Top Shelf Thursday, October 2014: Trick or Treat!

Halloween’s just fun.  There’s relatively little stress (even if you have kids), participation is completely optional, & if you don’t even have to see relatives.  It’s a big party holiday, though I can’t see that it’s reached the “Amateur Night” status of, say, St. Patrick’s Day or New Year’s Eve.  It’s not a shit show.  It’s acceptably gimmicky, though in a way that elicits very few eye rolls.  And it’s open to interpretation – if you choose to dress up, you can go as anything from a corpse, to an ex-president, to Lenny Kravitz if you want. 

We designed our “Trick-or-Treat” Top Shelf Thursday to be open to interpretation.  Somewhat predictably, we were treated to beers featuring chocolate, pumpkin beers, & beers with evil-themed names.  There were also a few tricks, with beers throwing interesting curveballs.

Our first “wicked” beer of the evening came to us from Evil Twin Brewing, no stranger to Top Shelf Thursday.  Jeppe delivered a 100% brettanomyces-fermented IPA, Femme Fatale, with the Japanese fruit Kabosu, giving a dry, floral brew with a citric tartness.   Things stayed wild with Luciernaga, the Firely, from Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales – the first “pumpkin” beer of the evening, if in name alone (trick!).  This open-fermented Belgian-style pale hit some very funky notes, with a spicy twist from the additions of coriander & grains of paradise.

We made a 180 with the Double Chocolate Bock from Block House Brewing, a.k.a. Pittsburgh Brewing, a.k.a. Iron City.  DCB represented a drastic departure ideologically - an inexpensive beer from a big brewer - & sensorily, with big notes of chocolate that sharply contrasted with the dry, even sour character of the first two courses.  The next brew stayed the course: Chocolate Indulgence from Brewery Ommegang.  First brewed in 2007 for Ommegang’s tenth anniversary, this delivered a strong nose from the inclusion of Belgian chocolate, while the body packed sharper, fruity flavors from the ester-heavy Belgian yeast.

Dogfish Head transported us through time & space with Theobroma, a recipe from their Ancient Ales series & based on Aztec archeological findings from about 1100 B.C.  It brought some familiar cocoa notes from the use of South American nibs & powder, & twisted it by adding ancho chilies, honey, & a ground tree seed known as annatto.  Personally, I really appreciated the Theobroma & Chocolate Indulgence in this flight, both better than I remember from having them years ago.

What they lacked in creative naming, Boulevard Brewing made up for in flavor with their Chocolate Ale.  Boulevard collaborated with Kansas City chocolatier Christopher Elbow on a beer that balanced Dominican chocolate with malt very nicely & lightly (despite its 9.1% ABV), without tasting like dessert.

Local brew-gooders Helltown brought us the night’s second “wicked” beer (hey, their zip code is 15666!), with their 2013 Barley Wine.  This English-style barleywine delivered a notable heat that remained drinkable, smoothed out by aging on oak & maple.

The secret to making a great pumpkin ale is not being half-assed about it, which O’Fallon Brewing certainly were not.  Their Imperial Pumpkin Ale (another prosaic name, forgivably) packed a wallop at 10% ABV, with a full flavor of pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, & allspice to match.  This was one of the first pumpkin ales to wow me in a long time; let’s hope it makes a comeback next year.

One that will not return, unfortunately, is the Black Butte XXVI, the anniversary release from Deschutes Brewery.  They tweak the recipe on this imperial porter every year, this time adding cranberries, cocoa nibs, & pomegranate molasses, tart fruit that meshed interestingly with a little tannin from time spent in bourbon barrels.

And speaking of bourbon barrels, AND delivering whole-assed pumpkin beers, Avery dropped a bomb on us with their 17.22% ABV Pump[KY]n (the “KY” is for “Kentucky”, by the way, not the personal lubricant, a joke not lost on those in attendance).  This monster of a spiced pumpkin porter, aged in bourbon barrels, was the strongest beer ever served at a Top Shelf Thursday, & approached a pumpkin liqueur in its flavor & mouthfeel.

Definitely saw some mischief being played this evening.  Calling back to this post’s preamble, & the question of gimmicks: one thing that most impressed me about the night’s flight was how a good brewer can take a flavor that CAN be gimmicky (chocolate & pumpkin can raise some eyebrows for the seasoned beer drinker) & display it with depth & substance.  There are plenty of superficial-tasting chocolate & pumpkin beers around, but each beer in the flight was as far from gimmicky as you can get.  Regardless of what additives are used, good beer is good beer, a maxim well illustrated by those poured this evening.  It goes without saying by now, but thanks to those who showed up, drank, chatted, & had a good time.