Quick Sips: Dogfish Head Festina Peche

Seasonal beers are awesome. Winter beers are best, spring beers are fantastic, autumn beers are classic, and summer beers? Well, they can be all over the map, but when they're good, they're GOOD.

Dogfish Head Festina Peche is a summer beer.

And I love this beer. I love it not because it's a low(ish) alcohol beer by a brewery that mostly does BIG beers, but because it drinks awesome.

This is a delicious beer, but it's not for everybody. It's nicely tart, not quite on the level of a sour candy, but tart enough so that it has a mouth-puckering snap at the finish. Some may find that off-putting, but if you enjoy tart foods and fruits, or sour alcohol drinks, you'll probably enjoy this.

It's made with peach puree, just enough to lend it tasty fruit overtones but not so much that it screams out, "This is a fruit beer!" It's a great balance, fruity enough to be a flavorful and refreshing summer drink, but thanks to the tartness, not so fruity that it tastes like a lame wine cool.er

Even better, at just 4.5% ABV it's pretty low alcohol for Dogfish Head, and plenty low enough so that you could put quite a few of these back on a summer day. And it is indeed PERFECT for a summer's day. Like most Dogfish Head beers it won't be cheap -- it runs about $9 a four-pack -- but the cost is worth it.

Count me in for three or so four-packs every summer.

Quick Sips: He'Brew Funky Jewbelation blended barrel-aged sour ale

The He'Brew line by Shmaltz Brewing tend to be big and interesting, but few have been as interesting as this blend of six big fat ales aged in bourbon and rye whiskey barrels. A bunch of beers from their line (many limited) were aged anywhere from 3 months to over a year in these barrels, and then were blended together to make this beer.

Oh yeah, and for good measure, it's a sour beer, too.

When your blended beer outlines a bunch of brews that look like barrel-aged monsters stuffed into bourbon and rye-whiskey casks, the last thing you expect is for it to smell SOUR. Yet it does. Turns out the "funky" part of the name means it's a wild ale. Totally unexpected when I bought this! Maybe I should have read up on it first ... ?

Nah. Buying blind is half the fun of trying new beers.

Anyway, the aroma is like a boozy malt vinegar, but in a pleasant way (if you can imagine it). The taste follows suit. There is good sourness upfront with booze that quickly slices through. There is a lot happening behind this -- this beer is a blend of some tasty and imposing ales, after all -- but the taste finishes on rye whiskey that is, again, sour. Those two elements dominate everything else. The backbone of this beer wants to be a nice brown ale, but there is so much pure FUNK happening that all the brown is funked right out of it.

Throw in the whiskey and bourbon and it threatens to be a mess. At times it is, and at times it's a mess of joy. Hard to decide which, but I lean towards the former. This is an interesting, complex beer, but there might be a little too much going on for its own good. Hard to wrap my head around it with just one bottle.

If you like challenging beers and the idea of a barrel-aged dark sour sounds good to you, worth picking up if you can still find it. IF. I drank this (and wrote most of this) about a year ago.

Cheers!

HOMEBREWING: Whiskey Barrel Imperial Stout

Last year, a friend and I put the whiskey barrel I bought to good use and brewed an imperial stout designed to be aged in said barrel. The recipe was, to say the least, intense. Easily the most expensive beer I have done to date, using a TON of specialty malts and in the end (thankfully) tasting comparable to Firestone Walker's Parabola, but here's the thing: It might also be the most delicious beer I've ever done. It's certainly the prettiest:

Looks wonderful, doesn't it? That's my co-brewer in the photo, and the beer is just a few weeks old (after a long primary and then secondary in the barrel). If you want the recipe, just ask. It's extract with specialty grains, so anyone can make it.

After the imperial stout, I did a honey porter in it, and the barrel currently contains a lambic, which will stay in the barrel for about a year or more. My plan is to blend small parts of that batch into future lambic and sour batches. (I currently have seven vessels with various sour beers, so the blending opportunities are endless!)

So here's the thing: Barrel-aging your beers is easy.

1) Buy a barrel! Just Google various phrases, there are TONS of sources. Spend between $70 and $120 (before shipping) for a 5-gallon barrel or you're getting ripped off.

2) Don't worry about cleaning it out. All that booze will keep it sterile. Just brew a big beer and put it in the barrel!

3) How long to age it? Keep the beer in it from two weeks to two years, depending on the beer. A weeks to two weeks is great for IPAs and Double IPAs, two to four weeks is ideal for traditional stouts and porters, four to eight weeks for barleywines and strong Belgian styles, and a month to two years for lambics.

4) Bottle, age, open, enjoy!

Yeah, seriously, it's that easy. I recommend bottling a few smaller sampler bottles so you can taste it over time -- barrel-aged beers tend to need some time to age into perfection, about six months to a year in my experience -- and going easy until it has aged into your taste. After that?

Cheers!

Quick Sips: Cricket Hill Reserve Series #15

Cricket Hill Brewery is one of New Jersey's little secrets. On a national level they don't get much attention, and heck, not even locally, what with Kane and Carton stealing all the recent spotlight and Flying Fish being seen as the gristled veterans.

But Cricket Hill is very quietly making some excellent beers, both approachable and experimental. One that falls in the latter category is #15 in their reserve series, a sour porter aged in bourbon barrels.

Allegedly, only nine cases or so were produced of this beer. I don't know how accurate the number is, but I do know I paid way more for this bottle than I normally would (mostly because I didn't check the price before getting to the register). It's limited as hell, so you'll pay for it. And take note, it came out last year, so if you see one GET IT because it's one of the last bottles in existence.

The beer is certainly intriguing. There is a sour tang on the aroma but it is not strong. It overpowers the porter -- no chocolate or roast to speak of in the nose -- but it doesn't overwhelm the senses. If there is some bourbon in the nose, it's subtle. The head retention is for crap, though. Ignore my photo. The head you see disappears quickly and doesn't stick around for long. While that's not highly unusual for sour beers, it happens particularly fast here.

But a beer is all in the taste, and this one ... is challenging. Challenging, but worthwhile. The sour in the taste is a wonderful balance between pronounced and yet not so dominant that it's all you can taste. It's sour, yeah, but there is brown malt that comes through in the middle, with a nice yet gentle wash of bourbon at the finish. There is sour dark fruit in here, too. Quite complex and for damn sure a beer you'll mull over.

New Jersey's craft beer scene is better than people give it credit for when it comes to nice, drinkable beers, but is low on the "wild and offbeat" list. Cricket Hill makes a good go at it with this beer. It's complex, challenging, tasty, but not for everyone.

(If this sounds like a beer you want to try, drop me a note or email. I can still get my hands on some, but not many bottles are left.)

Quick Sips: Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour Ale

Ahh, sour beers. This ancient Belgian style is sort of the trend these days. They are not THE trend in the way IPAs and barrel aging were, but they're definitely a hot commodity right now. (I will post what I think is the new up and coming trend soon.)

In the U.S., there are few places more renown for being a mecca for Belgian beer as Monk's Cafe in Philadelphia, a cramped, cozy little headquarters for some of the best beers on the planet.

And lo and behold, they have their own beer, Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour Ale! Well, sort of. It's actually part of the regular lineup of Brouwerij Van Steenberge, packaged with some Monk's branding. The nice thing is, this beer is affordable. Thanks to the care it takes to make, special facilities to separate it from other beers, and the required aging, sour beer is EXPENSIVE. Yet this one is in line with other pricy craft beers, expensive but affordable.

If you spot Monk's Cafe sour and want to drop the roughly $20 it will cost for a four-pack, you should expect pleasant tartness and acidity in the nose, with just a mild hint of the vinegar-like qualities common to some sours. The aroma is not going to impress.

Once it hits your palate, the sourness of this beer is only mild, very mild, accentuated a bit by the brisk carbonation but falling far short of mouth-puckering. A nice sweet note carries throughout the entire sip.

What this beer is is drinkable. It has some sourness, but it's not the aggressive sour pursued by sourheads. It has nice fruit and sweet flavors, in fact. Probably a great introductory beer to those new to sours, and in a way the ultimate session sour. You could put these down all day and your palate would be fine.

But once you've had a few sours, you'll drink this wishing your mouth would pucker. For me it scratches an itch, but only just barely.

Quick Sips: Telegraph Gypsy Ale

Right now, the trendy style among craft beer enthusiasts is sour, sour, sour. Here's one more for the list. This one is from Telegraph Brewing Company out of California ... and sadly, it's only available in California and Arizona. Gypsy Ale is brewed with rye, unmalted wheat, and locally grown plums, and is then fermented with Brettanomyces, which is a type of yeast commonly used in so-called wild ales.

Pour it and you can smell that it's a sour beer. Very funky, very sour nose. It's got a wild tang to the aroma. Take a sip and the 8% ABV isn't well hidden. There is some warming alcohol here, though it's not unpleasant. You can taste hints of light fruit cutting through the puckeringly sour of the beer. The beer is highly carbonated, maybe a little too much. Tickles its way through your mouth and diffusing some of the nice fruit hiding behind the tartness.

Overall, a nice beer that I'd like to have again. If I did ratings I'd probably call this one a 7/10. This beer is a seasonal typically available starting in the late summer.

Quick Sips: Rodenbach Grand Cru

While IPAs continue to be the mainstay of the American craft beer movement, sour beers are trending upwards as the fashionable style of choice. That's in part because ardent beer geeks are looking for different different different, but also because sour beers are frickin' delicious.

The granddaddy of sours is Rodenbach, who have been doing traditional Flemish sours since 1821. They're also the most visible and easily available sour beer in the U.S., so if you want to try the style you'll probably start here or, more likely, with their classic red.

The Grand Cru is the big one. The beer pours a mahogany brown. It looks rich and complex ... and it is. The aroma is very sour, like cranberries and sour cherries stored for a few years in wooden barrels. Tones of red wine are present in the mix.

The taste is nuanced and layered. It is tart throughout, with a big sour finish. Not completely mouth-puckering, but close, especially as you work your way through your glass. A little bit of malt sweetness balances out the sour, and hints of oak at the end smooths out the edges.

Overall a tart, tasty jaunt into the world of sour beers. A perfect introduction to the style or a nice comfort beer for old vets.

Quick Sips: Russian River Temptation

Among beer geeks, it's hard to find a brewery more sought after than Russian River. They're tiny tiny tiny, but get acclaim across the U.S. despite being available mostly in California and a few connected states. (Philadelphia, PA is an exception.) Their best known beer is Pliny the Elder, a big double IPA.

But the beers the hardcore look for are their sours. Russian River are known for being one of the great brewers of sour beers in the U.S. Temptation is among them, a sour beer aged in French oak wine barrels.

The beer has a mild bready aroma with clear Chardonnay tones throughout. Looks golden, crisp, and kind of ordinary. When it hits your palate, however, it's something new. The tartness pushes forward in the middle – it’s sour, but not mouth-puckeringly so – with a very dry finish reminiscent of, you guessed it, Chardonnay. It's crisp, but only because it finishes so dry. Quite dry. The more sips you take the more it all smooths out until you're drinking a tart, effervescent, fruity beverage that manages to be more complex than the white wine it initially hints towards. As it warms the yeasty bread starts to come out to play and the tartness (unfortunately) runs and hides. Delicious overall, but slow to reveal itself.

But here's the rub: on the East Coast I paid $15 for a single bottle. One bottle. Worth it? Only for the adventurous, or if you love sours (which are sadly rare on the East Coast scene).