(Thanks to the Shitty Artwork blog for the great album cover.)
A recent venture (...September. Recentish.) up north included a stop at Valkyrie Brewing. I had stopped in after a very nice hike and that first Whispering Embers tasted oh so good as it gently put my aching muscles at ease. As I perused Ann Lee's artwork and gazed out the windows at the quiet streets of Dallas, I knew that the brewery was up for sale and that it was quite possible - even likely - that this would be the last time I'd step foot in the place.
I thought about how I would miss going there in the autumn after a long hike and enjoying fresh Rauchbier to relax my bones. It's become a tradition, albeit a recent one, and I shall miss it if no one steps up to keep the Valkyrie legacy alive.
During my visit last year (or was it the year before?), I asked Ann, who was behind the bar, if she and/or her husband, Randy the Brewmaster, were Jethro Tull fans as they had at least a couple of beers that seemed to be named after Tull songs. First there was Crimson Wonder, a Scotch ale, whose name seemed to have been lifted from "Cup of Wonder" from the Songs From the Wood album. And Whispering Embers, their smoked Oktoberfest, sounds not unlike a lyric from "Fires At Midnight" on that album. Also on Songs From the Wood there is a tune called "Velvet Green", a dry stout and the subject of this blog post.
I don't know what the specs are for a dry stout, a.k.a. - an Irish stout. Some extra hops, I suppose. I wonder if the Irish consider their stouts to be particularly dry.
As expected, Velvet Green was a very dark brown that looked black in the glass. I couldn't see inside and light didn't stand a chance trying to penetrate the stouty gloom. My pour produced a small tan head that, sadly, went away rather quickly. I guess I have become used to stouts on nitro that have big heads and vortices of tiny bubbles inside and don't recall if the non-nitro type is supposed to be this mellow. My nose caught mostly coffee and malty sweetness along with a little dark chocolate and a touch of grassy hops.
That small head equated to moderate fizziness. The body was medium-light and leaned towards the light side. Despite not being nitroed, it still had a lovely smooth taste that was dominated by coffee and roasty malt. Unlike American porters, though, the malt flavors were a bit restrained. The advertised dryness came on the finish when those herbal hops pushed some lingering dark chocolate notes aside and shone through.
Valkyrie says Velvet Green is 4.6% A.B.V. and I think this is just slightly higher than Guinness, the Platonic ideal of an Irish stout. I have to wonder when the stout became so un-stout. That is, I have always been under the impression that stouts are porters brewed to be bigger and stronger. You know, stouter. Maybe porters were historically somewhere around 3.5% which would make a 4-4.5%+ version stouter. I just thought that a stout stout would be 5%+ at least.
I thoroughly enjoyed Velvet Green. It had the requisite toasty-roasty malt flavors with coffee and dark chocolate and the dry finish was just tasty. The light body and the overall easy-going taste means that they'd go down perhaps too quickly on St. Patrick's Day.
Junk food pairing: Pair your Velvet Green (while you can!) with a bag of Keogh's Crinkle Cut Flame Grilled Irish Steak potato chips.
No comments:
Post a Comment