A couple years ago, you needed a spreadsheet and a hashtag to track down a single bottle of each Bishop’s Barrel release. You also had to go to a bar or restaurant within days of the release, because Saint Arnold didn’t distribute them to stores, and they sold out very quickly.

More recent BB releases have barely registered on the hype meter, despite being good-to-very-good beers. You can find bottles in stores now, and they seem to last for weeks, if not longer, at many places.

I’ve got some theories for why things have changed, but that’s a discussion for another time. For now I want to focus on today’s release, Bishop’s Barrel No. 17, a bourbon-barrel-aged Adambier.

First, Adambier: it’s a relatively obscure, top-fermenting dark German style. It tends to be malty, smoky, strong (~10% abv), and occasionally sour and/or hoppy. Saint Arnold’s first foray into Adambier was with Divine Reserve 16, released this time last year, and my fellow HBG writer Chris White wrote about it at the time. BB17 is that beer, aged for about a year in Woodford Reserve bourbon barrels.

Like most people, I’ve got minimal experience with Adambier, let alone BBA Adambier. That makes it impossible to rate/review BB17 to style. No matter — it’s a delicious beer. I quite liked DR16, and the original seemed like a match for bourbon barrels, so I expected to like this. It delivers.

Caramel, Smoke & Leather

Here’s what to expect: caramel, smoke, vanilla, leather, chocolate, and bourbon. None of those dominates, with each sip highlighting one or the other. There’s great balance here, but no shortage of flavor or depth. BB17 begs to be savored over a couple of hours. It warms beautifully, with chocolate and bourbon coming to the fore, and the body feels fuller and smoother as it reaches room temperature.

Watch out for the booze. The base beer was 10% abv, but this is a hefty 13.2%. It tastes nowhere near that big, so take your time. A couple of hours may seem like a long time to spend on 12oz of a style nobody’s every heard of, but trust me: it’s worth it.

BB17 starts to hit stores, bars and restaurants today. The spreadsheet probably won’t help you track it down, but keep an eye on #BB17 on Twitter, along with social-media posts from Saint Arnold and Houston’s finer beer establishments to help your search. Happy hunting!

Beer Nerd details:

Date Brewed: February 4, 2016
Date Barreled: March 10, 2016
Date Bottled: February 16, 2017
Type of Barrel: Woodford Reserve bourbon barrel
Original Gravity: 1.100
Final Gravity: 1.023
Alcohol: 10% ABV (pre-barrel) 13.2% ABV (post-barrel)
Bitterness: 30 IBU

The following events are planned for the release of Bishop’s Barrel No. 17:

• Saint Arnold Bishop’s Barrel No. 17 Release and Divine Reserve No. 16 at Hop Scholar, Spring, Monday, March 27 at 3PM
• Saint Arnold Bishop’s Barrel No. 17, Raspberry AF, Icon Green – El Dorado IPA and Pub Crawl Pale Ale Tap Takeover at Valhalla, Monday, March 27 at 4PM
• Saint Arnold Bishop’s Barrel No. 17 Release and Movie Night featuring Life of Pi at Axelrad, Houston, Monday, March 27 at 7PM.
• Saint Arnold Bishop’s Barrel No. 17 at Beer Market Co., Wednesday, March 29 at 5PM
• Saint Arnold Bishop’s Barrel No. 17 and Divine Reserve No. 16 side-by-side with Brewery Wood Cellar Manager Aaron Inkrott at Spec’s Smith St., Wednesday, March 29 at 6:30PM
• Saint Arnold Bishop’s Barrel No. 17 and Divine Reserve No. 16 side-by-side at Hops Meet Barley, Thursday, March 30 at 7PM

The post Saint Arnold Bishop’s Barrel 17 first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Saint Arnold Bishop’s Barrel 17 appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

The highlight, of course, is the beer. This year’s beer list, unsurprisingly, is impressive, varied, and huge; I counted nearly 300 beers and ciders. Yes, I counted. Yes, I made a spreadsheet. Duh. A good beer nerd has to have a game plan for an event like this. I don’t quite have mine finished, but I do know what my first five stops will be.

Jester King

This is becoming an annual tradition. For the third year in a row, my first stop will be Jester King, and my first beer will be 分 桃, aka Fen Tao, their peach sour. I’m once again predicting that this will be the first beer at the festival to run out. I’ll say it’s 50/50 to even survive the VIP hour from 3:30-4:30 (that’s your cue to get VIP tickets). I’m also excited to try Space Waves, their recent collaboration with Jolly Pumpkin. It’s a JK farmhouse blended with their own cherry sour (Montmorency vs. Balaton), with a salty twist.

Saint Arnold

Houston’s best brewery always brings good stuff to Untapped, but this year they’re going all out. Four vintages of Pumpkinator, three Bishop’s Barrels, two Divine Reserves, and a Raspberry AF in a pear tree. 2016 Pumpkinator, which debuted just this week, will surely be popular. I’m most excited for Raspberry AF, their Boiler Room berliner weisse with raspberries. It’s delicious, and at 3.7%, it’ll be the perfect break beer/thirst quencher.

Peticolas

This Dallas brewery is the most welcome surprise on the list for me. The only other time I’ve seen their beer in Houston was at the (late, great) Draft Fest at Guadalupe Plaza Park in 2012. All these years (and awards and raves) later, Peticolas still doesn’t distribute to Houston, despite our social media pleas. I’m excited to try all three of the beers they’re sending to Untapped: Velvet Hammer (an imperial red), Ghost of Alfred Brown (their English brown ale with ghost peppers), and Sit Down Or I’ll Sit You Down (their highly regarded double IPA).

The Bruery

No, I haven’t stopped nerding out about the fact that my favorite U.S. brewery is now in Houston. I’ll take a second to wish they’d diversified their lineup for Untapped, since all three beers (Melange 14, Mash & Vanilla, and Poterie) are at least 13.4% abv, but that’s a nitpick. All three are crazy delicious.

Real Ale

It should come as no surprise that my pick for the best overall Untapped lineup comes from the best brewery in Texas. They’ve got the whole spectrum covered: sessionable & pale (Hans’ Pils), sessionable & dark (Coffee Porter), hoppy (Axis, their killer new IPA), classic Belgian (Devil’s Backbone), sour (Tenebrae Aeterna, their spectacular barrel-aged sour porter), and rare (a special rye-whisky-barrel-aged version of their 20th Anniversary Rye Double IPA). That is how you structure a festival lineup. I expect to spend a lot of time at the Real Ale table.

So that’s my top five. There’s a ton of other great stuff, of course. Hell, it’s kind of mind-blowing to think that I’ve made it this far without mentioning luminaries such as Brash (EZ7, Cortado), Odell (Jolly Russian, Friek), Founders (KBS), Avery (Lillikoi Kepolo, Rumpkin), Boulevard (Tank 7, Love Child #7, Rye-On-Rye), Alpine (Pure Hoppiness)… you get the point. I’ll also be making a point to check in on some of Houston’s newest breweries: SpindleTap, Under The Radar, and Eureka Heights. Make sure you try Eureka Heights Mostly Harmless. I’m kind of obsessed with it.

See y’all on Saturday

The post My first 5 stops at Untapped Houston, 2016 edition first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post My first 5 stops at Untapped Houston, 2016 edition appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

Let’s back up. The latest release in Karbach’s F.U.N. series — their limited, occasional, barrel-aged line — is a bourbon-barrel aged Belgian quadrupel. Here’s a description Karbach marketing manager David Graham gave Tenemu.com:

“Kentucky Habit is brewed with a blend of specialty malts and cane sugar. We used a Trappist yeast for fermentation which lends some spicy, phenolic notes to hints of fig, caramel and raisin. This brew was aged in 72% Old Fitzgerald barrels and 28% Four Roses barrels. The aging process imparts some great toasted, vanilla oak character as well as a discernible bourbon flavor.”

Photo courtesy of Karbach Brewing via Twitter.

He’s about half right. There’s a lot of flavor here. Toasted, vanilla oak? Check. Sugary sweetness? Check. Discernible bourbon flavor? For days. This really is quite delicious. It’s undoubtedly a must-try for anyone who likes bourbon-barrel-aged beers. I do, and I had a hard time putting it down, even despite the hefty (and noticeable) 11.9% abv.

But where’s the quad? There’s nothing spicy/phenolic to be found. Dark fruit? Maybe — but not in the typical, estery quad/Belgian Strong Dark Ale kinda way. In fact, it’s very one-note. Now, it’s hard to complain when that one note tastes so good, but still: there’s nothing complex about this beer. It’s a dark, sweet, boozy bourbon bomb.

I don’t think I’m asking too much of Kentucky Habit. After all, a spectacular BBA quad, Boulevard Bourbon Barrel Quad, sits on Houston shelves year-round. (It also ages quite interestingly, for the record — the cherries gain prominence after a couple of years, giving it a really nice “imperial oud bruin” twist. I know I’m the #DrinkNow guy, but this one’s worth a shot.) And if you ever see Deschutes Not The Stoic return, buy it all — it’s one of my favorite releases from the last couple of years, and it absolutely nails the bourbon/quad mix.

Back to Karbach’s version. It reminds me a lot of their prior F.U.N. release, 012, aka Trigave. That was a Belgian-style tripel brewed with agave and aged in tequila barrels. It, too, was very tasty — with tons of tequila and barrel flavors, but no sign at all of the tripel. I enjoyed the beer and drank it more than once, but still found myself annoyed by it. If they’d called it a “tequila-barrel-aged agave golden ale”, I would’ve had no complaints. But I adore the classic Belgian styles, and if you call something a tripel, I want at least a hint of a tripel. Trigave had none.

Same goes for Kentucky Habit — I never found any quad. I easily and happily drank the whole bomber, too. So, go buy this. I know it’s limited, but I’m guessing there’s enough out there that you’ll be able to find it with a little bit of effort. I can just about guarantee that you’ll like it — as long as you’re OK with a delicious bourbon-barrel-aged dark ale, and you’re not expecting a quad.

The post Karbach F.U.N. 013 Kentucky Habit first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Karbach F.U.N. 013 Kentucky Habit appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

• Take inventory of your cellar. This is far and away the most important thing you can do. It may be daunting, but if you don’t know what you’ve got, then you have no idea what’s wasting away. Most importantly, you’ll have no idea what can be salvaged. Make a spreadsheet. Embrace your inner nerd.
• Prioritize. A vintage Real Ale Sisyphus might have peaked, but it probably won’t fall too far too fast; save it. That Stone Imperial Russian Stout vertical? Now’s the time to move it to the fridge. Stone IRS ages gracefully, but it doesn’t get too much better, either, and the downside of a still-decent-but-past-its-prime bottle is not worth the risk. Oh, and that last sixer of Saint Arnold Divine Reserve 8? Yikes. May as well move it to the fridge, too.
• Be ruthless. Understand that every single beer in your cellar is a sunk cost. Just because you spent money and time on buying/aging it doesn’t mean you should be attached to it. When you open that aforementioned DR8, it’s very likely to suck. It’s a 6.5-year-old Scotch Ale, after all. You’ll smell the oxidation as soon as you start pouring it. Give it a sip or two, just to be sure, and then pour it out. It’s not your fault. (It is, but I’m trying to be helpful.)
• Host a Clear the Cellar party. Whether it’s at home or at a bottle-share-friendly bar (ask in advance!), get 8 or 12 or 15 people together and get to work. You can easily clear a couple dozen bottles or more this way. It’s a good time to tackle some verticals, or to finally pop that 17% monster that you’re afraid to look at when you’re alone. Oh, and make it very clear to all your guests that it’s not a regular bottle share. Don’t let anyone bring their own bottles, as that would defeat the purpose. If everyone tries to clear their cellar at the same party, nobody clears a thing.

• Finally, and most obviously, stop buying so much beer! (As an aside, my friend and fellow HBG writer Jeff Fountain’s 3FIT rule fits perfectly here. You can’t drink every new beer.) More specifically, don’t buy multiples of anything, except for maybe your all-time favorites and/or tried-and-true aging beers (which we covered in the last post). The days of limited selection on local shelves and being able to buy two of everything just to experiment are long gone. Yes, that brand new bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stout will probably hold up for a couple years, but do you really need to take the risk with a second bottle? No.

The post #DrinkNow: attack your cellar first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post #DrinkNow: attack your cellar appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

This post is about the exceptions to the #DrinkNow rule. First things first: If you don’t know the basics for aging beer, go check out this interview with Adam Avery (yes, that Avery). It covers all the most important points, and will serve as a great launching pad.

The post #DrinkNow: the exceptions to the rule first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post #DrinkNow: the exceptions to the rule appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

Don’t feel too bad; it’s not (entirely) your fault. But if you’re anything like most craft drinkers I know — and you’re reading this site, so you probably are — then you’re currently the proud owner of beer that is way past its prime. That thought kinda sucks, right? Well it’s not nearly as bad as opening that special bottle you’ve been saving for just the right occasion, only to take your first sniff and…BAM! Wet cardboard.

Don’t let that happen to you. If it has happened to you, don’t let it happen again. Welcome to #DrinkNow.

#DrinkNow means drinking fresh. It means drinking a beer soon after you buy it, when it’s at its (probable) peak, as the brewer intended. It means no longer aging beer.

Now, sure, there are some caveats/exceptions to #DrinkNow. I’ll get into those in a later post. For now, why #DrinkNow?

It took me a while to get here. I started aging beer essentially by default. I bought more than I could drink, and instead of slowing down the purchases, I put them in a cardboard box. That was 2008. The box turned into four by 2010. By then I was buying to age on purpose. (Remember those heady days when Houston shelves were so sparse that you could realistically buy two of every new beer, one to drink and one to age?) A couple of years later came a cabinet, and then a year later, a dedicated beer fridge. By early 2014, I had somewhere around 175 bottles aging in the fridge and the cabinet (and a couple more boxes).

Then we had the twins. Weekly trips to the store became a monthly trip, at best. Beers after work and nights out became something else entirely. If I wanted to drink beer, it had to be at home. So I went into the cellar. Some beers were still pretty good. Others had aged “interestingly”. And a select few were complete disasters — oxidized beyond belief, with no hint of the original beer left.

The tipping point came in August of 2014. To help navigate my cellar, I set up “theme weeks” (nerd alert!), with verticals, horizontals or stylistic threads. One of those was a Brett Week. Clearly a series of world-class Brett beers would’ve aged well, right? Not quite. A 2012 Green Flash Rayon Vert was really good, and a 2012 Boulevard Saison-Brett was in a bit of a sweet spot. But a 2011 Saison-Brett was weird and boozy. Worst of all, a 2011 Orval was a completely oxidized disaster. No Brett, no bite or brightness or anything resembling my favorite beer — just limp, wet cardboard.

I wasn’t quite done with aging beer. I told myself I’d stop aging Saison-Brett, and that I would be more selective. There were some hits, too — a 2011 Jester King Black Metal (OG/English Ale yeast version) was spectacular. But for every hit there were multiple misses. I’m still upset at that accidentally aged The Bruery Melange 8. Fresh, it was a spectacular coffee/bourbon blend; two years later, it had turned into a watery, ashy mess. Other misses were rarely undrinkable, but they were almost always letdowns, expected-betters, hoped-for-mores.

Most importantly, they were not as good as fresh.

By last summer, I had whittled down my cellar to about 100 bottles, and was ready to start preaching the gospel of #DrinkNow (although I didn’t coin the phrase; my friend, and fellow HBG writer Tim came up with it). I talked about it on Twitter and quickly found that many of y’all were in the same boat — maybe not at the same point of the cellaring journey, but definitely on the same path. You’d found a bottle in the back of your cellar that never should’ve been aged, or you had a well-cellared bottled that disappointed, or you realized that a beer you always age is even better fresh. Or, you finally acknowledged that a 200- or 300-bottle cellar (you know who you are) is ridiculous, impossible to manage and a waste of great beer.

I have about 45 bottles left in my cellar. Only 10 of them are being aged “on purpose”. Most of the rest are monsters from The Bruery — 750ml bottles over 12% abv that are tough to take down solo, even over a couple of nights (#HoardersProblems). I’m fully aware that the clock is ticking on them. That 2013 Black Tuesday, while likely still delicious, might have already peaked and could be getting worse by the day. Thanks to #DrinkNow, I won’t be making that mistake again.

The post #DrinkNow: why you should stop aging beer first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post #DrinkNow: why you should stop aging beer appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

Untapped Houston is this Saturday at Discovery Green, and you’re obviously going. You’re not? Oh. Well, you really should. It’s Houston’s best annual craft beer festival by far, and also doubles as a pretty cool music fest too. Plus, the weather is supposed to be awesome. So, yeah. You should buy tickets. Go. I’ll wait.

OK, now we can talk about the beer. It’s a huge list, both awesome and overwhelming at once. It’s one of those classic #beernerdproblems — you want to drink all the beers (and tick all the ticks) but you don’t even know where to start. That’s where this post comes in. I’ve been to a beer fest or four, and since I’m a nerd about these things, I never go in without a gameplan (and/or a spreadsheet). After a few hours of staring at the list, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I want to drink. Maybe more importantly, I also know what I’m going to drink first.

–Jester King

A pretty obvious first stop, and a repeat from last year’s first stop and first beer: 分 桃, aka Fen Tao, their peach sour. In addition to having an awesome label/name/story, it’s delicious. I’m pretty confident that this will be the first keg to blow on Saturday, so it’s a no-brainer. Don’t ignore La Vie en Rose while you’re here: this farmhouse ale refermented with “leftover” Atrial Rubicite raspberries is nowhere near as famous as AR (it also looks and tastes almost nothing like it), but it’s a great beer on its own.

–Freetail

I remain bitter about the biggest tease in recent Texas craft beer history (RIP, Freetail Houston), but Freetail still rocks. I’m most excited about trying their Peach Berlinercus, a blend of Yo Soy Un Berliner (their summer seasonal Berliner Weisse) and Peche’cus (their rye wit aged in wine barrels with peaches). They’re also bringing Rye Wit (what it says on the tin) and Oktobefiesta (an Oktoberfest with a twist in the form of Belgian yeast).

–Karbach

These guys seem to be flexing their creative muscles a bit more lately, with the most exciting project (to me, anyway) being the recently announced Fieldworks series. Three of the six Karbach beers available at Untapped will be “new to me”: Bourbon Barrel Hellfighter with Vanilla, Belgian Tripel, and Belgian Pale Ale. If you haven’t tried it yet, the Fieldworks Brett IPA is definitely worth a shot, too.

–Firestone Walker

Few U.S. breweries can match these guys when it comes to the diversity of their exceptional portfolio — they make kickass “regular” beers (two of which, Pivo Pils and Union Jack IPA, will be at the fest), and they’re at the head of the class when it comes to barrel-aged monsters. They’re only bringing one of the latter to Untapped, but it’s a doozy: Helldorado, a blonde barleywine that they just released for the very first time. I missed out on a bottle, but there’s no way I’m missing it on Saturday.

–Live Oak

A huge key to surviving a long day at a beer festival is making sure many of your pours are low in alcohol. There’s no better place to do this than at the Live Oak stand. Their Hefeweizen (5.2%) is world class and on the short list of “best beers in Texas” regardless of style. They’re also bringing two rarer beers that I’m excited to try for the first time: the 3.0% abv Grodziskie (a top-fermented, smoked, hoppy, all-wheat Polish style that was nearly extinct), and the 4.4% Helles Rauchlager (a pale, smoky and bitter lager brewed using a decoction mash).

You’ll note that I’ve only suggested 15 of the 250 or 300 beers that will be available on Saturday. That’s no knock on many of the breweries/beers that went unmentioned. There’s going to be a TON of good stuff out there. Just to name a couple more:

-Saint Arnold is bringing their delicious new Art Car IPA and their eminently crushable (and also delicious) Boiler Room Berliner Weisse. They’re also serving some Divine Reserve and Bishop’s Barrel big guns at scheduled times. Expect lines for those.

-8th Wonder and Buffalo Bayou are each bringing staples (Rocket Fuel and Hopston; 1836 and More Cowbell), rarities (Mission Control and AstroTurf; Peppermint Gingerbread Stout and Whiskey’d Smoke on the Bayou), and Cream Ales (Dome Faux’m and Sam’s Daily).

-Brash has released four Houston-brewed beers (all of which are really good), and three will be at Untapped: Cortado Imperial Coffee Stout, Cali Green IPA, and Pussy Wagon Imperial IPA.

Hell, that’s just some of the Houston stuff. There’s so much more. KBS! Red Bud! Commissar! BA Narwhal! BA Bigfoot! The Calling! Saison-Brett! Yellow Rose! Sorachi Ace! Abyss! Burton Baton! 120! Zoe! La Folie! Cali Belgique! Golden Monkey! Outer Darkness!

You get the point. If you made it this far and you’re still not going, you confuse me. But I’m not giving up on you. Go get those tickets. See y’all on Saturday.

The post My first 5 stops at Untapped Houston first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post My first 5 stops at Untapped Houston appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.