The two-sided tasting sheets (reproduced below – click to see full-size images) listed 61 beers. “Barrel Aged” is of course not a beer style in itself – you can put any beer into a barrel – so the variety at this festival is larger than at style-specific events like the IPA Festival. This also means there’s not a professional judging, just a People’s Choice Award voted by attendees. Most beers tend to be heavier stouts, with the occasional Belgian-style wild beers showing up and some crazy one-offs here and there.

(As of this writing, has not seemed to be announced.) [Update: folks on the Beer Advocate message board say that the winner was Lagunitas' Bourbon Barrel Cappuccino Stout.]

[Update: The Bistro's web site lists the People's Choice winner as Drake's Wild Stallyns. Runners-up, in order of votes received: Lagunitas Bourbon Cappuccino Stout, Avery Rumpkin, Glacier Big Woody, Bear Republic Nectarine Grizz, Fifty Fifty Imperial Eclipse Stout, and Sierra Nevada Barrel Life & Limb.]

This year I tried twenty of the beers. I’m worried that my palate can’t be trusted with that many, but I did rate (on a 10 point scale) and take notes on each, so I’m going to post each brief review here in alphabetical order by brewery. Almost every beer was good – only two didn’t pass muster, which indicates a pretty amazingly consistent level of quality. We live in the best time for beer the world has ever seen.

• Avery Rumpkin (8.5-): A heavy pumpkin beer done mostly right. “Yum, sweet, not syrupy to start.” Not overwhelming with weird additives, but still “lots of spice, nutmeg?” “Maybe too much alcohol?” No head, clear medium red/brown. Doesn’t linger, maybe a little boozy, very drying on the end. One of the day’s most interesting beers.
• Bear Republic Barrel Aged Ryevalry (7.5): “Yummy, fruity, yeasty, rye.” I love Bear Republic, and I love rye beers, but haven’t cottoned to the regular Ryevalry. The barrel aged version, well made as it is, doesn’t quite catch my fancy, either.
• Drake’s Brett Butler (8.0+): “Russian River-esque”. A light, tart, lean beer. Love the Brett in this one. Finishes a little weak, then some burn in the chest. But really 9.0%?
• Drake’s Volte-Face (7.5+): “Sour, but not too dry or puckering.” “Maybe a little flabbier than Russian River’s style.”
• Drake’s The Creator Has a Mastertape (9.0): One of the best of the day. Ugly, murky appearance, but otherwise the perfect porter style. Has that fizzy edge and powderiness, tastes like a heavier, higher-alcohol beer than it is.
• Fifty Fifty Imperial Eclipse Stout – 2010 Four Roses Bourbon Barrel (8.5): Fifty Fifty has nailed the barrel-aged imperial stout. They have a great base beer that they perfectly age in beautiful American whiskey barrels. Four Roses is my favorite bourbon, but this beer wasn’t quite my favorite barrel-aged stout at Festival this day or from Fifty Fifty ever. A little thinner feeling than its companion beer (see below). Still, a great example of what a beautifully aged beer can take from a great bourbon barrel.
• Fifty Fifty Imperial Eclipse South – 2010 Heaven Hill / Rittenhouse Rye Barrel (9.5): My favorite of the day. A great base beer aged in a barrel formerly holding my favorite rye (see my post here). “Sensational. Chocolate, hints of coffee, some sweet, some dry, some wood. Full of flavor, but not too much of anything.”
• Firestone Walker 14 (9.0): The annual blend from Firestone Walker is quite deservedly a cult favorite. I’ve loved every one since the initial release of X. “Smooth, well-crafted. Maybe a touch too perfectly honed? Such finesse.”
• Firestone Walker Nectar Black Xantus (8.0+): “Coffee, coffee, coffee – yum!” Not acrid or dry coffee, just thick and rich. Maybe a little hot on the throat. Is that what happens with a 12.0% beer?
• Glacier Brewhouse Big Woody Barleywine (8.5+): I love English-style barleywines (not so much the American version), and this is a great example. A tiny bit too much vanilla for my taste, but otherwise superbly made. Yum.
• Lagunitas Bourbon Barrel Cappuccino Stout (8.0+): A great introduction to barrel aged beer in general. Very good, almost great – all of the wood, whiskey, and dryness that barrel aging brings. “Reminds me of Schlafly’s barrel-aged beers.” Is the standard Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout 11.0%, or was this a ramped up base beer?
• Marin 21 Year Old Ale (7.0): One of my favorite breweries, though I think Arne is still dialing in the sour styles. I liked this one, but it’s not “tight” like what Russian River has shown us. The finish feels sort of flabby.
• Moylan’s Ryan Sullivan’s Imperial Stout 2008 (6.0-): Tied for least favorite of the day. I really like the base beer in its native form, but this seemed sour when it wasn’t intended to be. “Shows the perils and unpredictability of barrel aging.”
• Moylan’s Wet Hopsickle 2010 (7.0-): The base beer is inconsistent, but when good, one of my favorite beers ever. In this case I thought, “Hoppy but winey, tannic, doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. Simcoe-style burn down the chest.”
• Port Brewing Older Viscosity 2009 (8.0-): Dark beer, looks like a stout. But “smells fruity, winey.” Is that roast in there? “Nice to get some hints of roast, though this isn’t a stout at its heart.”
• Russian River Consecration 09 (9.0+): Consecration is generally in my top five beers ever. Such a masterpiece. The ’09 was dryer than the ’10 (see below), some vinegar-style acid. So yummy. What a slightly tart but still rich barrel aged beer should be.
• Russian River Consecration 10 (9.5-): “So good. Big favorite. Tart but not puckering, so taut.” Obviously a sister to the ’09, but milkier. A great beer.
• Sierra Nevada Life and Limb (8.0-): “Like the Lagunitas – no obvious coffee, but still very typical or well-done barrel aged beers in general.” Hints of coconut in this one.
• Speakeasy Bourbon Barrel Aged Payback Porter (6.0-): I love the base beer, and always sought it out when it was available only on tap as Hunters Point Porter. But this version is a failure. No flavor, only a thin texture of vanilla and stinging alcohol. A shame.

Kudos to Vic Kralj and team at The Bistro for putting on these festivals. The price for this one was $40 for a souvenir glass and ten tasting tickets, with additional tickets $2 each. Pours seemed to range from 2-4 ounces. Not cheap, but absolutely worth the price.

• Report: 2009 Barrel-Aged Beer Festival at The Bistro: Hayward, CA (my writeup of last year’s festival)
• Report: 13th Annual IPA Festival (2010) at the Bistro: Hayward, CA (previous Bistro festival)
• The Bistro Events Page

My blog covers all sorts of unrelated topics. You can find just the posts on beer here.

The two-sided tasting sheet (reproduced below – click to see full-size images) listed 54 beers. I think all of them were present, with at least one semi-secret “extra” beer not listed (see comments below).

My general thoughts on the selections and the India Pale Ale style have not changed from last year (my full writeup of the 2009 festival here), so I’ll just repeat them:

Although The Bistro’s IPA Festival is second probably only to the Great American Beer Festival in the number of India Pale Ales under one roof, the lineup does not try to give an overview of this beer style in general. The beers here are almost exclusively from California, and almost exclusively brewed in the West Coast style popularized by breweries like Stone in Southern California and Bear Republic up north. These are dominated by citrus-y American hop varieties, tending more toward a fruitiness than the grainy spiciness of the India Pale Ale style invented in England.

This “American IPA” sub-style is probably my favorite type of beer. The good news is that California brewers have really dialed this style in – these days it’s hard to find an outright bad one anywhere. On the other hand, even hardcore proponents would probably admit that there’s not much stylistic variation among California IPAs. So even though I focused on beers that were new to the scene or more obscure than most, they were more similar than they were different.

This year I tried sixteen of the beers (including four of the five named winners of the formal judging and People’s Choice, the full results of which you can find on Jay Brooks’ excellent Brookston Beer Bulletin here). But my palate got tired, so I’ve only posted notes for those that I think registered properly. They’re in alphabetical order by brewery.

• Ballast Point Sculpin (7.0+/10): A favorite of many beer geeks as the big brother to the brewery’s Big Eye IPA, and certainly priced as if it’s something special (22oz bombers sell for $8.99 in the San Francisco Bay Area). Generally in that citrus hop-forward American style, but I found the texture a little thin. Sculpin wasn’t on the printed list (Big Eye was), so discovering it was a special – if somewhat disappointing – treat.
  
• Bear Republic Racer 5 (6.5/10): The day’s surprise. This is one of my all-time favorite beers, a desert island go-to. Racer 5 helped pioneer the American IPA style. But today it felt a little tired and unassertive. This is the last beer I tried before I pronounced my palate unfit for reliable feedback, so maybe that was part of the problem. Or maybe the American Pale Ale style has caught up to Racer 5, with American IPAs dialed up farther (Bear Repulic enters Racer 5 in the APA style at the GBF).
  
• Drake’s Aroma Prieta (7.5+/10): “All bitterness, all the time. Slightly murky.” Interesting, but I don’t love the edgy bitter profile – I prefer some sweeter, heavier malt to keep things grounded.
  
• Fifty Fifty RyePA (8.0/10): First tried at least year’s Festival (see my writeup and the brewer’s comments for some context). I’ve since had it at the brewery, and today’s sample is what I’ve come to know as this beer. Very murky yellow, though not unattractively so. Clean tasting, with lots of rye tang that avoids sharpness. Downright wonderful silky mouthfeel, like a Pinot Noir. Still, although I want to love this beer, I always end up just really liking it.
• Fat Heads Head Hunter IPA (7.0+/10): This beer from Cleveland won the formal judging at last year’s festival, and this year rated Honorable Mention. I found it well made, but unusual – almost English tasting, with some heavy drying tannins reminiscent of a big American Cabernet. Head Hunter has personality, but it’s not one I want to revisit all that often.
  
• Firehouse Hops on Rye (6.0-/10): I’ve still never had a beer that I enjoy from Sunnyvale’s Firehouse. I think the brewer and I have differently-calibrated palates. And I love rye beers! In this case I could see the beer polarizing drinkers in a “love it or hate it” way. Some earthy overtones, also maybe a minerality common in certain waters or wines. Very hard to describe.
• Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA (9.0/10): Such a great beer. Beautiful amber color, not straw/yellow like many others of this style. Hop-forward, but remembers that beer is made from grain, with a great rich malted barley undertone. One of my favorites since it was introduced (at this festival!) several years ago.
• Iron Springs The Crippla Version 2.1  (6.0/10): I love Iron Springs’ Casey Jones Double IPA, but Saturday’s beer bore little resemblance to its big brother. The Crippla Version 2.1 was thin and watery, closer to hop water than a robust beer. My notes read “Enough malt?”
• Midnight Sun Sockeye Red IPA (7.5/10): It’s always a treat to be able to try beers from Alaska’s storied Midnight Sun Brewing Company. Their “Red IPA” was good. Though the hops are traditional American – listed as Centennial, Simcoe, and Cascade – I tasted more of the earth and spice I associate with British hops. Not citrus-dominant like most others at the festival.
• Russian River Blind Pig (8.5/10): Always a great beer. Blind Pig has a downright wonderful hop aroma – such a hallmark of consistent quality. The character is just a little more “piney” than I like – more trees and less grapefruit than most other American IPAs.
• Russian River HopFather (9.0/10): Probably my favorite of the day. And most others’, too – this beer won the People’s Choice, though it didn’t place in the formal judging. That wonderful aroma, with a welcome sharpness in the texture. A nice, bracing beer. I’ve heard that this one is only good fresh – that it quickly changes character for the worse as it ages in the keg – so your mileage may vary if you encounter the HopFather on draft. But it’s certainly worth the risk.
• Sierra Nevada Chico IPA (9.0-/10): I loved this beer, made with “experimental hops.” A darker color than most, with a very substantial bitter character. The hops had the tangy character of New Zealand’s Nelson Sauvin, which I quite like (but probably isn’t to everyone’s taste). Chico IPA placed second in the formal judging, so I wasn’t the only one who thought it was great.
  
• Triple Rock IPAX IPA (9.0-/10): Another huge favorite for me. This was the beer I would most want to have two or three of. Wonderfully balanced, but still with the hop-forward character of an American IPA. Not a sweet beer, but still gives the palate some releif from bitterness. This is the second time a Bistro festival has pleasantly surprised me with a great beer from Triple Rock in Berkeley. I need to get over there more. (And IPAX placed first in the formal judging!)
  

Kudos to Vic Kralj and team at The Bistro for putting on these festivals – and for keeping the price the same this year! I think it was $25 for a souvenir tasting glass and four tickets, with extra tickets something like $2 each. Not cheap, but worth the price.

• Bistro IPA Festival Winners 2010 (by Jay Brooks)
• The Bistro Events Page
• Report: 12th Annual IPA Festival (2009) at the Bistro: Hayward, CA (my writeup from last year)

My blog covers all sorts of unrelated topics. You can find just the posts on beer here, including writeups of several other beer festivals.

"Bourbon Whiskey" by Katie Spence on Flickr

David Driscoll, the spirits buyer at K&L Wine Merchants in Redwood City, just posted a good list of “Quick Facts” about Bourbon Whiskey, along with brief profiles of a few distilleries. It’s not a comprehensive overview or introduction – he doesn’t claim it is – but it’s worth bookmarking as a reference.

I’ve conducted several “guest lectures” like the one for which David created these notes. If I were in his shoes, I might augment them as follows.

1. David writes the following:

Jack Daniels and George Dickel are NOT bourbons.  They are technically Tennessee Whiskies because …

And he’s of course correct. But while the people at his tasting should definitely know that there’s a distinction, I would add that the difference is more a geographical curiosity than “flavorfully meaningful”.

Yes, there’s an extra step applied to the making of Tennessee Whiskey, but it probably doesn’t affect the flavor. No less an authority than Chuck Cowdery is skeptical of the difference – he makes the point in a blog post here:

People will sometimes get all high-and-mighty about how Jack Daniel’s isn’t a bourbon, and it isn’t, but as a practical matter the difference is merely technical. For all intents and purposes, Jack Daniel’s and George Dickel are bourbon in all but name. If they taste different, it is because each maker crafts a slightly different flavor. Those differences in flavor have nothing to do with them being a different type.

Insisting on the distinction between Bourbon Whiskey and Tennessee Whiskey can quickly make whiskey seem inaccessible, turning off newcomers. It’s interesting as a footnote, but not important to the flavor of the whiskey.

2. Speaking of which, David does not explicitly touch on a question that always arises at these events: how does bourbon differ from Scotch?

Here are a few ways, in increasing order of importance:

• Most bourbons spell “whiskey” with an “e” before the “y”, a distinction no one should care about (see: annoying snobbery).
• Nor should anyone care much about the difference in type of still. Bourbon is made in a column still, while malt Scotch comes a much older-fashioned pot still. The former is also called a “continuous still,” because it never stops running – much more efficient than a pot still, which goes one batch at a time. Some folks think the pot still inherently grants more or different flavor, but I suspect it’s not as much about the still, just how you use it. (The photo in this post shows a barrel stencil at Woodford Reserve, the only bourbon distillery I’m aware of to use pot stills for some of its whiskey.)
• The barrel, new charred for bourbon vs. a wider variety of reused barrels for Scotch, does have a big impact on flavor.
• But the biggest difference in flavor comes from the base grain, corn in bourbon vs. barley in malt Scotch.

The best way to learn the difference is just to drink a bunch of different whiskies. Why not start with a bourbon?

• Bourbon Review, by David Driscoll
• Tennessee Whiskey vs. Bourbon Whiskey, by Chuck Cowdery
• Tennesse Whiskey and Protection as a Geographic Indication
• Favorite Budget Bourbons, by Ethan Prater

However, the DIPA Festival has also become quite expensive! This year’s tariff was $35 for a souvenir glass and just five small pours (4-5 ounces each). Additional drink tickets were $2 each. I remember when it felt expensive at $25 entry and $1.50 drink tickets.

An astonishing fifty-eight Double IPAs were on tap (with a couple of notable exceptions to the style), nearly all from California. The average quality was very high, certainly much more consistent than several years back. I’ve scanned and posted the complete list below (click the images to view full size).

I tried eighteen of the beers (but missed two of three winners of the formal judging, the results of which you can find on Jay Brooks’ excellent Brookston Beer Bulletin here). Following are my notes on each, listed in descending order by how much I liked the beer:

• Firestone Walker Double Jack (9.5/10): My favorite of the day, but not typical of most approaches to this style. Double Jack keeps the malt as an almost equal partner to the hops. There’s tons of both in this beer, and that’s how I like it.
  
• Green Flash Pallet Wrecker (9.0+/10): My preferred profile, with lots of bready (but clean) malt backing up the hops. Marin Brewing’s White Knuckle, which I didn’t try at this festival, is my go-to beer with this character. Of the Green Flash I wrote, “Great balance.”
  
• Russian River Pliny the Younger (9.0+/10): The cult of this beer overpowers what can be rationally said of it. But yes, it’s very, very good – even great. Just feels more like a brewing parlor trick than an actual beer – a virtuoso brewer’s showpiece rather than something to be deeply enjoyed. No one else wrings as much flavor – and dryness – from the style as Vinnie Cilurzo does with Pliny the Younger.
  
• 21^st Amendment Hop Crisis (9.0/10): The ultimate exemplar of the fruit-forward style of DIPA, where citrusy American hops are the king and malt there just for texture. I loved this year’s batch of this beer so much I had it again at the brewpub on Monday night.
• Speakeasy IIIPA (9.0/10): This brewery is really coming into its own after several years of boringness. The IIIPA tasted like juicy fruit, almost bubblegum. Was there wheat in there? Quite scrumptious, and noticeably different from many others I tried. Loved it.
  
• Drake’s Donogginizer (9.0/10): This one’s becoming a local favorite, and I can see why. Just a great all-rounder. Heavy on malt, heavy on hops, but still relatively clean. A pleasure to drink.
• Moylan’s Hopsickle Imperial XXX IPA (8.5/10): This beer has changed a lot over the years (and seems they never know what to call it, either). But it has usually been very good, and the current version is excellent. I wrote, “Wow! All hop showcase. Less malt than others, but not bad for it.”
  
• Sierra Nevada Hoptimum (8.5/10): Nice, and different! I tasted grass, not just citrus and pine. Maybe some noble hops in here, like Saaz or Hallertau?
  
• Drake’s Hopocalypse (8.5/10): Edgier than Drake’s round Denogginizer. “Great hops, a little thin on the finish.”
  
• Rubicon HopSauce (8.0/10): The only beer I tried that placed in the formal judging. “Not overly hoppy, closer to a single IPA.” “Very good drinker.”
  
• Port Brewing Mongo IPA (8.0/10): I tasted this from a friend’s glass before knowing what it was. I said, “This is a really good regular IPA, but it’s out of place here!” Probably put itself at a disadvantage compared to its heavy hitting competition.
  
• Bear Republic 11 (8.0/10): Fascinating beer, and very well made, but not sure if it’s something I would want to drink regularly. Almost as if they denatured the hop flavor to focus primarily on bitterness – sort of like the essence of pure bitterness. My notes: “not too fruity” and “a little thin, some edge”.
  
• Glacier Brewhouse Double IPA (8.0/10): The prettiest beer of the day. “Beautiful head – clear, dark beer.” And “malty.” But even though I prefer relatively malty DIPAs, this one didn’t have the accompanying hop character. “Like a bitter brown ale.”
• 21^st Amendment Two Lane Blacktop Imperial Black (7.5/10): The “Black IPA”, pioneered by Stone Brewing with their Eleventh Anniversary Ale (now a regular release called Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale) is a favorite pseudo-style of mine. Adding that tiny bit of roasted flavor to the American IPA, and turning it black, just really appeals to me. But I didn’t love 21A’s attempt at a Black DIPA at the festival. Tasted little or no roastiness, and found the texture a little watery. However, I liked it better when I tried it again at their brewpub on Monday night.
  
• Lagunitas Hop Porno (7.5/10): Lagunitas’ Hop Stoopid is often one of my favorite DIPAs (though the bottlings have wild variation, so you’re never sure what you’re going to get). But Hop Porno had an off-smell and initial attack that put me off. The middle palate and finish were great, but this beer didn’t hang together as well as some others.
  
• Fat Heads Hop Juju (7.0/10): This Cleveland brewery won the formal judging at a recent festival (maybe the IPA Festival?), but I didn’t enjoy this beer as much as most others. “Minty – wow, mint!” was my note.
  
• Bear Republic Five Zero (6.5/10): Still my favorite brewery overall for their sublime Racer 5 IPA and Hop Rod Rye, but their festival-oriented one-offs have not been big hits with me. Based on the name, I was hoping on some relative of the juicy Racer 5, but I noted Five Zero as “close to flavorless” (presumably in comparison with the other richly-flavored beers present).
  

And I should mention the dark horse unsung hero of all of this year’s San Francisco Beer Week Events, the “Imperial Common” brewed by a collection of San Francisco Brewers:

• SF Brewers’ Guild Imperial Common in Jack Daniels (9.5/10): Not a Double IPA by any stretch. Wonderfully round all-around drinker, close to a perfect beer. Barely a hint of barrel, perfect texture – not too thick, not too thin. A beer that just feels right. I’ve tried it four or five times so far over San Francisco Beer Week – every sip makes you know you’re in good hands. Spectacular accomplishment.
  

Another great event, very nicely pulled off by Vic Kralj and the team at The Bistro. Let’s just hope the prices stabilize or decline – there’s no longer a hop shortage to use as an excuse!

• Bistro Double IPA Winners (with video of ceremony, by Jay Brooks)
  
• The Bistro Events (Hayward, CA)

Going back a few years, in late 2005 big Kentucky distiller Heaven Hill released Bernheim Original Wheat Whiskey, which they (now incorrectly) call “The Only American Wheat Whiskey.” (I have a bottle somewhere back in the bunker, but couldn’t easily find it to compare to the Dry Fly.)

More recently Death’s Door Distillery in Madison, WI, has released another 100% wheat whiskey (actually an unaged moonshine-style) called “White Whiskey.” (My review of the Death’s Door is here.) Like Death Door’s, Dry Fly’s is a totally local product – it uses only winter wheat “sourced from within Washington State.”

As of this writing there have been only two releases of Dry Fly Whiskey, both quite sensationally oversubscribed. Retailers in the Spokane era saw lines around the block on the release days, and were forced to ration bottles to make sure as many people as possible could get them. I asked my Spokane friends to get me a bottle of Batch One, but they were either rationed from getting an extra for a friend, or showed up at the store at lunchtime when everything was already sold out.

Fortunately the intrepid David Driscoll of local Redwood City retailer K&L Wine Merchants sourced a few bottles of Batch Two last month, and I got one for $52.99.

Immaculate packaging – a squat, broad-shouldered transparent bottle with a foil cap and cork stopper. The Dry Fly logo is silk-screened, but the rest is an adhesive label (presumably this is the same bottle used for Dry Fly’s very popular gin and vodka).

I believe this whiskey is aged in fresh charred oak for two years, lending the liquid a color of clear light brown or even an attractively burnt orange. It smells sweet – that’s the wheat talking – with a tiny hint of barrel char.

The flavor is very nicely integrated – predominantly sweet vanilla, maybe some toffee and mellow mushy fruit. A very easy-drinking whiskey, though with just a touch of unexpected burn on the back of the throat (and it’s bottled only at 40% abv – helpful to squeeze more bottles out of limited production, but not to get the most flavor from this very gentle distillate). Without any other grains in the mash, you get none of the spice typical of bourbon or rye whiskey. A nicely lengthy finish, given the young age.

Dry Fly Wheat Whiskey has a very nice round flavor – it’s sweet and simple without any hidden complexity. Which is fine – this would be a good sipper on a warm afternoon or an excellent cocktail base.

I’m loath to make generalizations about 100% wheat whiskey having tried just three (Bernheim, Death’s Door, and Dry Fly), but I wonder if some corn, barley, or rye would add some needed complexity to the final spirit. The simplicity here feels a bit like tasting a component of something larger (to be fair, what I think of many single malt Scotches).

Anyway, if I gave scores, I would Dry Fly’s Whiskey (Batch Two) 84/100. Who knows what it might grow into with more time in the barrel?

(My blog includes ruminations on all sorts of unrelated topics. You can find just the whisky posts here.)

I first heard about this obscure Midwestern whiskey on Mark Gillespie’s excellent WhiskyCast. I expected never to see it in California, but on Friday I eagerly grabbed it off the shelf at Cask, San Francisco’s best spirits shop. Price was $39.99.

All-wheat whiskies are becoming quite the trend. In late 2005 Heaven Hill released Bernheim Original Wheat Whiskey, which they still incorrectly call “The Only American Wheat Whiskey.” (I have a bottle somewhere back in the bunker, but couldn’t easily find it to compare to this Death’s Door.) More recently Dry Fly Distilling in Spokane, WA, has released another 100% wheat whiskey called, simply enough, “Dry Fly Washington Wheat Whiskey.” (My review of the Dry Fly is here.) Like Dry Fly’s, Death’s Door is a local product – it uses only winter wheat “from Washington Island, Door County, Wisconsin.”

The Death’s Door packaging is as bare-bones as it gets. Two crude transparent labels on an absolutely clear bottle, highlighting the absolutely clear (that is, no color at all) liquid within. Sealed with foil and a cork stopper. The distillers barely even mention their whiskey on their web site, which focuses on their better-established gin and vodka.

But though it’s clear, this whiskey is not flavorless like a vodka – it has all the silky sweetness characteristic of pure white dog, probably emphasized by the wheat. It’s a little hot in the middle, more than you might expect from a 40% drink that starts and finishes with such mellowness. There are hints of banana, the ester that indicates a young spirit. Apparently the distillers put this whiskey in oak barrels for a couple of days before bottling it – not enough time to add any color or wood flavor, but perhaps helping to add some roundness. Also like white dog, the finish vanishes quickly and cleanly – a sort of instant evaporation from the tongue, before it has time to make its way down your throat.

I’m guessing that Death’s Door does not intend to make the White Whiskey a flagship product – that they’ll age it for several years and release their whiskey in a more conventional format. I can see making a nice cocktail from Death’s Door White Whiskey, but given the alternatives – even those costing half as much – you wouldn’t want to make this your late-evening contemplative sipper. (If I gave ratings, I would give Death’s Door White Whiskey a 76/100 – but it’s not trying to be a “real” whiskey, rather a way for you to taste fresh spirit, and for that I’m quite glad.)

Links to more information on Death’s Door White Whiskey:

• Distillery web site
• Review on “American Hooch”
• Conversation on StraightBourbon.com

(My blog includes ruminations on all sorts of unrelated topics. You can find just the whisky posts here.)

Scotch whisky – when served neat, with water, or on the rocks – often comes in a “rocks glass”, sort of a low straight-edged tumbler. This serving style is fine with me, though it lacks pizazz. Some argue that rocks glasses give short shrift to the whisky’s aroma, too.

The recent crop of glasses designed specifically for Scotch, including Riedel’s (introduced in 1992), tend to be tulip-shaped – like what whisky makers use when nosing samples to make blends. The Glencairn Glass (introduced in 2001) and CelticMalts Spirits Glass (introduced in 2003) also follow this design.

Riedel’s “O” Chardonnay glass is more of a snifter. Somehow it makes drinking Scotch feel elegant but not pretentious. The glass is thin enough to put the focus on the liquid inside, but not so fragile that you feel like you can crush it with your hand (something I’ve done several times to Riedel’s more costly Vinum Whiskey Glass). I suspect some people would argue that the bowl and opening of this glass are too large to properly focus the aromas of the whisky – those folks might look at some of the narrower “O” series glasses, including the new Spirits Glass in the line. I personally find all but the dedicated Chardonnay glass too closed at the top, hard to get a good solid drink out of – and this goes for the one they call Viognier-Chardonnay “O” glass, so be careful what you order.

Note that I have not tried this glass for mixed drinks. I suspect you’re better off sticking with traditional shapes for cocktails. And I don’t like the O Chardonnay glass for bourbon. Not sure why, but somehow bourbon tastes better to me out of a thicker tumbler.

As of this writing, it seems Riedel’s O Chardonnay Glass is generally sold in boxes of two for $24.95. Not cheap, but still good value for the quality you get.

(I owe a debt of a gratitude to the “real” whisky Ethan – Spirit Sommelier Ethan Kelley of New York’s wonderful Brandy Library. Ethan chose this glass as the Brandy Library’s standard for serving Scotch. He introduced me to it when they opened in 2004, and as of April 2010  it remains the standard at this peerless whisky bar.)

Pros of the Riedel “O” Chardonnay tumbler:

• Easy to find in stores
• Dishwasher safe
• Not so costly you’ll cringe when one breaks
• Nicely thin but not fragile

Cons:

• Shows fingerprints easily
• Not inexpensive ($10-15 each)
• Suitable for home only – don’t take it camping or to the beach!

Hakushu is produced by Suntory, the same conglomerate responsible for the better-known (and wonderful-in-its-own-right) Yamazaki single malt whisky brand. As of this writing, Yamazaki is the only Japanese single malt whisky exported to the USA – which means you won’t find Hakushu on the shelves in this country. (Suntory just started bringing us Hibiki, their best-known blended whisky, so some American whisky enthusiasts hope Hakushu will be next.)

While in Japan, I tried Hakushu in at least three different expressions: 10, 12, and 18 year old. At the time I preferred the 18, but the 12 year old was much more affordable and still great. So that’s what I brought home with me and opened this past week.

And boy, am I glad I did. Hakushu 12 Year Old is a wonderfully integrated tour of almost every flavor possible in a (Scotch-style) single malt whisky. You get pure malted barley, yeastiness, slight vanilla oak, some fresh flowers and grass, slight honey, and yes, more than a hint of peat. Hakushu is generally quite lean, verging on skeletal or clinical in how it presents itself. But it’s courageous. No tricks, nothing hiding behind too much wood, too much sherry, or too much smoke. With a plenitude of flavors in absolutely perfect balance and a texture just thick enough to hold it all together (but no thicker), Hakushu is elegant but not light, full but not oily, clean but not enervated.

What’s more, Hakushu’s distinct peat is not thick or heavy. While those familiar with Scotch might rightly compare Hakushu with Scotland’s island styles, Hakushu lacks the iodine character of a Laphroaig and the fusel oil texture of an Ardbeg. Hakushu’s peat smoke is less aggressive even than Bowmore’s, less peppery than Talisker’s, and less masked by wood or sherry than Highland Park’s. To my mind, Hakushu is an ideal way to discover peat flavor for the first time.

The late Michael Jackson (the much-loved beer and whisky critic, not the ex-husband of Priscilla Presley) once called Scotland’s Highland Park “the greatest all-rounder in the world of malt whisky,” but Hakushu gives Highland Park a run for its money.

If you would like to try Hakushu in the USA, then you’ll have to find an enterprising local bar manager, order from one of the more liberal British retailers or pick it up on a trip overseas. Don’t overpay – I would start getting skittish around eighty bucks, would skip it at a hundred – but do go out of your way to track it down. Hakushu is that good.

Following are my favorite American whiskies that can be found for under $20 per 750ml bottle. Prices listed are current on the linked retailers’ web sites as of 15-December-2009. (By the way, WordPress’ thumbnail creator is cruel, chopping off lots of the images – if you click on them, you can browse the full labels and photos in all their glory.)

• Jim Beam Black Label (bourbon, $16.99)

  Jim Beam Black is one of my favorite bourbons at any price. Vastly better than the standard white label stuff. Big and rich tasting, but relatively little alcohol burn given its quite assertive character. In fact I think this whiskey might be from the same batches used for Booker’s – another favorite of mine – though in this case they make sure it’s least eight years old (+), dilute it down to 86 proof (-) and filter it (-). So what? Jim Beam Black is not just good – it’s great.

• Rittenhouse Rye Bottled in Bond (rye, $19.99)

  The world has found out about this great whiskey bargain, so the producers and distributors have kicked up its price from $12 a few years ago to over $20 in some markets. Oh well – Rittenhouse Rye 100 proof Bottled in Bond is still the best rye for the money available today. And it’s a nice introduction to the style generally. Rittenhouse BIB showcases the unique spiciness and fruitiness of rye grain without becoming edgy like some of its competitors. Drinks beautifully on its own, but also makes a wonderful cocktail. (Be careful not to confuse this with the 80 proof Rittenhouse Rye, with the tan label. I’ve compared them only once, but much preferred the 100 proof version, which is worth the extra couple of bucks over its little brother.)

• Very Old Barton Bottled in Bond (bourbon, $12.99)

  I love this hard-to-find bourbon so much that I wrote an entire blog post about it here. What are you waiting for? If Binny’s will ship to your state, call them up (or click on the price above) and have them send you a bottle. Even with shipping costs you’re still well under $20 to try this gem.

• Elijah Craig 12 Year Old (bourbon, $19.99)

  Sigh – another one whose price has skyrocketed in the past few years. I remember buying Elijah Craig for just $11.99 in 2002 – in New York City, even! Now it’s very hard to find under $20, though still not overpriced if you like its idiosyncratic flavor. Elijah Craig shares with many of its fellow Heaven Hill bourbons a minty overtone that I often like (but occasionally loathe). Your mileage will also vary, but at this price the risk is low.

  With Elijah Craig 12 Year Old you also get some nice oaky tastes uncommon in younger, less expensive bourbons. The distillery that used to make Elijah Craig burned down some years ago, so the current bottlings come from a different distillery (owned by the same company, using the same recipe and warehouses). Of course various Internet conspiracy theorists and curmudgeons claim the older stuff was better, but I’ve no idea how to tell from the label which distillery a particular bottle came from. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Beautiful bottle and cork stopper (the only whiskey on this page I would recommend giving as a gift), distinctive taste, still nicely- though not super-bargainly-priced.

Don’t forget, you can click these images to get a better sense of what each label or bottle looks like.

And a few runners-up in the category:

• Old Grand-Dad Bonded Bourbon (bourbon, $19.99)

  An unabashedly rye-heavy bourbon made by Jim Beam. Old Grand-Dad Bonded (like all bonded bourbons, this is 100 proof) tastes wonderful to me – full of grain, confident in its old-school personality. But the texture is just a little too thin for it to make my top list in this price range. The Old Grand-Dad 114 is much richer on the palate (and comes in a fancier bottle), but sells for 25% more.

• Bulleit Bourbon Frontier Whiskey (bourbon, $21.99)

  Diageo’s answer to Beam’s Knob Creek brand. I much prefer Bulleit to its hipster competitor. Though the (excellent) packaging implies this is a rough-and-tumble whiskey, it’s actually quite gentle. Floral, with lots of the fruit that I associate with rye-heavy bourbons. Listed as a runner-up only because I can’t find it consistently under $20 (sometimes dips to ~$18 in California when there’s a mega-sale on).

• Jim Beam Rye (rye, $14.99)

  With its former bright yellow label and super-low price, Jim Beam Rye was the sort of thing you might skip over at the corner bodega. But you would have been wrong – in its day this stuff was downright great. Meaty, sizzling, in your face (in a good way). Unfortunately this whiskey seems to have fallen on hard times in recent years. Even before Beam switched to the gentler beige label shown here, I tasted several bottles that were too young. Lots of banana esters and other immature unpleasantness, though with an overall reticence unbecoming of this former muscleman. Still, if you’re on a dark street corner and the shady liquor shop has Jim Beam Rye, then it’s worth taking a chance on.

• Old Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey (rye, $14.99)

  Another Jim Beam product, Old Overholt seems pretty much synonymous with rye whiskey in every bar. It is absolutely fine for a Manhattan or Old Fashioned – preferable to even high-end bourbons in those particular drinks. I’ve tried it neat only a couple of times, but found the finish too quick. So while I wouldn’t recommend it on its own, you shouldn’t hesitate to try it as the base of your cocktails.

(Side note: earlier in 2009, John Hansell of Malt Advocate started a couple of good conversations about whiskey prices and high-value whiskies on his blog here and here.)

My blog includes posts on all sorts of unrelated topics. You can find just the whisky posts here.

Early last year I was inspired by a post on Chuck Cowdery’s blog to revisit this limited-distribution budget-priced bourbon. I had purchased a bottle in Kentucky in Summer 2002 and loved it.

My 2008 bottles did not disappoint. I ordered a few from Binny’s in Chicago, where it was then priced at $11.99/bottle (it has since risen to $12.99, still a steal, even when you add shipping costs). I just finished a second bottle and am delighted that I still have one in the archive. (I believe Very Old Barton is distributed only in the Midwest. Certainly not in California. So online ordering is your best bet.)

Note that we’re talking about the 100 proof version. Very Old Barton is also bottled at strengths of 80, 86 and 90 proof, none of which I’ve tried. The lower-proof versions aren’t designated “Bottled in Bond”, a vanishing and somewhat restrictive category that essentially states the whiskey comes from a single “vintage” and is 50% alcohol by volume (100 proof).  I’ve heard that the 100 proof version will lose its BIB status sometime soon, but Chuck states in the post linked above that the flavor profile should not change, at least in the short term.

Anyway, this bourbon is beautiful. Full-flavored without being a monster – you could still mix it if you like. VOB BIB’s unique characteristics are of banana and mint, though these flavors don’t dominate. Maybe a tiny bit of butter, though the texture is overall dry. You can taste the barrel influence with oak and vanilla, though again, neither dominates. The finish doesn’t go on forever, but that’s fine – no reason that you need to be still drinking your bourbon an hour after you’ve swallowed it.

I won’t go on, either. At this price, there’s no reason you shouldn’t just buy a bottle and try it yourself.  If I owned a bar, this would be my well bourbon.

Keep an eye out for the “Bottled in Bond” designation above the brand name. Again, that’s not necessarily an indication of quality – I’m just curious whether it has  been deprecated. The company’s web site shows a label where that’s replaced with just “Hand Crafted” on the 100 proof bottle – let me know in the comments which label you find.

• Chuck Cowdery’s April 2008 post mentioning Very Old Barton Bottled in Bond 100 proof Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
• Binny’s listing for this whiskey

(My blog includes post on a wide variety of topics. You can find and subscribe just to posts on whisky or other adult beverages via the links in the right column.)

This might be the only Chilean Pinot Noir I’ve ever seen. Chile certainly has no Pinot heritage, so I’m guessing this winery’s foray into Pinot is very recent. Perhaps inspired to capitalize on the Sideways Pinot boom or just to indulge the quirky passion of an individual winemaker.

I got this bottle from Garagiste in early 2009 for $19.99 – it’s worth nearly twice the price. (Drank it on Thanksgiving of the same year.)

The 2004 Casa Marin “Cartagena” Estate Grown Pinot Noir (Chile: San Antonio) is a wonderful hybrid of the Old and New Worlds. It leads with earth and funk like a Burgundy, but the middle palate and finish are thick and fruity, like a California Pinot. The texture tends toward the heavy side without heading into syrup. Even though it’s not overly viscous, this Cartagena Pinot has a brooding personality that is just wonderful. I wonder if that comes from the types of barrel they use, since there are hints of deep oak and even very faint smoke. This wine stands up well to air, asserting its distinctive dark characteristics over many hours.

A great find from Chile. I wish I had stocked up on this one. If you see other wines from this winery or other Pinots from this region, take the risk.

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I’m not super-familiar with the story of Anthill Farms, but it seems they’re some young winemakers specializing in vineyard-designate Pinot Noir from Mendocino and Sonoma counties. Brian Snelling at San Mateo’s excellent boutique wine shop 750ml first introduced me to Anthill Farms in 2008, but I recently (September 2009) bought the non-vineyard-designate Anderson Valley Pinots at two different stores and drank them the same week. Both were excellent.

I found the 2006 vintage at Santa Rosa’s Bottle Barn for $29.99 and am sorry I didn’t buy their entire stock. This is just a great Pinot for $30. Everything that’s special about the Anderson Valley: fruit-forward in the American style, but not thick or syrupy like some Carneros or Santa Barbara Pinots. A tiny bit of funky earth – maybe this is what wine writers mean when they say they taste “truffles” – but none of the watery thinness common to so many Burgundies. Very nice medium silky texture, less edgy than most Oregon Pinots. And while Pinot Noir is generally not “structured” in a Bordeaux/Cabernet way, this wine has a modicum of complexity that takes it beyond the juicy-fruit characteristics of lower-end Russian River Valley Pinots.

A week or two later I picked up the 2007 vintage of the same wine at K&L Wine Merchants in Redwood City. This was much more expensive at $39.99 – a fair price, but not a bargain for a wine of this quality. The 2007 had similar Anderson Valley characteristics – forward American fruitiness, but leavened with some earthy character. This more recent vintage lacked some of the depth of its 2006 sibling – not sure if this was because of vintage or vineyard variation, aging, or what. Still very, very good.

The Anderson Valley is my favorite region for Pinot Noir, though its special qualities are ephemeral – not every Anderson Valley Pinot captures them. These Anthill Farms wines absolutely do. Don’t pay more than $40, but definitely try either one as an exemplar of the character (okay, “terroir“) of this great Pinot Noir appellation.

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Bamberg is a charming small city of about 70,000 in northern Bavaria. It’s reminiscent of Bruges in that it escaped bombing during WWII, retaining a twisty medieval character. Bamberg is home to eight old German breweries (plus a modern brewpub), two of which specialize in Rauchbier (smoked beer).

For a non-beer tourist, Bamberg is worth a day trip if you’re already in Bavaria – perhaps touring Neuschwanstein castle or other local attractions.  The old city hall, towers, and other medieval buildings are just wonderful to see and explore.

For beer aficionados, Bamberg is an absolutely required pilgrimage. A unique bit of beer history preserved here (by the way, Evan Rail wrote a superb overview of beer travel in Germany, including great pointers to Bamberg and Rauchbier, in the New York Times a couple of years ago).

Here are a few of my notes and recommendations, followed by a photo album:

• Take a cab from the train station to the old part of the city or to your hotel. The station is just far enough away from the action, and in a relatively grim-looking part of town, to make walking unpleasant.
• Stay at one of the breweries. At least two have guest rooms – Spezial and Mahr’s Bräu. A very nice way to get at heart of what Bamberg’s about.
• Try some Rauchbier at the source. Spezial (my favorite) and Schlenkerla (better known) are the only two breweries that make it. Rauchbier is described in many ways: “bacon beer,” “like licking an ash tray,” “the beer equivalent of a peaty single malt Scotch whisky, like Ardbeg, Laphroaig, or Lagavulin.” A must-try.
• Visit the Geyerswörth Palace. I’ve no idea if there’s anything worth seeing in the actual buildings, but you should climb the tower (key is available from the Tourist Office a block or two away) and take in the beautiful views of the town and the hills around.
• The Weyermann Maltings is a can’t-miss destination for the beer geek. Professional- and home-brewers both will know the Weyermann name – one of the world’s best-known and highest quality malted grain providers. Call in advance to arrange a tour. They’ll happily show you around if you give them at least a day’s notice, but are much less willing to accommodate immediate requests. The well-stocked gift ship is open only on Fridays, but you might be able to get them to open it for you on a different day. Amazing selection of beer-related gear, the most interesting being beers brewed at their pilot brewery on site. The only ales I saw in Bavaria. Weyermann beer is ultra-rare, sold only at this gift shop.
• Our favorite breweries, in descending order: 1) Spezial (definitely smoked beer, but not over-smoked), 2) Mahr’s (try the “ungespundet” – head and shoulders above their others), 3) Schlenkerla (the classic richly-flavored Rauchbier), and 4) Klosterbräu (decent all-around lagers).
• We did not like any of the beers at Fässla, and we tried them all. The service was also distinctly unfriendly.

Here are some of my photos from Bamberg. As always, I suggest viewing the slideshow directly on Flickr here, but you can also get a sense from the gallery I’ve pasted below (note that there are two pages of photos):

A few months back I went to Munich for the world’s oldest and greatest beer festival. I loved it – Oktoberfest wildly exceeded my expectations.

I had been to Munich at least once before, but not during this time of year. I expected a New Orleans Mardi Gras-like crush of drunken screaming twenty-year-olds to ruin the vibe. But no – though things were occasionally rowdy, the entire feel was one of, well, gemütchlichkeit! Just lots of happy folks celebrating beer and food in a Germanically-organized way.

You can find tons of Oktoberfest travel/tourist information all over the web. The official website is excellent and a great place to start. But here are a few tips from my experience:

• You can enjoy yourself mightily without ever getting a tent reservation – the outside Biergartens always have space, and they serve the same food and beer as inside. And the regular Munich beer gardens, like Augustiner and Hofbräu, are going full tilt, so you don’t even have to be at the Wiesn to have fun.
• However, you should definitely get at least one reservation for at least one tent, just to have the full experience. You haven’t been to Oktoberfest until you’ve sung “Take Me Home, Country Roads” alongside an oom-pah band and 4,000 of your newest friends.
• Eat the chicken. It’s amazing. We called it “crack chicken”. No idea what they do it back in the big rotisserie areas, but it tastes like no other food. Downright sensational.
• The BMW Museum has been around for more than thirty years, but has recently expanded with some new buildings (essentially comprising a fancy dealership). Worth a visit – most efficient way to get a feel for the Bavarian fetish for engineering.

There are six breweries allowed to brew and serve Oktoberfest-style beer for the festival. I tried five of them in situ at Oktoberfest tents. Generally I found them much lighter in color and dryer in both flavor and texture than American renditions (Sam Adams does a great Oktoberfest in the richer style I’m used to).

Here’s my force-ranked list of Munich Oktoberfest-style lagers, in order of preference (loved one, liked three, disliked one). German beers tend to be more alike than different (largely due to the preference for lagers, and the ongoing oppression of the Reinheitsgebot), so we’re looking at a relatively narrow spectrum here:

1. Augustiner: head and shoulders above the rest. Had it at one of their beer gardens, at one of their tents, sought it out again several times. Scrumptious.
2. Hofbräu: tasted at the one tent in the Wiesn that pours it. Very well made. No sense that they’re phoning it in given the popularity of their eponymous Hofbräuhaus.
3. Spaten-Franziskaner: better-known internationally for their Weissbier (wheat beer), which our hotel served at breakfast. But Spaten-Franziskaner also does a nice job with the Oktoberfest style. A touch too dry for my taste, but still excellent.
4. Paulaner: one I had liked a lot in bottle in the USA, but a bit disappointing compared to the others. Quite drinkable, just not the “a-ha” I got from Augustiner.
5. Löwenbräu: probably the neatest-looking tent (see photos below), but by far my least favorite beer. Tried it twice at two different places. Just harsh and unpleasant to my palate.

Now to the photos. As always, I think they look much better in full-screen slideshow format on Flickr here, but I’ve inserted a gallery below if you would rather poke through that (note that there are two pages of the following gallery).

Let’s just get it out of the way. The Bogle 2007 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir is ruined by an overwhelming buttery note. This wine has several other redeeming qualities, but they don’t outweigh the butter.

I’ve started to despair of finding a sub-$20 Pinot Noir that’s worth drinking. Certainly sub-$15 is even tougher. My requirements are not high – just something that tastes recognizably like Pinot (rather than the all-too-common “generic red”). Anything more than that is just icing on the cake.

The Bogle Russian River Pinot Noir from 2005 was an excellent easy-drinking, fruit-forward, all-Pinot-all-the-time wine. I downright loved it. And it sold for $11-14 wherever I saw it.

Unfortunately the 2006 was flat and lifeless, and while the 2007 has some character, it’s fatally flawed.

I bought a bottle of the 2007 in the spring (of 2009), and didn’t think much of it. But when I saw it again last week at The Wine Stop in Burlingame – for just $11.99! – I thought I would give it another go. I bought four bottles and have tried three of them.

Yes, there is red-blooded American Pinot all over this wine. From the smell to the taste, definitely there in a way few other budget Pinots ever manage. Very promising. And there’s no harsh “budget wine edge” to the texture, either – if anything, this is almost too viscous or richly-textured for a Pinot. None of those positive attributes overcomes the buttery-ness that’s obviously present at the beginning and just grows as the wine opens up, like a blight in your garden. In beer this character comes from a chemical byproduct of fermentation called diacetyl, and it’s often a ruinous flaw. Definitely kills this wine.

I don’t know Bogle, but I think they’re a big purchaser of bulk or declassified wine from name-brand wineries. Nothing wrong with that at all. But that generally means you get less consistency from year to year, so you’ve got to be careful.

Anyway, Bogle’s 2007 Russian River Pinot Noir is not worth even $12. If you want Pinot, then double your reservation price to $25. If you want good red wine in this price range, then try something from outside the US.

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• Bogle Vineyards Home Page
• Bogle 2007 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir Fact Sheet
• 2007 Bogle Russian River Pinot Noir at K&L Wines

• The Barrel Aged Festival
• The Bistro Wood Barrel Aged Beer Festival
• West Coast Barrel-Aged Festival

But whatever it was called, Vic Kralj and his team pulled off a great event. Like several attendees, I was hit by some sticker shock – $40 for ten 2oz pours, up from last year’s already-high $35. I hope that’s because The Bistro pays the breweries for their beers (some festivals get brewers to provide beer for free – saying it’s for marketing).

In any case, there were 65 beers on tap, most from the West Coast. Here are scans of the beer list provided to attendees:

Today’s was the fourth annual barrel-aged festival at The Bistro – I’ve made them all except last year’s. Unlike at previous years’ barrel-aged festivals – and unlike at The Bistro’s other annual festivals – there was no professional judging at today’s event. “Barrel-aged” isn’t really a style in itself, so it’s very difficult to compare beers of such varying types.

(There was still a People’s Choice ballot, but as of this writing I haven’t seen any word on the winner. Usually Jay Brooks posts this information, but I don’t see it on his event writeup here. I’ll update this post when the winner is announced.)

Regardless, two general categories could describe the majority of beers on offer: 1) sour (generally Belgian-style, inoculated with wild yeast or bacteria) or 2) dark and sweet (usually aged in an American whiskey barrel).

Although I love sour beers, today I stuck almost exclusively to the latter type. All told I tried twelve beers, not quite 20% of what was being poured. I did not have a bad beer today. While it’s possible I just got lucky in my selection, I would rather believe that it’s because American brewers are getting the hang of how to use wood to age their beers.

Here are my thoughts on each beer I tried, stack ranked from favorite to least-favorite:

• Grand Teton Bourbon Aged Doppelbock (9.5/10): My favorite of the day. Loads of vanilla, but the overall character was simultaneously sweet and dry, somehow. Quite complex. (At heart I’m a lager guy – I’ve got a soft spot for lager yeasts and styles.)
• Fifty Fifty Brewing Imperial Eclipse Stout 2008 (9.5/10): Sublime. Rounded, chocolatey, warm, a bit of bourbon wood without overpowering the beer. A big beer, but balanced. Really wonderful.
• Deschutes Black Butte XXI (9/10): The same as the bottled version? Regardless, downright sensational – this beer beats the better-known “Abyss” hands down. Surprisingly mellow, lots of coffee without overdoing it. Just a great beer that does not shows its 11.0% alcohol.
• Moylan’s Wet Hopsickle 2009 (8.5/10): A little bit of the Double IPA Festival right here on Barrel-Aged day! But seriously, the super-juicy hops are balanced really nicely by the Chardonnay barrel. Previous editions of this beer have been sickly sweet, obscuring that American hop character. But this one nails it – excellent.
• Linden Street Burning Oak Black Lager (8.0/10): Much different from most others I’ve tried, in that this was truly the texture of a lager (thinner than the robust ales typically aged in barrels). Just up and down good. This one aged with bourbon-soaked oak chips – the type of thing a homebrewer could do. And should, based on the subtle character it adds to this great Schwarzbier.
• Glacier Brewhouse Oak Aged Glacier Eisbock (8.0/10): Smelled to me like a beer from a bourbon barrel, but no – listed just as a “used American oak wine barrel”. Scrumptious malt (my note is “yummy!”). The brewer’s description (see p2 above) says it’s “brilliant dark ruby red in color”, though mine was a murky but not unattractive brown.
• Sierra Nevada Porter on Scotch (7.5/10): Sierra Nevada brought the only two beers explicitly stated to have been aged in Scotch whisky barrels (which were of course used for bourbon or sherry before going over to Scotland). I really liked this porter, which was bone dry. In fact that was its only flaw – just dry and a bit smoky, without any respite. I would love to add a bit of a sweeter beer, see how it helps round this one out.
• Bear Republic Clobberskull (7.5/10): “Brewed with 10% raw wheat and 10% split peas[!]“. Wow. I described this one as  “fascinating mess”, with no perceptible pea flavor. Fruity, some latent tartness, also some sweet viscosity. But not too much of anything.
• Bear Republic Trebuchet (7.0/10): Belgian Tripel from a 100 year old Cognac barrel. Unusual. Not quite sour, but some fruit. This one lacked “beerness”, turning more into a spirit-type taste.
• Fifty Fifty Brewing Imperial Eclipse Stout 2009 (7.0/10): Very good, but not great. Hard to believe it’s the same beer as the 2008 vintage mentioned above. Thinner mouthfeel, a tiny bit harsh. Is the only difference the barrel (this one’s Jack Daniels vs. the ’08′s Pappy Van Winkle) and a year of age?
• Maui Black Pearl (7.0/10): Coconut! This must be Maui’s flagship coconut porter with some barrel aging, though the writeup doesn’t make that clear. I love the base beer and used to buy it all the time before they changed it from six-packs to four-packs and increased the price. But the barrel doesn’t seem to add much here, and it certainly doesn’t tame the slightly edgy texture.
• Glacier Brewhouse Beam Black Rye Bock (6.0/10): The day’s only misfire. Which was a shame, since it was the only beer mentioned to be made with rye malt, which is always a favorite of mine. The flavor seemed like it could have been great, but the finish on this beer was super short – over before you even could get at it.

A great – if pricey – beer festival. Amazing to see the fun brewers are having with wood aging. See you at next year’s!

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The 2008 Pinot Noir from Valle Perdido in Patagonia (Argentina!) is the second-best under-$15 Pinot Noir I’ve ever tried. It’s actually pretty good. But that doesn’t mean I would recommend you buy it.

I purchased this bottle from K&L Wines in Redwood City, CA, in May 2009 for $11.99. Attractive label, screw cap. K&L’s description follows:

“Patagonia might be best known for its frigid weather and the U.S. clothing company that has capitalized on this image of a blustery, rugged tundra, but that may all be about to change. Seems it’s just such a climate that helps Pinot Noir to develop its characteristic bouquet and complexity. This 2008 displays a fragrant, pure, and explosive nose, which expresses vivid summer red fruit and juicy cherry aromas. There are also some tropical fruit notes. The attack is fresh and full bodied, with a harmony between acidity and structure. Balanced and elegant, with a long persistent finish.”

After many disappointed tries, I’ve found that the best you can hope for in budget Pinot Noir is a “varietally correct” character. That is, does it recognizably taste like Pinot Noir? Most Pinots in this price range fall into the “generic light red” category. You hope only for Pinot taste – anything more than that is a bonus.

Valle Perdido’s 2008 Pinot goes one step better than just Pinot flavor. As K&L reports, this wine actually puts the fruit front and center in a bright, exciting way. From the aroma to the attack, this is definitely assertive Pinot fruit in all its exuberance. You could mistake it for nothing else.

But it’s all downhill from there. A thin texture, with none of the velvety mouthfeel characteristic of this grape, nor any of the underlying subtlety that makes you want to spend time with the wine. And despite K&L’s claim, there’s no finish at all – this wine vanishes about 80% of the way through your mouth. Just when it starts to get enjoyable, it’s gone.

Regardless, the Valle Perdido 2008 Pinot Noir is very good for the price. Might be the kind of thing you get by the case for your backyard BBQ if you feel obliged to serve Pinot. However, in this price range there are far better overall red wines (the most obvious being the almost embarrassing plethora of excellent Malbecs, also from Argentina; but also look at budget French wines from good vintages – no kidding, great values to be found). And if you want Pinot Noir, you’re going to have to move up to at least $20 to get something with a modicum of complexity.

“Recommended”, with strong reservations.

And the best under-$15 Pinot Noir to cross my lips? Bogle’s 2005 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir was worth more than 2x the price. Unfortunately the 2006 and 2007 vintages of that same wine weren’t nearly as good.

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However, the menu at the Yamazaki tasting room (“Whisky Library”) contains hundreds (thousands?) of other Suntory whiskies, including the sublime Hakushu, which I will review here shortly.

One of the best distillery tours offered in any country – absolutely worth going out of your way for.

Unfortunately my photos are not of the best quality, but they should give you some feel of the experience. I always suggest viewing the Flickr slideshow here, but you can get a feel for the photos from the gallery below.

1. 1516 Brewing Company in the First District. My full review is on BeerAdvocate here. To summarize, an American-style brew pub in Europe. Everyone speaks English, styles are generally highly varied (and highly hopped – they even brew Hop Devil IPA from Pennsylvania’s Victory Brewing), and the food is generically average. The beer is overall superb, though – I tried everything on the menu and the blackboard and didn’t have a single clunker. Just don’t come here expecting to explore the nuances of Austrian beer history or culture.
2. Siebensternbräu in the Seventh District. Still an easy(-ish) walk from the center of the city. Absolutely charming inside, with a tendency toward more European styles in the beers. I had a couple of very good lagers there, and an awesome Käsespätzle (cheese noodles) with bacon. Went beautifully with their signature Hemp beer.

My general sense was that Vienna doesn’t have much of a craft beer culture, that big-company lagers (and some macro wheat beers) are the main offering nearly everywhere. I couldn’t even find a good, “native” Vienna lager anywhere – one of my favorite styles when produced by American craft brewers.

You can’t go wrong with the beers at either of the above-two brewpubs, though, nor the food at Siebensternbräu.

My photos are probably best viewed directly on Flickr here, but I’ve also inserted them as a gallery below. (Most of them were taken with my BlackBerry, so they’re not the greatest quality.)

Thanks again to the authors of the web pages below, which helped me quite a bit on such a short trip:

• BeerAdvocate BeerFly
• Vienna Beer Gen
• Vienna Pub Guide

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While in The Smoke I took some photos, a handy ninety-two of which I deemed suitable for the public.  The focus is primarily on the Fuller’s Brewery, the last major brewery operating in London (and always my first stop when I visit the city), with some shots of St. Paul’s, The Vintage House whisky shop in Soho, and a random burnt up Ferrari on the street in St. John’s Wood.

You’ll find it easier to browse the photos directly on Flickr here, but I’ll insert a gallery into this blog post, too.

The tasting list (scans inserted below; click to see full size) included a mind-boggling sixty-two beers. But unfortunately at least ten “hadn’t arrived yet” as of two hours into the event. And even more unfortunately, five of those were included in the seventeen I wanted to try (marked with a “+” on my tasting list). So I tasted an even dozen IPAs.

Although The Bistro’s IPA Festival is second probably only to the Great American Beer Festival in the number of India Pale Ales under one roof, the lineup does not try to give an overview of this beer style in general. The beers here are almost exclusively from California, and almost exclusively brewed in the West Coast style popularized by breweries like Stone in Southern California and Bear Republic up north. These are dominated by citrus-y American hop varieties, tending more toward a fruitiness than the grainy spiciness of the India Pale Ale style invented in England.

This “American IPA” sub-style is probably my favorite type of beer. The good news is that California brewers have really dialed this style in – these days it’s hard to find an outright bad one anywhere. On the other hand, even hardcore proponents would probably admit that there’s not much stylistic variation among California IPAs. So even though I focused on beers that were new to the scene or more obscure than most, they were more similar than they were different.

The twelve beers I tried, in alphabetical order by brewery name:

• 21^st Amendment “US IPA” (6/10): I’m not sure if this is the “Brew Free or Die” IPA that 21A started contract brewing and canning in Minnesota, but it did remind me of that beer, which tastes like a lighter, dare I say “dumbed down” version of the 21A IPA that used to be canned at the brewpub in San Francisco.
• Ale Industries “Rye’d Piper” (3.5/10): I’ve not heard of this brewery, apparently in Concord, but I love the character of rye in beer. This one tasted crude, like the ingredients weren’t integrated. I didn’t finish my taste.
  
• Bear Republic “Apex IPA” (7/10): Bear Republic’s Racer 5 IPA put this style on the map, and it’s still probably my single favorite go-to beer of any style. Apex is leaner, more aggressive. Excellent, but I like more malt sweetness than the brewer is going for here. The slight burn usually indicates Simcoe hops to me, but the tasting notes mention only the standby “C hops” (Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, Columbus) common to most American IPAs.
  
• The Bruery “Humulus Lager” (NR): The Bruery – in my brother-in-law’s hometown of Orange, CA – has been establishing itself as a specialist in Belgian styles. Certainly the hardcore American hop bill (see tasting list) takes this one away from Belgium, but a lager? I love lagers, including (especially) the IPA-like Reality Czech from Moonlight, but this one didn’t do it for me. It was ruined by a skunky smell – perhaps lightstruck in the pitcher that The Bistro was using in between keg and glass? So I’m guessing it was flawed and not what the brewer intended (otherwise I would give it a 5/10).
  
• Drake’s “Aroma Coma” (8.5/10): My favorite beer of the day, though not the best, if that makes sense. Tons of citrus all over, but very well integrated – many of these super-dry-hopped beers give it all up on the nose and forget to follow through with the flavor. A really nice, complete beer.
  
• Drake’s “Bass Ackwards” (7.5/10): Another great showing. This one was a little edgier than the Aroma Coma, with that throat-burning that comes from Simcoe hops.
  
• Fifty Fifty “Rye PA” (NR) and “Rockslide IPA” (NR): I think this brewery in Truckee won an award at a recent Bistro festival – maybe the Double IPA? So I was extra-excited to see they brought a rye beer today. But I’m convinced these two beers were mixed up. The beer labeled “Rye PA” was a very clear light yellow, almost like a macro-lager, and had no rye character – also a little thin in the texture. The beer labeled “Rockslide IPA” was a murky dark brown, some reddish highlights, tasted like it needed to settle a bit. Several other seemingly-knowledgeable attendees commented independently that they also thought these were mislabeled.  [Update: both Alan, the brewer of these beers, and Vic, the festival organizer and Bistro's proprietor, have confirmed in comments below the beers were correctly labeled and were being poured correctly. I stand by my perceptions of the beers, but we can assume they were not mixed up as I and several others thought.]
• Firehouse “Hops on Rye” (4/10): Another rye beer – woo hoo! But another misfire. The rough-edged character of a poor homebrew.
  
• Russian River Brewing “The Hopfather” (8.5/10): A new IPA by Vinnie Cilurzo, apparently based on an old recipe he contributed to Sam Calagione’s book Extreme Brewing. Just beautifully crafted – all hops all the time, but a light-medium mouthfeel that keeps it from being edgy, as if the malt is lending texture without too much flavor. The best beer I had, but not my favorite. Though I did go back for a second pour.
  
• Speakeasy “Midnight Run IBA” (6.5/10): I love the emerging style of “Black IPA”. Pioneered, I believe, by Stone with their stellar one-off Eleventh Anniversary Ale, now reincarnated as the regularly available Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale. One of my favorite beers ever – and I like almost nothing else from Stone. I also love the version brewed at 21^st Amendment in San Francisco. Now fellow SF brewery Speakeasy has one, presumably a new recipe by their new-ish brewer. Very very good, but just shy of great, at least with this small taste. I hope I can find this at Toronado, so I can spend some more time with a bigger pour.
  
• Triple Rock “Puffy Shirt” (7/10): Nice to find an American IPA that’s not just hops, hops, and hops. Seems like the brewers were going for something session-able. Still tons of character.
  

The five beers I wanted to try but couldn’t find:

• Auburn Ale House Gold Digger IPA
• Devil’s Canyon Devil Rye IPA
• EJ Phair Retro Fit
• Tied House Menage a Sing Black IPA
• Triple Rock IPAX IPA

Tip for those attending festivals at The Bistro: you can almost always get a table if you show up by 10:30. To my mind it makes for a more pleasant experience than standing in the crowd that shows up in the early afternoon.

Update: Jay Brooks, who writes the beer stories on local newspaper blog Bottoms Up and also his own excellent Brookston Beer Bulletin, has posted the winners of the formal judging here. After all my talk of California, a Cleveland brewery wins First Place!

• 1st Place: Head Hunter IPA (Fat Heads Brewery & Saloon)
• 2nd Place: Wipeout IPA (Port Brewing)
• 3rd Place: Aroma Coma (Drake’s Brewing)

• People’s Choice: The Hopfather (Russian River Brewing)

(P.S. My blog covers all sorts of unrelated topics. If you’re interested in just the posts about beer, you can subscribe to those here.)