Real Ale Sisyphus

I always look forward to the release of Real Ale's outstanding Barleywine. So much so, that I immediately go out and buy a bunch of bottles so that one day in the future I can do a multi-year vertical and see how well these things hold up. But that tasting is for later, today we talk about the most recent vintage of Sisyphus.
The Beer: It pours an orangish copper with a good dense head of off white foam. The nose is hoppy, citrus, grapefruit, raisins, malty. The mouthfeel is full bodied, hoppy, grapefruit peel, balanced with strong caramel malty flavors. Raisins, vanilla, toffee, almost a bourbony quality. There is a slight metallic taste to the beer. Sticky. It works towards balancing hoppy with malty sweetness. I must say that this vintage is not my favorite, but I will be interested to see how well this holds up. This one gets a B from me.

Real Ale Coffee Porter

Real Ale out of Blanco, Texas is one of favorite Texas breweries. My only complaint has always been that they don't bottle enough of their beer's. They really shine in their seasonal's and for the most part those have always been draft only. Well no longer. As reported just a few weeks ago Real Ale has started to bottle their seasonal's, the first being their very popular Coffee Porter. A porter made with coffee roasted by Houston own's Katz Coffee. Made with Organic fair trade coffee and organic barley. Sounds good enough, and I know it tastes great on draft, but how does it taste from the bottle?
The Beer: This one weighs in at 5.6% and pours a dark rich black with bright red streaks when held up to the light. Capped by a foamy slightly off white head. The head quickly dissipates leaving a thin film behind. The nose is roasted malts, chocolatey, burnt roasted coffee beans. The beer provides a medium mouthfeel, smooth almost milky up front. Flowing into bitter chocolate and darkly roasted coffee beans. A tartness underlies the roasted coffee notes. Easy drinking, with a good mix of malts and coffee, with just a tinge of earthy hops. Very nice. Gets a B+ from me. The folks at BA like it as well.

Quick Hits: Texas Beer Happenings

There's a lot going on in the Houston Area for beer lovers. A whole lot of news has come out in the past week that I thought today a Friday would be a good time to put in one place.
- First of course we had the awesome announcement of Saint Arnold's Divine Reserve 9.
- Keeping with Saint Arnold's of course is their announcement of their Octoberfest Party on

October 3rd. Here are the details:
Admission: $42 per person, includes German dinner & special mug
Band: Sideshow Tramps
For reservations, call or email Ann (713-686-9494 or ann@saintarnold.com). As always, she will need credit card, cash or check to make the reservation.

- Continuing with the Octoberfest theme, our northern neighbors Southern Start have announced the date for their celebration as October 24th. Here are some additional details:

There will be a limit of 225 tickets sold which will include food, band, beverages and a nice ceramic stein. The details are still being hashed out, but we will let you know when the tickets will be available for sale.

- To the east in Beumont the Art Museum of Southeast Texas is hosting an Art of Beer event on October 1st:

Beer-lovers and those new to the brew will find over 80 of the finest specialty and seasonal brews from around the world paired with complementary food dishes, cheeses, beer floats, entertainment and much more.

- Lastly in news reported by the Chronicle's Ronnie Crocker Blanco Texas's Real Ale is going to start bottling their Coffee Porter with a release date of 9 October. I wanted a bit more information about any future bottlings of Real Ale brew and after an email exchange found out that this is just the start. The plan is to release a special six pack every 3 months or so starting with the Coffee porter then moving to Phoenixx, Devil’s Backbone, and our new Oktoberfest lager next fall. Can't tell you how happy I am to see Real Ale bottling more of their wares. Its been my biggest complaint about them and now that's resolved.

First Beer Dinner

Readers of the blog know that I'm a staunch advocate of beer and food. In fact I've gone on record saying that there is no other beverage (yes including wine) that pairs as well with food as beer does. For a long time now I've been throwing around having my own beer dinner, friends have asked for it, but for one reason or another I've put it off. Well putting off has stopped and last Saturday I hosted my first ever beer dinner. It was a small dinner with myself, my wife, and three of our friends. 4 courses, each paired with a specific beer.
Course 1 - Gougeres with salad paired with Boulevard Brewing Two Jokers: My wife and I call Gougeres cheesey puffs which in their simplest form I guess that's what they are. These made with grueyere and plated with a salad of arugula, roasted tomatoes and a mustard vinaigrette. The beer? Well I just had this one and thought it would pair well with the strong cheese, and hold up to the vinaigrette. I wasn't disjointed as I thought this was an incredibly strong pairing.
Course 2 - Beer Battered Fried Quail, Biscuits with Homemade Jalepeno Jelly paired with Saint Arnold's Brown Ale: Not only did I pair the food with SA's Brown Ale, but I used it for the beer batter as well. This was probably my favorite pairing of the night. Maybe it was using the beer in the batter as well as the glass, but the rich maltiness of the Brown ale paired incredibly well with the richness of the Quail while at the same time offering a nice contrast to the slight heat of the jalapeno jelly.
Course 3 - Catfish Cakes on a bed of Summer Squash paired with Real Ale's Full Moon Rye Pale Ale: My take on crab cakes, uses much cheaper catfish, is baked and stays really moist. Its one of my favorite recipes that I've picked up recently. There was some heat in the Catfish Cakes that the Pale Ale stood up very well too. The breadiness of the rye complimented the cake as well. While not the strongest paring of the night, the two complimented each other that it was still a hit.
Course 4 - Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Raspberry Coolie paired with Lindeman's Framboise: Finished the evening with somewhat of a classic pairing, a fruit pairing with a Lambic. While not my favorite beer, Lambics are great desert beers and offer a wonderful tartness to the palate. It was that tartness that played off the buttermilk panna cotta beautifully well. This was a great pairing and an awesome way to finish the evening.

The Future: Well all in all this was a fun event, and I am already planning my next dinner (sometime in the fall). Next time? Make sure I always have a Texas beer in the mix, try some unusual pairings, and pictures. I promise next time I'll have pic's of each course.

Real Ale Sisyphus 2008

On December 7, 2007 I posted my tasting notes on the 2007 version of Real Ale's barleywine Sisyphus. It was rather outstanding. Through December I waited, and waited for the 2008 to make it my local Spec's, my only reprieve coming in late January when I was able to have a glass of the well aged 2005 Sisyphus. Where or where was the 2008? Rumors came that it wasn't going to be bottled, but those were quickly squashed, but still no Sisyphus. Finally I made it to the downtown Spec's a couple of weekends ago and what did my wondering eyes find? Sisyphus 2008! Yes! I picked up a bottle or two (ok ok, more than that) putting one in the fridge. It took a while, but I finally had time to crack it open, sit down and really enjoy this beer.
The Beer: The beer weighs in at around 10-11% abv. It pours a slightly cloudy orange along with a thin off-white head. Up front there is an abundance of hops, citrus, apricots, bready. The mouthfeel is thick and tongue coating. Hoppy, resin-y, citrus, grapefruit peel. Apricots with a lot of malt backbone. Yes hops are the king here, but its balanced. Not a lot of alcohol burn with this one, it only showed up later as the beer warmed. There is a marmalade like sweetness to the finish, really good. I'm interested to see how this one will age. The hops may start to dissipate, and the malt become more concentrated with some raisin notes or some bourbon feel to it. We'll see, as I have a few bottles that I'll be aging. This one, the current fresh year, is very good and gets an A- from me.

My Monday at the Saucer

This past Sunday my wife ran in the Houston Half Marathon, and if I may be so bold did a fantastic job. As a reward for her and to help her along the road to recovery from the race, she had a very nice spa day at the Houstonian Hotel. To kill time while she was at the spa, I headed to the Flying Saucer to try some new beers (well at least new to me). It just so happen that all three beer's I had were local Texas products, and all three were wonderful.
Southern Star Buried Hatchet Stout: This will soon be Southern Star's next canned beer, but in the meantime its only available in draft. It weighs in at 9% and pours a deep rich brown almost black with just hints of light shining through. The head is thin, but that may have been due to a bad pour. The nose is strong with roasted burnt malts, coffee, and dark bitter chocolate. The mouth is creamy and thick, dark chocolate covered espresso beans, very smooth and very little alcohol burn. There is some really strong bitterness here, not from hops, but from the malts. It's like eating a 90% dark chocolate bar. Very very nice, I can't wait to try it again. This one gets a B+ from me. It seems the folks at BA like it as well.
Live Oak Primus Weizenbock: Another Texas brewer putting out a Weizenbock. Not to long ago I had never had one, now I've had two from Texas. This one weighs in at 7.5% and pours an extremely cloudy beige (almost unappealingly) with a thick taupe colored head. The nose is chock full of bananas, cloves, roasted malts, and chocolate. The mouth is chewy, thick and tongue coating. It sits on the tongue soaking down into it so you get all the flavors. There are notes of bananas and cloves of course, along with roasted malts, chocolate. Its smooth, its not as bitter as Saint Arnold's version was. Bready and yeast as well from the wheat in the beer. Its a very good beer, but there is some lack of depth in the flavors which is why this one gets a B from me. Good love from BA as well.
Real Ale Sisyphus 2005: Saucer actually had the 03, 05, and 06 on tap. I tried a taster of the 03, but the O5 was what I took notes on. I'm pretty excited to try this one as I have a couple of bottles of the 07 waiting around for me to drink. This one weighs in at 10.5% and pours a cloudy orangish color with a thick dense foamy white head. The nose is sweet malts, citrus orange, and pale toasted malts. The mouthfeel is creamy and dense. Strong notes of orange peel, like I'm chewing on it, caramel, apricots. The finish has a slight alcohol burn and strong citrus hop notes of grapefruit. This is a wonderful beer with strong flavors through out. I don't know what it was like fresh but I it doesn't seem to be very mellowed. A wonderful beer that will probably get better over the next year or two. This one gets an A from me.

The Session: Winter Beers

Finally, December 7th has arrived! The first Friday of the month means its Session time and I'm your lucky host. The theme this month is Winter Beers. I think I'm pretty lucky in that there are quite a few local Texas breweries that make good solid winter seasonal beers. With the goal of staying local my first instinct was to go Saint Arnold's Christmas Ale, a beer that I have reviewed a couple of times on this site. However I wanted something a little different so I kept searching. My next choice was for Rahr and Sons Winter Warmer, however I never found any down in Houston. Finally I went to my local Central Market for some inspiration. I spoke to the Beer Man there Caesar and he new just what I should get: Real Ale Sisyphus Barleywine Ale 2007, so that's what I did. The second optional part of the theme was to pair beer with wine or use it in a beer inspired recipe. While Barleywines aren't traditionally used in cooking, they are used in food pairings, one food in particular: cheese, big blue cheese at that. Again I searched for local foods, and found a really nice blue cheese from Pure Luck and their Hopelessly Blue Cheese. Now I had all of my ingredients, its time for write up!
The Beer: Using a sifter shaped glass, the beer pours a cloudy brown with a thin head. The beer weighs in between 10 and 11% abv. The nose is white grapes, sweet malt a bit of floral hoppiness. The hops show up in the taste, but its very well balanced with the malts. This is not an overly hoppy Barleywine say in the style of Avery Hog's Heaven. You get more toasted malts, even a little sweet caramel, a tinge of alcohol as it drips down your throat, more white grapes and a bit of honeyness all with out being cloying. Very smooth barleywine, one that I could sip on all night long. This one is an A- in my book. Here's what the folks over at BA had to say.
The Cheese: This is a pretty mild blue cheese, very creamy, with just a little bit of that blue funk that I like in this style of cheese.
The Paring: When the cheese is eaten with the beer the 'funk' as I call it explodes over the tongue really accentuating the flavors. The honeyness and maltiness really brings out the gorgeous flavors of this cheese. Great paring I think.

Well that about does it for my Session Entry, next up of course is posting a round up. I've already received quite a few entries, but if you have sent me yours you can post a link to this post with your entry or email me at ted.duchesne@gmail.com. I plan on posting a round up no later than Sunday. Hopefully that will catch any stragglers.

Real Ale Brewhouse Brown

In my quest to taste more Texas Beers than I have in the past I picked a six pack of this Brewhouse brown from Real Ale. Packed in a unique six pack...a simple cardboard container only enclosing the tops of the neck's leaving the lower part of the bottles expose.
The Brewery: Real Ale is located in Blanco Texas, outside of Austin. It has been in business for 10 years, in fact they celebrated their anniversary on June 24th. Like most small breweries they are dedicated to the local community helping as much as they can with community service projects. To brew their beer they use a 15 barrel stainless steel brewing system to create their handcrafted beers. This is the epitome of a small brewery, but they make 4 regular beers, and 2 seaonals, a Barley wine and a Shade Grown coffee Porter that I would love to try.
The Beer: The beer is a light 5.4% and pours a deep rich brown, with streaks of red in the glass. A nice quarter inch tan head settles in, staying a while before finally dissipating to a constantly thin head and plenty of lacing. This is a very malty beer, with hints of chocolate, caramel and roasted malts in the nose. The mouthfeel is very nice, dry, slightly sweet, with the same caramel, roasted, and chocolate malts. This beer is made with four different types of malts, I can get 3 down, not sure what the other is though. My only complaint is the total lack of hoppy bitterness, which reminds me more of a English Brown ale not an American one. Not asking for a lot, just a bit and this would be a great beer. As it is, its a very smooth brew that I thoroughly enjoyed and would pick up again. Here's what the folks over at BA say.
Food for thought: I had this with grilled turkey and hatch chili pepper burgers and it went incredibly well. The sweetness of the malt helped over ride the spiciness of the burger and roasted and caramel malts fit in with the char of the grilled burgers. A very nice match.