Goose Island's Matilda

This is a pretty beer. There's no two ways about it, and really, no other adjective fits it as well.

It pours a beautiful golden orange, with a thick lacy head and great yeasty tangerine aromas.

The taste is exceptionally well-rounded; again, tangerine in the front ("tangy" is an operative word here), giving way to vanilla, and finally a little flicker of hops in the back. And all the while, that musty spcy thing that comes from live yeast is just sort of hovering around the edges. It's some kind of really intelligent, perfect American take on a Biere de Garde. It's big, it's accessible, and the structure of it, the way it's put together, is pretty exciting.

I'm really happy to finally be getting some beers from this Goose Island line; looking forward to revisiting Sofie.

Penderyn

I'd never had Welsh Whiskey before. Never really thought it was a thing.

Now I have, and I'm glad. On our shelf at this very moment is Penderyn Madeira Finished Single Malt.

It's great - aged in Madeira casks, and it shows. The sugar expresses itself simply but interestingly; upfront, but with an almost candy twist as it lingers in your mouth - vanilla, floral, etc.

All of that goes wonderfully with the buttery viscosity, and a very crisp salinic bite; that satisfying briny, round sea salt kick. I'm tempted to talk about saltwater taffy, but I think that might be taking it too far.

Kind of a killer whiskey, and especially worth checking out if you, like me, have never tried Welsh Whiskey before.

De Dolle Dulle Teve

"This was a surprisingly pleasant little room, with a window overlooking a budding old pear tree, and a big old-fashoined country fireplace whose deep niches and sooty crannies Mr Spinks was in the habit of hiding his claret bottles. Along one wall was a mammoth oaken dresser in which was stored the households treasury of silver plate and before which the buttler now sat. He was sound asleep with his heavy brass poker across his knee, his cadaverous old skull thrown backwards, and his little mouth wide open. The pages of the Morning Chronicle lay scattered on the floor beside his stockinged feet" - A passage from the novel Jack Maggs, by Peter Carry.

I begin with this because I feel that there are certain literary passages in certain novels that simply seem to be easily recognizable as beloved to the author. That, amongst a potentially large canon, and within a thick tome, there may be passages that evoke such strong characterizations and are so lovingly and originally crafted that one can imagine the author spending nights on end trying to perfect them.

The Mad Bitch (or Dulle Teve, as it is called on the label) cries out to me in this way. De Dolle is a relatively popular Belgian brewery, and one can find its' Bos Keun pretty regularly at liquor depots, and other such places; their beers tend to be fairly complex, interesting, but often too sweet, without any good reason. But one gets the impression that Dulle Teve, with it's oddball artsy label and it's off-the-wall 10% (double fermented with white candy in the barrel - what ever does white candy mean in Belgium?) ABV has a soft spot in the brewers's heart.

In color it is a cloudy amber, as one would expect from the best tripels. Surprisingly it has a slight crispness to it and though it is very malty, it does not at any point seem thick. The head laces like marangue, and is quite salty to boot. I think it is this saltiness that really helps to kick the hops in the ass and put them in their place. And it is very hoppy. But hops done the right way - by a brewer who knows how to balance the beer around the hops to support it, rather than showcase it. There is also a moist cidery aspect to it that really pops out in the front, and notes of cinnamon that create a drying effect in the finish.

The beer reminds one of summer - though it is probably not the beer you would want to reach for during the heat of summer - for that maybe you want a 750 of Troublette to split with your friends - I'm just saying.

But again, it reminds of summer, of warm nights to come, and if beers can in any way be legitimately considered seasonal, then this is certainly, in my opinion, a superlative Spring beer. It's excellent for the transitional month - crisp, but still moist and complicated; more heavy conceptually than anything else.

For a little while, we will be carrying this at the Red Room. Snag it while you can.

Art In The Age: Root

So, maybe drinking Amaro straight isn't the most popular past-time amongst alcohol enthusiasts. I get that. But it has a following, maybe a cult following, really. Those of us who love Amaros, cherish Amaros. We like that it's old world; it's tradition, it's often mysterious in ingredients - secret recipes and the like. It invites the sort of drinker that wants to come to conclusions on their own. Amaros like Fernet Branca or Santa Maria al Monte can be offputting to those who want their liquor easy, accessibly sweet and readily identifiable. Others like Averna can be equally as off-putting to those who avoid sweetness at all costs.

That brings me to Art In The Age's "Root" liqueur. It really defies almost everything I've just mentioned, and yet manages to bring everything full circle and embrace the spirit of this particular tradition in a pretty commendable way. The company that's released it is, by it's full name, Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction. Their entire goal is to provide funding and support to artists and artisans who are trying to do something unique. From their own statement of intent:

"In this troubling epoch of industrial commodification, standardization of reproduction, and fomentation of a society of shallow spectacle, Art In The Age issues a challenge and rally cry. We fight fire with fire, subsuming the onslaught of watered down facsimiles and inaccessible displays with thought-provoking products of real cultural capital."

It's a manifesto, more than a statement of intent, really, and appropriately lofty as such. Root is one of two Amaros launched early last year by AIA, and it is essentially a liqueur brewed using the original Native American recipe for Birch Tea, an alcoholic tonic which was passed down to our colonial forefathers and eventually became the non alcoholic Root Beer, when Prohibition reared it's head.

So, here we have a problem: a decidedly non-old world Amaro made using a recipe that existed in Pennsylvania before Pennsylvania was even a state. Part of me wants to say "screw you, hipsters, get away from my beloved Amaro!" The other part of me says, "well, that sounds pretty awesome and legitimate."

The blend itself is almost exactly the same in ingredients (a total of 13 according to the label), except for sassafras, which was banned by the FDA a few years ago, and which AIA subbed with wintergreen, citrus and spearmint. It is all organic, USDA approved. Another point for Art In The Age. Part of me tingled a little bit at the idea of an all organic Amaro, I'll be honest. And yes, that part of me was my mouth. Sicko.

And now to the drinking experience itself: the color is a very dark, almost opaque brown, and the nose hits you with anise, but rounds it out nicely with birch bark. Somehow it's that perfect way of chiseling off the edges of anise that is often hard to achieve. Similar to the way root beer smells if you really shove your nose in a great microbrew batch, but without the vanilla overtones.

Unlike most traditional Amaros, it prints the ingredients on the label. No secret as to what's in this one. Part of me dislikes this, as it is somewhat leading to the drinker, defying much of what I enjoy about Amaros and bitters in general. Part of me understands it though: this is a traditional recipe; an intelligent homage to Native American culture. It would be almost disingenuous to try and claim it as some secret recipe. Maybe it even invites one to work a little harder: yes, there is cardomon, black tea, orange, nutmeg, allspice...but what do you taste?

For me, it's the salt. Somewhere in the background, hiding behind the cinnamon, cowering under a leaf of spearmint, is a dainty little dollop of burnt salt. I enjoy finding that; pushing my way past all of the other ingredients and getting to that, feels a little bit like getting the bottom of a philosophical problem.

And I guess that's what this spirit really boils down to for me: a philosophy. It's not an Amaro. It's 80 proof. It's a liqueur, but the way it's put together, and the attention to tradition (though a decidedly different tradition) is very Amaro like, and while Art In The Age has never claimed it as such, nearly every one else is. It prints the ingredients on the bottle; are they forcing you to go deeper? Or are they taking the fun out of it and dumbing it down? It's complex, and it's very upfront about being so.

I've done some digging and I still can't figure out who is distributing this particular spirit, though I've read several allusions to the fact that it is being distributed. This would probably be a big seller for us at the red room, just based on packaging and gimmick-value alone, and it might really be a way to get people to get their feet wet in the world of bitters.

Tapped Beer

Trying really hard to get excited about this bottle of Gouden Tripel.  Why? Well, it's available in kegs down here in the southwest and the idea of sticky 7% Belgian beer on tap at the red room is a bit swoony.  I like the idea of tripels: hop oil, sticking on your tongue and letting go like the oddly horrible moment of breaking contact with, like, a magnet or suction cup or some such.  I get the sense of tack, talcum, enamel.  Something shiny and repellent, lacquer.

So, open the bottle and let it sit and see it in the corner of my eye with this sleepy stocking cap head fissure solidifying off the neck, peaking all lazy and gross from the bottle: sick-o!

But then - this beer is burnt, metal as in burnt black metals.  A very serious comment on aftertaste that's something like a hello from the hell of cheap american session brew that never gets a step past the upper levels of purgatory.  And up front? Silly holiday candy, the sharpest type of candied flavor, gingerbread, shit-fire, its gingerbread with those red buttons to boot, almost smells warm-fresh-soft but then its candy-candy-candy.

I like this, its not a frequency beer, its off the spectrum in a kind of anti-hero here's-some-perspective way.  Goofy kid in the corner has something to offer...maybe.  The hops are buried rather brutally, or extracted in difficult ways.  There's gross honey I suppose and sick-o semi-artificial fruit like jackfruit and the like. The whole thing is a funny sort of fuck-you but not in the 'fuck me?...fuck me?' sort of way because there's nothing begging confrontation here, its the kid in the corner you know; its always your choice to engage.

So, on tap? Only if we can sock the handle with a gym-striped smiley face.

Uerige Doppelsticke & Troublette

I want to mention these two beers here as taking part in special fraternal order of beers which gesture beyond themselves into the realm of spirits. This is easier to describe in Uerige DoppleSticke as there is great and pretty readily apparent amaro things happening (but amaro in the dark!) although I think an analogue gesture is happening with troublette as well. Where is it heading? Into something brighter, all that great floral-pollen weight moving forward. I'm compelled to talk about grappa, but it's only half way there in terms of aromatics and being on the high frequency side of things.

What this calls into question is beer that doesn't make this gesture: where are we half way through a 12% belgian strong dark ale sweetened with candy sugar? Beer, the deep and maybe a bit sordid underbelly of what beer can be. I get that this a place to and probably important, nonetheless let's make this distinction as it can be useful in pulling seemingly disparate beers together and, on the other hand, breaking up some traditional taxonomy of 'dark' light' 'wheat' 'lager' etc.

A few quick notes here:

1) Apparently Uerige has a distillery (http://www.uerige.de/produkte/). One can google translate one of their pages to learn:

"Since 2007 finishing this specialty in our DESTILLERY continues: from 250 liters Sticke distillation we 12 litre STICKUM. The Feinbrand then 70% alcohol and before the storage in Steingutbehältern to 62% diluted."

So, they're distilling their really awesome beer, great, sweet, incredible. There is a story about how a lambic producer had a thermostat go out and spoiled, like, a billion gallons of gueuze and thought it was the end of the historic brewery as there was no way to come back from such a loss and then was like, wham-o! I'll distill this and sell for a billion dollars to nerds in America. I met a kid who worked at Monk's Cafe who had tried it and said it was, um, sweet (as in cool).

See, http://www.ratebeer.com/forums/armand-spirit_129609.htm.

2) In other news, let's all be aware that B. United is distilling Schneider's Aventinus; http://www.bunitedint.com/information/brands/description/291/