Exotic Beers and the People who Seek Them

(Insert Witty Caption)

Heck, that's not a bad idea. Email or post your caption. Best caption, as judged by the OS Brewers, wins a beer on us. Want a free OSB Winter Ale? How about a succulent, wet-hopped IPA? Or perhaps a roasty porter is more up your alley? Caption away and win the prize--just like the New Yorker!

Okay, on to more germane matters. As you can see, this lucky lady is about to enjoy Belfast Brewery's Lobster Ale. Your faithful blogger had the pleasure of partaking in this Maine mead last October, at the Maine Brewers' Fest in bustling Portland, ME. Beer Advocate gave this rare gem (I defy you to find it outside the Northeast for anything less than a huge premium) a B/B-. What do they know? (Well, a lot, actually.) You'll never believe it, but this thing really does taste like a steaming hunk of king crustacean dipped in butter. Rumor has it that one of the OS Brewers still has a bottle sitting in his legendary Beer Fridge (better drink that beer up before it goes bad, bud!)

HUGE TANGENT: We should (and will) devote an entire post to the proper aging of beers, but for now, a primer. Two quick-and-dirty rules:

1) The darker the color -->better for aging
2) The higher the ABV-->better for aging

Got a robust Belgian dubbel or a big imperial stout? Put it away for a year or two (if you have the willpower to do so), and wait for some seriously sexy results. Want to hang on to that tasty Lagunitas Pils? Don't do it for long, or you'll be left out. A skunky Lagunitas? Well, that's a bitter pils to swallow.

Back on more familiar footing, let's talk for a moment about beers like the Belfast Lobster Ale. There are niche beers aplenty, and more coming all the time. It isn't necessarily that the style of the beer is so novel--the Belfast Lobster ale, after all, is simply that: an ale, with ale yeast that flocculates top-wise, fairly pale grains, and a reasonable amount of hops. The only thing that makes a "Lobster Ale" a "Lobster Ale," aside from the label and the attestations of the Belfast people, are the adjuncts thrown in by the brewers. Adjuncts get a bad name from beers like Bud, which uses rice(!) to get that "authentic" pilsner taste, but IMHO, variety is the spice of life. Beers are more intrinsically fascinating than wines because almost all wine that "anyone" (read: wine snobs) cares about is made by fermenting some kind of grape. What if beer could only be made with a certain kind of grain and hop? Yeah, that would suck, wouldn't it?

By adding a little more coriander and some dried citrus rind, we go from your run-of-the-mill Blue Moon to a wonderfully lemony Allagash White. (I honest to God wish that people would stop drooling over BM. It's an unimpressive wheat beer that even its own brewers say you need an orange to enjoy. If a beer requires you to add fruit to improve it, what does that say about the beer? Does a restaurant other than the gimmicky, overpriced Melting Pot sell you uncooked food and tell you to add the finishing touches yourself? What if I sold you a brand-new car and, as you were driving off the lot of my dealership, I plucked a longish hair from my car-dealer mustache and yelled to you, "Hey, by the way, you'll need to buy a new transmission and muffler if you REALLY want that baby to purr! How angry would you be? I, for one, would be angry. For the same reason, I implore you to stop buying this bulls**t "Bud Lime/Miller Chill stuff. "Look at me!" You're saying every time you drink it. "I'm a real man because I drink my beer with fruit!)

YOU ARE THE DEVIL

Anyhoo, the point your humble blogger was trying to make: If you keep the fundamentals (water+hops+malt+yeast) but improvise a little on top, you can get some really wonderful stuff. Here are a few niche beers of note:

Dieu du Ciel Hibiscus

A really fragrant, floral (well it should be, considering it's brewed with Hibiscus petals) brew. BA gives it a B+, and I'm roughly inclined to agree. The only place in DC that has it to my knowledge is the Brickskeller (22 and P NW).

Dogfish Head Chicory Stout

The chicory is mitigated somewhat by the hops and the coffee (this bad boy has quite a bit of caffeine in it.) Not bitter, though, because of choco esters that come through from the malt. Certainly worth a try if you can find it around here.

Sea Dog Blueberry Wheat

I have to be honest: I don't even think this is a good beer. But girls are always asking for a "fruity" beer, and if they're unwilling to pay $15 dollars for a genuine lambic, this is what I sell them. The blueberry is cloying and the hops evidently took a week off. Nevertheless, this is the kind of envelope-pushing you just won't see in any other type of spirit. It's not that SD Blueberry fails, but that they're trying. Mmhmm. At HH, you get points for trying.

EPIC FAIL: Rogue Chipotle Ale

Then there's Rogue's Chipotle Ale, which Beer Advocate gave an INCONCEIVABLE B+, proving once and for all that you really can't trust them all that often. I happen to know a certain bar in the District which ordered a huge number of kegs of this stuff last summer, and ended up selling most of them back to a perplexed distributor. This crap tastes like if you bought peppers, left them in the sun for three days, added the fermented essence to a bathtub of tepid water and threw in a little cardamom for kicks. It wouldn't (and didn't!) sell if it was ringed with gold and came with a free ticket to the Caribbean. DON'T BUY THIS BEER

What the OS Brewers are listening to right now:
Animal Collective all the time
That Say Anything song about the girl touching herself
Insane Clown Posse
Howard Stern on Sirius101/102

"Omar Listening"
-Omar

HH