Category: Vermont

Vermont: Odd Notion Fall ’09, Magic Hat, SoBurl

If Google is anything to go by – and it might well turn out to be – then I have clearly had a fair number of beers by Magic Hat. Like the buttery goodness. Like the quirky branding. Like the experimentations. This beer is one of there recent Odd Notions and I am told it is a stout, which it is, but was not told to expect smoked malt. It’s like a black thick stout with about 10% rauchbier added. Quite yummy stuff. Pours deep dark with a thin deep brown rim. Fine mocha foam verging on the burgundy tinged. It gives scents of cream, dark plum as well as a little roastiness. These continue in the swish with cocoa, earthiness, smoke, date, and a whack of other dark favours all in a reasonably big body which is also moreish. Quite the nicest stout I have had in a while.

Three bottles in each mixed 12-pack this autumnal season. Best of their special brews which I have had yet. Plenty of BAer love though they call it a Belgian dark unlike the brewery.

Vermont: Odd Notion Spring ’09, Magic Hat, SoBurl

Extreme. Experimental. Weird. Weirdo. That is my new sliding scale to express a facet of the craft brewing world, like the crap-snob continuum. Granted it is only half the scale, missing the BFW¹ – X3M portion to the left. But it is a good scale and Odd Notion Spring 2009 inspired it.

One problem with “extreme” is that right now it’s the centre of the pack. This beer points out that there is plenty of room beyond extreme, including places you will likely not visit again. Because this beer and those like it are weird. Last spring’s peaty brown ale called Odd Notion helped generate a lot of heat over diacetyl that I don’t expect to be repeated with this one’s poppy seed and agave flavours. Will not one defend the honour of the agave? Who stands for the poppy? None.

It pours an attractive orange amber with a nice sheeting white head. But the smell is like a fresh and well-crafted beer trying to replicate the smell of an old, off skunky one. In the mouth, it’s a bit like fancy hotel soap, the stuff you put on a bad sunburn made from cactus as well as that hard astringent poppiness. There is other stuff in there like a little orange marmalade and maybe a bilious note. It is hard to explain but for all that, this is not entirely off-putting given that (1) it is generated in large part by the poppy seed, a taste I took to when I worked in Poland and (2) I have been sunburned a lot and support the post sun burn lotion industry. But it is weird. Yet not quite a weirdo. Good BAer support.

Vermont: Magic Hat Brewing, South Burlington

Magic Hat is one of those breweries whose stuff I like but when it comes around to doing a review folks come over and drink all the beers I have and there is nothing left to review. So I have only reviewed one to date – Revell porter out of the winter 12 pack. This time it will be different. I am going to defend the stash against perps and foist paper and pen upon them.

What I like about Magic Hat is that they do light ales well. Not thin – light. It is easier to make a big beer than a small one and in this biggie world there is a mad rush to bigosity. This summer 12 pack says no. It says I will not bow to loud Lord Big. There is the lightly fruity #9, the gentle wheat beer Hocus Pocus, their wit by name of Batch 370 and Fat Angel which is something of a rich malty ale…but an unbig one. All displaying a deft hand. Their website displays something of a daft hand, by the way. One of the guys who started it is now a baker of treats near a pal of mine’s place. I will have to interview him one fine day on the whole nuttiness thing.

      • #9: Effervescent orange ale spewing masses of tiny white bursting bubbles. Peach juice. Aroma and taste of peach juice. In the mouth it morphs into a bit of grainy wheat or pale ale maltiness and twiggy hop. Not too far off the idea of a dry Irn Bru, the Scottish soda pop. Light not too sweet, quaffable and refreshing…but lots of peach. If you are against it, as some 12% of advocates are, you are really against it.
      • Batch 370: White foam and rim fed again my a very active carbonation, this time in a Belgian wit…but the BAers say it is a version of a German hefe! Hmmm…no banana or clove to hand that hat on. How odd. Amber with a bit of orange. Cloudy with yeastie floaties. Dry and orange peely over lemon. Again, twiggy drying hops. There is lots of yeast tanginess and nice spice. Not a real corriander or other spice presence but the raw wheat gives a flour-dusty and creamy effect that sets it apart and is quite likeable. Is this an ok US version of a wit…or a hefe…or what? I dunno. It is a light summer ale and in itself it is not neither wicked or the other sort of wicked. I’ll have another if that is the way the guest grabbing plays out.
      • Hocus Pocus: again a highly active ale, this time light straw under white foam. A bit grassy nicely offset by a touch of twiggy and metallic hops. The center is somewhat vegetative – not fruit but faintly like the green of celery or broccoli. Underneath milky yeast but still a dry beer. I think of the four this is my favourite. I am surprised that 21% of BAers do not like this as I find it a simple but clean balanced summer wheat ale with true real flavours.
      • Fat Angel: Again light but the least of the four. A hint of crystal malt and maybe even a hint of smoke. Reddish amber with a white rim. Quite still unlike the other three. The same signiture grassy tang. Like the Hocus Pocus I would call the light touch on the hops twiggy and metallic. I don’t think I like this one that much though I have been far more offended by ales in my life. There is again that dry heart that I would think is wheat malt but it does not meet well with the sweeter notes. The advocates rate it positively but with a low average.

     

  • It may be unfair to have these the weekend of the beginning of the World Series when they are clearly hot weather brews. Ice cold of a humid day they may all be perfect. But they are similar in a way that makes you wonder about whether at least three are variations on a core recipe. So I am still with Magic Hat and I admire them trying to escape the standards but taking a separate path carries risk.

Six US Darks

Washington, Vermont, New York, Oregon,
Pennsylvania and California

Life is tough. Life needs little projects. I found all of these lovery little brown bottles at the excellent Finger Lakes Beverage Center in Ithaca, NY and was able to buy singles of each – though the Southern Tier Porter came in a mixed 12 pack I picked up. They represent parts of the range of dark ales above brown ale. There are two dark porters, a mocha porter, an organic oatmeal stout, an imperial oatmeal stout and the granddaddy of them all a Russian Imperial stout. Mmmmm…roasty malty goodness.

  • Wolaver’s Oatmeal Stout: certified organic from Middlebury, Vermont. Effervescent, dark brown ale under a smooth rich tan head. Lots of flavour and lots of flavours. Not a slave to the silky texture oats impart, this beer also has plenty of hops, roasty grain and yeasty goodness – all in one smooth balanced beer. The hops are not as minty as Guinness’s norther brewer variety. I am thinking the citrus rind of Cascade. In the grain there is a bit of cocoa, a bit of coffee and a nice brown breadiness from the interaction with the creamy biscuity yeast. The finish goes dry, leaving the roast and then just the hops. A very fine complex medium weight example.
  • Stoudt’s Fat Dog Imperial Stout: from Adamstown, Pennsylvania. After my first contact with Stoudt through their Double IPA, I am going to need more than a moment with this brew. Darker brown with red notes under a mocha head that dissipated quickly. The sensation of this 9% ale’s strength is a little like a black rum and coke – which is to be expected as 9% amounts to around one oz. shot of 80 proof being added to a regular beer or two shots to a pop/soda. But that is a side track, a red herring. When beers are like this you have to think of them more like great port or sherry as opposed to table wine. Expect the flavours to open up over time. The body is fairly hefty, though it is not overdone – there is no massive attack of roasted grains though they are there as a supporting cast. There is some chocolate but mainly a lot of rich dark malt, pumpernickle. The hops are also there but far further in the background than the Wolaver’s. Underneath it all there is a rich double cream yeast that fills in gaps in concert with the smoothness of the oats. Quite extraordinary. And that was all from the first two sips. An hour later, two more flavours came out – licorice and some fruit which, surprisingly, I would not call dried fruit so much as plum and maybe apricot. Again complex and very worthy.
  • Southern Tier Dark Porter: from Lakewood, New York. I like this porter a lot. A good honest roasty dark ale with body to match. Too often porters or the slightly lighter style called dark ale are just darkened versions of the brewer’s pale ale. But this beer has a good amount of roasted grain, some coffee and a bit of bitter chocolate all over a nice rich biscuity yeast. Not as complex as the beers above but more of an everyday porter.
  • Grant’s Perfect Porter: from Yakima, Washington. I am quite surprised how much lighter this porter is compared to the southern tier. Its light tan head dissipates to a skim quickly over the mahogony ale. Chocolate mousse smelly. I would really call this a dark and not a porter but I should not as this is a Bert Grant’s beer. Up front there is some roast but it fades away a little sooner than I would like revealing a bit of vanilla cream and then a bit of edgy vegetative hop and smoke. I recall the Burton Bridge porter I had in 2001 or so and its lack of balance to my mind – too thin, too sharp – which later learned that it was more historically accurate. This is like the same elements placed in more modern balance – a bit of sour in the yeast, a bit of sharp in the end but better balanced than the Burton. I don’t know if I can call this tasty or attractive. At 4% a lower strength expression of the style.
  • Rogue Mocha Porter: from Eugene, Oregon. A skim of tan head over deep brown ale. Big hop tang across the roof of my mouth – minty, lime rind – over the top of dusty chocolate and black malt. Not so much mocha beer as mug of joe beer. Somewhat discordant, a bit sharp here and a bit dry roasty there. I don’t know if the yeast is really pulling its weight but, still all in all it’s got full flavour and real flavour. Not as tough a call as the Grant’s but there is a lot of thinking required with this beer.
  • Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout: from Fort Bragg, California. Very nicely balanced for a 8.9% beer. Lots and lots of roasty-toasty roast barley imparting a garnet hue to the inky ale, its tan head quickly dissipating. The hops are not minty and the nose is actually floral with a fair bit of black rum Christmas cake dry fruitiness as well. There is a lot of heat with hoppy spicy over the roasted black malt and roast barley and with a creamy heart. A very nice example of a well layered beer – like a big red wine lots and lots of flavours that open up over time. It would be interesting to do a side by side with Freeminer Deep Shaft, my favorite stout since I began these notes.

There you go. All six done and a fine range of examples of part of what people might think of when you say “dark beer”.

Vermont: Ravell Porter, Magic Hat, South Burlington

I had such high hopes for this post, comparing four of the brews in the South Burlington Vermont’s Magic Hat Winter mixed 12 pack. Then the holidays hit, then the guests arrived, then the defence of the bottles began. Right now I have maybe 30 singles of beer stuck away for later comment at a measured pace. Enough to get me into February easy – as long as I can keep the hands of others off of them. Eleven of the Magic Hats were sacrificed to that cause. All except one of their porters named Ravell.

Porter has become one of my favorite styles, if only due to the uncertainly brewers have facing the problem of what it is supposed to taste like. Porter was one of the earliest industrial products and led to a capacity war from say 1790s to 1820s London which had a great effect on mass production of other goods as well as the local production of beer. By the mid-1800s, it had been replaced by other beers due to two discoveries – lagering and true pale malting. As always, when technologies change, tastes shift and the demand for this dark and sharp style faded to be replaced for a while by mild in England, followed by pale ales and then by the ubiquitous industrial lager-pop most drink today.

Due to the trade secrecy surrounding brewing, there is not a great deal of information about what porter actually tasted like in its heyday. Was the yeast sour or mellow? Were the hops or roast malt more pronounced? Approaching opening a porter like Magic Hat’s Ravell, then, is all about paying attention to what the particular brewer considered the answer to those questions were. The beer pours brown rather than black like an oatmeal stout or deep garnet like Guinness. Its head resolves to a thinish beige foam. The taste is definitely built around a soft water profile. One of the things that makes a local beer local is the expression of the water table’s mineral count. Dublin is chalky soft, Plzen is neutral and Burton-on-Trent is incredibly hard.

From my recollection of the others in the 12 pack, Magic Hat is a largely soft brewing firm. [Sleeman, by comparison, is a fairly hard brewing firm.] The yeast of the Ravell, sour and fruity, is in the front of the palate, framed by chocolate malt and then some hop bitterness. I would not call this a balanced or rich example of a porter but originally porters from what we know were not round and balanced. They should not be confused with nut brown ales anymore than with oatmeal stouts. They were from an era that saw brewing and storage occur in wood and that would impart sourness like we see today in many Belgian brews. Here are the stats on the brew from Magic Hat:

Our Odd Porter. A porter brewed with whole vanilla beans. Available whenever young William and father John deem it so.
Yeast: English Ale.
Malts: Pale, Crystal & Chocolate.
Hops: Warrior & Fuggles
Alcohol by Volume: 5.60%
Original Gravity: 1.056
Bitterness Units: 22
SRM: 63.6

The vanilla bean note is evident once noted but really creates as many issues as it resolves. It lies under the chocolate and hops bitterness and may feed the impression that the yeast is fruity. It is not, however, an overwhelmingly vanilla-esque ale. The effect is somewhat like the use of licorice in other dark ales, as in the Sinebrychoff Porter from Finland reviewed a few weeks ago. One beer advocatonian says it is too thin, which is fair comment.
Not the first porter I would grab but certainly worth discussing.