It's that time of year. Not just for Untappd Wrapped, but a keto and liver fasting period, wherein I have to quell my love for beer by brewing it, reading about it, writing about it.... anything but drinking it.
The fun part about using this framework is in the back of my mind, somewhere around April or July, I experience a truly phenomenal beer and think to myself This might be in the top 3. So here they are, in no particular order.
Cantillon: Vin Santo (2022)
Beer at its highest and best use is a ritual drink shared between friends that reminds us life is good, let your guard down, enjoy this moment and don't overcomplicate anything. Vin Santo asks your group of beer nerd friends, "Don't you mean 'Life is great?'" And this will be a story about friendship, after a time of not seeing many friends in an enduring pandemic, with small anchoring children.
The times I've gotten to drink Jean Van Roy's (and family) remarkable beers are some of my best memories of the time and care I've devoted to this hobby. You don't come by them easily, or by mistake. This concerted effort came from De Garde's 10th anniversary. Not the party, but the day after at the tap room. I was there with three friends who also love mixed fermentation beer, Linus, Brandon, and Carl. We didn't overdo it with the anniversary festival the day before, and on our way up the main drag of Tillamook, we arrived to a modest line around 11:45 for their noon open. And then Brandon got a hold of the bottle list.
Oh my god. Six bottles of Cantillon, three of which none of us had tried before (!!!).
Vin Santo actually sold out before we got up front, they probably only had 2 bottles leftover from Friday when they first admitted patrons before the party. We had all arrived Saturday morning, so this roughly 24 hour romp was full of amazing beers from all styles. We purchased Drogone and Aunis, and seated ourselves among the rest of the geeks. One of whom had a bottle of Vin Santo keenly being shared among three friends, and as one does in that sanguine tap room, we offered to share beers.
I could wax poetic here for a while about those 3-4 ounces I ended up with from the last bottle of Vin Santo on Earth, as far as I knew. Wow, the aroma. WOW! You take a fairly mundane Italian grape, let it sun dry into raisins, and then macerate over an extended period of time with Lambic. Grapefruit, Blacklime Peel that had gone slightly moldy, kush, tannic like aged hops. Tropical raisins gone funky sitting long in the sun. My parting Untappd review line: I hope to drink this again some day.
Fidens: Jasper
There is a perfect hazy IPA, and this is it. I don't need to want, I don't need to wander. I just need more Jasper.
In my 2022 travels with Nathan through the stretch of eastern New York, we scavenged Albany for anywhere that would serve us Fidens. Sadly the day we were there was not a sale date, and they had no tap room at that time. But word of mouth brought us to the Albany Ale and Oyster House. Good looking out!
The beer I had was Teacher's Pet, a pale ale with surprising heft, lusciousness, and aroma. Seriously, don't sleep on Fidens Pales. But it made me yearn for what else they could offer in the hazy realm. And I don't even like hazies all that much, we just happened to be gallivanting through New England.
So nine months went by, after a much needed break from hazy IPA, I found a source to acquire a mixed pack of their beers, and against my better judgment... shipped 8 of their beers across the country in late June for my 38th birthday. What arrived was nothing short of magic, and one of these beers would send the most cynical Citra detractors into repentence. It was Jasper.
But I want to be clear, this is not a story about Citra hops. In the way that Notre Dame looks like a giant, dreary church from the inside, it's the buttressing architecture outside that make it truly a marvel. So to is Jasper, with a velvet soft mouthfeel and incredible floral aroma.
Incendiary Brewing: Schwarzbier
I don't think I can leave in good conscience without including an immaculate lager on this list. Because while this was not a 5.0/5.0 beer for me, that's not what this list is about. And this beer doesn't need my accolades, it scored a 99/100 with the blind panel at Craft Beer and Brewing, and won a gold at the 2023 WBC. I think it's the perfect Schwarzbier, especially when the crew from Winston-Salem all but give away their recipe for a fellow like me to try my hand at bottling lightning.
Now for the sad part: I only had one can of this, it sat in the middle of a lineup during a Seahawks watch party, and I'm not going to sit on my phone like a chud taking exhaustive tasting notes in that kind of scenario. Yet it stuck with me, and I remember it vividly. The first thing that struck me was this beer is incredibly well balanced, smooth and dry with a ton of depth. But there was a kiss of extra roast not achieved by the Carafa Special series that Weyermann makes (it's a de-husked roasted barley that labors to remove a lot of the astringency from a roasted barley husk). Yes there was the vienna roast coffee character, but there was that signature roasted barley note that I just loved. It's not the first American Schwarz I've had that used a small percentage (We're talking 1%) of roasted barley to great effect. I think it does a lot for the style.
Beyond that, the beer is very classic and extremely well done. The Augustiner yeast presents the entire array of amazing malts, most of which are from the Weyermann line. You have the bready-toasty Barke Pils + Munich, the slight toffee sweetness and touch of fig from a bit of Caramunich, and the cocoa + coffee character from the roasted malts.
I just can't get over that fucking roasted barley. It's always those tiny twists, such as an odd garnish or spice that elevate a dish from great to sublime. It's the genius of the visionary Michelin star chef that will damn tradition or convention and simply elevate what's possible. And I'm not saying it's a stroke of genius to defy rigid German tradition with a pittance of roasted barley... except that it kind of is.
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