Huckleberry Honey Ale – 2011 first bottling run! from Bitter Root Brewing on Vimeo.

Yum.

- Matt Pritchard

According to a Facebook rumor, Bitterroot Brewing will be previewing this delightful summer thirst quencher this weekend. Stop in and have a look…er taste.

A huckleberry Honey Ale never looked...er, tasted so good!

That is a great question actually. I don’t have any overriding love of figs, per se, but I’ve found that I enjoy beers brewed with figs for some reason.

After a day of plundering the anime video section at Hastings in Missoula, my brother-in-law, who is visiting along with my sister and their one-year-old boy, and I decided to pop over to Cafe Dolce to see what beer treasures are currently available.

He joked about a $9.75 beer and the fact that I write about these ridiculously expensive beers for the local newspaper. The server kindly explained that the beer came in a larger bottle then he was probably thinking of.

So I ordered one.

It happened to be a Jubilation Ale from Baird Brewing Company in Japan. I’ve tried one Baird before, and I was impressed enough to remember that they brew a number of interesting fruit ales throughout the year. This particular ale happens to be brewed with fresh-picked Japanese figs and cinnamon twigs.

As we delved into conversation about why I like figs, I smelled the rich and hazy nose familiar of a strong-dark ale with a lot of dark fruits and getup malt in the mix. But this beer drinks remarkably light for a beer with a 7.0 ABV and which is plum full of interesting fruit esters and a hint of exotic spice from the cinnamon twigs.

Neither the figs nor the cinnamon twigs are overplayed in this beer. Instead, the initial sweetness and earthiness of the figs sits nicely on a sweet malt body accompanied by very balanced hoppy note that does not even begin to take away from the fruitiness.

As our conversation wended its way among topics such as my age and the obvious connection to figs and other such prune-like helpers of the old and the infirm to Japanese craft brewing, we quietly polished off the bottle in the delightfully big atmosphere at Cafe Dolce. We perused the beer list several times talking about what to try next, but both of us were pretty stuck on a fantastic beer that just so happened to be brewed with figs and cinnamon twigs.

Prost,

GG

Jubilation Ale from Baird Brewing Company in Japan

The beauty of things like Twitter and Facebook is that it makes real people more accessible. I met Buckbean Brewing Company, of Reno, Nevada, through Twitter. And I’m absolutely stoked about getting my hands on some of their beer.

The first of the three I received looked like a tall boy of Fanta with its nearly solid orange motif. But it was a good harbinger of things to come. The nose on this beer is so big it actually serves as an air freshener if cracked open in the right place.

Orange citrus just rolls off this one and gives one the expectation that the beer might indeed be orange pop. Alas, it is not. It’s a fairly well balanced light ale that holds the orange flavor in a lightly malt-oriented body with some hop crispness that plays rather well with the orange aroma.

The beer pours up a sunburst color with an off-white head, and some of the hidden beer flavors really come out to play when this beer is allowed to warm up slightly.

The best part about this beer is that my wife really enjoyed the refreshing aspect of it. She thought this one would definitely be worth throwing in the cooler for those summer river trips or even for making one of those yard-work summer shandies.

Prost,

GG

Buckbean Brewing Company's Orange Blossom Ale

Cherry beers seem to show up like blossoms on the Flathead this time of year, and so it shouldn’t be too difficult to find one to enjoy on V-Day. Big Sky Brewing Co.’s new Kreik (cherry) is a whopper of a fruit beer, with amazing cherry, cocoa and wood characteristics that I guarantee your significant other will appreciate.

Rogue Chocolate Stout

Chocolate beers are a dime-a-dozen, but a really nice Venezuelan single-designation dark chocolate with a bottle of Rogue Brewing Co.’s Chocolate Stout might be the perfect after-dinner treat you’ll find.

And if you’re really sappy and want to do the whole “romance” thing right, you can always head down to Bitterroot Brewing. Here’s what they have planned:

Lady and the Tramp Valentine’s Dinner

Treat your loved one…and yourself to a Lady and the Tramp spaghetti and meatball dinner for two.  House made spaghetti with two freshly made LARGE meatballs, garlic toast and Caesar salad.  Sorry, no violins!

What other craft-beer related events are going on out there? And what are some great craft beer ideas for him or her? Let me know, I’ll post them.

Prost,

GG