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.

A Midwestern Affair: Family Values by Sierra Nevada, August Schell, et al

Beginning last fall I went through a phase of sampling beers from Sierra Nevada and along the way I reacquainted myself with the brewery after an absence of many years. While I consumed a fair amount of their Pale Ale in the first half of the 1990s (R.I.P. Pinckney Street Hideaway), my taste drifted and it seemed that there wasn't a day that went by that didn't see a new Wisconsin brewery to acquaint myself with.

Sierra Nevada doesn't seem to have a brew that is spoken about with the awe and reverence of, say, Pliny the Elder or Heady Topper. Regardless, the brewery, one of the micro-veterans having been founded in 1979, brews around 1 million barrels every year without that cache. A Yogi Berra-like quip is needed along the lines of "Nobody drinks them anymore. They're too popular." This revenant drinker, however, will testify that it is one of the best breweries out there. True, I don't drink their IPAs so I cannot even begin to speculate on how well or poorly they deal with that particular trend, but the fact is simply that Sierra Nevada brews several beers that appeal to my tastes and they brew them very well.

The Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Across America began in 2014 and features the venerable brewery partnering with other microbreweries around the country to brew beers and then having a party bus traverse the nation to stop at Beer Camp shindigs where beer is consumed in mass quantities. This year saw a change in the brewing process. Instead of collaborating with a single brewery, Sierra Nevada is joining forces with six clusters of brewers who are neighbors geographically. August Schell leads the Midwest brigade and it has produced Family Values.

Family Values is an Imperial Brown Ale with Cocoa. For the occasion Schell rounded up Dark Horse Brewing in Michigan, Sun King Brewing in Indiana, Perennial Artisan Ales in Missouri, and Half Acre in Chicago. These breweries were represented by "Minnesota wild rice, Indiana honey, Missouri oats, Michigan hops, and cocoa nibs from Illinois". From my experience, when brewers "collaborate" they mean that they stand around drinking and talking while someone occasionally deals with ingredients and I don't doubt for a minute that Family Values was concocted in just that manner.

My glass was topped by a large tan head that lasted a fair while. The beer was a gorgeous deep mahogany hue and was clear so I was able to see a whole mess of bubbles inside.

A luscious sweet aroma emanated from my glass. Mainly it smelled like cherries to me but the sweetness was tinged with an earthy scent which I thought was the honey mingling with the wild rice. If this is indeed the case then that is one of my favorite new combinations. Those cocoa nibs shone through as well as wonderful dark chocolate. Dark, roasted malt scents rounded out the aroma.

Carbonation was firm but not fizzy leaving the oats to more or less have their way and make the beer rather smooth. Just enough to break up any malt stranglehold. Bitter chocolate and a plum-like malt sweetness went toe to toe at the fore of the flavor. I couldn't taste the honey, sadly enough, but the wild rice made for a tasty nutty flavor in the background.

Those malt flavors do a slow fade at the end allowing some fairly bitter herbal hops that were vaguely reminiscent of a herbal cough drop (Reeeeeeecolahhhhhhh!) to add a goodly dose of bitterness as well as make a dry finish. This being an imperial brew (8.5% A.B.V.) there was an alcohol burn that you could just not miss. Certainly no Everclear but the heat grew as the beer warmed and Ralph Wiggum might be forgiven for thinking it had purple berries in it.

I don't particularly care for the name "Family Values" as it sees to be a term loaded with twee Flyover Country-esque stereotypes of the Midwest but I certainly cannot complain about the liquid itself representing the part of the country I which I live. Those cocoa nibs add a simply wonderful dark chocolate flavor that is at once bitter yet rich. The oats give a nice smoothness which accommodates the fruity malt flavors and the nutty taste from the wild rice. That fruit-nut combination here is a sheer joy for the tongue.

Junk food pairing: This is a pretty big beer rich in a myriad of flavors and requires the culinary equivalent of a Brawny paper towel for maximum enjoyment. I recommend well-salted and peppered French fries with some kind of cheese food product sauce like Velveeta. Big and bold!

In the Basement Bars: Suburban Beverage by Perennial Artisan Ales

The final brew of a trio of sour biers from the folks at Perennial Artisan Ales that I'm reviewing is called Suburban Beverage, a gose. After having tasted a couple of Berliner Weisses, Pineapple Kumquat and Hopfentea, I have concluded that the folks at Perennial enjoy tropical fruit flavor in their German style sours and that they aren't shy about making their brews tart. I will add that all three biers come in at 4.2% A.B.V. Perennial is quite consistent if nothing else.

Suburban Beverage may be a gose but it is far from traditional. While it does contain salt as is typical for the style, it was also brewed with orange peel, lemon peel and key lime juice which are highly irregular. The label also indicates "spices" so we shall see if that means the conventional coriander or perhaps something different. Also on the label is a bottled date of 7/2015 which means that this bier had been in my cellar for about 5 months before I consumed it.

Suburban Beverage pours a light gold. The bier is hazy. Unlike with Hopfentea, I managed to pour this brew and get a nice head. It was big, white, and loose and it stuck around for a little while. There was a goodly number of bubbles inside going upwards.

The aroma brought Fruit Stripes bubble gum to mind with its very sweet fruity scent. It wasn't a particular fruit but rather like a gestalt of all tropical fruits in one. And there was the lemony lactic tartness that I've come to expect from Perennial. Rather potent on the nose but not potent enough to subdue the sugary tropical sweetness.

As with the previous two Perennial brews, the first thing my tongue encountered was a dose of lemony lacto tartness that could fell a horse. The sour mellowed as I continued drinking but not by a whole lot. A brisk but not deadly bit of tartness carried throughout my session. Blending into it were the citrus flavors from the fruit components added with the lime juice standing out amongst its peers in the tartness. I am fairly particular when it comes to salt in my gose and I think Perennial did a nice job here with just the right amount to both accent the ingredients as well as to just barely come across as salinity. There must be cinnamon amongst the spices used here because it combined with the salt and grains in the bier to fool me into thinking that I was drinking a graham cracker.

Suburban Beverage finishes quite clean with a lingering tartness courtesy of the lactic acid as well as the lime juice. There was, sadly, no Schaumhaftvermoegen to be had

Perennial impressed me here not only with being able to produce the perfect amount of tartness in three sour biers in a row but also with the salt. It not only accented the other ingredients but was also a flavor of its own, if only just. I like to taste the salinity in a gose but it should definitely be low-key and not the zymurilogical equivalent of a salt lick. I liked the citrus flavors here quite a bit but I just couldn't get past the lime-flavored graham cracker taste of the bier. The cinnamon just didn't do it for me. I don't dislike graham crackers either. I just didn't think that the tartness went well with cinnamon. This is a shame because I otherwise really liked this bier, especially the lime juice had commingled with the lactic tartness.

Junk food pairing: Pair Suburban Beverage with some tortilla chips. The cinnamon goes especially well with mole flavored chips.

Taking the Hopfentea Plunge: Hopfentea by Perennial Artisan Ales

As I mentioned previously, I have a trio of brews by Perennial Artisan Ales to review. First came Pineapple Kumquat Berliner Weisse and now we have Hopfentea (or "hops tea", I guess. Not sure if that's grammatically correct Deutsch or not. At least they ran the words together.) Hopfentea is a Berliner Weisse that had tropical fruit flavored tea steeped in it. Or so I gather.

I've actually had this bier before – at the Great Taste of the Midwest in 2013. I enjoyed it then although I had no recollection of doing so when I sampled it again last week. This bier was bottled in 4/2015 and it's likely I bought my bottle last summer. It was brought home and placed in my cellar away from the light.

Hopfentea pours a light gold hue while the bier was turbid. Somehow I managed to pour some "Champagne of the North" without producing a big head. **face palm** And so I ended up with a rather small, white head that went away quite quickly. But there were plenty of bubbles inside the bier so my glass at least had a bit of that bubbly, effervescent look.

Perennial sure loves tropical fruit flavors in their Berliner Weisses. Sadly, I am not exactly the most experienced consumer of tropical fruits. The label appears to have a papaya on it but it doesn't betray the flavors of the teas that were used in making the bier. And so I can only tell you that the aroma is rife with tropical fruit. Papaya? Maybe. I can say that I didn't catch pineapple or kiwi or banana. Imagine papaya, mangoes, star, and passion fruits blended together. Along with that nebulous aroma there was the distinctive lemony tartness from the lactic acid bacteria.

As I expected, Hopfentea didn't skimp on the tartness in the flavor. It was a big, lemony blast of the stuff. The tropical fruit flavors were in the background here and added a pleasing mellow sweetness. And I could taste the non-fruity bits of the tea too. There was a very pronounced herbal flavor that was also quite dry. To me it tasted of black tea but I cannot say exactly what kind of tea was steeped in the bier taste. Lastly I can say that there was plenty of carbonation to be tasted which gave the bier a nice, bubbly, champagne-like quality.

The finish was pretty clean and dry as the tartness lingered as did the herbal/tea, though not the fruit, flavor. There was no Schaumhaftvermoegen to be had.

As with the Pineapple Kumquat, the fruit flavor here is pretty mild. Then again, it is provided by flavored tea. Hopfentea had a really nice tartness to it which mellowed only slightly as I drank more. Sadly, the acidulousness combined with the astringency of the tea to make something which I didn't find particularly pleasing. It was just too sour and bitter with too little fruitiness for counterpoint. I am curious as to whether Perennial changed the recipe or if my tastes have changed.

Junk food pairing: I would recommend something sweet to counter the astringent tea flavor of the bier. Try some Honey Nut Chex Mix or Lemon Crème Oreos.

Just Like the Beach at Waikiki: Pineapple Kumquat Berliner Weiße by Perennial Artisan Ales

I was a bit surprised to discover that I have never reviewed a beer from Perennial Artisan Ales. While I've tasted their beer previously I've never sat down with a bottle and written an account of what happened next. Well, that's about to change. Indeed, this will be the first of a trio of reviews featuring brews from the St. Louis brewery.

To be honest, it wasn't until last year that I paid much attention to Perennial. This is not intended as a slight because I've had their beer at the Great Taste of the Midwest and was never suitably unimpressed. I suppose that my eyes just wandered elsewhere when confronted with the sinfully sizable selection of beers to be had on store shelves. I don't think the human brain evolved to handle quite so many options. It is keen on two at a time – fight or flight, hot or cold, ale or beer, and so on. Anyway, I noticed a Perennial Berliner Weiße appear on the shelf at some point last year. And then another one did a couple months later. And then yet another one.

First up is Pineapple Kumquat Berliner Weiße. The label says it was bottled in 8/2015 which means the bier was about six months old when it was poured into my maw. Despite being a style with relatively low alcohol, I've had Berliner Weißes older than this which were fine. Kept away from light and cool, I think a Berliner Weiße will keep for a while. Perhaps it's the acidity that keeps them it good shape.

Pineapple Kumquat poured a light yellow. It was cloudy, as was expected, and topped with a big, firm white head that dissipated rather quickly. As befitting a "Champagne of the North", it was quite effervescent with lots of bubbles inside the beer moving on up.

The aroma brought images of women bearing leis and libations garnished with small umbrellas to mind with its rather pungent tropical fruit smell. It was easy to discern the pineapple but it had been ages since I'd been confronted with a kumquat which is a small orange-like citrus fruit. There was a big lemony tartness from the lactic acid bacteria which was joined to a non-lemon citrus component which I presume to have been the kumquat.

Despite the ability of the beer's smell to conjure images of a luau, the tropical fruits were rather mild in the taste. Again I was able to discern the pineapple and there was an overall tropical fruitiness but the bier had to warm up a bit before the fruit really tasted anywhere near as prominent as the aroma suggested. I was also able to taste a little grain after the bier had its chilly edge taken off. The lemony lacto tartness was quite big on first sip and it retained a pronounced sourness throughout my session. (I do believe that I drank the whole bottle.)

For the finish, the tropical fruit flavors faded which allowed the lacto tartness to linger. This combined with the carbonation made for a rather clean and dry ending. Schaumhaftvermoegen was minimal with just a few small spots of foam.

This was a rather well-carbonated bier. With its light body and fizzy taste, it made me wish that it was summer instead of the bowels of winter. I thoroughly enjoyed the combination of pineapple and kumquat but felt that the tropical fruit flavor was too subdued. While I wasn't looking for huge fruit flavor as if I had drank it mit Schuss, I was rather hoping for something more than a pineapple/kumquat accent. There was a hint of sweetness from the fruits which rounded off the lactic tartness just a little bit. And that tartness was big and it stayed that way more or less the whole time. Perennial really nailed the sour here, in my humble opinion. Despite my desire for a more substantial tropical fruit flavor, this is still a very tasty brew.

Junk food pairing: Pineapple Kumquat is a light, fizzy bier. (It rolls in at 4.2% A.B.V.) This being the case, keep your food pairings on the light side as well. I prefer plain potato chips or some lime-chili tortilla chips.