Tasting Notes - The Beginning

Prisoners of Carbonation

Alison and I love beer.  We drink quite a bit of it and have been drinking it since before we were even legally allowed to.  Who hasn't?  Beer is something that can be just what it is: bubbly alcohol water, or it can be something that can reflect a myriad of flavors, textures and adventure.  We've started down the path of craft beer and I think we're far too deep in the forest to find our way out, but I'm cool with that.

We've written about our adventures to Stone Brewery before, so we've been aware of craft beer and some of the breweries that are out there.  Lately, however, we've really been seeking out different beers, becoming loyal to certain breweries and finding liquor stores and tap rooms that specialize in beer brewed with more than mass production in mind.  It's become a bit of a compulsion.

Going through the process of selecting beer based on style, tasting notes or even by brewery is like hitting the Thrify's for ice cream as a kid, except now we have a bit more of an adventurous pallate.  We've substituted mint chip waffle cones in for a delicious vanilla-infused smoked porter.  Done away with our Heineken 12-packs and are now bringing home a half dozen 22-ounce bottles that cover the spectrum of beer styles from Saison to Stout.  Nothing can be more than vanilla than drinking a 6-pack or 12-pack of the same thing weekend in and weekend out, but let's be clear that we're not above an ice-cold Budweiser either.

I understand that some people like familiarity, but it's like having the same entree every time you go to your favorite restaurant or only enjoying pepperoni pizza.  I have stopped enjoying my beer as if I were a child who refuses to eat anything that is not 'plain'.  I like food that is seasoned, covered, smothered and drenched in flavor.  Therefore, I will take my beer in similar fashion.  If I'm going to drink beer on the weekends and spend my hard earned money on a mental vacation, I might as well be sitting on the beach rather than on a cruise-ship with the masses as they pass by said beach in a homogenous floating can.

I wanted to recant and write something about not being a beer snob, but I've come to the realization that I am.  I embrace that label and I know there are many others out there as well.  I'm not the most seasoned in writing tasting notes, but I do understand the vocabulary and styles of beer.  So instead of really explaining the nuiances, I'll just try and give a surface-level explanation of what each beer has to offer.

We haven't been updating this thing too often, but maybe if we start writing about the beer we enjoy, maybe we will start writing about the food we cook and the restaurants we visit again.  So here goes our attempt at sharing our beer tasting adventures of late.

Modern Times is a brewery that we've been seeing a lot of as of late.  With their clean and appealing graphics design and clear explanation of the beer inside, we've found these guys to do a great job at making a good beer.  Pictured above is the Black House, which is a coffee stout that we found very enjoyable.  Some coffee stouts tend to lack the flavor you'd expect or wind up being over-the-top in sweetness, but we found this to be nicely balanced with a rich stout body and smooth coffee finish.

Mikkeller SpontanGooseberry is a crisp and delicious Lambic with a light sour bite.  A lot of people that haven't tried sour beer find it off-putting, but once you give it a chance it will grow on you.  Kind of like how I didn't start eating salad until I was 20.

Another Mikkeller offering we enjoyed was their Milk Stout.  Whenever I try to explain a stout to someone, the most relate-able stout they know is Guinness.  Stouts can be much more just like this Milk Stout.  The glass is dirty in the above picture and it's pissing me off.

Le Trappe Jubalaris was a tasty Belgian Ale, which is actually the only Dutch brewery that makes Trappist beer.  There are only 10 breweries on the world that are allowed to use the term 'Trappist', which means the beer was brewed in a monestary and to specific standards.  Does that make the beer tasting experience better?  You bet it does!

Stone Cali-Belgique is a fun beer.  It's an IPA, but with a Belgian spin.  Basically a nice, hoppy presence with the spices that are familiar to a Belgian beer.

 Mother Earth Brewery has a handful of great beers, but Cali-Creamin' was the first beer we tried by them and were immediately in love.  Cali-Creamin' is a cream ale that has a sweet finish akin to a cream soda such as A&W.  It's a pretty cool flavor to find in a beer, but it's not overly sweet to where the beer itself becomes a novelty.  Whenever we see this one around we try and grab it, and more often than not it's the last one on the shelf.

There were a few more beers we planned to write about, but who has time to write about beer when there's only so much time in the day where one can drink beer?

Sausage Party

Do you ever find yourself slightly hungover and thinking about rabbit and snake sausage?  On Saturday morning this is exactly where we found our stomaches and thoughts wandering.  Lucky for us, we didn't have to do in the Easter Bunny ourselves because there exists an exotic sausage restaurant right in downtown L.A.

Wurstüche is not the easiest place to find.  We had tried to go there before for some serious sausage eating, but were met with much opposition.  It was a Monday night, which is just a stupid night, and on the way there our Garmin™ malfunctioned and we got lost in the land of one way streets.  The combination of being hungry, lost and having the Monday blues had put us in a pretty foul mood by the time we finally found the joint.  We were greeted by a long line and the prospect of having nowhere to sit, not to mention the fact, that the place was stuffed full of scenesters (a.k.a. one giant scenester sausage).  So we left with our sausages between our legs and did not return until this Saturday.

We headed up to L.A. with our friend Brandon to buy a variety of sausages that we were going to cook ourselves for our sausage party.  We decided to have a sausage party with our friends because what's a good sausage if you can't share it with someone.  This time we found the place pretty easily and parked right in front of the iconic Crazy Gideon's (get your used electronics here).

We had planned to just get the sausages and leave, but while we were in line Brandon started roaming around and discovered that they had opened up a large bar and dining area in the back.  Always thirsty, we headed into the bar to sample some German and Belgian bier.  We didn't really know what we wanted and our bartender was super helpful.  I told her I liked IPA's and she recommended the Houblanchouffe, which was light and slightly sweet.  Bob got the Koestritzer Schwarzbler which was a dark, sweet and malty beer.  They say you can tell a lot about someone by the beer they order and Brandon ordered the Abentinus which was intense and complex and also came in a glass with phallic similarities.  While we were at the bar the bartender and one of the owners, Tyler Wilson, were super personable and helpful and were more than happy to give us recommendations and samples.

After a couple of beers we headed back into the line of people waiting to get stuffed, which was twice as long, but we didn't mind this time because we had a couple of beers in us and some refreshing cucumber water.  After our wait in line came to an end, we were ready to order.  We figured that 8 of their exotic sausages would be enough to at least meet the minimum capacity for a sausage party, if not go over the maximum occupancy and send the sausage elevator crashing to the ground.  We got exotic with the following beautiful sausages:

Roasted Red Pepper & Corn

Green Chillies & Cilantro

Austin Blues

Apricot

Duck & Bacon with Jalapeño Peppers

Rattlesnake & Rabbit with Jalapeño Peppers

Bockwurst

Mango Jalapeño

With a bag full of exotic tube steaks and a great party ahead of us, we headed back to the apartment to embark on a sausage fest.  In attendance were Cooper, Brandon, Melissa, Alex and ourselves.  Armed with a few cases of beer, a sufficient amount of Jameson and our appetites, we were ready to get exotic on some meat.  With Bob at the grill pan laying down the sausage and preparing some peppers and onions the party was underway.

For the sake of brevity, everyone ended up consuming plenty of tubed meat which resulted in moans of pleasure from the mastication of strong and savory flavors overcoming the palette of the revelers at the sausage party.  None in attendance had any complaints about being stuffed with meat, for most it was their first time dancing with rattlesnake and rabbit.  In the consumption of both predator and prey in one divine sausage, the party had reached the sublime and all in attendance were launched into the Dionysian celebration of food and drink.