Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

A few weeks ago I tried a taste test of two helles bock beers, Rogue Dead Guy Ale and Abita Andygator, only to discover as I read the labels while drinking that one of them wasn't acutally a helles bock. It was a helles dopplebock. ...Which, BTW, means "light double dark" or "light double goat". 🐏🐏🍻 But the good news was that Abita has another beer which is a proper helles bock, and I still had several bottles of it downstairs from a previous round of beer buying.



So here's a proper comparison of two helles bocks, both of them Americans: Rogue Brewing's Dead Guy Ale and Abita's Mardi Gras Bock.

Dead Guy Ale is the incumbent from the previous round of taste testing, though not exactly the winner. Both it and the beer I paired with it previous had "Good, but..." flavors. Dead Guy had a bready taste on the front that I didn't like. The other Abita I paired it with, Andygator, was slightly too sweet.

In this round the Dead Guy Ale maintained that odd, bready taste at the front of each sip. It wasn't just a weirdness with one bottle. Abita's Mardi Gras Bock is frankly pretty similar to its Andygator in over flavor. The Mardi Gras is slightly less sweet than its sibling— just enough less sweet to make the beer more satisfying.

Abita Mardi Gras Bock wins this round and goes on my short list of favorite beers so far. The ultimate test will be when I get another 6-pack of Estrella Galicia Reserva 1906— the best helles bock I've tried and possibly the best beer overall— and compare it to that.

A few weeks ago I did a gonzo beer shopping trip. My motivations were (1) I had two $50 gift cards for BevMo that weren't good for much else, (2) there was also a 15% off sale, and (3) I wanted to grab more beers for my Beer Tasting 2022 project... even though it's now 2023. 😅 I've trickled out tasting notes for a few other beers from this shopping trip already. Now it's time for Maui Brewing Co. Coconut Hiwa Porter.



For this beer tasting project I prefer to try a beer alongside 1-2 other, similar beers. Having a basis of comparison makes it easier to assess how well each beer fits my overall preferences.

For this round of the tasting I didn't have a second porter available, though. So I went with a beer from an adjacent category, Guinness Draught Stout. Guinness is a mild, creamy stout so I figured it wouldn't be that far off, stylistically, from a standard porter. Guinness is also one of my all-time favorite beers, so it's valuable to see how a beer I'm trying for the first time compares to it.

I spotted the first difference right away when I poured them. The Guinness pours with a very smooth head, thick, with very small bubbles. The Maui porter has a coarse, frothy head with large bubbles. I figure that's due to the Guinness having a trick nitrogen cartridge inside the can— hence the "Draught" designation— versus the Maui porter being traditionally carbonated.

Maui's Coconut Hiwa Porter definitely comes on strong in flavor. The brewer's marketing text talks about malt, chocolate, and coffee. I tasted mostly the coffee. And a bit of coconut. And the strength of the alcohol— getting kind of up there for a beer at 6% ABV.

BTW, if there's one word to describe the Guinness it's smooth. Smooth, smooth, smooth. People often look at its dark color and thick characteristic, both kind of like used motor oil, and assume it's a heavy beer. It's actually neither heavy in its flavors nor heavy on alcohol. It's only 4.2% ABV. That's the same ABV as... Bud Light!

At first I was thinking, "If I were going to pick one of these beers, it'd be the Guinness". The Guinness didn't have the stronger flavors of the Maui Coconut Porter, but it didn't have anything overpowering, either. The Maui tasted like it was overdone. As I let both beers aerate and warm up a bit, though, I found myself enjoying the porter more. Its flavors came into better balance, tasting less like a coffee-based beverage.

I mentioned in a recent blog about bourbon tasting that my Beer Tasting 2022 project has continued into 2023. That's not past tense; it is continuing into 2023. I tried another beer this week! ...Well, okay, it wasn't my first time trying this beer, but it is my first time trying it within a somewhat organized process.

This latest beer is the grimly named Rogue Dead Guy Ale.

It's so grim it even features a skeleton on the bottle. ...A skeleton enjoying a beer, of course! 💀🍺

Style-wise Dead Guy Ale is a Maibock, sometimes also called Helles Bock ("light bock"). It's lighter in flavor than the closely related style of bock. It's by no means a lightweight, though, The beer is rich in flavor with toasted malt and a bit of hops; just not as strong on the rich, dark malts as a proper bock. It's also not light on alcohol. This particular beer clocks in at 6.8% ABV.

I don't have a beer in my cellar to go head-to-head with Dead Guy Ale right now. I do like the Maibock category but availability is very hit-or-miss even at big stores. The only other Maibock I've brought home over the past year+ is Estrella Galicia Reserva Especial 1906. It did awfully well, beating every beer I put it up against to be the reigning champ of my testing competition so far.

I mention all that because while I do like the taste of Dead Guy Ale, I don't remember the 1906 well enough offhand to say whether this one edges it out or is edged out. I'm going to have to save a bottle of Dead Guy Ale until I can grab another 6-pack of 1906. ...Which, given how loaded up my cellar is right now from a gonzo beer shopping trip two weeks ago, might be a while. Until then: 💀🍺😋

In the various retrospectives I wrote a month ago at the start of the year one I overlooked was my stash of booze.

Recall that years ago I diagnosed myself with a drinking problem— though not the one you may think. The problem is I don't drink enough! ...Well actually I do drink enough. The problem is really that while I enjoy drinking booze in moderate amounts I enjoy buying it in heavier amounts. If I don't carefully control my purchases my stashes of wine, beer, and liquor are prone to grow overfull, to the point that bottles and cans end up lined up on counters, and some older beverages go stale or spoil before I get around to enjoying them.

"Really what you have is a shopping problem, not a drinking problem," one of my friends assured me several years ago. Indeed, it's been by buying less more than drinking more that I've brought the two into balance. Though as anyone with a problem can tell you, maintaining balance takes constant effort.

So, how am I doing with my drinking shopping problem?

Wine: 70 Bottles ± 5

Wine is the biggest part of my alcohol collection. Several years back I set a target on its size. 75 bottles ± 5, I decided. While that may seem to the uninitiated like a lot of bottles, it was a calculation to give me enough to keep many varieties on hand and age them appropriately. It was a big step down from the 125 bottles I used to have. And even that isn't big for wine aficionados. Friends of mine who drink wine faster than I do have collections of 300+ bottles.

Across 2022 I actually held below my target of 75 as a midpoint. After maintain 75 ± 5 for a few years I actually did 70 ± 5 last year. I feel like I've still got a reasonable library with that slightly lower count so I'll look to continue at that level in 2023. As a data point I'm at 70 bottles right now (it was 71 until I opened a 2017 zinfandel with dinner 😋) and I'm not feeling the itch to buy more until I polish off a few more.

Beer: Reasonably in Check

When I did a check-in like this two years ago my beer stash was sprawling out across the kitchen counter. It wasn't a good look for someone who wants to have his drinking shopping problem under control. This past year I kept a reasonable lid on the total number of beers in my stash, even as I bought a lot of different beers for my Beer Tasting 2022 project. I kept the size of the collection in check by buying only a few varieties at a time. And I kept them from sprawling across the kitchen counter by storing them in the finished crawl space downstairs. 😅

Hard Liquor: A Little Overgrown

Hard liquor is the one part of my booze collection that has gotten away from me over the past year. My standard for hard liquor is that it's got to fit in the two shelves of cabinet space reserved for it, with an allowance for really tall bottles that I have to put on the counter below because they don't fit above. I mostly stuck to that plan during 2022, but then right at the end of the year I bought a few more bottles than I really should have. Now I have several on the counter.

How will I trim the hard liquor down to size? Well, first, I'll drink it! And I won't let myself go shopping for more until I drink a bunch first. 🥃🍸🍹

Second, I should just throw some out. ...Wait, what?! 🤯

I have at least 3 bottles of liquor I simply don't enjoy. Some of them were gifts that aren't my thing, some are things I decided to try and discovered I don't like. Most of them are cheap liquor so it doesn't hurt to throw them out— or at least it shouldn't. The problem there is I wrestle with the habit of frugality ingrained in me when I was young. I struggle with throwing stuff out, thinking, "Well, maaaybe I could enjoy it, sometime." At some point, though, I'm just going to say "Fuck it!" and pour it down the drain. ...And yes, I have done that before! See "Why is All the Rum Gone?"

It's September, which in the beer world means it's Oktober... as in Oktoberfest! When I dropped in to a liquor store last weekend to grab a four-pack of a beer I've been enjoying lately I saw numerous seasonal Oktoberfest beers on the shelf. Several were from credible breweries and at pretty good prices. I ended up walking out with 3 six-packs and 1 four-pack.

What is Oktoberfest? The fest part is a traditional annual festival in Munich that grew from the 1810 wedding celebration of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig. 200+ years later we're still toasting the royal newlyweds. But Oktoberfest is also a style of beer... the style of beer served at Oktoberfest! 😅🍺

There's some disagreement about what type of beer Oktoberfest actually is. In the US it's usually a Märzen, a rich, higher alcohol lager with reddish color and sweet malt flavor. In Munich, where the official Oktoberfest occurs, it's a lighter colored and flavored lager, more in the style of a standard German lager or even a Pilsener.

The difference is because the style of beer served at Oktoberfest has actually changed over the past 200+ years. Apparently it was originally a dunkel, similar perhaps to the Hofbräu Dunkel I taste-tested a few months ago, then it evolved to a Märzen (which literally means March style, go figure), then to the lighter hued lager served at the festival in Munich today.

Why the history lesson? Well, for one, drinking's just drinking... but drinking while studying history is education! And two, it explains the differences I found in my first comparison of two Oktoberfest beers.



Now that I've provided that little history lesson it shouldn't be surprising that the two beers I poured, Leinenkugel's Oktoberfest and Warsteiner Oktoberfest, look different straight out of the bottle. Leinenkugel's is an American brewery in Wisconsin— perhaps best known for their Summer Shandy brew— and Warsteiner is German. Leinenkugel';s looks like what you'd expect of a Märzen beer; Warsteiner looks right for a standard German lager.

My surprised extended to the difference in flavor. Of course, if I'd researched this little history lesson before opening the bottles, the taste differences might've been more predictable. But alas I had assumed Oktoberfest means Märzen— a reasonable bias from American experience. The Warsteiner Oktoberfest indeed is not a Märzen. Which is disappointing to me because I actually enjoy the richer, slightly sweet flavor of that style.

In tasting the beers before dinner, Leinenkugel's won, hands-down. Its rich and slightly sweet flavor is thoroughly enjoyable as a standalone drink. Warsteiner had a lighter flavor with too much of a sour tone to be enjoyable solo.

When I started eating dinner, a meat pizza in this case, the two beers drew closer in suitability. Warsteiner's sour flavor was countered by the salty, umami flavor flavor of the pizza toppings. Leinenkugel's edged it out, though. Its richer flavor remained nicely balanced against the savoriness of the food, neither overpowering it nor getting lost underneath it.

Leinenkugel's moves forward to the next round of Oktoberfest beer tasting... because like I said above, I bought four Oktoberfest beers last weekend! Plus maybe I'll buy one or two more before the seasonal style disappears from store shelves. 🤣🛒🍻

So far my beer tasting 2022 project has been pretty useful. I've learned more about exactly what I like and don't like within my long-term favorite category, amber ale. I've also branched out to explore other categories I'd previously written off or just not considered. One of these is lagers, a broad category; and within that, German style lagers. I figured, "Why not try some of the German mainstays?" Thus one of my recent buys was Paulaner Münchner Lager.



But what to pair it against? I figured I'd put it right up against my favorite lager so far, the Spanish Estrella Reserva Especial 1906. ...Now, that's not exactly a head-to-head comparison, as 1906 is a Maibock, a stronger and richer subvariant of lager; but it's what I had on hand.

Perhaps because this wasn't a head-to-head matchup, Paulaner got flattened. The 1906 is just so good. Paulaner is just so... also a beer. I mean, it's a good beer. But it's sort of like a basic template for beer. There's nothing that's bad about it. I could drink one or two or more and be happy with it. But there's also nothing that stands out about it.

Most of my recent entries in my Beer Tasting 2022 project have featured dark lagers, aka bock beer. I've grown a bit tired of them. While I do want to explore bocks a bit further I also want to take a break. After trying a shit beer (and kind of liking it) with a light body I decided to try a light-bodied good beer. Almost on a whim I picked up a 4-pack of Erdinger Weißbier. What can I say, it was on sale at Costco. 😂

Weißbier is better known in the US as Weissbier, or wheat beer. It's fun that this beer comes in packaging with the German spelling on it. (In German the character ß is a sharp S sound, kind of an "sz" in English.) Using the letter ß makes it feel even more German than spelling things with umlauts.

Erdinger Weissbier pours out with a surprisingly foamy head. It's light and airy, so you kind of have to wait for it to settle down before you drink it. That's the one thing I didn't like about this beer.

Wheat beers in the US typically have fruity tastes. That comes from the type of yeast used; and American brewer accentuate the fruity and herbal characters. Often at brewpubs a wheat beer is served with a slice of fruit on top, like lemon or grapefruit, to doubly accentuate the fact that you're drinking a fruit-bomb of a beer.

Erdinger is refreshingly not like that. It has a simple, clean flavor. It's smooth and even from start to finish. It goes remarkably well as a solo beer— something to sip on a warm afternoon outdoors, without food to accompany it. But it also has just enough strength of character not to be overpowered by light and medium flavored foods.

This beer is a nice discovery for me. I really like a wheat beer that's not an overdone fruit bomb. I'm starting to really get why people love German beers, with their clean tastes from skillful combinations of basic ingredients.

So far I've been rationing this beer out, wanting to save a can or two (out of a 4-pack) to compare to other lighter German beers. But at the same time it's so good I want to drink it more often. Really I should just buy another package or two and keep them handy in the storeroom.

The past few rounds of my Beer Tasting 2022 project I've been tasting German style bock beers. To sort of close out the category I decided to put two Germany heavyweights up against each other.



This is truly the most head-to-head— and bock-to-bock— comparison I've made. They're the same style, they both pour very dark, they're both made by old and well respected breweries in Germany.... They're so German both even both have umlauts in their names. 😅

Indeed these beers are so similar they're only hairs apart in taste and texture. Both are classic dark lagers, full of flavors of malt, caramel, and a hint of chocolate. Both can overpower most food they're served with. That's why this subcategory of bock isn't my favorite, BTW. My fave so far is helles bock... and the one I've had is from a Spanish brewery! Ultimately between these two I'd pick Hofbräu Dunkel over Köstritzer Schwarzbier because it's less overpowering. The Köstritzer has a creamier head, which was more satisfying, but its taste was just too... too. Through these past few rounds of beer tasting I've learned that while I like dark beer I don't like dark beer that's like drinking a liquid brick.

It's time for Round 11 of my Beer Tasting 2022 project. Actually it's past time, as it's been now three weeks since I posted Round 10. 🔔🔔 Who's in the ring this time?

Continuing on my theme of generally not picking head-to-head competitors but instead two beer in slightly different segments, this time I've paired Michelob Amberbock with Köstritzer Schwarzbier.



Indeed this does seem at odd pairing at first. On one side is an uncommon (in America) import from an old and well respected German brewer. On the other is an American macrobrewer trying to offer a fancier beer to appeal to drinkers disinterested in its usual watery slop. But it is a dark larger, as is the Köstritzer.

This round of beer tasting unfolded exactly as I thought it would. The Köstritzer is everything you expect in a German dark lager: dark, nearly black color; with flavors of rich, toasty malt and hints of of chocolate and caramel. The Michelob is... basically a softer form of all that. It's a dark beer for the generations of Americans who had basically no choice other than which brand of watery slop to proclaim their allegiance to.

That's not to say the Michelob Amberbock is bad. It's just that when it's put up against a genuine representative of its cateogry it's revealed to be a weak imitation. Also, weaker is sometimes better. In this round as with Hofbräu Dunkel in round 10 I find the German dark lagers (bock, schwarzbier) a little too strong in their flavors. Michelob's Amberbock goes better with food and even goes better unaccompanied whenever I'm in the mood for a dark beer that's still easy-drinking.

For Round 9 of my Beer Tasting 2022 project I went on the road and went live. Instead of buying beer in six-packs from retailers, who get it from distributors, who get it from brewers, I went straight to the source. I reached out Thursday to a friend, Jeremy, I haven't seen in over 2 years due to Covid, and he suggested we meet for Happy Hour at a new(ish) local brewery in Sunnyvale, ShaKa Brewing.

"Huh, why haven't I seen them?" I wondered. Then I mapped their location and understood. They're a very small brewery, located in the middle of a low-grade industrial park on the east side of town. They're only open to customers one day a week, Friday, 4-8pm. And "open" means they open the garage door and set out a few folding tables in the parking alley.



What ShaKa Brewing lacks in ambience it makes up for in hospitality. As I walked up and started looking around, one of the proprietors greeted me and started explaining what beers they offer.

"Are you 'Sha' or 'Ka'?" I asked. I knew from reading their website that the business name comes from combining the two men's first names, Shawn and Karl.

"I'm Shawn," he said, expressing surprise that I knew their backstory already. It wasn't that hard; their website isn't that big... unless you read legal disclaimers page, which accounts for, like, 99% of the site's word count.

Shawn showed me a menu of the 5 beers he and his partner brew. One was sold out. It was the stout, which would've been my second choice. They had my first choice, the Riley Red ale, so I was happy.

I started with a pint of red ale and waited around in the parking alley for Jeremy to arrive and a table to open up. This is where the hospitality vs. ambience factor became important because there is zero ambience here. You're sitting (unless you're standing) in an alley with a bunch of wrecked cars that the custom body shop around the corner hasn't gotten to working on yet. Fortunately a table did open, so I could at least sit while chuckling at the wrecked cars, though Jeremy arrived almost half an hour late.

As for the red ale... it's good stuff. It has all the good characteristics I expect in the category. And it's light on hops flavor. I dislike the sour taste and mouth-puckering nature of a heavy hops bill. Some red ales are made with heavy hops, as heavy hop flavor is, sadly, the "it" thing for craft beer drinkers right now. Well, I don't dress like a hipster with skinny pants and clown-sized brown leather shoes, and I don't care for hipster beer that tastes like cough medicine.

BTW, Jeremy likes those hipsters beers. He predictably started with the brewery's IPA. But even their IPA was relatively low on the bitterness scale, more an English IPA than an American brutalize-your-taste-buds IPA. I know because he offered me a taste of his. I wouldn't want to drink a whole pint of it, but at least it wasn't spit-it-out sour.

As the brewery is open just one evening a week the owners make it count by inviting a rotating cast of food trucks to set up in the parking alley. This past Friday's food was Venezuelan. We put in an order for a couple of arepas while starting our second pints.

For my second round I sampled a pint of Sunnyvale Pale Lager. Like the red ale it was available on tap. That made it seem fresher than opening a can... though I think the cans are actually bottled on demand so they're virtually as fresh as having it poured straight into a glass.

The lager was surprisingly good. I say that because I'm generally "meh" on lagers but I enjoyed this one. It had subtle floral/fruit aromas noticeable as I lifted the glass to my mouth. Those come from the yeast and are a sign that a lager has been well crafted. It had a rich enough character to pair well with the food.

Speaking of food, the arepas were fantastic. They're corn meal patties, cut open in pouches like pita bread at a Greek restaurant, stuffed with combinations of meat, cheese, beans, and/or plantains. It was delicious. They were expensive, though. And because of my inner cheapskate (habits from childhood die hard) I only ordered one. It was less than half a meal. So while I enjoyed the food very much I don't think I'd want to seek out this food truck again to pay $35 for a full meal... served through a mesh window and eaten while sitting in a parking lot.

We wrapped up the evening around 8:30. The brewery was cool about letting folks stay a bit late. I think they kind of had to because the food truck in the parking lot was so slow. Each of us took home a mixed 4-pack of cans. I bought 2 cans of the red ale, because for me that was clearly the winner of the set, plus a can of the lager because I want to try it again, plus a can of the golden ale I'd like to try. Jeremy and I went our separate ways, agreeing to do this again at ShaKa Brewing, possibly as soon as next week.