Flying Dog's Canis Major Mix Pack

I've been a fan of Flying Dog's beers ever since I was introduced to their wares at their original brewery in downtown Denver. For whatever reason I haven't had many of their beers since they moved across country to Maryland. Well that has now changed. This past weekend I made a journey up to Spec's Downtown and saw Flying Dog's Canis Major Mix pack. Now this is not just any mix pack. It contains two bottles of Flying Dog's Big beers. Big as in high alcohol. Two each of Horn Dog Barley Wine, Kerberos Tripel, Gonzo Imperial Porter, and Double Dog Pale ale. However, the coolest part of this pack was the bottles. These were packaged in 7.0 oz bottles instead of the traditional 12 oz. I think this is a brilliant way to package stronger beers as you can have a couple of bottles and not be plastered so kudos to Flying dog as they are the only brewery that I know of that packages in this way. Another reason that I was excited to see this mix pack is that its the only way we can get Gonzo Imperial Porter and their Tripel as for whatever reason they don't ship those two to Texas. So as I've had the Horn Dog and Double Dog before I dove into the mix pack for the other two.
Kerberos Tripel: I love tripels as I believe they are the Champagne of beer (no that is NOT Miller High Life), and have a lot of similar characteristics of toasted bread, bubbles, yeasty notes, etc. So let's see how this one pairs up. It weighs in at 8.5% and pours a golden orange color with a quarter inch bright white head. The nose is of honeysuckle, pears, fruity sweet yeast notes. The mouth feel is poppy, but not much a little flatter than expected. There are peppery notes, honey, pears, candied sugar. A little boozy. Its missing some of the biscuity flavors and some of the bubbly mouthfeel I love in a tripel. The flavors are good, but its just missing a little oomph. It gets a B- from me. Here's what the folks at BA have to say.
Gonzo Porter: The label calls this an Imperial Porter, but most would call it a Baltic Porter. These are named after the Baltic area in Eastern Europe where they took English Porter and amped it up quite a bit to higher alcohol levels. This one weighs in at 7.8% and a hoppy 85 IBU's. It pours an inky dark brown with a thick rich brown colored head. The nose is full of molasses, chocolate, citrusy hops, and coco nibs. The mouthfeel is think and tongue coating. Rich dark chocolate, raisins, and grapefruityness. Its a bitter beer, bitter times 2. One level of bitterness hits you from the deep dark chocolate malts, the other bitterness hits you from the citrusy hops. Very different, but they compliment each other. Think of dark chocolate covered orange peel and you get the idea (not quite as citrusy as that though). Some vanilla flavors show up as it warms. Very nice. This one gets a B+ from me. Lots of BA praise for this one.

Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale

What better way to celebrate this months Session Theme of German Beer than partaking in a German style beverage. I've had almost everything Flying Dog has to offer, and posted on most of them. This one is a beer I've had before but its the first time I've had the opportunity to do a write up of my thoughts. The Tire Bite is Flying Dog's version of a Kolsch Beer, a beer that I am rather fond of. For this beer instead of using a chalice or pint glass I used the traditional Kolsch style glass.
The Beer: Weighs in at 5.0% just right for a Kolsch and pours a golden straw color with a rather thin stark white head. Lots of tiny bubbles evident, like a fine champagne. The nose is yeasty and bready. There is a lot of carbonation in the mouth, a good yeasty taste with a bit of hoppy bitterness. A solid if not spectacular example of the Kolsch Style. I still say Saint Arnold's Lawnmower is the best American example I've had. This one still gets a B- from me. Here's what the folks at BA had to say.

Two Beers from Flying Dog

I'm a huge fan of Flying Dog beers. When they were in Downtown Denver I went to the tour and tasting on multiple occasions, but just because they've moved across country to Maryland doesn't mean I like their beers any less. Walking through my local Spec's I came across Flying Dog's Sample Pack containing 5 different beers: Amber, Wheat, Pale Ale, Kolsch, and Porter. Well not quite...due to the archaic beer labeling laws in Texas we don't get the Porter, instead Flying Dog put their seasonal beer: Woody Creek White a Belgium Wheat Beer. I'm ok with that change (although I do need to try their Porter, heck and their new Triple). So in the process of trying good session beers I figured it would be fun to try two different wheat beers, one the Woody Creek, the other Flying Dog's In Heat Wheat a German style Hefeweizen.
The Beer: Woody Creek White: The beer weighs in at 4.8% abv, pouring a beautiful hazy cloudy gold capped with a thick white head. The nose is spicy, some banana notes, orange zest, spices, coriander. Great thick mouthfeel, really strong notes of citrus; oranges, lemon pie. Very thirst quenching and a great beer on a hot Texas day. This on gets a B+ from me.
The Beer: In-Heat Wheat: This one weighs in at 4.7% pours a good cloudy orange with a good dense head, a little thinner than I like, but its very dense. The nose is full of banana's and cloves. This is what I love in a good German Hefe. This is what is missing in most American Wheat beers so I'm extremely glad to see it here. As stated the nose is good, but not great, I'd like to see the banana and cloves to be a little stronger. Great mouthfeel, thick, good bananas, some citrus notes, just a bit of sourness. All in all a very solid wheat beer, this one gets a B from me.
More from Flying Dog to come as I make my way through their pack.

Beer News

A couple of quick Beer related news notes on this beautiful Houston Friday afternoon.
- First off an article from MSNBC on yet another Beer Merger. This one's big time folks. In news that could change the global economics of beer, Belgian SUPER Brewery INBEV may be bidding of American Super Brewery Anheuser Busch. If those two giants merge, you have one huge corporation with wide ranging imports, distribution resources, etc. Using A-B's distribution could INBEV's beers edge out some local micro-brewery's at the local supermarket? Bet on it.

- Secondly, I've been talking about Colorado Brewery Oskar Blues lately, so this news is rather timely. Colorado's only Whiskey Distillery Stranahans has contracted Oskar Blues to make their mash. You may remember that Stranahans is owned by Mr. Stranahan who owns Flying Dog, formerly of CO, however when Flying Dog left for Maryland recently Stranahans whiskey was left without someone to make their mash for them. They had always wanted to continue to use a local craft brewery and it looks like they've found a good one. What does Oskar Blues get out of the deal (besides money of course)? They get to use Stranahans used Whiskey barrels, leading me to ask the obvious question. Could a Barrel aged can beer be to far away?

Flying Dog Oak Aged Gonzo

When I posted about my stay in Denver over Christmas, I talked about going to Flying Dog Brewery. While there I was able to pick up three great unique beers, first there was the Oak Aged Horn Dog, then Collaborator, and lastly this beer. Its an Oak Aged (for 6 months) Imperial Porter that has been "infected" with Brett. Brett is short for Brettanomyces, and is a acidogenic yeast compound and when grown on glucose the yeast produces a large amount of acetic acid. In the wine world, winemakers will go to great lengths to keep Brett out of their wine beyond very very low levels. At these low levels Brett can create positive sensory complexity, however beyond that the wines can be described as mousy which doesn't really sound like a good thing. However beer behaves differently when Brett is introduced. Certain styles of beer, specifically Belgian styles such as Lambic and gueuze owe much of their complexity to Brett. In Orval for example, the brewers add Brett to the bottles helping to give it its unique taste. With all of these examples you can see that the addition of Brett gives a degree of 'sourness' to the beer.
The Beer: The beer pours a very dark brown with a thick cappuccino colored head. The nose has raisins, chocolate, cherries, vanilla and some oakyness. The taste has an underlying sourness, along with cocoa, raisins, toffee, roasted malts, bitter espresso, and a hint of molasses. The beer is smooth, its an interesting brew, and its not a session beer. I think there's too much going on here, to drink more than one. The sourness is not that overpowering, but the bitterness is. Its a weird combination of sour bitterness, going on but the bitter compounds far outweigh the sour ones. A little alcohol-y too. This isn't to say I didn't enjoy the beer, I did, and I also respect what the folks at Flying Dog were attempting here. I think its incredibly interesting beer, but definitely not my favorite. I'd give it a C+.

Whats in a name?

A couple of weeks ago I posted on the new beers that Flying Dog will be releasing this year. Yesterday I received their e-newsletter and noticed something strange. They had changed the name of their Tripel Beer.
Here's the label from the original press release:















Now here is the label from this weeks newsletter:















As you can see the beer has gone from Cerberus to Kerberos. Why the change? I spoke with the folks at Flying Dog today and they let me know that as soon as they sent out the press release they learned that there was already a Cerberus Tripel being brewed in Baltimore, so they changed the name of the beer to the Greek spelling of the three headed hell-hound. Mystery solved, but regardless of the name, I can't wait to try the beer. The beer's either been release or will be shortly so hopefully its only a matter of time before it gets to Houston.

The Session # 11 - Doppelbock,

Its the first Friday of the month so that means its time for the Session. The Session is a monthly virtual beer tasting, hosted by a different beer blogger every month, each session with a different theme. This month's host is Wilson over at Brewvana, and the theme this month is Illuminator: Doppelbock.
Before getting into the beer I chose for my tasting let's look at what a Doppelbock is. While the birth of Bock beer can most likely be traced to the German town of Einbeck, Doppelbocks originated in Munich, Germany. Bock as a whole are traditionally strong and malty, smooth with toasty and caramel flavors, usually weighing in at 6 to 7 percent abv. Doppelbock's originated from the monk's that were in Munich (which in German means place of the monnks). They were Lenten beers, made to be bigger to help get the monk's through their fasting. The first doppelbock released to the public in 1780, its name was Salvator (meaning Savior). This began the tradition of Doppelbock beers having names that ended in -ator. From a style Doppelbock's are stronger that 7% with a lot of smooth malt flavor, and dark colored.
Now on to the beer I chose. Since no Texas Brewer makes a doppelbock I knew I was going to have to search around for something unique (i.e. not Salvator or even Celebrator). Luckily I was heading to Denver for Christmas and when I went to Flying Dog recently I found the beer I would use: Flying Dog's Wild Dog Collaborator. This is a complex beer before even opening it. Last year Flying Dog started what they called an Open Source Beer Project. The goal of this project was to post a recipe to a beer (in this case a Doppelbock) on line. Then over the course of a few months allow anyone to change and tweak the recipe. Changing malts, hops, specific gravity, how much of those ingredients, etc. The original post with a full explanation is here. The final beer ended up looking like this:
Alc: 8.3%
IBU: 24
Malts: Munich “Type I” 2240 75, Munich “Type II 550 19, Cara-Munich 55 2, Cara-Amber 55 2, Melanoidin 55 2 .
Hops: Warrior, Mt. Hood.
Now on to the Beer: The beer pours a nice amber with a thick head. Malt and caramel even some floral hops on the nose. The mouth is malty, caramel balanced with some pinyness, a little bitter, even something that I equated to cherries on the palate. This is a very smooth very drinkable beer. It hides it's alcohol well. Its not so rich that you couldn't drink the whole bottle in one sittiing. It's a well made drinkable Doppelbock. I give this one a strong B.

Now head over to Brewvana for more Doppelbock posts.

Oak Aged Beers

A couple of days ago while I was in Denver, I picked up the most recent copy of Draft Magazine with Food Network's Dave Lieberman on the cover and I wanted to make a few brief comments on the magazine before getting to the main point of the post. While there have been many mixed reviews on the magazine (including those from me) I think this was its most solid effort. A sign of a good new magazine is that it steadily improves, and Draft over the course of its first year has done that. Its articles are more beer-centric, it always touts beer and food pairings (this edition more than any other), it has a pretty good layout, and a good balance between articles and ads (while other mag's seem to have twice as many ad pages as articles). Draft also has a strong lineup of contributors including Charlie Papazian, Stan Hieronymus, Rick Lyke, and Don Russell that give the magazine a good depth of knowledge. However you feel about Draft though, there is no denying that right now is a great time to enjoy beer magazine's with the re-tooled All About Beer, the Beer Advocate's Mag and Draft, and I don't think you can go wrong with any of them.
Now on to the main point of this post, oak aged beers. Within the aforementioned new Draft is a great article by Mr. Hieronymus covering Oak Aged Beers. The article inspired me to post my thoughts on two such beers that I was able to enjoy during my time in Denver.

2006 Old Curmudgeon: This beer comes from the Englewood, CO branch of the brew pub chain Rock Bottom Brewery. Although its part of a chain pub each restaurant has an independent brew master. There are some standards that the chains have to have, but other than that they are left to their own imaginations. At this particular Rock Bottom, the brewmaster is Rick Abitbol from Germany, and he's also a pretty honored brewer based on the awards that he has won. This particular beer is one of those that has won awards. The beer is the 2006 Barley Wine aged in oak whiskey barrels for 12 months. The beer pours a cloudy brown with a nice head, smelling of oak, raisins, a bit of alcohol and sweet caramel-y malts. The mouth is malt-y, raisins, prunes, thick and chewy, a bit of alcohol, some honey and lychee even. A very rich beer, that was great to have in very cold Denver. This one gets an A- from me.

Flying Dog Wild Dog Barrel Aged Horn Dog: This beer I picked up during my recent visit to Flying Dog. Horn Dog is their Barley Wine that is also part of the Canis Major Series. They took that beer and aged it for 13 months in Stranahan's Whiskey Barrel's. No word on whether or not this will be a regular beer of if this was just a one time experiment. The beer weighs in at 10% and pours a dark brown. There is no head and no carbonation. The nose is whiskey, vanilla, and oak. The mouth is smooth, thick due to the lack of carbonation, rich vanilla, oak, caramel, and a bit of alcohol burn. This beer tastes like a malt bomb if I've ever had one, its thick, bready, yeasty. The prominent flavor for me is the whiskey, in fact with the little carbonation its almost more whiskey like than beer. I could sip on this for hours upon hours though. Its quite amazing, quite complex. As you can tell I really enjoyed this, my one complaint is the lack of head and any carbonation. If Flying dog could get that little bit of additional creaminess I think it would put it over the top. I really hope that the folks at Flying Dog continue with this experiment (I just hope I can get my hands on a bottle since I probably won't be up at the new brewery in MD). This one gets a solid A from me.

More on Flying Dog

Well, my Christmas vacation to Denver is over and I'm back in good ole Houston. I have a few things to write about that occurred during my stay but I first wanted to touch on some additional news I've recieved from Flying Dog. Josh Mishell over at Flying Dog sent me a press release covering the two new beers that I mentioned in my previous post. As a recap, Flying Dog is creating two new beers for next year. The first is an addition to their Canis Major line up and is a Belgium Tripel named Cerberus, the second is their Spring seasonal a Bierre De Garde named Garde Dog. In the press release they sent out the new labels, still done by British artist Ralph Steadman. You can see the labels below. They look pretty cool, and I can't wait to try the new beers. The other cool news is that they will be releasing two new mixed packs of their Canis Major (Gonzo Porter, Horn Dog, Double Dog and the New Cerberus). The first will be a four pack of each of the beers, the second will be an eight pack of 7 oz bottles, so the consumer will have two short bottles of each. A pretty unique idea and a way to try some of these higher aclohol beers without drinking a full 12 oz.

My Trip to Flying Dog

Last week I posted about the recent news of Flying Dog Brewery moving from downtown Denver to Frederick, MD. Since I'm in Denver for Christmas I figured this week would be perfect to make a special trip to the brewery for a tour, a tasting, and hopefully to talk to some of the fine folks there. Well I must say I couldn't be happier with my trip there. All three things happened and it ended up being great time. I spent quite a bit of time speaking with Josh Mishell and Neil Stewart at Flying dog, and had a long conversation with both. None if it was an official interview or anything so I won't get into direct quotes just some interesting news bits based on my discussions with him and others at the brewery.
Flying dog has brewed the last beer in the Denver Brewery, however, they have one more bottling run in January then everything will be moved to MD. Currently the brew tanks are holding the distillers wash for next doors Stranahan's Whiskey. After Stranahan uses up this wash, they will be contracting to another craft brewer to help out in their whiskey making (who this will be is still to be determined). Flying Dog will not be keeping open the tasting room in Denver as its not economically feasible to use that space solely for tasting, however they may work with next door's Blake Street Tavern (whom they already have a relationship with) for some tasting events. One of the big questions I had was why were they heading out East in the first place. It was explained to me that Flying Dog had been doing some contract brewing in the past (Spanish Peaks most notably) however those opportunities have started to dry up and many contracts are trying to go to other brewers for less money. After this Flying Dog looked to expand operations and since they couldn't do that in the facility they were at they initially looked at contracting their beer out east in the Frederick facility. This would allow them to expand their distribution across the US. However after a time the brewery came up for sale for a reasonable amount of money and the folks at Flying dog jumped at the opportunity. This led them to operating two facilities, one in Denver, one in Frederick. This was never good economically, and with the increase in prices for raw materials it became even more difficult to pay lease on the Denver building when it was only making 30% of the product. With that they made the difficult decision to move all operations to Frederick starting January of next year. They are offering all current employees relocation packages, and those that don't accept will be getting severance packages. Its nice to see them take such good care of their employees. While I'm disappointed that they are leaving Denver, the reasons why make sense to me.
In other interesting news I did find out that Flying Dog will be releasing two new beers next year, one will be there Spring Release and it will be a Bierre de Garde, the second will be a Trippel.
Lastly I was able to pick up 3 really amazing beers one of which I will be using as my Sessions Tasting, the other two I'll be writing up when I can. Special thanks to Josh and Neil for being so nice to me and my wife during our visit.
Thanks again to all the rest of the folks at Flying Dog and good luck to you all in MD.