Loude drink ku ku!: A Ku Ku by Browar Błonie

This, sadly, is my final review of the Polish folklore series from the Polish brewery Browar Błonie. While this is my fourth tasting, the series has 7 beers and I don't believe I've ever seen the remaining 3 entries which are a hemp lager, a mead, and a dark lager with raspberry. All sound tasty to me. Perhaps I'll run into them in Chicago on my coming visits.

 

Honey is, to my mind, a staple of the Polish kitchen. While granulated white sugar is certainly common, honey has the connotation of tradition with countless generations of Poles having tended to apiaries through the centuries. Strolling through a Polish grocery store, I find honey advertised on many products. There's cookies and cakes and other sweets, but I also see it in the liquor aisle. Last time I found myself in one, I spotted more than one honey liqueur as well as multiple varieties of honey beer, including this one.

While I've had American beers brewed with honey, brewers here don't advertise it prominently like they do with fruity hops. Polish brewers, on the other hand, give it pride of place as I presume it evokes a sense of pride and tradition. Plus I gather it's a flavor that Poles enjoy greatly.

Me, I have found beers with honey to be hit or miss. All too often the honey flavor has a skunkiness to it, perhaps an oxidized flavor. More like hemp than a flower. With the right flavor in the right amount, a honey beer can be a thing of great joy.

I have never seen a Polish honey beer with an English label slapped on it that used the word "braggot" or "brackett". Still, I would imagine that these beers fall under that category since those are just beers that have honey added to them in time to be fermented, right? If you add honey and its sugars get eaten by the yeast it = braggot = brackett = honey beer. That's my take, anyway.

Google Translate failed epically on the beer's name. It was worse than "All your base are belong to us". Translating the brewery's site yields "And to the Ku" while Wiktionary explains that it's an interjection akin to "peekaboo!".

Pictures of beer taken at my desk make every pale brew a deep gold/amber and no exception here. This stuff is actually of a medium yellow hue. It was hazy though I caught some bubbles inside. The small head was a lovely white color but lasted only a short time.  Nonetheless I managed to get a snap of it. I smelled a wonderful biscuit scent along with some straw and the honey. Here the sticky stuff had a very pronounced floral thing going on that was...I want to say creamy but that's not right. It wasn't bright but more rounded - kind of waxy.

Taking a sip I found that the brew had a medium-light body and a real paucity of fizz. Man, and could I taste the honey - a big, bright floral flavor. I liked this taste quite a bit as it had the floral thing going and not the skunky one. But man oh man, it was overpowering. As in I could barely taste any malt. While not sweet, I think the flavor tricked my brain into initially perceiving the beer as such and heavier/more cloying than it was. This stuff must have been barely hopped too because it seemed there was just a tad of herbal something in there with only the faintest of traces of bitterness.

The earthy sweetness of the honey lingers a long while after swallowing and then fades quite slowly to a very gentle bitterness and the barest hint of dryness.

This stuff did not sit with me well. The lack of grainy flavor and the waxy aroma of the honey put me off.  Perhaps some more hops for balance and definitely more fizziness were needed to bring it closer to a dry mead. The floral element of the flavor was wonderful, though.

Junk food pairing: Pair A Ku Ku with something solidly savory. I recommend a paprika flavored potato chips such as Jays Hot Stuff. Alternatively, try a bag of Snyder's Sour Cream and Caramelized Onion Pretzel Pieces.

An ironic name?: Cuda Wianki by Browar Błonie

So here I am once more with a beer from Polish brewery Browar Błonie's Polish folklore series. This one was purchased in Chicago last month - Andy's Deli on Milwaukee Avenue, if I recall correctly.

A wianki is a Polish floral wreath. From my experience, they're worn on your head though I suppose you could hang one on your wall or wear it on another part of your anatomy. This beer's name, Cuda Wianki, translates to something like Miracles of the Wreaths or Miracles and Wreaths. I am not sure what this is supposed to mean so let me look it up...

I see that there's a restaurant in Poland with this name...Oh! Wiktionary says that it is a colloquial expression meaning "something unusual, unique, and overly fancy". Interesting.

The label indicated it was an unfiltered pale lager and I suppose the unfiltered part is uncommon, if not exactly unique or overly fancy. Perhaps the name is meant to be ironic. Speaking of the label, it is gorgeous, abounding with cerulean flowers. The English translations on the bottle don't give away much in the way of details about the ingredients. There's water, barley malt, hops, and yeast. What kind of malt? What kind of hops? Only The Cień knows.

My pour produced a small, white head that consisted of big bubbles like soda pop. It went away quickly and successfully eluded my camera as you can see. The piwo was a hazy gold hue but I was able to see some bubbles inside. It smelled wonderful with a goodly amount of bread along with moderate honeyed sweetness and a touch of hay from the hops. What I'd expect from a Euro pale lager. Maybe something more floral if Polish hops had been used but that didn't seem to be the case.

The first sip revealed a medium-light body without much fizziness. There was a little bit of bread that wasn't accompanied by much in the way of sweetness. The hops took on a herbal aspect on my tongue. Despite the mellow hops flavor and seeming lack of fizz, there was a firm astringency. On the swallow a mild grainy taste was quickly supplanted by the hops which took on a spicy flavor to complement the herbal taste. Not a bitterness bomb, by any means, but the finish had just enough of it to make for a crisp and fairly dry denouement.

Cuda Wianki was OK. I think it needed a more pronounced malt flavor though I did really enjoy the brisk hoppiness. It was a fine brew to refresh me after work and, at 5% A.B.V., it stimulated my appetite.

Junk food paring: Also purchased at Andy's was a bag of Polish snacks that paired perfectly with Cuda Wianki. They were like Gardetto's rye chips but loaded with artificial kielbasa flavor and shaped like biscotti. Ciesz się posiłkiem!

The Highlanders sowed their seeds where exactly?: Zasiali Górale by Browar Błonie

My introduction to Polish craft brewery Browar Błonie's folklore brews was highly successful. And so when I was at a Polish grocery store in Chicago back in May and saw more of the series I snagged a few of them. At the check out, the Polish lady at the register said in her accented English that these were some very good piwos. That pretty lady has good taste.

This wheat beer's name, Zasiali Górale, apparently translates to "Sowed by Highlanders". Now, when I think of the Polish Highlands, I think of the Carpathian Mountains and gentlemen with big, bushy mustaches, not amber fields of wheat. Perhaps it's a pun or an allusion that is lost on Google Translate and me alike.

The English label only said "Wheat Ale" and I wasn't sure if it was just an ale made from wheat or if it was a Polish take on the hefeweizen with all the funkadelic flavors from the yeast. Going to the brewery's website and finding the description "A light unfiltered top-fermented beer with hints of bananas and cloves" answered that question.

As luck would have it, I had a Weißbier glass to show off this piwo. And as with another recent brew review, the photo here tricksies you. Insted of a gold color, Zasiali Górale is actually of a light yellow hue and hazy. The Weißbier glass proved a nice bit of luck because this beer had lots and lots and lots of bubbles in it and the tall glass meant I could watch them stream upwards like schools of salmon swimming upstream to their spawning destiny. The head was a big dollop of loose, white foam. This was a gorgeous beer.

The aroma smelled of wheat along with a generous dose of bubble gum and a fainter bit of banana. No clove to my nose. There was also a bit of spicy hops to be had as well. All familiar hefeweizen territory.

My first sip revealed a light-medium body with a nice fizziness to it, although I had expected more considering all those bubbles. Like the nose, I tasted wheat and found that bubble gum was the primary flavor from the yeast with a hint of banana lurking underneath. Clove came into my mind but I didn't taste any and my brain didn't just throw some in there simply because the label said so. There was just enough spicy tasting hops for balance but they were not a prominent flavor.

The wheat and bubble gum flavors lingered on the finish until they faded out due, no doubt, to a combination of being washed from my tastebuds and the spicy hops which were not potent, but not impotent either. Just enough for a spicy-green taste to prevail and add a modicum of bitterness.

Zasiali Górale is a fine traditional hefeweizen though I am still flummoxed by the name. The part of Poland that abuts Gremany is near Berlin while the Highlands are separated from Bavaria by whatever Czechoslovakia is these days. I greatly appreciate the bubble gum-banana flavors from the yeast instead of something more clovey.

Junk food pairing: This fine piwo deserves to be paired with fine foods. Grab a bag of rye pretzel crisps and apply a big helping of bacon horseradish dip. You won't regret it.

A floral state of mine: Moorvolution by Revolution Brewing & Moor's Brewing

If memory serves, I first ran into this beer last summer at a Binny's. I hemmed and hawed about buying a 4-pack because my basket already had several of them in it and carrying it around much longer with even more weight was going to require eating a can of spinach to quickly build my arm's muscles (pronounced with a hard C). My logic was something akin to "I'll be back in town ere long so I'll grab some next time."

Well, the best laid plans and whatnot happened and I didn't get to a Chicago area liquor store again for a few months or more. But there was a happy ending as by November this limited edition summer brew was marked down considerably yet still decidedly within its freshness threshold. I think I got a 4-pack for $6.

Moor's Brewing, a black-owned Chicago brewery teamed up with the venerable Revolution Brewing for this one. Moor's was founded in 2021 by Jamal Johnson and Damon Patton. It seems they either brew their beer at 18th Street in Indiana, another black-owned brewery, or at a newish brewpub in Chicago. At roughly the same time this brew was released, Moor's won the Samuel Adams’ 2025 Brewing & Business Experienceship award which I think means they get to have the Sam Adams folks as business mentors for a stretch so things are looking good for them.

Moorvolution is a Polish-style pilsner and I am not sure if that's really a style unto itself that is recognized elsewhere in the world or if it's just an ad copy-ready term from the BJCP for any old pils brewed with Polish hops. The can features "The African King Caspar", a painting that dates back to the 16th-century just as most cans of Moor's regular beers do. As their website says, "Our beer pays homage to the rich untold history of our African ancestry". This beer is a homage to the Lipka Tatars, Muslims who emigrated to Poland in the 15th century. ?? Maybe. I am extrapolating from Wikipedia here.

The brew features Lubelski hops which are apparently also known as Lublin which is the name I've always heard them referred to as. A Noble type hop but I am unsure what the Polish spin on it is.

The can looks bad-ass, if you ask me, with King Caspar's, um, regal and slightly imposing visage set against the Chicago flag. He's got a Frederick Douglass-like charisma. The beer also looks like a bad-ass pilsner with it's lovely yellow color and clarity. I got a nice head of pure white foam that lasted a long time while beneath were bubbles aplenty. The aroma was redolent of summer with straw/grass joining a delicate cracker scent along with a faint bit of honey.

A light-medium body was accompanied by a firm fizziness that made for ebullience on the tongue with some astringency but nothing outrageous. A nice cracker taste was complemented by something honey-floral but not particularly sweet. Finally the hops added their Nobleness with some grassy-spicy flavors. The malt taste fled quickly on the finish to be replaced by the Noble hoppiness which gave a firm dryness to the denouement along with a nice dose of bitterness.

This was a very fine brew. The cracker flavor accompanied by a bit o' honey was delicious and the green hop flavors were delectable. Since there was a bit of something floral here and there were floral flavors to be had in a genuine Polish pilsner from Browar Błonie, I am going to assume that "traditional", i.e. - Nobley, Polish hops have a floral component to them that are absent from other similar varieties from, say, Germany and The Czech Republic. And, to be clear, I love love love the floral flavors I've tasted in these two recent Polish(-style) pilsners. Much more to my liking than tropical fruit.

Junk food pairing: pair Moorvolution's light, crisp maltiness with a light, crisp potato chip such as Jays Bacon Cheddar.

Can't stop the singing chicken: Kur Zapiał by Browar Błonie

My luck with Polish beers has not been good lately if the piwo isn't a pale lager from Okocim or Żywiec or another of the bigger Polish breweries. Binny's seems to keep beers from Poland on their shelves long past their lifespans until they are these musty, skunky pale imitations of their former selves. And so when I came across this brew I was a bit gun shy.

I didn't find it at Binny's, however, but rather at Deli 4 You in Schaumburg back in December when I was returning to Madison from having spent some time in Chicago at the Christkindlmarkt. And the date on the label read 30.06.2026. Well within freshness tolerance. The Polish craft beer selection there was small but how many Polish craft beers actually get exported to the U.S.? I think they stocked the full complement of Browar Błonie's Polish Folklore series. Why did I buy this one? That is lost to the ages. It could simply have been that I was in the mood for a pilsner that day. (There was, if I recall correctly, a label in English on the back.)

The description at the brewery's website as translated by Google reads, "Light, unfiltered, dry-hopped beer. Refreshing taste and floral-herbal aroma." Oh, the name translated to "The Hen Sang".

For tasting, I busted out my new pilsner glass which I got at Goodwill when shopping for things for my new apartment. A couple years back I gave away most of my beer glasses but wanted a couple two tree for my new life.

The piwo was yellow and had a slight haze - it's unfiltered, remember? There were lots and lots of bubbles which is something I associated with the pils. My pour produced a small head of lovely white foam which lasted an average amount of time. It appeared to be a very pretty pils, to my eyes. The aroma was just as nice with the Polish hops - variety unknown - giving off straw and floral smells. A nice, cracker-like maltiness was to be had as well.

All of those bubbles portended the piwo's big fizz. A delicate biscuity malt flavor was joined by hops that gave a lovely floral taste along with a mild dose of herbal and some straw notes. The maltiness lingered a couple seconds on the finish before the hops rushed in with their floral/straw combo and some attendant bitterness. My tongue tasted smoothness which I figured came from the malt even though there wasn't much grain flavor to be had - some kind of malty-carbo-palimpsest? Just enough bitterness for a slight zip at the end to go with the moderate dryness.

Oh mama, this was a great piwo! It had the delicate pilsner malt flavor down perfectly and I simply adored the floral aroma and taste that the hops gave. The piwo was light and delicate and had just the right floral everything. Just fantastic stuff.

Junk food pairing: The lovely, tasty, delicate floral taste here deserves not to be overshadowed so stick with something on the mellower side such as Simply White Cheddar Cheetos Puffs.

Come to the PHCWI-Madison Christmas Bazaar

 

Na Zdrowie!

I mowed the lawn yesterday and this Żywiec tasted mighty fine afterwards. Sto lat!

My sincerest desire has come true here: Grodziskie by Dovetail Brewery

Tales of a Grodziskie by Chicago's Dovetail have long been told in these parts but I had never encountered it face to face until last month. I am guessing it's been my poor timing. Either I'd never make it down to Chicagoland when it was in season or the Binny's website proclaiming its availability had not been updated to reflect its absence. I also suspect that part of the problem is that Dovetail takes a very, um, European approach to seasonality. While most American microbrewers adhere to a strict release schedule for their seasonals, e.g. - their Oktoberfests hit shelves in late June, Dovetail seems to be the opposite and release their seasonals whenever they get around to it - within reason, of course.

Or maybe that's just my view from Madison.

Anyway, I was excited, perhaps a bit too excited, to find this Grodziskie. Being made with 100% smoked wheat, it was right up my uliczka as smoked beers are like manna from heaven for me. It is also perhaps the only native Polish beer style left these days and having some Polish blood in me means it's like drinking for the home team. Doubly so since Chicago is my hometown.

The Platonic ideal of Grodziskie was passed down to me from Ron Pattinson, if memory serves. It is to be light, smoky, hoppy, and fizzy. And I judge every Grodziskie style ale based on his description. Can one interpretation that doesn't exactly conform to this ideal still be tasty? You betcha! Tis but a starting point.

With a hazy yellow color and a very modest 3.8% A.B.V., this brew fit the light bill. A big, firm layer of foam rested atop the tantalizing liquid and, not being in a hurry to go anywhere, I was able to get a decent photograph. The aroma was of smoke along with a little bit of citrus.

My tongue was not surprised at the beer's light body which also had a very pleasant smoothness to it underneath a fairly mellow dose of fizz. The smokiness was delicious and not overwhelming which allowed for a tad of a grainy taste to come through. For their part, the hops tasted herbal-spicy and complemented the smoke well without overpowering it.

The smoky taste held fast for a bit on the finish before the herbal-spicy hop flavor came in to deliver moderate dryness and slightly more bitterness.

Since I don't know how to say "Oh mama, this stuff was good!" in Polish I'll just say oh mama, this stuff was good! While I am not sure, I do believe that the wheat used in the Grodziskie was traditionally smoked with oak. However, I am not sure what wood was used to smoke the wheat here. I don't think it was applewood or cherry, though. But, oh mama, it tastes great! And the smokiness is not particularly strong despite the whole grain bill having been given the treatment.

I'll never know how this stuff compares to the brew the inhabitants of Grodzisk Wielkopolski drank back in the day but I love Dovetail's take on the style. Maybe a touch more fizz but that's a very minor quibble. This is a fine brew and made the perfect companion on a few spring evenings.

Junk food pairing: Pair your Grodziskie with a bag of Old Dutch Onion 'N Garlic potato chips. They provide a nice contrast to the smoke taste yet somehow also complement the beer perfectly. 

How do you say "bummer" in Polish?

I had a Polish bock beer and was all excited to find succor in it after wandering in the cold and write a review of it as a companion piece to the one of Giant Jones' version and then I find that the beer was bad. Long past its life expectancy with that worty-vermouthy taste. Bummer.

But I remain undeterred. As Douglas MacArthur once said, I shall return with a fresh bottle...

Biały Filip: Koźlak by Giant Jones Brewing Co.

After seeing Black Philip on a can of hard apple cider leading us into dark temptation, we now have a label featuring a white goat snuggling contentedly with a young Polish gal beckoning us into inter-species conviviality. This comes courtesy of Giant Jones Brewing here in Madison.

The beer is called Koźlak and it conjures in my mind images of a detective, likely because it is close to Kolchak and Kojak. While "Koźlak" may look mysterious with its exotic diacritical mark, it is, as I have just discovered, a rather mundane word and simply means bock. Giant Jones calls it a Polish-style bock as it was brewed with Marynka hops.

I don't know if Polish brewers actually brew their bocks with Marynka hops or not. Since Giant Jones' brews are organic, this variety must be fairly common, at least in Poland, if there's an organic version. My knowledge of Polish hops extends no further than Lublin/Lubelska.

My assumption here is that, since my bottle was filled back in April, that this was meant to be a spring bock. I am not sure how long it was lagered but it sat around for 6+ months after bottling. Hopefully it was taken good care of during this time.

My pour produced a rather nice loose, tan head but it went away quickly and I fumbled with my camera so I wasn't able to get a decent photo of it. And, as you can see, I wasn't able to get a decent photograph of even just a tad of foam. The brew was a lovely amber color, which seems only fitting for a Polish beer, and was quite clear allowing me to spy a goodly number of bubbles inside. My initial sniff caught caramel and a fruitiness that I can best describe as a generic berry scent - something akin to Boo Berry cereal. My mind may have caught this latter smell because there was a box of that very cereal atop the refrigerator when I pulled the bottle out. Beneath all that was a hint of lemon and a dash of hay. That green aroma grew as the beer warmed.

Seeing all of those bubbles made me think my mouth was in for some nice fizz and indeed it was. Good thing too as the body was medium-heavy. I was surprised that it wasn't very sweet, though caramel and stone fruit were prominent flavors. The hops added something herbal. On the swallow, those malty flavors faded allowing a moderately potent hoppiness to emerge. Marynka must be a bittering hop as the finish was quite brisk with hefty doses of both bitterness and dryness.

Koźlak was a fine brew. Those hops surely added the lemon and hay scents, which I really liked, and their bitterness made for a very nice contrast to the big malt flavors. I am left to wonder what this beer tasted like fresh. As it was, Koźlak's 7.9% A.B.V. left me feeling nice'n'warm on a chilly fall evening. Maybe I can try it again next spring.

Junk food pairing: Pair your Koźlak with a bag of potato chips. I find that Jays Hot Stuff with its bold paprika heat stands up to the big bock.  Plus Old Dutch Dill Pickle chips provide a nice contrast to the mega-maltiness.

Put this Polish music in your ear holes

Some performances by fine Polish performers are coming to Madison.

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.

Who is Number One? You are Number Three.: Polish Pils #3 by Goldfinger Brewing Co.

Last year I stopped in at Goldfinger Brewing Co. on a chilly night looking for a palate cleanser after a chance encounter with some pickle beer. We found that their House and Vienna lagers were superlative and wonderful showcases for the power of a fully armed and operational decoction brewhouse.

While Downers Grove, Illinois is a long way from Poland, the brewery's owner and brewmaster, Thomas Beckmann, is a descendant of one Markus Goldfinger who started a mini-brewing empire in Krakow, Poland back in the 19th century so the fellow has the art/business in his veins. Beckmann looks to pay tribute to his ancestors by crafting lagers using time-honored methods such as decoction. He may also use horizontal lagering tanks (I thought so but cannot recall), which are apparently the bee's knees when it comes to vessels where your beer can slumber at 30 some-odd degrees for a while.

Polish beer seems to largely consist of an array of pale lagers dotted with some Baltic porters. However, I do see some of their brews that are made with honey for a local touch and have also heard tell of Baltic Porters brewed with smoked plums which sounds simply delightful. Plus, there's the grodziskie, which is absolutely delicious.

Into this cozy, shall we say, milieu of Polish brews Beckmann has made his own contribution - a series of Polish pilsners that showcase blends of Polish hops. I snagged a pack of the latest entry last month during my annual autumn pilgrimage to Binny's. This is #3 in the series and features Lubelski and Princely (Ksiażęcy) hops. I've heard of Lubelski before as I think that's the most common Polish hop variety, at least to Americans. Princely was new to me and it is apparently new to the scene as well. For better or for worse, it was bred to provide fruity flavors a la most American varieties these days. The can advertises coconut and apricot and I assume they come from the Princely as Lubelski, I do believe, is more herbal - more Noble and less fruity.

Honestly, I went in hoping that the fruit flavors were subdued and that this wasn't one of those Hawaiian Punch beers. I didn't think that Goldfinger, a brewery that adheres to tradition otherwise fairly rigidly, as far as I can tell, would make one of those but maybe the novelty factor was just too great for Beckmann to overcome. That and my trips to the liquor store have got me seeing tropical fruit overload everywhere.

The beer poured a lovely yellow color that veered to light gold at the right angle which set off the categorization cogs in the beer enjoyment part of my brain and I thought, "Kinda more on the German side of things." I would expect a German pils to be perhaps a touch lighter but Pilsner Urquell is definitely darker. So, it's in that liminal pilsner SRM space...woooo...A big dollop of white foam sat atop the aureate liquid and it had staying power. There was a modicum of bubbles inside. I don't know what aromas to expect from Princely hops but I assume the fresh herbal-grassy scent here was courtesy of the Lebelski ones. There was also something fruity but it was indistinct to my nose. It was more stonefruit than tropical, though.

My first sip revealed a nice medium-light body which seemed to fit in the middle of my German-Czech pils dichotomy just like the color. Fizziness was middling, i.e. - I'd have been happy with a touch more but the beer still had a pleasant bite. A great cracker taste was accompanied by a nice touch of herbal hoppiness and this allayed my misbegotten fears of an overly fruity brew. There was something fruity in there, however, but it was like Winston in Ghostbusters and stayed in the background by-and-large.

The power of suggestion is, um, powerful and I'm not sure if I was tasting a fruit flavor that kinda sorta tasted like coconut because the label said so or not. It was more like apricot on the finish when the cracker taste yielded to a firm dose of herbal hoppiness which, in turn, faded slightly andlet that fruity taste seep through more.

Polish Pils #3 was excellent! For the most part, it tasted like a traditional pils of some stripe with the fruity tastes never taking over. Instead, they were a really nice accent. I loved the fresh grassy hop scent and the light, cracker malt taste. Really delicate flavors handled adroitly by Beckmann and Co.

Junk food pairing: Get some of Goldfinger's Polish Pils quick because I believe it's a limited edition brew. It will pair well with onion and sour cream potato chips but I highly recommend going with a dill snack and your babcia would no doubt approve of Herr's Creamy Dill Pickle chips where every bite is full of mizeria goodness.

How zaftig! How Żywiec!: Baltic Porter by Żywiec Brewery

It wasn't all that long ago that winter had just given way to spring and I was reviewing a different Baltic porter. That one was made right here in Madison. It had a strong stone fruit flavor, too much, in fact, for my taste. Well, today we have another big, dark lager, one that you will likely find in the all the taverns and inns from Międzylesie to Lubin. Or Lublin, for that matter.

My previous encounter with this style was with one brewed in collaboration by Giant Jones Brewing Company and Working Draft Beer Company. While it had all of the requisite flavors, they were out of balance for my palate, with a taste akin to plum leading the charge while coffee and dark chocolate, my favored Baltic porter flavors, came in much smaller doses. These tastes are provided by dark malts and add bitterness which, in combination with hops, acts as a nice counterpoint to the sweeter aspects of the beer from the paler malts. I rather doubt that the Giant Jones/Working Draft brew was extraordinarily sweet, as in I don't think it had more sugars in it than the imported Baltic porters that I recalled. But having a fruitiness as the primary flavor tricks my brain into tasting more sweetness than is actually present.

Hoping that my memory wasn't failing me, I figured I ought to trust but verify.

It having been quite some time since I'd last had a Baltic porter brewed somewhere near the Baltic Sea and having had a couple domestic versions that didn't appeal to me all that much, I sought out an imported version. I think Madison's eastern European population lives mainly on the west side so it was off to Woodman's West. I noticed that there wasn't any Baltika like I remembered being there previously with "previously" likely meaning 10+ years ago. Plus, they used to carry 2 liter plastic bottles of Russian beer, as I recall, as well but I saw none of those. Was this a boycott of Russian beer because Putin invaded Ukraine? Or the result of making more room for craft beer? Perhaps Russian beer is simply imported less and harder to get a hold of. Regardless, I was able to find Żywiec Porter, the only imported Baltic porter they had on hand. It is Polish so points for going back to the motherland on this one.

According to the vast repository of all human knowledge, Wikipedia, the Żywiec Brewery dates back to 1856 and the town of – quelle surprise - Żywiec which currently resides in far southern Poland. There was no state of Poland in 1856 and instead the town was part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Today the brewery is owned largely by a corporation, holding company, or some other legal entity that has the word "Heineken" in it and, also according to Wikipedia, has a capacity of 5 million hectoliters which apparently comes out to a little over 4 million barrels.

Besides being a brewery that still uses green glass bottles, Heineken is a brewing leviathan. It's a multinational company that makes a gagillion barrels a year in facilities around the globe. I get the impression that Żywiec is to Heineken as Leinenkugel is to MillerCoors or AB-InBev or whatever conglomerate owns them these days. And just as Leine's corporate overlords have ensured that Summer Shandy is found in every state in the Union, Żywiec's have willed that their beer be available in Madison, Wisconsin.

I am getting better at pouring and was able to get a big head of tan foam in my glass. It was moderately firm stuff. The liquid was a deep, deep mahogany and of fine clarity as I was able to see a fair number of bubbles inside. The aroma was heavenly! Full of cherry and chocolate, it smelled like it had been brewed in collaboration with CocoVaa as it was as if I had just taken a deep whiff over a box of chocolate truffles. There were also hints of coffee and tobacco.

So far, so good.

One drop was all it took to know that this was a big, rich beer. It had a heavy body like the proverbial motor oil. My tongue got a goodly dose of malty sweetness that was a little caramel, but more like honey. Cherry lingered in the background as other, non-fruity flavors kept the sweetness at bay. Coffee flavors lent bitterness while some fizz and spicy hops did their part. Much to my delight, it was also faintly smokey. The cherry and sweetness slowly faded after swallowing which allowed notes of coffee and a hint of bitter chocolate to take centerstage. Those spicy hops returned as well, adding bitterness to make for a rather dry finish. A healthy alcohol burn also aided this effort.

Oh, it left a lovely bit of lacing in my glass.

This is an archetypal Baltic porter. For me, anyway. There was a lovely cherry taste to be had here but it never overpowered the other, more savory, malt flavors. The coffee taste was great and I really enjoyed how it, the fizz, etc. worked together to keep the beer from being a cloying mess. This stuff is a heady brew at 9.5% A.B.V. and it tastes like it. My whole body began to feel warm after half a glass, which was rather nice on a chilly spring evening.

Free of vanilla and with subdued stone fruit flavor, this is the Baltic porter I remember, that I prefer.

Junk food pairing: Żywiec Porter is a big, rich brew with a complex mix of flavors and so deserves to be paired with something endowed with an equally intricate set of gustatory components. Start with a plateful of Super Pretzel Mini Pretzel Dogs and smother them with warm Cheez Whiz.

Did you know "vanilla" comes from "vagina"? No, really.: Baltic Fire by Lakefront Brewery

Yesterday I wrote about the advent of coffee beer in 1994 just 25 miles to my south in New Glarus. And today I have read that the term "Baltic porter" was first used that very same year by Bill Yenne in his book Beers of the World although it was über beer geek Michael Jackson that seems to have popularized the term 4 years later. There truly was more to the 90's than grunge, cargo pants, despair, and indifference.

While Slavic food is severely underrepresented in the Madison dining scene today, a restaurant called Russia House spent much of the 1990s evoking images of Sean Connery romancing Michelle Pfeiffer and dishing out borscht and vodka to folks downtown. I was sad to see it go but was very happy to see the opening of Arbat Russian Restaurant in nearby Fitchburg sometime the following decade. I have fond memories of chasing away the winter chill there with hearty platefuls of pelmeni and stuffed pork loin. And to wash it all down I was able to choose from a full array of Baltika beers with my favorite being #6, their Baltic porter.

English beer historian Martyn Cornell has written about the history of this style so credit is due to him for what follows.

The short story is that the Poles developed a taste for English porter in the 18^th century with a particular fondness for something called the "double brown stout" which sounds like it was a much, um, stouter porter than its more workaday cousin. I suppose it isn't surprising that the Poles had a taste for a stronger brew considering their hostile neighbors. You too would seek out a more potent potable if the Prussians, Russians and Austrians invaded your country and wiped it off of the map as happened in 1795 when the state of Poland was terminated and would not reappear for 120+ years.

Fast forward to the 19^th century when lager brewing was all the rage and some entrepreneuring Polish brewers applied it to their beloved porters. And voila! The Baltic porter was born.

Until an international standards committee comes up with a mutually agreeable definition of what exactly constitutes a Baltic porter, I will continue to labor under the characterization of a beer that is a dark lager around 8% A.B.V. that is otherwise a porter.

It's a fairly uncommon style here in Madison, as far as I can tell. When I am at a liquor store in Chicago, the shelves have Baltic porters from various large Polish brands such as Okacim, Zywiec, and Perła in addition to Baltika, which is a Russian brewery. Unlike Chicago, Madison does not have a large Polish/Polish-American population and so those beers don't show up on our shelves. Thankfully some craft brewers are happy to help fill the gap. Last winter I tasted a Baltic porter from Milwaukee's Third Space Brewing called Ice Bear. And late last autumn another Milwaukee brewery, Lakefront, gave us Baltic Fire, a Baltic porter with vanilla.

Lakefront is one of the progenitors of the Wisconsin craft beer industry having opened in 1987. Their Riverwest Stein is not only tasty, but also a stalwart of the beer scene here. It's one of those brews that does a yeoman's job in places that don't have menus that are printed in a typeface so small you need a magnifying glass to read because they need to fit in all the trendy IPAs and hard seltzers they serve on a single sheet.

While I am inclined favorably towards Lakefront, my Spidey senses tingled when I saw that their new Baltic porter was made with vanilla. Additives in beer can have some tasty results but American brewers tend to use them with all the subtlety of Donald Trump at a beauty pageant. So, I was a bit leery about this Baltic fire stuff yet I tried it anyway because a Baltic porter with vanilla sounds delicious.

Baltic Fire looked dark brown with a slight reddish tint. Its clarity allowed me to see lots of bubbles bopping around inside. My photo, as usual, doesn't capture the beer in all of its glory as the big tan head exited stage right hastily. As someone who enjoys dark beers, I can say she was a looker and had me chomping at the bit to take a sip. Taking a whiff, I caught vanilla. Lots of it. "This must be what it's like working at the McCormick vanilla extract factory," I thought to myself. Subsequent sniffs revealed some stone fruit and coffee smells.

My first sips revealed a good fizziness – recall all of those bubbles – and a medium bodied dark lager with a hint of coffee and a large dose of vanilla. As in, had I just fallen into a vanilla extract vat at that McCormick factory? Heavens to Murgatroyd, that was some potent vanilla! Not surprisingly, that taste lingered after I swallowed though a little fruitiness emerged along with a hint of dark chocolate. Then I tasted some hoppy bitterness and a rather unpleasant extracty astringency.

Sadly, my additive-induced wariness proved correct. This beer was not for me. The vanilla was just too much and suffocated the wonderful porter flavors. Those coffee and chocolate bits need to breathe! I hope that Lakefront tries again and uses a lighter touch when it comes to the vanilla because I think there are some complementary flavors here that are simply out of balance.

Junk food pairing: Pair Baltic Fire with something that will replace some of the lost porter flavors. Go with a bowl of Brownie Supreme Chex Mix Muddy Buddies.