About a month ago a friend of mine told me I should write a blog about beer drinking or dark beer. Now, this entry is not about a boasting of how much consumption a person should, can, has or whatever do or done. No, this entry is about fine tastiness of nice beers from my novice perspective in the great wonderland of beers. Disclaimer: if you started to read this entry because you thought it was about Aspen, stop now, because it is not.
I believe every man, woman and child could like beer. In fact, I would even go so far as to say every man woman and child would like dark beer...if given enough time. There are many great lighter beers out there, and no I am not talking about bud light or any of the likes. I would be talking about your wheat beers, maybe a finely crafted lighter ale, or say the boston lager, I couldn't tell you because I am not an expert, but in my opinion they pale(not to be confused with pale ales, ha! a poor joke I know) in comparison to the mountain top of viscous flavors experience one receives from dark beer.
How can one go through life thinking dark beer tastes burnt and bad? Someone most have abused your taste palette as a child if you think a dark beer like guinness tastes terrible. Guinness has a fantastic flavor of like roastedness sure. No one would say a roasted pig tastes burnt and bad. I know guinness is the poster child for dark beers, and I do not wish to give the impression that I do not drink or have not enjoyed many other dark beers. Why just the other night I enjoyed a brew made out of Louisiana called the Turbodog ale. It was great. It had a nice smooth full body and finish with a light bight at the end. I also have recently had the Maudite brewed by Unibroue a Canadian brewery in Chambly, Quebec. This is not the time for beers tasted measuring though. I am here to bring light to one of the most important issues of our age which is getting all peoples to enjoy dark beers. I am forced to ask though how can one not enjoy a fine porter or ale after building a relationship with the style of the brew? A question that will perplex the great minds of our age and ages to come.
I was not blest with the gift to enjoy excellent beers-dark and otherwise. No, I acquired this taste. I started my journey with wheat beers. This is important. I did not start with Bud or Miller, or any of that other beer flavored water they try to pass off as being good. Most of that stuff better relates to what the human body releases then nice beer, but I digress. I moved from nice wheats to lighter ales, and beers that are say redder. Then one day, one glorious day, I had a porter and I thought this is strangely, you guessed it, fantastic. I couldn't tell you why, but it was. Can you really explain the feeling you get when you feel the sun shining on your face, or the experience one has when you go on a roller coaster or you are viewing the Sistine Chapel for the first time. It was like all those things were happening in my mouth.
Since this time I have been trying to get my mouth on any beer that looks finely crafted. One day a friend of mine and I stumbled upon a barley wine. It is a beer aged much like wine, but since it is barley that is being aged it is in fact a beer. We ordered a pitcher of this 11% ABV beer to split between the two of us. Tasting this beer which was aged in brandy barrels was beyond words, and in fact the beer took me by surprise. I was not ready for the vanilla, nuts, caramel, wood, and brandy flavors to crash onto my taste palette like roaring yet smooth wave of, yes, fantasticness.
So there you have it, dark beer is awesome, and you are not if you do not think so.
light bight or lite bite? :)
ReplyDeleteI'm not totally convinced, but I'm still pretty excited about the sort of shout-out!
"YOU HAD AN EXTRA PAIR OF GLOVES THIS WHO TIME!!!!!" "Killer boots Man!" "Nice set of hooters you have there....the owls..." "Just when I thought you couldn't be any dumber, you go and do a thing like this... AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!!!"
ReplyDeleteI'm proud of myself!!
You should be excited Abby. Zach, just when I thought you couldn't any more dumber, you go and do something like this...and totally redeem yourself! Ok, I didn't actually think you were dumb, but I wanted to use a quote.
ReplyDelete