Friday, October 5, 2012

The Session #68


This month’s issue of The Session is produced by Tiffany over at 99 Pours.  Her topic of choice is Novelty Beers:
With the onslaught of even weirder beards…erm…beers…than before, I can’t help but wonder if novelty beers are going too far. Or maybe not far enough? LOL! As a merchant of beer, I can see the place for novelty beers, as I am choosing for some customers who say, “I want the strangest beer you have.

The novelty beer can sometimes drive me nuts. I shouldn’t see 10 pumpkin beers on the taplist in July. It just shouldn’t happen. I want to drink Oktoberfest beers in September and October, not July. A maibock is a spring beer, I don’t want to see it in January.  Heck, sometimes the seasonal Summer ales are called “Summer Ale”, and they show up in April.  Come on people. Anywho…

I love looking at a taplist to decide what I am drinking. I am not afraid to go off kilter and order something that I have never heard of (actually, I prefer that), something that I am scared of (hot peppers), or something that is using ingredients to play to the season (pumpkin). 

Thinking back to the brews that I have sampled, there are some that people would think were weird: Right Brain Little Italy Honey Basil, DuClaw HERO (2011- chocolate peanut butter porter), A billion different pumpkin and barrel aged beers (I don’t even like most of them), etc.

If I had to choose a beer that I enjoyed the most that included a unique or different ingredient, I might have to go with the DuClaw HERO (chocolate peanut butter porter). It was an easy beer to order, as I had heard that it was good, and I was in a dark beer mood at the time.  But my first reaction to the sip will be memorable. The first taste drew me into the beer. The chocolate and subtle yet appealing peanut butter tastes weren’t sickly sweet (kind of what I imagined), but rather they stood balanced with the malt and hops, like a perfect little triangle.  

I had tasted winners and losers when ordering novelty beers, but this was one winner that I could drink most days.