Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout

My Quarry

Beer:  Kentucky Breakfast Stout (KBS)

Brewery:  Founders

Date: February 21st, 2014

Style: Imperial Stout

ABV: 11.2%

Similar To:  Founders Breakfast Stout (shockingly enough), Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Great Divide Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti 

Description:
It would be fair to say that I've been hunting for this one for a long time.  Thankfully, I've got a good friend in Michigan who's eagle-eyed when it comes to tracking them down.  When he visited Chicago earlier this year, we hit a couple of South Side mainstays, one in Flossmoor and one in Blue Island, both of which provided me with some excellent fodder for my musings.  Overshadowed by the beers which we enjoyed that evening was the ostensible purpose for his visit, to swap beers on our wish lists, the most ballyhooed of which was Founders KBS, their acclaimed Imperial Stout released each April to much fanfare. 

First Impression:
Pours dark brown with a thin dark brown head, dissipating almost immediately.

Smell:
Coffee, bourbon, vanilla (but not very sweet), and roasted malt.  Pleasantly smoky.  Even without knowing the ABV off the top of my head, this smells powerful.

Taste:
There is a *lot* going on here.  Strong, bitter coffee and bourbon right up front, followed by chocolate, vanilla, and a smoky, bitter finish.  Comes on like a Breakfast Stout's big brother who spends his nights lifting and blowing through boxes of cigars in the garage.  I had to taste this one several times to pick out all of the subtle nuances.  About halfway through, I picked up some maple and port notes, and the alcohol finish became more pronounced.

On the Palate:
Medium bodied, not as thick as I would have expected for something with so much kick.  Quite warming going down.

Why You'll like It:
An imperial stout lover's dream.  After appreciating the bourbon and mocha, you'll want to savor this one and all of its subtleties.

...and why You won't:
This is a rewarding but very challenging beer.  Its robust flavors and bitterness may drive off anyone who's not a fan of the style.

In Closing...:
When you hype up a beer in your mind for so long, it's almost impossible for that beer to be anything other than disappointing when you finally try it.  Not so, here.  KBS was exceptional, though I'd prefer not to wait another 6 years to have my next one.  My only regret is that I probably won't get to try one from this batch after cellaring for another 9-12 months.  Would have loved to see how that broad spectrum of flavors matured.

Rating: 4 1/2 Stars (out of 5)

Sumerian Beer Dinner - The Gage and Great Lakes Brewing Co

In the Beginning...  
Among tree-lined streets in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood stands a grey stone building whose Gothic facade, airy galleries, and Art Deco fixtures harken back to a time when universities embodied loftier ideals like Indiana Jones-style exploration, scholarship for its own sake, and congruous campus architecture*.  This is the University of Chicago's renowned Oriental Institute where such luminaries as James Henry Breasted and Leo Oppenheim laid and built upon the foundations of Ancient Near Eastern scholarship.  Our story begins within these halls, with a doctoral student whose professional and academic interests collided with his passion for beer, resulting in a truly memorable evening.
*If you've visited Hyde Park in the last 10 years, you'll understand this reference.

Back to the Present 

Following up on the success of their previous Sumerian Beer Dinners, Great Lakes Brewing Co held their first installment of the 2014 version at the Gage Restaurant on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago on the evening of March 19th.  Here, 40 or so attendees were treated to some of the Cleveland craft brewer's best-known contemporary beers paired with a specially chosen menu, in anticipation of the evening's main event, the tasting of Great Lakes' painstaking recreation of a 4000+ year old Sumerian beer.

  

Tate Paulette, Pat Conway, and John Brinkman (l-r) discussing Sumerian Drinking Games

In addition to the staff from the Gage, in attendance were several representatives from Great Lakes, including Pat Conway, U of C alumnus and one of Great Lakes' founders, Luke Purcell, their Brewmaster, and Michael Williams their resident "Sumerian Beer Specialist".   As with previous Sumerian beer dinners, they were joined by Tate Paulette, the aforementioned U of C doctoral candidate who has written and lectured extensively on brewing and storage practices in ancient Mesopotamia.  Some of Paulette's work in this area has involved trying to determine the techniques and ingredients used by Sumerian brewers, an effort which has, not surprisingly, been quite challenging.

The Lecture 
After the pre-event cocktail hour had warmed up the audience for the serious business of drinking, Paulette launched into his lecture, providing first an overview of relevant Sumerian geography and culture, then analyzing the "Hymn to Ninkasi", dedicated to the Sumerian goddess of alcohol.  It was this poem which provided the basic recipe for the beer which was to be served later that evening.  Now, let that sink in for a minute.  We were about to sample beer based on a recipe derived from an almost 4000 year old poem written in a language that's well understood by a hundred or so people worldwide.  I'm starting to understand how John Hammond must have felt in Jurassic Park.  Finding a clay tablet with a complete beer recipe would have been like discovering an entire Brontosaurus trapped in amber stuffed in the crotch of a tree.

Humor aside, this is exactly what made this evening and the whole enterprise so very compelling.  If it were a matter of simply following a recipe anyone could do it.  It's the complex and scholarly nature of this process and the need to fill in so many gaps with educated guesses which makes this such a intriguing topic as well as a labor of love for those involved. 


Creating the Beer

The Bappir

One of the principal mysteries surrounding the reproduction of Sumerian beer is how yeast was introduced into the mixture during the brewing process.  There are several plausible theories for how this could have occurred, three of which were discussed that evening.  The yeast could have been passed along in the earthen vessels in which the beer was fermented, likely kept alive in the vessels' ridges from batch to batch.  It could also have been introduced in the "bappir", a type of bread used in brewing, and mentioned explicitly in the Hymn to Ninkasi.  Another theory is that it could have arrived through wild yeast strains present in the air, in what is known as spontaneous fermentation.  While elements of each of these theories support and diminish the likelihood that they were the source of the yeast, without further evidence, there's no way of confirming which one is correct.

A Brewing Vessel.

An even more basic question that Paulette and the brewers had to answer before starting was which ingredients to use.  Not surprisingly, the poem provided much of this information, but as with the yeast, they had to extrapolate where the recipe was incomplete.  The ingredients from the poem were supplemented with those known to have been available in Mesopotamia at that time, including:

• Farro wheat
• Dates (and date syrup)
• Fennel
• Juniper
• Cardamom
• Coriander
• Grains of paradise

Not content to simply duplicate the recipe, Great Lakes took the process a step further and used both historically accurate brewing vessels and even cooking techniques, though thankfully not the cooking fuel, (hint:  there was a lot of livestock in Mesopotamia) to prepare the evening's featured beers.

Tasting the Beer 

Great Lakes provided 3 Sumerian-style beers for this event.  Gilgamash (named for the Sumerian King, supposed demigod, and sometime epic hero, Gilgamesh), Enkibru (named for the wild man, Enkidu, a central character in the epic of Gilgamesh), and Enkibru with Date Syrup.  Of the three, only Gilgamash was produced using modern brewing equipment.  Below are brief descriptions of each. 

Enkibru with Date Syrup 

Enkibru w/ Dates

• First Impression:  Light gray, almost like milk mixed with water.
• Smell:  Tart citrus and slightly malty aroma.  Smells a little like bergamot.
• Taste:  Quite tart and lemony, with some maltiness/wheat and some underlying sweetness (presumably from the dates).  The closest analogy I can come up with is Earl Grey tea with lemon, which explains the bergamot aroma from earlier.  
• On the Palate:  No carbonation, slightly thicker than average mouthfeel.
• ABV:  ~3.5%
• Comments:  Despite the description above, I enjoyed this, as it was so different than what I expected (though it probably doesn't hurt that I'm a regular tea drinker).  Sweeter than I'd anticipated.  The date syrup was introduced to the beer just a few hours before the dinner which imparted its pleasant taste but not the added potency of adding it earlier in the brewing process. 

Enkibru without Date Syrup (Enkibru Light)

• First Impression:  Virtually identical to the date-infused version.
• Smell:  Same as above, though when I compared the two side-by-side, the aroma of this one was more lemony, likely due to the lack of competition from the syrup.
• Taste:  Very tart/sour and lemony. 
• On the Palate:  Same as the sweeter version.
• ABV:  ~3.5%
• Comments:  Pleasant, though it suffered a little in comparison to its predecessor for the lack of sweetness/balance.

Gilgamash 

• First Impression:  Clear golden color (the other two beers were cloudy), with a finger thick white head, which lingered.
• Smell:  A malty wheat aroma with lemon and some herbal scents in the background. 
• Taste: Malt, citrus, and what may be coriander or basil at the finish  Similar to a hefeweizen or another weissbier.  My palate was too dulled by that point in the evening to be able to distinguish which herbs.
• On the Palate:  Moderate carbonation, medium body. 
• ABV:  ~5.0%
• Comments:  Made with the same ingredients as Enkibru, but produced with modern techniques and equipment.  Who knew several thousand years' worth of technological advancement would make such a difference.  Almost hard to believe that it started as the same beer.

Enkibru w/Dates, Enkibru, Gilgamash (L-R)

In Closing...
While the beer may have stolen the headlines, no small amount of the evening's success was due to the intimacy of the surroundings provided by the Gage and the approachability of the organizers from Great Lakes Brewing Co. and the University of Chicago.  The subject was compelling on its own, but everyone's enthusiasm and candor made it that much more so.   Additionally, the excellent food and modern beer pairings provided by The Gage and GLBC, made the night a real pleasure.

While any beer event is cause for at least minor celebration, this one was especially enjoyable for me, having spent much of my childhood roaming the halls of the Oriental Institute when my father was Director.  While my visits to the OI are rare these days, it's even rarer that Dad and I (and my better half) get together for a beer, as he's more of a cider drinker.  For that reason and those mentioned above, this was a congenial way to mingle our recreational and professional interests.  Now all that we have to do is wait for someone to brew an Akkadian beer, and we're really in business.

The author, sampling some Enkibru from the source.

Tate Paulette

Dark Horse Fore Smoked Stout

Beer:  Fore

Brewery:  Dark Horse

Date: February 20th, 2014

Style:  Stout, Smoked Beer

ABV: 7.0%

Similar To:  Surly Smoke Lager, Rogue Smoke Ale 

Description:
If asked to provide a subtitle for this evening, I'd have probably come up with "News Flash - Would-be Beer Fop realizes that ordering Food to complement his Beer enhances his Drinking Dining Experience".  Better yet, how about "Light Bulb City - Smoked Beer and BBQ taste great together"?  While I'm at it, I hear the PB and chocolate combo is pretty popular these days, too.  Anyway, I think you get the point... 
 
I've always felt that one of my shortcomings as a beer "enthusiast" is that I rarely take the time to marry my drink choices to my food in more than a superficial way. Choosing sweeter, darker brews with rich deserts, and barley wine with strong cheese has been about the extent of my planned pairings.  It's with great joy, then, when I stumble upon a congruous beer-food partnership as I did recently while dining at one of my favorite BBQ spots on Chicago's Near West side.  I'll discuss why this worked so well In Closing... at the end of this post, but first, more about the beer involved, Dark Horse's Fore Smoked Stout.

First Impression:
Thick black body with a very thin, light brown head which dissipates quickly.

Smell:
Mmmmm, smoky. Reminds me of a dying campfire or roasting nuts. Smokiness is consistent, but not overwhelming like some smoked beers I've tried. Roasted malts in abundance as well as coffee and a hint of sweetness in the background.

Taste:
A lovely nutty roasted malt flavor. The smoky character is prominent, but not alone as I can definitely taste coffee, chicory, and that elusive sweetness that could be molasses or even sasparilla. Slight alcohol bite in the finish.

On the Palate:
Rich with low carbonation, not unlike root beer.

Why You'll like It:
If you like single malt scotch, cigars, and campfires, then this one if definitley for you. The complexities of its character began to reveal themselves after the initial tasting, and are certainly worth its robust personality.

...and why You won't:
A challenging beer. Its smokiness is what you'll encounter first and for some that may be a lot to overcome to be able to enjoy this one's more subtle flavors.

In Closing...:
From early on, I knew that I was going to enjoy Fore.  What I didn't realize was how much more

A Re-creation of my Beer-Food Epiphany

enjoyable it was going to be once dinner arrived.  When I'm tasting a beer for the first time, I make an effort to not distort the experience with flavors which could significantly alter the beer's taste.  The same holds true when I order an enjoyable meal.  If I do order a beer, it's something that won't overwhelm my food.  Add to that the fact that I rarely drink any type of beverage when eating, and you can see why wining and dining are usually separate activities for me.

This evening, I ordered pulled chicken, seasoned fries, and grits.  I'd ordered all these dishes before, so I was fairly certain that I knew what to expect.  Alright, big swig of beer and onto dinner...  After the first bite of chicken, I literally stopped eating to look at the menu and wondered if I'd ordered a different dish than the one I expected.  This smokiness, this smoldering convergence of sweet and salty flavors, this almost euphoric exaltation of tastes so completely enhanced my beer's innate qualities.  Did you hear that brain?  Food can make beer taste better!  After going back and forth between the beer and chicken for a couple of minutes, I tried the seasoned fries and grits too, and God help me, they also tasted better!  I can only imagine that this is how cavemen must have felt when they first set fire to themselves, or whatever it is they were doing in dark caves when they weren't busy fighting dinosaurs or getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

If there's something to be learned from this experience, it's lost on me.  For the rest of you, however, I'd recommend doing some research on food and beer pairings, in the hope that you can at least slightly recreate the type of mystical adventure I had that night.

Beer Rating: 4 Stars (out of 5)

Transcendental Dining Experience Rating (Beer Included):  ∞ Stars (out of 1).

Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Barley Wine

Beer:  Bourbon County Brand Barley Wine (BCW) 

Brewery:  Goose Island

Date: February 17th, 2014

Style:  Barley Wine

ABV: 12.1%

Similar To:  Founders Backwoods Bastard, Young's Old Nick

Description:
There are times when I head out the door with a destination in mind and a beer as my goal.  Then there are times when beer expectations are strictly on the back burner and I luck into something outstanding.  My experience with BCW definitely qualifies as the latter.

The venue for this evening was the restaurant in a high-end hotel in the Loop, where I was meeting a former manager for dinner on the occasion of his leaving the company.  Conversation that night was enjoyable and certainly wasn't hurt by the presence of 3(!) of Goose Island's Bourbon County line on the menu:  Bourbon County Stout, the subject of this post, and Proprietor's BCS, only the first two of which were available.  

First Impression:
Dark brown/black with a slight reddish tint and no head.

Smell:
Not surprisingly a strong aroma of bourbon, as well as brown sugar, vanilla, and plums/cherries.  Smells sweeter than I remember from Bourbon County Stout.

Taste:
As expected, massive bourbon and very sweet malt, though not cloying.  Lots of brown sugar, caramel, vanilla, and the dark fruits I mentioned previously.  Surprisingly well hidden alcohol taste, due, no doubt to the sweetness.  I could have probably put away another 3 or 4 of these, even if I would have been sorry for it later.

On the Palate:
Luxuriously rich and thick with a warming finish.  Low carbonation.  Very smooth going down, despite the high ABV.

Why You'll like It:
What's not to like?  Seriously though, a top-notch barleywine whose complexity

...and why You won't:

Sweet and strong is what BCW delivers, and does so in almost epic proportions.  Buyer beware.

In Closing...:
Coworkers can be strange animals.  Having congenial people to work with can make a terrible job easier and having awful ones can suck the life out of the most rewarding employment.  Naturally, the moral of this platitude is that really good beer trumps a really bad job, at least for a few hours.   

As a side note, I've had great luck finding hard-to-locate beers in places where people wouldn't usually go to find them, such as hotel bars, wine bars, and good restaurants where the beer is a generally a secondary consideration.

Rating: 4 1/2 Stars (out of 5)

Goose Island Identity Crisis

Beer:  Identity Crisis (GIC)

Brewery:  Goose Island

Date: February 16th, 2014

Style:  Porter

ABV: 8.5%

Similar To:  Nothing else I've tried

Description:
Having a young child, part of the plan for each weekend is finding interesting activities for the family and seeing the excitement on the little critter's face each time she tries something new.  These activities usually involve spending time outdoors, but this winter we've had to get more inventive in searching for things to hold back the cabin fever.  One of my personal favorites is to take Little Dingbat to Chicago's Field Museum and let her run (relatively) amok down the galleries filled with the "stuffed animals", which are excellent examples of early 20th century taxidermy.  She's at the age where animals that hold still are more exciting than those uncooperative ones at the zoo which seem to make themselves scarce whenever we visit.  Also, the museum smells better.  After a morning out, we often retire to a child-tolerant watering hole for a spot of lunch and, with any luck, a decent pint or two.  It's one of these "watering holes", the Goose Island Brewpub on Clybourn, which will be the backdrop for several upcoming posts.  I've gone through most of their taproom-only beer selection recently and have found a couple that were really worth sharing, beginning with the aptly named Identity Crisis.

First Impression:
Deep black color with a small, very faint, white head.

Smell:
Sweet dark fruit - plums, or cherries soaked in brandy.  Thinking on it, the aroma reminds me of sherry or another cordial.

Taste:
Wow, not what I'd expected from a porter. I wasn't far off with the cordial analogy.  Plums, cherries, and roasted malt.  The taste is similar to a lambic or a mild sour ale.  Very little bitterness.

On the Palate:
Very low carbonation, somewhat thick but not syrupy. 

Why You'll like It:
Good for fans of strong fruit beers, sours, and even barley wines.  This covers all those bases and does it pretty well.

...and why You won't:
The flavor's somewhat incongruous to the style, which may disappoint you if that's not what you're expecting.

In Closing...:
There's no further question in my mind as to why they named this beer Identity Crisis, but rather why they thought to categorize it as a porter.  Regardless, an enjoyable experience after a tough morning of fatherhood.  As I've lamented frequently when visiting this place "If only they served it in growlers...".

Rating: 4 Stars (out of 5)
 

The stout on the left or the "porter" on the right?  Eenie, meenie...

Furious Surly IPA

There's also a beer in this picture.

Beer:  Surly IPA (FSI)

Brewery:  Surly Brewing Company

Date: February 14th, 2014

Style: IPA

ABV: 6.2%

Similar To:  Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA

Description:
As I'm sitting down to write this, I can't remember the last time I that I drank a beer from a can.  I should probably rephrase that slightly to say that I remember drinking beer from cans on several occasions and even had a pretty damned impressive pyramid of the most God-awful rancid tins of Milwaukee's [expletive] in my dorm room in college, but my point here is that the end of my drinking beer from cans roughly coincides with a vast improvement in the quality of the beer I consumed and probably has something to do with why I'm still ambulatory and not currently spending my afternoons in a dialysis clinic.  Pleasantries aside, I'm bringing this up because cans are definitely part of Furious' schtick, their motto being "Beer for a glass, from a can".  However they spin it, the beer pictured above, Surly IPA, was well worth drinking regardless from what it was poured, so read on.

First Impression:
Poured a rich, almost glowing red, the above photo doesn't really do it justice.  Nice off-white head with very good retention.

Smell:
Lots of hops, citrus, floral notes, pine, and some caramel sweetness.  The persistent head retained those pleasant aromas and added a lot to the experience.  

Taste:
The bitterness from the hops was nicely balanced with lemon or perhaps grapefruit.  Definitely some underlying sweetness there too, though not as pronounced.

On the Palate:
Great carbonation.  Strangely enough, this is what I recall the most from my days of can consumption and have strangely missed.  Fits quite well with the style and adds to the feeling that this beer is really fresh.

Why You'll like It:
A very good IPA that doesn't simply crush you with it's bitterness.  The combination of aromas, flavors, and mouthfeel make this a experience to savor.

...and why You won't:
While not a one-trick pony, Surly is still quite bitter and may not appeal to those who don't enjoy the style.

In Closing...:
Though this certainly doesn't apply to all areas of my life, when it comes to beer, I love having my preconceptions shattered.  Having overcome my previous aversion to returning to cans, I'm eager to try some of Furious' other offerings, and based on Surly's promise, would recommend the same to you.

Rating: 4 Stars (out of 5)

Spiteful G.F.Y. Stout

Beer:  G.F.Y. Stout (GFY)

Brewery:  Spiteful Brewing

Date:  January 25th, 2014

Style: Imperial Stout

ABV:  8.0%

Similar To:  Central Waters Brewhouse Coffee Stout, North Coast Old Rasputin

Description:
As long as I've been enjoying beer, I've had a soft spot for stouts.  From Guinness Extra Stout, one of the first beers I tried, to the almost innumerable varieties of barrel-aged stouts I've tried more recently, the style evokes a great sentimentality in me and reminds me of why I enjoy beer so much.  It's with this long, fond history that I tend to be rather critical of any stout that I try, which is why I feel quite excited to share my enthusiasm about one that I enjoyed.  In Part II of my recap from January's Spiteful Tasting extravaganza (read Part I here), I review Spiteful's take on the Imperial Stout, G.F.Y.

First Impression:
As with all of Spiteful's beers, the label art catches your eye.  I've never embraced product mascots, but I admit harboring a soft spot for GFY's none-too-cuddlesome figurehead, Abrasive Bear, pictured above.  The beer itself pours black with a lingering finger-thick mocha head.

Smell:
Dark, bittersweet chocolate, lots of roasted, almost smoky, malt, and also some coffee in the background.

Taste:
Compelling blend of chocolate and roasted grain, with a good hop finish, despite not being a prominent part of the aroma.  Also some hints of coffee and caramel.  Very nicely balanced, a good combination of flavors without any single overwhelming characteristic.

On the Palate:
Medium thickness, somewhat thinner than I expected for a stout, with little carbonation.  Surprisingly smooth and little alcohol finish for 8% ABV.

Why You'll like It:
A solid, non gimmicky example of what a stout should taste like.  The balance gives it a broad appeal to anyone who enjoys this style. 

...and why You won't:
Doesn't try to complete with all of the specialist stouts currently on the market.  If you're looking for a beer that's strongly weighted towards one end of the taste spectrum or the other, for example a strong coffee or sweet chocolate stout, there are choices that will probably make you happier.

In Closing...:
GFY was the second Spiteful stout that I tried that evening, and though both had their merits, I felt that this was the more well-executed of the two.  Would definitley enjoy it again. 

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars (out of 5)

Most of the evening's lineup, prior to their demise.  GFY is 3rd from the left.