Episode 90: Victory Old Horizontal – Time to put this series to bed

News

A new Gallup poll out recently shows that adult consumers now prefer beer to wine by a double digit margin. This is a bit of a reverse in trends from previous years, where in 2005 wine actually was in the lead, causing some to say that beer was dead. Looking at the results of this poll, you know it doesn’t surprise me much. My guess is that during economic slow times, beer may move up the beverage scale because it can be cheaper than wine.

Barleywine History Part II

• Well we have been promising you some history on the barleywine, and wouldn’t you know it has taken us up until the last show of the series to deliver on that promise. But hey, better late than never.
• Barleywines, like many of the ales that we talk about, orginated in England in the early 1700s. Up until this time, the upper class in England was drinking wine from France, with many of the brewers rather envious of that fact.
• Slowly, a wealthy merchant class began to arise, that already seemed to have a bit of a liking for beer, and brewers started to play a little bit with yeast and stronger worts, slowly creating products that rivaled wines in both strength and complexity.
• Early on, these beers may have been called October beers, Dorchester beers, malt liquors, or malt wines, but by the early 1800s, the term barley wine was being used.
• These beers are not easy to brew because no only to you have to get a very strong sugary wort, at times actually adding sugar to raise it enough, but you also have to get the yeast to convert more sugar than they are used to.
• Originally, these were first probably brewed by butlers for wealthy families, who could take their time and create a wonderful product. All I have to say is I want me a butler like that!

Victory Old Horizontal

• So tonight we hit the last beer of the series, and it is from an old familiar brewery to faithful YNB listeners, Victory Brewing Company from Downingtown, PA.
• It was founded in 1996 by Ron Barchet and Bill Covaleski in an old Pepperidge Farm bakery, but currently distributed in 23 states.
• Tonight’s beer, Old Horizontal, weighs in at 10.5% abv and is going to be closer to the American style of barleywines, so in other words, it will be a bit more hoppy and aggressive.
• The pour is darker than the last couple weeks, almost like a brown ale or a light porter. Think of like a dark mahogany here.
• The pour actually has a good dark cream head that sticks around for a while.
• The smell is all about hops, and it is aggressive to say the least.
• The taste is once again hops up front. The more the beer warms up, the more the malt comes out, but by no means is this beer as malt forward as it has been the last couple weeks.

Next Week

Thats it, we are done with getting Jim drunk. We are going to move on to something a little lighter, specifically, ambers. We’ll be starting off with New Belgium Brewing Company’s Fat Tire Ale Ale.

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Episode 89: Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot – Enough of this will make you one

This week another barley wine, Blithering Idiot from Weyerbacher. This beer is a little harder to get a hold of, but worth the effort.

News

Tonight’s news story comes from Chicago and MillerCoors. They are putting out a new Aluminum Pint bottle, which was first designed for Pittsburgh Brewing Company. This one has a bigger mouth which Miller says that it offers a smoother flow to enhance the Miller Lite Taste and a resealable lid to help lock in the taste. I think I can best describe the look of bottle as a can with a cone on top.

Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot

• Weyerbacher is located in Easton, Pennsylvania. In fact I first heard about this brewery when I was in grad school at Lehigh.
• It was founded in 1995 by Dan and Sue Weirback. Shockingly, Dan was a home brewer before he started the business.
• The brewery is known for its big beers, in fact they have a big beer box, a case of mixed beers that are all big in alcohol.
• In addition to being a big barrel aged beer brewery, it has also been called one of the best Belgian style breweries in the country. Their Quad is another great one to pick up if you get the chance.
• Tonight’s beer, the Blithering Idiot, weighs in at 11.1 percent ABV and is a great beer to store for 4 or 5 years according to the brewery.
• The pour tonight is a little bit darker than the last couple, but it still has that copper tone to it. The head on this one was a creamy white and acutally stuck around for a while.
• The smell is a bit more alcoholic than the past couple weeks, it seems to pour through the malt a little bit more. Once again, not too much hop aroma here that I could find.
• The taste at first to me was kind of sharp, but I realized I was drinking this way too cold, so I let it warm up a bit. After that there is the same malty profile as before, but with a little more bitterness this week, probably from the alcohol, but that is a good thing. I think it helps cut some of the sweetness away.
• So again, a pretty good beer. If you can get one, grab it and lay it down for a year or two before you try it, or even better, grab one of their Insanity’s instead. I find them much more complex.

Next Week

Alright, one more week of the heavy stuff left. The finally barleywine we will be doing is Victory Old Horizontal, and to be honest, it may make me want to be horizontal.

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Episode 88: Flying Dog Horn Dog – alright, there are just too many jokes

Another Barley Wine this week. Horn Dog from Flying Dog, one of our favorite breweries, because they give us free beer on occasion, hint, hint to other breweries!

News

A bit of a tragic news story out of Colorado. The ramp at Colorado 58 to eastbound I-70 in Wheat Ridge was closed after a 53-foot refrigerated semi tractor-trailer hauling beer overturned. The driver wasn’t injured and no other cars were involved, said Lisa Stigall, spokeswoman for Wheat Ridge police. The ramp is expected to be closed until for at least afternoon, while the truck is set back on its wheels and the beer off-loaded, Stigall said.

Flying Dog Horn Dog Barleywine

• This weeks show comes from a company that we have talked about a few times, Flying Dog Brewery, located in Frederick Maryland. I believe we have covered their Gonzo Imperial Porter and Doggie Style Pale Ale in the past on Your Next Beer.
• It orginally opened as a brewpub in 1990 in Aspen Colorado and was it’s first brewery in 100 years.
• In 2006 they starting to shift operations to a Frederick Maryland brewery and in 2008 shifted all production to that location. They currently brew around 50,000 barrels a year at this location.
• Tonight’s beer, Horn Dog, weighs in at 10.5% abv and is part of the Canis Major series.
• It is made with 3 types of malt and 3 types of hops and is actually aged for 3 months before it is bottled. It actually wone the 2004 silver medal at the World Beer Cup for the barley wine catergory.
• One of the nice things about Flying Dog is that they suggest that types of food to go with beer. For this one, they suggest cinnamon desserts, game, and hearty beef dishes.

Next Week

Well we are three beers deep in this series, with a couple more to go. Next week we go to a brewery that many people will have trouble finding, Weyerbacher and Blithering Idiot. So tune in and listen to us become blitering idiots while drinking it.

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Episode 87: Clipper City Heavy Seas Below Decks

A new brewery for the second in our Barleywine series. Tonight we talk about Clipper City Heavy Seas Below Decks.

News

Tonight’s story is from across the pond from the UK. Police raided a 16th birthday party at a leisure centre in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, and seized 110 pints of beer, or about 13.75 gallons. A police spokesman said: “The amount of alcohol … could have resulted in someone being seriously ill or hurt if they had been able to consume it.” I must say, that seems like quite a bit of beer for a 16 year olds birthday party.

Heavy Seas Below Deck

• Well, I think that we said we would be doing a beer from Brooklyn this week, but as normal we have changed things up a bit on the show. Instead, we are going to be doing a beer from Clipper City Brewing and their Heavy Seas series.
• Clipper City was founded by Hugh Sisson in 1995. Mr. Sisson also operated Baltimores first brewpub, named Sisson’s in 1989.
• In 1998 Clipper City bought Oxford Brewing Company and expanded in size. They currently brew about 15,000 barrels a year.
• The website says that the brewery is named for the famed Clipper ship, first developed and built in Baltimore.
• The Heavy Seas line is made up of beers that are a bit higher in alcohol, including the beer that we are going to talk about tonight, Heavy Seas Below Deck Barleywine.
• Below Deck weighs in at around 10% ABV which is about average for the style.
• It was created to celebrate Clipper City’s 10th Anniversary and is extremely limited and “vintage” dated. It is made with both three type of malts and three types of hops.

Next Week

Well next week we are going to be staying in the Maryland area with Flying Dog Horn Dog Barleywine, so tune in and listen.

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Episode 85: Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine – One monster of a beer

A new series this week as we dive into Barleywines. For this week a familiar west coast brewery, Sierra Nevada, brings us Bigfoot Barleywine.

News

This weeks news story comes from the ice bowl known as Lambeau Field. This past week, a longtime Lambeau Field beer man Allan Hale became the 11th member of the Green Bay Packers Fan Hall of Fame. A friend who often sits in section 119 where the 70-year-old Hale has worked since 1963 nominated him. Hale told The Associated Press in a profile January that he became a beer man by accident, looking for a ticket to a game in 1963 when he was approached by a vendor.

Barleywine

• Tonight, we start a new style of beer, the Barleywine. This style is not for the meek, with average ABV’s running from 8 – 15%.
• A barleywine is first off a beer and not a wine. It is brewed like any other beer as opposed to just being left to ferment like wine.
• The taste of barleywines can range from fruity to sweet to bitter and can be amber to dark in color.
• One of the resounding flavors that you can generally pick out in these is the alcohol warming. My experience with these is that they can almost resemble lower proof brandy’s and whiskeys at times, so just be aware of what you are getting into, but don’t be scared.
• This style of beer originated in Great Britain, which we will talk more about next week.

Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine

• Sierra Nevada, for those of you just tuning in, is located in Chico, California, and was founded in 1980 by Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi.
• Sierra Nevada is on the verge of becoming a big brewery, but is by no means a small local one right now. They brew approximately 700,000 barrels a year, most of which is going to be the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, their flagship beer which we have talked about on this show.
• The Bigfoot Barleywine weighs in at 9.6% ABV and is pretty widely available. I actually got to sample this one last Friday on tap.
• The beer has won the gold medal for barelywines at the GABF in 1987, 1988, 1992, 1995, and 2005, so it is a pretty well received beer as well.
• I had this beer in a snifter style glass, and when it came to me it didn’t have much of a head on it at all. The color was a dark brown with some hints of orange in it.
• Smell was hoppy, some malt laying in the background, but the taste was what I loved about it.
• I found it to be a balanced to hoppy beer, with a nice soft hop finish. I say that I found it to be this way because this beer, like most barelywines can be cellared and will taste dramatically different year to year.

Next Week

While we’re not exactly sure what we are going to talk about, but Monster Barleywine from Brooklyn Brewing Company.

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