First, the Not So Awesome Brew…

Every month, a Not So Awesome Brew is featured as a baseline. After all, what is an Awesome Brew? Awesome compared to what? Compared to something like this:

Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser, 5.0% ABV

Starting off, I wanted to get a serious baseline for typical American beer, so I really took one for the team and went to the bottom of my list of brews.  This is not the first time ever having Bud, no, every teenager here in the United States makes that mistake at some point.  This is though the first time I ever had Bud and honestly did my best to try to enjoy it.   Budweiser is self-proclaimed the “King of Beers”, and by sales to the unwashed masses who sadly don’t know any better, it probably is.  The marketing is certainly genius, with everything from video games, to hot babes, to frogs at the Superbowl Half-time, Anheuser-Busch has really brainwashed this country into the self-fulfilling prophecy that it is truly, the king of beers, and there are few beers even remotely close to it.  After all, to people who don’t know any better, if you keep calling yourself “king”, at some point they start believing you.

So what is up with the King?  They actually carry this stuff at Red, Wine and Brew at the end of the massive beer cooler that is reserved for “I brought my friend with me to Red, Wine and Brew but he’s a hillbilly and don’t drink ‘weird stuff'”  It actually took me a second to find the bottle since I heard something about Budweiser changing their name to “America” until the election.   Christine, the blonde bartender there first gave me the shocked and concerned look of “Oh no, he’s finally lost it.  I’m going to have make an excuse to duck in back and call the sanitarium to take him away” when I set it on the bar.   I explained why I was drinking it, and she changed to the more sympathetic “I’m sorry you just had to put down your dog” look.    With a sigh, I took the King out to the patio to drink it.

Well, it’s certainly cold, which doesn’t say much since the beer coolers at R,W&B are designed to halt all traces of entropy so their precious contents will be the last to fall apart during the heat death of the universe.  It’s watery, very watery.  Slightly bitter, with no trace of character what-so-ever.   I seriously can’t taste anything distinctive about this stuff, which is remarkable.  It’s watery enough I suppose it would be refreshing on a hot day, or you could elect for the more superior glass of ice water.  It did go down fairly smooth and quickly and there was no delay for me wondering if I should have another, unlike a heavier beer which forces me to ask that question to the rest of my body after every bottle.  The typical joke is these American macro-brewed adjunct-lagers are nothing but beer-flavored water, and sadly, as much of a chance I gave the King, that statement holds true.  It was better than I expected to tell the honest truth.  It has been so long since I tasted macro-brewed domestic, I had forgotten the experience.  It’s still a far, far cry from even the most basic Belgian, German or small-craft American offering. A bunch of monkeys locked in a room with a sink, sack of yeast, pile of hops and a carboy could probably uncover the recipe to a decent IPA that would taste better in less time than it took Anheuser-Busch to ferment this stuff.  Serve cold with pretzels while watching whatever (American) football game ESPN is currently playing.

And Now, the Awesome Brews…

Dogfish Head’s, Immort Ale, 11.0% ABV

I know I did a Dogfish Head beer last month, a really good one too, but I hadn’t seen this stuff before in the cooler before.  Something drew me to it like a moth to a flame, desperate to rinse the stale bitterness of Budweiser from my mouth.  Maybe it was the name, I dunno.  Regardless, Christine took the cap off for me with a sigh of relief and I returned to the patio with my new treasure.  It wasn’t until I sat back down and started reading over the label that I realized this stuff’s a smashing 11%… this bottle was more than twice the booze my Bud was!  The smell from the opened bottle was heavenly as well.  It smelled as complex as it claimed, and with the first swig, I got bombed with flavor.

I’m not enough of a beer snob to taste much of those little nuanced flavors other, more beer-snobby people claim they can taste.  I tell it like it is, and this stuff is complex.  You can taste the maple in it, and it’s blended well with the barley.  It tastes like a really good barley-wine, and packs about as much of a punch.  It’s true, after a few of these, you’ll be feeling pretty immortal as well.  It’s smooth like most of the Belgian brews I drink, without a lot of excess carbonation, but it’s heavy.  You can drink milkshakes faster than this stuff.  Not to say it wasn’t good.  At 11% it’s probably a good thing this stuff is slow-drinking.  At the end of the day, it was a real treat.  I had originally planned something else for the first brew I reviewed this month, but pulled this last minute switch because this stuff was so damned awesome.  Serve cold with pancakes, a mug of maple-nut-crunch and Denis Leary’s Lock n’ Load playing.

Huyghe’s Delirium Nocturnum, 8.5% ABV

So, after last month’s Awesome Brews, I was chatting with some Oddysee members about possible suggestions for this month, and Delerium came up.  Delerium is made by Huyghe’s Brewery in Belgium, and it was a beer I had a long time ago but realized I hadn’t picked up in a while.  I was sure I could still get it, so right then and there, I vowed that it would be in this month’s Awesome Brews.  Heading off to my favorite beer shop for a restock, I found it in an almost hidden cooler in the back, and only available in four-packs.  Normally, I buy things by the bottle, but I made an exception for this one.  The problem was, I only remembered one beer, named Delirium.  Here, there were two.   There was a Delerium Tremens and a Delerium Nocturnum.  There were three 4-packs of the first, and only one of the second.  Using the logic of “the one there is less of, must be the one people are buying, thus the better of the two”, I grabbed the last pack of Nocturnum.

Nocturnum is a Belgian Dark ale.  It tastes similar to a typical Belgian Trippel, but has an insane amount of head and carbonation.  When I poured my first one, I found myself, as careful as I was, with half a glass of beer and half a glass of foam which I had to unceremoniously suck off the top to avoid getting it all over my floor. For as dark as it is, it’s not too heavy.  It’s got a rich, almost chocolaty taste that goes down just un-smooth enough to make you realize it’s there.  It has a somewhat spiced taste like clove as well going for it.  It’s one of those beers where after the first, you’re glad you got a 4-pack because you almost immediately want another.  Needless to say, I went through my four-pack in a night, the pink elephants on the bottles mocking me for thinking they would stretch out longer than that.  At the end of the night, I was seeing pink elephants of my own.  Serve chilled with homemade tiramisu and a copy of Disney’s Dumbo.

Some of the pictures taken for Awesome Brews were done by Diane Schuler of Schuler Photography