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10 Terms to Boost Your Beer Vocabulary that Aren’t Made Up Bullshit

June 10, 2015 · by Oliver Gray

I hate that I have to write this, but someone on the internet is wrong, and wrong about something I’m passionate about. There’s little in life that irks my inner pedant as much as the lassiez faire spreading of misinformation.

An article from “Visit Tri-Valley” (a promotional website for a location but 45 miles from the iconic Anchor Steam Brewery) bounces around the intertubes as we speak, claiming to be packed with information to improve your fermented vernacular.

Great! Education is paramount, and I’ll always support it…

…except when it’s grossly misleading and full of information that might make someone look foolish.

Look, I get it. Beer. Beer!

It’s tasty and accessible to everyone and you wanna get in on this trend. No one wants to feel bad when they order a pint in the pursuit of enjoyment, and I want the beer world to be inclusive and friendly, which means demystifying the jargon and industry talk. Admirable goal, if done correctly.

So do yourself a favor; don’t read the bizarre made up crap and clearly not fact-checked mistakes in that other article. Read (and share) this one instead. I put my beer nerd reputation on the line to vouch for its accuracy:

1. ABV – This acronym stands for Alcohol By Volume. As might be obvious, it denotes the relative amount of alcohol in the beer. Listed as a percentage, this number is the result of a simple calculation between the amount of sugar in the liquid before fermentation (Original Gravity or OG) and the amount of sugar in the liquid after fermentation (Final Gravity or FG). The range of ABV can swing wildly based on style; Berliner Weisse for example can clock in at ~3%, while barleywines can finish at 12% or higher. The ABV is dependent on the amount of sugar in the beer (more sugar = higher ABV). The current trends show that Americans prefer (or at least highly rate) higher alcohol beers.

2. Ale – Ale is one of the two overall types of beer. An ale is brewed “warm” (around 65-75°F) using yeast that typically remains on the top of the beer while it ferments. Ales brew quickly, and can be ready to drink in only a few weeks. Many popular styles fall under the ale category, including pale ale, IPA, porter, and stout. Not all ales are dark, pale ales and IPAs for example, can be as pale as pilsner.

3. Lager – Lager is the other of the two types of beer. Unlike ale, lager is brewed “cold” (45 to 55 °F), using a yeast that tends to remain in the middle or on the bottom of the beer during fermentation. The word lager means “storage” in German, and after fermentation, this beer is held in cold storage for several weeks to allow it to settle and clarify. Lagers require more time and equipment to brew, which is why many new breweries stick to ales. Most well-known American beers are lagers, including Bud Light, Miller High Life, and Coors. Styles of lager include pilsner, bock, helles, and dunkel. Like ales, lagers aren’t typecast as a single color either; many are very dark, like the delicious German Schwartzbier (black beer).

4. Hops – These pungent, sticky, green cones are the flowers of female hop plants (a horticultural cousin to marijuana). They produce lupulin (and other compounds), and grow on tall, broad-leafed bines (not vines) that spiral around trellises or other supports. They can grow very tall; upwards of 20 feet by the end of the season. They’re used for two main things in beer: bitterness and aroma. They also serve to balance out the sweetness of the malt.

5. Malt – “To malt” is a verb that describes the process of germinating and roasting a starch like barley or wheat. When a brewer says malt, they are referring to malted barley. Most modern beers are brewed with “base malts” that provide most of the sugar for the yeast to eat, which are then supplemented by specialty malts (like roasted barley or black malt, which gives porters and stouts their dark color). Malt has been called the “soul of beer,” and it provides many of the flavors and all of the color. The phrase “malt” is also used in relation to whiskey: “single malt” is a type of scotch whiskey that is made from malted barley, so don’t order a single malt and expect to receive a beer 🙂

6. IBUs – This acronym stands for International Bitterness Units. The scale goes from 0 (no bitterness) to 100 (intensely bitter). While technically a beer could be calculated higher than 100 IBUs during brewing, 100 remains the soluble maximum (and probably the most a human tongue could discern). Many brewers list IBUs so that the drinker will have a sense of how bitter the beer is. For example: a 35 IBU IPA might be more balanced with a touch of sweetness, while an 85 IBU IPA would be sharp and very bitter.

7. IPA – This acronym stands for “India Pale Ale.” A long-standing myth encircles the lore of this style, but it turns out it wasn’t a beer specifically brewed (or hopped) to survive a trip to India, a brewer named Hodgson just got luck y, which started a trend. IPA is currently the sweetheart of American “craft” beer, making up a very large percentage of sales across the entire country. They can be brewed multiple ways (high ABV double IPAs or low ABV session IPAs) but all retain one singular characteristic: an abundance of hops. American IPAs lean heavily on hop aromas as part of their flavor profile, and stand in sharp juxtaposition to the traditional American light lagers.

8. Notes – This was in the original article but it’s not an important beer term. You might hear someone say “this has citrus notes” but all they’re saying is “I smell or taste mild citrus in the hops of this beer.” Notes can also mean the scribbles some people write down while tasting a beer, which they then typically post to Beer Advocate or Rate Beer without editing.

9. Pilsner – This is a type of crisp, pale lager that originates from the city of Plzeň in the Czech Republic. The style tends to be very refreshing, and lowish in alcohol (4.5-5%). Many large scale American breweries brew “pilsner-style” beers, which while spiritually similar, are not quite the same as their European brethren. Two well known, large scale pilsners are Pilsner Urquell and Stella Artois, but modern American examples include Victory Prima Pils, Great Divide Nomad, or Sam Adams Noble Pils.

10. Stout – Almost antithetical to the pilsner is the stout, a dark (sometimes entirely black and opaque) ale that originates from Northern Europe (probably the British isles). Originally, stout was a stronger and more robust version of a porter (a dark beer consumed enmass by sailors in port at London in the 1700s). Now, it is a broad style that can range from traditional lower ABV dry Irish stout (think Guinness), to decadent high ABV Russian Imperial Stouts (like North Coast’s Old Rasputin). Contrary to popular belief, stouts are no “heavier” than any other beer, and the dark color has nothing to do with their perceived weight.

(For the record, l think the vast majority of listicles are parasitic depravities gorging on the fat underbelly of the internet, but here I am writing one, so whatever don’t judge me I’m trying to help)

Beer Review: Heavy Seas Davy Jones Lager

October 14, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

All this week my posts will be related to Heavy Seas Beer of Baltimore, Maryland. Why? Because they make great beer, are a local favorite, and were nice enough to let me wander around their brewery for a few hours with a camera.

Lager yeast and I have never seen eye-to-eukaryote. Every time I brew with it, I’m overly concerned by the lack of quick airlock-action, the diminutive krausen, and the whole needing to keep it cold even though that doesn’t make any logical sense to me. “Bottom fermentation” hides in that foggy part of my brain where I kind of understand what’s going on in terms of beer-science, but also still think it’s some kind of mystic raffinose related ritual.

For a long time, I thought all pale lagers tasted the same. I created a mental association between “lager” and “light,” as if all light beers were lagers, and vice versa. Unless it was something obviously different (like a märzen or a bock), that fizzy yellow-gold stuff all fell safely in the “mowing the lawn on a mid-July Saturday” category. Plenty of refreshment, but not much in terms of complexity. I blame four collegiate years of destroying my taste buds on Milwaukee’s Best Ice.

My fridge – colloquially named “The Beerhome” – is full of ales. That’s sort of its lot in life: a house with the thermostat stuck at 40º, bunk beds ready for several perfectly lined-up rows of stouts, IPAs, porters, and pales. I try to venture into new territory, but the tongue wants what it wants. Lagers don’t usually rent a room in the Beerhome unless 1) I’m having a party, or 2) I just had a party.

I bought Heavy Seas Davy Jones Lager because I’m a pirate. No hyperbole or jokes, I am legitimately a pirate. I have proof:

I'm the one on the right, with the beer. This was at work.

I’m the one on the right. This is a normal outfit for me.

I’m obligated to try a beer that is pirate themed, even if it’s outside of my normal taste spectrum.

And I’m glad I did.

Unlike other traditional pale lagers, Davy Jones Lager ferments at ale temperatures (~68-70º F), and is then dropped to lager temperatures for the storing process. This is the same process used to create California Steam/Common beer, for those inquiring minds. Warm temperature tolerant yeasts became popular in the 1800s when refrigeration was a luxury not every brewery could afford, especially not during the primary fermentation phase.

The result of this temperature dance is a beer that honors the clear and crisp legacy of other lagers, but also retains fruity esters and complex malt notes. It tends to be creamier than lagers fermented cold, which pleases us picky, ale-centric drinkers. It’s got more up-front hop flavor (a nice citrus bump that I think comes from the Centennials), which is an appreciated departure from the bitter dryness of Czech style pilsners, or any of the American adjunct lagers.

At 6% it’s a bit stronger than you might expect from an “easy drinking” beer, but there are no phenols or fusels present anywhere. Davy Jones has quickly become one of my favorite beers to relax with after work. It’s also a great beer to gently introduce your Bud and Coors friends to the world of craft. Sadly, Heavy Seas only plans to brew it from May-July, so I’ll just have to fill the holds of my ship (basement) with enough to tide me over these harsh Maryland winters.

Heavy Davy Jones Lager Vitals:

ABV: 6.0%
IBUs: 30
Hops: Warrior, Fuggle, Palisade, Centennial
Malts: 2-Row, Flaked Maize, Wheat Malt, Biscuit

Beerology: Who are you, Brew?

June 6, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

From an outside perspective, brewing beer may seem pretty simple. Heat water, mash malt, boil wort, add hops, cool, pitch, wait, bottle. And to some extent that’s true. As the former owner of Anchor Brewing, Frederick Louis “Fritz” Maytag, said, “We brewers don’t make beer, we just get all the ingredients together and the beer makes itself.”

Our job is to make the wort. The microscopic chomping of the yeast does all the hard work. But within the simple verb and direct object of “make the wort” is a very large field of scientific study with lots of measurements and experiments and graduated cylinders containing many different colored liquids covering the full range of the SRM beer color spectrum.

My new series, Beerology, will ask questions about craft beer and then attempt to answer them using as much science as a guy who has an undergraduate degree in English can muster. I will attempt to be as academically rigorous as possible, but I apologize now to all the real scientists; I’m still working towards my honorary degrees in Hoplogy, Maltography, and Yeastometrics.

I’m sure a lot of these questions could be answered with some creative Google-voodoo, but that’s not the point. Science! And stuff!

Oliver Gray, Beerologist

The Question: If a bottle somehow lost its label and all other defining marks, could the beer inside be correctly identified?

The Beer Babe asked this question a few weeks ago, and it got me wondering. How can we really identify beer? More importantly, what is the level of consistency between batches of the same beer? Maintaining the same exact recipe and correctly controlling all of the variables is one of the biggest challenges for homebrewers, especially those trying to continually reproduce the same beer over and over again.

While I would have loved to have analyzed the beer under an electron microscope and reported my findings about sugar length and alpha/beta amylase activity, I’m just a normal guy who lives in the suburbs. My “lab” is a tool closet in my basement. I had to get creative with how to test the consistency of these beers.

I chose to compare the very basics – appearance, smell, and taste – and then add in two other markers – pH and specific gravity – of three different batches of three different commercially available beers: Sam Adams Boston Lager, Goose Island Honker’s Ale, and Harpoon IPA.

The Experiment: After excavating the deep, forgotten coolers and shelves of several nearby beer stores, I managed to find SA Boston Lager from two different production batches, as evidenced by the “Enjoy Before” dates:

I used two six-packs from the same group (to measure consistency within the same batch) and one from a different group (to measure consistency between different batches). We’ll call them “Control Group March” and “Control Group July” because that sounds really professional and sciencey. I know this isn’t the greatest sample size, but given the blog-budget (which is currently zero dollars), this was the best I could do.

Before I started, to eliminate any extra variables, I let all the beer warm to room temperature and then go (nearly) flat. I know, I’m so sorry. I feel dirty. I hope the beer gods can forgive me one day, for I only did what I did in the name of progress!

I did the crude taste test first. Each glass of Boston Lager tasted pretty much the same, except the version from Control Group March had a bit of a stale, old-french-fries twinge, which is to be expect from a lager that is nearly 4 months old. They all smelled roughly the same, except again, the beer from the older batch had a little more “been in your uncle’s basement too long” mustiness compared to the fresher stuff.

At a glance, they all appeared exactly the same, too. Same head retention, same color. The magic of Photoshop validates my eyesight too: all three glasses had the same approximate/average hex color (which is #863903 for anyone who wants to make a very true-to-life Sam Adams birthday collage for Jim Koch or something.)

Because I’m bad at math, I poured the third one first. That’s why it has less of a head.

So far so good; you could in theory identify this beer with nothing more than your tongue, nose, and eyes. But let’s swim deeper into the sea of science.

I pulled out my fancy pH meter and began taking measurements:

There was a pretty wide variance in the level of pH from beer to beer in Control Group March. This surprised me, as I excepted, given the similarity in taste, that the pH would be nearly identical. The lowest measurement I took was 4.18, and the highest was 4.41. The average for the three groups was 4.3, 4.2, and 4.21; close enough to say that Boston Lager has a pretty stable final pH of something like 4.25.

As a point of reference, water is ~7, Coca-cola is ~3, and the inside of a normal human mouth is ~5.5-6.5. All of the measurements were still within the normal, healthy range of a lager (which can be anywhere from 3.8-4.5 depending on which chemist you ask or website you read) so it may just be that time in a bottle and location in the batch at bottling can cause fluctuations in the acidity of the final beer. The pH differences between the two July control groups were negligible.

I also tested the specific gravity, using my trusty old, fragile-as-hell hydrometer. If anyone wants to contribute to the “Oliver needs a refractometer and a high powered laser for reasons he won’t explain” fund, please shoot me an email.

The results from the specific gravity tests were as consistent as an old, well cared for Toyota. I won’t even bore you with an analysis of the results. Let’s just say that if there were any differences, they were too minor for the gentle bobbing of a stick of glass in a tube of beer to measure.

The full spreadsheet of my test data can be found here.

The Conclusion: Commercially available craft beer is pretty damn consistent within batches and between batches, but age may cause some changes or instability. As long as you had a fresh example to compare against, you could identify a non-labeled, large-scale production beer based on the taste, smell, color, pH, and specific gravity alone. You wouldn’t even need any fancy sugar or “beer-DNA” analysis. I’m sure they’d corroborate my super scientific findings, though.

This probably only applies to beer that has been filtered and carefully controlled during brewing, meaning you’d have to throw all of this out the window when trying to identify a bottle conditioned or homebrewed beer.

Want more beer science, beertography, and irreverant mumblings? Follow me on Twitter! @OliverJGray

It’s Not Brew, It’s Me

May 16, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

(This piece was originally published by 20 Something Magazine, but I’m republishing it here in honor of ACBW)

Dearest Yuengling,

What has it been? Ten years? I remember the first time I saw you that summer, dancing in the sinking sunlight of that orange-stained evening. You were wearing nothing but your label and that brownish-gold bottle cap I adored so much. The fading rays of light refracted through the green of your glass as I held you high and to my lips. Our kisses were sweet, under-aged surrender; both of us willing, happy, just wanting to have fun.

It was love at first sip.

This last decade is a torrent of memories that I wish I could bottle and seal and store forever. You’ve done nothing but support me when life’s problems bubbled up. You were always there to comfort me during the hardest of times, pouring yourself into my soul and lifting me up like a lover and an old friend. I’ll never forget you or those tipsy Pennsylvania nights so long as I still have a thirst to quench.

And that’s what makes this so hard.

Yuengling, baby, I think it’s time I drink other beers.

I know that is hard to hear after all the pints we’ve shared, all the times we’ve stumbled drunkenly down the streets of DC towards home, but I feel it is the best thing for us both. I’ve given it a lot of thought and can’t keep seeing you, drinking you, or pretending I’m happy.

I’ve grown up so much since those millennial Julys; I’ve drunk deeply from the keg of life, smelled the intoxicating lupulin drifting from hop farms, and witnessed the beauty of beer being born in the depths of a mashtun. When I was a teenager you were new and wonderful – and you are still wonderful, in your own way – but I didn’t really know myself. I was just a kid who’d never seen the inside of a brewery, whose taste buds hadn’t matured, who was happy to be drinking any beer at all.

My adoration of beer in general has grown into a deep respect for the craft, the art, the science. I appreciate the rolling cascade of hops that are like citrus symphonies playing melody to my tongue and harmony to my nose. I’m looking for bold new conventions, and you’re the same old brown lager that your great-great-great Grandpa David Gottlob Jüngling was making back in 1829.

We’ve grown apart over the years. I changed. You didn’t.

I also have a confession to make. I haven’t been faithful. A few years ago, in a moment of weakness, I gave into my baser desires, my budding curiosity, and tasted the forbidden fruit of a Belgian lambic. As soon as those raspberry notes hit my tongue I was instantly changed. I flirted shamelessly with the blonde ales, kissed the effervescent lips of sweet browns, spent many long nights by the side of delicate reds. I felt like a beer-bachelor reborn, and filled my cup time and time again in a veritable orgy of new tastes and smells.

I didn’t mean to hurt you, smash your bottle and leave you broken on the floor. But I can’t pretend that we’re still living in those glory days of youth. I can’t untaste what has been tasted. I can’t pretend you’ll ever be so pure and delicious again.

If you see me at the liquor store, picking up a six pack of Dogfish Head 60 Minute or Troegs Hopback Amber please don’t get all weird. I expect you to find new men who love you for your sour-malt flavor and low price tag. I want that for you. I want you to be happy, not glaring at me from the cooler in the back while I walk out with some other beer on my arm. You need consistency, faithfulness, a one-beer kind of man, and I can’t give you that. My palette has been awakened to the full breadth of styles and flavors. I can never go back to only drinking brown lager. And that’s just not fair to you.

Please, don’t cry; I’ve seen how you sweat and how the tiniest bit of water ripples your label. Try to remember the good times. Like that night you and I hung out with Captain Morgan and ditched him with Jack Daniels at that terrible frat party. Remember that night? I carried you home across the girls’ soccer field because you were too drunk to walk. Or was that me? That was a night I’ll always remember, I think.

Even though I’m leaving, that’s what I want to hold on to. The love we shared and the twelve ounces of my soul you’ll always occupy. I may have grown up, but you’ll remain a part of what made me into a beer lover until some crazy brewer uses my mortal dust is used to make an especially potent batch of chocolate stout as per my last will and testament.

Anyway, Yuengs, I’ve rambled on enough. I’m going to take some time to really focus on my work and figure myself out. Maybe after we’ve spent some time apart and let the boiling wort of our feelings chill, we can get together over a drink, as friends.

Cheers,

-Oliver

Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night! parting is such
sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

Beer Review: Sam Adam Blueberry Hill Lager

April 12, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

“Have I ever told you about Blueberry Hill?”

Edgar sat as Edgar liked to sit, in the almond slices of afternoon that came through his window like a star forced through the slats of a wooden park bench. The light caught him, processed him, and charged him. The verdict: guilty of age. It glanced off his head, peeked through his little white hairs, those few near-translucent hangers-on, stubborn and unwilling to finally just give up, poking up from his saggy head-skin like defiant sign-waving protesters.

His eyes fixed on the sterile room’s only window, he went on, his voice an anachronistic skip like the hand of a record player stuck in the same groove, repeating the same sounds, desperately needing to be reset.

“Sheila always reminds me of the hill. She comes to my house to get me, loitering at the end of my drive. From my front door she looks like a tiny flower dancing on the wind. My dedicated daffodil.”

Despite the medication and the careful care from his well-trained and well-meaning attendants, earthquakes still raged through his nerves, the epicenter his cracked and faulted brain. As his hands involuntarily rattled against the wheels of his chair, his eyes remained still but squinted, shielding themselves from the barrage of rays.

“She sure is something. Those sun dresses she wears…” he closed his eyes, savoring the memory, chocolate on the tongue of his mind, “…the wind catches the fabric and her hair and blows them all around, and she giggles. She likes to wrap as much of her hand around mine as she can, and then we walk towards the hill, just the two of us in love, not a care in the world. Yes sir, she sure is something.”

A cloud passed between man and sun and the stream of light flickered like a memory captured on film, replayed so many times that the vivid colors of youth faded to grainy black and white. The cloud lingered a moment longer and the room showed itself true: not haven or refuge or sanctuary, but a grey and gruesome headstone. It was not here that he lived, anyway. Edgar resided in a Massachusetts that no longer existed, a home remade perfect and pristine by those few fleeting snapshots that still remained intact. It was a place of another time, one he could always, and never, return to.

“You know why they call it blueberry hill? ” A few-toothed smile climbed up onto his face. “The blueberries bushes! Dozens of them, randomly growing on the side of the hill. In summer, they’re packed with so many of those juicy little things. They look so nice, sometimes I feel bad about eating them and ruining the perfect scene. Everyone always says that wild blueberries are too sour to eat but, oh, not these. These are perfect. Just like my Sheila.”

Leaning forward in his chair, trying not to let the wheels slip out of his achy grasp, straining against the ichor in his bones, Edgar longed to see a little further out the window.

“That hill, let me tell you, it isn’t just a hill. That place is love incarnate. I stole my first kiss there, a few years back, but Sheila didn’t mind. I was lying next to her, laughing that we forgot a blanket again, and as she smiled, staring up at all that blue and white, I rolled over and kissed her cheek. She didn’t pull away, didn’t laugh, just turned and looked at me with those eyes and I knew. That grass and those bushes. That’s the place.”

The hill. Sheila. April blueberries. Teenage love on a spring day. The world he saw out that window was an invisible paradise.

“Can I go outside? It’s such a beautiful day, I’m sure Sheila’s already waiting on me.”

It was an involved process to get him ready; his lungs couldn’t muster any defense from the onslaught of pollen and pollutants, and he could barely move under the weight of the oxygen tank and UV blanket. He was proud, but in his protective suit, looked more machine than man, more artificial than real.

He blinked, staring out over the poorly kept courtyard, staring at the lone gnarled stick that masqueraded as a tree and the dozen bluebells that struggled up through the sun-scorched ground. After surveying the landscape, his shoulders sagged and he rolled his head back slightly, blue-green eyes looking into mine past the molded clear breathing mask of the respirator. Those eyes, with longing spilling out as tears, flashed for a moment, his computer rebooting as if it had hit some unrecoverable error upon seeing this ruin of nature.

“Have I ever told you about Blueberry Hill?”

Beer Review: Milwaukee’s Best Premium

April 1, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

I am very pleased to announce that after much hushed negotiation, I have entered into business* with SABMiller™ and will be writing reviews exclusively for MillerCoors™ from here out. I am very excited to be part of the Miller™ team, and look forward to sampling their many fine, crisp, freshly brewed products.

This blog is about to taste great and be less filling™. It’s Miller Time™.

For the inaugural review, my new corporate friends asked me to review an old favorite that is often overlooked by the new-age craft beer community. No, I’m not talking about Miller High Life™ or Mickey’s™ or Olde English 800™. I’m talking about the pride of Milwaukee, the first thing people think of whenever Wisconsin is mentioned. Well, the first thing they think of after cheese, the Green Bay Packers, well-crafted power tools, and a rich heritage of French fur trading dating back to the 1800s.

That’s right: Milwaukee’s Best Premium™.

This manly-yet-effervescent warrior-beer was first brewed by the A. Gettleman Brewing Company in 1895. Purchased in a moment of divine inspiration by Miller Brewing Company™ in 1961, the Milwaukee’s Best™ brand has expanded to include the calorically challenged Milwaukee’s Best Light™ and the fractionally frozen Milwaukee’s Best Ice™. It boasts a solid and respectable 4.3% ABV, and you can be damn sure it makes its mortgage payments on-time, sometimes even paying down a portion of the principal just because.

We all consumed our fair share of Milwaukee’s Best™ in college, or vocational school, or after work on the loading dock while our supervisor totally wasn’t looking, but have we ever really appreciated the craftsmanship of this storied piece of liquid Americana?

The Review:

Color: SRM 2. Pale yellow, like the first mewling rays of a dawning Spring sun casting pure warmth and energy across your face or the delicate yellow of a just-bloomed daffodil, slightly wilting, dancing on the wind with innocence and potential.
Aroma: Faint but Pavlovian hints of subtle hopping followed by friendly, gentle malt notes, the kind that would probably help an old lady cross the street with her groceries if the opportunity ever presented itself and the malt wasn’t running late for work.
Taste: A tour de force of complex flavors. Bubbles. Water. Corn. Pasta? Milwaukee’s Best Premium™ engulfs the palette but leaves enough room to savor complementary flavors like seven-layer dip or Buffalo Wild Wings™ Jammin’ Jalapeño™ boneless chicken wings.
Overall: I can’t recommend this beer enough. Be careful when you drink it though, your wife/neighbor/cat/house plants may try to steal a sip when you aren’t looking, trying to experience the decadent wonders of this masterpiece of art turned alcoholic beverage.

11 out of 10.

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

*I have not actually entered into business with SABMiller in any way, shape, form, or legal sense. I am completely full of shit and should never be taken seriously. Ever.

Review: Brooklyn Lager

April 10, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

It is entirely possible that the brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery has been stalking me. The brewery was founded in 1987, coincidentally just 2 years after I was born. Despite my lack of any real connection to New York, I’m convinced that they found the toddler version of me and began a long, drawn out study of my habits, ultimately planning to brew the perfect lager to suite my temperance and palette.

After 24 years of surreptitious study and millions of dollars of flavor testing, agents from Brooklyn placed a sampler right in my line of sight while I was stocking up for the bachelor party, knowing full well I would put it into my cart and ultimately into my stomach.

I was fated to drink this beer.

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: I’m not a lager man. No active dislike, just no active like either.

This beer could change my mind. It has the airiness of a beer that has a perfect amount finishing sugar (and in turn carbonation), and was clearly bottled at the perfect moment when the planets align and Mercury is in retrograde to seal in supreme crispness. When chilled to slightly below ambient temperature it is almost spicy, packing far more flavor than any lagers I’ve had in the past few years.

It has abundant head which smells bready and sour. It didn’t fully dissipate until I was almost finished with the glass. The flavor is surprisingly pungent and in-your-face. I expected lager, I got a genetically designed, masterful Oliver-bräu.

A word of warning, this is about as anti-lager as something with a lager on the label can get. Not in a bad way, just in a surprising way. It looks like a normal brown lager, but the powerful aromas hint at potency hidden under the copious bubbles. This is a beer-man’s lager, a delicious brown homogeneous mixture of taste and satisfaction.

So, to recommend or to not recommend?

I recommend. This is smooth and tasty, but doesn’t leave any after-taste like overly hopped ales. It is very mild and lacks any major semblance of bitterness. It is packed with delicious malty notes. It is refreshing but intense. Kind of like me.

It was designed for me, after all. Thank you Brooklyn brewery, I look forward to the next concoction you have in store for me.

8.5 out of 10.

Backgammon is a difficult game. Especially when you've never played before and you try to learn the rules while drunk.

Next up: Harpoon White UFO!

Review: Heavy Seas Classic Lager

April 3, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

I can’t say I left the best for last, but I definitely didn’t leave the worst for last. Or the best for first, or worst for first. The order was completely arbitrary, truth be told.

I’m not saying I don’t plan out my blog posts, but I don’t plan out my blog posts.

Beers like this make me question how Budweiser makes any sales. When you could get this beer for a few dollars more, I don’t know why you’d ever bother with anything that dare call itself, “lager-style” beer. That’s a psuedo-name, like Yoohoo “chocolate drink “or Velveeta “synthetic cheese-rubber hybrid product.” Humans probably aren’t supposed to consume “-style” things.

I’m not saying “lager-style” beers cause mysterious illnesses, but it might explain a lot.

Heavy Seas Classic Lager is both classic and a lager. It’s very light (much lighter than anything I have already reviewed) making it a great Spring/Summer time beer. It lacks any semblance of sweetness, probably because it was made with real ingredients, not weird adjuncts and unspecified amounts of the “Secret Ingredient” (high fructose corn syrup).

I’m not saying mainstream American brews are made with high fructose corn syrup, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

I poured this into a glass for the sake of photography (this is my favorite photo, for anyone who has read them all), but in the future I’d drink it straight from the bottle. It doesn’t have a powerful aroma that needs a glass to breathe, and you’re more likely to spill it while gesticulating wildly in the throws of a particularly animated story-telling.

I’m not saying I wave my arms around like maniac after a few beers, but I could be confused with an Italian person.

Yuengling is (for better or worse) my go-to lager. It’s flavorful and cheap and goes down relatively smooth. But my palette is changing, growing, evolving. I’m starting to appreciate something with a little more intensity, and I think HS:CA can scratch that itch. It’s like one of those little hand-on-a-stick back scratchers, but made of beer.

I’m not saying I make bad analogies, but some of the stuff I say doesn’t make much sense at all.

Buy! Enjoy! Thank me later! By buying me a beer!

8.25 out of 10

We drink our beer from mason jars.

Thanks to everyone who read (and hopefully enjoyed) my reviews. I plan to do more in the future, and will probably turn this into a weekly column at some point.

Stay tuned!