unwieldy metaphor*. Amber Bock is pretty good… their regular ‘ol Michelob is fine and Michelob Light is light on taste but very refreshing. Ultra is worthless, of course, and I have yet to get my hands on their new Pale Ale but this, the Jack’s Pumpkin Spice Ale… well, I’ve gotten two six-packs so far.

The color is a rich, dark orange-amber. Man, I really should have taken a picture of the glass (meh—it was dark out and… I am powerfully lazy). It’s a lovely colored beer with a sturdy, almost creamy white head on its shoulders that hangs around for the first few sips. The aroma is dominated by malt and spice. The flavor is almost like semi-sweet pie was used during the brewing process; like some wacky brewmaster used 80% 2-row malts and 20% pumpkin pie. And then rounded things out with a mild hop addition just to keep the sweetness in check. The 5.5% A.B.V. is basically unnoticeable but surely provides a bit of bite to the brew. Hints of cinnamon and ginger and the lightest clove and coriander notes further shade the complexity of the beer. At the finish, the mildly sweet pumpkin bread/pie flavor returns in all its subtle malty goodness, bidding you take another sip and buy another six-pack.

So… well done, you sneaky mega brewery. Next back to Stone or Otter Creek for me, but well done. I doff my bowler and twirl my ebony cane to you.

* Really more of a simile as I led with the “as if” there… but only a pompous asshat would point that out in an annotation below the main text.

Friends! I’m in the mix. Back on track. Uh… reviewing… some… beers. OK so normally if you pick up a six pack of canned beers, you start of with your expectations low. There are certain breweries that have begun canning good beer (try an Archer Ale) but they’re limited and usually the brews cost more for a sixer than… $3.99. So I was skeptical but feeling cheap. Call it research.

My life has not been changed, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The Minhas Brewery in Wisconsin was an unknown to me before trying the beer, and this remains the only offering of theirs I have tried or, for that matter, ever seen. It’s… well… it’s a lager. And a pretty good one. Maybe not Yuengling or anything but priced like a Natural or Beast, I’ll take it. The beer actually has some of the qualities of a German brew.

I poured the first one out into a glass (of course… I mean Jesus, man!) and admired its pale amber/yellow body and decent, gradually diminishing head. The aroma bespoke* strong maltiness and light hop aroma. Frankly there’s nothing pronounced about the taste of this brew, but it does taste good. A bready malt is balanced by floral hops that grow more pronounced at the finish. As the beer warmed and the carbonation subsided, it took on a slightly funky aspect, with notes of Parliament and George Clinton and a slightly wet wool kind of aroma. There’s an easy fix though, ladies. Drank ‘er faster.

* sorry… you can hit me.

Yet another solemn nod to The Boston Beer Company and another satisfied palate over here. As we strolled the awful cavernous aisles of a wholesaler, seeking free samples and bulk-size crackers, there like a beacon of light shown a beer brewed near Beacon Hill where once I made a bacon sandwich and beckoned friends with brew to draw near. Or something. What I mean is I got this mixed case of Sam Adams and aw damn, happy times. Sam Lager, Black Lager, Scotch Ale and Brown Ale, all in one place! And this Brown Ale is a fine beer, man. For serious.

A lovely brown (ey!) color, a nice tan-white head and an aroma that lets you know you’re in a good place. The bouquet is malt and bready with a hint of hop and a bit of sweet caramel. The taste? RICH malty goodness with a subtle but complex play of nutiness and caramel. The hops balance out the rich malt flavors with a nice mix of bitterness and a slight tangy, almost citrus touch. If I had to use a few words to describe the beer, rich and subtle would surely be in there. Oh ale, you rocked my socks! Or wait… that was the rock tumbler. Why the fu.ck are my socks in the rock tumbler!? You ruined my socks AND my amethyst! Dammit! Now what am I going to wear and what am I going to bring to the Gem Gala?

Y es, that’s right: I am going to the Gem Gala. And I was going to have some prize-worthy, low-occlusion amethyst, but I guess now I’ll bring Lapis lazuli and boring old obsidian. Just like last year.

Friends, those last few sips in the bespectacled, goatee-d and uh, pastel hatted Captain’s glass are Trader Joe’s Dunkelweizen. I was initially critical (this is years back, I’m talkin’) of Trader Joe’s beers. But then I started drinking them. By in large, they score. It still seems odd to me that a grocery store craft brews, but they do, and they do it pretty well. Sergeant Stout came by yesterday and we sampled this ‘lil weizen (along with various fine homebrews, of course) and it’s fine indeed.

The Dunkelweizen has the right chops—pours out into a nice, deep amber/light brown, cloudy brau. The head is a light tan and held up pretty well throughout the first half of the beer. (If you poured it fast, I betcha’d get a glass o’ foam.) Here’s the low-down: 3 types of malt provide the body—2 caramelized, roasted wheat malts and 1 pale barley malt. The prevailing aroma, flavor and finish is a sweet, wheaty, malty whathaveyou. The beer is actually a bit too sweet for me, but not by much, and I don’t fault it as it’s totally a personal thang. It’s not crazy-sweet. The hops are pretty light; detectable in the finish, and surely doing their part to balance the sweet malt character, but subtle. At 5.2% A.B.V. it’s pretty easy to have a few of these fellahs. It was chilly here in the Metropolitan Los Angeles area yesterday, and this is more of a 72 degree Spring beer, but hey—worth trying, and I bet you’ll like it.