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:

Steel Brewing Company’s – Steel Reserve – Alloy Series – Spiked Punch, 8.0% ABV

The suggestion for the not so awesome brew this month comes from none other than Oddysee’s very own Eminent Commander, Cipher, a.k.a. Drunklord/Darth Tom (also known unfortunately as the High King of Skyrim).  Now, I looked everywhere for just “Steel Reserve“, but apparently, I don’t live in a ghetto enough neighborhood to get the standard stuff.  Instead, I found their “Alloy Series”, which is apparently a series – like a new batch of Pokemon or Magic cards.  The Alloy series takes the hobo fueled rage of Steel Reserve and fuses it with carbonation and a whole cadre of flavors found only in the laboratories of scientists who have been doing flavor testing for so long, they can’t taste the difference between chocolate and a soiled baby diaper.  So, I chose “Spiked Punch”.  It seemed like the logical choice since I like punch and I like booze.

The can for Steel Reserve Alloy Series is it’s own double-fister.  I discovered it filled my glass exactly twice.  This stuff is fizzy and carbonated like a soda pop.  At first taste, it’s not too bad.  It’s certainly better than the Great America crap I drank a few months ago.  It tastes like a very weakly flavored fruit punch soda pop, with not enough sugar like it came out of a soda fountain that was running on empty, but it also had a distinct aftertaste that can only be described as industrial.  I use the aftertaste loosely because it hits you while you’re drinking it, but doesn’t hit you until you’re half-way through your sip.  Seriously, it’s like somebody took a push-broom through Detroit’s southwest side, threw everything into an old vat at some machining plant, filled it with water, and boiled it all, and added about a shotglass-sized amount to each can.  It was a very chemical aftertaste, but unlike the typical toxic chemical spills I encounter, this one had structure and refinement and was almost metallic in nature thus giving “Steel” Reserve kudos for being ironic.

Seriously though, this stuff is foul, get you smashed fast, hobo-fuel.  The carbonation helped me choke down my glass-full, and then I realized I had another whole glass to go.  I can certainly think of worse stuff to drink, and potentially with a little tweaking, Steel Reserve Alloy Series Spiked Punch could be palatable, but that industrial chemical aftertaste just seals the deal.  Serve with a dirty machinist rag soaked in cutting fluid and Michael Moore’s Roger and Me.

And Now, the Awesome Brews…

Suisen Shuzo Saké Brewery’s – KIBO Junmai Saké, 15.5% ABV

The story of Suisen Shuzo is an interesting and sad one.  In March 2011, the massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan completely destroyed the saké brewery and claimed the lives of seven of it’s employees.  Most people on this side of the world remember most the nuclear reactor meltdowns in Fukushima at this time.  Three years later, after much perseverance, the brewery was rebuilt at the same location, and production started again.  Heck, you can watch a video about it here.  Kibo, which translates to “hope” in Japanese, is one of their premier junmai sakés that they craft domestically as well as for export.  The saké comes in a 180ml sized juice-can of steel, heavy enough you can patch the holes in your car with it’s material.  Like all good saké hitting the States, it has an ugly pricetag, but like all saké in general, at a 15.5% ABV, it’ll leave you feeling warm inside whether you serve it warm or chilled.

Considering I haven’t reviewed a saké since Awesome Brews #4, I should probably reiterate some of the basics.   Premium saké comes in two main forms, Junmai-shu and Honjozo-shu.  The first is basically pure fermented rice wine.  The second, has a small amount of distilled alcohol added and is lighter and more fragrant.  Non-premium saké is called Futsu-shu, and accounts for about 80% of the saké market.  It is the saké equivalent of table wine.  Futsu-shu is typically served warm and what most people think of when they think of saké, while Junmai-shu and Honjozo-shu are served chilled like any typical wine.  Saké can also be classified by how much the rice is milled in the process.  The outer layers of rice are essentially chaff and unusable in fermenting unless you like a dirty, awful flavor to your saké, so the rice is literally milled down so only the kernel in the center remains.  Imagine taking a cup of rice to some sandpaper and sanding it all down to about half the size it is and you’ll get the idea of what’s involved.  As long as the outer-most layers are removed from the rice, or about 25%-30% of it, the saké will ferment somewhat cleanly.  If 40% if the rice is milled away, it’s referred as “Ginjo”, and is considered extra-premium. If 50% is milled away, it’s considered “Daiginjo” and is considered super-premium.  Anything more falls into a rare “special” category that is rarely found in the United States.

Kibo’s taste is remarkably smooth and mellow for Junmai-shu which, as pure rice wine, can be quite harsh at times.  All the premium sakés I purchase, I drink chilled, and this one being no exception.  I poured it into a glass shot glass because part of the fun of drinking saké is you do so about a shot-worth at a time.  While I own a couple actual saké sets, I don’t break them out unless I’m drinking more common Futsu-shu, like standard Gekkeikan or Ozeki which is essentially the Miller and Budweiser of the saké world.  Kibo is clean, refreshing and smooth and an excellent example of good Junmai-shu saké.  It has an almost nonexistent bite and a very neutral flavor pallet.  I only wish I could find it in larger bottles as I could go through a wine-bottle of this stuff easily. Serve chilled with fresh sushi and the first season of One-Punch Man.

Montezuma Winery’s – Semi-Sweet Mead, 11.0% ABV

Many moons ago, Evly admitted to me that she didn’t drink, and mostly because she just hadn’t found her potable of choice.  It’s a long road to finding what “your” alcohol is.  Are you a beer person?  Are you a wine drinker?  Maybe you only drink mixed drinks and cocktails.  Maybe you decide you’re a whisky or scotch drinker.  For some people who like the rarer stuff, it’s saké, and for some, it’s mead.  Many moons after Evly admitted this to me, she excitedly told me she found something that was delicious and spoke to her on a wine-tasting trip.  That something was Montezuma Winery’s semi-sweet mead.  She told me I should get some bottles, and that I should review it on Awesome Brews… this happening around late August, early September 2016.  Montezuma produces two versions of their mead, semi-sweet and sweet.  Unfortunately at the time, they were completely out of stock of their semi-sweet stuff and Evly admitted to me the sweet mead was just too sickeningly sweet for even her pallet.  Lo-and-behold, late November, we noticed the semi-sweet stuff was back in stock, and I quickly ordered two bottles of it.  I already had the December brews chosen for the early January edition of the newsletter, so, at long last, I bring you my review of Montezuma’s Semi-Sweet Mead – something I know Evly has been looking forward to for a very long time.

Montezuma Winery got off the ground in 1999 in Sterling, New York, and from day one, focused on honey wines and fruit wines.  Montezuma semi-sweet is light for a mead.  It’s very much like a wine in this regard.  It has the distinct honey taste of a pure mead, but without the heavy, sugary sweetness that comes with it.  Honestly, Evly was right to warn me off from the standard, full-sweet version of this stuff, because while this stuff is sweet, any more I feel would ruin the taste.  The taste is crisp, with some flowery overtones like lavender hitting your nose, most likely a product of the type of honey used in it’s production.  I would consider this closer to Tej, but without the extra sweetness and added spices of that style of honey wine.  It’s apparent from Montezuma’s pedigree as a honey producer, that they intimately understand their product, from the bee-fields and honey production, to the final fermentation and bottling.  This is honestly the first mead I can just sit back and drink without having to re-cap/cork the bottle and put it away for later, and certainly the first mead I can drink chilled on a hot summer day.  While one of my go-to meads around my neighborhood is Crafted, which I have done numerous reviews on, Crafted is forever creating new artisanal concoctions which generally lacks the simple purity of a pure honey mead.  Evly struck some gold with this one, and it makes me curious what else Montezuma can produce, which has me placing a larger mixed 6-bottle order with them soon after the posting of this newsletter.  Serve chilled with a well marbled t-bone steak dinner and a copy of the 13th Warrior.

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