Samuel Adams Infinium

For the past couple of years, the Boston Beer Company and Germany’s Weihenstephan Brewery have joined forces to create what they characterized as an entirely new style of beer, a champagne-like ale called Infinium. Infinium comes in a 750 ml champagne bottle, complete with foil, wire and cork.

The beer (champagne?) poured a medium amber with a small, lacy head. There was no significant nose, only a very slight dry, citrus smell.

The mouthfeel was very light like champagne, and dry to the point that you feel your teeth touching. The taste is very interesting, with a definite impression of a beer/champagne combination. The sense of grapes is there to be sure (even though there are no grapes in the process), but you also sense the hops and taste the malt.

Infinium is quite unique, and I really liked it. I seldom drink champagne, and I can’t imagine ever going to the fridge to pull out a bottle of champagne to enjoy with a cigar on the Lido Deck. But I can see pulling one of these out if I wanted something really light that wouldn’t compete with a mild cigar.

It’s hard to stack this up against anything else since it is so different, but for the taste and unique drinking experience, I’ll give it a 93 on The Morris Scale.

From the Samuel Adams website:

Our brewers worked for two years with the world’s oldest brewery, Germany’s Weihenstephan, to create this unique new beer style. A groundbreaking brew, made with only the four traditional ingredients: malted barley, hops, water and yeast, Infinium™ is a crisp champagne-like beer with fine bubbles and a fruity, spicy aroma. The crisp clean malt character and delicate fruit notes in this beer are complemented by a slight citrus flavor from dry hopping with Bavarian Noble hops. Bottle conditioning adds another layer of complexity and light spice notes.

Flavor: Light and dry with a crisp clean malt character, and delicate fruit and spice notes
Color: Pale golden with a sparkling effervescence, 8 SRM
Original Gravity: 20.5° Plato
Alcohol by Vol/Wt: 10.3%ABV – 8.1%ABW
Calories/12 oz.: 278
IBUs: 10
Malt Varieties: Custom blend of two-row malted barley, malted spring white wheat, and malted oats
Hop Varieties: Hallertau Mittlefrueh, Spalt Spalter, Tettnang Tettnanger and Hersbrucker Noble Hops
Yeast Strain: Samuel Adams ale yeast, Belgian yeast

CAO OSA Sol

The OSA Sol is available in three sizes, the Lot 50 (5×50), Lot 54 (6×54), and Lot 58 (6 ½ x 58). I decided to pick a cigar at random from my humidor, and came out with the monster 58 ring size.

The cigar had a nice look with good construction. The cut with a guillotine was a little ragged, but with a little picking at the filler I was able to make things right. The burn was perfect for the life of the cigar.

My initial impression as to taste was that the cigar was a little harsh with no complexity. As the cigar progressed, the harshness disappeared but the taste never surfaced. There’s really nothing else to say. There was just never any there there. I’ve had some great CAO cigars, but this isn’t one of them. A sad 71 on The Morris Scale.

From the Cigars International website:

The secret between CAO OSA Sol is the wrapper. This exquisite leaf is grown in Olancho, San Agustin, a fertile valley of Honduras surrounded by tree covered mountains. This field is hugged by a crystal clear river, feeding the sun-nurtured tobaccos with pure spring waters and producing a uniquely robust and earth wrapper leaf. A sun-grown leaf, hence CAO OSA Sol.

CAO OSA Sol marks the first use of this rare, proprietary tobacco variety. A glorious presentation to see and burn, each cigar contains a flavorful OSA sun-grown wrapper chock full of Nicaraguan and Honduran long-fillers inside a hearty Connecticut Broadleaf binder. Medium in body, CAO OSA Sol gushes with rustic tobacco flavors enhanced by earthy undertones, subtle spices, and a touch of leather. Aromatic is an understatement, as each OSA Sol fills the air above with thick clouds of smoke and a lovely, rich, earthy scent.

Yeah, not so much.

Jubel 2010 Once a Decade Ale

This waxed beauty from Bend, Oregon’s Deschutes Brewery has been sitting in my fridge since, well, 2010. It’s about a $13 bottle of beer so I suppose I kept putting it off for a special occasion. Tonight I felt like drinking it, and that was special occasion enough.

The beer poured like a thick, dark cola, forming a tan head about two fingers high. The nose was impressive, smelling strongly of caramel and coffee.

The mouthfeel was medium thick and creamy, with medium to low carbonation. The taste was very good, with some citrus, malt and coffee. A nice presence of hops and a pleasant aftertaste. Ten percent alcohol with 55 IBUs.

It’s a pretty heavy beer, so in terms of drinkability, you probably wouldn’t have more than one of these 22-ouncers in a single setting, but you’ll certainly enjoy that one. The 2010 scored a 92 on The Morris Scale.

Anthropologists had long believed that the first agricultural crop raised by humans was barley, and that it was grown to make bread.  They were right that barley was the first crop, but now it is almost universally accepted that humans shifted from hunter-gatherers and entered the agricultural age in order to grow barley for beer, not bread. Clay vessels (interestingly in the approximate shape of today’s standard pilsner glass) have been found that contain beer residue, and they are 3000 years older than the earliest discovered proof of bread.

Once the hunter-gatherers gave up their nomadic ways to start barley farms, communities and societies formed.  Ways had to be devised to plot out farm land and keep track of beer production so math was created.  The earliest discovered forms of writing contain symbols for beer, so beer had a hand in the creation of the written word.

The documentary also sets the record straight on Louis Pasteur.  Most think of him in connection with pasteurized milk, but he began his research to determine why beer goes bad.  He discovered bacteria in the bad beer, and then wondered if bacteria could make beer go bad, could it do the same thing to humans?  Thus was born the germ theory of disease.

And so it goes.  Beer is responsible for the discovery of refrigeration, which has saved countless lives since food can now be preserved, and beer is responsible for the end of child labor.

So here’s to you, beer.

Last year it was nearly perfect.  The festival is held at Union Station in Los Angeles, and therefore takes driving out of the equation.  Jump on a train to Los Angeles, take a few steps to the site of the festival (the courtyard of Union Station), sample craft beers to your heart’s content, and then get back on the train for home.  Last year the organization was good, and there was an outstanding turnout of vendors.

This year the event started on a bad note, although it had nothing to do with the event.  Metrolink decided it would be a good weekend to shut down all the trains.  I seldom have the opportunity to take public transportation, but I have to ask, how can public transportation ever become a viable alternative for the masses if riders can’t be certain it will be available?  Fortunately I found seats on Amtrak, so we were still able to take a train to the event.

The train was scheduled to arrive 15 minutes after the start of the event at 12:15.  I saw that as a feature, not a glitch, because that would provide sufficient time for everyone to get into the event and we would not need to wait in line.  However, when we arrived, there was still a substantial line.  No problem.  We went to a café in the train station and had a small nosh in order to kill some time.  Fifteen minutes later we returned to the line to find it running the entire length of the train station, down one side of the station, and around a corner into the parking garage.

I walked to the front of the line to see what was going on, and saw the problem.  In all, about 1500 people attended the festival.  There were a number of people assisting with the admission process, some handing out wristbands and other handing out the glasses (which were real glass this year), but there were just two women checking the tickets.  And as I watched, as each person approached with their ticket in hand (usually a self-printed ticket with a barcode that needed to be scanned), in every case I observed the two women had no idea how to deal with whatever it was they were facing.  As a result of this bottle neck, some people waited up to an hour and a half to get into the event.

The festival was supposed to go from noon to 4:00 p.m., but in the end the last of the line was not admitted until 1:30.  Two and a half hours was still plenty of time to sample all the beers, but that’s not the issue.  By then, two of the three seminars that were being held were already over.  Further, although many food trucks were promised, there were only three, and that lead to waits of another 30 minutes to get food.  So, if you went to the festival thinking you would sample beers for a little while, relax with some food and then sample some more beers, that was not really feasible.

I go into so much detail hoping that someone related to the festival will realize how badly they performed and do better next year.  It does not take an efficiency expert to understand that if you are going to be admitting 1500 people at the same time, you need a large number of people to quickly process them. I witnessed many people voicing their displeasure to the organizers, who attempted to blame it on a fire inspection.  They claimed that the fire inspector had delayed the start so that the grounds could be checked.  But that only begs the question, how did that happen?  And the delay and disorganization I witnessed had nothing to do with the Fire Marshal; there were just too few people assigned to ticket taking.

Click on this photo for a nice panoramic view of the courtyard (and look for the half a person — looks painful):

Once inside, the experience was good, aside from the lack of food trucks (and no bands!).  There was a large number of vendors, pouring some very tasty brew.  But there are many beer fests to be had, and because of the lack of organization, there is no reason to attend this one again.

For a much more favorable, behind the scenes review, check out Dale Conjurski’s review here.  He’ll put up with anything for beer.  (That’s him in the top photo, dutifully serving up some fine Steelhead beers.)

* Given the right circumstances (i.e., at hot day at the ball park and that’s all the beer hawker has to offer), I have been known to drink Coors.

Last year also concluded at Irvine Lake and the Blues Festival, and I don’t know if it was because of the shade or the bands were just better, but I really enjoyed the music much more this year. They were all impressive, but I especially liked Mama Pearl, Shari Puorto, and 2000 Pounds of Blues.

The ride was about 60 miles total this year, all police escorted with no stops. I never get tired of blowing through all the red lights on Pacific Coast Highway, while enjoying the view of the ocean.

I mounted a camcorder just above my headlight to capture the ride. Here is the entire 60-mile ride, compressed down to about three minutes:

C.E.O. Red Label Cigar (5 x 50)

This is a real mystery cigar.  I think I actually bought a five-pack of C.E.O. cigars, based on a vague memory that I exclaimed, “what the hell are C.E.O. cigars?” when the package came in the mail.  I think they were an impulse buy on Cigar Monster, ordered so quickly and without investigation that I thought I was buying CAO cigars.  Since receiving them, I have used them in my humidor to place behind other “real” cigars so they don’t slide backwards when I open certain drawers.  Quite the ignominious existence for a cigar.  Today on a whim I decided to smoke one of these drawer-stops in case it turned out to be a surprise find.

I was unable to find anything about the cigar on the Internet, and that’s why I’m going to go into some extra detail here, to assist anyone in the future trying to track these down.  CigarAdvisor.com had a little squib on it’s site, stating: “C.E.O. are impeccably constructed cigars with a diverse blend of longfiller tobaccos and wrappers spanning five nations, all aged from three to five years. Made by Arganese Cigars, we bought these cigars as a closeout and are passing the savings on to you. You get five unique cigars in all, spanning the entire range of strengths and rich tobacco flavors. Blue and Green are full; Red and Orange: medium; Yellow: mild.”

With a little more investigation, I think I found why Famous Smoke Shop (the company behind Cigar Monster and Cigar Advisor) was able to buy these cigars on closeout.  Inside the cigar band is the non-functioning web address www.ceoMLM.com.  It appears that these cigars were intended to be part of some strange multi-level marketing plan; the cigar smoker’s answer to Amway.  That also explains why the cigar band says Connoisseur Entrepreneurs Organization.

There is nothing on the Arganese Cigar site about these cigars, so it appears they are no longer manufactured.  My four remaining sticks may be real collector’s items.  Drop me a note if you want them.  Opening bid, $1,000 per.

So how was the cigar?  Actually, pretty good.  I guess if you’re going to sell a cigar at a multi-level price, and call it a connoisseur’s cigar, it had better be decent.  I could tell from the moment I cut it that it was a well constructed cigar.  The CEO red label had some real complexity, without ever becoming harsh.  Tastes of spice and chocolate, and mellow to the end.  A strong 86 on The Morris Scale.  If you ever come across one, give it a try.  I’m looking forward to trying the blue and green labels, which are supposed to be more full bodied.  I know I’ll be moving these drawer stops to a more accessible location.

Shipyard Imperial Porter – Pugsley’s Signature Series

The CEO cigar looked pretty light, so I thought I’d balance it with a porter.  The Imperial Porter I selected is brewed by Shipyard Brewing Company in Portland, Maine.  Here is the company’s description of the Imperial Porter:

“Imperial Porter is a full bodied, very dark, malty beer with a good roasted character coming from the Crystal, Chocolate and Black Patent Malts used in the mash. Warrior, English Fuggles, and East Kent Goldings Hops balance the malts with a good hop bite. The beer has an OG* of 1.070, rounding out after fermentation with just a slight residual sweetness and cutting dry at the finish.”

This description discloses that Shipyard has misnamed the beer, because an “Imperial” porter should have an OG exceeding 1.090.**  But I pick nits.

I like this beer.  The beer pours so thick and dark that you anticipate something heavy, but you are met with a very nice, malty beer.  The mouth feel is thinner than I anticipated, but not in a bad way and I think that will greatly enhance the drinkability.  The description of “a good hop bite” is accurate, to the point that a hop head would probably find this beer a good choice.  Not my favorite porter, but a very worthy companion to a cigar.  I give it an 84.

FOOTNOTES:

* OG = Original Gravity

Everything you ever wanted to know about OG:

Gravity, in the context of fermenting alcoholic beverages, refers to the specific gravity of the wort or must at various stages in the fermentation. This article focuses primarily on the brewing industry. The concepts and equations are basically the same in the wine making industry.

Gravity (specific gravity) measurements are used to determine the “size” of the beer, its alcoholic strength and how much of the available sugar the yeast were able to consume (a given strain can be expected, under proper conditions, to ferment a wort of a particular composition to within a range of attenuation, that is, they should be able to consume a known percentage of the extract).

At various stages in alcohol fermentation, the density of the wort varies. Depending upon the depth that the hydrometer falls into the wort, the percentage of alcohol can be determined.

Initially (before alcohol production by the yeast commences) the specific gravity of a wort is dependent mostly on the amount of sugar present and, therefore, specific gravity readings can be used to determine sugar content by the use of formulae or tables. This sugar content is expressed in units of grams of sugar per 100 grams of wort equivalent to % w/w and called, in the brewing industry, “degrees Plato” (abbreviated °P) and in the wine industry “degrees Brix”. Even when specified in terms of °P it is not uncommon to refer to the pre-fermentation reading as the “Original Gravity”, (abbreviated OG) though it is more correct to term it the “Original Extract” (abbreviated OE). It is, of course, correct to refer to the original specific gravity reading as the OG. By considering the original sugar content the brewer or vintner obtains an indication as to the probable ultimate alcoholic content of his product. The OE is often referred to as the “size” of the beer and is, in Europe, often printed on the label as Stammwürze or sometimes just as a percent. In the Czech Republic, for example, they speak of “10 degree beers”, “12 degree beers” and so on.

As fermentation progresses the yeast convert sugars to carbon dioxide, ethanol, more yeast and flavor producing compounds. The decline in the sugar content and the presence of ethanol (which is appreciably less dense than water) both contribute to a lowering in the specific gravity of the wort so that the formulae relating sugar content and specific gravity no longer apply. Nevertheless, by monitoring the decline in SG over time the brewer obtains information about the health and progress of the fermentation and determines that it is complete when gravity stops declining. A gravity measurement taken at this time compared to the original gravity reading can be used to estimate the amount of sugar consumed and thus the amount of ethanol produced. Specific gravity is measured by a hydrometer, pycnometer or oscillating U-tube electronic meter.

** Everything you ever wanted to know about porters and “Imperial” porters.

Before 1700, London brewers sent out their beer very young and any aging was either performed by the publican or a dealer. Porter was the first beer to be aged at the brewery and despatched in a condition fit to be drunk immediately. It was the first beer that could be made on any large scale, and the London porter brewers, such as Whitbread, Truman, Parsons and Thrale, achieved great success financially.

Early London porters were strong beers by modern standards. Early trials with the hydrometer in the 1770s recorded porter as having an OG (original gravity) of 1.071° and 6.6% ABV. Increased taxation during the Napoleonic Wars pushed its gravity down to around 1.055°, where it remained for the rest of the 19th century. The huge popularity of the style prompted brewers to produce porters in a wide variety of strengths. These started with Single Stout Porter at around 1.066°, Double Stout Porter (such as Guinness) at 1.072°, Triple Stout Porter at 1.078° and Imperial Stout Porter at 1.095° and more. As the 19th century progressed the porter suffix was gradually dropped. British brewers, however, continued to use porter as the generic term for both porters and stouts.  Thank you Wikipedia.

Casa Magna Colorado (5 x 52)

You may be familiar with Connecticut wrappers, but less familiar with references to the Colorado wrapper. Without checking the website, I’m confident that the name of the cigar is not random, but rather is a reference to the wrapper, Colorado being the term used to describe a cigar with a reddish brown shading of the tobacco leaf.

I like this stick! Construction, cut and draw were perfect. There were no strong flavors upon lighting, other than a pleasant taste of tobacco, yielding copious amounts of blue smoke. Not every cigar needs to be a cacophony of tastes.

OK, I’ll check the site now to see the composition of the cigars. Shoot, no site, but the fine, fine people at Cigars Direct describe it as follows:

“The Casa Magna represents the ultimate collaboration between two cigar legends, Manuel Quesada of the Fonseca enterprise and Nestor Plasencia. Nestor’s farms produced the Nicaraguan puro leaves used in the construction of this very new cigar introduced to the world in 2008. The Nicaraguan filler is embraced by a very special Cuban-seeded Colorado Ligero wrapper also grown in Nicaragua.”

I should have guessed this was a Nicaraguan puro; one of my consistent favorites.

At the half-way point, still no distinctive notes beyond a little spice, but I am really enjoying this cigar with the stout. The stout was a good choice (dumb luck), because this is a full-bodied cigar, and needs a strong beer to keep up with it. A lager would have been lost.

When I reached the final third of the cigar, it took on a new, still indescribable but very good taste. If you’ve never been sure about the sweet spot of a cigar that so many people talk about, this cigar will ably demonstrate the phenomenon.

A great cigar, and I will be adding a few of these to the humidor. I give it a 96 on The Morris Scale, and my accolades are echoed by Cigar Aficionado, which rated it the best cigar of 2008. By the way, lest you think I am shilling for those truly magnanimous people at Cigars Direct, even though they provided this cigar, I don’t see it for sale on their site. It can be hard to find due to the recognition by Cigar Aficionado (and now Beer, Bikes and Butts). On other sites, the going price seems to be around $6. An amazing value for such a good cigar.

[UPDATE - May 13, 2011]  A search for “Colorado” on the Cigars Direct website yielded no results, and that’s why I thought they were out.  But I dug a little deeper and found them, but missing the Colorado moniker.  This is a real find, because by failing to properly identify them they have maintained a supply, unlike other sites I checked.  I immediately ordered a 5-pack.

Voo Doo American Stout

The beer pours almost black, with only a slight tan head. With my first sip, I was prepared not to like this beer because the aftertaste was not pleasant. But my palate must have adjusted, because thereafter it was smooth sailing. A very nice caramel taste with no undue bitterness. Very creamy mouthfeel. It’s a thick, heavy beer, but not so much as to destroy the drinkability. This would be a very good change up among a few beers.

I give this beer, crafted by Left Coast Brewing Company in San Clemente, California, a 91 on The Morris Scale.

A very good pairing indeed.