#beerreport

I am already tired of typing because the name of this beer is so long.

My parents came to visit this weekend, and since I grew up in San Diego and my parents are the best, they generally bring me some large format local brew-- for our wedding, it was the Enjoy By 9.20.14 (our wedding date. Full disclosure: we enjoyed it a week late and it was still awesome.) This time around, it was this collaboration between Stone, Baird Brewing, which is in Japan, and Ishii Brewing, which is in Guam (because, sure.) It's an IPA that packs a DIPA punch with its 10.1% ABV.

Baird/Ishii/Stone Japanese Green Tea IPA (Second Edition)

Style: Like I mentioned, this is labelled an IPA, but packs a bit of an ABV wallop. It has that Stone IPA character, but it's not like any beer you have had before (because I know every beer you've ever had!!) 

Where: At our apartment, while forcing my parents to sit through a slideshow of photos from our trip to Thailand; I also saw it on tap at Top Hops in the East Village

5 words to describe it: Green tea, Grassy, Hoppy, Light, Smooth

Paired it with: Goat cheese and crackers

Should have paired it with: The obvious choice would be something Asian and a little fatty, but I would choose the flavor you want to bring out and highlight that-- maybe a coconut curry or shrimp to bring out the sweetness, or a wood plank grilled fish to bring out those super earthy and woody flavors from the green tea.

Score (1-100): 89

Drink it if you like: Stone IPAs, Green tea, peppery saisons

Step up from: Lagunitas IPA-- which is good and a beer I like! This one is just way more interesting and subtle, but still has that distinctive West Coast hop punch.

One of the downsides of writing a beer blog is that--short of being the weirdo at the bar with a pencil and notebook--not being able to remember exactly what/where/when you drank something is sort of an occupational hazard. But! It's 2014, so there is an app for that! I use Untappd, which is hooked to my blog's twitter as well, so I can keep track of what beers I've had and what I've thought of them, and so my mom can text me things like, "Either you're at a brewery tasting or you're having a whole lot of fun for a Saturday afternoon!" It's generally a brewery tasting, mom.

So today, when presented with a few free moments, I went back through my recent check-ins looking for a beer of note, and I found Victory's White Monkey, which is their Golden Monkey (a 9.5% ABV grad school staple tripel that was always on tap at our favorite Cambridge bar for $4.95) that has been aged in oak white wine barrels for three months. I had been so stoked to try it, and I stumbled across it in the beer fridge at the Gotham West Market a couple of weeks ago.

Victory White Monkey

Style: It is unfortunately labeled on the bottle as a "malt beverage," which makes me think of 40s of Old English and/or Mike's Hard Lemonade; however, the Grand Knowledge of the Inter Webs generally refers to it as an aged tripel. Cursory googling does not enlighten me on the detail that might change the classification. Effusive apologies, etc. I'll stick with aged tripels because I am a snob and snobs don't drink malt beverages.

Where: The beer fridge at Cannibal, in the Gotham West Market (dudes, that website is SNAZ-ZY!)

5 words to describe it: Oak, Coriander, Anise, Vanilla, Booze

Paired it with: An outrageously delicious Shoyu ramen from Slurp Shop

Should have paired it with: Was a nice balance with the super salty/spicy ramen. I vote ramen... But I almost always vote ramen.

Score (1-100): 82

Drink it if you like: White wine-- specifically, chardonnay. Bourbon. Drinking perfume.

Step up from: Franzia.

Step down from: Golden Monkey

I have been to Germany twice now, and I just feel like they do a lot of things right. They do public parks well. They do Christmas well. They do street art well. They do giant pretzels well. They do giant castles well. And they do beer and beer culture exceptionally well. And since I like parks, Christmas, street art, giant pretzels, giant castles, beer, AND beer culture, Germany is alright by me.

When I was in Berlin in the summer of 2010, I discovered dunkel weiss, which as you might guess, is a dark wheat beer. Now before you go running out of the room screaming that you don't like wheat beers, allow me to say something: get over yourself. Just like any other style, there are myriad different wheat beers, which really run the gamut of taste, color, and flavor. I myself am generally going to choose a saison over a hefeweizen, but when I am in the mood for something malty and spicy, I find a dunkelweizen really tough to beat. 

Andechser Weissbier Dunkel

Style: Dunkelweizen

Where: City Swiggers, a bottle shop and tasting room on 86th Street between 1st and 2nd.

5 words to describe it: Dark, Smooth, Fig, Toasted, Clove

Paired it with: n/a

Should have paired it with: Curry

Score (1-100): 90

Drink it if you like: Hefs, dubbels, quads, ambers, rum and coke, spicy fall or winter ales

Step up from: Sam Adams Winter Lager-- Andecs Dunkel is going to satisfy a lot of those same cravings-- something spicy, malty, on the darker side, and gently warming, but with a low enough ABV to make it a comforting cold-weather session beer. And when I say cold weather, I mean this was the beer I chose to get me through the famed polar vortex.