     Unplugged Cherry Stout (New Glarus Brewing Company)
The first beer from the New Glarus "Unplugged" series that I've gotten my mitts on. This is a series of limited release and rather unique beers from the Wisconsin brewery which only distributes within the state of Wisconsin. Cherry Stout was actually a beer previously released by New Glarus and has been brought back due to popular demand. From the New Glarus site: "This ale is aged in Oak barrels to promote the spontaneous fermentation. Eight Wisconsin malted barleys combined with Wisconsin Montmorency Cherries make for a complex and sublime taste experience that you may never find again." Here we go... Pour - pours rather light for a stout. By that I mean it appears like a brown ale when it comes to depth and has some hints or red or auburn in the light. Minimal head with only a thin ring remaining after the pour settles.
Aroma - a nose full of cherry cough drops, that is what I get. Maybe its mixed with black cherry flavored soda. This is a little more intense than I would have liked from a cherry stout, so much for subtle.
Taste - sweet and sour cherry flavor up front that quite dominate with some hints at maltiness but nothing close to a roasty/toasty stout in the background. This is pretty tart and the color of this beer really does nothing more than trick your eyes and palate. I am slightly tasting the oak but the cherry is just too much and takes over immediately.
Overall - I am astonished by the flavors of this beer. I was pretty excited by a stout that had been aged in barrels with some subtle cherry flavors. Instead, it is almost as if this beer is dominated by cherry and whatever else was involved is nothing more than an afterthought.
Would I buy more of it? - since I don't live in Wisconsin it's not really a question I am faced with. However, I do wonder what those who were originally psyched about this beer and somewhat responsible for its return are thinking. Is this the same beer or is this some sort of cherry cough syrup flavored beast that has supplanted the original in a terribly unfortunate way?
Note - If you LOVE strong cherry-flavored beers then you will LOVE this beer.
Posted by Russ Labels: Wood-aged Beers, Fruit / Vegetable Beer, Stouts | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
    Oktober Chest (Birrificio Lodigiano)
Jeez, where to start with this one... This particular beer seemed to have washed up on the shores of Sweden due to a wrecked cargo ship. I can't find much of any information about it at all. (I don't recommend a Google search, especially not an image one.) When I saw the name listed on the state run liquor store website listing I had a horrible idea of what kind of label we were going to be dealing with. First of all it's an Italian beer released to coincide with Oktoberfest, secondly it's called Oktober Chest....you can see where that was going.. Thankfully, things were much tamer than I first thought (no exception on the label design). The chest actually refers to chestnuts (I feel kind of stupid now). I should have known that from the start considering the popularity of that particular nut in Italy. Apparently you can do a lot with them... (These particular ones are a variety called Marrone d'Appennino or "Apennine Brown" in Italian.) The label calls this an "Autumn Beer" as well as an "Amber Chestnut Ale" and explains the toasting and infusion process. I think it's rather obvious that this beer has nothing to do with Oktoberfest, but rather a celebration of the Italian fall. Then again I could be wrong... Pours a robust dark brown and cloudy color with traces of carbonation. The head (as it predicted on the bottle) is very much thick and compact. It is white, leaves lacing and takes forever to fade completely away. In fact I don't think it ever does really. The smells is earthy (Belgian), slightly sweet with hops and a bold caramel/dark toffee aroma. Like fresh baked brown bread with icing on it. Very very rich and if I knew for certain I'd say that chestnuts were also present...only I don't exactly know what they smell like in a liquid form. In a blind tasting I don't think you could be faulted for thinking this was one of the Trappist doubles (Rochefort 6 or 8 in particular). The taste is incredibly smooth, especially for 7%. It has notes of hops, something that I can't recognize - but is certainly a key component - that I would have to say is the chestnuts, as well a somewhat chewy caramel quality. Not overly carbonated (always a good thing with darker beers in my opinion) but it's still not a heavy beer. It's actually medium bodied (a term used when nothing else fits) but still has a lot of character from the different components. Not least of all the very long drawn out aftertaste that is slightly sweet and sour. I can't say that I don't like this, because, well, I do like it. I just don't know entirely what to make of it. It reminds me of Belgium - but not entirely. It reminds me of an amber ale - but it isn't. Quite simply it's a "chestnut beer" and the first I've ever had the fortune to drink. Obviously you know what you are doing if you decide to brew a beer like this, and it shows. The components are there, but I keep coming back to one particular thing: this reminds me of the beers from Brasserie Dupont in Belgium, a brewery that I absolutely love who are famous for their yeast (people buy it in shot glasses). In other words: highly recommendable. It's very drinkable, has a lot of taste, not over powering, it's different and yes, it's from Italy! This really bodes well for the revolution in Italian brewing going on...
Posted by Kelly | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
