Next week, I’ll look at a cool India pale ale from Breckenridge Brewing Co.

– Steve

This robust imperial stout is a collaboration between Sierra Nevada’s Ken Grossman and Anchor Brewery’s Fritz Maytag. They put their brewing minds together and concocted a roasty brew that compares very favorably with Old Rasputin from North Coast Brewing Co. It weighs in at 9.2 percent alcohol by volume. Fritz & Ken’s  is one of those beers that grabs your tongue and demands to be savored a moment before the swallow. Serve it at cellar temperature and you will be rewarded with not just one flavor but with a parade of them — there’s smoke and nuts and coffee and toast and leather  and malt and … and … and … and …   Oh, hell. Just drink some.

Upon opening my first 750 ml bottle, my first thought was that I should have bought more than one. I went back for more and have placed a bottle on the rack in our cellar. The makers say the flavors are likely to improve with a bit of aging. I contacted Sierra Nevada to ask for advice, and they suggested 2 to 5 years would be about right. Who am I to disagree?

My wife had a great idea after hearing that timeline. She suggested I save this one for our 15th wedding anniversary. A Sierra Nevada anniversary beer for my own wedding anniversary? Outstanding idea.

I’ll pop the cork on my cellared bottle August 8, 2013.

– Steve

Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout, from the ever-impressive North Coast Brewing Company, is the kind of beer you just fall in love with. I’m not going to knock Guinness here, as I grew up on that stout and still appreciate it. Heck, you could hand me a pint right now and we’d become fast friends. But if your idea of stout is limited to that longtime, readily available beauty, there are a lot of  U.S. craft brewers out there who would love to show what a stout can truly be. Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout is an altogether different beast from your Guinness.

It pours a deep dark black, appropriate enough for a brew named after a mad monk. The luxurious, brownish-tan head persists as you work your way through the glass, and clings to the sides for as long as you will let it. Roasty, toasty aromas hover over that thick, foamy head, intoxicating in and of themselves, making all sorts of promises about the taste that awaits you.

And that’s when this stout gets you — with the first sip. You’ll want to just hold it there for a few moments, and let the complex series of rich flavors swirl around for a while. No hurry. No hurry. Relax … and enjoy. There is a bit of sweetness, a dash of dryness, a burst of toast and smoke. Coffee, caramel in the background, crusty homemade bread. Even when served refrigerator cold, this stout is just full of tasty surprises; when you serve it a lower, more proper temperature it becomes stellar. You take a sip, and wonder if it can really taste that good. You take another sip, and confirm that, yes, stout can taste that good.

OK, I’m gushing. I’m giddy, even. But this is a brew that I tried once, and then didn’t see around in my neck of the woods again. Now it’s at one of my regular beer stops, so forgive my boyish enthusiasm. It’s almost like getting World Series tickets.

This is an English style, by the way, despite the Russian Imperial Stout designation. This particular style of beer is named after the country it was exported to the most, much in the same manner as India pale ale — thoroughly British, even if it sounds like it’s from somewhere else. Russian Imperial Stouts tend to have a higher alcohol content than other stouts; Old Rasputin is 9 percent alcohol by volume, enough to induce a meditative state (although not, perhaps, a mind-clearing one …)

Enjoy.

– Steve

P.S. The Russian I studied in college went the way of iron oxide long ago, but I believe the Russian text on the label says something like “A true friend is not made quickly,” or something like that.

Wheat beers tend to be lighter fare. When well done, they make refreshing, low-alcohol session beers that go well with summer foods, playing outdoors, stuff like that.

When not done well, they tend to be way too thin for my taste. A stout or porter that fails to meet my expectations is  probably still drinkable; a wheat beer that flunks my personal taste test sometimes gets flung down the sink.

I do not like thin beer.

Now and then, though, I come across a really nice wheat beer. The latest is Agave Wheat from Breckenridge Brewery. This is a delicious, light, malty brew with enough body to satisfy me.

It pours golden, a bit cloudy as it is unfiltered. I got a decent head on it that vanished quickly — but that’s OK, because so did the beer.

Now, don’t ask me if Breckenridge captured the essence of agave. I couldn’t tell you. I don’t think I’ve ever had agave bits or agave nectar or anything cooked with it, so I have no idea what this cactus-yucca cousin is supposed to taste like. I can tell you that it lends a hint of sweetness and snap to Breckenridge’s brew — enough to interest, but not so much as to overwhelm the light wheat malts. I’ve had cherry wheats and berry wheats that tasted as though someone dumped a keg of juice into the bottle, but Breckenridge did not commit this sin.

Agave Wheat is not real hoppy, but there is Fuggle and Cascade and Willamette in there, enough to add to the mix.

This beer pushed Breckenridge up another notch in my estimation, and I’m eagerly awaiting a nice hot summer day accompanied by a bucket full of ice and Agave Wheats.

Agave Wheat is 4.2 percent alcohol by volume and registers only 9 International Bitterness Units, making it a seriously session-worthy beer. I think it would be awesome with just about any summer fare you can cook up.

– Steve

My wife picked up a couple of bottles of Pandora’s Bock, after remembering that I really loved the Breckenridge Vanilla Porter. My wife did good.

Bock is a malty, usually darkish German-style lager. They tend to be a tad on the sweet side, like to be served cold and go great with burgers off the grill. This is basic beer, not too alien for people who are delving into the craft beer scene for the first time and yet lightyears better than your basic Bud.

Pandora’s Bock is a nice example of the style. The hue is mahogany, and it sports a very nice head with little coaxing. The nose is light, and malty. The taste is malty rich, with nuts and caramel notes. Not much bitterness at all. Clean and rich, it finishes a bit dry and would be lovely next to a thick steak or a great burger or a stupendous toasted submarine sandwich. You may have tried Shiner Bock, mentioned prominently in one of Lance Armstrong’s books.  If I were you, I’d grab Pandora’s Bock next time. (As for Shiner, I really love their hefe-weizen.)

Pandora’s Bock weighs in at 7 percent alcohol by volume, and 16 International Bitterness Units.

– Steve

They’ve come up with another fine brew here in 400 Pound Monkey. This is a lovely India pale ale, but despite the name, it does not have the intensity I expected. That doesn’t make it a bad beer by any stretch — it’s just not what I thought I was getting.

From the name, I expected a hop accent with a gorilla’s punch. That was not the case; while hoppy enough by India pale ale standards, this beer did not strike me as an all-out hops assault. Perhaps it was because I’ve been treating myself to Stone Brewing Co.’s Jedi-hopped Ruination IPA of late, or because I recently fell in love with Hopslam from Bell’s Brewery Inc. Those brews pack a hop wallop, and anything short of a dive into the back of a wagonload of fresh hops is likely to pale by comparison.

That being said, once I got over the surprise of not finding the expected hoppiness I was able to concentrate on the beer as it is, not as I expected it to be. (That’s right. I just merged zen and beer. I am awesome.) 

400 Pound Monkey — which ought to have a hyphen in the name, but what the hell — is a delicious IPA. There is hops and citrus in the nose. The color is sort of amber, and it produced a nice white head. The taste features the hops right up front, balanced by a very nice maltiness. After that, there is a rich honey taste that kicks in — in fact, my  very short summary of this beer would be “It’s Hopslam Light.” I don’t mean that in a detrimental way, though. I simply mean this beer made me think of Hopslam. It presents a similar series of complex flavors, but in a less intense package. If you sort of liked the Hopslam taste but found the hops and alcohol content to be a bit much, you might find a very nice replacement beer in 400 Pound Monkey. If you are looking for a beer that uses your tonsils for a punching bag, this isn’t it. If you want a session beer — one you can drink a few of — well, here you go. Enjoy!

This beer weighs in at 6.8% alcohol by volume. I was not able to locate International Bitterness Units for this one, but it’s in the traditional IPA range and a good deal less than Stone’s Ruination. If anyone has that IBU number, feel free to add it in the comments. Thanks in advance.

– Steve

Confusing? Let me explain.

Hopslam usually is billed among beer fans as a double India pale ale, although I think I’d give it a category of its own. This lovely golden brew packs a hops aroma like no beer I’ve ever tried, making it a favorite among hopheads everywhere. The hops bouquet practically leaps out of the glass and kicks you in the nostrils. A series of aromas swirls around in your nasal cavities, and if you are a real hops lover you might be tempted to just take in that aroma for a long while. Trust me, though — you should go ahead and take a drink. 

This beer has a sharp hops presence in the taste, right up front, as you might expect from the nose. I did not find the hops taste to be as intense as that from Stone Brewing Co.’s wonderful Ruination IPA, but it is very strong nonetheless. This brew rewards the drinker who seeks bold flavor, but may be too intense for the timid. That’s the “too bitter” part I mentioned earlier.

After the hops wallop, Hopslam gives you a beautiful taste of honey — one of the brew’s key ingredients. It cuts in after the hops takes your tongue for a ride, and knocks down the hops intensity in a delicious wave of awesome. I can’t recall another beer with such a honey presence, and that’s the “too sweet” part I mentioned earlier.

I did not find the beer to be too bitter or too sweet. To me, it’s just right.

This beer made me think of Beowulf and Norse sagas (What? I’m the only one around here who reads stuff like that? C’mon … ) Anyway, such tales often include celebratory bouts of drinking golden mead in the Great Hall. In younger days, I tried to imagine what mead, brewed from honey, might taste like. I imagined something that was very intense, very much beer, but with a honey sweetness. I imagined Hopslam. I have since tried real mead; Hopslam is much better. If I were a Viking warrior in need of a drink after a fierce and bloody battle, I would want a Hopslam.

I’m glad I grabbed a six of this seasonal beauty. If I were you, I’d hurry to my favorite beer store and grab some Hopslam before it’s all gone.

That double kick of bitter and sweet was more pronounced the colder I served the beer; as the temperature came down the honey intensity lessened. I’d start this one cold and enjoy a glass slowly. As the temperature comes down  you can get the balance of hops and honey you want.

Hopslam weighs in at 10 percent alcohol by volume, which makes it a bad choice for drinking during your fantasy baseball draft.

I usually try to offer a food pairing suggestion for beers I review, but I come up empty on this one. Hopslam does not make me want food; it makes me want to slip into a zen beer drinker mode and just become the beer. It’s meditation in a glass.

In my formative years as a beer snob, before the craft beer craze hit really big and it became possible to find excellent beer in almost any U.S. city, I drank mostly imports acquired on trips to Columbus, Ohio, or to one of the few wine shops I knew of that carried good beers. One of my early mainstays was Samuel Smith’s Old Brewery Pale Ale, a fabulous brownish-amber-red, malty, medium-bitter ale with a nice finish that carries a hint of caramel, toffee and butterscotch. Sam’s pale ale became my gold standard for pale ales, and I measured all others against this beer for many years. Others, like Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., make fine pales — but they aren’t Sam Smith’s.

Alas … time marched onward, I gravitated toward porters and stouts and Belgian brews and tapped into pale ales less often. When I did buy a pale ale, it was almost always a Sam’s if I could find it. But the craft beer environment in the United States today kicks brand loyalty in the hindquarters. It seems I have to revise my “favorite stouts” list once a month or so, and every trip to the beer store results in something wonderful. There are too many fine brewers out there now for one little Brewologist to ever keep up with — but I’m trying.

This brings us to last week, and my decision to give a new pale ale a shot. One of the places I buy beer, Beuhler’s grocery in Ashland and Wooster, Ohio, allows buyers to fill their own six packs from a selected shelf. You buy individual bottles of whatever you like. It’s a great way to try new brews; I usually buy some I know I’ll love, and fill out the pack with something I’ve never tried. So after snapping up the last Sam Smith’s pale on the shelf, I spotted a pale from Stone Brewing Co. I have recently become very fond of Stone’s Ruination IPA, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to give Stone a head-to-head shot at knocking Sam Smith off of my pale ale podium. Besides, any brewer with a gargoyle on the label gets a couple of points just for style.

The Stone Pale Ale and  Sam Smith’s duked it out in a very close battle. Keep in mind, before trying Stone’s version of a pale ale, I routinely hailed Samuel Smith’s pale ale as one of my favorite all-time beers (and I still do).

But the entry from Stone is wonderful. In appearance, it has the same reddish-brown-amber hue and small head offered by Sam’s. Both brews have a nice malty, nutty aroma that is not overpowering but is enhanced if you use a fluted glass and inhale deeply. Both are nicely carbonated, enough to tickle your tongue.

After my first sip of Stone, enjoyed while the memory of my previous Sam Smith’s was still very fresh in my mind, it almost seemed to me as if Stone had set out to duplicate Sam’s. That initial drink was that close. Up front, both are malty sweet, with a mild hops presence. Once I got deeper into the Stone, and once the temperature of my straight-from-the-fridge ale came down a bit, the differences were more pronounced. The Stone is a tad less sweet than Sam Smith’s, and finishes on a spicier note. Instead of butterscotch, I get something more like pepper on the back end of a Stone Pale Ale. That’s a good thing, in my book.

I have loved Sam Smith’s so long it almost pains me to say it, but the Stone Pale Ale is every bit as good. I figured that when shopping, price probably would become the determining factor for me — but wouldn’t  you know it, I paid precisely the same for both brews.

Another differential I can come up with is the bottle itself. Stone uses a brown-tinted bottle, while Sam Smith goes with a clear bottle. While that clear glass lets you see the beautiful color of Sam’s beer, it also lets in light that can skunk your brew. I’ve never had that happen with a Sam Smith’s, which probably is a tribute to the fine people who provide good beer in Ohio and who store it properly as much as possible. But light-ruin is a potential hazard, and it’s more of an issue with Sam’s than with Stone.

Last but not least, there’s this: It’s good to buy American. Samuel Smith’s is a world class brewery, and I’ll keep buying beers from across the Atlantic. Sam’s has plenty of other choices for me, and I adore the Oatmeal Stout. But unless price becomes an issue, I’ll be quite happy to keep drinking Stone Pale Ale.

USA! USA! USA!

Here is the skinny on Stone Pale Ale: 5.4 percecnt alcohol by volume, 41 International Bitterness Units. Samuel Smith’s is 5 percent ABV, with 65 IBUs.

– Steve

This is a helles bock, a golden German-style lager intended to be drunk in late winter/early spring. It’s a bit early to mark spring where I live in Ohio, but what the hell. This is a really nice beer.

This one was waiting for me in the refrigerator when I got home from work, because my lovely wife decided she owed me a beer. She knew I liked other Sierra Nevada products, but was reasonably certain she hadn’t ever seen a Glissade in our house. Once again, my beautiful bride surprises me with a delicious beer I had never tried. I tell you, I do not deserve her.

I opened this one right from the fridge, as bocks like to be cold.

Bocks tend to be malty, and on the sweet side, and a bit darkish. The less common helles bock, however, is a honey gold. Glissade (The word refers to  a method of sliding down a steep slope of snow or ice, using an ice axe for support; it also denotes a ballet step) is beautiful and bubbly and has a remarkable clarity.

A little coaxing created a small white head that vanished quickly. The aroma hung on nicely, though, and it had a lot of snap and tang and brightness. That likely comes from the use of finishing hops — German Spalter and Slovenian Aurora and Styrian. The bouquet is more floral and pronounced than I expected from a bock.

I’m happy to say the taste lived up to the promise of that aroma. It’s a complex series of flavors, quite assertive for a bock and yet still mellow, and it definitely gets your attention. It sidesteps between malt sweetness and hops bitterness, mixing things up a bit. The finish is nicely dry and hoppy, and lingers a bit. Bocks usually weigh in at 20 to 35 International Bitterness Units, but this one sports 42, thanks to use of German bittering hops, Magnum and Perle. If you are a fan of India Pale Ales and are looking to branch out, this helles bock might appeal to you in a surprising way.

Glissade is 6.4 percent alcohol by volume. I’d love this with brats, or with burgers from the grill.

I’d say Sierra Nevada’s anniversary year is off to a good start, and I’m looking forward to more special treats from this brewery.

– Steve