Goodbye Sister Deesko: Deesko! by 3 Floyds Brewing Co.

3 Floyds bills their Deesko! as a "Munster-style Berliner Weiss". Not being familiar with the brewery's hometown, I'm not quite sure what makes this a Munster-style brew. I tend to think of 3 Floyds ethos as being about high octane and very hoppy beers. So perhaps it's the high amount of alcohol – 6.5% A.B.V. – in Deesko! The Berliner Weisse is traditionally a very low alcohol brew with about half that. Heaven forfend the Berliner Weisse from an IPA hopping regimen!

Although described as being "perfect for summer", I bought this bottle back in October which, if this tweet is any indication, means that it was fresh at that time. Since then the bomber has been in my cellar out of the light and keeping relatively cool. Opening the bottle I wasn't expecting its age to be a problem as the Berliner Weisse style is about the tartness from lactic acid instead of more delicate hoppiness which degrades with age.

Perfect for summer. Then why was this bier released in the autumn and why did I drink it during a cold snap in January? Uff da! Truth be told, I have more Berliner Weisses in the cellar that will be consumed soon.

Deesko! pours a light gold/deep yellow color. It was quite cloudy - so much so that it was almost opaque. As befitting a Champagne of the North, my glass ended up with a large slightly off-white head that dissipated at a moderate pace. There was a fair amount of bubbles in the bier going up the glass. While not pristine like a pilsner, I thought it looked rather good with its light color and generous foam radiating tasty refreshment.

The aroma was quite potent with a splendid tartness that was both lemony/citrusy along with sharp green apple. It was a big, zesty blast to the nose and I expected something similar for my tongue. Lo and behold the bier had a massive lemony sour taste that made my lips pucker. Although there was a goodly amount of carbonation, it couldn't really compete with all of that lactic tartness. Underneath all of this was a bit more malt than you normally find in the style but Dessko! still had a fairly light body and wasn't very sweet.

Sadly, there was also a herbal/medicinal flavor as well that veered into Band Aid™-like territory. While not pronounced, there was just enough of it that the tartness wasn't able to conceal it. Various sites on the Interwebs say these kinds of off flavors are the result of chlorophenols, produced when phenols made by the yeast come into contact with chlorine.

On the finish the tartness lingered for quite a while along with that off flavor, which was milder than it was earlier. There was no Schaumhaftvermoegen to be found as it all had slid down into the bier.

I think I would have really enjoyed Deesko! had there not been that off flavor. I didn't pour it down the drain, however, and instead applied some Waldmeister (woodruff) syrup and polished off the bottle. I tried to add just enough to disguise the medicinal flavor yet not to make it taste overly sweet. Having accomplished this, I found it quite tasty with a nice tartness. The body was still light enough to retain that easy drinking quality. This was after work and I quaffed the bottle fairly quickly.

Junk food pairing: Dessko!, off flavors or not, pairs well with pretzels, preferably soft ones, adorned with a nice, sharp cheese food product.

Not An Alpha Beast: Gorch Fock by 3 Floyds Brewing Company

I was surprised to find out last year that 3 Floyds brews a helles as a summer seasonal. (And even more recently that they brew a pilsner year-round.) To my mind 3 Floyds is a prototypical American microbrewery with an arsenal of extremely hoppy pale ales and a Russian imperial stout that gets a big release party once a year at the brewery as is becoming mandatory for the style. I'll cop to not being a fan of the brewery, though more through simply not having tasted many of their beers rather than disliking them. (I will also admit to not being impressed by a story I heard about the brewery's appearance at the Great American Beer Festival a few years back - they were reportedly very disrespectful to attendees.)

But that was then and this is now. And a helles isn't a pale ale. I didn't see the words "imperial" or "double" on the label so I cautiously and optimistically purchased a bottle of Gorch Fock. My only worry was that the bier was going to be hopped all to fuck. It was a chance I was willing to take as breweries, at least the ones that sell their beers in Madison, generally don’t brew a helles.

The helles was born in 1894 at the Spaten Brewery in Munich. It was apparently the southern German answer to the trendy Bohemian pilsner. While it retained the light color of its Czech cousin, the Bavarians inverted the flavors so that the malt took pride of place while the hops were relegated to a supporting role. Would 3 Floyds, a brewery that proudly proclaims, "Scorched earth is our brewery policy", be able to pull off a beer that is about subtlety?

Gorch Fock, the name of a large German sailing ship, pours a lovely light gold color. It was a little hazy. My pour produced a small white head which was gone in a New York minute. There was many a bubble inside making its way upwards.

I took a whiff and my nose was greeted by the scent of bread, which was expected. Also expected was some mild grassy hop aroma. Quite unexpected were the (very) mild fruity flavors. An apricot-like flavor was strongest followed by one that I noted as being like citrus but this was because it was a slightly sharper, zestier kind of flavor as opposed to tasting like an actual piece of citrus fruit.

Gorch Fock had a rather light body as is typical of the style but there was still malt action to be had with clean biscuit and bread flavors joined by a little malt sweetness that was like honey. The helles is not an alpha beast and I am happy to report that my fears were allayed as 3 Floyds did not hop the living fuck out of this bier. Instead there was some grassy hop taste but not much bitterness. Lastly I could taste some carbonation.

Those grainy flavors slowly faded on the finish allowing grassy/herbal hop flavors to come through and add moderate bitterness for a nice dry ending.

I was thrilled that Gorch Fock is a rather gentle bier (5% A.B.V.) that utilized Noble or Noble-tasting hops with admirable restraint. But it lacked in the malt department to my taste. Not only was the bier was a touch thin to me but it also lacked a depth of that melanoidin/Maillard reactiony toasted bread kind of flavor that I adore and that I feel should be prominent in a helles. I did not pour this bier down the drain and, if memory serves, my frau and I finished the bottle. While it was a refreshing drink to have after work, it just didn't push my helles buttons.

Junk food pairing: 3 Floyds did not enforce its scorched earth policy in brewing Gorch Fock so pair it with lighter fare such as potato chips or, as I did, regular Cheez-Its.

The Grätzer, er, Grodziskie That May Really Be a Lichtenhainer: Grätzer by New Belgium and 3 Floyds Brewing Cos.

Last year New Belgium and 3 Floyds collaborated on a brew and thusly Grätzer was born. Grätzer – the style, not the beer shown above - is made from oak smoked wheat malt exclusively. It was rather light on the palate and hopped enough to have been at least moderately bitter. At some point and some places willow bark was also part of the recipe.

While new Belgium and 3 Floyds concede that it's "a long-buried style from Poland", they use the German name for their beer. These Polish brewers make a good case for using the Polish appellation, Grodziskie.

The supposed “easiness” that German names carry over the Polish ones is an echo of anti-Polish propaganda, which was never examined in the West after World War II. Indeed, Polish language may appear strange and difficult to some, yet it is important to recognize the harm in the claim that such difficulties are somehow “universal” or “natural” and to learn about the history of such thinking and the continued harm it brings.

Now that I've wasted a bit of your time arguing that the beer at hand should properly be called a Grodziskie, it's a bit ironic that this concoction doesn't seem to be a Grodziskie at all but rather some kind of Lichtenhainer since, as Ron Pattinson points out, the Grodziskie was not a sour beer whereas the brew here is.

Regardless of nomenclature, I carry on…

A word of warning before I continue: the beer was released last spring or summer and the bottle says that the contents were best enjoyed by May 2015. So I'm a bit late. Hopefully three months or so didn't diminish the beer significantly.

Grätzer pours a deep, deep reddish brown that was nearly black. My glass was opaque and the beer defied any attempt to get light to penetrate it. I held the glass up to a light on my ceiling and then to a window but neither could penetrate the Stygian gloom held therein. From what I could tell the beer was clear. It was nicely effervescent too with a big foamy tan head that proved in no hurry to dissipate.

Smoky goodness caught my nose first. Curiously enough, I also smelled some sweetness that was tropically fruity. There were also some wonderful toasty-chocolate/coffee roasted grain tones. A fine start, if you ask me. The taste was similar. There was a moderate smokiness hand-in-hand with more of those chocolatey grainy flavors. The malt also provided some sweetness here which I found to be like stone fruit as opposed to mangoes or papayas. These flavors were tempered by a bit of dryness from the carbonation. Lactobacillus was added to the beer but in a small quantity. I caught a hint of sour immediately but the tartness came mostly in the finish which saw the nearly ubiquitous smoke come to a diminuendo and be superseded by some herbal hop bitterness and the more pronounced lacto sour.

Judging purely by Grätzer's Cimmerian appearance, you'd think this was a heavy beer but that's not the case. Grätzer has a light body and is rather small at 4.5% A.B.V. yet it is a tasty gallimaufry of malt pleasures with the grains offering smoky, chocolatey, and sweet flavors. While the malt is front and center on the palate, the carbonation and the lactic acid bacteria help keep everything balanced. As for the finish, I thoroughly enjoyed how the taste changed from being malt-centric to one that was slightly dry with some hop bitterness and acidulous to boot. Grätzer is a rather nimble beer as it managed to be rather hearty yet also light & refreshing at the same time.

Junk food pairing: If you still have some Grätzer and don't want to give it to me, then drink it now and pair it with Jay's Barbeque potato chips. Unless Jay's has changed the recipe, these chips have a prominent paprika flavor as opposed to a sweet BBQ sauce one. The earthy spice complements the smoke well. If you can get your hands on Polish junk food then I'd bet Lay's Papryka chips would be the perfect companion.