by Keith M » Sat Jan 01, 2011 11:51 pm
A fine evening celebrating the coming of the new year. In addition to a great series of dishes prepared by my housemate, we enjoyed some interesting beers. A great Belgian Christmas ale got things started, with the Delirium Tremens Noël (10%) from Hughye offering a beautiful light touch, slightly yeasty, very complex, delicious flavors, only slight hint of sweetness--very nice with a light touch of caramel. The 2009 Port Santa's Little Helper Imperial Stout (10%) from San Marcos in southern California was quite different. Very dark, some molasses richness, but a whole lot more bitterness on the finish. Easier to drink than the description would suggest, it was still a hefty approach and a beer to enjoy at a slower pace. A magnum of Anchor Christmas (5.5%), on the other hand, from our very own local brewer across the Bay, was flavorful, spicy and delicious, with much less richness, quaffable--which is a great unusual feature for a Christmas beer. Anchor changes the recipe for their Christmas beer each year and this one is simply spectacular--I've set a magnum aside to age and compare with a future year's effort. Next up, my housemate returned with a hand-carried bottle from southern California, an Alpine Nelson (7%) based on rye with those distinctively SBish sauvin hops. Aromatic, explosively expressive, it is and remains a fun beer. People love its expressiveness. Staying in the southern part of California, the Port Older Viscosity (12%) is an entirely barrel-aged beer (not to be confused with Port's Old Viscosity which blends 20 percent barrel-aged beer with 80 percent stainless steel fermented beer). It was really rich, really thick, really really oily. It was interesting (and somewhat unpredictable) to observe who preferred this style and who did not. I found that it had its charms, but was so rich and so intense that I'd be tempted to lay one down for five years and see whether the baby fat burns off and there is something interesting underneath. Of particular interest to me was a bottle who a fellow beer geek feels strongly about and brought back a boatload of from a recent visit to Truckee, north of Lake Tahoe. The Fifty Fifty Eclipse (9.5%) is a barrel-aged stout brewed with honey. Different wax colors over the bottle cap indicate the source of the bourbon barrels, this one was red indicating the barrels were from Four Roses. This was very interesting beer and very, very different from most beers I consume. Very velvety mouthfeel, very silky, sweet, notes of complex and interesting maple syrup, I would think it an easy sell, but some found it a bit too intense for their tastes--though I didn't find any overpowering richness that seems so inherent a risk for such a style. It's really soft, really savory beer and I wish the bottle size were smaller than the 22 ounces offered. It'd be a phenomenal dessert beer in a 12 ounce size. But always, very, very interesting to be able to taste a beer that a fellow enthusiast is so stoked about. The Eel River Climax Noel Imperial Red Ale (10%) from Scotia up in northern, northern California is similar to Anchor Christmas in that the brewer chooses a different style each year for their Christmas beer. This one focuses on the bitter pine needle element, very dark, very earthy, very abrasive. Some really appreciate, others less so. I find it okay. But it calls forth my ignorance--imperial red ale? A style I am far less familiar with and feel less able to evaluate. To do list. Finally the Firestone Parabola (13%) from Paso Robles down on 101 approximately half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles is also a barrel aged imperial stout--evidently the first of a series of reserve beers from Firestone, though I'm not entirely clear on that. My recollection isn't so tight on that beer (they do begin to run together after a while and I wasn't taking notes) but good balance, not super sweet, but a bit rougher and maybe hoppier than the 50-50 Eclipse. Nice beer.
