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 211 – High Gravity Lager, 8.1% ABV

The first review in this month’s Awesome Brews is me making amends.  A while back, I promised Cipher I would take up the challenge of reviewing Steel Reserve on Awesome Brews.  In Awesome Brews #20, I had done just that, or so I thought.  I reviewed a can of Steel Reserve Alloy Series spiked punch.  It was dreadful if I recall and it was the only thing I could find in the area that was Steel Reserve.  I was a little bummed I couldn’t find actual original Steel Reserve, and Cipher flat out said I tried but hadn’t lived up to my promise yet so, I doubled down.  I looked back at my notes and realized Mentor Ohio was in no way ghetto enough to sell such potent hobo-fuel, so my journey too me to east Cleveland.  It was here that I found McBills Beverage which had enough plywood on it’s busted windows and gang-graffiti on it’s aging brick walls to hold promise, and as the only cracker in a generation to set foot in that fine establishment with it’s mold covered tile floors and water damaged ceiling, I found a large cooler in the back that had my goal: original Steel Reserve 211.  As run down as the place was, oddly, to me it was home, because – little known fact about your reviewer, I was born and raised in a house only a block away.  I chatted a bit with the proprietor, a nice gent named DeAndre, about the neighborhood, what it was like when I lived in the area, etc., and told him I’d be back from time to time as I passed through.  After all,  it’s important to reconnect with your roots sometimes, and it’s a perfect spot for a whole host of potentially not-so-awesome brews in the future.

Starting with the can, it’s covered in junk.  Everywhere you see the term “high-gravity“.  Unlike a neutron star or a black hole though, this is referring to the chemistry term “specific gravity” or “how dense is the liquid compared to water”.  When using the term “high-gravity” with brewing, you’re referring to the “original gravity” which is the amount of solids dissolved in the wort before fermentation compared to water.  A “high-gravity” beer has more stuff in the wort for the brewers yeast to eat, and thus, make alcohol.  The more stuff there is, the more alcohol you end up with, thus “high-gravity” is typically synonymous with “alcoholic as hell”.  Steel Reserve is far from the first “high-gravity” beer I’ve reviewed on Awesome Brews.  Plenty of beers are typically considered “high-gravity” like Russian Imperials, Barley Wines, Scotch Ales, and Belgian Strong Ales to name a few.  They typically don’t go about advertising the fact so prominently though.

Steel Reserve 211 is a lager that has both a high alcoholic content and low price tag, thus it’s most popular with bums, hobos and dumb young people.  I think I paid only $1.35 for the 24oz can of 8.1% swill which is about equivalent to 39 cents a beer normally with cheap domestics.  The head was foamy and creamy which surprised me a bit and the first sips were not nearly as awful as I would have expected.  It was somewhat like a less-creamy, Genesee Cream Ale made with much cheaper ingredients.  The taste starts catching up with you a few sips in, and it starts tasting more like rotting hay than beer as you get to the bottom of the glass.  The flavor also had an unwitting ability to “linger” in your mouth long after each mouthful.  This, wasn’t the worst part of it though.   Oh-no dear readers, that was to come shortly after.

The headache came on like a dull ache about five minutes after I finished the can.  After another five, it muscled it’s way high onto Demonseed’s “worst alcohol induced headaches I’ve ever experienced” list.  This experience was both painful and somewhat amusing, because Cipher mentioned something about headaches, but I didn’t believe him.  While Steel Reserve is technically a lager, I have little doubt it’s manufactured only with the worst ingredients, and most likely reinforced with grain alcohol to reach it’s final potency.  I briefly touched on the process of making a “high-gravity” beer, but one thing that I didn’t make clear was giving yeast a lot of food to eat, means you’re not only spending more money on ingredients used, but also time.  Both of which add up to extra costs, and at $1.35 for 24oz, the ingredient cost must be very very low indeed.  Maybe I’m more accurate than I thought with the statement about this hobo-fuel tasting like rotting hay.  Serve with tater-tot casserole and watching whatever the rabbit-ears hooked up to your TV can pick up.

And Now, the Awesome Brews…

Arrogant Brewing’s, Who You Callin’ Wussie, 5.8% ABV

Stone Brewing is one of the big crusaders in the craft-brew world for strong flavor and high quality in beer.  Back in 1995, the co-founders were trying to perfect the recipe for Stone’s pale ale when something went somewhat wrong.  One of their brews emerged far more heavy and potent than either of them expected.  Taken straight from their website, it was one of those moments of “Wow!…Yeah. Hmm. Oh! Oh…hell yeah! What are we going to do with a beer like this? Nobody is going to be able to handle it.”  The strange brew lingered in their minds and most likely in their brewer’s notebooks for a while before they decided to turn it loose on the public as the wildly successful Arrogant Bastard Ale.  In 2015, the line was officially separated from Stone Brewing as it’s own entity, able to freely explore the extremes of depth and quality in beer as Arrogant Brewing.

Arrogant Brewing’s beers are all powerful in flavor.  Who You Callin’ Wussie is no exception.  A new offering out of the fledgling Arrogant Brewing company, technically, it’s a pilsner, though it’s as potent as most IPAs.  Unlike the fizzy yellow swill that generally fills the “not-so-awesome brew” category most months, Wussie hits you square in the tastebuds.  It’s a pilsner from an era and time almost lost to history; like a Teutonic warrior rising from his grave to angerly chop everyone’s heads off.  It pours a clear amber with a decent, fizzy, foamy head and in glass, resembles the Steel Reserve reviewed above.  This is where the similarities between the two end though.  Bitterness is king in this brew.  It’s a pilsner of volume, not subtlety.  It has a strong, fresh, bread-like, grainy flavor with a smell to match and not much else.  Personally, I’m not sure I’m a huge fan of it.  As I said, it tasted more like an IPA without the hops than a pilsner.  When I drink pilsners, I drink them for their more subtle qualities and ability to drink them quickly and in volume because they’re typically light bodied, easy drinkers.  Who You Callin’ Wussie I ended up sipping down like many of the heavier beers I drink.  While certainly far from a bad beer, it might not be the right beer for you, which, for Arrogant Brewing, sounds about par for the course – just like the tagline on their original Arrogant Bastard Ale, “You’re not worthy“.  Serve with any meat dish cooked rare and a copy of The 13th Warrior.

Boulevard Brewing Company’s, Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale, 8.5% ABV

Since we’re on the topic of brewing accidents, let me introduce you to another one.  Over at Boulevard Brewing Company, they had a fermenter that they considered a bit “persnickety” giving sometimes unexpected results in their experiments which they referred to as fermenter number seven.   While experimenting with recipes for a Belgian style farmhouse ale (also known as a Saison), that very same fermenter gave them something somewhat unexpected which they ended up naming “Tank 7” in honor of that piece of equipment, and which has become one of their most best-known beers.  Saisons are a hot new trend in craft-brewing and have picked up a lot of traction here in the United States as of late.  Traditionally, they were Belgian farm-brewed ales, brewed during the winter for consumption during the following summer months.  Like many Belgians, fruits were involved as were typical wild yeasts giving a brew that tasted squarely like a beer, but also fairly fruity, and sour.  The wild yeast was improved with newer, domesticated brewer’s yeasts to cut out most of the sourness, and the modern Saison was born.  What was once an endangered style of brew has seen a massive revival.

Tank 7 is a fairly exceptional example of this as well.  It pours a cloudy amber with a foamy head.  The texture is smooth and medium bodied.  The taste is what blows you away though.  It’s both bitter and fruity, with neither being overpowering.  You can definitely taste some form of citrus in there, but whether it’s grapefruit, orange or lemon, I have a hard time pinpointing; perhaps all of the above with some green apple thrown in just to mess with my tastebuds.  The bitter side is wheaty almost like a hefeweizen with a bit of hops thrown in.  There’s a distinct musty smell of pepper to the beer as well which adds to it’s overall composition.  The most remarkable thing though is the balance.  This beer is somehow 8.5% ABV, but you’d never know it tasting it.  Usually, when a beer climbs over the 7% point things can get messy fast.  It’s typically at this point, the rough alcohol flavor begins to separate and come out, and you end up with a very boozy brew that tastes more like a chemical spill than anything natural or intended.  Tank 7 takes the bitter, wheaty beer side, combines it with the light, fruity, citrus side and the result is a final brew that completely masks it’s high-gravity (because we all know what that stands for now) nature.  It’s very drinkable, and I polished mine off far faster than Arrogant Brewing’s pilsner reviewed above.  Admittedly, this is not my first time drinking this beer, as I’ve been picking up bottles of it and getting it on tap for several years now.  It certainly won’t be my last either.  Serve chilled with a seafood pasta or pork roast along with a copy of The Astronaut Farmer.

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