Beverage(s) of the Week: Double IPAs

The Sparrow has a bunch of double/imperial IPA's on tap this week, and they're doing flights. Yeah, I love everything about the concept of beer flights. Anyway, this meant I got to sample five different beers - which isn't as easy as it sounds, you know - and three of them I'll review today: Sun King's Amarillo the Princess Warrior (wtf?), Bell's HopSlam, and Dogfish Head's 90 Minute IPA. Double India Pale Ales (DIPAs) are essentially high-alcohol IPAs, often with expanded hopiness (thought these are milder in that respect). Sometimes they're called Imperial IPAs, after Imperial stouts, which have a similar philosophy.

Dogfish Head's 90 Minute IPA: By now, this could be considered a classic. While DH's stuff disappoints me as often as it excites me, I always respect their creativity and risk taking. You could almost call this boring by their standards, but being continually hopped AND dry hopped, it was certainly and innovator in its day. Not to mention it's a hop-focused beer that actually tries (and succeeds) in balancing that bite, unlike a certain Indiana DIPA which was also in last week's flight. This was actually the first time I'd tried this on tap, and i have to say it's much improved fresh off as opposed to bottled. Light bodied, golden amber in color with citrus notes forward, balancing out the hoppy floral notes. There's a surprising bready maltiness here, but nothing overwhelms and it finishes with a lovely mild bitter hoppy bite. Eminently drinkable - just remember it's 9.0% ABV. 8/9 on tap (7.5/9 bottled).

Bell's HopSlam: Wow. Again, first time I've had this on tap, and while I've always enjoyed this beer, this was impressive. Strawberry. Slightly overripe strawberries. On the nose and the palate - I shit you not. And it's damn smooth over the hops. It's a darker amber, positively lovely all around. It's hard to believe that this is 10% ABV, but I'm going to keep it in mind as I could down several of these in a sitting if I let myself forget what the next morning might feel like....I give it an 8.5/9, maybe even higher...I need to try this again when I haven't been sucking down a bunch of high gravity beers, heh.

Sun King Amarillo the Princess Warrior: Sun King is an up-and-comer out of Indianapolis, and they apparently take craft brewing seriously. This is the second of their beers I've tried, the first being a black IPA which was quite refreshing and unique. This one is named for the Amarillo and Warrior hops involved. Of the three, this is likely the most approachable (though all are mellow for DIPAs). The body is medium to light, hops are forward but not overwhelming, the citrus gives way to more floral notes, and neither malt or hoppy bitterness is overwhelming. Reminds me a lot of Two Hearted, actually, but there's more depth here (and more alcohol, at 9%). 7.5/9, but I probably need to spend some more time getting to know this one, without four other DIPAs clouding my palate.

Beverage of the Week: Founders Black Biscuit

I think I've found a brewing company that loves dark beer as much as I do. I've got all these tingly-inside feelings. I could just titter away like a schoolgirl.

Founders Black Biscuit starts with an imperial stout, which in itself is excellent (though I still prefer Gonzo, myself). That lovely little stout then goes to live in oak barrels, and though there's no horse's-mouth info on Founders' website, the story I've been able to put together is as follows: these barrels start life aging bourbon, travel up to Michigan to create another lovely Founder's beer (Kentucky Breakfast Stout), then they head to New England to age maple syrup for a while, and THEN they come back to age Black Biscuit in the old gypsum caves under Grand Rapids. Tres cool.

This is a pitch-dark, night sky of beer with a burnt-toffee head. The nose tells the tale of those well-traveled barrels, but the best part is everything is underplayed - just hints of maple, bourbon and earthy oak, all calmly mingling. My one complaint about most bourbon stouts - KBS included - is the bourbon is way too thick and coarse on the nose. This doesn't fall into that trap; everything is mild enough to let more delicate notes come through. The palate is very similar, and a love the way the hint of maple ties the dark chocolate, coffee, and bourbon notes together....this is a beer where you can think through all the interesting notes, but ultimately they cohere into one hell of a good beer. Easily an 8.5 out of 9.

Just one thing left to do - I have to find that maple syrup.

Deprograming

Lately Courtney has been listening to an ambient/experimental station while drifting off at night, and I'm becoming rather enamoured with it myself. Theremins and odd synthesizer shifts, birds or car horns, there's a mix of the digital and the natural with no obvious logic. It's an ebb and a swell, a fall and a crash without reason. I can't find the pattern, and it soothes me.

Pattern is the operative word here. I can't really say for sure why this stuff has caught my midnight ear, but I think the lack of a (discernible) pattern is important. Lately I've gotten bored with music. Period. Literature, too - I pick up a book, I read ten pages, and my mind is somewhere else. I think the ease I've been finding from all this semi-random noise is connected; I think the pattern has grown predictable.

Music is, classically speaking, artsy math. Don't get me wrong - I love music, I love math. Like most art, it's a pattern that predicates meaning from its predictability. There's a system, a theory underlying any art - not the same theory, mind you, but infinite theories. That's the real secret to why some people "get" Picasso, Modest Mouse, the Residents, Joyce, or bathroom wall graffiti. There's a master logic, a pattern-system that underlies each one. The more one becomes familiar with the pattern-system beneath any given piece of art, the more familiar it becomes, the more it evokes meaning. That comfortable sense of what comes next, of things fitting comfortably into a prefabricated world view - that is the essence of "meaning." The new is nearly always a logical extension of the old.

And that's where this ambient/noise stuff comes in. I can't find the pattern. It's probably there, mind you, but drifting off at night to something with no predictions seems to take apart all my preconceptions of what should come next. The older I get, the more I seem to seek out standardization for my moments - a pattern for the day, the week, the year. It's that pattern that makes sense of it all, that gives it meaning. But a century of great thought has been devoted to westernizing the ancient eastern notion that no, there is no real pattern, there is no real meaning. There is only a naive desire to invent such notions.

The last couple of years I've felt like every time I grab a guitar each note has already been predicted, every time I lift a pen I'm just transcribing something . And now I sense that drifting off at night to something without a pattern deconstructs the day, undermining my expectations and leaving room for calm surprise. i sense a space growing where something new might happen. Very nice.

Beverage of the Week: Henry McKenna 10 Year Single Barrel

Before I dig into this week's bourbon: last night an amazing, happy event occured. I walked into the Sparrow and what should greet my eyes but "New Albanian 15B Porter" on the chalkboard. Oh, happy day.

Anyway, sticking with the notion that the BoW should have relatively wide availability, this week we have Henry McKenna's single barrel offering. This is another excellent, affordable offering from Heaven Hill Distilleries, makers of my all-time favorite value whiskey, Evan William's Single Barrel. This is also very nice stuff at a reasonable price (~$30), but I chose it as much to talk about marketing as the whiskey itself.

For starters, this whiskey makes a big fuss about being "bottled in bond." Legally, this means it is 1) the product of a single distillery, 2) the product of one distillation season, and 3) bottled at 100 proof. As you can imagine, aside from the 100 proof bit (which is mostly irrelevant), every single barrel whiskey on the market could be called "bottled in bond," as could the majority of small batch whiskeys, and quite a few regular-old age dated products. HK makes it sound like this status is the holy grail of whiskey, however, and I think this is an excellent example of how aggressive and misleading advertising is getting as the premium whiskey market swells with new products. Another interesting thing about this product - the billing leads you to believe this is a sort of Irish bourbon recipe, an idea furthered by the attractive green packaging. I have never heard of any Irish whiskey made from corn, and tasting-wise this has about as much in common with Irish whiskey as Captain Morgan. I enjoyed this whiskey quite a bit, but caveat emptor nonetheless.

Back to the tasting. I really enjoy the nose on this - for a higher proof whiskey, you can really get into it without catching any of that alcohol sear in your nostrils. There's the a maple-forward note, and a hint of dark chocolate down there too. The mouth feel is great, with a thickness that reminds me of Booker's. The palate is nice as well, though it is definitely less complex than say a Van Winkle, or Evan Williams Single Barrel, for that matter. It's very focused on sweetness, with toffee, honey, and vanilla predominating. The alcohol comes out more on the palate than the nose, though, so I wouldn't hesitate to bring it down a bit with some water. All in all, a 7/9 - a great everyday bourbon. My favorite thing is that it is just good enough to really enjoy but not so good I'm tempted to hoard it back (hence the near-empty bottle).

Oh, and this was from barrel #358.

Deadline

I have 15 minutes to write this post. What to talk about?

I'm slowly wiring my life, creating electronic shortcuts to simultaneously introduce new levels of distance between myself and my end actions while ironically unifying those end-actions into synthetic, complex outputs. Maybe that's just a really complicated way of saying I'm hooked on universal remote controls and wifi-beaming radio/TV/literature, but I think it is an interesting phenomenon. Some days, 80% of my life is experience through a screen - not just watching TV, but reading journals, connecting with friends, etc. And this has become so second nature, that I've started constantly seeking out ways to simplify this simplification, to compress as many activities into one screen, to compact as many outputs into one interface as possible.

If I was a text, I'd be a web page, a mash up, a portal somewhere(s) else. But I certainly wouldn't be any singular snowflake. I'm not sure what I think about this. What do you think about this?

Fluid Economics

From the art car show in Louisville last summer.