For now I must cultivate my garden

There's very little on God's earth better than a beer garden and Munich is the best place to experience one.  Why are they so tremendous?  Because when you're there you can sit at a bench, surrounded by trees, have a conversation and drink a beer.  Also, they smell nice (like roasting pork or smoked fish).  Did I leave anything out?  What exactly is there to leave out?  A beer garden captures everything in your life that you're striving for, but have forgotten is your actual aim.  You may think that you're working hard to provide a comfortable quality of life for yourself and your family, some breathing space to bask and relax in, a tiny patch of ground you can call your own where no one will bother you: what you're really breaking your back for is a few hours in a beer garden.  There's nothing more to achieve and nothing that anyone can take away from you.  That bit of room and that bit of time is yours, yours alone.  Soak it up, you've earned it.  And if not, you can rent it for a while.

Beer gardens are God's own reward for having done a little something right on this planet and we'd be much the poorer without them.  I'm going to take my daughter to one this weekend.  She'll play in the gravel and I'll sit and stare at her and think about not much at all.  It's almost enough to make a man get religion.

God's gentle mercy on you Munich.  If I love you for nothing else, I love you for this.

Home

I don't drink much beer in Kentucky.  I come here to visit my grandparents and they don't do a lot of drinking.  That's just fine with me, as there's more to life than beer.  Nevertheless, a beer is still a nice thing to have.  It's about as easy to find a beer at my grandparents' in eastern Kentucky as it is to find one at an al Qaeda meeting.  It's not loads easier in central Kentucky, but on this visit, I've got an ace in the hole.  Last time we were here, I bought a four pack of Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale. I drank one and two others got shared by various family members.  The fourth was waiting for me when I arrived.

This ale is lovely.  It's rich, sweet and buttery like a big stack of pancakes.  My only complaint with this beer is- strangely- the best thing about it.  It tastes like bourbon.  I like bourbon and I especially like stuff that tastes like bourbon but doesn't burn my throat.  A glass of something that ought to taste like a boilermaker, but with a lower alcohol content ought to be something that I enjoy.  And, just so that we're clear, it is.  But the bourbon barrel ale tastes a little too much like a beer that somebody poured some bourbon into.  Don't get me wrong, it's still a splendid drink and I couldn't be more proud that it hails from my home state, but it's not yet the splendid marriage of two of my favorite beers that I know exists somewhere out there. 

Meanwhile, someday soon I need to sit down and have the side-by-side tasting of Bourbon Barrel Ale and Dragon's Milk.

The Stash: Day Three

Father-in-law and I shared a 750ml over dinner.  His first comment is that Brooklyner Schneider Hopfen Weisse sounded like the name of a law firm.  His second comment was that it was an excellent beer.  I'll agree (and so did my mother-in-law).  Loads of foam.  It pours a very nice head, which sticks around for quite a while.  It's hazy like a typical Munich weissbier and the same color that I find difficult to describe. (bronze?)  But the nose was much spicier.  My amateur guess is that I'm getting quite a lot of yeast, but as the yeast is a Schneider, I'm not so sure.  Perhaps there's just more of it?  In any event, quite a lot more olfactory fun than what one typically gets in Munich.  A lot of body, nice thick beer.  The taste was, to me, peppery and sweet (which makes it sound like mint, which it most certainly isn't), some clove, but virtually no banana.  Very nice beer.

I had read about this in a beer magazine about a year ago.  They had an article about the sorry state of beer in Germany and as a beer enthusiast in Munich, I felt vindicated.  I'll not bore anyone with another rant about the bland German beer scene, but I will make this point: this beer is the result of cooperation between an American and a German brewer.  I can buy a bottle of the stuff in Boca Raton, Florida, but I probably can't track it down anywhere in Munich.  That's a shame.  I'm certain that the good people at Schneider would have brewed this in accordance with Reinheitsgebot and whatever other constraints they felt would have lead to a better product.  Meanwhile, Garrett Oliver would have ensured that the end result tasted good and offered something new.  This is a brilliant example of exploiting the best ideas that two fine brewing traditions have to offer, but one of those traditions will likely not benefit from the result.

A mental check of the calendar informed me that I need to pick up the pace if I'm going to finish the stash before I head on to Kentucky.  So, I also cracked open Three Philosophers from Ommegang.  I think I might not be all that wild about the big Belgian darks.  Sure it's nice, I just don't think I can stand up and shout about this.  Nice roasted coffee flavor, a bit of the molasses.  A nice sweet, sticky beer, but overall a bit of a miss for me.  I've got three more Ommegang to try.  We'll see how they do.

And meanwhile, I had a Sam Adams Summer Ale with lunch at Tarpon Bend.  Rather nice, with a pleasant bit of citrus.  The malt reminded me a of a Kölsch.

Going to the Dogfishes

Day two of working through the big stash that I acquired.  Tonight was red meat for everyone other than me (I had chicken) and I figured there'd be a bit more sharing involved as both father and father-in-law would be in attendance.  So, I went for the 750 ml of Black & Blue from Dogfish Head.  I'll go on record as saying that I think Dogfish Head is probably the most innovative brewery in the US, which makes them probably the most innovative brewery in the world.  Sam Calgione is a fearless brewer, willing to do damn near anything to deliver something fresh, new and so, so, tasty.  What I love about Dogfish Head is that they're not confined to what beer is.  As much as I rant about the sorry state of beer drinking in Germany, I do admire the fact that they stick to something pure, simple and honest.  Dogfish Head doesn't give a damn about any of that.  They're more interested in blowing your mind.  I'll write down what I thought about the beer itself in a minute, but having checked out their website, I see that they have a brief video of Sam, himself, describing the beer.  Let's watch:

OK, first reaction is that Sam Calgione seems a bit tipsy.  Mind, if I worked at that brewery I'd probably be half in the bag as often as not.  Still, I expect he'd sober up if he knew a camera was on.  So, the beer.  Well, on that point, I'd say that I found this very drinkable for the alcohol content.  I can't believe it's 10%.  Typically at that strength I think I'd notice that it was a "big" beer.   This had much less of a footprint than wine (at a slightly lower alcohol content, but still).  The next thought is that this might be the gateway drug for wine snobs to consider beer.  It comes in a 750 ml bottle, can easily be shared and has enough fruit in it to keep Andrea Immer chatting for a while.  My final thought, too much fruit.  I loved it at first, but by the time I got to the end, I had about had it.  It made me think of a Berliner Weisse with a shot of fruit juice (which is, for the record, the wrong way to drink a Berliner Weisse).  Given that I was the only one drinking it- dad opted for my last Sierra Nevada Torpedo and papa-in-law took a Corona- this is a bit unfair.  If you split it with a friend, you'll be happy.  Final comment: love the yeast!  The yeast- I presume a Belgian strain- was very big on the nose and very welcome.

And it stoned me

In south Florida for the first half of a three week vacation in the States.  Travel in the US&A means that I can wallow in the giddy thrill of shopping for beer and finding buckets of variety.  I finally got a bit of time at the Total Wine store in Boca Raton.  It took me a few minutes to get my bearings.  I stared at a wall of colored labels from a lot of breweries I'd never heard of wondering just where to begin.  The first decision was to stick to US beers.  It's a hassle, but if I'm desperate for something Belgian, Chimay can be found in Munich and I'm in London often enough that I get the odd ale.  Decision two was to stick with breweries that I was familiar with, but beers I hadn't yet tried.  And the winners were: Dogfish Head Ommegang, Shiner, Brooklyn Brewery and Stone.

Tonight, my father-in-law and I split a Stone Pale Ale and a Levitation.  The Pale Ale was just ok.  There was more dark malt than I had expected.  Bear in mind that I'm never quite sure what to expect when I crack open a pale ale, but in my head they're a lighter color and not quite as sweet.  The Levitation, on the other hand, was sublime.  This has one of the nicest hop aromas I've ever sniffed.  It was like smelling a glass of liquid hops.  Lovely, lovely stuff.