Great Taste Part 2 of 3

Imagine all that beer in only a few hours! Decisions, decisions. Plus, I knew I only had a small window of time before I would have had so much to drink the whole notebook thing would go out the window. So would my taste, that is the time when I can drink crap like PBR.

Onward!

As Florida (from whence we came) is full to the brim of scary tourist traps- the Mouse being the big one- we are used to the things coming out of tourist towns to suck. And be really expensive.

Moosejaw, out of the Dells, seemed to be better than the average beer. Maybe because even in Wisconsin we are not going to fuck around with beer? The apricot (style unsure) was spicy, cleansing, hoppy, and fruity up front. This was no Dogfish Head Aprihop, but it was a nice breath of fresh air on the warm day. The trippel I also tasted, damn I am a sucker for Belgies, was the usual yeasty, quaffable, big-avb. It was kinda "meh"- no real depth, a xerox copy. If we do get the urge to visit the Dells for some indoor water park, mini-golf, or Indian casino action- we'll stop by.

Not only am I a sucker for Belgies, but I'm also a sucker for odd ingredient beer. Seaweed, pine, heather, juniper, peppers....anywhoo Kuhnhenn was not originally on my list but one of the guys we were talking to in line told us to stop by. Holy crap I want to drive way the fuck out to Detriot and have more of their beer. They seemed to do alot of the "ancient" recipes with bizarro ingredients. The heather ale had the mulling spices, honey, almost wine taste to it. Coating mouthfeel, just on the good side of cloying. I like these guys at times, but it may be too sweet for others. Drew tried an interesting brew that he rushed over to have me taste too. I think it was called the 'Sahti' and it smelled strongly of juniper, clove, pine/spruce, and cardamom. All the crazy flavors seemed to work together, it was such an interesting taste (no hops so I'm pretty sure it was an ale) that I'm not sure I could pair it with food- nor do I think I could drink more than one. I get the feeling that they try odd beer flavors often, we missed their legendary creme brulee sadly.

For beer geeks out there, apparently Twin Cities brewer Surly has some sort of cult following or at least some beer geek cachet. Yep, we got Surly. At the booth itself we tried the Bender; a drinkable brown that had some malt, oatmeal, fruit and spice. Just my kind of drink for most of the year with its crisp mouthfeel. Also tried the Coffee Bender: are coffee beers done yet? This one was a typical example, decent but I think I'm over the coffee beer thing in general so if YOU like coffee beers- this is nice.

Next entry: The real ale tent and all its goodness. And a couple more beers with slightly slurred notes and a slightly slurred memory. I will also share in some non-beer related catty observations.

Back with a Great Taste: part 1 of 3

Sorry loyal reader(s), we've been lazy. Frankly moving to Wisconsin (aka: land of beer and cheese) has been so overwhelming to our collective palettes that there is almost too much to write home about.

Let's talk the biggest deal we've lucked into so far here: The Great Taste of the Midwest. Only 5000 tickets which you can either hope you are lucky enough to get through a mail lottery, or you can tailgate starting at 3am outside of Star Liquor (which we actually did walk by one spring AM wondering why people were in line for the booze shop). We got ours because one of Drew's science people had some spares since some people moved. Score!

We took the drunk bus down to stand in a huge-ass line. You can tell the Midwesterners as they already had brats grilling and were outfitted with comfy chairs. I swear these people treat tailgating like boy scouts- always prepared. Once 1Pm hit, the line moved pretty fast and I was able to have a taste in hand by 10 after.

A night or two before, we had been able to scope the online list and make a list of who we wanted to taste, so thus armed with a list and my trusty booze notebook- off we went. Below are my notes for the fateful June day, as the day wore on I made less intelligible notes so I'll have to rely on a sketchy memory along with my scribbles.

First scheduled stop: Founder's for the bourbon barrel-aged porter pouring. I am a fan of their Dirty Bastard scotch ale, so I wanted to hit them up for more stuff. By the way, bourbon barrel would be the theme this year, if I had a dollar for all the ones I had tried; I'd be both drunk and rich. The Founder's was a strong porter, almost imperial in its alcohol flavor, smoky, slight bourbon aftertaste only, and not at all sweet. It was a strong B.

Next on to some Viking. The innovative Mjod mead style ale was a stomach warming, semi-dry, honey and clover flavored bit o nice. Spicy finish making it a nice winter warmer. The Hot Chocolate had a bit of a spice in the back of the throat kick that was a bit much for the nice warm day; not impressed but it was brewed with fair trade coffee so thats cool. Lime wheat- seriously? Corona? How is that Viking? Drink up fratboys, I'll stick to the Viking seasonals inspired by cold weather, not spring break.

On to a palette cleanser: a herby/citrus organic wit by Lafayette. Cool drink of beer.

Dragonmead: frankly the booth looked cool as hell, so I went for the trippel. It smacked my ass with abv and there was a distinct sour taste (not a Flemish sour kinda taste) over the usual citrus/banana/clove flavors. Eh, I'm spoiled for trippels- this was no St Bernardus.

Having had the farmhouse French style from Two Brothers before and enjoying it, we tried a very clean and crisp Dog Days lager, and the Cain and Ebel IPA which were both decent examples of said styles- but frankly I never get worked up over an IPA. Solid selections.

The insane line at the 3 Floyds booth made me think they were pouring something really special. Alas it was scheduled for later or all the good stuff was in the Real Ale tent (oh I'll get to that tent don't worry). Had the Gumballhead wheat, basically it was a typical summer wheat. The Alpha King was a bit more interesting, hoppy and grassy but with actual malt flavor, an IPA I could drink more than once. Why the hell was there such a long line, we didn't get it.

Part 2: the best shit. evah.