What Flavor Lurks in the Hearts of Schwarzbiers?: 5 O’Clock Shadow by Grand Teton Brewing

The fine folks at Grand Teton Brewing apparently have a penchant for taking lower-alcohol German styles and turning them into mega-maxi brews. Witness how they turned the traditionally (at least in the past few decades) low-alcohol Berliner Weisse into an über-Starkbier. I was recently given a bottle of their 5 O'Clock Shadow, which the brewery describes as a "double black lager", a.k.a. - an embiggened schwarzbier. It comes in at 7.6% A.B.V. Could they have gotten away with calling it a Baltic porter? Only The Shadow knows…

5 O’Clock Shadow is part of Grand Teton's Cellar Reserve series and the tag on the bottle says "Specially designed to enjoy fresh or cellar for years to come." My bottle indicated that it was filled on 27 January of last year and I don't care how big this bier is; cellaring a lager for "years" is probably not a good idea. I had little doubt that being a year and a quarter old was pushing it. In my defense, I was only given this brew a few weeks ago so the prolonged aging isn't my fault. I swear.

Grand Teton says that they lagered 5 O’Clock Shadow for 16(?!) weeks which sounded quite tantalizing. Cleanliness is next to godliness, right?

5 O’Clock Shadow pours a very deep copper. It was almost as light-gobbling dark as Dark Something. If I held my glass up to the light just right, it appeared to be clear. I also spied some bubbles going upwards from the bottom of my glass. At the top was a loose tan head that lasted what I think of as being an average amount of time – about half a minute.

I must admit that the aroma took me off guard. I figured that a double black lager would positively reek, but in a good way, of roasted malts and of some that were extra roasted as well. Instead my nose was assailed by fruit. Sure, there was some of the expected roasted grain and a bit of grass in the background but it blatantly smelled of peach. How blatantly odd. I took this to be a bad sign thinking that oxidation had done the dastardly deed and turned the precious bier that was months in the making back into wort.

Praise be to St. Gambrinus for my fears were allayed upon tasting the brew. The darker grains had really left their mark on the flavor with a rich chocolatey goodness that was accompanied by a hint of smoke in the background. There was some roasted grain flavor as well as some malt sweetness that was part caramel and part bread dough. Hops were subdued here with only some grassy/herbal flavor behind the wall of malt. I suspect that they were more prominent when the bier was fresh.

Those hops, however, stepped up for the finish where they took on a bigger spicy/pepper flavor. Bitterness took over from the malt flavors too making for a pretty dry ending. There was Schaumhaftvermoegen aplenty with a wide ring toward the top of my glass and large splotches on down.

Opening the bottle I was slightly apprehensive as I thought that perhaps 5 O’Clock Shadow would be a big, thick brew and, consequently, a bit too much for a warm spring day. However, I was wrong. The bier had a medium body and was dangerously smooth. I thoroughly enjoyed the smoky chocolate flavors from the dark grains and also liked, not only the hop flavors, but also the level of hoppiness. They definitely took a back seat here and I can only wonder what this bier would have tasted like fresh.

Folks here in Wisconsin who missed 5 O’Clock Shadow last year can and should enjoy Capital's Fishin' in the Dark in a couple of months or so.

Junk food pairing: Should you be so lucky as to have some 5 O’Clock Shadow lying around, bust that open and grab a bag of BBQ flavored potato chips. The salt enhances the bier's overall flavor while the BBQ complements the smoky dark chocolate.

The Biggest Berliner Weisse I've Ever Had: Snarling Badger by Grand Teton Brewing

Looking back, I've had a lot more Berliner Weisses in the past few months than I thought possible and now it's time for yet another one. It doesn't seem so long ago that the style was considered exotic and strange. I recall sharing one several years ago with a friend who was repulsed by the beer's foetid vapors and hideous tartness. My first encounter with a Berliner Weisse wasn't quite so horrible but it did take me a little time to become accustomed to the style. While there are far, far fewer Berliner Weisses than there are, say, IPAs, fans of the former are luxuriating in a bounty of beers these days. This time around we have one from Grand Teton Brewing which is, I just learned, in Idaho.

Snarling Badger is the brewery's summer seasonal but was originally intended to be a one-off brew back in 2012. The ur-Snarling Badger was unique in my Berliner Weisse experience in having been a blended take on the style. A batch was brewed and fermented entirely with lactic acid bacteria and then blended with another batch that had been fermented with hefeweizen yeast to produce banana and clove esters/phenols which contrast with the citrus sour produced by the Lactobacillus. I'd never heard of fermenting exclusively with Lactobacillus and found this rather intriguing. I wonder how the product of lacto fermentation differs from one fermented with brewer's yeast and then lacto-soured. Unfortunately I can find no evidence to indicate that the blending process was ever used beyond the initial batch in 2012.

Also, Snarling Badger is what might be termed an imperial Berliner Weisse as it is 7.5% A.B.V., more than twice the strength of a traditional Berliner Weisse. I use "traditional" cautiously here because the style dates back to the 16th or 17th century and has changed much over the years. The notion that a Berliner Weisse is strictly about 3% A.B.V. seems to be a 20th century one that developed as the style was rapidly disappearing. I don't doubt for a minute that there was a starkbier ("strong beer") version of Berliner Weisse over in Germany at some point over the past few hundred years.

Snarling Badger pours a yellowy gold that is hazy from the wheat in the grain bill. My glass got only a small head that was soon to be gone. Still the beer was quite effervescent with lots of bubbles moving up my glass and a fair number of them clinging to the side. It is the "Champagne of the North", after all. (Which makes me wonder about reports of last year's batch of Berliner Weisse by New Glarus which rated it as over-carbonated.)

As was expected, the beer had a pronounced lemony aroma but there was another citrus smell to be had – tangerine. It reminded me of the new (and inferior) Tangerine IPA by Potosi in cans which I find to be syrupy, though Snarling Badger was by no means as cloying. Also present was another sweet fruity aroma, namely a stone fruit smell that, in combination with the tangerine, made for an almost treacly nose. This was not going to be the Berliner Weisse that Napoleon encountered. Notably absent were any banana or clove aromas as one would expect if some hefeweizen had been blended in.

Snarling Badger's taste was much like the mix of aromas that my nose caught. The lemony tartness from the lactic acid bacteria was there but so were a couple of sweet flavors. First was a doughy, grainy sweetness while second was peach-like. The sweetness was prominent but it never crossed that threshold into cloying. I think that the carbonation really helped the Lactobacillus in keeping the sugary hordes in check by adding some dryness to the flavor.

At the finish the tartness ebbed away allowing a slight grassy hop bitterness to come through.

This was my first time drinking a Berliner Weisse that was this potent. While there was a goodly amount of sweetness, it didn't suppress the sourness. However, if you really want lip-puckering tartness that will kill your tastebuds, then Snarling Badger isn't the beer you're looking for. For a beer that is this big and sweet, it had a lighter body than you'd expect and the surfeit of carbonation no doubt gives it a lighter mouthfeel. While the sweet and sour were more or less in balance here, this beer is too big to be a summer thirst quencher. However, it made for a nice summer nightcap.

Junk food pairing: Pair this big beer with heartier junk foods such as thick cut potato chips or Snyder's Hot Buffalo Wing Pretzel Pieces.