a drunken jess

like a drunken mess, get it? (there's just no easy way to work jess into a pun and i am not calling this some sort of alliteration of a beer word and a feminine word, no way no how.) i needed some joy back in my life so i decided to combine two things i really, really like - beer and writing. this serves no other purpose than that. 

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Maine Beer Co.’s Woods & Waters

Beer #4 is Maine Beer’s Woods & Waters, an IPA that celebrates the creation of the Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument. This act was part of the Obama farewell tour and was somehow controversial up yonder, which you would think is crazy, but if you know anything about Maine’s governor, you understand. Fun things about these two links: 1. the first goes to something called #HashtagMaine (I have a feeling that somehow Nick inspired this) 2. the post on #HashtagMaine also links to a story titled “Bristol Mills Native to Appear on MTV’s Catfish” 3. there happens to be a whole tag dedicated to stupid things Paul LePage has said. Maine - what a place! (I actually love Portland, Maine - would move there in a heartbeat.)

While the beer came out in September, it was new on tap at Ward 8 on March 11 and I drank it at the bar whilst awaiting my dining companion to join me for a pizza at Regina to celebrate what would have been my dad’s 62nd birthday. Ward 8 always has a Maine rotator line on and without fail I always ask what it is and whenever it’s not Lunch, I always get something else. I recognize that this is a bad and stupid habit because all their beers are good, but I just like Lunch the most. I’m sure I’m not the only person who does this. But...the Warren Tavern now has Lunch all the time and we’re there often enough that there’s no reason to be a weird Lunch snob elsewhere. The bartender talked me into Woods & Waters and I told him that the Warren Tavern has Lunch on permanently...he asked if it was a new bar. (It opened in 1780 and is named for Dr. Joseph Warren, who was portrayed by an extraordinarily handsome man in the History Channel’s Sons of Liberty miniseries in 2015...soooooo....nope.)

Anyway...onto the beer:

Appearance - color of straw, completely hazy, impossible to see through, as you’ll note in the above picture, it totally obscures Ward 8′s myriad bitters bottles behind it

Aroma - tropical, juicy hops; can’t smell any of the local barley and wheat used in it

Taste - top notes are all herbal with a nice grassy finish; underlying notes show some anise and a bit of biscuit or flour from the malts

Mouthfeel - a little bit fuller and rounder from the wheat, decent lacing left behind in the glass

Five months is pretty old for a draft IPA so I assume either they pasteurized the kegs OR the beer is far hoppier when fresh. Either way, I enjoyed it. Dig the beer, dig the story, dig anything that’s somehow pissing off Paul LePage. 

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In keeping with our apparent theme of things from nearly two years ago, here’s a pic inside the tent at Left Hand’s Nitrofest back in November 2015. All nitrogenated beers, trippy lighting, and aerialists on silks. I poured a sample for a woman and as the tiny bubbles began their glorious cascade, she looked at me and asked why I poured her a glass of foam. Because I’m awkward, I tried to get jokey and cute with her and was like “duhh, nitrogen, where do you think you are?” She deadpanned back, “Longmont, Colorado.”

...she wasn’t wrong. 

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Smuttlabs Smoked Peach Short Weisse

Beer #3 also hails from our overnight adventure to Portsmouth, N.H. last week (city/state in AP style because old habits die hard). I picked up this bomber of Smoked Peach Short Weisse from the Smuttlabs arm of Smuttynose for $3 in the gift shop and was decently pleased with the investment. According to the bottle itself, it was filled in late fall 2015, which is quite some time ago for a beer in the Berliner weisse family, so I was a little squicked out by it. It ended up being fine but like my previously-reviewed Smutty beer, definitely show signs of age...and again, like my face. (The jokes just write themselves.) I ended up pouring about a third of it down the drain (don’t look at me like that - it was $3; it was a Tuesday; Ryan doesn’t really like sours and wouldn’t have finished it for me). 

Appearance: gold, slight haze, head dissipated quickly, likely due to the fact it was bottled a year and a half ago.

Aroma: APPLES, big time (bigly?), fresh-pressed cider, overall just hold-in-hand, bite-with-mouth kinds of fruits (as in definitely not berries), faint note of caramel, no smoke in the nose, which was a little weird because it was definitely in there

Taste: the base notes here were all smoke with rather assertive tartness on top; I didn’t really get much peach per se, but definitely a lot of fruitiness. 

Mouthfeel: huge amounts of tongue sting, thin 

Paired with pan-seared chicken thighs and asparagus, which didn’t exactly set the world on fire. I struggle to pair sours with anything other than cheesecake and salads with goat cheese (likely because all 3 of these comestibles are among my favorite things). 

“Paid for” with my first-ever Soul Cycle class earlier in the evening. Good workout, good time, still keeping my membership to the good old YMCA with their dungeon-like spin room. 

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Barrels at Cantillon in Brussels - the first stop on our European honeymoon. Huge miss: didn’t buy any beer because I didn’t want to schlep bottles through Italy. 

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Smuttynose Scotch Ale 2015

Beer review #2 is Smuttynose’s 2015 Scotch Ale, which Untappd says es no mas, but was pouring at their tasting bar on Saturday. We spent Friday night in Portsmouth seeing Marc Maron, eating a ton of food and drinking some out-there beers at Earth Eagle because I am a superb wife who picks out excellent birthday gift experiences for her husband. The last time we bounced around Portsmouth was in 2013 and Smuttynose was about three months away from moving to their gorgeous new spot so we stopped by on the way home. I’m always kind of awkward visiting breweries and, as we are wont to do, barged right into the tasting bar without stopping to purchase flight cards after exchanging weird pleasantries with the girl at the gift shop register on the way in. Whoops. Made up for it by buying a t-shirt I don’t need on the way out.

My food pairing essay question on the Certified Cicerone exam was beef bourguignon, which I’ve never had and blessedly there was a rundown of the ingredients. You had to give five reasons for your selection and the most complex beer I could think of that would work was a Scotch ale so I took Founder’s Dirty Bastard point by point through the dish: the higher ABV to cut through the richness of the dish as a whole, the smoked malts for the bacon (mmm...bacon), the earthy English hops for the mushrooms, the caramel malts for the braised meat and the peatiness for the onions (pretty sure I made that one up but I got a 94% on pairing beer and food so hopefully it wasn’t a problem). Ever since this test back in 2015, I’ve wanted to try making beef bourguignon, especially now that my bridal shower has outfitted me with some serious Le Creuset, and pair it with a Scotch ale to see if I was right. I said this to Ryan a couple weeks ago and he told me we needed to eat less bacon. Harrumph. 

Anywayyyyy...I tasted Smutty’s Scotch ale second in my flight of four. It was quite nice, but showing its age. Kind of like my face. 

Appearance: copper, peach, hazy like the kind of apple cider that shows up at stores in the fall

Aroma: banana, toastiness, creme brulee

Flavor: faint woodsiness from its barrel aging, notes of sherry I assume from oxidation, no smoke to speak of, bitter and earthy finish. None of the wet paper from the bad kind of oxidation.

Mouthfeel: soft and smooth

What would I pair this with? Oddly...not beef bourguignon. Bananas foster all day, yo. I bet Julia Child has a recipe for that.   

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Spotted at Bir & Fud in Rome’s Trastevere ‘hood in July.

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First beer review! Sierra Nevada’s 2017 Beer Camp was in the fridge last Wednesday so that’s what we’re working with. “Spring” is just about the only time of year that seasonal flavors completely diverge across the country because we don’t all have the same weather (like summer) and we’re not all celebrating the same rituals (like fall and winter) so it’s interesting to see that Sierra is committing to changing their spring seasonal every year. What sells in the beginning of the year is what’s new, so this makes sense.

From my tasting notebook...

Appearance: light straw, slight haze, super bubbly, a thick, poofy head that’s slow to dissipate and leaves mountain ranges of peak as it does

Aroma: bright fruit, pineapple (which I underlined for some reason), biscuit or water cracker, overall general freshness

Flavor: initial taste of fresh herbs like basil or parsley (I’m a fat Italian kid - almost everything to me tastes like basil), turns sweet but citrusy like lemon hard candy, finishes surprisingly sweet for an IPA

Mouthfeel: dances across the palate (so I actually wrote “dancy” here in the book; both notions are equally ridiculous, but that’s really what the beer feels like)

Would I pair this beer with cheese? No. I wouldn’t. I quite like a bold IPA with a sharp cheddar or a tangy bleu, but this beer ain’t that. 

What would I pair this beer with? Minute Maid Frozen Lemonade from the ice cream truck at the beach.

You will like this beer if you’re down with delicate citrus hop notes. 

You will dislike this beer if your requirement for an IPA is to have your palate bulldozed by the fourth sip.