Having chatted with Kirby Nelson from Capital the night before, I set out to try his bourbon barrel imperial doppelbock. I walked up to the booth and he was there. For better or for worse, he remembered me. Here it is:
My notes, as far as I can decipher them, say that it had a nice bourbon flavor. Strong but not overpowering but with a nice alcohol bite. Good for chillier weather. I presume it'll be bottled at some point.
I had a list of brews that I wanted to try and realized after the fact that I missed a bunch of them. However, I did try a number of them. Dark Horse's Kmita Kölsch was really good with its notes of biscuit and nice hop finish. A perfect beer for the sunny, warm day. They were also pouring a beer brewed with jalapeno. It too was really tasty. The jalapeno was prominent but didn't kill your palate. I can see it pairing with food really well.
5 Rabbit Cerveceria on Chicago's south side bills itself as the first Latin microbrewery in the States. I can't dispute that but I can say that their 5 Lizard was very good. It's a wheat beer with passion fruit. The brew was very effervescent with passion fruit and some variety of hops that have a grapefruit flavor vying for your taste buds.
There were other Chicago breweries there as well. I really liked Metropolitan's Iron Works Alt (and their fancy taps as well). This stuff had more hoppiness than other alts I've had. Granted, I don't think I've ever had a true altbier from Düsseldorf so I'm certainly no expert on the style, but the ones I have tasted were low on the hops scale. Iron Works had a nice biscuity aroma and flavor which contrasted well with the hoppy finish. While there were more hops here than traditionally used in the style, this is no brew for hop warriors.
For all the good stuff I've heard about Half Acre, they proved disappointing. The Small Animal Big Machine was boring. It smelled sour and tasted sour, with a bit of hops to boot. I just found it unremarkable. Ambrosia was the same. I believe it's a kind of wit, a wheat beer with orange and hibiscus replacing coriander. A nice floral aroma was a good start and I like hibiscus, but it had this sharp flavor which didn't do anything for me. Their beers just seemed to lack a malt backbone. Hell, maybe it was my tongue. I'll certainly give them another shot.
They also served me the worst beer of the festival. I don't know what happened and am hoping that I just got a mis-pour. I was looking forward to their Brandy Barrel Aged Crusch Kölsch – a Kölsch "finished with white peach puree, honey, and a kiss of brandy". Sounds perfect. I'd swear that I watched my glass get filled from the Crusch tap. It had the right color for a Kölsch. Everything was looking grand. Then I tasted it. It was just another watery sour. Was it bad? Was the wrong barrel tapped? Something went terribly awry. I hope they try that again because I'd love to taste the right beer.
A digression for the ladies. Ladies, if you want a middle aged man to compliment you on your attire, wear an old skool Marillion t-shirt like I did.
'Nuff said.
I tasted Short's Cornholio, a dunkel with horehound, beach plums, and red popcorn. (Unsurprisingly, it was a collaboration with Dogfish Head.) The nose was mild and I couldn't taste any of the exotic ingredients. However, I thought it was a good dunkel. Also on the dunkel front, I had Backpocket's Slingshot. I went to their booth hoping to try their German Pale Ale but they didn't have it. Dunkel it was. I felt it had all the components of a nice dark lager but just not enough. A bit watery.
Barley John's Wild Brunette appealed to me as it had wild rice in it. My notes say this brown ale had a rather bitter finish but a distinct paucity of wild rice flavor. My guess is that this is only the second beer brewed with wild rice that I've ever had and I prefer Capital's brew.
O'Fallon's Hemp-Hop-Rye was a fine beer. Normally these days an amber ale with a C-hop doesn't appeal to me but I overlooked this because of the hemp and rye. I sniffed a nice rye aroma and found it to have a mild flavor with that rye crispness and only moderate hoppiness. Like I said, amber ales aren't high on my list of beers these days but this was really good.
At the Surly booth I grabbed their Smoke, a smoked Baltic porter aged on oak. Pretty good. My notes say that I didn't find it overly smoky. In fact, I didn't find it overly anything and found it to be a middle of the road kind of brew.
The Dulcinea and our friend James spend what I consider to be an inordinate amount of time hanging around the booths of meaderies. The folks from White Winter were hawking a new (or newish) drink called Kinky Blues. I'm not sure if is just their Blueberry Spritz rehoolied or what. Regardless, it had a nice blueberry-floral aroma. On the tongue it was bubbly and full of blueberry goodness. Great stuff.
B. Nektar Meadery became a mandatory Great Taste stop the first time we tried their mead a few years ago. I sampled their Belle Isle Belgian-Style Melomel and, man!, it was good. A melomel is simply a mead with fruit. Honey, cherry juice, and hops – a great combination. The cherry was very rich and I'd say it was semi-sweet. This was really great. In fact, I think The D and James also went with it and they were impressed as well.
As for Wisconsin breweries, I tried a few.
New Glarus was serving their two new brews, Laughing Fox and Black Top. Laughing Fox is a Kristal Weizen with nice clove & banana aroma and flavor. I have to wonder why this gets a late summer release as I'd much rather satisfy my weizen craving with this during the hot, hazy days of summer than Dancing Man. DM is a much bigger beer and more appropriate for a September release. Black Top is a Black IPA or whatever the hell this style is called. The aroma is of citrus hops and this carries into the flavor as well but underneath them are chocolatey undertones. This was my first sample of the style and I liked it a lot. It was rather smooth with the hop bitterness being balanced by the malt.
Dave's Brew Farm was serving up Rauch'N Lager. Aside from a good rauchbier being a thing of beauty, one nice thing about them is that they're not very popular which means you don't have to worry about them running out. This one surprised me with a fruity aroma that also held a hint of smoke. It was pretty much the same when I drank it. It was light on the rauch but very crisp – almost fruity. The guide said it was almost 8%ABV but I didn't taste it.
I can barely read my notes for the Stonefly brew I tasted. As near as I can tell it was their 53212 amber lager. If I read my writing correctly, I liked the malt sweetness but found it a bit too hoppy on the back end. At the O'so booth I went with Spike's Maple, an amber ale made entirely with maple sap instead of water. A very Wisconsiny thing to do. Its aroma was hoppy yet sweet. As I expected, it had a very mild maple flavor. I learned long ago up in Stone Lake in more than a foot of snow one April that it takes 40-50 quarts of sap to get a quart of syrup. (Thanks dad.) I rather liked this stuff. The maple wasn't cloying and it was just very refreshing.
I had wondered how Vintage had managed to get a tent all to themselves. I mean, this would be their – what? – second appearance at the GT. So how did they pull it off?
So I chatted up Scotty, above. We've known one another since college so I used my place in his heart to find out. Apparently he was a little drunk at some point last year and made a bet that Vintage could break the world record for most beers at the Great Taste. He awoke the next morning and immediately started to cellar brews. Apparently the GT organizers relented when he informed them that he had three dozen beers ready to go. Vintage had the tent decked out like a living room (see above) with 3 or 4 separate groups of taps all featuring different beers.
I sampled three of their brews but I'd had a couple already. The new one to me was the Tippy Toboggan roggenbier. Most beers that I've had which use rye in the grain bill try to get the zing of the rye to pair up with a fair amount (or more) of hop bitterness. I've never had a roggenbier from Germany. I've never seen one for sale so I am no expert on the style. But Scotty spent time in Germany and I'm going to guess here that his take is closer to what you get over there as opposed to what U.S. craft brewers generally make. Having said all that, I found TT to be fantastic. You got the rye crispness balanced with fruity flavors and malt sweetness instead of competing with hop bitterness. If this is his winter seasonal, then bring on the snow.
I am probably missing a few brews here, but that's where my notes end. No doubt The D and James passed me their glasses for a taste and I just didn't write anything down. The rhubarb saison from Dave's Brew Farm was one beer I never got around to trying. I somehow managed to avoid Jolly Pumpkin completely. D'oh! I did grab something from the Real Ale tent but can't remember what it was. I had ducked in from the rain and grabbed something but, having my poncho on, I was unable to take notes.
A few final observations. I think there were more food vendors or at least some different ones this year. More bands as well. The Three Floyds line was ridiculously long. I presume people were lining up for Dark Lord. I didn't see anyone carted off in an ambulance. Much to my dismay, the programs didn't have any blank pages to take notes on and they instead offered a downloadable cheat sheet hoolie for you to print out. I hope the MHTG changes this next year. Chicago's brewing scene is really growing.
Did anyone notice any trends this year? The only thing that I noticed which was newish was the use of hibiscus. Not that everyone had a beer with it but it seemed more prevalent than in years past.
All in all, despite the rain, it was a fine Great Taste.
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