The fact that Lagunitas has not gotten a lot more play on this blog is a testament to how dense the American Craft Beer scene is these days.  Lagunitas is one of the first craft breweries I got into after Sierra Nevada, and I enjoyed discovering that I indeed like to drink Pilsners, Copper Ales, and a variety of other flavors by making my way through their catalog.  Since being introduced to the brewery, I have had the opportunity to drink a lot of their seasonal offerings.  The latest release for summer, available in 12oz 6-packs, is somewhat misleadingly named “A Lil Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale.”  I half-expected a low ABV session beer until I remembered I was dealing with Lagunitas — so the result is a nearly 8% ABV Pale Ale/American Wheat Beer hybrid, intensely hoppy both in aroma and flavor, with a delicious smooth maltiness provided by the combination of wheat, base, and specialty malts.  With this awesome combination you get the great mouthfeel provided by the wheat, the aromatics provided by Ale Yeast and Hops, and the flavor provided by all of the above.  “A Lil Sumpin’ Sumpin’” turns out to be quite a beast of a beer if you knock a couple back — the alcohol is very well hidden, and this copper colored beer is a great choice for a warm, celebratory day.

Jolly Pumpkin is no stranger to the pages of this blog, and being that it’s essentially my favorite American Brewery, it’s always a pleasure to cover another of their brews in the ranks of the Brew Dog Blog.  Bam Noire is their “Black Saison,” a style that doesn’t really exist aside from a few examples.  The concept of Seasonal Saisons comes from the Fantome brewery in Belgium for the most part, and Jolly Pumpkin’s version, although a deep reddish black and adorned with Halloween motifs on the bottle, holds its own just fine in the heat of the summer.  Light, refreshing, dry, and perfectly fruity and tart, Bam Noir brings just about everything to the table in terms of being a fantastic A+ Summer drinker.  A lot of complexity in the nose and on the palette makes it more than a chugger, and takes it into the slow sipping realm, if you can make it last that long.

Chelsea Brewing Company disproves the notion that many people have that there are no Craft Beers produced on the sainted “Money Makin” island of Manhattan. While most of the brews they pump out are highly drinkable, delicious beers, none are particularly mindblowing, yet they exist as examples of good, fresh beers you can regularly get around bars and at the brew pub over on the west side.  Recently Bierkraft, a big seller of Chelsea beers, sourced a cask of one of Chelsea’s new offerings, the USA, which was dry hopped and being served in 64oz growlers.  Stinky brought one out to the barbecue and I was really glad he did.  It was a low ABV, not quite brilliantly clear golden Ale in the English style, and it had an enormous hop presence both in the nose and in the spicy, fruity flavors.  Low carbonation emphasizes the delicious maltiness of this beer also, altogether a hell of a summer drinker too and the growler disappeared quickly.

Hard to believe there’s still a Captain Lawrence beer that I haven’t written about, and one of their flagships, no less.  Freshchester Pale Ale is a very, very good East Coast style Pale Ale, from a dude who worked at Sierra Nevada and can brew any kind of beer well.  It has the perfect balance going on that is the SN trademark, and a delicious blend of hops (definitely some PNW hops in there) and malt (2-row and crystal) is extremely satisfying.  It starts bubbly and fresh with awesome hop aromas, and finishes nice and dry with a malty, rounded finish.  Not too bitter, not too sweet, just how I like it.

Two excllent examples of this “wild” style have recently come out of New York State.  Captain Lawrence hit a homerun with its first entry into the Sour Beer canon with its much sought after Cuvee de Castelton, and Rosso E Morrone is a sort of “red wine” version of this style, aged in oak barrels and refermented with red grapes.  A very intriguing intermingling of the typical wine and beer flavors, Rosso E Morrone is easily in the running for most complex beer experience on planet earth, hitting the palate so many different ways that the small 375ml bottle is quite a journey to take.  Rosso comes in a wax capped small “split” style champagne bottle with a red wax dipped cap.  It pours a pretty hazy reddish brown with almost no head and a small amount of carbonation.The nose is very intense, a range of funky, fruity, and chemical/wood smells that keep changing as you sip.  Similarly, a treat of flavors await you as you sip, alternating between a decent malt presence, a nice tart fruitiness, and a crisp but round hint of bitterness.  An absolutely classic take on this “Belgian styled” beer which is really as much New York chutzpah as anything else — amazing.

Ithaca’s Brute has been an elusive brew to track down in the bottle — I tried it about a year ago in Cooperstown at the Ommegang festival, and rumors of the bottle being “brewery only” persisted until recently some bottles showed up at Bierkraft.  Score.  Brute pours a bright golden color with a nice big head that dissipates quickly, and a nice heavy amount of carbonation.  Brute is the “traditional” Champagne to Rosso’s sparkling Shiraz, dryer, a bit more biting, and hitting the brighter part of the fruit spectrum (white grapes, peaches) as opposed to the darker fruits that Rosso has to offer (plums, red grapes, etc.).  Brute is a touch more one-dimensional than Rosso, although it is still quite a complex sipper.  Brute has more of a hop presence both in the nose and on the palate, with an effervescent mouthfeel that keeps the heavy acidity from being overbearing.

As good as anything being produced by most American brewers who dare to step into the sour beer fray, these two New York State examples make me proud to be a resident and advocate for local beer — keep the explorations coming!

I folow the Captain’s beers quite closely, even venturing from time to time to their release parties, which usually include small gatherings in the parking lot where beer nerds gather to swap stories and good, usually traded-for brews.  Last time t-bone and I went up to the brewery, it was for the release of the latest in their series of “Smoke from the Oak” beers, where their excellent on its own Smoked Porter gets aged in a variety of used barrels, which have held a wide range of booze, from Bourbon to Rum to Red Wine.  The hope is to infuse the Smoked Porter with some flavors of the barrel itself, and the hooch that the barrels once contained.

There is no shortage of beers aged in Bourbon – a search on Beer Advocate for the word “Bourbon” returnes over 250 results.  Admittedly, before having this bottle, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Bourbon Barrel beers, or maybe I just haven’t had enough good ones, because I truly enjoyed this version of Smoke from the Oak.  There is an awesome shot of Bourbon on the nose, almost like sniffing a good glass of peaty Islay Scotch.  The pour is dark as hell, more stout than porter like, with a small fizzy head and a nice amount of carbonation pushing through the glass.  There is ample carbonation, which makes this heavy brew a bit more drinkable, and the Bourbon flavor comes through subtly on the palette as well.  A very well integrated beer, there is smoke, chocolate, whiskey tartness, a bit of sourness, and a hint of bitterness all going on as you sip.  I’ve been trying to concentrate on these kinds of flavor “journeys” in making my own beer, and although I’ve basically failed miserably up to this point, the Captain is giving me hope.  And if I can’t the beer right, I can always just have a big glass of whiskey.

On the short list of Captain Lawrence beers I hadn’t tried yet, I was intrigued when I saw it on the list at Marlow and Sons (one of my favorite Brooklyn restaurants, and the centerpiece of a mini-culinary Empire worth exploring), so I ordered a pint.  It went quite well with the incredibly rich beer and cheese soup (that I suspect was made with the same beer but got too tipsy to remember to ask), and also went great with the desert – a chocolate caramel tart with sea salt.  It struck me as both intensely crisp, and malty, bitter and round, with the right amount of sweetness.  It pours truly brown, with a good amount of effervescent carbonation, and a fizzy head.  Ruby if you hold it up to the light, when it pours the chocolate smells come out, along with caramel, a small whiff of biscuit, and they’re all rich, and in the way most Captain Lawrence beers are, perfectly balanced.  There’s something so “pro” about these beers — very clear and filtered, very well balanced, consistent, that maybe belies the brewer’s experience at Sierra Nevada.  This is not a bad thing at all, mind you — if you’ve ever seen the space, you know how much he does with how little room he has.

Brown Bird is another excellent entry into the pantheon of Captain Lawrence’s spectrum of beers, and highlights an oft-repeated BDB mantra — a brewery that can make great “big” and “session” beers at the same time is just that much more impressive than that brewery you’ve heard of because of the one cool 15% barrel-aged/sour/tongue-burningly-bitter/whatever beer, which no one drinks on a regular basis.  Now, back to my growler.

Captain Lawrence doesn’t seem overly concerned with these kinds of guidelines, although the Xtra Gold does seem to sit well enough within the guidelines of what a Tripel is.  It’s the same kind of “What is art?” or “What is noise?” argument that occupies graduate students endlessly but bores people who actual make or appreciate art, noise, or in this case, beer.  The brewers at CL make no bones about the scientific means they use to produce beers of this quality, and why should they, considering Westmalle has a lab on site?  The Xtra gold is a monster in a bottle, but I was lucky enough to get a counter-pressure filled growler from Bierkraft, at a cost cheaper than a normal 750ml bottle for more than twice the amount, so I’m writing here about the beer in that form.

Opening the growler produces both a satisfying sound and an enormously satisfying array of smells, with the very Belgian yeast smells being way up front.  Some hops comes in after that, but this is all Belgian yeast when you pour and sniff, and as you continue to do so, working your way through a pint, so many awesome smells come out that it’s silly to try to pinpoint them — think bubble gum, tropical fruit, booze, etc.  Just awesome.  This is a highly carbonated beer that pours a beautiful clear golden color and has a massive white head with big bubbles that explode with aroma as you pour it.  The mouthfeel is great, slightly heavy to match the intensity of the ABV and all of those aromas, and finishes with a pleasing bitter bite.  Captain Lawrence and Sixpoint are both at the absolute top of their games right now in terms of producing Belgian Styled beers, and drinking this growler is making me want to crack a bottle open to see how different it tastes.

The beer is an “American Wild Ale” or an “American Sour,” but whatever it is it ain’t normal.  Oak Aged for a year, refermented with Muscat Grapes, dosed with other beer-consuming creatures, etc.  Captain Lawrence produces what is in my experience the first East Coast beer that rivals the insanity of a Belgian Sour beer.  Not quite as intense as a Lambic or Gueze, but super intense, tart, acidic, balanced, dry, and just delicious.  It’s a great sign for the brewery, and a great time to be around and obsessed with beer.

The event itself was pretty fun and highlighted some of the best qualities of the craft beer community.  Awaiting the first people to show up pretty early on a saturday morning for a beer release was a cooler with the first bottle of the batch inside.  The first people to show up opened it up and shared it — awesome! The parking lot turned into a tailgate party, with people sharing brews they had to share, talking shit about beer, and enjoying a beautiful Saturday morning.  Next time CL has a release, I’ll probably be there! If you will be too, let us know!

The porter poured a viscous black with minimal carbonation. The nose was funky as was the first sip. The tang of barrel aging was followed by rich coffee malt character, with just a slight hint of vinous notes in all the right places. The long finish was woody and earthy. Truly a stellar offering from the Captain. I’m definitely stashing a bottle away for a rainy day.

We just need to get something other than yellow beer into his fridge.

Unfortunately for me and the rest of New York, not only does the best casual burger spot in the city become impossibly, ridiculously, unbelievably crowded as soon as the weather improves, but even in the dead of winter, the beer selection is pitiful. I’m talking of course about Shake Shack, the stand that has become an institution in just a few short years at the south-east corner of Madison Square Park. For someone so meticulous in his selection of every burger, dog, and custard component, Danny Meyer has really dropped the ball in curating the Shack’s beverage selection.

Fortunately for us beer-swilling burger-hounds, however, Stand (24 East 12th Street) happens to have an amazing selection of regional draughts, and grills up what I currently consider my second favorite cheeseburger in the city. A recent lunch trip brought MRB and I together to see what kind of damage we could wreak on the list during a workday lunch. I opted for my perennial favorite there, the Weyerbacher Hops Infusion (pictured, on the right). It’s sweet and malty up front, a nice counterpoint to the salty tang of the blue cheese sauce they serve on their cheeseburger, and fruity on the finish. The hop blend definitely leans towards citrus, perhaps at the expense of a more complex bitterness, but that makes it a great easy-drinker for the summertime.

We’ve been digging a lot of the Cap’n Larry brews lately (look for more from Ceeg about his trip to the brewery soon), so MRB opted to try the Captain Lawrence Liquid Gold (pictured, on the left). I’ll let him weigh in in the comments, as i didn’t try his until after I had already sipped my hop-monster and ruined my palate. I will say that it seemed pretty tame on all fronts and had an off finish, though it may have been due to dirty lines. There are plenty of other great beers on the list there that I look forward to getting into in the very near future. Actually I kind of feel like another burger right now…