The Goose is Loose

Day #700 Pere Jacques 2012 / Goose Island Beer Company, Chicago, IL
Previously from this brewery: the others

Today is a Penn State game day, so let's all hope that goes well.  Your beer for the day is a bottle of Pere Jacque 2012 from Goose Island that's been sitting in the fridge for a year or so.  This Belgian style ale poured into a tulip glass a honey brown color, with no head.  There are welcoming aromas of yeast and cherry, and when you imbibe you pick up flavors of sweet malt, bread, apple, dried cherries, and light notes of honey.  From the bottle, you learn that this beer develops well for up to five years, further dispelling the notion that you need to drink beer quickly after it is made.  Good beers are like wine in that they grow and evolve over time, and this one is more than just "good."

That's French for "tasty"

Thing to Think About Today:
If Goose Island is up for review, we're going to pay homage to one of the great film roles of all time, from one of the greatest movies of all time:  Goose, from Top Gun.

Played brilliantly by Anthony Edwards, Goose was Maverick's wing man extraordinaire, even when it came to picking up ladies in the bar - hence, where today's common usage of the word wing man truly originated. And if we're talking about Anthony Edwards, let's give him credit for also being amazing in another "greatest of all time" movie, Revenge of the Nerds, and one of the best tv shows of all time, ER.  My man brings his A game.

You know, I can't even begin to tell you how many women I've picked up in bars by finding a random microphone and then getting the entire bar to join in a sing-along serenade.  Too many to count, really.  So, Goose and Mav (and the rest of the bar), take it away....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRA6rM2gTjk

"Don't worry, I'll take care of this....."

Quick Draw

Day #695 Quick Wit / Fort George Brewery, Atoria, OR
Previously from this brewery: Marci's take on Quick Wit

Up for your reading pleasure is Quick Wit, a "Belgianesque" ale from Fort George Brewery in Oregon. In the glass, this beer is an orange sort of amber, with no head to speak of.  The aroma gives you a floral, malt sweetness vibe, and when you take a sip you pick up notes of orange rind, wheat, and a floral quality.  Not much hops in this wheat beer.  Because I like this beer I think I should let you know this beer can is the worst color can I've ever seen; sort of a mauve thing, which isn't the least bit attractive. However, there were brain teasers on the can, so I am smarter for having drank this beer!

Quick and painless

Fort George is another in the growing line-up of breweries who only distributes in cans (or kegs), rather than glass bottles.  You know you like it in the can, so this is a good thing.

Thing to Think About Today:
This brewery is in Astoria, OR, and that's important because the classic 80s film The Goonies was filmed there.  Without any further adieu, take yourself back in time, and enjoy some "Truffle Shuffle", and to keep things interesting, I give you the dubstep remix.  Just because.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1ou5EGoHng

Day 690: Goose Island Pere Jacques

My advice to you: If you see a problem developing, do not ignore it for months on end. It will not go away. And it may result in a missing toe nail. That is all.

That beer up there is the Pere Jacques 2012 from Goose Island.  It is a Belgian style ale and this particular one was bottled on October 18, 2012. This one managed to age for just over a year in my house and supposedly it ages beautifully for five years. Beer never lasts that long in my house.

It poured a hazy medium-tone amber sort of brown color with a thin off white head. It wasn't nearly as rosy as it looks in this photo. It smells of Belgian candi sugar, bread dough and apricot preserves. It has a full mouthfeel. The flavor is lots of creamy fruit sweetness with a dry finish. There's a little cracker flavor in there as well. 

Beer stats

Style: Belgian style ale

ABV: 8.7%

IBUs: Unknown

Rating: Great

Previously reviewed from Goose Island

A review of Matilda from what feels like a million years ago

Mr.'s review of Honkers

Beer 79: Ename Cuvee

I feel like I've been hit by a bus so this is going to be short and sweet.  I had the Ename Cuvee on draught at Teresa's Next Door in Wayne, Pennsylvania.  It's a Belgian strong dark ale - a style that I've been tasting quite a bit lately. 

Unfortunately this one left me kind of meh about it.  It was served in a chalice with a medium white fluffy head.  It didn't have a discernible scent, which I thought odd.  It drank on the thin, watery side and there was just nothing remarkable about it. I enjoyed it as I drank it, but there wasn't a single flavor that jumped out.  Odd.

My next move is a bowl of soup, a gallon of orange juice and a bartering session with karma to ensure I don't wake up full on sick tomorrow.

Cheers.

Yes, Soup For You!

Beer #67 Bittersweet Symphony / Brouwerij t'Gaverhopke, Stasegem, Belgium

After a long day, it's nice to come home and relax.  Which explains why after work I went to Wegman's, then came home and immediately went to work on making soup for dinner.  And no, we're not talking about opening up a can of Campbell's, we're talking about soup from scratch.  Time consuming? Sort of.  Delicious?  Yes.  Rewarding?  Yes.  Easy?  Eh, this one wasn't too bad.  More on that later.

Tonight's beer comes courtesy of a collaboration project between t'Gaverhopke from (surprise!) Belgium and a small American brewery, Tired Hands, which hails from the nearby town of Ardmore.  Tired Hands will get their day in the sun soon enough (with a visit, I hope), but we're crossing t'Gaverhopke off the list today.

I tried this one on draft at The Farmer's Cabinet, and it pours a hazy orange color with a pleasing citrus and yeast aroma.  The taste combined malt and hops, with some citrus notes and a faint hint of caramel.  Really, a very enjoyable beer that I hope to drink more of in the future.  One of the challenges of this beer blog has been when I find a good beer, I might not get to drink it again due to the need to cross breweries off the list. A risk is that really good but temporary collaborations like this one will disappear from existence before I ever get to drink another one.  Say what you want about macro beers, but I can guarantee that Miller Lite is going to not only taste the same, but also be on tap for years to come.  Bittersweet Symphony?  You better drink it while you have the chance....

Things to Think About Today:
Seems too easy to go with the song Bittersweet Symphony from The Verve, right?  I'll skip it and share with you the recipe for tonight's meal, a healthy take on baked potato soup, which we picked up from smittenkitchen.com:

1 head garlic
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium leeks, white & light green parts halved lengthwise, washed, and chopped small
5 to 6 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth (start with 5 cups, save the extra if you want your soup thinner)
2 bay leaves
Salt & pepper
2 1/2 lbs russet potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/3 cup sour cream

Let's do it:
1. Rinse the head of garlic to remove dirt/loose skin, cut the top third out and discard.
2. In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat, then add leeks and cook until soft (but not brown), about 5 minutes
3. Add the garlic head (whole, not chopped), broth, bay leaves, and 3/4 teaspoon of salt.  Reduce heat and simmer 30-40 minutes, until garlic is very soft.
4. Add potatoes and continue to simmer partially covered until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.
5. Discard bay leaves and remove garlic head.   If you like garlic, take a few soft cloves and mash them with a fork, then return to the pot
6. Add sour cream, cook for another 2-3 minutes.
7. Use immersion blender (or transfer a portion of potatoes & broth to food processor or blender) and process, leaving chunks of potato for texture.
8. Top with something like chives, shredded cheese, bacon bits, or sour cream (or all of them, or none of them), and serve.  Preferably with beer!

Beer 65: BFM Douze or Hydrogen Explosions and Nitrogen Clouds

I spent a great deal of time today talking about rocket chairs, hydrogen balloon explosions, nitrogen clouds and robots making dramatic entrances.  I ordered 1,500 cupcakes and 2,000 hardhats.  Today was a good day.

Tonight we drink Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes Douze.  It is BFM's 12th anniversary brew -- a Belgian ale brewed with hops and fancy pants salt.  Fleur de sel de Guerande to be exact.  It was released in 2009 and evidently can't be found anymore per every site I read.  Why this was hanging out at  Whole Foods in Devon a few nights ago, I do not know. 

Into my tulip glass it went.  It poured dark apricot color and a giant head.  Perhaps that was user error.  Who knows.  It had good carbonation and a yeast funkiness in the nose.  There was also some citrus - lemon foremost.  Drinking it revealed a tart and funky flavor.  There was also a spiciness that wasn't quite peppery but also not an earthy spice like clove.  Very unique.  It had a mild sourness and the fleur de sel was a very interesting addition.  It wasn't outright salty -- more of a hint.  It finished dry and  at 6.5% ABV, left me wanting more. 

Cheers!

Welcome, 2012! Please, Make Yourself at Home.

Beer# 22 Melange a Trois/ Nebraska Brewing Company, Papillion, NE
What up 2012!!!  Feeling really good today - beautiful day in the neighborhood, still laughing from dinner/drinks with friends last night.  Were you aware of the dictatorship of Kim-Jong Neal?  Now you are.  Not the slightest bit hungover, just terribly sleep deprived.  I'm an early bird, so being awake until 3:30am definitely throws off the internal clock.  Thankfully I have nothing to do today except catch up on some reading, watch some HBO... and maybe drink some beers!

We'll ring in the New Year with the beer Marci used to close down 2011.  Nebraska Brewing Co. has put out a barrel aged Belgian blonde ale aged in French oak Chardonnay barrels.  First sip starts with citrus, and finishes with a subtle oak flavor.  Cloudy, golden straw color.  Best comparison I can make: taking a sip of white wine and a bite of french bread all in the same bite, but I mean that in a good way.  I don't think this one is headed for the Top 25, but definitely a beer I would pour again.

I intend to travel to Lincoln, Nebraska to watch a PSU vs. Nebraska football game in the future.  This brewery (and restaurant) appears to be sort of on the way-ish from Omaha to Lincoln, so I therefore intend to also visit them and drink copious amounts of beer one day.

Thing to Think About Today:
If we're talking about road trips, we'll start of 2012 with one my favorite songs ever, courtesy of Eels:

How can you not be in a good mood when you listen to that?  Mr. E's Beautiful Blues was also featured prominently in the movie Road Trip, which comes about as close to the college movie genre gold standards Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds as any other movie out there.  This video stars the cast of the film, in case you were wondering what the video was all about.  Watch Road Trip some day, thank me later.

Eels are a rather unusual indie rock band, and I can't quite pinpoint another group they sound like to use as a reference point. Sometimes upbeat and optimistic, sometimes morose, sometimes unpredictable, always good.  Goddamn right it's a beautiful day.

Attack of the Abominable Snow Hippo

Beer #18:  River Horse Brewing Co.'s Belgian Freeze

Today I'm going to tell you about my favorite animal.  No, it's not the dachshund in his natural habit:  

It's the hippopotamus -- the COOLEST MAMMAL EVER!  Why do I enjoy the hippopotamus -- or the river horse in translation -- so much?  One:  Who could argue with that face?  Especially when he's hanging in the river?

Two:  The hippo, despite its quite unwieldy size, can outpace a human for short distances.  So if you piss one off in the wild, you better hope that you have more stamina.

Three:  It was believed that they were so bad ass that they sweated blood.  Thankfully science has proven that they do not in fact sweat blood, but rather a natural oil that acts as germ protection as well as sun screen.  Heck I'd sign up for this feature if I could!  I spend a fortune on sunscreen.

Four:  Egyptians both feared and honored hippos.  Fear due to the hippo's tendency to hang out in the Nile River.  Honor as the hippo represented the goddess who protected women during childbirth.  Sadly I learned that hippos no longer roam the Nile River while I was visiting Egypt.  But hippo figures abound such as this one:

(courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

I would have preferred to use a photo from The Egyptian Museum in Cairo; however, Arab Spring must have taken down the website because I couldn't get the link to work.  This one is made of blue faience.  Faience is a glazed non-clay ceramic material or silica, composed of crushed quartz or sand, with small amounts of lime, and either natron or plant ash. Its main ingredient was quartz, obtained from sand, or crushed pebbles to which was added an alkali, a bit of lime and ground copper as colorant. When fired, the glaze turns brilliant blue.  Seeing it in person is amazing.  Something that is 2,000 - 3,000 years old should not be so brilliantly blue.  

So in honor of the hippopotamus, the river horse, my favorite mammal, I'm drinking a River Horse Belgian Freeze.  Hailing from Lambertville, New Jersey, this is one river horse that people won't fear.  Unless you get freaked out by crazy beer logos:

(courtesy of the River Horse Brewing Co. website)

The abominable snow hippo turned out to be satisfying on this cold night.  It's malty (go figure, it is me drinking after all!) and has hints of caramel.  I don't notice its spice as much as other Belgian-style ales.  Toward the end of the bottle, I kept getting a hint of something slightly sour...not bad sour, just odd.  I don't know what to make of that.  Sadly I only have one bottle and I can't compare quality between bottles.  Did I get a funky bottle?  Did the spicy brown mustard with dinner mess up my taste buds?  It's a mystery.

Until tomorrow and #19...

Beer #8: 't Gaverhopke Singing Blond

This blog was almost finished before it started tonight as I nearly choked to death on a deadly combination of spicy soup, a slightly too crisp sandwich wrap and beer. Beer in the nose is painful. So is choking.

A far better way to enjoy 't Gaverhopke Singing Blond Ale does not involve snorting it and I highly recommend drinking it. As I sipped it prior to dinner trying to discern the most notable flavors, I managed to drink almost half the bottle. I'm probably misusing sipping and should admit to gulping. Perhaps I should leave it at it's a great session beer. But per every definition of session beer I read, it mostly certainly is not. This one comes in at 9.8% ABV - nearly double the definition of session. Maybe it's just highly drinkable.

In the glass, it is a slightly cloudy golden liquid...a color I often associate with "Oh yeah, I'm going to like this." And on that note, I'm off to finish my beer and wonder why no one names beer after singing brunettes.