I may not be able to brew dunkels myself, but I have always gone after dark beers: Dunkel by Dovetail Brewery

In preparing for this post, I looked at my notes and saw that the date on my can was 3/1/24. Not sure if this was the canning or best consumed by date. Luckily for my tongue I did my tasting back in the spring. But this also means my review is around six months late and counting. Uff da!

Although it appears that Dovetail has been brewing their Dunkel for several years now, it's not apparent when they do so. Is it a fall release? An easy-drinking winter surprise for those times when you need a break from the slew of Weihnachtsbocks you've been consuming to stay warm? Hell, it could be a spring treat for all I know. All mention of the bier seems to have been expunged from the Dovetail website so I guess I'll just have to wait until it's brewed again. Well, either that or I could write the brewery.

While I have not had anywhere near even half of the brews Dovetail have concocted, I have tasted several and found that they range from very good to superlative. How would their take on the Munich classic (was it even a Munich dunkel?) fare?

The head on this beer was just wonderful. Loose and light tan, it came in large quantities and had staying power. This is a good thing for those of us that lack dexterity when it comes to camera phones and/or have very cheap phones with camera apps that are less than fully functional. Someday I will master autofocus. The liquid was dark amber and clear. A sight to behold! As for the aroma, I'd say it was what I'd hope for/expect in a dunkel, namely, bready with coffee and toasty notes as well as some nice grassy hops.

A mild fizz greeted my tongue on the first sip and it noted a medium-light body. There was the expected bread from the aroma while the grassy hops also had a spicy alter ego. Malty sweetness was rather minimal while coffee and dark chocolate were more prominent. I also tasted a hint of vanilla in there. Likely because of the restrained fizziness, Dunkel was fairly smooth overall.

On the swallow, the roasty malt flavors lingered before a good dose of herbal hoppiness swooped in and made the finish a rather dry and bitter affair.

Dunkel comes in at a very good plus plus. I adored the roasty malt flavors and the overall dry profile. But I kept wishing for more bready taste. The hops were perfectly portioned to offer a brisk counterpoint to the malt. But I kept wishing for more bready taste.

Despite desiring more Maillard madness, this was a great beer. I would definitely drink it again as it hit the spot this past spring. The lighter body pointed towards spring while the roasty flavors kept the lingering chill at bay.

Junk food pairing: When Dunkel is next available, be sure to have a bag of Zapp's Voodoo Pretzel Stix on hand. They're ever so slightly sweet with an addictive tanginess that Dunkel will wash down perfectly.

If you gaze long enough into a Schwarzbier...: Aecht Schlenkerla Erle by Schlenkerla

Occasionally I surf on over to the Schlenkerla website, which seems to not have changed since the Geocities era. This is wholly appropriate since the brewery began during the Middle Ages and seems centuries away from ever brewing an IPA. As I am browsing, I fall into a dream where I am in Bamberg. After a little Wandern through the Franconian countryside, I find myself rather thirsty and so I traipse through the Altstadt in search of refreshment. Looking up at one point, I see the brewer's star beckoning me into Schlenkerla's historic tavern. There I order a Rauchbier or swei or alle. I drink with gusto and rivulets of fuliginous goodness run down my beard. I try to lap it up with my tongue but, not being Gene Simmons, it just won't reach. Locals give the foolish tourist their best side-eye glances and then...and then my oneiric bliss ends because reality intrudes and I have to get back to work or take out the trash.

Until the day comes when I find myself in Bamberg, it seems as if I will have to make do with Steve's Liquor over on Junction Road. When I finally got fed up with the Woodman's by my house having stopped carrying Schlenkerla altogether, I zipped over to the west side hoping that Steve's could feed my need for smoke. And so they did.

Not only did they have the Märzen (if you carry Schlenkerla, you serve their Märzen, if nothing else), but they had the fairly new Fastenbier as well. Yeah, it was introduced in 2005 but, if your brewery has been around since 1405, 19 years is barely yesterday. Even newer, though - basically fresh out of the kettle womb - was the Aecht Schlenkerla Erle, a Schwarzbier, which seems to have been introduced only last year.

Not only is Schlenkerla trying out a new bier style here, but they're also using a novel wood for smoking their malt - alder. If memory serves, alder is used to smoke the malt that Alaskan Brewing uses in their annual delight, Smoked Porter. Alaskan's brew is the only one I've had (that I know of) that uses alder smoked malt so my experience with the stuff is limited. I recall alder giving a slightly mellower, almost sweeter taste, than the workhorse beechwood that, as I understand it, Schlenkerla has been using for ages. As in centuries. Not really sweeter but a little less sharp, not that Schlenkerla's brews have anything approaching an acrid taste, mind you.

The deep, dark brown liquid had a reddish tint to it and was topped by a fine tan head that stuck around a little while. "Black beer" is apt here as I couldn't tell if the stuff was clear (no doubt it was) or had any bubbles inside zipping upwards. I held the glass close to my eyes to get a better look and instead had a weird, unsettling Nietzschean moment. The aroma must have been assembled by the Bambergian Jean-Baptiste Grenouille because it has all the scents that I desire in a beer. First was the alder-laced smoke which worked hand-in-hand with a plum-like sweetness. A delicious breadiness held fast against the piquant smoke and was joined by some spicy hops and tinge of roastiness.

My first sip revealed a light-medium body with a moderate dose of fizz. Considering I've only ever had one Schwarzbier from Deutschland, Köstritzer, this all seemed par for the course. The heavenly smoke flavor made its presence known immediately and with it came a slight sweetness which I think was a bit of malt and a bit of accent from the smoke. Spicy/peppery hops were easy to discern but a faint breadiness less so.

The finish was surprisingly complex with the smoke yielding room on my tongue for hoppy bitterness and a bit of dryness as well. The smokiness then faded leaving a roasty malt taste to ride it out until I took my next sip.

Sehr Schön!

With the fizz being on the low side, this was a smooth tasting brew. I found myself drawn to the smoke-roasty combo like a junkie to the needle. The hops were applied perfectly. They added a nice spicy taste that made a fine counterpoint to all of the malty flavors yet the herb never dared try to stop the Maillard-guaiacol juggernaut. And the aftertaste was just great, going through various phases like the moon.

Junk food pairing: Grab a bag of Gardetto's Deli-Style Mustard Pretzel Mix. It's mustard mustard and not honey mustard with the unneeded sweetness. Plus you get their prized rye chips in addition to the pretzels. The brand sounds Italian but this is a Teutonic snack mix through and through. You might want to grab a couple bags as Erle is an easy-going 4.2% A.B.V. so you'll likely have more than one.

Always juicy. Always beery.: Pickle Beer by Oliphant Brewing

The pickle beer is the picotrend that just won't die. There seems to be two, maybe three, versions that are available more or less year-round with just enough breweries whipping one up periodically to keep Madison shelves fairly well stocked with this oddball style most of the time. If Donna's straight-ahead approach of adding brine to beer just doesn't cut it, you can go with a (likely extremely) sour take on it courtesy of Destihl. Those tartness-loving folks down in Illinois even have a spicy version of their sour pickle beer.

My gut tells me that American craft brewers aren't done with tinkering with the style. I wouldn't be surprised to see a pickle beer that had been aged in vodka barrels at some point. Beyond that, my imagination is strained but, no doubt, some lunatic at a craft brewery somewhere will concoct a pickle beer with Nashville hot chicken or other ingredients I dare not even fathom.

Up until now, my pickle beer purview has been dominated by Illinois breweries making this one the first from Wisconsin to cross my path. Oliphant is up north in the west central part of Wisconsin, perilously close to Minnesota. I have enjoyed the beers that I've tasted by them and appreciated greatly that they brewed a gruit and aren't afraid to smoke things up on occasion. It's just that Oliphant tends to brew a lot of beers that don't appeal to me (or sends those down to Madison) so my bouts of sampling are few and far between. Plus, their labels look a lot like those from The Brewing Projekt, a brewery that, as far as I can tell, took the trendiness of making beer fruity tasting to an extreme where they seem to view malt as a baleful intruder upon their endeavor to make beer indistinguishable from Hawaiian Punch.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't have bought this stuff had I not been gripped by the pickle beer madness. The label described it as a lager with natural flavors which I took to mean a light American lager with, well, flavoring added. Bummer. I'd rather that there be at least some brine in there rather than just Pickle Brine #304 from Amoretti.

Oliphant's Pickel Beer had a really nice white head that effervesced like soda. Sadly, this meant it dissipated fast and my meager photography skills were barely able to capture any. The liquid was quite clear and was a nice light yellow in color. I spied a few bubbles inside. As expected, a pickle brine scent came first and it was followed by lemon candy and some kind of floral dishwashing soap smell.

Its light-medium body was a touch heavier than I expected for a 4% American light lager. A mellow fizziness let some fine malty smoothness through that brought a pickle brine flavor as well as an unexpected burst of sweetness. The briney taste lingered for a bit on the finish before yielding to faint bitterness and a dash of tartness.

This stuff wasn't bad if quaffed very cold and with celerity. Otherwise the pickle brine bit tasted like flavoring and not brine. The malty sweetness threw me off too. It wasn't particularly sweet but its presence was jarring because there just wasn't anything sharp tasting for contrast - too little tartness, not enough salinity, a paucity of fizz.

This just was not my cup of brine.

Junk food pairing: Add more salt and pickle goodness with a bag of Jays Sour n'Dill potato chips to go with the pickle beer from St. Croix County.

Imperial Winter Black: Of Wood and Smoke by Haandbryggeriet

 

What do you get when you cross lutefisk with a hit of LSD?

A trip to Stoughton.

Hopefully a local reads that.

I've had Norway/Norwegians on the brain for a little while now. Next week I am off to Gamehole Con to spend a few days drowning in Lovecraftian chaos as I play Karsten Ekelöf, a Norwegian bacteriologist and physician who goes Beyond the Mountains of Madness. BtMoM is a Call of Cthulhu adventure that takes place in the Antarctic. Here's a bit of his backstory:

Karsten would join the Bratvaag Expedition led by Dr. Gunnar Horn.

Ostensibly an expedition to hunt seals and study glaciers and the Arctic seas, its secret mission was to claim Victoria Island for Norway.

The expedition first stopped at White Island where they improbably discovered the remains of Swedish explorer S.A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition. The official story is that only skeletal remains were found but Karsten and company stumbled upon corpses that still had flesh attached to the bones. Karsten examined the corpses and was horrified to discover that it appeared as if much of the adventurers' flesh had been eaten away as if by necrotizing bacteria.

The remains were stowed aboard their ship and Karsten examined tissue samples from them in transit to Victoria Island. Although he was not surprised to find that they were awash with foreign bacteria, he was shocked to discover that the invaders were unlike anything he'd seen previously.

They had strange tentacle-like protrusions and organelles unknown to science...

So there I was contemplating this Norwegian brew and what to do for a picture for this review and my mind started wandering. I thought about Nordic Noir TV shows but discovered that the ones I've watched are mainly Swedish and Danish with the odd one from Finland and Iceland thrown in. Where are the Norwegian TV producers?! Surely Oslo is as crime ridden as Stockholm. You can't tell me that there aren't maniacs living in the fjords or that the Norwegian forests are bereft of fae.

Then it occurred to me that I've been listening to a lot of Wobbler, a progressive rock band from Norway, lately and I have dragged them into this. Heck, they're probably the kind of guys who would drink this variety of beer anyway.

The brew at hand is Of Wood and Smoke by Haandbryggeriet located in Drammen which appears to be an exurb of Oslo. Thankfully some of it made its way to Madison at some point. The date on the bottom of the can was "12-7-202~~~" - the last digit was all smooshed so I guess its date of origin shall forever be a mystery. But, given that December was noted, I take it that this is a winter release.

This jibes with the beer, a hearty brew that was aged in akvavit barrels giving it a potency of 8% A.B.V. Of Wood and Smoke is an amped up version of Haandbryggeriet's Norwegian Wood, a smoked lager with juniper. This stouter iteration is apparently smokier and juniperer, in addition to having a higher alcohol content due to the spiritual comingling.

With the temperatures around here finally providing some much-needed relief from summer, I figured it was time to put this beer to the test.

My pour produced a big tan head which had shrunk a bit before I could take a decent photograph. Holding my glass at just the right angle, I could see that the beer had a deep ruby hue. I didn't notice any bubbles because I just couldn't see that far into the liquid. There was just blackness. Taking a whiff, I first caught booziness, that sharp alcohol smell. Apparently they weren't playing around with the akvavit. Luscious smoke then wafted into my nose and I attempted to discern what variety it was. Ultimately I failed but suspect it was from a fruit tree like apple or cherry. However, that impression may have been influenced by the inviting plum scent from some of the non-smoked malts.

My initial sip revealed a smooth booziness, as if the surely rather large malt bill was able to add enough sweetness to take the edge off of the akvavit. (I'd say the brew had a medium-heavy body.) Just as with the aroma, smoke came next followed by a moderate malty, caramel sweetness. I also tasted some milk chocolate. There was a mild fizz which struggled to penetrate the Maginot Line of malt.

On the finish I tasted a boozy heat which was joined by some lingering smokiness as well as bit of that caramel sweetness and a dash of the juniper. Everything resolved into a mild, slowly fading akvavit burn.

This is a really nice beer. I suspect it was past its prime but I liked it anyway. The smoke was just delicious and the sweetness wasn't anywhere near cloying. The hops and juniper were very much in the background keeping things from becoming a treacly mess and adding only piney/spicy accents. The akvavit I've had was flavored with caraway but I didn't detect any here.

Of Wood and Smoke is surely amongst the most boreal brews I've encountered. The smokiness was wonderful and it kept me warm on a chill autumn evening.

Junk food pairing: Until I can find some locally-produced lefse chips, I will recommend you pair your Of Wood and Smoke with a bag of Sørlandschips Original Spansk Paprika potato chips. The earthy paprika will go well with all of the malt flavors here and the oil will be swiftly cut by all that akvavit.

The Decline of Western Civilization: Pumpkin Spice Edition

Pumpkin spice taken to its illogical conclusion.

Black Sabbath doesn't appreciate being hit by unidentified flying objects

It was on this day in 1980 that some douchenozzle at the Black Sabbath concert in Milwaukee threw a bottle at Geezer Butler's head that landed with great accuracy. The show was cancelled and rioting ensued.

Here's a recording of the show. The bottle is thrown after a couple songs.

Autumn Scenes '24

I bought some Wolf River apples, the leviathans of the pomaceous family.

Lapacek's presses a mean cider.

A small flock of turkeys cleared the grass under the bird feeder in the backyard of stray seeds that the house sparrows have shoveled off the feeder. House sparrows are the messiest of eaters. I think they prefer sunflower seeds and just cast off the millet and wheat and whatever else is in the feed.

Maple trees are aflame!

I spied Lederhosen in the store windows of Stillgood's recently.

Aside from the cooling temps and lovey colors, fall brings seasonal beers and one of my favorites is Lakefront's Pumpkin Lager. It is actually brewed with pumpkin and has an emphasis on the allspice, to my taste. Plus, it's lagered so the usual sweetness in these kinds of beers is replaced by a nice crispness. I always look forward to this brew.

I had the chance to thank Russ Klisch, president/owner of Lakefront, personally for this stuff last month at the Cap Times Ideas Fest session on craft beer. In addition, I offered a suggestion...

With the AC off, the windows are open and Piper gets to enjoy the fresh air.

On a recent cool night, my Frau had a fire.

Achtung buskers of Madison!

The BRT platforms need you. I am partial to drumming on 5 gallon buckets.