Things turn sauer for Wisconsin

News arrived today that Fermented Food Holdings, parent company of Great Lakes Kraut up in Bear Creek, is expanding the plant there to become the largest sauerkraut producer on the planet. In addition, the company is moving its headquarters from Florida to Madison. It sounds like some tax breaks from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation helped seal the deal.

In an interview with FFH's CEO Jorge Azevedo, he notes that they source 90% of their cabbage locally. I had no idea cabbage was such a big crop here in Wisconsin.

Happy Halloween!

For lunch on this All Hallows' Eve I fried up some corned beef hash. And since "hash" rhymes with "mash" you just know I put it into this song as I sang it to Piper.

Pickle beer Texas style: BestMaid Sour Pickle Beer by Martin House Brewing

Just when I thought the only pickle beer I had left to try (that I could find in Madison, that is) was Destihl's, I stumble upon this brew.

While, perhaps not surprisingly, I found this beer down in exurban Chicago, it is a little bit of the Lone Star State that made its way up north. The brewer, Martin House Brewing, and the, um, flavoring conspirator, BestMaid, are both denizens of Ft. Worth. To the best of my knowledge, neither company distributes their products here in Wisconsin but I may be wrong. It's true, I haven't gone around town to survey the pickle scene so you might find BestMaid at WalMart or some other national chain. When I need my fix, I head over to the Woodman's pickle/horseradish/sauerkraut cooler where I generally grab a jar of Claussen's spears.

(If any Madison area folks know of a local fermentorium that makes a good, crunchy pickle, please let me know.)

In an earlier pickle beer review, I prognosticated that some brewer somewhere would take the humble style and twist and contort it into something beyond a light beer with brine or pickle flavoring added. It seems that Martin House is exactly the brewer I feared. Their website features a photograph of a pickle beer variety pack with four variations of the beer that have been "fruited" with orange, blackberry, lemonade, and strawberry, respectively. Given that the plain stuff, which I bought, is alloyed with natural flavoring, I suspect none of these beers have been within a mile of any real fruit.

A previous variety pack included four different flavors: spicy pickle, bread-n-butters, Bloody Mary, and chamoy drip. I had to investigate this last one and found that chamoy sauce is a Mexican condiment made from dried fruits and chili powder giving a sweet-salty zip. While the sauce sounds very tasty, I would hesitate to put that beer to my lips and am still wondering why it's "drip" instead of "dip" or "sauce". Bonus points, however, for making a beer with regional character. Further research into Martin House's brewing activities turned up watermelon, grape punch, and tequila barrel aged spicy pickle beer varieties. Those folks down in Ft. Worth are keen to run this style into the ground. Surely a beef flavored version is forthcoming for the true Texas experience.

Luckily I am dealing with the plain Jane stuff. It seems to be a kettle-soured brew with natural flavoring added.

Sorry about the photo. I somehow did not keep the one that was actually in focus.

My pour produced a big, loose white head that was quite volatile - like soda. Bubbles carelessly rushed upwards and popped in a fizzy frenzy. The liquid was a brilliant yellow with a slight haze to it. There was a fair number of bubbles inside. My nose caught sour dill pickle brine and a nebulous sweetness that I couldn't identify.

The first sip revealed a light body with a large payload of sour pickle flavor. There was also a moderate saline taste and a rather prominent sweetness which was so, I believe, because there wasn't much fizz. The finish found the sour pickle taste lingering until the next sip. 

My notes say "not bad". The brewer used a rather heavy hand when applying those natural flavors because the pickle flavors are quite potent. Isn't everything bigger in Texas? When I inhaled while taking a sip, I got this weird rubber band taste. Odd. This quirk aside, the natural flavors here weren't horrible. It's like they didn't take as if they were administered with an eye dropper yet they also didn't have a sharp, brisk taste like real brine. Nor was there any hint of the floral along with the green taste of dill.

All in all, not bad.

Junk food pairing: Pair your BestMaid Sour Pickle Beer with either BBQ flavored potato chips or their rare cousin, a beef flavored chip.

Getting into the Halloween spirit

 

These later versions of "The Waiting Room" are just fantastic. The improvisation got weirder and lengthier. Hackett would throw in a bit of "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight". Simply great eldritch jamming.

This one gets manic at around 6:50. Great stuff!

Auf wiedersehen Agonic Brewing

Sad news from Rice Lake. There was a devastating fire on the 17th of this month and it completely destroyed 2 or 3 businesses including Agonic Brewing. The intrepid reporter Ryan Urban has the story at his blog:

My only consolation in the fact that the building housing Agonic Brewing in Rice Lake burned down last Thursday, Oct. 17, is knowing that my last memory of being there was a good one. 

Thursday night was traditionally trivia night at Agonic, with a different singular theme each week.

...

Besides the sweet taste of victory, I’ll remember the night for the friendly people sitting beside me at the bar and behind the bar, all the smiles and laughs of the evening—oh, and the sweet taste of beer, too, of course.

The brewery promises to return.

I hope so as I enjoyed myself and the beer back in 2022 when I met Mr. Urban there.

Train a comin' goin' clack, clack, clack

Some good news for Wisconsin. Wisconsin has received $73 million to improve passenger rail.

From Urban Milwaukee:

The funding will pay to construct a two-track mainline through the Muskego Yard, the large railyard in the Menomonee Valley. Currently, many freight trains avoid the yard and run through the Milwaukee Intermodal Station to avoid various height, speed and operational constraints in the Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) railyard. But in doing so, the freight trains reduce capacity at the state’s premier passenger train facility.

This project would likely bring an 8th daily Hiawatha trip to fruition.

The article also notes that the new Borealis route, which goes from Chicago to St. Paul, has serviced its 100,000th passenger ahead of schedule.

The new line, which launched in May, between Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul saw its 100,000 ride last week.

“Reaching 100,000 passengers in less than six months is a testament to the good things that can happen when we provide a service that is needed,” said Minnesota Transportation Commissioner Nancy Daubenberger. “We are very excited to reach this milestone and look forward to strengthening our partnerships with communities, as well as federal, state and local governments, and Amtrak to continue providing a safe, reliable, and sustainable transportation option.”

An engineering plan associated with the project previously estimated that 124,000 trips would be taken on the line in the first year.

Now if we could only get a Hiawatha stop here in Madison. Or Empire Builder. Or Borealis.

Heart and Mind united on this day

With such a large repository of knowledge, you'd think it would be easy to ascertain when Rush released Hemispheres but no. I have seen 3 or 4 dates for it but the 29th seems to be the most common so I am going with it.

And so, Hemispheres was released this day back in 1978 - theoretically. It continues to mine the progressive rock vein with acoustic bits, shifting time signatures, and lengthy epics.

A friend of mine saw them here in Madison at the Dane County Coliseum on the this tour. He has related to me how he ingested many a substance that night and had something of a freak out episode when the rear projection screen showed two giant hemispheres of a brain splitting apart. Unfortunately, I have never found a recording of that concert nor can I find any photos of that image from that tour.

Anyway, here's "Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres" from 7 December 1978 at the MECCA Arena in Milwaukee.

2024 Madison Polish Film Festival

The Madison Polish Film Festival dates have been announced: 10 & 17 November. Screenings are at Union South and are free and open to the public. No Union membership required. Here's the line-up.

The evil inventor, Mr. Wallace

There's a new trailer out for Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Some fine use of J.S. Bach. I am looking forward to seeing this come the new year.

They still can't dance

It was on this day in 1991 that Genesis released We Can't Dance. While I've seen conflicting dates, I am going with today, so there.

The last album with Phil Collins, it sees the band embracing the CD format as they gave us 70+ minutes of music. For me, there's some great longer songs but there's also a lot of filler. Amongst the shorter songs, I adore "Living Forever" with its wonderful vocal harmonies and some nice soloing from Tony Banks.

To each their own.

This is the band's show from here in Madison on 9 June 1992. Of course I was there. And with me was my friend whom I introduced to Genesis back in 7th grade. Despite not having the best seats, it was a magical evening with two old friends.

R.I.P. Phil Lesh

Sad news. Phil Lesh died yesterday. While I am not a Deadhead, I do love some of their stuff. Plus, many friends/lovers/acquaintances over the years have been die hard fans.

I saw the Dead in 1993 and found the show to be incredibly lackluster. Jerry Garcia didn't appear to be in good health and the band had to slow down and just work with what he offered. In 1998 I went to see The Other Ones and thought the show was wonderful. The rhythms were muscular and the songs were tight and just had a lot of energy which the Dead show in 1993 distinctly lacked.

This is a bit from that show. And now I feel silly because Phil Lesh is not in the photo. D'oh! However, he is playing.

Fear and Loathing at Cinematheque

I had arrived at 4070 Vilas Hall early and was squirming only slightly in a seat that, while newer than the ones I sat in during the early 90’s when I was a Comm Arts major taking mulitple classes in 4070, was just as cramped and uncomfortable. Patiently waiting for the film to begin, I surveyed my fellow moviegoers who were filing in and I spied some of the usual suspects one sees at Cinematheque. For instance, JoAnne Pow!ers - saxophonist, DJ, and busker extraordinaire -  took her customary spot in the front row about 6-8 seats from a fellow who was either former Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative manager/social activist Allen Ruff or his doppelgänger. No doubt the ivy capped Grant Phipps would arrive soon.

The crowd was the expected mix of young & grey-haired cinephiles with a smattering of curious students taking advantage of the opportunity to expand their horizons along with some international ones eager for a little piece of home. All was as it should be.

Then an older woman approached an older man sitting just back and to the right of me. They knew one another and began chatting as people do.

The gentleman admitted to being worried about the election. Nothing out of the ordinary here. I suspect a lot of people are anxious about the election. An admission of anxiety, however, very quickly became an MSNBC program with the woman assuming the role of a geriatric Rachael Maddow.

“Madison will go for Kamala,” Madison’s own Nostradamus reassured her interlocutor who replied that he wasn’t worried about Dane or the counties that surround us nor Milwaukee but rather elsewhere. He offered Grant County as an example of a land populated by heathens before mentioning the bogeymen of many a Madison liberal, people who live “up north”. It was as if the greater Madison area was surrounded by barbarians and war was about to begin in the Teutoburg Forest. The contempt that filled the air was so thick, you could cut it with the wrong side of a knife.

As if on cue, the woman then transformed into the living embodiment of pomposity and arrogance.

“They don’t know how the government works!” she cried in despair. “If you asked any of them, they wouldn’t be able to explain how the Electoral College worked!” Was she in favor of having to pass a literacy test in order to vote like in the Jim Crow South? Or maybe she would just prefer to be ruled over by philospher-kings.

Just as too much emotional distress turns the mild-mannered Bruce Banner into The Hulk, an overabundance of condescension caused this woman to metamorphose into a modern-day Marie Antoinette, completely bereft of any self-awareness or empathy; unable to comprehend how a farmer up north would not bow down to her preeminent understanding of the Electoral College and submit to her superior judgements on all matters political. All that was missing was her uttering, “Let them eat locally-sourced organic vegan cake!”

The man picked up where she left off and blurted out in frustration, “Pointing out his character flaws and what an awful person Trump is doesn’t work.” He then said of up north, “It’s just like Alabama up there.” He noted that he hailed from Fairchild and so his proclamation that folks up north are just a bunch of uneducated, racist, inbred hicks comes on good authority. Deliverance is basically a documentary about rural Eau Claire County, apparently. He proceeded to tell of how he saw some footage online of a black man saying that he liked Trump because the guy told it like it is. In relating this dreadful tale, the man altered his voice to sound like the guy in the video. I didn’t take this as being racist, but rather as simple denigration of a perceived inferior.

Listen to how the uneducated talk!

"Welcome to Hurley!"

Not to be outdone, the woman continued her rant by saying that there are oodles of insecure men who just can’t stand the thought of a woman being president. In addition, there are sexists who just don’t think Harris is up to the task of taking on Vladimir Putin and ending the war in Ukraine.

A second older gentleman entered the fray and soon enough he revealed himself to be, like his two interlocutors, a living embodiment of liberal urban elitism. It was as if this unholy trinity of progressives had watched Tucker Carlson and thought his sterotypes of liberals were actually how-to manuals.

In referring to what I think was people who voted for Obama and then Trump, this second fellow asked exasperatedly, “How fucked up do you have to be?!”

The smugness in this part of the room was getting strong enough to fell a horse. If it was possible to die from self-righteousness, I suspect these people would have spontaneously combusted in their expensive, well-appointed homes or behind the wheels of their electric cars years ago.

Putting on airs of superiority and being a patronizing asshole must be mentally taxing because these self-proclaimed progressives seemed unable to even use a teensy tiny bit of their massive brain power to imagine that someone who doesn’t live in the greater Madison area or Milwaukee (or, as one admitted, smaller cities up north such as Eau Claire or Superior) could look beyond Trump’s character and vote for him because he can get policies they favor enacted. No doubt many religious people were offended by the philandering, the pussy grabbing, the hubris, etc. yet held their noses and voted for the guy anyway thinking he was the best choice to get Roe v. Wade overturned. And Trump delivered.

Not everyone who lives up north is a person of great virtue. Being salt of the earth doesn’t make you a saint. But nor does living far from Madison make you Simon Legree with an 80 IQ. If you go up north, you will find a variety of people including Latinos who make many a dairy farm go, south Asians running hotels, Hmong folks, and, of course, lots of white people. The denizens of up north are generally very nice and many of them are refugees from urban areas. (How many left the cities to get away from arrogant jagoffs like the ones I encountered at the cinema is unknown.)

I have found that rural folks generally like the trees and fresh air, the calm, and the slower pace of life. And they deal with even the worst of us city folk with a pantagruelian cheer. But, if you want to know how the likes of Scott Walker and Glenn Grothman get elected, look no further than the “progressives” I had the misfortune of sitting near last night.

Thankfully none of these people chatting by me got hurt attempting to put themselves in someone else's shoes or by patting themselves on their backs so hard.

Oh, the movie, Only the River Flows, was excellent. Cinematheque is a gem.

An album for Jeffrey

Jethro Tull's debut album, This Was, was released on this day back in 1968. The band's sound was still very bluesy at this point. Ian Anderson hadn't yet looked around and found another song that he felt like singing.

Here's "Beggar's Farm" live at a BBC studio somewhere in November 1968.

Relive those trespasses dispensed to us

Genesis' second album, Trespass, turns 54 today! To celebrate, here's one of the album's stone cold classics, "Stagnation". It's from the band's BBC session on 22 February 1970, a few months before Trespass was recorded.

This blonde is purple: Booberry Blonde by Four Day Ray Brewing

When I first landed at Four Day Ray's website, I thought I was at the the wrong place. There were only pictures of food so I figured the site belonged to a restaurant. Then I saw the Four Day Ray Brewery logo. I had indeed gone to the correct website. It is very odd to me when a brewery pushes their food to the fore and you have to go to another menu entirely in order to see any beer. I mean this was Four Day Ray Brewing, after all. Relegating your beer to a subordinate position, to simply being an accessory to food which comes in big, colorful photos just rubs me the wrong way.

Now, these Hoosiers aren't alone in giving food pride of place over beer but there aren't even glasses of beer in the photos to show any complementary relationships. There are many more photos of French fries than of lovely glasses of suds with big heads carelessly spewing enchanting beery aromas and filled with sumptuous liquid whose burnished colors are like a siren call to your tastebuds.

Perhaps that is how brewpub breweries survive these days. You lure folks in with the promise of chow and give them the hard sell on your beer once you've got them in your clutches.

As I have in years past, I attended Gencon this year which meant a midsummer trek to Indianapolis. I like to sample local brews while on vacation and even try to bring some back home, if I can. Just like last year, I went to a liquor store just a few blocks from my hotel to find something to tuck away in my cooler for sampling at home. The selection this year paled in contrast to last year with IPA's and various Belgian-style ales dominating the shelves. In the end, I returned to Madison with a six-pack of their Booberry Blonde, a "tart blonde ale" made with booberries.

My impression was that this was a summer seasonal as the can had something on it indicating the beer's high refreshment quotient being perfect for warm weather. But, upon closer inspection of the Four Day Ray website, I have discovered that it is, in fact, a year-round brew.

This beer looked wonderful. Why wouldn't you want to feature photos of it on your website? My glass had a big, frothy, pink head that had staying power. The beer was a lovely light purple and clear. I spied lots of bubbles inside. The aromas were all fruity beginning with a lemony tartness followed by hints of booberry.

The brewery was right to tout this brew as a summer quencher with its light body. Considering all of the foam and bubbles, the fizziness was on the mild side. The lemony tartness was solid but not deadly and the booberry was really nice. Lemon and booberry lingered on the finish before the latter faded to be replaced by a dash of hops. The tartness joined those hops to make for a really nice dry ending. My thirst was quenched.

As something cold on a hot day, Booberry Blonde works well. But letting it warm up to cellar temp is where it really shines as the booberry flavor becomes more prominent yet the tartness never attempts to overpower it. Just a great balance of fruit flavors and the perfect level of sour for my taste.

Junk food pairing: Booberry Blonde is all about subtlety and restraint and so mote it be with your food pairing. Keep the local theme going with some potato flavored potato chips from the Broad Ripple Chip Co., made just a bit southwest of Four Day Ray.

R.I.P. Paul Di'Anno

Sad news from across the ocean. Paul Di'Anno, the original singer for Iron Maiden, has died. I had their debut album cranked up yesterday in his honor. This is the band's show from Summerfest in 1981. It was broadcast on the radio so it's a fine quality recording in addition to being a great gig. "Sanctuary", "Murders in the Rue Morgue", "Running Free" - a fantastic setlist.

Oklahoma O.K.: Spicy Pickle Monster by Prairie Artisan Ales

Until just about 15 minutes ago I thought that Prairie Artisan Ales was out of St. Louis. There I was, typing away and thinking about how it was a place we didn't visit  on our St. Louis trip back in 2017. I discovered that, in fact, it's an Oklahoma brewery and that I had cornfused them with Perennial Artisan Ales which is, in fact, in The Gateway City. Do any other Sooner State breweries distribute here in Wisconsin

I hope that I can be forgiven because Oklahoma is one of the more nondescript states in the Union. At least it is from my vantage sitting here in the Upper Midwest. When I think of Oklahoma, beer does not come to mind. It's almost as if beer actively avoids associating itself with the Sooner State. Instead, I know it for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that bears its name and the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995. Fairly or not, I believe that Texas has a lock on the popular imagination when it comes to the likes of cowboys, oil, and steak. Sure, parts of Oklahoma belong to the Great Plains but, really, that's Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. It exists in this liminal state between the Plains and Texas. Like I said, nondescript.

During my exhaustive interweb searches about Prairie Artisan Ales' home, I discovered that Sooners love their fried onion burgers. From what I can tell, the Oklahoma fried onion burger is no mere hamburger with fried onions on top but rather its unique terroir comes from frying up a bed of onions and then flattening a ball of ground beef on top of it so that the marriage of the caramelized onion essence and the beefy goodness is consummated with all due haste. And that's a good thing, if you ask me. However, I was not able to find out which onion one should use. Yellow? White? Red? Vidalia?

Now, you may recall my previous pickle beer review in which I postulated that some craft brewer somewhere would move beyond the brine/sour/spicy paradigm which prevails in the pickle beer world today. Well, Perennial Prairie Artisan Ales has done just that with their Spicy Pickle Monster.

I do not see the words "natural flavors" anywhere on the label. Instead it's a "sour ale with spicy dill pickles..." - familiar territory so far - "...orange, lemon, and lime". Citrus! They've added citrus! Not totally out of left field, I suppose, with lime cucumber being a not unheard of combination. (Beware lime cucumber Gatorade!) Let's try out this novel take on the venerable(?!) pickle beer.

Cerveza de los muertos!

However it may have tasted, I was impressed with how Spicy Pickle Monster looked. A big white head snapped and popped as it churned its way down to the bright yellow liquid that had just a tinge of haze. A fair number of bubbles were rushing up to meet the foam. Taking a sniff, I found that dill came first followed by something sweet that I finally decided was akin to orange juice. Then I noticed a briney salinity which paired well with the lime I also smelled. To top things off, there was a bit of the floral in there too. Except for the floral element, all the scents were rather pungent which made for some fine sniffin'.

Unsurprisingly, I tasted a beer with a light body. Fizziness was a little on the light side. A very healthy Gose level of salinity and a big dash of tartness stood out immediately. As I savored my sips, I tasted a wealth of flavors: some dill, a citrus medley that would make 7UP green with envy, and a modicum of grainy sweetness. Cutting through it all was a low-level dose of spicy heat from habanero, it seems, that gradually gained in strength with each sip.

That spiciness and all those citrus flavors prevailed on the finish. A little tartness came through, but not much and the dill popped up too, if only briefly. I will note also that, while the heat built with successive sips, it eventually plateaued at a decidedly non-lethal point.

The big surprise here for me was that the dill (i.e. - pickle flavor) seemed happy out of the spotlight and content to be part of the gustatory ensemble. I would like to have had a tad more of the dill flavor but, when Spicy Pickle Monster breaches the 50 degree mark, you can taste all of the flavors mingling with one another with no one taste overpowering the rest. A bit like a good album mix where each instrument and voice is up in the mix but they all have room to breathe and be heard. Same here. The flavors are all discernible and more or less stand on equal footing yet they blend together for a greater whole.

A fine take on the pickle beer that deftly orchestrates a symphony of flavors. No doubt it would be a good companion to an Oklahoma fried onion burger.

Junk food pairing: If you really want to go for excess, then grab a bag of Old Dutch Spicy Dill Pickle Chips. Personally, I prefer leaning into the fried onion burger motif and instead have plenty of Old Dutch Onion & Garlic chips on hand when I savor a Spicy Pickle Monster.

The West Coast Moves East: River Rye'd Lager by Yazoo Brewing & Leinenkugel's

When I ran across this brew over the summer, I was delighted to see a rye lager in the beer cooler and a bit perplexed at the same time because I'd never heard of Yazoo Brewing. Yazoo Records, yes; Yazoo Brewing, no. Looking them up, I asked myself if a Nashville brewery was truly trying to make inroads into Wisconsin. I thought that, here in 2024, unless your brewery has a cachet known throughout Christendom, you don't expand too far from your homebase. Then I read the fine print and saw that it was a collaboration with Leinenkugel's as part of Yazoo's 20th anniversary celebration. Now this made more sense.

The rye lager is one of the great neglected bastard children of the brewing world. I still lament not being able to get Hoss every autumn and occasionally consider petitioning some government agency to rectify this terrible situation. And so, when I see one available, I am quick to fork over some of my filthy lucre.

Having read the fine print on the front of the label, I then neglected to do the same on the back where the text boasted that the beer was "generously hopped" with the Cascade variety. While I am not anti-Cascade, I do normally interpret their presence as something of a warning sign, namely to expect an American hopping regimen that gives a lot of fruity taste. My apprehension wasn't that my tongue would OD on grapefruit flavors as much as the citrus taste would overwhelm the rye.

Again, the label was the clue to it all. It said "lager" with the word "pilsner" nowhere to be seen. My understanding of beer taxonomy is that, when an America craft brewer designates their beer a "lager", they mean an American light lager like Miller/Coors/Bud with no expectation of subtle malt goodness being implied. It's a lawnmower beer or a craft beer to appease Miller/Coors/Bud drinkers. On the other hand, "pilsner" tends to mean the beer stands a chance of having a nice grain flavor with some attempt to balance malt and hop. Presumably River Rye'd would be a showcase for the hops.

Well, too late as I had brought the six-pack home. Iacta alea est.

River Rye'd looked either like your typical American light lager such as Miller or Bud or a fine pilsner, depending on your disposition. It was a lovely light yellow and clear as day. My pour yielded a very nice, loose head of brilliant white foam that lasted a little while. There were, as you can see, some bubbles inside. The aroma was ambiguous but delightfully so. Those hops gave pine and citrus scents but there was some cracker to be had too. A very nice start. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad after all, if I was able to smell some malt.

My lingering reservations aside, I eagerly took a sip and discovered a light-medium body with a healthy dose of fizz. Waves of pine and grapefruit cascaded over my tongue while a modicum of flavor of grain did its best to undergird the ostentatious display of hops. Sweetness was minimal.

For the finish, the hops lingered, grapefruit first followed by pine, as the malty base, such as it was, faded leaving a mild bitterness and only the barest hint of dryness.

River Rye'd was much as I suspected it would be after having read the label in full: it was like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale without the strong malt backbone. The Cascade hops took center stage here. While I was disappointed that the grains generally and the rye specifically were muffled by the hops, I still enjoyed the beer. But one per session was enough for me as the hops were just a little too generous.

Junk food pairing: I recommend pairing River Rye'd, should you still have some around, with a big bad of Ruffles Flamin' Hot Cheddar and Sour Cream chips. The heat will take the edge off the pine while all that dairy adds a nice, mellow tasting counterpoint to the grapefruit.

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.