The Beer Road

The weekend is approaching, and it is definitely bringing many, many chances to taste some fine craft beer.  Saturday brings this year’s Big Lick Beertopia beer festival, once again held at Lewis Gale Field in Salem.  Selections from more than forty breweries will be available, and there will be five “special” beers tapped every 45 minutes starting at 12:15.  Included in these beers will be a Belgian style, barrel aged beer from Parkway Brewing (barrel aged Dubbel?), Rubaeus from Founders, Cocoborealis from Chaos Mountain, and Pearl Necklace Oyster Stout from Flying Dog.  Just about every local brewery will be present, including Chaos Mountain, Parkway Brewing, Soaring Ridge, Flying Mouse, Sunken City, Roanoke Railhouse, and Apocalypse Ale Works.  In addition, the festival will have several cideries.  Discounted tickets are currently available on the event’s website, and of course tickets will be available at the gate.  The festival will benefit three local charities, Camp VA Jaycee, Katie’s Place, and Angels of Assisi.

Following Wednesday night’s tap takeover event at Jack Brown’s featuring Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing, Wine Gourmet will be featuring the brewery at its Friday evening beer tasting.  On hand will be the brewery’s Oak Aged Barleywine Widdershins, their English IPA 400 Lb Monkey, Polestar Pilsner, Stranger Pale Ale, and their Sawtooth Bitter.  Left Hand’s “Imperial Porter” Smoke Jumper may make an appearance as well.  If you are into smoked beers, or perhaps aren’t quite sure about them yet, I have three words – seek this out.  The beer features plenty of smoky aroma and flavor, and both are reminiscent of a campfire that’s been recently put out by rain and is still smoldering.  However, Smoke Jumper doesn’t suffer from the heavy handedness that many smoked malt beers do, but that’s not to say there isn’t plenty of the smoked character there.  Instead, the smoked character is nearly equally matched by a rich maltiness that is not at all sugary sweet and somehow doesn’t distract from the smoke or char, but instead offers a just-as-big yet balancing counter point.  There are also smaller accompanying flavors of charred wood, slight bittersweet chocolate and smooth, bold coffee.

Also, all of our great local breweries feature live entertainment most weekends, and this one is no different.  Parkway Brewing and Flying Mouse already have music listed to happen this weekend, and I’m sure Soaring Ridge will as well.  At Chaos Mountain on Friday night, the brewery will welcome the Rock & Roll Diner food truck to help kick off the weekend.

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Champion Brewing’s beers had been on my short list for some time, beginning with the brewery’s grand opening in late 2012.  But keg only distribution to markets a bit larger than my own town of Roanoke, and trips to the brewery’s hometown of Charlottesville that were a little too tightly scheduled for an actual on-site visit meant their beers remained on my radar far longer than I would’ve liked.  So when I finally ran across Champion’s “Stickin’ In My Rye” IPA in Richmond at a cozy neighborhood type restaurant – the morning after a New Year’s Eve concert no less – I figured the stars had aligned just a bit.  As a steady stream of what looked like Richmond natives and VCU students steadily flowed in and out, over what I’ll call one of those very early “lunches” (consisting of breakfast food) that hits the spot after a very late evening, a moment of all too careful consideration came over me.  For a split second, I thought, “too early in the day?”.  To which my wife, sitting across from me, just tilted her head sideways and answered with a “you’re really second guessing this?” kind of look.  Yes, I’ll take one of those Champion IPAs, please.  Looking back at some notes I took, my first beer of 2014 only reinforced what I had heard about Champion’s solid beers, as I wrote down “slight spiciness, citrus burst, great body”.

A few months later, we both found ourselves in Charlottesville with about an hour to spare before another concert.  A couple friends had recently been to a restaurant near the venue, and since the spot featured around forty taps, we figured there would be plenty of good stuff to find.  We quickly located the last two seats at the bar, and started scanning the draft list.  Hoping for at least one or two Champion beers, it turned out the restaurant had hosted a Champion tap takeover event the night before.  Lucky again.  Close to fifteen or so of the brewery’s beers were on the list.  Sampling at least two or three each, my wife went nuts over an imperial coffee Porter appropriately called “Melgadon”.  For myself, among a couple others, I finally got to taste the brewery’s flagship, their Missile IPA.  Aromas and flavors of sticky pine cut with juicy orange or maybe tangerine, held up by a confident malt backbone, I enjoyed Missile as much as I had hoped I would, and wondered if I would be able to ever get this readily in Roanoke.

Fueled by the knowledge that Champion had fairly recently announced plans to expand, when I returned to Roanoke, I reached out to Hunter Smith, owner and Head Brewer at Champion.  His reply was hard to keep to myself.  The brewery would begin canning their beers soon, and would eventually make their way to Roanoke by mid-year.  A couple weeks ago, a keg or two of the brewery’s Killer Kolsch showed up around town, the first sign of things to come.  Just this past week, true to his word, cans of the of both the Kolsch and Missile began showing up around town, no less stamped with freshness dates of no less than around eleven days or so.  Finally I was able to pull a can of Missile from my own fridge.  A great tasting, easy drinking IPA from just up the road in Charlottesville poured into my glass, and as took that first sip, I thought…I wouldn’t have to rely on luck any longer.

Here’s a quick break down of their Missile IPA.

Champion (Charlottesville, VA) Missile IPA, 7% abv, 65 IBU.

It’s always exciting when I pour a particularly aromatic IPA, so much so that I can smell the pine and/or citrus within the first couple seconds, at arms length no less.  I know chances are I’m in for a solid beer at the least.  Missile’s double edged sticky pine and orangey aromas not only reached me from the just poured glass sitting on the counter in front of me, but were not lost in the taste either.  Each sip brings both a healthy dose of both, held up by the malt.  As I read over a couple of additional tasting notes supplied by Smith, it’s no wonder that I care for this beer so much.  One of my favorite hops, Simcoe, is apparently well used in the dry hopping of the beer:

“…part of what makes Missile so special is the Simcoe dry hop, along with Cascade. Cascade’s intense citrus components play with the piney, resinous notes of Simcoe. Our house ale yeast strand also adds some floral intensity that I think really highlight the overall dry-hopped effect”.

Cheers to Hunter Smith and Champion for the growing success!  Check out their Missile IPA as well as their Kolsch, both of which are available around town now.

View From The Road: It’s been a more than a little while since I’ve written any sort of post that focuses on one particular beer, so I think it’s definitely about time to do so.  Every once in a while, going forward, I’ll write up a singular beer, try to give it its due, yet I’ll focus on the great finds that are right around the corner, instead of the beers which are so rare that you have to refinance your house to buy any, or travel to the opposite coast to find.  Cheers!

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Another great warm weather weekend is descending upon us here in Roanoke and with it comes that familiar, growing anticipation for a beer or two to celebrate.  Below are a couple beers that have either recently shown up around town, or will this weekend, to consider doing exactly that with.

Local Roots has recently added Stone’s newest collaboration IPA, called Collective Distortion, to its tap list.  A double IPA coming in at just over 9%, the beer is brewed with an addition of elderberries and coriander.  While the only familiarity I have concerning elderberries doesn’t have anything to do with taste or aroma or beer, but instead seems to be some vague, dusty, long lost association to a song lyric or two about “elderberry wine”, and I’m betting a lot of you out there are the same, we must always consider that Stone rarely produces an IPA that is less than tasty.  Also, in keeping with their usual focus on locally produced beer, Local Roots is looking to add Parkway Brewing’s session IPA Factory Girl to the draft list over the weekend as well.

Outside Chaos Mountain Brewing Company

One visit to either Chaos Mountain Brewing Company and Soaring Ridge Craft Brewers and it’s easy to see why both are looking forward to the weekend’s potentially beautiful weather, as both locations feature welcoming tap rooms with plenty of access to the outdoors.  At Chaos Mountain, seating is located immediately inside a large roll up door, so much so that you feel like you’re sitting on someone’s front porch.  Located in Callaway, that “front porch” also happens to welcome in the quiet countryside and rolling hills that are just across the road from the brewery.  Soaring Ridge located their brewery inside an old Flowers Bakery building, which also features large roll up doors all along the front of the structure, giving those inside a similar feeling.  If you ride out to Chaos Mountain, definitely check out their newer beer, Toulouse To Trek, an easy to drink and flavorful Biere de Garde style beer.  If you head downtown to Soaring Ridge, give the Night Hiker (Black IPA) a try.  A slightly charred (wet, smokey wood?) taste typical of the style makes this a beer to check out.  From posts on their Facebook pages, both Chaos Mountain Brewing and Soaring Ridge Craft Brewers have listed great sounding food to go along with their beer offerings for tonight and tomorrow.

Martin’s in downtown Roanoke also keeps rolling out some interesting finds on their draft list.  Among the recent pleasant surprises have been a beer or two from Perennial Ales from St. Louis, and Allagash’s James Bean, which is the brewery’s always delicious bourbon barrel aged Tripel Curieux, but with an addition of coffee.

Personally, I can’t wait for the weekend to officially start.  So get out and enjoy the weather, Roanoke craft folks, and taste some fine beer – especially at our local restaurants and breweries!  Cheers!

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It’s been a more than a little while since I’ve written any sort of post that just features a single beer, so I think it’s definitely about time to do so.  So every once in a while, going forward, I’ll write up a singular beer, but nothing so rare that you have to refinance your house to buy any, or travel to the opposite coast to find it.  I’ll admit today’s post is about a beer that I have yet to try (fingers crossed) but definitely sounds tasty and is most certainly unique.  Cheers!

 
Give me half a chance and I’ll gladly reminisce about the last time I spent a warm summer evening slowly prying steamed shrimp from their shells and pairing them with, of course, a cold beer.  More accurately, that “singular” memory will more likely be a sweet summary of the many, many times I’ve enjoyed this insanely simple and delicious meal in my lifetime so far, all blended into one blissful, warmly lit thought.  For myself, and many others, the perfect pairing of beer and steamed shellfish, especially in the dying light of a long, late summer day, borders on being a religious experience.  It is a meal without dozens of ingredients, or delicate plating, or a several week long buildup to some formal restaurant’s multi course, reservation only dinner.  All you need is that cold beer and of course some fresh as possible shrimp (or crab perhaps), a summer evening, and just one more ingredient.  Yes, when it comes to just about any crustacean based meal, I am a follower of, and a firm believer in, the gospel of Old Bay.

You see, I firmly believe that although you’ll find the classic seasoning mix from the Chesapeake Bay area being used on a great many things by us true devotees, a meal of steamed shrimp or an all out crab feast without it is just plain heresy.  Now, since these delicious meals are most often connected to summer, and considering that Old Bay is, many believe, vital to their enjoyment, I’d suggest that Old Bay has come to be more closely associated with warmer weather than any other time of year.  So, add in the fact that any meal consisting of a table covered in steamed crabs or shrimp loaded up with Old Bay always needs a good beer to wash it all down with, and it doesn’t seem too much of a stretch to hear just what Maryland brewery Flying Dog has been putting in its latest seasonal beer for summer.  It seems we have come full circle, down our wonderfully delicious path of association from summer to seasoning to suds.  Introduce yourself to “Dead Rise Summer Ale”.  Yes, Flying Dog brings you an ale brewed with nothing other than a dose of Old Bay seasoning.

I’ll admit a split second of trepidation to the idea of a beer with Old Bay added, but then I remembered how much I love the stuff, and any sense of caution was squashed faster than a crab junkie swinging a mallet at an all you can eat crab feast.  I then took a look at the initial reviews online for the beer which was already boasting a solid “85” score on BeerAdvocate.com.  A goal was set.  I had to have this beer.

Whether that will actually happen or not is unfortunately to be determined.  Apparently, the beer is selling (very) quickly, so much so that a “FAQ” page has been set up on the Flying Dog website to mostly address all those Old Bay-heads out there who desperately, like me, want to taste this beer.  If I do get to sample it, I’ll definitely share a quick review.  Until then, here’s the run down.

Flying Dog “Dead Rise” Summer Ale:  Seasonal release, throughout the Mid Atlantic from May through September, coming in at 5.6% abv.  The brewery website states that by Memorial Day, the beer will have begun to reach Virginia, but as far as my home town of Roanoke, who knows.  Often the more sought after Flying Dog releases don’t tend to make an appearance here, but hey, a guy can hope.  At any rate, the website lists that the beer is produced at least partially with a wheat malt and a German ale yeast, but don’t expect some sort of light hefe here, as I would expect that the Old Bay is the focus of the beer, and the existing online reviews point to exactly that.  Most everyone who has written a review on BeerAdvocate mentions how well the spices from the addition of Old Bay work in the beer, often noting how much each sip leaves you wanting more.

Most reviewers also point out, of course, how much they can’t wait to pair this beer with a bunch of Old Bay seasoned, steamed crabs.  I can understand.  I am one of the true Old Bay believers.  As for myself, I might have to seek out some steamed shrimp with plenty of the iconic mixture added to pair up with a bottle of this beer.  I have no doubt that it’ll make for a very memorable, satisfyingly simple, delicious, late summer evening meal that I’ll be reminiscing about for years to come.

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