A Flowery Song

Background: Brewed to celebrate Sierra Nevada’s 29th anniversary, this is a big bold IPA showcasing Cascade, their favourite hop variety.

Nose: Toasty malt and citrusy hops, mainly clementine with a bit of grapefruit.

Taste: Solid, tasty caramel malt, with toast and honey character. Medium hop bitterness, but mainly the Cascades contribute a bunch of citrus flavour, with a bit of herbalness. Slight sweetness to start, then a long hoppy finish.

Overall: Sierra Nevada knows what they’re doing when it comes to IPAs, and this one does not disappoint.

Background: This seasonal ale from Sierra Nevada is an American IPA made with Chinook, Cascade, and Centennial hops.

Nose: Lots of floral and citrusy hops.

Taste: Sweet caramel malt, aggressive fruity hoppiness fading into a grapefruit pith finish.

Overall: Excellent. Well-balanced and exceedingly drinkable.

Background: Probably contract brewed by Gordon Biersch, this Trader Joe’s exclusive is brewed with imported malt and Hallertau hops.

Nose: Subdued grain, sweet golden syrup, and not much else.

Taste: Slight hints of spicy noble hops. Alcohol is on the evident side, with a hearty body. Pale malt with a bit of biscuit character.

Overall: Meh. Slightly candyish, and in all the flavour fails to impress.

Background: This hefty beer comes to us from North Coast Brewing in Fort Bragg, California and weighs in at 9% ABV. Rasputin is a historical Russian figure who today is remembered mainly for the legend surrounding his death: that he was poisoned, shot, beaten, and then thrown into an ice-covered river where he finally died.

Nose: Chocolate, and lots of it. Other than that, there’s coffee, molasses, figs, some mild leafy hop aroma and a bit of solventy alcohol.

Taste: Bitter roastiness and chocolatey sweetness, with medium hop bitterness, some earthy hop flavour, and a light fruity edge. Finish is long and not the most pleasant, with an acrid bitterness that I attribute to a heavy hand with the black patent malt.

Overall: This is a style of beer you normally want to savour, but this one doesn’t easily lend itself to that. However, if you drink more quickly and don’t let the finish shove itself forward this is a very nice beer.

Background: No age statement brandy from Korbel in California, aged in American oak barrels that previously held Jack Daniels.

Nose: Very sharp. A bit of vanilla.

Taste: Vanilla, caramel, and a bit of smoke.

Overall: Unobjectionable, but nothing to recommend itself other than price.

Background: Collaborative brew between everyone’s favourite Michigan brewery, everyone’s second-favourite Norwegian brewery, and Stone. Brewed on Stone’s equipment, but the recipe was worked out via emails between the three head brewers and they all helped with the brewing. The recipe incorporates juniper berries from Italy (standing in for Norway, since they were unable to source any from there), white sage from California, and chestnuts from Michigan. In addition to the other spices, caraway seed was added as a complement to the 25% rye in the malt bill.

Nose: Green, herbal hops, followed by a touch of sage.

Taste: Lots going on. Very clear sage note, with spicy rye and juniper also quite evident. Caraway and a medium hop bitterness come through in the finish. Indistinct hop flavour; if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say an English hop variety. The 9% ABV starts to become evident after a few sips.

Overall: Very unique. Definitely not a session beer, but for an occasional taste sensation it’s quite nice. (Especially since I love sage.)

The Mission: [C]omparing how more northerly and more southerly vineyards produce different results with the same grapes.

Being from Michigan, the natural choice for North was to go with a local wine, so I rummaged around and found a bottle from St. Julian. St. Julian is Michigan’s oldest winery, and is also the largest. They source grapes from a large number of growers, all of which are located within 50 miles of the winery.

For South, I turned to the sunny climes of California. Honig is located in Napa Valley (Rutherford, to be precise) and has a terrible Flash-infested front page that refuses to work on my computer.
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Background: Weighing in at 12% ABV, this is mead at its simplest: no fruit, no sweetness, no nonsense.

Nose: Gentle, fruity honey.

Taste: Much like the nose. Slight bready notes from the yeast. A hint of alcoholic heat.

Overall: Nothing stunning, but decent (and dry, which all too few commercial meads are).

Background: Mayonnaise substitute from Follow Your Heart® in California. Available in four (soon to be five) varieties, with the main difference being the type of oil used as the base: Original (canola oil), Expeller Pressed (higher-grade canola oil), Grapeseed Oil, Organic (organic soybean oil), and the upcoming Reduced Fat (a blend of safflower, olive, and flaxseed oils). Other ingredients include brown rice syrup, cider vinegar, soy protein, salt, mustard flour, and concentrated lemon juice. The result is an egg- and gluten-free vegan product.

Appearance: Good texture, looks just like mayonnaise.

Nose: The cider vinegar, lemon, and mustard make themselves apparent.

Taste: Tangy and creamy; a bit more mustard than I remember commercial mayonnaise having. I wonder if this was a deliberate flavour profile choice or a result of needing the emulsifiers in the mustard. Either way, I like it.

Overall: Clean, fresh flavours and an excellent texture make this an ideal mayonnaise substitute for anyone avoiding eggs or looking for a slightly healthier sandwich spread.

Background: From Vegan Dream in California comes this meatless jerky substitute.

Three flavours are available, bu all use the same base of wheat gluten and defatted soy with psyllium husk, soy sauce, and spices. You may ask yourself, “Paul, why are they using soy sauce?” Well, a major flavour component of storebought jerky is monosodium glutamate, also called MSG. MSG is in the way of being an unmentionable word among certain circles of health fanatics (that happens to overlap with vegans), so listing it in the ingredients is a quick way to turn them off. As it happens, glutamates give soy sauce a lot of its flavour, so dimwitted vegans might not notice that they're being fed those nasty chemicals.

Ahem.

My personal experience may be colouring the above paragraph.

Appearance: The product vaguely resembles jerky made from processed (ground) meat, but has a certain disquieting sheen.

Nose/Taste:
Original Hickory Pepper
Smells of smoke and pepper. An encouraging sign for something called Hickory Pepper. Tastes like spices, salt, and umami.

Cowgirl
Smells sweet. Some tomato, some vinegar. Evidently based on “an old cowboy ketchup recipe”, and is definitely reminiscent of that omnipresent condiment. Actually quite sweet, has a wee bit of heat but mainly tastes of tomato.

Hot Chili Pepper
Not much aroma. Has some good chipotle flavour and a nice kick of heat.

Mouthfeel: Here's where it starts to fall apart. As decent as the flavours are (the MSG and spice combination of jerky isn't difficult to replicate), the texture is all wrong. Rather than the clean stringiness of whole muscle jerky or the denser chewiness of processed, what we're presented with is a vague gumminess and an impression of cardboard.

Overall: Not at all a substitute for real jerky, but if you're avoiding meat for religious, ethical, or health reasons, it's not a bad snack. Given an actual choice, though, going with the meat version is a no-brainer.