In the world of micro and craft brewed beer, there is perhaps no more exceptional example of extreme brewing than Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA.  On their website, the brewery describes an unbelievable level of hopping – continuous hopping in the wort for 2 hours, followed by dry hopping for a month during a slow fermentation process.  The potential problem is that the end product comes out so bitter and astringent as to be undrinkable.  To counter that, DFH puts a tremendous amount of malt into the wort, and then uses two different strains of yeast and brings the fermentation to levels not often seen in beer.  This is truly a potent brew, and one that can age well.

The self-described “holy grail of hop-heads” would seem to be a product that would be extra-ordinarily bitter.  However, the brewery has tried to balance the hops with malt, and they seem to have succeeded very well.  My father’s impression of the beer is that it tastes sweet.  I do taste the sweetness, but I taste it in counterpoint to the inordinate hoppiness – this is a beer of massive extremes.

Up until now,  most of the “Imperial” versions of beer styles that I have come across were stouts.  I’m pretty sure that I have already mentioned Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout – an impressively heavy stout that I have liked for a long time.  Well, Sam Adams has now introduced three Imperial beers – Imperial Pilsner, Imperial Stout, and Imperial White Ale.

Before I go any further, I guess I should clarify what an “Imperial” version of a beer style is.  How to describe it?  Well, I guess you could say that Imperial versions represent the earliest attempts at what has recently become known as “extreme brewing.”  Extreme brewing is the label that gets applied to many of the envelope pushing efforts of today’s microbreweries.  For example, an IPA with more than 100 IBU would be considered an example of extreme brewing.  Similarly, an Imperial style beer is one where the master brewer tries to intensify and exaggerate the flavor profiles of the style in order to make the beer fit for the table of an Emperor.  According to some sources, the Imperial Stout style originated with brewers looking to supply the table of Catherine the Great.

So what is Imperial White Ale?  Well, let’s start with a White Ale, which perhaps would more properly be referred to as a Belgian White Ale.  A White Ale is an ale brewed with wheat, and flavored with orange and coriander.  Due to lack of filtration, most White Ales are cloudy.  Examples of white ales include Hoegaarden and Blue Moon.  Personally, I’ve generally found white ales to be a bit bland – I can drink one and evaluate its relative quality, but I have a hard time drinking more than one in a sitting.  On the other hand, the popularity of Hoegaarden and Blue Moon indicates that the style is rather popular.

Enter Sam Adams Imperial White Ale.  Push the flavors to the extreme, to the point where the mouthfeel is rich and just at the right point below syrupy to be rich and rewarding.  This is a good example of the Imperial craft styling.  It’s one of Sam Adams more expensive regular bottle beers, at about $11 for a 4-pack versus $10 for a 6pack of regular Sam Adams beers, but at 10.3% ABV, that’s justifiable.  I could definitely drink more than one of these in a sitting.  I’ll have to try the others.

About 15 years ago, the Boston Beer Company rolled out a new product in their Sam Adams line.  Marketed in 8 ounce bottles of a gorgeous cobalt blue and sealed with a cork, Triple Bock was indisputably a revolutionary product.

There was very little similarity between Triple Bock and ordinary beer.  Triple Bock was uncarbonated, dark, viscous, sweet and aromatic.  The label on the back of the bottle suggested that it be enjoyed from a snifter in manner similar to a port wine.  They also suggested aging Triple Bock for a few years, laid on it’s side in a cool, dark place.  About the only similarity between Triple Bock and regular beer is that they are both made from malted barley, and some of the production methods.  The taste was rich and complex, and the alcohol content was high but not given.  I loved it, but after 2 years, Sam Adams stopped marketing Triple Bock.

I’m not sure what year they first released it, but a few years after Sam Adams stopped selling Triple Bock, a new, outrageously expensive beer product appeared on the market.  Enter Utopias, an uncarbonated beer with alcohol level of over 20% by volume, in 750 ml bottles shaped like industrial sized wort cookers, and with a retail price of $100.  I didn’t get to taste Utopias until three or four years ago, when I opted to pay $20 for a single serving at Draft Barn. 

While writing this, I went to the Sam Adams webpage to read some of the info on Utopias (I had never bothered before now).  The website confirmed what I knew with certainty on my first sip of Utopias – Utopias is a direct descendant of Triple Bock.

Utopias is quite a bit more refined than Triple Bock was, and the additional barrel aging that Utopias gets definitely smoothes out the product, but personally I like Triple Bock more.  Some of that may be my memory romanticizing the “good old days,” but I am not denying that Triple Bock was somewhat coarser than Utopias.  It’s just that Triple Bock was very good and only $5-6 per bottle, and as expensive as that might have been at the time, it’s a lot less expensive than Utopias, which reached $200 per bottle for the last release.  While I would have preferred that they continue marketing Triple Bock, the people at Sam Adams are obviously better business people than I am, because they put $15 worth of Triple Bock into a barrel, bottled it in a fancier bottle, and got $100 for it.

Utopias is a limited periodic release that gets snapped up extremely quickly when it does come out, although there may be a few bottles on the shelves of specialty beer retailers.

I mentioned in my Rosh Hashana recap that I had tried Wagner Valley Brewery’s Sled Dog Doppelbock.  Well, I quoted wrong.  It was the Sled Dog Trippelbock Reserve, which comes in 750 ml bottles.  I actually think they misspelled this one – it should be spelled Trippel/Bock.  When my dad mentioned that he had bought a Trippelbock, I wasn’t sure what to expect – I had flashbacks on Sam Adams Triple Bock, which was the product that eventually evolved into Utopia.  Getting back to the subject of this post, Sled Dog Tripplebock Reserve is actually a blend of Belgian Trippel and Bock styles.  The mix of flavors is fascinating – this beer is a real winner.  My father says it was pricey, but I’m not sure how much he paid for it, and a 750 ml bottle of beer like this can easily merit a $10 price tag.  He purchased it while on vacation in the Watkins Glen area of upstate New York, so we may not get to see this very much in NYC, but I will be looking into it.

In case you haven’t noticed from the recent plethora of posts about beer from Lagunitas Brewery, Lagunitas is quickly earning a prime slot in my list of favorite breweries.  I especially love that they list technical specs like IBU, O.G. (original gravity) and ABV on the label, because that appeals to both the engineer and the beer geek in me.  And any beer geek can use the IBU levels as a guide to whether he is likely to enjoy the beer or not.  For those who are not yet qualified to use the IBU level as a guide, it’s usually pretty simple – IBU numbers over 30 indicate a more bitter beer, lower numbers tend to be maltier (sweeter in a maltose, not sucrose sense).

All that being said, Little Sumpin’ WILD is a limited release variation on Lagunitas’ Little Sumpin’ regular production ale.  Based on the taste of the WILD variation, I would feel safe recommending the regular Little Sumpin’.  WILD is a really good IPA, with a slight aggressive edge to the hops that resonates with the use of the ‘wild’ descriptor.  The aggressive edge comes through mostly on the back palate and finish, and it doesn’t detract from the overall structure of the beer.  Even if you miss this release of WILD, check out Little Sumpin’.

A limited release described by the brewers as a malty, robust, jobless recovery ale, I am fairly certain that the Wilco Tango Foxtrot name is a play on the common acronym WTF.  And that’s somewhat apropos, because how else would you react to a malty beer with a 64.20 IBU level?  I mean, 64.2 IBU is enough hops to be in the realm of serious IPAs – how the heck did this come out as a malty beer?

Obviously, to make a malty beer with a 64.2 IBU lever requires some serious amounts of malt in the wort.  It’s hard to describe where exactly this falls in terms of beer styles – it kind of falls into a category of its own.  The best comparison that comes to mind is that it’s the taste equivalent of 3 bottles of excellent octoberfest in one bottle.  And while that might help lift your spirits while you drink it, this nonetheless is an exotic beer with the sort of price tag that comes along with it.  I found this in Whole Foods on Houston Street in Manhattan, and while Whole Foods has decent prices on their beers, this is not a bargain beer to buy while funds are low.  Well worth finding, though.

A business associate texted me the other day asking my opinion on a few different beers.  We wound up trading a few emails, and he wound up sending me the Star-K Kosher Certification letter for the Boston Beer Company.  You know, those guys who make the Sam Adams line of beers.  Well, the most interesting thing about the certification letter was not the various Sam Adams beers, but the fact that the brands Angry Orchard, Twisted Tea, and Hardcore are listed as Boston Beer Company brands that are certified kosher.  I’ve heard of Twisted Tea before, but apparently Angry Orchard has not yet launched to market.  I’ll be keeping an eye out for Angry Orchard, but in the meantime my morbid curiousity will probably prompt me to check out some of the Twisted Teas.  Ordinarily I would be against such things as alcoholic iced tea (unless it was something I prepared myself), but since they’ve gone and gotten kosher certification, I’ll try them out.  Check back soon for more info.

Last summer I tried the Lagunitas IPA and found it to be very good – very strong hop bitterness, but in balance with the overall structure of the beer.  This year, I found Lagunitas Maximus IPA – an even more potent expression with an 8% ABV content, and hop levels high enough to reach over 70 I.B.U. (International Bitterness Units).  For a bit of perspective, Lagunitas IPA has an IBU level of 45, and Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale clocks in somewhere over 100 IBU.

The strong hop level in Maximus is well balanced with a strong level of malt, which gives Maximus a summer-heat busting bitterness that is refreshing without being astringent.  Thankfully, it’s an “unlimited release” – i.e. a year-round production.  If you like high-hop beers, keep your eyes open for this – it’s not very expensive and well worth it.  I found it at American Beer on Court Street in Brooklyn.