Malt Fascination

The monthly beer tasting at De Groote Weiver was happening again yesterday. I reserved two tickets, but went for just one in the end. The misses didn’t really feel like drinking five really dark and heavy Belgian beers. Luckily for some other guy, since it was fully sold out. That was a good sign!

The theme was Dark & Heavy, with some quite wintry beers from Belgium. It varied from well to lesser known products, but the lesser known ones are a bit easier to get now that one of the guys who hosts it works at a beer importer. Quite practical for some inside knowledge!

Gouden Carolus Ambrio
A dark reddish brown beer with a slightly metallic taste. A little yeasty with some malt and minerals on the palate.

Watou Kapittel Prior
This one had much more character. A bit more sweet with some acidity as well. The flavour is thick but somewhat lighter than I expected. It has a certain crispness to it and a little savoury note. After a couple of minutes it becomes more chocolaty.

Urthel Samaranth
A quadrupel beer with a massive hit of alcohol, so it fits right in the theme. Toffee and sweet malty cookie dough. It has some brown sugary notes as well. Slightly bitter with some sweet vanilla.

Straffe Hendrik Quadrupel 11
Another quadrupel, so I’m getting close to hammered now. This one a bit more beery than the last one, with more bitterness. Heavy, almost like a barley wine. Barley, thick, heavy, sweet…

The fifth beer I didn’t try. I was more or less done and thought about taking it home. That wasn’t possible since it was a beer to share. Big 750ml bottles for 2 people. In the end the tasting was nice, with a couple of friends and such. The beers were not too terrific, but that might be me not really liking the style… Poured a Black Jack Porter (Left Hand Brewing) when I got home and that was the best beer of the day… Before I went to the tasting I poured a Innis & Gunn Rum Cask but that went down the drain before the 2nd sip. Disgusting beer, overly sweet, rotting wood.

Ratings? All 3 star beers apart from the first one, that’s going at 2 stars.

Not the book, but the masterclass. This was the third of the back-to-back masterclasses I had booked last Saturday at Whisky Festival The Hague. Its called Bourbon & Blues, but the bourbon focus was wholly on Four Roses. Four Roses is one of Hans’ favorite brands and he and Jim Rutledge (the master distiller) are friends, which made the choice obvious.

We got a short lecture on the history of bourbon distilling in the United States, from the early Scottish, Irish, German and Dutch farmers bringing distilling equipment to the new world and the journey west (to Kentucky at least), also some links with the Bourbon & Blues book. The slave trade towards America brought the slaves’ to the USA not too many years later.

The whiskies we had were the regular Four Roses, the Small Batch and the Single Barrel. My opinion is that the latter two far outshone the first one. Although not a bad whiskey, it was a bit too smooth for me and had a little hint of glue you sometimes get with ‘cheap’ bourbons.

Apart from the history of Four Roses we were also enlightened on the yeast strains used at Four Roses, something they are very proud of. Apparently, there are five different yeast strains and 2 different Mash Bills used, which gives them a variety of 10 recipes to work with. Two of the recipes we could taste, or the white dog they result in with one being far more spicy then the other, while both were rather floral. The spicier one had a lot more rye in it than the other:

• OE = The mashbill that is 75% corn, 20% rye, 5% malted barley.
• OB = The mashbill that is 60% corn, 35% rye, 5% malted barley.

The smoother of those White Dogs is the OBSV (OB: high rye recipe, S: previously used for the distillery, V: the yeast strain). This recipe is used for the single barrels, so technically we tasted the Single Barrel Four Roses and its spirit version. Very nice!

In the end we also got Hans’ new book, Bourbon & Blues, which I am currently reading. I hope to review that next week.

…And if you hold your glass in the palm of your hand to warm it, I will kill you.

Only one of the ‘standard’ jokes from a Richard Paterson masterclass. He came to The Hague this year to be at the Dalmore stand on its tour to world domination, or something like that. They are gaining some ground with marketing and newsworthy ridiculously expensive whiskies.

He also gave a few Dalmore masterclasses mostly based around the Dalmore King Alexander III. A Dalmore single malt blended from casks with 6 different finishes: Port, Cabernet Sauvignon, Bourbon, Marsala, Madeira and Methusalem Sherry. From these six finishes he brought 4 in their pure form, as 18 year old cask samples. That made my heart race!

Tasting whiskies is nice, but tasting stuff that you can’t normally get in the shop is always cooler. Unfortunately, the session was a bit delayed and Mr. Paterson had to rush through everything in 75% of the time. Normally this would not be much of a problem, albeit that those four cask samples were all at cask strength, from 56% to 59%. Hard work…

Dalmore 1992 Methusalem Sherry finish
Very heavy and an incredible sherry layer on top of it. The whisky is strong enough to shine through, luckily. Lots of wood, leather and marmalade with some candied orange. The flavour is sweet and nutty, heavy with almond and spices.

Dalmore 1992 Madeira finish
A lot smoother with soft apple, stewed pears, vanilla, butter and in the end some cherries. The flavour was thick but had something crisp to it. Quite sharp and a little drying with spices again. The finish was sharp and light with some caramel.

Dalmore 1992 Marsala finish
This one had caramel, fudge and vanilla, some sweet flowery scents. Quite old fashioned.

Dalmore 1992 Bourbon finish
Vanilla and citrus fruits with lemongrass. A full bodied dram that dries a little on the tongue, quite sharp but very, very good. Some caramel and butterscotch on the palate.

Dalmore King Alexander III
Incredibly complex is my first thought. Nutty, with marmalade, almonds. The palate was a bit lighter than the nose and quite dry, with lots of red fruit. The finish is long and complex with lots of nuts and apple. A very well balanced whisky, and all samples I tasted before added something to it.

Dalmore 1978
Now we’re talking! On the nose soft fruits. Also slightly dry with soft apple and some spiced wood. The palate continued this trend and added more spices and a bigger sherry influence. A nice build-up in flavour. The finish showed smoothness with chocolate and fruit.

In the end he also put the Shackleton sample in front of us, but that wasn’t really integrated in the rest of the masterclass, and since I still had quite the day ahead of me, I skipped that one.

Best whiskies of this masterclass? The 1978 and the Bourbon wood cask sample. Both five stars!

This weekend the Whisky Festival in The Hague was held. It is one of the largest whisky festivals in Europe, I believe and this year that resulted in quite some interesting masterclasses. Another benefit of the move to The Hague is that there was an option to book masterclasses without going to the festival, effectively saving me 45 euros.

The Jim McEwan masterclass was the first in a line of three sessions, more or less back-to-back with only a half hour break in between each one.

Jim talked a lot about life on Islay, and what the distillery is doing for the small island community. Not much information I did not already know, but very nice to hear it directly from one of the people involved. The stories went from his pre-school, his coopering days at Bowmore to the new Bruichladdich 10 year old, the Laddie Ten. Everything in between came by as well, so there was a lot of information.

Between all the stories were some whiskies, of course, and we got a very nice impression of the variety of styles that come from Bruichladdich.

Bruichladdich Islay Barley 2004
A very new bottling, that has only been around for a week or two. On the nose there was vanilla, some crisp lemon and malted barley. The taste was rather sharp and crisp, but also a hint of a graininess. The young whisky shows its age but not in a bad way. The finish was quite long, with malted barley, vanilla and some lemoncurd.

The Laddie Ten was next, but I already reviewed that a while ago.

Bruichladdich 17 Rum Cask
The rum cask is obvious from the start. Bruichladdich tends to be fruity on its own, but this one was exaggerated in that aspect. Very smooth and gentle on the nose with quite some sweetness, in a sugary way. Sponge cake with tropical fruit, vanilla and a little marzipan. On the palate it was even sweeter with a little bite to it. Lots of tropical fruit like mango and some wood. The finish is mouth coating with more fruit, caramel, vanilla and more fruit.

Bruichladdich Infinity 3
A newer batch of one of the first Bruichladdichs I ever bought, some 7 years ago. This had a massive nutty aroma, with raisins and again, lots of fruit. Apart from the more classical sherry notes of dried fruit I also got red forest fruits. The palate was sweet and dry with a certain zing to it and the finish showed some bacon and maple syrup.

Octomore 4.1 – The Beast – 167 ppm
This one will get a more thorough review soon, so I’ll skip it here.

Bruichladdich Sherry Classic
And, as a good Bruichladdich oriented tasting ends, it goes with out with a bang called the Highland Toast. One foot on the table, one foot on the chair, screaming some Scottish words which made many people look up from the street below. No tasting notes, but good fun!

All in all a terrific, and very personal masterclass. Lots of information about how things work on Islay and at Bruichladdich. I really enjoyed it.

Yesterday I visited the Beer Temple. Again. A guy from BrewDog came to do a bar takeover. That means as much as they are there and encourage everyone to drink BrewDog beers. I was told that James Watt would be there but in the end he changed places with Mark, from the BrewDog Bar in Aberdeen.

He did a short talk on the history and near future of BrewDog and then we were off!

I tried (in no specific order):

Punk IPA

Hardcore IPA

5AM Saint

Rip Tide
Mocha and light chocolate tones at first, but it opens up gradually to allow for more robust malty flavours. Nice one.

Sunk Punk
Apparently there is some sea salt and sea weed in the beer, but I didn’t really pick up on that. A minor hint at first but after that a slightly dry, tea-ish IPA. Not bad, but not incredibly special either. Wicked label though!

Of course, I also tried some non-BrewDog beers:

Nogne Ø Citra Single Hop IPA
Slightly like minerals, or slate but with barley and cereal. Quite a light and crisp hoppiness with some soft spices. I even got some red fruit in the end.

Mikkeller Black 2011
This did me in. A 17.5% ABV Imperial Stout which has some serious kick to it. Burnt cocoa and coffee. Strong, dry and roasted malt. Loved this one!

Equity for Punks is the name of the latest BrewDog share release. Which means as much as  you can become a shareholder in BrewDog. Who wouldn’t want that?

I planned to buy some shares earlier this year, when they were just released. However, since I was desperatly trying to save money for our trip stateside, I didn’t buy them. Yesterday was my birthday (thanks for all the wishes!) and since I am going to meet James Watt of BrewDog tonight at the Beer Temple in Amsterdam, I thought it time to get myself some shares.

The minimum amount you can buy is 4 shares, for a total of 95 pounds, some 110 euros. It will get you a welcome package, dividend, discount in the webshop and in the BrewDog bars in the UK. All nice and dandy, but what really matters is: you get to be part of BrewDog! You will actually own part of the new eco-brewery that is planned for 2012!

Now, I am not much of an investor, so I skipped the prospectus and all legal documents and clicked the button ‘F*** that, I want some shares!’ and that is what happened.

Now I feel cool. And, according to BrewDog themselves, it makes me a superhero instantly. Which is nice too!

Literally become richer with every BrewDog beer you drink

A small sample I wanted to taste to this one checked off in Ian Buxton’s 101. I never expected anything from this, in my book rather low profile, distillery. It is owned by Gordon & MacPhail, the bottler, and they revived after 10 years of silence in 1993 and have been running it since. This might have well been my first Benromach ever, and when I get my laptop running again I will certainly check that!

Nose:
It starts off rather heavy but lightens quickly. Not at all like the young whisky I expected. Thick grain and cereal with some farm notes. Old wrinkly lemon and wet wood.

Taste:
Again, fairly heavy but full of farm stables with wet hay and a grain storage.

Finish:
The finish is quite a bit lighter than the flavour was. It has some strangeness to it that I can barely pinpoint, but in a good way.

I expected a much lighter, more spirity dram. I didn’t find that but what I found, I did like. The farm notes are something that always do good with me and the only thing betraying its age are the rather malty grain notes that keep popping up. Not a bad thing, mind you!

Benromach Organic, for sale at Master of Malt and my other retailers. I honestly don’t have a clue which version this is. There is a regular and several special editions.

Contrary to what I said on Twitter yesterday, there will be no report of yesterday’s Balvenie Twitter Tasting from the WHAM (WHisky And More) guys. Apart from the fact that I was home too late, I am also not feeling too well and decided that drinking whisky all night long was not the smartest thing to do.

So, what will this post be about: Upcoming events. I feel there is quite a lot happening in the coming weeks, and to promote some tastings and events a little bit, I should write about them!

• 17 November: A meet & greet with James Watt from BrewDog Brewery, in the Beer Temple in Amsterdam
• 19 November: Bruichladdich Masterclass with Jim McEwan
• 19 November: Four Roses Masterclass with Hans Offringa
• 19 November: Dalmore Masterclass with Richard Paterson
• 19 November: I’m volunteering at Whisky Live Den Haag for Wine World / Douglas of Drumlanrig
• 27 November: ProBieren. This beer tasting is hosted by a friend in a local bar and will get me hammered for sure. 5 dark and heavy beers are on the program, all above 10% ABV.
• 11 December: A small Usquebaugh Society tasting in Alkmaar
• 16 December: A whisky tasting with my previous job. Interactive Studios does this every year for their customers and they asked me to co-host it with one of the guys.
• 13 Januari: Dinner with a lot of friends at Hielander Alkmaar
• 15 Januari: I hope to be invited to the Whiskykoning’s Bottoms Up tasting (hint)
• 18 Februari: Hielander Whisky Festival in Alkmaar
• 24 March (planned): Whisky Festival Noord Nederland
• 28 April (planned): Whisky Fair Limburg an der Lahn.

Some of these things have not been booked yet, but I sure blocked my agenda on all those dates. Previous editions of especially the Whisky Fair and the WFNN were impossible to bad planning, so I decided to block them way in advance, and plan absolutely nothing else on these dates. Thus far, it worked!

I was planning to go the whisky festival in Gent too, but that would be a bit too much. Especially since many of the festivals (apart from Alkmaar) are quite far from home and require accomodation as well. Still trying to save up for some vacationing next year!

I just found out I had never written about my visit to the Pike Brewing Company in Seattle. A truly massive brewpub in the heart of Seattle just of the Pike Public Market. We planned to have dinner and a few beers there on the first day of our vacation in the USA. Things went differently.

We only planned to go there at the end of the afternoon, because I wanted to visit the ZigZag Cafe first. Apparently that is supposed to be one of the 25 best cocktail bars in the States, so a visit was more or less mandatory. Unfortunately, the ‘drinks all day’ thing doesn’t mean they’re open during the daytime, but that they pour alcohol as soon as they are open. We arrived and they were still closed, and would be for several hours.

A simple swap in the plan was made and Pike moved forward, ZigZag moved back on the schedule. I started off at Pike’s with the tasting platter. Six of their beers in small glasses varying from light ales to thick stout. Anneke had a dry mead, to try something different.

Unfortunately, we got talking with all kinds of people around us and after the six small glasses I had an IPA, and another IPA, and another, and another. Then the barman hooked me up with a Double IPA: “You might like this one too”, and I did, and I had a few. That meant that at about 5.30 PM, instead of having dinner at Pike’s and visiting a cocktail bar later on the night, we were completely hammered and almost fell out of the bar. On a Wednesday, with a jetlag.

A quick burger and an early night got us prepped for the next days of our trip, but I never saw food at Pike’s and not even the menu at ZigZag. Bummer…

Naughty Nelly
Crisp with citrus fruits and not too much hops. Quite some cereal and a long finish with herbs like thyme.

Pike Pale Ale
A little hard to pin down. It tries to go in a lot of different directions. Nutty, and some ginger. Didn’t like this one too much.

IPA
Loads of hops and quite the ‘in your face’ attitude. Some acidity and fruits as well.

Kilt Lifter
Sweeter but very light. Quite some cereal again. A lot of flavour is present, but it feels very thin, watered down almost.

Tripel
Massive cereals and old citrus fruits. Not very yeasty which is very nice.

XXXXX Stout
Heavy, thick and dark. Coffee and chocolate. I really liked this one. On the menu it is recommended with quite some desserts and I can see why. Rather sweet too, but in a good way.

Dry Mead
First quite winey but with a cereal and apple undertone. There is some honey present as well.

Double IPA
Even more bitter than the IPA, and a lot dryer too. Old barley. My notes are a bit off for this one, but I really liked it!