I was greeted recently at my favorite local beer shop by my pal (and member of the elusive ‘Esoteric Order of the H.P.D.’) Jonah, who was stoked on two new Two Brothers offerings – Avalon, a spiced beer with fresh apple cider, and Northwind, a Russian Imperial Stout.  Being someone who doesn’t typically lust over Imperial Stouts, and usually goes crazy over spiced beers, I expected to have a slightly different reaction to these beers than I did, but that’s part of what keeps drinking and writing about different beers so exciting — expectations sometimes don’t mean shit.

Avalon is a spiced beer brewed with apple cider which is local to the Two Brothers brewery.  A very fall flavored brew, Avalon says on the label that it can be consumed warm or cold, and invokes the mythical island of Avalon, scene of King Arthur myths, a beautiful island known for it’s beautiful apples.  With visions of islands and apple blossoms swimming in my brain, I poured this beer and it looked like a glass of Autumn.  A beautiful bronze/brown colored beer, amply carbonated with a light and quickly dissipating head, golden edges and other spectral colors shoot out when you hold this up to the light.  When I first sniffed this beer, I was incredibly excited — their was a spicy, appley aroma that smelled a lot like the apple cider fermenting in my basement.  I kept sniffing and sniffing before taking a big sip, and that’s where things went downhill.  The spicy, rich nose wasn’t matched by the beer itself, which felt thin, a bit sharp, and overall, flat.  Not much spice, even after the beer warmed up a bit, and certainly not much apple flavor.  Strange to me that Two Brothers couldn’t nail this one, and I should try this beer hot — maybe the flavor comes through more that way.  With such a successful aroma, I was hoping for a lot more, and I definitely got it the next night when I cracked the Northwind Stourt.

Going from Autumn straight to Winter in two consecutive nights might normally be kind of hectic, but in this case the sailing was smooth.  Northwind pours a beautiful deep black with a brownish head that comes up late and goes away quickly.  A wealth of red and brown colors when held up to the light compliment an unbelievable depth of flavor.  Northwind smells like a boozy cup of chocolate flavored coffee, and this is well matched by the deep and rich flavor of the beer on the tongue.  Not too bitter, not too carbonated, and not too thick, this is in many ways an ideal Imperial Stout, maybe my favorite, and certainly the best one I’ve had in a long time.  Perfectly executed from top to bottom, Northwind has sewn up any doubts I may have had with the brewery after really not enjoying the Avalon.  Once these winds blow through Avalon though, I trust all will be well with the Brothers.

I don’t think that I’ve praised one of my favorite aspects of the Brewery, however — their labels.  We can all pretend that the packaging of a product doesn’t effect our perception upon consuming it, but then again we can also pretend a lot of other preposterous bullshit.  Regardless, Two Brothers always nails their labels, and this one is no exception.  It’s just, classy.  And the name is great.  Their website is still really rough, though, so go figure.  Anyway, the beer inside this package is phenomenal, a real and true Harvest Ale — where “wet hops” that are very freshly picked are added to a base beer to give them special fresh Hop character.  This beer smells like fresh hops added to hot wort during brewing, and it has a solid malt backbone to boot.  Creamy, a bit bready, and rich in flavor, balanced with a nice amount of bitterness, but not too over the top, this beer emphasizes the best qualities of fresh hops — the aromas and gentle flavors that are apart from the signature bitterness of the herb.

In other awesomeness, you can go to the website (eventually) and cross reference the batch number on your bottle with a list of the hops they used for each batch.  A good way to see if you can guess hops only by smell (I can’t), but also a great piece of dedication to the kind of artistic pride that oh so few brewers care to show in their beer.  This is a fantastic session beer, and a hell of a take on the harvest or “wet hopped” ale, and I love it to death.  Respect the seasons and you will be handsomely rewarded.

Two Brothers is a brewery from the Chicago area that has made a splash here in New York City with its wide range of excellent renditions of many styles of beer, Ale and Lager alike.  While this is far from the first of their beers, which range in style from Belgian Farmhouse Ales to this Dortmunder Style Lager, that I’ve tried, it struck me that Two Brothers has really outdone itself with this, arguably the most humble style it has tackled.  Dortmunder style Lagers were amongst the first German Lagers to be consumed en masse in Europe — a German take on the Czech Pilsen beer, the “Export” Lager version of this beer, at a slightly higher ABV than other varieties, caught on and eventually molded all Lagers from that point on.  The Two Brothers version is a crisp and refreshing beer, with all kinds of subtle flavors going on — spicy, sweet, citrusy, and more.  Mostly though, this is one of the most drinkable and tasty beers that I’ve had in a long time in terms of sheer drinkability.  The Dog Days beer is perfect for summer days, where you want your beer to have some real flavor, but you want to drink a lot, and you don’t want to be praying for death the next morning.  This has all of those qualities, and it pours a beautiful, perfectly carbonated golden color with a big white head and all the smells you could hope for in a beer.  An excellent take on an under-investigated style and another winner for Two Brothers.