Kelpie Ale, by Williams Brothers Brewery, is a beast of an Ale, in name and flavor.  No, I'm not joking...as cute as "Kelpie" sounds and as wimpy as 4.4% ABV may seem, sometimes there's more than meets the eye.  The beer, based of historic Scottish ales that were brewed on the coast using malts that had been grown in fields fertilized with seaweed.  Williams Brothers Brewery add seaweed to the Kelpie recipe in the mash to simulate the historic ales. So how is this beer a beast? The term "kelpie" actually is derived from a mythological creature of Celtic folklore--a monster--said to haunt the rivers and locks of Scotland.  The mythological Kelpie was said to lure victims (it favored children) into the water where it would drown and then devour them.  Yikes!  At 4.4% ABV there's little chance that consuming a couple bottles of Kelpie Ale will be so cruel to you. So how does the beast reveal itself in the drinking experience? There are few beers that REALLY intrigue me prior to drinking.  No matter how crazy a name a brewery decides to name its pale ale, I usually cannot muster up any intrigue...I mean...it's a pale ale, hardly a white buffalo.  But ...

Outside of Dark Lord Day, I've not been to Three Floyds.  Now that I'm in Indiana, I'm planning on hitting Three Floyds Brewpub for a bite to eat and a couple beers to drink.  Anyway, I don't know how many of you have local brewpubs but that's what I'll be doing on this Saturday.  I'm going to enjoy, I hope you are.

I'm the type of guy that can drink any style of beer at any time during the year.  that winter warmer taste just as delicious to me poolside as it does fireside.  Nvertheless, the idea that certain beer styles are seasonal has some weight to it.  A good Saison, when sipped on a humid summer night in the country with the natural smells of hay and grass in the air, tastes that much better. Some beers, in my opinion, transcend seasons.  They are absolutely fitting to any climate, temperature, setting, etc.  For me, the English Extra Special/Strong Bitter (ESB) is that beer for me.  (For more information on the ESB style, this BJCP guideline is helpful) It's bold enough to warm you up in winter, and bright enough to wet your palate in the summer. So this weeks Sip With Us Saturday beer is any authentic English ESB.  By authentic, I mean, imported from England.  While there are plenty of American Breweries that mimic the style quite well (in fact, my own ESB style homebrew was one of my best) sometimes it's best to get a grasp on the originals before dissecting replications.

Besides the fact that true Lambics are intensely complex, flavorful, and delicious beers, they can serve a higher purpose.  The Lambic could have been designed to prove to the wine guy/gal that beer can be good.  (1) Let's start with the name of the Lambic, in this case the Framboise that I drank this past Saturday:  Framboise. It is not pronounced as one might expect.  It is foreign.  Fancy.  Enlightened.  It screams of sophistication.  (2) This beverage is not contained in some low brow brown bottle or can.  No, the Lambic chooses a much fancier vessel.  The champagne bottle.  Certainly only a dignified beverage would dare to occupy such a distinguished bottle. (3) Upon opening, the bottle avoids a disgraceful fizz and pops into the air.  (4) The flavor.  This can't be beer...can it? Joking aside, if you ever meet a wine guy/gal who thinks beer is for the birds, give them a Lambic and they just might end up discovering the vast world of beer. I chose to drink Lindemans Framboise out of necessity...it was the only Lambic my local beer store had in stock, and I was not in the mood to drive out of the way for a larger ...

Nate appealed to us saying that we should drink a lambic for our SWUS festivities.  My brother and I went to The Lost Abbey, so sipping some Amorosa was a no brainer.  Actually, my brother went with the intention of buying some Isabel Proximus or Duck Duck Gooze...stumped on both accounts.  I would loved to been able to post a review on those beers.  No matter, I got my second taste of Amorosa and here is what I thought. The Pour: Trust me when I tell you, that, if you get this beer, let it settle and cool for a day or so.  I imagine that perhaps too much yeast or unfermented raspberry got into the bottle we drank because the cork started coming out on its own accord.  (The only other brew I remember doing something similar was the Gueuze from Hanssens I drank; it contained Mead, so those sugars made the cork really pop.)  Once the bottle was open (good thing it was thick), it was too late.  The Amorosa was gushing out.  Fortunately, we acted quickly and saved most of the brew (we probably lost an ounce or so).  At any rate, we gently poured our brews into a couple ...

While summer won't "technically" arrive until June 21st this year, it sure feels like like spring has come and gone.  In fact, I could hardly fall asleep last night in my non-air conditioned home.  Fortunately, counting the drops of sweat dripping from my brow lulled me into sleep. Perhaps the most quintessential summer beverage, is the Lambic.  This beer often surprises the uninitiated by its sweetness, tartness, and fruitiness.  If one is aware of the complicated creative process that yields this brew, they would be surprised even more.  In a lambic, the wild yeasts and bacterias that are stringently avoided by brewers are given a welcome mat by Lambic brewers.  Mike wrote a down to earth article a year and a half ago describing the process. I'd encourage you to revisit it. This weeks Sip With Us Saturday is any authentic Belgian lambic.  While some US brewers do a decent job mimicking the authentic, some fall short. Cheers, and here's to a refreshing Saturday.

In order to fulfill the foreign language requirement in high school, I took four years of Japanese.  In fact, a the age of thirty, I still wear my Japanese Club t-shirt from my junior.  While I have forgotten most of the language (but still have dreams in which I'm speaking semi fluent Japanese...weird) I haven't forgotten how interesting the Japanese can be, especially in the arena of interpretations of occidental cuisine.  Just cruise on over to the Japanese Pizza Hut website.  If they delivered to your neck of the woods, you could order the "Half and Half for Kids" that comes topped with "Egg Bipuru s" + "BBQ Chicken mayonnaise." As I've been exploring a new beer store (that just happens to have the widest variety of craft beer in Ohio) in search of an "island beer" to fulfill my Sip With Us Saturday tradition   I was delighted to discover Hitachino Nest XH (XH = Extra High), an ale aged in Sake barrels, brewed by Kiuchi Brewery.  Interestingly, Kiuchi traditionally is a maker of Sake; craft beer sort of evolved. Before drinking the beer, two presuppositions occupied my thoughts.  1) This will be weird.  I mean, look what the creative (I say ...

Love it or hate it, the TV series LOST has proven to be a drama of epic proportions, having dominated whatever time slot it has filled for the past several years.  At one point, the president of the United States even had to rearrange a State of the Union Address so as not to interfere with the program.  Now that's pull. Having read some lively interaction over at Beer and Whiskey Bros revealing mixed feelings towards the show, we felt something "LOST' related should serve as the Sip With Us Saturday beer this week.  Alas, Dharma Initiative beer is strictly fantasy. Such as the case demands, in keeping with the LOST theme, our SWUS beer this week is any beer brewed on an island.  Be creative! Cheers!

In an effort to find an non U.S. beer off the beaten path for Sip with us Saturday, I found La Divine by Brasserie De Silly from Belgium.  Admittedly, I wanted go a bit more off the beaten path for this one but my choices were a little more limited.  Not that I’m complaining, I really enjoyed the brew.  Plus, I've already had a good beer from them. The Pour: La Divine poured with a hazy copper colored head and offered a small, finely carbonated, and only minimally retained head.  The carbonation wasn’t as high as I would normally expect a Belgian Abbey brew to be.  However, there was a touch of decent lacing the liquid level reduced. The Nose: Sticky and sweet, that is the best way to describe the nose.  The aromas of a barley and wine were very present.  Actually, the beer reminded of half beer, half red table wine.  There was a certain youngness and freshness to the brew, like a young wine.  Of course the sweet candy sugar tones were present as well as a bit of fruitiness. The Taste: Like the nose, the taste was very refreshing and a bit sweet.  The wine-like qualities were ...

I have iterated several times before on this blog that the America Pilsner (and I am speaking generically; that is, making no distinction between say, a German or Czech style Pilsner) is treated like a weird/creepy uncle:  While a part of the family, only in reluctance will many admit association.  But sometimes a weird uncle is actually cooler than we'd let ourselves discover. We have our reasons.  Uncle Bud and Miller, to name a few.  But there is that sparkling gem that proves that every style can shine if cultured correctly.  For me, the quintessential example would be Boulevard's Collaboration 1. For this week's Sip With Us Saturday, with the Pilsner as the choice, I picked up four different pilsners to diminish the odds for disappointment.  Two stark observations surfaced as I surfed the beer aisle searching for my beer:  1) Choice isn't abundant in the craft beer world when it comes to Pilsners.  IPA's and Stouts crowded the shelf, but nary a pilsner was to be found, and 2) Pilsners are comparatively inexpensive.  With a limited amount of time I was only able to find and snag four American craft Pilsners:  Heavy Seas' (Clipper City) Small Craft Warning, Uber Pils, Stoudt's ...