Summer 2010, Peoples and Bells 10,000

So I haven't posted since April...This makes me a horrible human being. This summer was characterized by excessive drunkenness. Many nightclubs, not enough beer though.

SLC:

Utah is a beer wasteland. Not worth your time. Don't bother. The only beer highlight of ASMS was the "Shimadzu Mass Spec Ale" at the local brew pub. They just renamed their mediocre stout and sold it to us. Granted, that was the best beer I had there.

Oberon:

This was the only new Bells I had this year (every year of Oberon is different). It was good. Not as spectacular as 2009 (tasted less wheaty, less belgiany) and was extremely fragile. When you looked at Oberon 2010 wrong, it skunked. It was still and excellent beer, but last years was spectacular.

Peoples brewery:

A new brewery opened in Lafayette (we have good water) called People's. Chris Johnson is the owner, he was the head brewery at LBC but got tired of doing the same old beers. This guy WILL challenge Larry Bell as the brew master of the midwest in another few years. Peoples is the only brewery which routinely has both a pilsner and lager on tap, and you can ACTUALLY tell the difference. I'll get more into specifics in further posts.

Now...the real reason for this post...Bells 10,000.

Bells produces a special beer for each "1,000 batch" accomplishment. This is my first :(. 8,000 came out while I was 20. 9,000 was sold out by the time I tried to buy it in EL...3 days after it came out. 10,000 came out on 11/24, so I expect it to be long gone by now in MI. I heard about it at People's, and damn near ran out and drove to VBS and asked for it. The frat boys were very confused as to why I was so nice to the employees after paying $3.41 for a single bottle of beer they'd never heard of.

Unfortunately...the back of the bottle says "The last of the 'Batch' series. Thanks to all the consumers that got us this far." So, not only will 10,000 will be my first, it will be my last.

This beer has 193 ingredients, and obeys the Reinheitsgebot (German beer law that allows for only 4 ingredients, malted barley, hops, water and yeast). That's right, 101 malts, and 90 hops, water and yeast. Here's the tasting specs (pasting from FB):

Smell: hard to tell. It smells like a blend of all good beers on the world blended together. The various dark roasted malts dominate the initial smell, with a sharpness indicative of a fair amount of hops.

Taste: O.M.G. It is impossible to describe. You're talking about a beer with over a 100 malts, and 90 different hops. The initial taste is clean and infinitely complex, balanced out by a sharp clean hoppy finish. There is ZERO after flavors or stickiness.

Mouthfeel: Perfect. Clean start, clean finish. mouthfeel is almost like club soda...which is what is considered perfect.

It is so hard to properly describe this beer. 9.2% abv doesn't help. We are talking about a beer that is infinitely rich and complex, but somehow brilliantly balanced. This beer proves that Bells is still the number 1 small brewery in the midwest, and probably the number 3 small brewery in the U.S. (behind Boston Beer Co. and Dogfish Head). This beer is an event, and experience, and I am so glad I had the opportunity to enjoy it. I'm going to try to buy another bottle tomorrow and store it appropriately for a year and see what happens.

It sucks that Bells is ending the batch anniversaries. This was a thing that they held above all others, a time that they would stand back and thank the die hard beer fans that allowed them to start. In the day of any drunkard with a kegging system starting a brewery, it's nice to see the pioneers thanking the people who started it all. I think ending the batch system is a gigantic mistake, but I'm biased because I want to taste Batch 11,000, since this was so friggin' amazing.

Ingredient list:

Malts & Fermentables (101)

Best barley smoked
Briess barley 2 row brewers
Briess barley 6 row brewers
Briess barley aromatic
Briess barley ashburne
Briess barley black
Briess barley black barley
Briess barley Blackprinz
Briess barley bonlander
Briess barley C-10
Briess barley C-120
Briess barley C-20
Briess barley C-40
Briess barley C-60
Briess barley C-80
Briess barley C-90
Briess barley carabrown
Briess barley Caramunich
Briess barley carapils 2row
Briess barley Caravienne
Briess barley CBW - amber
Briess barley CBW - dark
Briess barley chocolate
Briess barley dark chocolate
Briess barley extra special
Briess barley flaked barley
Briess barley M-10
Briess barley MI-120
Briess barley MI-flakes
Briess barley pale ale
Briess barley pilsen
Briess barley roast barley
Briess barley smoked
Briess barley special roast
Briess barley victory
Briess barley vienna
Briess oats flaked oats
Briess rice flaked rice
Briess rye flaked rye
Briess rye rye
Briess wheat caracrystal wheat
Briess wheat CBW - wheat
Briess wheat midnight wheat
Briess wheat MI-wheat
Briess wheat red wheat
Briess wheat torrefied wheat
Briess wheat white wheat
Bunge corn flaked corn
Castle barley biscuit
Castle barley black
Castle barley special B
CMC barley distillers
Crisp barley dark munich
Crisp barley dextrin malt
Crisp barley pale chocolate
Dingemans barley aromatic
Dingemans barley biscuit
Dingemans barley cara 20
Dingemans barley cara 8
Durst barley turbo pils
Gambrinus barley ESB
Gambrinus barley Honey (Bruehmalz)
Gilbertson buckwheat torrefied buckwheat
Global barley Koelsch
Grain Millers wheat flaked wheat
Maltexco barley crystal
Muntons barley mile ale
Simpsons barley 50/60
Simpsons barley all star
Simpsons barley coffee malt
Simpsons barley crystal extra dark
Simpsons barley golden promise
Simpsons barley heritage crystal
Simpsons barley peated
Simpsons oats naked oats
Simpsons rye crystal rye
Simpsons wheat roasted coffee wheat
Thomas Fawcett barley amber
Thomas Fawcett barley brown
Thomas Fawcett barley chocolate
Thomas Fawcett barley dark crystal
Thomas Fawcett barley halcyon
Thomas Fawcett barley Maris O????er
Thomas Fawcett barley optic
Thomas Fawcett barley pearl
Thomas Fawcett oats oat malt
Weyermann barley abbey malt
Weyermann barley acidulated
Weyermann barley bohemian floor malt
Weyermann barley caraamber
Weyermann barley caraaroma
Weyermann barley carabelge
Weyermann barley carabohemian
Weyermann barley carafa 1
Weyermann barley carared
Weyermann barley melanoidin malt
Weyermann barley smoked
Weyermann rye chocolate rye
Weyermann wheat carawheat
Weyermann wheat chocolate wheat
Weyermann wheat diastatic

Kettle Hopping (58)

Ahtanum
Amarillo
Apollo
Bravo
Brewers Gold
Cascade
Centennial
Chinook
Citra
Cluster
Colombus
Crystal
CZ Saaz
Delta
Fuggle
Galena
German Magnum
Glacier
Goldings
GR Hersbrucker
Herkules
Horizon
Liberty
Magnum
Merkur
MI Hops
Millenium
Mt. Hood
Mt. Ranier
N Brewer
Newport
Nugget
NZ Motueka
Opal
Palisade
Perle
Premiant
Santiam
Saphir
Simcoe
Smaragd
Sorachi Ace
Spalt
Sterling
Strisselspalt
Styrian Aurora
Styrian Bobek
Styrian Goldings
Summitt
Super Galena
Tettnang
UK Challenger
UK E Kent Goldings
UK Sovereign
UK WGV
Vanguard
Warrior
Willamette

Dry Hopping (32)

Amarillo
Centennial
Chinook
Cluster
Columbus
Crystal
Galena
Glacier
Horizon
Liberty
Magnum US
Millennium
Mt Hood
Mt. Rainier
Newport
NZ MotuekaPalisade
Santiam
Simcoe
Smaragd
Spalt
Strisselspalt
Styrian Aurora
Styrian Bobek
Styrian Golding
Summit
Tettnang
UK E Kent Goldings
UK WGV
Vanguard
Warrior

Willamette

Ranger IPA

So...here's the story. I was buying some cheap stuff the other day, and saw the new Ranger IPA from New Belgium. Well, today I got paid, so I could afford it (and a 6-pack of Oberon...get to that later).

On to the beer. Cost is 9.29/ 6 pk, which is 0.30 more than Oberon.

I have a hard time with New Belgium. I want to hate them, I really do. Reading about the company, it sounds like a bunch of CA hippies transplanted into a Colorado brewery. But, they are beer freaks. They used to make a quadruple belgian ale. They still make a good belgiun witbier, and double. Haven't found their trippel, but I'm sure it's spectacular. My biggest complaint had been that the only IPA they made was the triple IPA that they made as a colla"beer"ation, available only in CO...bitches.

Ranger changed that. It is a 3lb/batch, 3 variety hoptastic brew. Or so they said.

The beer pours beautifully. Light amber color, awesome head. This beer will test your pouring prowess. 6.50% ABV, so this brew packs a potential punch if not pulled off right. Smells a lot like Two Hearted, which is my all time favorite single IPA, so I was a bit worried. It is, however, significantly more subdued. Instead of smelling like you're basking in the sunlight filtering through the branches of pines surrounding you, it's more like lying in a field watching the clouds overhead as the summer breeze wafts over you from a pine forest. Descriptive enough for ya?

k, 'nough about smell. I don't just smell beer, i drink it. And I'd drink this beer all damn day. The mouthfeel is surprisingly light. It feels like a budweiser. The first taste is slightly lest subtle. There is a tiny hint of something that may have been at one point construed as malt. But the first of the three hops varieties quickly kick that to the curb, and begin a fantastic series of frontal assaults upon your tongue. As that finishes, you are left with the unfortunate telltale of almost all IPAs, a strangely sticky aftertaste. It's almost as if most of these IPAs start leaching the actual resin from the hops, and after you swallow its left clinging to your mouth. This is the only failing of this beer.

I love IPAs. But this last lingering taste is what most end up living and dying by. Two Hearted is spectacular for its extremely clean finish, and rates as a 10 in my IPA score guide. Dogfish head 60 min has a pure sap finish, and gets an 8. 90 min is around an 8.5 since it has a decent finish, but no balance. As for New Belgium's Ranger IPA, it has a slight lack in balance, and a slight sappy aftertaste. Price is average for IPAs, as is ABV. However, somehow it is more drinkable than 90 min, so it must get a 9.

Two Hearted remains safe...for now.

2010. That means one thing.

Hopslam!!

That's right, it was a long day with only 15 mins of good news, so I was looking for something special. Decided to stop by the beer store that first had hopslam last year, and there it was, this years first batch. Specifically, this batch was bottled on December 23, 2009.

I love hopslam, no doubt about it, but every year is just a little different. Last year's was definitely off from the 2008 batch, so I was hoping this year would be a return to form.

Oh my is it. I poured the bottle in to a Summer 2009 Oberon pint glass, with a perfect two finger head, and beautiful amber color. The smell is that unmistakable pine scent of huge hopiness. Flavor is still amazing. Definitely better than last year, can't remember the previous batch well enough to compare it. The start is dry, yet unobtrusive. There is a hint of malt and honey. The finish is a sharp, brilliant hit of hops that isn't sticky or abusive. There is a lot of beer in this beer, let no mistake be made. This is not for the casual beer drinker, or at $20/6-pack, the cheap beer drinker. But for those of us looking for a great beer to sample on days of great accomplishment or great sorrow, this is your beer, again.

Bells, this past year has reconfirmed my love of your brews. Last year the only real highlight was the Christmas ale. Both Oberon 2008 and Hopslam 2009 were lacking. Oberon 2009, however, returned to its belgian roots. And Hopslam 2010 is simply amazing, again. Thank you.