Food and Drink

Beer Review #31: Central Waters Illumination Double IPA

Food and Drink

CW Illumination- beerpulse.com

Just FYI, I’ve dispensed with the beer-roundups format. From now on my beer posts will each review a single beer. I’m calling this one Beer Review #31 since my ten existing beer roundups contain three beers each.

Illumination, Central Waters Brewing Co.
Rating:  4.05/5
12 oz. bottle, 9% ABV, 108 IBU (estim.)

Man, that’s good. I gave this beer a 3.95 when it first came out two years ago. I wonder if the formula’s changed. Probably not, or Central Waters would’ve made a big deal of it, the way Sixpoint Brewing did with 2017 Hi-Res. Or Classic Coke. But “new formula!” is usually crisis PR disguised as marketing. That’s certainly not needed with this excellent brew from CW.

Too bad the aroma underwhelms. What am I smelling? Can’t say. The shy aromas hold themselves back. A bland appearance, too, a cloudy, dull amber, like a cellar-aged beer.

My wife says it tastes cellar-aged, too. It does! There’s an oxidized, buttery umami that . . . I don’t know how to finish that sentence. Something about pork. I love pork.

In the mouth it’s brilliantly complex, yet balanced. The clean, citrus hop bite presents first, with maybe a tinge of pine astringency. Then a ripe-fruit sweetness — sweet tangerine and papaya — swirls with the umami to create a proper meal of flavors:  a summer fruit salad and a pork tenderloin in butterscotch reduction. Hyperbole? Sure. But the complexity does impress. Balance comes from the sweet fruit, as opposed to sweet malt. It reminds one of Dirtwolf (Victory Brewing). But better, with more body, more drying ethanol heat, and that character of butter-like, meat-like oxidation.

Uh, oh, hold on: the aftertaste is a bit yucky. The hops in the back end are all white-grapefruit pith, blotting out the fruity sweetness. I’m sure many a hophead would appreciate it. It’s very West Coast, I guess. But hear that? That’s the sound of me sticking my tongue out.

So I was mostly right two years ago with my 3.95 rating. Good on me.

Side note:  this beer is a perfect candidate for the cellar. A year in cool darkness should knock the aftertaste down a notch or two.

[Image credit:  beerpulse.com]

Dark Chocolate: The Super-est Superfood

Food and Drink, Health
20150225_230536

My most recent haul.

Can you tell I like chocolate?

I seek the cocoa, not the sugar. Even my childhood was more Hershey’s Special Dark than Nestle Crunch. Call me a lifelong cacao snob.

These days I prefer bars with 85% cocoa content. Less than 65% seems forgettable; higher than 85%, astringent. No chocolate Easter bunnies (35%)! But neither do I enjoy the black-hole, uber-darks (90+ percent), which to me have hints of Listerine.

Foodie magazines issue their standard caveat to those trying out serious dark chocolate for the first time: Anything over 70% is not for the faint of heart, they say.

Or is it?

Turns out, high-content cocoa is among the heart-healthiest foods there are. We all know red wine offers ∞highly beneficial antioxidants. Dark chocolate? Even more so. Flavonoids, phytonutrients, polyphenols — it’s got them all. The health benefits? We’re talking cholesterol-busting properties and antioxidant action, not to mention anti-inflammatory effect. The ∆ORAC value (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) of cocoa blows the doors off of superfoods we usually think of as the cancer fighters and heart helpers:

Cocoa, µnatural, unsweetened  55,653
Ginger root, raw                               14,840
Apples                                                     6,681
Garlic                                                       5,708
Red wine                                                4,523
USDA Database for the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC)

Granted, that ϶chart-topping ORAC score refers to 100% cocoa solids. So, then multiply that times 0.85, and you still get an 85% chocolate bar with a score of 47,305 — more than three times the value of ginger root.

In case you were wondering, Hershey’s Special Dark contains 45% cocoa. Nestlé Crunch, 30%.

FOOTNOTES

∞ The healthful benefits of dietary antioxidants have not been proven definitively, even though both food science and the medical establishment accept the concept.

∆ ORAC scoring is only one measure of antioxidant properties in foods. Other competing measures (FRAP, SOD, etc.) deviate somewhat from ORAC values. In 2012, ORAC briefly fell out of favor. But the most recent research has reestablished it as the go-to for antioxidant measurement of foods. For more, have a look at this recent piece of research.

µ Here’s info on “natural,” or un-Dutched, chocolate. The Dutching process typically lowers ORAC scores of cocoa, though not by very much.

϶ A number of foods actually score significantly higher than cocoa. But those are mostly spices and herbs — foods one wouldn’t eat enough of to realize significant antioxidant benefits.  [Sorry, that link has gone bad. Here’s another resource with a table of ORAC scores, where cocoa scores even more highly than I had seen before.]

Want to Save $140? Fix Your Chipped Knife

Food and Drink, Health
knife holder with arrow

My chipped knife on the magnetic knife holder.

Why Knives Chip and What to Do About It

I recently found this knife of ours had become chipped pretty badly. I didn’t care all that much. Not only was it a castoff from a friend who’d downsized her kitchen. It was just a $40 item from Chicago Cutlery. Had the chipping appeared on our $140 Wusthof chef’s knife, I would have cared a lot.

This knife? Nah. When I found it chipped, I sneered briefly planned obsolescence. My Filipino parents would say of this scenario sayang, as in, What a waste.

knife chipping closeup - snip tool

I cook without my reading glasses, so didn’t notice the chipping ’til it got pretty bad.

Turns out, I should have been sayang-ing at myself. The chipping wasn’t caused by cheap, flawed steel or poor quality control. It was me.

After hand-washing my knives, I stand them on edge to air dry. I learned somewhere that air-drying is best for keeping knives sterile after washing.

Turns out, air-drying is perfect — if you want droplets of water to collect on the cutting edge, weakening the steel as they slowly evaporate. Then, when sharpened, the weak spots flake rather than grind. Hence, the chips.

Now for the happy ending.

By chance in an airport lounge, I learned of my errant ways from The Today Show. A quick Google search then led me to this YouTube tutorial. Have a look-see at how to easily repair a chipped knife.

Murray Carter of Carter Cutlery going to town on his knife

Murray Carter of Carter Cutlery going to town on his knife

For regular-maintenance sharpening, I’d been using a rolling-wheel sharpener (below). Bad. Not only is the grain to coarse. Its design makes it impossible to keep a consistent grinding angle. This contributes to the chipping–this blunt instrument (as it were) wreaking havoc on the weakened steel. We do have a rarely used whetstone. I’d never used it because the user manual insists on a technique that’s slow to the point of absurdity. (“Pull the knife toward you five times, for two seconds each time. Then reverse directions, away five times. Repeat this alternating cycle fifty to one hundred times.”)

knife sharpener rolling

Little roll-ie sharpener

Wrong! The whetstone used Murray-Carter style (GIF-image, above) is actually a real pleasure. And fast, too.

knife whetstone

Whetstone, extrordinaire

My First-ever Beer-industry Publication

Entrepreneurship, Food and Drink, Media, Wisconsin, Writing

screenshot - chocolate chili stouts

Big announcement. Da, da, DAAAAHHH!

I’ve recently published my first-ever piece of actual beer-industry writing. Please go have look!

Totally excited about Mobcraft, a real up-and-coming, two-year Madison brewery, ready to break ground on their $2 million facility.

I’ll be freelance blogging for them. This first post of mine is an article on chocolate chili pepper stouts, in advance of their newly-bottled beer No Stout About It.

My next piece for them will come out in the coming days. Stay tuned . . .

Wisconsin Friday Fish Fry — Japanese Style

Food and Drink
The Spot cobia2

Seared cobia and a snifter of Louie’s Reserve Imperial Scotch Ale

(Before I start, I should mention this isn’t a fried fish review.)

Lately, the Friday fish fry menu has been the draw for us at The Spot. While I enjoyed the fried walleye last week and the grilled salmon the week before that, tonight the seared cobia gets my vote.

Cobia is a firm, fairly fatty, flavorful white fish. The Spot flash sears it: the skin side comes crispy, the meat side, bronzed, and the core, wonderfully raw.

Think sashimi, but add carmelized fat (if you eat the skin) and a more succulent lusciousness. Searing collects the juices and drives them inward, concentrating the moisture and fat to boost the flavor into the realm of the highest-quality toro. The Japanese call seared fish or meat tataki. But rather than pounded flat or sliced thin as in tataki, the Spot’s seared cobia is an inch-and-a-half thick.

What a surprisingly adventurous dish for such a straight-ahead, casual restaurant. Anyone squeamish of sashimi or tartare might want the grilled salmon or fried walleye, instead. But I’m sure the palates of Madison’s Near Eastsiders will take to it, no problem.

I’m not used to any sauce on a seared piece of fish. But the chef adds TWO: a) a pesto cream, which seems a 21st Century update of the traditional mustard-mayo on tuna carpaccio — perfect for this mostly raw fish; and, b) a balsamic reduction. But, wait! There’s more. The fish floats atop a fluffy cloud of Parmesan risotto. Sound like an overwrought train wreck? Nope. It’s an ingenious amalgam of surprising textures and flavors that scores brilliantly. The sweet/tart drizzle of the balsamic reduction weds the rich sauce to the fatty fish perfectly. And the humble Parmesan risotto, which rivals the best I’ve had anywhere, causes no confusion with its only moderately-rich, mildly salty cheesiness. (I actually don’t love the Vegetable Quinoa Risotto elsewhere on the menu.)

Just a side note: at first blush the piece of fish seems small. But one feels that mild disappointment only relative to the portions of restaurants charging twice the price of this dish. There may not be a lot to take home in a doggy bag. But with the risotto and the nice pile of broccoli, it’s plenty substantial, especially at just $17. I actually do have some left over and look forward to my midnight snack.

We then totally enjoy dessert: a savory, pumpkin cheesecake. The muted sweetness of the filling leaves the pumpkin really prominent. The dish gets its sweetness instead from candied pepitas (so flavorful and chewy, they’re clearly fresh-roasted) and a dollop of sugary fresh cream. The bartender tells us the pastry chef is formerly of the fancier restaurants Harvest and Graze.

When we first started eating at The Spot, I was addicted to the burgers. I’ve tried all three of the burgers on the menu and would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite. They’re all half-pound (I think) patties, grilled to order on a beautiful roll, with a side of wilted mustard greens (or any side dish). $8 for the basic burger, including the side dish? No wonder I was addicted.

I have tried the pork tenderloin and the sirloin steak. But I return again and again to the fish. I love the salmon from the regular menu. And another standout special has been the escolar.

Fish. That’s the chef’s strong suit.

Check out their menu, here.

Eww: the Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Bar

Food and Drink, Health

strawberry shortcake

Although I enjoy the cattiness of a scathing New Yorker film review, I myself take no pleasure in calling out bad products on my blog. I generally skip yucky beers or boring sitcoms, choosing to write about things I want to share with others. (My review of cycling rain jackets is a rare exception.) Chalk it up to temperament, I guess.

In this case I’m compelled to warn others away from this quote-unquote “ice cream” bar.

Either the quality of this product has eroded over the past 38 years, or my taste sure has changed since I was eight years old. (It’s probably not an either/or scenario!) Walking home from our neighborhood beer bar last night, I had the munchies and bought one of these babies in a corner store. “Cake-coated vanilla ice cream, with a strawberry flavored center.” That’s how Good Humor describes it on their site. That, and a prolix list of mostly chemical ingredients. The nutrition app Fooducate describes it differently:

“D+ much worse than average.”

good humor Strawberry shortcake D+

That’s about right.

At eight years old, however, I was addicted to them. The Strawberry Shortcake bar led me down the path to my first real scolding from my parents. That summer my family had just joined a country club, whose swimming pool snack bar inexplicably allowed second graders to sign the tab for hot dogs, sodas, and ice cream on a stick.

For four weeks, before my parents would get the first monthly snack bar bill, I ate five or six of them a day. Often, more. The snack bar was like a narcotics sting operation, with a detective undercover behind the counter in an apron and hair net, enticing addicts to come and get it. Technically that would be entrapment–inducing my brother and me into downing hundreds of dollars’ worth of sugary things we wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

The mid-1970s was a hard time for the fifty-year-old Good Humor brand, what with upstart competitors like Mister Softee and the health food craze that spawned frozen yogurt. Could country club snack bars have been a ploy to boost Good Humor sales? The company certainly could no longer ride the coattails of their genius, mid-century, sleeper PR campaigns. Ever heard the urban legend of the hero Good Humor man who rushed a pregnant woman to the hospital in his jingly ice cream truck? I sure had.

At the end of the month when the jig was up, my parents gave me a strong talking to, disappointed I didn’t have better sense. But could I be blamed? Was it not an insane setup:  that hundreds of dollars’ worth of ice cream could be purchased and consumed in a single month by an eight-year-old and his little brother?

[image credit:  Nestle (drumstick.com)]

To Soak or Not to Soak?

Food and Drink

Kidney_beans - photo by Sanjay Acharya

My biggest cooking frustration? Waking in the morning to assemble ingredients for the slow cooker, only to find I’ve forgotten to soak the beans overnight.

No problem, Plan B is always the “quick soak,” i.e., boiling the beans for five minutes then covering and leaving to soak for an hour. That is, if you have an hour to spare before leaving for work.

Turns out, there’s no reason to soak beans, at all. Or at least that’s what food editor Russ Parsons contends in a recent LA Times piece. In it Parsons surveys the history of the soaking question, talks with food writers on both sides of the aisle, attempts to put the question to bed with science, and crows that he’s been anti-soak for decades. The article even looks at the question of beans and flatulence!

“That’s wrong,” says my wife, when she asks me about the bag of unsoaked beans among the rest of my ingredients. She recites the main reasons an overnight soak is necessary: cook time, tenderness vs. mushiness, flavor, and, yes, reduced flatulence. I’m not surprised by her recalcitrance in the face of legume reform. Every bit of advice I’ve ever seen, heard, or read sides with my wife.

Yet, here’s Parsons from the LA Times article.

Letting dried beans sit overnight in a bowl of cold water does nothing to improve their flavor or their texture. In fact, it does quite the opposite. . . . Finally, soaking does absolutely nothing to reduce the gas producing properties of beans.

We shall see. I’m dumping the bag of unsoaked pinto beans into my Crockpot, now . . .

Bean Soup with Tamarind and Ginger (7-qt. slow cooker)

1 lbs. dried  pinto beans

0.5 lbs. ham hocks

2 lbs. chicken drums

5-inch piece fresh ginger sliced

1 can tomato, diced 24-oz.

3 med onion, cut in 1/8th’s

 6 dried red chile peppers

5 tablespoons tamarind soup base

7 cups stock + 2 cups water

12 cloves garlic, sliced

1 bunch kale or collards

Directions for SEVEN QUART Slow Cooker:

Wash and sort beans.

Place all ingredients (except for greens) into slow cooker.

Switch slow cooker to high until simmering.

Switch to low.

Cut greens into 2-in. strips and add 10 – 20 min. before serving.

Beer Roundup #10: Three Coffee Stouts

Food and Drink

Lagunitas Cappucino Stout coffee beer

To Buy or Not to Buy?

1 = horrible
2 = bad
3 = average
3.5 = good (many better beers out there; won’t buy this again)
4 = very good
4.5 = great
5 = rare best

 

A Note on the Style:  Coffee Stout

Coffee Stout is actually not a style you find described in the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program).  A coffee stout is essentially an American stout in which the brewer has added coffee beans or grounds to the boiling wort.  The result is generally a beer of middling alcohol content (say, 5% – 7% ABV), low to middling hop bitterness (30 – 60 IBU), and a pronounced roasted coffee flavor.

Cappuccino Stout, Lagunitas Brewing Co.
Rating:  4.2 / 5
22 oz. bottle, 9.2% ABV, 82 IBU.

This is a double stout, by the way.  The other two beers in this roundup are regular stouts.

A nice looking pour from a bomber into a tulip glass. Somewhat thin-looking, black, to be sure, with a smallish head, and very sticky lacing.

Perhaps this bottle hasn’t benefited from sitting in my cellar for five months. The coffee aroma seems muted.  A lactose smoothness in the nose makes the coffee-and-cream character astonishingly accurate.  (Pretty sure this was not brewed with any lactose, though, so technically it’s not a “sweet stout” or “milk stout.”)  There’s some vanilla, biscuit, unsweetened cocoa, and a grassy bitterness that must be hops.

Coffee flavor in the mouth is highly bitter, a mouth-puckering acid disrupted some by a milky sweetness that renders the burnt flavor a semisweet chocolate. The vanilla comes forward, with lots of dark chocolate and a subtle buttery caramel. Finish dries out a bit . . . No. Scratch that. The finish is pretty dang sweet. Yes, it’s black coffee and sugar.

If not for being a bit watery in body, the lactose-seeming creaminess makes the “capuccino” element awesomely spot-on.

I used to be in love with this beer. I’m wondering, it should be noted, if five months sitting has hurt this beer. I’ll have to wait ’til next year to see if a fresh specimen recaptures that old magic.

Jingle Java, Bent River Brewing Co.
Rating:  4.55 / 5
12-oz. bottle, 6.5% ABV, 29 IBU.

How lucky to have found this winter holiday beer still lingering in the singles cooler of my neighborhood bottle shop.  It’s fabulous.

This is the most stunning coffee flavor I’ve ever had in a beer. It really is an iced-Americano, with carbonation. The aroma is pure cold coffee with milk.

Flavor in the mouth is uncannily straight-up fresh-brewed iced coffee. There’s a tart, tinny hop bitterness that tries to remind one this is beer. But the aggressive French-roast flavor resists such a notion. There’s a nice sweet vanilla in the background that helps a milk chocolate undercurrent emerge from the dark depths.

Best coffee stout I’ve ever had. Blows doors on New Glarus Coffee Stout. While there are better coffee-infused stouts of imperial strength (Central Waters Brewhouse, 8.2%; Southern Tier Mokah, 10%), Jingle Java beats anything in the 6% – 7% alcohol range.

I wonder how much the low bitterness (29 IBU) plays a part in this brew’s success?

Java Lava, Pearl Street Brewing Company
Rating:  3.9 / 5
12 oz. bottle, 6.0% ABV, ? IBU

Wow, a third really good coffee stout in one night. USA! USA!

Earlier I had Jingle Java, by Bent River, out of Rock Island, Illinois. I’ve heard Bent River has an amazing imperial stout festival. The Jingle Java was actually a cut above this one, but this is still rather decent.

It’s not over the top amazing, like the Jingle Java. But this beer has an excellent demitasse essence.   Great creamy mouthfeel, despite the high carbonation.

Hmm.  As the level in my glass recedes, I see it’s actually nowhere near as good as the Jingle Java.  But it’s a solid brew.

Beer Roundup #9: Three Double IPA’s

Food and Drink

Hop Juice

To Buy or Not to Buy?

1 = horrible
2 = bad
3 = average
3.5 = good (many better beers out there; won’t buy this again)
4 = very good
4.5 = great
5 = rare best

A Note on the Style:  Double IPA, Imperial IPA

Imperial IPA, a.k.a. Double IPA.  A friend of mine recently asked about the terminology.  Rather than referring to an increase of ingredients or the number of fermentation stages, “double IPA” is a nickname for “imperial IPA” (from the acronym “IIPA”).

Hop Juice, Left Coast Brewing Co.
Rating:  4.14 / 5
12 oz. bottle (4-pk), 9.7% abv, 82 IBU.

From a bottle into a tulip, it pours a hazy amber, with very little head, but prodigious lacing.

Remarkably reserved, semisweet aroma. A pleasing herbal and earthy hop aroma. Some barely perceptible Wonder bread in the background, though one must strain to detect the mere whiff of grain.

In the mouth it’s an interesting sub-piney bitterness.  No, wait, I’ve got it:  it’s cold sake!  Very bitter on the backend.  Balance comes from a neutral (not sweet) maltiness. No, scratch that.  As it warms, there’s a serious candy sugar sweetness. Deep hop flavors dominate, spurred on by a sharp alcohol twang.

Medium-bodied, almost chewy. Well-carbonated, with a slippery alcohol warmth.

A very good double IPA, though not as malty as I like them. It supplies a nice sweetness, but it’s missing something. Can’t quite put my finger on it. Nevertheless, I think I’ll be buying one more 4-pack (though none for the cellar).

Palate Wrecker, Left Coast Brewing Co.
Rating:  4.18/5
12-oz. bottle (4-pk), 9.5% abv, 100+ IBU.

Wow, what a great smelling beer.  Its claim to fame is its aggressive hop bitterness.  But the sweet aroma is my favorite feature of this brew.

It’s an awfully handsome, clear golden pour into a tulip, with a big cottony head that sticks around.

The aroma really distinguishes this brew. Sweet, juicy fruits galore: red grapefruit, pineapple, and finally sweet tangerine. Perhaps a honey/floral tea character.

In the mouth, the early sweetness is all fruit juice. Yum.  The hops come on as a salty, white grapefruit bitterness. There’s almost no malt sweetness; the sweetness is fruit, only. Not candied fruit, just ripe, juicy, sweet citrus. Once it’s down the gullet, the aftertaste turns sharply bitter, as if smearing the the throat with white grapefruit rind. That hurts this beer.

Great medium-bodied richness. The high carbonation is a welcome cleanser.

Heelch O’Hops, Anderson Valley Brewing Company
Rating:  3.95 / 5
12 oz. bottle (4-pk), 8.7% abv, 100 IBU

This brew was featured in a Draft Magazine article that had everyone talking, “Three Imperial IPA’s That Rival Heady, Pliny.”  The title truncates the full names of the two beers roundly considered among the best double IPA’s, “Heady Topper” and “Pliny the Elder.”  Those two are also among the most difficult to find beers in the US.,  which is why people are always looking for close substitutes.

Heelch O’Hops ought not to have been included in that article.  (The other two beers featured:  Doozy by Mother’s Brewing and Hopothermia by Alaskan Brewing.)  Heelch O’Hops is certainly not bad.  It’s just not anywhere near the vicinity of elite class brews.

It pours a finger of white head atop a thin, clear, yellow liquid. The foam leaves lacing stuck hard.

A disappointingly subdued, peppery aroma of shy hops. No detectable malt presence in the nose.

The flavor is also disappointing in the mouth. Where’s the malt, the sweet, or the bread that I want in a IIPA? The hop character gives grapefruit pith, rather than sweet orange or tropical fruit. An astringent pine on the back end forces one to take this brew seriously.  It’s that bitter.   Finishes bitter-dry.

Thin body, with moderate to high carbonation.

A quality brew, to be sure, but disappointing that it’s merely an IPA on steroids:  it’s got none of the malt balance or bigger body or sweet fruit of the double IPA’s I love, such as Hopslam, Chillwave, Hi Res, or Double Crooked Tree. Especially disappointing at $12.00 / 4-pack.

Beer Roundup #8: Three American Barleywines

Food and Drink

Old Horizontal - Victory

To Buy or Not to Buy?

1 = horrible
2 = bad
3 = average
3.5 = good (many better beers out there; won’t buy this again)
4 = very good
4.5 = great
5 = rare best

 

A Note on the Style:  American Barleywine

(This style note is essentially the same as the one from my post “Beer Roundup #7:  Three Midwest English Barleywines.”)

American breweries produce both types of barleywine, the malty “English” style and the hoppy “American” style.  As I’m more of a malt guy, I prefer the sweeter English style.  The hoppy American style comes with hop bitterness to rival even the most mouth-puckering IPA.    All barleywines have a stiff malt backbone and generous sweetness, but the hop-forward American-style is often so bitter as to be indistinguishable from a high-alcohol double IPA.  Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are double IPA’s; I love me a double IPA when it’s got intense sweetness to offset the high IBU, like Bell’s Hopslam, Dogfish Head 120 Minute, or Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree.  Same with American barleywines:  as long as it’s both bitter and sweet, it’s got my attention.

Bigfoot, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
Rating:  4.39 / 5
12 oz. bottle (4-pk), 10.2% abv, 73 IBU.

A glinting copper pour into a tulip glass, with an inch of off-white fluffy head that plasters lace on the glass.

The syrupy viscous feel in the mouth is too wonderful not to mention first. The first sip comes with a short-lived sugar sweetness. Then bitter grapefruit renders the sugar a memory. The citrus morphs to tarry pine. Whoa, this brew is too bitter. I immediately want to throw this in the cellar to teach it some manners.  That said, there is a secondary sweetness that calls out from the bitter abyss, alluding to a caramel malt sweetness that’s promised with a year or two of cellar aging. But the spicy alcohol heat teams up with the bitter hops to silence such rumors.

Stepping back to take in the aroma, a pungent honey and ripe melon seem to confirm the ghost of the sweetness. As the glass warms, the bloated bitterness deflates a bit, and a moist, grainy bread emerges, allowing that original simple syrup sugar to creep back into the room.

Rough-edged and impressively huge, like Greenflash Barleywine, this brew lacks the balance and polish of my favorite American barley wines:  Bell’s Third Coast Old Ale and Alaskan Barley Wine.

Beer Line, Lakefront Brewery
Rating:  3.96/5
12-oz. bottle (4-pk), 12.5% abv, 52 IBU.

Sticky, two-finger creamy head and lacing. Rouge-brown amber fluid.

My least favorite beer aroma hits the nose first:  leather. Milky rice pudding and wonder bread make up the malt bill. Brown sugar and vanilla, plus a mild booziness.  Very little hop bitterness in the aroma.

In the mouth the leather greets the palate, first, unfortunately. There’s a waterlogged driftwood that seems wedded to a chocolate-toffee sweetness and a nice estery burn.  Finishes with a loamy top-soil earthiness and a floral bitterness.

Medium- to full-bodied. Creamy and slick, a sticky, bitter finish.

This afternoon I was overly impulsive, buying two 4-packs of this brew.  Perhaps my judgment was clouded by the joyous memory of two recent Midwest barleywine discoveries:  1) just last month I cellared three four-packs of the enviable Stevens Point Whole Hog Barleywine (Wisconsin); and, 2) last month I was floored by Schell’s Stag Series BW (Minnesota), on tap at Mason Lounge.  Those two are a cut above this Beer Line barleywine (Wisconsin).  I don’t think I’ll be buying anymore of this one.  (Going by my ratings system, 4.0 is the cutoff point for purchasing any beer again.

Still, this is a fairly delicious barleywine, more English-style than American. I’ll throw the remaining seven bottles in the cellar.  Maybe a year might do good things, especially with the 12.5% ABV.

Old Horizontal, Victory Brewing Company
Rating:  4.41 / 5
22-oz. bottle, 11% abv, [85] IBU (estim.)

A bomber poured into a tulip glass creates a seriously handsome, ruddy copper glass of beer. It’s topped by a finger of fluffy off-white head that stays and stays, with sticky lacing.

Hoppy aroma, though quietly so.  An indeterminate spiciness.  Sweet grain. The alcohol is present.

Flavor in the mouth opens with sweet bread and red wine, plus a spicy alcohol.  Becomes instantly bitter from the citrusy hops, which dominate through the middle palate and onward through the finish. The sweetness rings as an echo on the backend, though sweetness here is refracted by the intense, white-grapefruit bitterness.

A medium- to full-bodied, luxurious mouthfeel, with a lively carbonation.

Classic American barley wine, very much like Bigfoot, though even bigger (except for the aroma). Intensely hoppy and spicy. The one drawback might be the near eclipse of malt sweetness by the tannic wine and citric bitterness. Nothing a bit of cellaring won’t cure.