Tailgating Frenzy

I'm going to take this post in a slightly different direction as some of my others, I do this because I am partnering up with "Cooking for Regular Assholes" (http://cook4you.livejournal.com/) a blog written by a contemporary of mine who works in the food industry. While I write about the beers I enjoy he enjoys some success as someone who creates the dishes we regular assholes are normally served.

As a "Stillers" fan and part time "Yinzer" I feel it is my duty to my city to alert the world to the tradition of the Steerers Tailgate.

"Tailgating, you say? I've tailgated before, this isn't a Pittsburgh thing."

Ah but tailgating for a Steelers game is! Let me tell you a short story, My friend Marc is a diehard "Yinzer" (Pittsburgher is you want to be politically correct about it) who is holed up in FL currently with about 75% of our septuagenarians. Marc sprung for some primo seats to a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game. I may have to mention that the Steelers were in town as well. Upon entering the venue he was greeted by some fellow black and gold devotees. "We've been counting Buccs fans since we got here." "How many have you counted?" "27."

Now what does this tell us? Tampa Bay doesn't care about football? Not really i mean they put up the cash to start a team and get a stadium, right? No this tells us about the fanaticism of Steelers fans and just how nuts we get about football. You thought your college or high school was really pumped about their games, now lets imagine half a state like that. now you know why it's called the Steeler's nation.

Tailgating as a yinzer is one hell of an experience, there is food games and most of all beer. Marc may try and steal my thunder here about the focus of a tailgate, but we all know it's just once hell of an excuse to drink all day long. As a beer blogger I often joke about being an alcoholic, but to be honest, the tailgate has been the only thing that has ever gotten me drinking before noon.

In Pittsburgh when you tailgate you often see some standard faire like Coors Light and Miller Light, but quite honestly the real fans out there are drinking local brews, two to be exact IC Light and Penn Pils.

IC Light, for those of you in the know who enjoy fine beer you may cringe or laugh knowing that it is your yearly dose of Ohio river water. As well all know it's that Ohio river water that give all of us yinzers our pahers ¹. IC Light or as it's label states Iron City light, is brewed by the Iron city Brewing Company. The Iron City Brewing company has had it's ups and downs, to pittsburghers mainly downs, however if you view it from outside the city you begin to realize all of the innovations it produced, like most recently the aluminum bottle, and less recently the first snap top can. They also pioneered the use of the twist off cap and "Malt Cooler" known as Hop-N-Gator, you are welcome Smirnoff. IC light is your typical american lager, however it is not your typical light beer. While many light beers are produced as regular beers then simply watered down IC light is designed to have less calories. It;s brewing doesn't require it to be watered down and results in a fuller, less flat, taste. Though at about $20 for a 30 rack, you can't expect it to rival the Micros and Imports I usually cover. I must say however IC light has a certian Je Ne Sais Qua about it, i'm not sure what about this beer grabs me and keeps me returning to this when I need something cheap. My guess opiates.

Penn Pilsner, now I have talked about the Penn Brewery before on my review of Penn Dark. Penn Pils is the flagship product of the Penn Brewing family. Despite it's name it resembles a vienna lager more closely then a pils. However i have heard this beer described as the quintessential american pilsner, the pils that all other American pils are based off of. If this is true then they have quite a bit to stand up against. Penn Pils may not be the greatest beer under the sun, however it has a flavor that calls back the old days. All of Penn's products are brewed in accordance to the Reinheitsgebot, or German Beer Purity Laws. This means when you are tasting a Penn Brewing product you taste a little bit of history, and you get to taste a fine brew with absolutely no adulterants or filler grain. Truly a craft brew Penn Pils is my first reach at a tailgate.

¹ Yinzer pahers (powers) include the alcohol tolerance of John Belushi, the eyes of a seasoned referee, and the strategic mind of Napoleon Bonaparte (but only in football.) Oh i almost forgot, we can also make drunk calls to your sister.

Victory Wild Devil

It's not often that I get upset that I can't find a beer, generally I will just pick something else up since I like to try new beers all the time. This beer got to me though, I went searching far and wide in the city of Pittsburgh to find more. The inopportune holiday season pushed this fine product off the shelves and left me craving more. Feeling like a crack addict on hard times I actually wrote to Victory asking where my next fix was. I was quickly assured that demand was high and with the holidays many retailers had held back orders to fill their shelves with more seasonal fare.

So why does Wild Devil get me so flustered? What is it about a simple IPA that gets me all weak in the knees? One word "brettanomyces." I'm sure that has caused a few head scratches, but let me explain. Brettanomyces is a strain of yeast that is generally regarded as a plague to the brewing industry, causing off flavors that ruin the balance of a beer and show that the brewer was less then diligent in his sanitation regimen. In fact Brett is the reason for the name of this brew as Brett is a commonly occurring strain of wild yeast. Why do I love this yeast so much then? Well I think good ol' Brett has gotten a bad rap, Brett is also responsible for some of the flavors in lambics, Gueuze and Flanders ales and when a recipe is tailored to the, let's say unique, flavors Brett produces something wonderful occurs. Brett creates flavors that sound absolutely horrible when they are described like wet horse blanket, band-aid, and burnt plastic, but in actual practice they are quite delicious.

My first impression of this beer was, "Wow this is beautiful!" If you have read my other posts then you should know that I don't often describe the look of a beer, but this deserves a description. The color is somewhere between a gold and orange, a little light for my tastes but I was intrigued. The head was an off white, a stark contrast to the bright crisp white I am accustomed to. I generally don't care much about head retention or lacing but this beer is what changed that for me. As I drank the head barley dissipated at all and the lacing left behind was heavy to say the least, when I was done you could see the amount I drank with each sip, it was amazing. The smell and flavor are dominated mostly by the "funk" Brett produces, difficult to put into words but easy to put on the tongue. Next up was the hops, as Hop Devil's evil twin the hops take hold over much of the flavor as well, a nice citrusy bite with a little spicy burn as well. Biscuit and carmel malts dominate the hop profile balancing out this crazy concoction.

I applaud the brewmasters at Victory for making lemonade out of lemons here. They took what is widely considered a horrible plague and turned it into liquid gold.

Westmalle Dubbel

Ah Westmalle, the trappist abbey that gave us the terms dubbel and trippel to describe our beers. Tonight I have decided to review the first and my personal favorite of the trappist dubbels.

The dubbel from Westmalle is incredibly complex, it mixes some nice fruity esters (similar to plum or raisin) with some spice I can't quite put my finger on, along with a wonderful malty characteristic and a little hoppiness in the end it really shines out as a bacon of what the Belgian's can accomplish in their brewing.

One of my favorite characteristics of this brew is also a favorite of mine with good wines (reds mainly,) the temperature it is served at has a profound effect on it's flavor. Refrigerator temps tend to make it taste sharper bring out a little more of the hop characteristics and move the malts and fruity esters aside. When you let a glass of this sit for a little while two wonderful things happen, 1 the glass warms and it allows the flavors to meld, 2 the beer oxidizes a little and brings out the spice more. My serving suggestion is to get yourself a nice chalice style glass, or at least something with a nice wide mouth, pour it trying to leave a little at the bottom (this is a bottle conditioned brew and there are active yeast as well as something called trub that lies on the bottom) and just let it sit for maybe 5 minutes. I know 5 minutes seems like a long time but your mouth will thank me.

As far as the yeast and trub go, I for one kind of like the flavor it brings but many people do not. My suggestion for dealing with it is to try leaving it at the bottom of the bottle, then once you finish your glass pour the remainder in and give it a taste, that way you can decide for yourself. the yeast and trub are not harmful in anyway, in fact brewer's yeast is rather good for you, well at least hippies think so and they brought us granola so who knows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer%27s_yeast#Nutritional_supplements

New review

Ok I havn't written a review in a long time so in an effort to see if anyone reads my blog I'm asking for suggestions on beers to review I could spit out one on either Westmalle Dubble or Roquefort Dubble pretty easily as I ha e both of them in my fridge right now. I recently drank the wacko from Macic Hat as well. You can suggest other beers as well just put your suggestions in the comments and I'll either choose one that gets an overwhelming response or one that intregues me. Please keep them reasonable though something I can aquire here in the 'Burgh.

Chimay Grande Reserve Magnum 2007 vintage

It's been a long time coming but I'm bound and determined to do a review of one of the most famed beers in the world, the Trappists.

First some background on me acquiring this bottle then on the Trappists.

A few weeks ago while I was in Chicago I got some very interesting news, it seems my girlfriend was pregnant and we didn't know it and she was in labor ( gave birth to the most adorable baby girl ever names Zoey, we aren't sure who the father is yet though.) Well me being out of town there really was very little I could do so I continued working. During some of my free time I wandered about the city looking for something to do, this particular day I found a little place called Sam's it was a beer/wine/liquor store. Me loving most things alcoholic I decided to wander about a bit. I decided to see if I could find a bottle of USB ____ wine witch is not sold here in the great state of Pennsylvania, sadly there was only one place in Illinois who carried it. Then I decided to go upstairs where they kept the Beer. Now being from the great state of Pennsylvania I am unaccustomed to Beer Wine and Liquor all being in the same store as we have an odd separation of wine and liquor from beer. We also have case laws. For those Unfamiliar let me lay this down for you. When you want to purchase beer in PA you must go to either a bar or a beer distributer. what about grocery stores and six pack shops you say? Technically bars since you must be allowed to drink any beer you purchase on premises. Why is this so strange you say? Because at a beer distributer you must buy a case or more (24 cans/bottles at 12oz. or 288oz in any combination this includes Kegs), and at a bar you must buy less then a 12 pack (six pack under each arm). Oh and the beer in bars' price is over inflated. Now what gets even stranger is that if you walk out of a bar with 12 beers, throw them in the car and walk back in, guess what, you can buy 12 more beers (12 12oz bottles cans ect. so 144oz or less in any combination.) Anyway where I was going with this was that the singles and six packs were nice and cheap here. Walking through I saw the Belgian section, my eyes lit up like a kid in a candy store. Orval, Roquefort, Westmalle, Chimay oh my! I quickly snagged a 1 Liter bottle of Westmalle Dubbel for $11 and a 12oz of Roquefort for $4 and when I looked up I was greeted by the sight of a magnum of Chimay Grande Reserve 2007 for only $26. Now for those of you out side of PA no big deal but for me, that's huge! To give you some Comparison at one of my favorite beer bars here that same bottle goes for $130 and at a six pack shop it's about $67. That's when I realize my girlfriend loves Chimay and that this bottle will make a wonderful congratulations gift.

Now I have mentioned a few time the Trappists, and I'm sure you are wondering just who or what these Trappists are. The Trappists are an order of Monks that follow the order of St. Benedict albeit a relaxed order. They are allowed drink and are allowed to sell it (along with other goods) in order to support the monastery. There are about 170 odd Trappist monestaries in the world and not all of them make amazing beer, but the ones that do certainly did it right. The distinctness of the Trappist ales is generally in the yeasts they use, they bring a certain unique flavor to the party that I just can't describe, it's almost a bread-e-ness.

This beer in particular was just incredible, the Grande Reserve or Bleu is a darker ale with a nice thick head. I loved the nice balance of hops and malt, it's not overly dry nor is it so heavy you can't drink another glass. It has a sweet but deep flavor, carmel figs cherries and the like with some spiciness too like a little touch of cinnamon. I would recommend this to anyone who is feeling like getting pampered, because that exactly what drinking this felt like.

Three Floyd's - Gumballhead

Last week I spent some time in Chicago on a business trip thanks to the little bit of free time I got and coworkers who share my love of beer I was able to try a few things I couldn't get here in PA.

The first one I want to talk about was a little something called Gumballhead, "Gumballhead you say?" Yes i say Gumball head, mainly cause I like to say Gumball head. Alright I admit it sometimes I do like to order beer based off of the name alone, I'll drink any beer once and I like to tell people I drank something I couldn't pronounce, had so many umlauts that it put metal bands to shame, or was just as strange and unique as Gumballhead. That being said I've had some disappointments in my time, and i have disproved my German friend's theory that more umlauts equals more better. Not this time though, I was not disappointed. though I have to say I was a little surprised.

I was at a little bar called Kasey's in printer's row with one of my coworkers having a few beers while watching one of the games of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I had just finished off a Hop Devil and just found the tap list. Scanning quickly I couldn't pull my eyes from that name for some reason, I knew I had to try it.

Fast forward to today I know know that Gumball head is made by three Floyds Brewing in Indiana (imagine that) and it's considered an American pale wheat ale. That right there is what surprised me.

This is the first wheat I've ever reviewed and for good reason. I don't drink many wheats. Don't get me wrong it's not like I hate wheats or anything it's just, I usually find something else i like better and would much rather go for something maltier or hoppy-er (honestly I'm not sure if either of those are real words or not but they work for me.)

Whell when it came to my table I was amazed to see this brew with a pale yellow hue and thick white head (ok not so surprised about the thick white head.) I looked through the glass or at least attempted to as it was quite hazy. I got a big ol' whiff off the top of it almost putting my nose into the foam, rather citrus-ey I must say. Finally I took a sip and it's got a bit of hops I taste nice and crisp something I wish I got from more wheats. Honestly this is what I want when I order a wheat a nice refreshing beverage. Extremely drinkable went down nice and easy. If I can find this in PA I'm defiantly keeping it around for an outdoor drinking experience.

Tom Seefurth's Mamma Mia Pizza Beer, yea that's right i said Pizza Beer

So this weekend I got to go to one of my favorite restaurants in the area, Bocktown. Now Bocktown doesn't have the largest selection of beers on tap or anything they have quite a nice cooler and good food to boot. I got myself a nice heaping pile of fries with "onion crisps" on top, one of my personal favorite beers, Tröegs' Trogenator Dopplebock, I got to try the Moylan's Kilt Lifter, and I even left with a Rogue's Chocolate Stout. However I am not going to talk about these beers, no not yet because they were overshadowed by another, Pizza Beer.

I can see the confused look on your face from here, it's probably better that you don't know how I can see it from here, but believe me i can. Pizza Beer, brewed with tomato, basil, and garlic for a most... unique beer experience.

Alright you got me I didn't say delicious or wonderful or any of those adjectives, it wasn't exactly the greatest beer I've ever tasted nor was it the worst. I do need to give them credit however they set forth to make a beer made with pizza ingredients and by god they did it and despite the madness that brought about this brew it's not too bad.

Now to the tasting, while I didn't have the privilege of drinking a whole bottle of this I did get a big enough taste to pull out the flavors. The first thing I tasted right away was basil then after that died down a little I got that nice garlic kick finally finishing off with the dueling flavors of tomato and well a beer that kind of reminded me of Miller Light. One of my comrades at the table (the one who ordered the fabled drink) described it saying that it was like someone through pizza lunchables in a blender along with a cheap beer, and I have to say I'd agree.

So now that I have tried pizza beer I can rest easy knowing that one of the strangest beers ever created has passed across my taste buds. I suppose I will have to review Dogfish Head's Midas Touch to compete with this one.