Still Smutty After All These Years

Listen (and I’m not proud of this): I forget about Smuttynose sometimes. It’s easy to get distracted by all these flashy labels and wild stylistic experiments that hit our shelves like machine-gun fire. In this obsessive hunt for the next new thing, the old standbys can seem a little passe by comparison.

Which mode of thinking is backwards and self-defeating. Yeah, Smutty’s been around for, what, an eternity in craft-beer years and, yeah, they’re established. But the Portsmouth brewers aren’t ones to rest on the laurels of their success. They probably could just sit back and churn out more and more IPA. They aren’t. Instead, they’re ever in the lab, penning new recipes and tweaking old ones.

Which brings me to this year’s Summer Weizen. Our rep from the brewery popped in a few weeks back and he went on and on about this year’s recipe which calls for… wait for it… chamomile. Now, it’s not exactly foreign territory; a few popular brewers (Rogue, for one) have included the tea in their beers, and homebrewers can go on and on about the use of tea in general; but your average casual drinker probably hasn’t come across any of those brews. Therein lies the difference. Smutty Summer’s a staple as it stands, not some crazy new bottle. The addition of chamomile indicates, at the very least, a playfulness you don’t usually find in the more established crafts.

Here’s what the Smuttynose website says about it, in their Brewers Notes. By the way, it’s even cooler that they have a section on their website for the brewers to blog about their creations. Full disclosure and whatnot.

So, given that the whole point of beer is drinking it, not sitting around conceptualizing it… what does the chamomile actually do for the beer? To be honest with you, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t claim to have an advanced enough palate to pick up on the subtleties, not to mention that I’m not entirely sure what chamomile tastes like anyway.

But I can tell you this: in a world inundated with summer beers, the Smuttynose stands out. I dig this beer. Big and fat with a hoppy base and a yeasty body, it leaves a gentle sweetness on the roof of your mouth. It finishes rich and with this natural-harvest quality and the hops hang out unobtrusively on the tongue for minutes after. Wait - does it sound like I’m describing something un-summery? That description paints a picture of a winter warmer, doesn’t it? The thing is, the Summer Weizen somehow manages to refresh the tongue without sacrificing body. Good stuff.

I’m glad that Smutty rep went on and on about this beer. It’s good to remind myself that the established crafts are established for a reason and that innovation and familiarity aren’t mutually exclusive. Get down with this beer. Get back to the roots.

dJp

Tags: American beer, backporch drinkin, seasonal beer, Smuttynose, summer beer
Category: Beer Reviews, The Beer Blog | Comments (1)

Magic Hat Wacko: B-b-b-beet juice?

A rep from Magic Hat just popped by the store to taste us on the brewery’s new summer offering. It’s called Wacko. Why? Who knows… but maybe it’s got something to do with the bright red, almost fruit-punch-like color of the beer. The color comes from the fact that the recipre calls for beet juice. What? Yep, beet juice. A lot of beers take advantage of beet sugars, but juice? For coloring? Strange, strange stuff. Typical Magic Hat, of course.

The beer’s actually pretty good and doesn’t taste anything like beets. I sipped the thing warily, not being a huge beet fan myself, and I was pleasantly surprised. The beer’s just a beer, nothing too extravagant about its flavor profile. Light, easy to toss back, a porch-drinkin beer with a subtle hoppy bite on the finish. Everything you want out of a summer beer, in other words.

Try it. It’ll be here soon. Don’t be afraid that it’s brewed with beets. Don’t be afraid of the summercamp punch color. Be afraid of how easy it is to swallow. Be very afraid.

dJp

Tags: backporch drinkin, beet juice, craft beer, Magic hat, seasonal beer, summer beer, wacko
Category: Beer Reviews, The Beer Blog | Comments (5)

Gritty McDuff’s Scotch Ale

We got this in about 3 weeks ago. Technically, I guess, it’s a winter seasonal brew, but Gritty’s does things a bit different. Their Xmas beer serves as an early winter offering and this Scotch ale is meant to carry us through the late winter and into the summer when Vacationland comes out. They don’t have anything for spring - then again, their up in Portland, ME, and ME doesn’t really have much of a spring anyway. Check out the description on the Gritty’s website. So, that’s what they say about it.

Here’s what we say:

Kristen and I passed a pint glass back and forth. I didn’t chill it long enough, maybe, being eager to drink it (it’s noon - a guy can only wait so long, yeah?) But it’s cool, because it’s Scotch stlye, after all, and so it should stand up when it’s a bit warmer. And it does. It’s a solid beer. Hoppier than we thought it would be, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s not that the hops take over the beer,  but they’re absolutely present and all that. Kristen pointed out that all the carbonation hangs out up front. I pointed out back that the whole back end is fluffy, creamy. Then we kind of looked at each other and kept passing the glass back and forth. We drank the whole thing in under five minutes. It’s an easy, easy, easy beer to drink and that’s the point, right? This might be constructed to keep you warm in the winter, but I’d have no problem sittin on my backporch and slamming it down. It’s not super light, but there aren’t any tough flavors to parse through.

Not mention, Gritty’s is just a cool brewery that makes cool beers and everything they do is worth trying. If you guys are ever up in Portland, you should check out the brew-pub. The burgers are awesome and they pair their beers up well with everything on the menu. And they always have live music, which is cool.

Tags: beer, brew-pubs, Scotch Ale, seasonal beer
Category: Beer Reviews | Comments (0)