Friday, January 08, 2010

Struisse Mikkeller Beer

As I've written in the last few days, I was in Denver for Christmas. Beyond visiting many breweries (I promise more write ups next week) I also made a run to a couple of liquor stores to increase by beer stash. One of the beers I picked up was a special beer from gypsy brewery Mikkeller. This beer was a collaboration brew between Mikkeller and De Struisse brewery out of Belgium. Oh yeah it has 130 IBU's!
The Beer: Beyond the IBU's it weighs in at 9.0%. It pours a hazy cloudy orange with a thick slightly off white head. The first sniff? Oh boy...there are hops yes, and maybe some pale malts, but there is something else...it smells sour, funky. A sip confirms, the beer has soured, oxidized...ITS GONE BAD! How did this happen I asked myself. I quickly went on line and checked out the Mikkeller website and found that this beer had been brewed once in 2007. So this information moves this post from being one about a beer tasting, to being about storage of beer in a liquor store. The store in question was Davidson's Liquor in Centinnial. I found the beer on the shelves, not refrigerated. Looking at the beer closer now, I can see the age in the bottle, the label is faded it looks almost as if the label had been sun faded. Now that I have all the information it doesn't surprise me that this beer could have gone bad. What irritates me is that Davidson keeps it in stock. I don't want to knock the store, in my many trips to Denver I've visited this place many times and have had great luck in beer (yes they keep their Pliny in the cooler). They've done a good job in the past, but here, they have failed considerably by keeping a beer for 2+ years. Nothing wrong with cellaring beer of course but its gotta be kept in the correct environment and this one was definetely not. Sad becuase it seemed like a beer I really would have enjoyed.

2 comments:

J Lackey said...

Sorry about your loss! Since Davidson's is in the burbs, I wonder about their turnover. Did you check out Argonauts selection when you were here? They may have had a fresher selection of beers.

Speaking of Pliny, I just had a pint a few days ago at Vine St. Mmmmm. I'm possibly going back tonight. Hopefully it's still on tap.

Barleyvine said...

I usually do hit up Argonauts, but since we were near the folks place the first half of our trip we went to Davidson's for most of my stash. Pliny on tap is wonderful (had some at our trip to Falling Rock).