Lilja's Sasquatch Stout, Pangea Brewing Company

We’ve all heard the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover.”  Many of us have also heard the common rebuttal, “That’s what the cover is for!  It tells me what’s in the book so I can decide whether or not I want to read it!”  Even if you’re not familiar with the counter-argument, chances are that’s how you effectively live.  You try not to judge unduly, while defining “duly” however you want.  Case in point, what is your immediate reaction to this beer label?

Graphic designers may want to shield their eyes.

Okay, first off, what’s with the water level Super Nintendo Donkey Kong?  Is he throwing a glass of beer at me?  Why is it in a different font than the rest of the bottle?  Green eyes.  Black finger and toe nails.  Three tag lines?  What is this Monty Python’s “Penultimate Supper?”  You can’t see it in this picture, but the top right corner holds the words “ylnevaeh spoh.”  Sounds Russian, right?  Nope.  Spoiler Alert, it’s heavenly hops backwards.  Surely people who think this label is good can have no taste of beer, right?  Wrong.  This hokey cover delivers Lilja’s Sasquatch Stout, which is actually quite good.

Small head, perhaps from the high ABV.

Talk about a dark beer.  You have to work pretty hard to find the red tones on the edges of every stout’s glass.  Turning, raising, searching.  The aroma is really smooth and inviting even though the imagery that comes to my mind is over-ripe fruit and wet fur.  Kind of like how haggis smells and tastes like dog food yet still manages to be quite good.  It only takes a second to place this stout in the coffee camp, but it’s not being served black.  That smoothness from the aroma returns to build a milk stout mouthfeel even though this bigfoot has no lactose added.  Overall, very satisfying and much better than the odd label leads you to believe.

After taking a look at their website, I have to say that label isn’t really all that surprising.  The page for Lilja’s Sasquatch Stout is home to four whole well-written paragraphs about sasquatch, tying it back to the beer only by insinuating a six pack of the stuff will keep you safe from a six foot tall, four hundred pound hominid.  The ingredients list claims to use a hop variety that is also a class of primate. No problem, I can google "simian hops" and find out what they are, right?

Or maybe not...

Not to worry though, it wraps up with a picture of a transgender bovine with spots shaped like the continents.  I don’t know if they’re rich enough to be called eccentric or if they just fall into the crazy category but whatever they are, their beer is delicious!

Traverse City Cherry Wheat, Atwater Brewery

Apparently it was a bad year for tart cherries in Michigan.  Unusual weather left pie and jam lovers either coughing up more for their treats or trying recipes that call for less of the fruit.  (Sundae aficionados were left unscathed.  Sweet cherries were fine.)  The area around Traverse City is the largest producer (usually) of tart cherries in the U.S. and Atwater Brewery tries to capture its spirit with today’s beer.  Wheat and fruit adjuncts have a long working relationship as just about any non-Belgian fruity beer contains the grain.  Sometimes it’s a hint, sometimes it’s the main event.  It all depends on the brewery.  Let’s pop the top on Atwater’s Traverse City Cherry Wheat (sorry it's just a brand page; today's beer isn't included in their super sweet sliding scale).

That is indeed a dark wheat beer!

The head gives off a bready feel but with something else, as if the alcohol content is going to be higher than your average wheat.  It’s not.  That’s just the tartness of the cherry variety they used, likely montmorency because that’s what you get around Traverse City.  Atwater Brewery prides itself on having imported all of its equipment from Germany as a claim to the centuries old traditions there.  American beer makers trying to piggyback on the history of Europe is often cliche as well as questionable.  But Eurobeer purists should be fair here and acknowledge that at least the wheat beer component is pretty damn close to the pragmatic mouthfeel and flavor profile of a true Bavarian Weiß Bier.  Not bad for a fifteen year old brewery in Detroit.

A lot of the reviews floating around complain of a lack of cherry flavor, but I think this stems from the tart vs. sweet argument.  Which type is better suited for beer?  Well, it comes down to what your preferences are.  If you enjoy lighter fruity beers, go with sweet for that shandy-like playfulness.  If you’re not really fruit beer person to begin with, it’s tart all the way.  Traverse City Cherry Wheat tastes less like it skimped on the red drupes and more like it used a different variety than what you know from eating as a snack.  Given that observation, it may well be a good thing they didn’t add much more as it would have just made the brew drier and tarter.  Like brewing with real coffee beans, subtlety can sometimes be necessary.

Optimator, Spaten

German cities have a way of attaching themselves to food names.  Denizens of Frankfurt and Wien have the distinction of being linguistically interchangeable with sausages.  Likewise, Hamburgers get to be synonymous with, well, hamburgers.  Perhaps the sweetest of these crossovers is the demonym for citizens of the capital city.  Theirs famously led an American president to declare himself one of these guys.

"I am a jelly doughnut!"
-John F. Kennedy

Of course this isn’t the only sweet thing with an etymology tied to a German city.  Today’s beer comes from the bock family.  The bock style is kind of named after the city of Einbeck.  I say kind of because obviously Einbeck ≠ Bock.  The Bavarian dialect, a cousin of which gives Arnold Schwarzenegger his distinctive accent, made “Einbeck” sound an awful lot like “ein Bock,” which means “a billygoat.”  That’s why labels of bocks often feature goats.  Quite frequently dancing.  Not sure why on that one.  Anyway, bocks are really malty so they provide the perfect counterpoint to the craft beer world’s often harsh blast of flavors.  Doppelbock may undo a little of that when it ramps up the grain bill, thus adding a few percentage points to the ABV, but it mostly just increases the flavor profile.  Let’s move on to Spaten’s doppelbock, Optimator.

Unfortunately the bottle is green, but what can you do?

It’s pretty dark, but very clear.  If it weren’t for the deep brown color, you’d be able to see pretty well through the glass.  The aroma makes me wish I could transmit smells over the internet.  So malty, so welcoming, so full.  The taste is one of heavy malts(duh) but it also contains dark roasts.  Stout haters need not worry though, because any burnt flavors are wrapped in a big, fuzzy blanket of sweetness.  It’s almost candy-like but not in the light, fruity way most candy is.  More like a horehound candy.  A working man’s sweet treat, if you will.  Optimator doesn’t have much of the syrupy linger common in the bock family, but it delivers wholeheartedly on any craving you may have for a smooth antidote to the bitterness of life.  That is assuming you have bitterness in your life.  Otherwise it’s just tasty.

Ironically enough, I first came across Spaten while in Italy and it soon became a favorite along with Tuborg.  I guess it makes sense though, Italy is a wine country.  Like the U.S. twenty years ago, all the good beers are imports.  For all of you who don’t find yourselves among the 82 million people living in Germany right now, be thankful that Spaten exports as much as it does.  I encourage you to show your thanks by picking up some Optimator the next time you’re out.  Trust me, you don’t want them to pull out of your market for lack of sales. If you do live in Germany, don't tell them about that Kennedy quotation.

Busted Knuckle, Gray's Brewing Company

Paul Ryan and Joe Biden went toe-to-toe last week in the only vice presidential debate of this year’s U.S. election.  How did his image hold up?  It was pretty easy to bolster his little guy motif when his opponent, 27 years his elder, kept giving that smile that says, “I remember when I was young and stupid!”  He also reminded us of his style of half truths early on by tying the fortunes of the entire country to one, unglamorous city in Pennsylvania.  So pretty much no change.  My last two beers from Gray’s Brewery in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin didn’t quite capture the man who is running to be the next VP.  Therefore I am giving it one more shot with an Irish Red.  While the company’s own description doesn’t seem to match the Ryan motif, the name conjures up images of the debate he just contested.  On to Busted Knuckle!

Nice pour!

This beer is really quite red.

It forms a very nice head.

If you wanted a bite,

You’ll find no delight.

It’s malty and sweet instead.

This is not going well.  Busted Knuckle tastes even less like Ryan than Bully Porter and the Oatmeal Stout.  I don’t feel busted up at all.  It is indeed Irish, but if its finger joints are damaged, it’s from hand-kneading dough for bread to be donated to homeless orphaned children.  This beer couldn’t hurt a fly, in the exceedingly rare case it ever felt the need to.  Far from a young gun in his fighting prime, I’m seeing an old grandpa who sticks his foot in his mouth, but in an endearing sort of way.  Wait a minute...

What?  Can it really be?

Yes.  Busted Knuckle is Joe Biden.  Which means Biden must be from Janesville.  Which means Ryan must actually be from Scranton!  Now to find a microbrewery there.  Does anybody know where one is?  Preferably near the Dunder Mifflin office.

Old Rasputin, North Coast Brewing Company

Right before fetching today’s beer from the basement, I paid a visit to the bathroom and had an interesting experience.  As I was preparing to take my place on the porcelain throne, I was startled by a very loud, very heavy, very sudden thud that shook away my sense of physical security like a dog throwing water off its coat.  Its power was made all the more ominous by a peculiar hollowness that belied some empty cavern seeking its fill.  The juxtaposition of vicious ferocity and a complete lack of satiety is possibly one of the most frightening combinations imaginable, harkening back to our days avoiding predators in the savannah.  Any sense of joy or contentment with the world drained from my chest, through my midsection and out my pores leaving only dread.  I turned to see what calamitous horror awaited me and faced the source directly.  Right after I had lifted the toilet seat, it had fallen shut.  As quickly as the rush of fear beset me, it dissipated and the words tumbled out of my mouth, “Don’t do that!” as if the toilet seat were able to comprehend my impassioned plea.

So terrifying!

We’ve all experienced those moments when something simple and benign suddenly leads to a totally irrational fear for your life.  This happens at a much slower pace in history as well.  A notable example is Grigory Rasputin, whose stylized story can be found here (the third to last paragraph contains the most famous story, his assassination).  People attribute great power, both political and supernatural, to the “mad monk” and declare him to be evil.  In reality, he was probably just an exceedingly quirky guy whose legend grew from his proximity to the tsar.  North Coast Brewing Company taps into the legend with its Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout.

Peaking out above the brim, are we?

An incredibly dark beer with a very thick head.  Stouts have a tendency to build their bubbly tops belatedly and this one was true to form, continuing to grow for almost a full minute.  That foamy cap itself is a delicacy full of hoppy bitterness and a cappuccino-like mouthfeel.  The aroma alerts you to the roastiness of dark malts and the sweetness of the large base malt component but doesn’t really prepare you for what is to come.  I’ve developed a reputation as the beer guy (I’m sure many of you have too) so I get honor of hearing a description of their reaction whenever someone I know tries it for the first time.  A common refrain is, “I wasn’t ready!  Emotionally, mentally, physically...”  Old Rasputin goes for the coffee, then follows it up with the IBUs of a solid IPA.  However, once you get past the sting of bitterness you realize it’s just a really big, really tasty beer.  As simple as that.  In fiction writing, you’re supposed to leave the reader wanting more.  That must not be the case with brewing because you are at peace with your drinking after 12-16 ounces of this beer.  Maybe if you’re 250 lbs or Irish you can keep going, but most everybody else should feel pretty satisfied.

One last interesting tidbit about Old Rasputin.  It is brought to you by a Californian brewery recreating a style made in England for the Russian tsarist court.  This beer has come a long way to get to you.  You should make the trek from wherever your palette naturally predisposes you to try it honestly.  I know it can be initially shocking, but if you can just calm your tongue’s fear and finish your glass knowing everything will be okay, it will be a rewarding experience.  Good luck!