I almost passed up a good deal on a Left Hand Brewing variety pack because it included cans of “peanut butter” stout. I’m interested in trying a concoction like that, but more than one can means it will be the beer that sits in the fridge for months until you run out of everything else and only drink it because you’re too tired to go to the liquor store (or foist it on some visiting friend, “oh yeah, those are great go ahead and have one!”).
Worse things to barf up, I suppose. Ooh! Goose Island just got a new flavor idea!
I loved Rogue beers, but when they started having 1001 flavors it cooled me on buying their actual beer, especially since it reduces the chances of a store actually stocking one of their beers versus the wine-coolery shit.
I was so excited the first time I had a cadbury egg. Then I tried it and was horrified. How was that developed? “Let’s make the inside sugar-flavored, but give it a mucus texture. Make sure it coats all the surfaces in your mouth, so you can’t escape until you drink a fluid.”
Also, breweries need to chill out with the pastry stouts. One on occasion as a dessert is fine, but we don’t need to be drinking liquid donuts all night. Between all the vanilla chocolate marshmallow stouts and Starbucks extensive line of warm milkshakes the average American is spending their entire day drinking watered down pudding cups.
It’s probably better than you think. I haven’t tried Left Hand’s version yet, but they are a solid brewery whose product can be trusted. I had a peanut butter stout from a brewery out of Cleveland and it was very good.
I am going to be a curmudgeon here and stick to the German Reinheitsgebot when it comes to beer: anything other than malt, water, hops and yeast is no longer beer, just a sort of novelty barley wine.
Full disclosure, I was a beer brewer from 1990 to 1997, did the whole German apprenticeship and everything, so I am a snob by training. I know the biochemistry and stuff, why hops and so on.
The Beard Beer was fucking awesome. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s still available.
Yeast provides so much of the flavor for beer, and what was isolated from the brewmaster’s beard likely was a hardy combo of all the things he’d been brewing in the previous several months. Before we knew what yeast were, I bet a lot of brews had at least a little beard yeast in them; it just wasn’t done on purpose.
Reminds me of the legendary crystallization abilities of Alfred von Baeyer. A little shake of his beard over a flask would aid in crystallization (and this, purification) of just about anything.
One of my favourite quotes from Leonard Bernstein was that of course you can break the rules, but to do so effectively you have to know them in the first place and why they are there.
Granted, he was talking about music, not brewed beverages, but it’s the same principle. And now I am reminded of how my musician friends will discuss for hours if X is metal or not, or if Y is really punk…