A friend recently told me he enjoyed an Arrogant Bastard Ale from Stone Brewing Company for the first time recently. He described it as very tasty with some sweet, malty overtones. Which is exactly how I’d describe it. But a review recently pointed out that Arrogant Bastard seems to have changed a bit from the brew it was a few years ago. I’ve never had it at the source, which is to say I’ve never had it fresh from the brewery, which is when beer is best. You remember the born on date campaign Budweiser was running on their cans? Sort of the same idea with craft beer. It’s a live product, which responds negatively to many environmental issues, not the least of which are jostling, light, storage temps, oxygen and a host of other issues.

If you go back in time many hundreds of years to when the British Empire was seeking to subdue the Indian sub continent for its rich trade in spices and textiles, it needed soldiers. And to keep soldiers happy in the hot and humid environment that is India, they needed beer. The empire had plenty of breweries back in England, but beer shipped around the horn of Africa reportedly tasted terrible to the soldiers and did nothing for moral. So it was decided to add more hops, which act as a preserver and higher alcohol content, which also tends to preserve beer, and ship this new product to the soldiers in India. Upon arrival, it was not the fresh, highly potent beer it was when left, but it was a mellow and drinkable beer that greatly improved the moral of the hot and miserable soldiers. (paraphrased of course)

My point is that as craft breweries grow and to sell their beer into other markets, they must change recipes to insure the beer still tastes good when it’s brewed in California and ends up in Florida. From my experience, nothing will ever taste as good and fresh as local beer, but it’s nice to be able to get that variety from out of state and still taste something authentic. But where is the line between what is served fresh at the brewery and what is decidedly different in a can or bottle on the other side of the country?

I’ve heard many reports that Brewdog, Scotland’s rogue craft brewery, has excellent beer when tasted at the source, but which is relatively travel worn by the time it reaches American shores. I think many of their bottled products taste amazing, at least the ones I can get in Missoula, but it makes me wonder if they taste much different at the source.

My question to you is, do you prefer your beer local and fresh, or are you good with a slightly different interpretation in a bottle or can designed to ship well?

Prost,

GG

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A gentlemen handed me a bottle of Laughing Dog Brewing Company’s Rocket Dog Rye IPA while I was judging brewfest last weekend. At first I thought, “hey, you can’t influence the judges like this.” Then I realized that he was just handing out bottles to the crowd in general. And so it put my mind at ease.

Last night I had an invitation to go hang out with beer buddies Beau and Jon around their backyard campfire to sip some beer and enjoy some great conversation. Josh Decker, director of the amazing Home Resources, a local non profit that recycles building materials, joined us for a beverage and helped us frame a great conversation about living life post apocalyptically. I realize that might not sound like a great conversation, but it was, because we touched on recycling and sustainable living and many other things.

So we poured the Rocket Dog Rye IPA and settled back to let the warmth of the flames tickle our imaginations.

I was immediately impressed with the solid nature of this IPA. A big, malt backbone holds up some really nice bitterness and some astringency from the rye. But there is not an imbalance here. The bite is actually very good and offers some real complexity. The nose is all pine and citrus, with some bready yeast coming through at times.

The orange firelight played with the color a little. I would’ve like to have seen it in standard light. It made the beer appear copper or orangy. But the flavors on this IPA were very solid and worthy of finding another bottle or two of this. I haven’t seen this particular one around town yet, but beer buddy Beau has seen Laughing Dog beer at Worden’s Market.

Prost,

GG

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Bridgeport Brewing Company's Hop Czar

Oregon might be discovering something Montana has known for quite a while. Mainly that there are a lot of West Coast IPAs out there, and finding your place in the mix means being just a little different.

Bridgeport Brewing Company’s Hop Czar Imperial IPA impressed me for it’s rich and deep malt backbone, which provided a really nice ladder on which to stack the copious amounts of chinook, nugget, cascade and centennial hops. In a way, it has a more British feel to it than a lot of the overly hop balanced West Coasters.

But malt comes with a price. The hop profiles don’t sing quite as much, and the beer definitely has a heavier feel to it. You don’t get that oily, hop resin presence you get with West Coasters, and which can actually make a big IPA feel a little lighter than it is.

But I know that this style of beer does appeal to a lot of people who don’t go for the ginormously hopped West Coast IPAs.

The only thing I really don’t like about this beer is the designation as an Imperial IPA. At 7.5 percent abv, it doesn’t ring in with an Imperial feel, and I don’t like when beer companies used terms like Imperial as marketing gimmicks.

Who knows, Bridgeport may feel that this qualifies as an Imperial, what with it’s big, rocking malt body and triple-hopped status, and that fact that it’s brewed from their original IPA recipe, but the term used loosely in marketing still bothers me.

I enjoyed this beer immensely, because I love that it represents the ever-changing whims of brewers who are trying to gauge the differing tastes of the beer-loving public every day. To that end, I thought the plan of going to a much bigger malt backbone really paid off. This beer is a nicely balanced IPA that might appeal to people who don’t mind big beers but who’d rather not have something dripping with hop bitterness in every taste. It is a much more balanced beer in some ways.

And yet you still get the beautiful citrus and fruitiness from those now famous Northwest hops.

And Bridgeport earns even more points for their bottle conditioning. They put a lot of effort into packaging, and I tend to notice their standout bottles in the beer aisles.

You can find Bridgeport Brewing Company’s Hop Czar at Worden’s Market.

Prost,

GG

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Hop Henge IPA and Stone IPA

It wasn’t really an Oscar-night thing, but Beau brought over some Stone Brewing Company IPA and some Deschutes Brewing Company Hop Henge IPA round about the third quarter of the big show. Can’t fault him though, he’s a volunteer for Big Brothers & Sisters of Missoula, and he spent most of Sunday afternoon hanging out with his little brother.

While Jeff Bridges was thanking his mom and dad for raising him in the “business” and cradling his gold statue, Beau and I sniffed the two big West Coast IPAs to see which one had the bigger nose. By color, the Hop Henge had a bit of a burnt caramel edge over the ripe barley color of the Stone IPA. But in smell, the Stone held a bit of an advantage with a wonderful aroma of fruity and flowery hops. I’m guessing they achieve this by the two weeks of dry hopping the beer is said to go through.

But in the glass and on the tongue, the Hop Henge comes out a bit ahead of the Stone IPA. The body is bigger and able to handle the 8.75 percent ABV like a linebacker carries his weight. The rich burnt caramel color translates to malty sweetness that plays cloyingly with the massive amount of cascade and centennial hops. My personal feeling is that the Hop Henge is probably in a different category. Perhaps it should be compared to a Stone Brewing Company Ruination IPA instead. On it’s own though, the Hop Henge is an outstanding achievement in the big IPA category. Despite using the cascade/centennial combo, it’s a very balanced beer with some exciting citrus and ground fruits on the tongue. Particularly strawberry and maybe some pineapple with a bit of summer herb garden, though I couldn’t pin it down to one particular herb.

The Stone IPA is a slightly lesser beer, but it just might be put together better. The nose blows off straight flowers and citrus with what I swear was a breeze from Northern California’s eucalyptus forests. There is a breadyness on the tongue that is decidedly absent in the Hop Henge. But the balance is where this beer scores its points. Traditional citrus and pine sit atop a balanced body like a multi-discipline athlete. Some beers are built like long-distance runners. They are built for the long haul, but they are skinny to a fault. Other beers rest on a comfortable, well-trained frame.

In the end, the Hop Henge weighs in a little stronger and with a little more reach than the Stone, but this match might just be unevenly weighted. Who knows though, another person might decide that the Stone had more than enough to stand up to the big Hop Henge.

Prost,

GG

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I tried New Belgium Brewing Company’s Ranger IPA a couple of weeks ago during Super Bowl, and I was pleasantly surprised. This is not a Northwest-style volcanic IPA, but it’s something I’d definitely drink on a regular basis. I think the evolution from Fat Tire to the wide release of an IPA is interesting. Companies that don’t have an IPA as their flagship beer or prominently featured in their main distribution beers seem to be playing catchup these days. That’s simply my opinion from observation, but IPA is the logical next step on the palate after ambers and pale ales, so if the demand is there, I suppose it makes sense.

Prost,

GG

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The proverbial question in Missoula, Montana these days is: When will the Kettlehouse Brewing Co.’s Northside taproom open?

There is no good answer for that, as evidenced by brewery owner Tim O’Leary’s cryptic post on Facebook recently.

Tim O’Leary I’m thinking a reasonable opening date of June 2osomething is not out of the question for the Northside. We’re canning and trying to get caught up on distributor’s orders first.

But, if you read between the lines, you’ll see that one, they are brewing and canning at the new location above the Orange Street underpass. You can also see from another cryptic post by O’Leary that the new Double Haul IPA cans are soon to be released.

So, if you’re a glass-half-full kind of person, then this is a good day for you. If you’re anything else, go have a beer and try to relax a little.

Prost,

GG

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I’m not going to assume all of you have seen the movie “Beer Fest,” but if you have, then you know what I mean. I’ve always wanted to drink from a boot, and thanks to beer buddy Beau, I can now say I have.

Oh, by they way, that boot is filled with Bent Nail IPA from Red Lodge Ales. Mighty awesome stuff that there beer. And, I believe it’s available by the keg at Wordens.

Prost,

GG

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Anybody seen this in Missoula? It hasn’t crossed my radar yet, though I know it was released widely back in January.

Apparently this is Sierra Nevada’s first mainline release in 28 years.

Prost,

GG

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We drove into Libby at 10:40 a.m. The inversion was thick like pea soup, and the air was moist and the biting cold pierced my my three layers of clothing. It’s difficult to spend time in this town without thinking about what you’re breathing in the air or kicking up with your heals, though a blanket of snow eases the mind somewhat.

But, it is really difficult to spend time in Libby without thinking about the people who live and breath the air and kick the dust every day, wondering if some hidden killer is lurking in their lungs waiting to pop up like a piece of vermiculite in the hands of a young boy with a lighter.

The inversion broke around 2:30 p.m., with streams of sunlight ricocheting off white mountains onto to sidewalks that glisten with ice, not vermiculite as some reporters have said.

We recently went through a long period of inversions in Missoula, and I know how dispiriting they can be. I can only imagine how much worse it must be for Libbyans who are wondering what the identity of their town will be when someone finally decides how clean is clean enough and how safe is safe enough.

So, I was stoked to find a six-pack of Inversion IPA from Deschutes Brewing Co. at the local grocery store. A good IPA can take you mind of the troubles of the day, or help you process all the stories from a town of people who’ve lived more stories than most of us will ever hear in a lifetime.

Good luck Libby, the community spirit that is alive in this town is an encouraging sign that good things will come.

Prost,

GG

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Finally got to try a Kingfisher. Remember how I said alcohol is a bit of sensitive subject here in India, well, I’ve tried to treat it that way and be as discreet as possible, especially around Muslim and Hindu friends who do not partake and who look down on those who do.

Some good friends of mine were gracious enough to run me to a late-night market to buy a couple bottles, which ran about 50 cents a piece.

I carefully wrapped them up and took them to their penthouse apartment, where we casually sipped them in coffee mugs in case of visitors.

Forbidden pleasures are often more enjoyable because they’re forbidden, and not being able to drink a beer whenever you want makes your thirst and first taste in a while all that more fun.

Kingfisher strong is a sweet beer with plenty of malt and though you can feel it, it’s got almost no alcohol on the nose. This makes the beer really refreshing and quite easy to drink quickly, though it should probably be sipper.

We’ve been watching the great Bollywood hits like “Om Shanti Om” and “Dhoom 2″ while enjoying our beverages in the cool of the evening, which really lends to the experience of enjoying Indian beer.

Alas, I’ve still not found an IPA. I’m headed to Kolkata tomorrow, perhaps I’ll find it there.

Prost,

GG

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