Tag Archives: Grand Teton

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December 28, 2012

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Christmas Beers Bring Christmas Cheer

What would the holidays be without alcohol? Copious and copious amounts of alcohol in all forms to help you get through the insanity of family, shopping, holiday parties and the like. Fortunately, there are plenty of holiday appropriate beers to help you get through it all. Here’s what I enjoyed during this week.

After having our own mini Christmas at our new home, my wife and I drove back to my parent’s house in Georgia to celebrate Christmas with them. I have the good fortune of having an easy-going, non-dysfunctional family, so I don’t need a lot of alcohol to help me cope. But that didn’t stop me from bringing along a bottle of St. Bernardus’ Christmas Ale to enjoy and share with loved ones.

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At 10%, the spiced Belgian strong dark ale does plenty to keep you warm and toasty. A malty nose brings hints of cocoa, plums, caramel, black pepper, cloves and that classic Belgian yeastiness. A similarly complex taste follows, with a strong effervescent quality leading off flavors of berries, plums, cocoa powder, leather, tobacco, sweet bread, cinnamon and other spices. St. Bernardus always impresses me, but it also impressed my younger brother – a newly 21-year-old frat boy – and my dad, whose tastes lean toward “dark, heavy stuff.” It was a good way to warm up on Christmas Eve.

After returning home to Columbia on Christmas Day, my wife and I tucked in to some holiday selections from my cellar. We started with a 2009 bottle of Samichlaus Classic, a 14% doppelbock from Austria that previously held the title of strongest beer in the world.

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At 14%, there’s just a slight hint of booziness on the nose, accompanied by a big, sweet malt character, hints of rum-soaked raisins, caramel, figs and a bit of maple syrup and just a slight alcohol burn on the back. The alcohol certainly hits you more on the taste, but it fades quickly into this sweet, rich, full-bodied blend of caramel, toffee, butterscotch, figs and a big malty sweetness with an almost hard candy quality. The sweetness is definitely cut well by the alcohol, which you can feel warming in your chest after a few sips.

As we settled in for the annual Doctor Who Christmas special, I popped a bottle of the 2011 Santa’s Little Helper imperial stout from Port. Last Christmas, I enjoyed the bourbon barrel-aged version but help on to the standard version for this year.

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The coal-black 10% imperial stout presented with aromas of bittersweet chocolate, a touch of booze and a little bit of licorice, all underneath a cozy cover of big roasted coffee and espresso. Those roasted malts impart a big bitterness on the front of the tongue followed with a bitter coffee finish. There was a ton of espresso, dark chocolate, roasted malts and cocoa on it, but it’s not overly chocolatey or sweet at all. There may have been a slight infection in my bottle as there was this strange almost cough syrup quality on the finish. There was a phenolic burn on the back, kind of like the sweeter alcohol finish from NyQuil. It didn’t turn me off at all, and it honestly kind of worked with the bitterness.

The third of four Christmases this year was spent at my mother-in-law’s house on Wednesday. With all due respect to my in-laws, they are a bit more … eccentric than my family, and two little ones running around only add to the insanity. That’s why I was happy to walk in to the middle of a holiday beer tasting orchestrated by my sister-in-law, which included the St. Bernardus Christmas Ale, Rogue‘s Santa’s Private Reserve Ale, Grand Teton‘s Coming Home Ale 2012 and, for dessert, some Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout. I also got sent home with bottles of each, as well as a Rogue Farms Single Malt Ale and a Westbrook Dark Helmet. Add that to the two six-packs of SweetWater Festive Ale my brother got me and the SweetWater IPA and Terrapin Liquid Bliss “reinbeers” from my mom, and this was quite a holiday helping.

Whatever you celebrated this season, and whatever you’ll celebrate in the weeks to come, may your world be filled with delicious brews and good times. Cheers to all, and to all a good night.

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October 12, 2012

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Grand Teton Black Cauldron

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Grand Teton Brewing Co.

Victor, ID

Black Cauldron Imperial Stout

8% ABV

I mentioned before that I find “stout season” to be redundant, even though Founders would have you think otherwise. And while summer still has a death grip on the state, it’s getting cool enough to where my tastes switch from IPAs to stouts as my go-to beer.

I’ve had this bottle of Grand Teton‘s Black Cauldron Imperial Stout sitting in my cellar for about a year. An impulse buy around a year ago, the 8% imperial stout brewed with Nugget and Cascade hops and a touch of beechwood-smoked malts has gone from being part of the brewery’s Cellar Reserve series to a year-round offering. Snarling Badger and 5 O’Clock Shadow, the other two beers in that series, have been winners for me, and Black Cauldron continues that trend.

The pour – true to its name – it black as night. It’s a thinner pour but not too watery, topped with a  finger’s worth of a dark brown head that dissipates really quickly. Only some mild lacing, but really nice alcohol legs.

The nose is a lot boozier than I expected. There’s a kind of big, thick bourbon note, even more strange considering it’s not a barrel-aged beer. There are big hints of sweeter dark chocolate, really dark coffee and a touch of plum and toffee as well.

There’s a slight roasted bitterness on the front of the tongue, and it’s etremely smooth on the palate. The finish has kind of this puckering bitterness. It’s kind of like that taste you get after a sip of red wine. There’s still a flavorful fruitiness, but there’s a sort of tannic bite. There are big plums mixed with dark chocolate and coffee that follow the nose. The roasted notes really linger on the end, and your get a really big caramel not with a definite hint of what tasted like raspberry.

Black Cauldron really surprised me. I didn’t expect it to be bad by any means, but the complexity and robustness was a bit unexpected. It’s not too thick or heavy on the alcohol, which works to help accentuate the sweeter, almost sherry-like flavors mixed in with everything. It’s still most certainly a stout, with bitter notes of dark chocolate and roasted coffee, but the unique sweetness is a nice touch.

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May 25, 2012

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Grand Teton Snarling Badger

Grand Teton Brewing Co.

Victor, ID

Snarling Badger Berliner Weisse

7.5% ABV

(Feels like I was just talking about Grand Teton, doesn’t it?)

With their Cellar Reserve series, Grand Teton is trying to design beers that can be enjoyed now or laid down for a year or two to help mature. Since they’re bottle conditioned, the fact they’re not super-high ABV beers is balanced out. It worked with 5 O’Clock Shadow, which I’ve had in my cellar for a couple months, but I couldn’t let Snarling Badger sit around that long.

Brewed in the Berliner Weisse style, Snarling Badger is a slightly less tart take on the usually sour style of beer. The secondary fermentation with lactobacillus imparts the tartness, but not in that super-puckering way. It’s more of a tart wheat beer than a sour and seems like the perfect companion for a day on the porch.

The appearance is a hazy lighter sunset orange with a little more clarity around the edges of the glass. There’s about two fingers of a really bubbly, effervescent head which doesn’t linger for long. There’s not much lacing or alcohol legs.

On the nose is a real fruity bouquet. There are huge notes of green apples, lemon, pineapple, citrus, banana and tropical fruits, and of course that slight tartness and sourness. There’s also a hint of sweetness from the wheat. It smells amazing.

On the front of the tongue is a really slight sweetness, but that just explodes through the rest of your mouth. But as I mentioned, it’s not a really overpowering sour taste. As for flavors, the banana notes come through first, followed by the green apple mid palate and a burst of pineapple on the back. It settles really nicely on the back of the throat. There’s a slight warmth from the alcohol and a bit of an ester aftertaste. The carbonation on it is also great, and does a nice job of cleansing the palate.

While this is a superb beer fresh, I’m interested to see what it does with a year or two on it. The brewers have said the tartness comes through a lot more after it matures for a while. My advice: buy one for now and one for later, because this is definitely one to come back to.

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May 21, 2012

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Grand Teton 5 O’Clock Shadow

Grand Teton Brewing Co.

Victor, ID

5 O’Clock Shadow Double Black Lager

7.6% ABV

Lagers have been surprising me lately, in particular black lagers/Schwarzbiers. The combination of hoppy and roasted characteristics of black IPAs and the rich smoothness of lagers is a really refreshing and enjoyable blend that I really don’t give enough chances.

It helped when Grand Teton, one of those consistently good breweries I don’t think gets enough attention, decided to put out 5 O’Clock Shadow, their take on the style. Instead of keeping it at session levels, GT bumped up the ABV to nearly 8% by increasing the crystal and roasted malts, brewing it in the typical lager style and keeping it cold conditioned for four months.

The color is a deep, deep brown that verges on black but still allows a little light through the edges of the glass, giving it a brownish amber tint. Two fingers of a pillowy brownish head top it off, but it dissolves pretty quickly. A little lacing but not much alcohol legs.

There are some hops on the nose, but the smell verges more on that of a porter – strong dark chocolate with a hint of roasted coffee behind it. There’s a slight hint of dark fruits and some caramel sweetness with a very slight hint of alcohol.

On the tip of the tongue is a subtle hop bite that give way to a medium-bodied mouthfeel. Coffee and the roasted characteristics come through toward the end but melt away into a really smooth, slight caramel sweetness. There are also bits of raisin and dark fruit flavors in there well. The yeast characteristic is very chewy, but the finish is much smoother.

This particular bottle has been cellared for about four months, so I think the hops may have died down a bit. Additionally, the fact it’s bottle conditioned probably helped bump up the sweetness. Still, it’s an incredibly smooth and drinkable Schwarzbiers that’s awfully quaffable.