Port Brewing Company Old Viscosity Ale

Well, I saved the best for last. I'll round out this new year's tour of California micro-breweries by heading down south to San Marcos for a $5.99 bomber of Port Brewing Company's Old Viscosity Ale. If you don't feel like reading a bunch of long winded, rosy prose, I LIKE THIS BEER A LOT AND THINK IT'S REALLY YUMMY! YUM!

As the name implies, Old Viscosity is as thick as used engine oil. Not only is it thick, but it is black as night. I held this pint up to a 100 watt light bulb to see if any luminescence would make its way through, and not a hint of brightness emerged. The ale pours with almost no trace of head, which only reinforces its resemblance to crude oil. Thankfully, the beer tastes nothing like petroleum.

At first, the 10% ABV slaps you in the face. But, as if being slapped by an adored lover, the brash alcohol zip is quickly soothed and transitions into more of a smooth, high end whiskey finish. Old Viscosity is aged in oak barrels, and the cask taste makes its appearance with the whiskey. The co-stars that emerge on the palate are subtle: roasted coffee, molasses, maybe a hint of anise.

This beer made me an instant fan of Port Brewing. The small company has a somewhat interesting story that involves them collaborating with another San Diego area craft brewery, Stone Brewing Company, to increase its distribution. I'm appreciative of this collaboration, since it means that I no longer have to drive to Berkeley to find Port's gems. If you ever find yourself in California, be sure to track down a bottle of Old Viscosity.

Firestone Walker Velvet Merlin Oatmeal Stout

Like Anderson Valley Brewing, Firestone Walker is a fairly small California microbrewery with limited regional distribution. New this year to the Firestone repertoire is their oatmeal stout, Velvet Merlin. According to the packaging, "Velvet Merlin is also partially blended with Merlin that has been aged in bourbon barrels for a year. The aging adds even more complexity to this very rich beer. The use of US grown Fuggles gives the perfect hop flavor to this exceptionally well-balanced beer."

Let me begin by saying that Velvet Merlin is, obviously, a much more appropriate winter beer than Anderson Valley's High Rollers. This oatmeal stout is thick and creamy like any good stout should be. The usual roast grain, coffee, and chocolate flavors are present, but there is a strange, harsh taste that overwhelms the finish. Though Velvet Merlin is only 5.5% alcohol by volume, the harshness seems reminiscent of high proof liquor. Could this be the complexity added by the mixing of bourbon barrel-aged beer into the blend? Despite the harsh finish, Velvet Merlin is a nice addition to the Firestone Walker collection and reasonably priced at $7.99 for a six-pack.

Anderson Valley High Rollers Wheat Beer

Happy New Year! I've never been very interested in celebrating on new year's eve. This is quite likely the result of my tendency to want to be in bed by 10:30 PM. My scrooge-like disinterest could also be attributed to what happened the one time I decided to attend a new year's eve party with Davis thrown by a bunch of Grinnell College alums in the middle of Harlem. Feeling extraordinarily awkward having not attended Grinnell, I proceeded to drink more beer, rum, and whiskey than a D.A.R.E. officer could ever smile upon. My excessive consumption came back to haunt me in two distinct ways in the following 12 hours as I struggled first to enjoy having met my now ex-girlfriend and then, the following morning, attempted to avoid suffocating my now ex-girlfriend as my intestines rebelled. No matter the reason, I'm staying home with the cat and dog this new years and watching The Expendables.

Keeping with the tradition of drinking to ring in the new year, I'll be reviewing a couple of beers I have stashed in the fridge this evening. First up is an unlikely candidate: Anderson Valley Brewing Company's High Rollers Wheat Beer. I just bought a six-pack of this summer ale at a discount grocer for $5, as compared to the normal $9 price tag. The thought of drinking a wheat beer in December seemed absurd, but the price was right and I have a soft spot for Anderson Valley Brewing.

Why do I like Anderson Valley, you ask? Well, they have a large solar array that powers their brewery for starters. The crusty tree-hugging environmentalist in me likes that. The brewery also produces the Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout, which I can credit for helping me avoid therapy my first year of graduate school. Another plus is that all of the Anderson Valley brews reflect an effort to preserve the local culture of the quirky California coastal region. Settlers in the late 1800s developed a unique local dialect called Bontling that peppers the labels and names of the brewery's offerings. From this bottle: "It's a slow lope'n a beson tree," which translates to, "It's mellow and easy going."

Despite my appreciation for Anderson Valley, I have little affection for wheat beers. I have long considered wheat beers the ale equivalent of the Milwaukee Brewers' utilityman Craig Counsell. On all objective measures, both Counsell and wheat beers aren't very good. So, why do they stick around? Well, they are versatile in their respective unoffensive existence. Rather, they aren't very good, but are they really all that bad? I guess they both represent some sort of nostalgic notion of purity, too. Counsell is the unlikely awkward local kid who scrapped his way into the majors instead of attending a baseball academy in the Dominican Republic. Wheat beers are the iconic American summer brew that provide the background to barbecues, the Fourth of July, and, well, baseball (assuming we exclude the macro-brewed rice-based lagers).

Anderson Valley's High Rollers Wheat Beer lives up to my expectations. It's crisp and slightly lemony. There's a slight hint of sweet grain that makes itself about as known as Counsell's bat. Mostly, though, it tastes like Coors without the offensive metallic punch and a slightly higher 5.3% ABV. I can see the refreshing potential of High Rollers on a hot summer evening, but the price better be low... just like Craig Counsell.

North Coast Brother Thelonious Belgian Style Abbey Ale

I drink my Brother Thelonious Straight, No Chaser. Ugh, that's a bad joke that maybe only Ken Burns or my University of Iowa History of Jazz professor would chuckle at.

First, a big thank you to my friend Mark for getting me this 25.4 ounce bottle as a Christmas gift. Second, major point deduction for being the most difficult bottle of beer to open in the world. I spent a good 4 minutes prying at the cork with a corkscrew inserted before I was able to liberate the sweet libation. Third, I spilled a little bit of Brother Thelonious on my cat. He seemed to pretend that he didn't have beer all over his back at first, then proceeded to take great joy in licking it off. If Sig were writing this review, he would say something like "rrow yummy prrr."

Brother Thelonious is, apparently, one offering in the American Artisan Series. As far as I can tell, though, the only other offering is Le Merle Belgian Style Farmhouse Ale also brewed by North Coast. Unlike most Belgian beers, Brother Thelonious is subtle. Not subtle as a euphemism for not having any flavor, but subtle as in not drowning the drinker in a sea of coriander and orange peel and "spice." At first I taste mild cloves, which then fade into a sort of rasiny flavor. The raisins linger while a molasses and anise chord are struck. The finish tastes of peculiar rotten fruit; maybe the result of the beefy 9.4% ABV. I can't say that I'd dish out the big bucks to enjoy Brother Thelonious, but it is a great gift treat. The gift-giver can feel good about himself, too; part of the proceeds from each bottle of this abbey ale go to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

Lagunitas Brown Shugga'

'Tis the season to drink high ABV barleywines and stouts! Though Lagunitas' "Brown Shugga'" Ale is neither (although it is apparently the result of a failed batch of Lagunitas' barleywine "Old Gnarleywine"), it's 9.99% ABV and limited seasonal availability make it a fitting beer for the times.

The bottle vaguely describes the brewing process by stating, "Feeding Brown Cane Sugar to otherwise Cultured Brewery Yeast is a'kin to feeding Raw Shark to your Gerbil." My experience with other alcoholic beverages brewed with raw cane sugar has been very mixed. Chicha, one of the most popular traditional drinks in Nicaragua, is made by adding bricks of unrefined brown sugar each day to feed wild yeast strains in a 5-gallon bucket of water and sprouted corn to yield a highly alcoholic "Chicha Bruja," or "witch's chicha." Some batches of chicha bruja are sweet, smooth, and fruity. Some batches taste like thick corn alcohol and give you the shits for two days after drinking just 8 ounces. Thankfully, the results of enjoying a 12 ounce bottle of Brown Shugga' are not the same.

Brown Shugga' is, as the name might suggest, very sweet. It isn't sweet like a malty stout. It is sweet like an apricot tart that had an extra cup of sugar accidentally dumped into the baking pan that caramelized all over the treat. The 10% ABV lingers quietly, but unmistakably behind the sugary sweetness. Not surprisingly given its origins, the grain palate is almost identical to a barleywine. Yep, Brown Shugga' is basically a super-sweet, caramely barleywine. A 6-pack will run about $10, but is a great way to get socially awkward crowds to open up a little bit.