My first encounter with a so-called "pickle beer" came last autumn when my Frau and I made a stop in at Noon Whistle Brewing down in lovely Lombard, Illinois one night. Because I am open minded and willing to try any old thing brewers come up with, no matter how far out in left field it may be, I bought a small pour of their dill pickle sour ale on a whim.
Just kidding.
I don't really know why I gave their pickle beer a whirl but I suspect it was because the more normal beers of theirs that I had tried up to that point were not good. It's like they spend all their effort perfecting "gummy beers" which I presume are meant to inspire images and all the good feelings of Gummi bears dancing on your tongue. Or something like that. Perhaps my logic was, since Noon Whistle does not, um, do well with malt flavors and I don't want my beer to taste like candy, let's try something else.
In the end, I found that I rather liked the pickle beer. Yeah, it was definitely gimmicky but I enjoyed the briney savoriness and the sour was just the right strength of tanginess. I could sense the spirits of my German, Polish, and Ruthenian ancestors looking over my shoulders and rolling their eyes at the novelty aspect of the beer but appreciating that at least there were pickles involved. They were probably also wondering where the Korn and/or vodka was.
Fast forward several months and I stumble upon Donna's Pickle Beer at the store and make a life-altering decision there on the spot: I resolve to drink every pickle beer I can find.
Ere long I discover Destihl's SuckerPunch, their dill pickle sour beer, on the shelves here in Madison. But I shy away from it. From my experience, their sour beers are extremely sour and render your tongue inoperable for a while after just a sip or two. While I did resolve to drink every pickle beer I could find, I did not set any deadlines and, instead, did some major procrastinating on that one.
Then came a trip down to Chicagoland back in October and a stop in at a Binny's where I found the beer that started all of this: Noon Whistle's Pickle Someone Your Own Size.
The brew was slightly hazy but I am unsure why. My first thought is that it was made with wheat but I can neither confirm nor deny that. Noon Whistle notes the hops involved but not the grains. Of course. My pour produced a big, white head that was all effervescent like soda with an audible din of bubbles bursting. They burst so much that the foam dissipated fairly quickly. I spied some bubbles inside - not counting the ones stuck to the side of my glass.
As expected, the beer smelled a lot like what you get when you smell a jar of pickles. You know, briney and dilly. But there was also a prominent lemony-citrus aroma too. I put this down to the lactic sour but apparently the Simcoe hops here also add fruity scents.
My tongue was greeted by a good, but not strong, fizziness and a light body. That lemon aroma came through but, again, I attributed it to the sour and not hops. It didn't take long for the citrus taste to give way to dill pickle. While there was a definite astringency to the taste, it was orders of magnitude less than the xenomorph blood that Destihl makes.
The tanginess and dill slowly ebbed away on the finish as a savory/saline quality joined the fading dill.
I gave it all away above so it's no surprise when I type that I really enjoy this beer. It's light, rather fizzy, and tastes like pickle brine with a touch of citrus. I brought a couple cans of this stuff to gaming one day and they went down in quick succession. Easy drinking and flavorful for someone like me with lots of Germanic and Slavic blood in him.
Junk food pairing: Go all post-modern and start deconstructing a classic dish like the hamburger by pairing your Pickle Someone Your Own Size with a bag of Herr's Ketchup flavored potato chips.
N.B. - ketchup is not appropriate on hot dogs.
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