Archive for April, 2010
Founders Brewing Co. Nemesis 2009
Every batch diabolically brewed to decimate ordinary-average-run-of-the-mill tasting beer.
With a slogan like that printed right on the logo, it’s clear that Founders isn’t pulling any punches with this beer.
But then, do they ever pull any punches with their beers? The number of barrel-aged beers that they offer seems to be increasing all the time, and now includes bottled versions of Kentucky Breakfast Stout, Backwoods Bastard, and Old Curmudgeon, alongside draft-only releases of Hand of Doom (barrel-aged Double Trouble), Sappy Slappy Bastard (maple syrup/bourbon barrel-aged Dirty Bastard), barrel-aged Imperial Stouts, barrel-aged Red’s Rye Ale, barrel-aged Porter, Canadian Breakfast Stout (maple syrup/bourbon barrel-aged Breakfast Stout), and a brewery-only maple syrup/bourbon barrel-aged brown ale. An impressive lineup for fans of barrel-aged beers, and indicative of one aspect of Founders’ approach to brewing – take big, already impressive beers and make them bigger, and more impressive.
Lined up against this is their impressive lineup of seasonal and annual beers that don’t ever see the inside of a barrel. Red’s Rye is one of the most drinkable, flavorful beers out there, the Porter is as thick, creamy, and delicious as most breweries stouts, their Imperial Stout is a perennial favorite of mine, packed to the gills with flavor and body, and who hasn’t loved Double Trouble and Breakfast Stout?! And then there are the one-offs, such as Solid Gold or the MPG IPA (mango, papaya, and grapefruit), that I’ve been lucky to try at festivals and during my visit to the brewery.
In all, Founders nearly always blows me away with their top-notch, top-to-bottom selection. There are few breweries whose releases I look forward to more than theirs.
When news of the imminent release of Nemesis was announced, I knew distribution was going to be super limited, apparently a tiny amount of this beer was made, and I knew it would be foolish to run around chasing down bottles. And so I mostly tuned out the frequent posts on forums (“Anybody seen Nemsis yet?”), and patiently (or rather, less impatiently) awaited the Extreme Beer Fest when I hoped they’d be tasting Nemesis. Lo and behold they did!
It was the first beer we tried that day, and man…it was amazing. My taste buds were psyched! And so I shortly thereafter got lucky and was able to arrange to have a bottle saved for me at a local shop.
Nemesis is the name that Founders is reserving for a special one-off beer that they will brew each year. Here’s what they have to say:
What you have here is a rarity. A special, one-of-a-kind ale that is only made once a year. Sometimes that’s all. Forever. No more. Nada. Limited-time only. You never know what you’re gonna get. But you can be sure that it’ll be damn tasty.
This was the first year they brewed it, and it’s a big ol’ wheat wine weighing in at 12% ABV and 70 IBUs. After brewing, the beer spent 9 months aging in bourbon barrels that had previously been used to age maple syrup (same approach as with the Canadian Breakfast Stout and Sappy Slappy Bastard).
Tasting Notes
Nemesis pours thick and viscous, like caramel sauce, with a 2-finger creamy white head that surges up out of the beer and then drops leaving a thin layer. It’s orange amber in color and hazy with a bit of sediment in the glass. The nose has notes of salted caramel, orange cream, browned butter, and lots of oaky bourbon. The spectrum of flavors in the nose is just amazing, massive, rich and appetizing, and perfect for bourbon lovers. The palate has a soft, heavy, creamy mouthfeel, and subdued carbonation. Flavors of smoky oak resins, vanilla, creme brulee, caramel, warm, wheated bourbon, and shortbread. All in all, it’s sweet without being cloying, and it gained in balance and composure as it warmed. There is a notable hop bitterness when just out of the fridge that dissipates as the temp rises. The finish has elements of candied walnuts, mellow citrus, butter cookies, and a little lingering hop bitterness.
The overall verdict: this is a hugely flavorful, massive beer. A full, 12-oz bottle was about all my tastebuds and senses could handle, and I was thankful once again that Founders only uses 12-oz bottles nowadays. Am I glad I got to taste this? You bet! So much flavorful, it was a joy to drink, and rather inspirational from a homebrewer’s perspective. Imagine brewing up a couple cases of a beer this flavorful and stowing them away in a nice, cool basement to age slowly and gracefully? Trying one every month or two would be a blast!
Now if there were only a few more bottles of Nemesis stowed around here somewhere…
The Singleton Of Dufftown 12-Year
Dufftown is one of the distilleries included in the famous saying,
Rome was built on seven hills, but Dufftown is built on seven stills.
Named eponymously after the town it resides in, Dufftown (the distillery) was the 6th distillery to be established in town. The saying initially referred to the following distilleries: Balvenie, Convalmore, Dufftown, Glendullan, Glenfiddich, Mortlach, and Parkmore. After three of these distilleries closed (Convalmore, Glendullan, and Parkmore) and three new distilleries opened, the saying came to mean: Balvenie, Dufftown, Pittyvaich, Glenfiddich, Mortlach, Glendullan, and Kininvie. Today, five distilleries remain in Dufftown, so I suppose that we should sadly give up on the wonderful saying altogether.
Dufftown (the distillery) was founded in 1895 when it was converted from a meal mill into a distillery. The conversion took a little over a year, and the stills began running on November 10th, 1896. The distillery then experienced a rather uneventful couple of decades before its owners went bankrupt during the Prohibition period in America, and were forced to sell the business, lock, stock, and barrels (literally, both the distillery and all existing stock were included in the purchase).
The distillery was purchased by Arthur Bell & Sons, and quickly became a principal component of the Bell’s blend, leading to decades of busy distilling. In 1968 the stills were increased from two to four, in 1974 from four to six, and in 1979 from six to eight. Today, the distillery has an annual capacity of 4 million liters, making it the 12th largest distillery in Scotland.
Interestingly, despite that massive production, a mere 1% of the whisky goes for single malt bottlings. The vast majority goes into the Bell’s blend, with a substantial amount going to other blends. This bottling, named The Singleton, is rather new, and was introduced a couple of years ago.
Tasting Notes
All in all, this is a classic Speyside-style whisky. Not a classic whisky, but in the classic style. The color is rich, burnished gold. The nose has poached pears, almonds, custard, wheat, and a slight grassiness. Quite round and pleasant. The palate is soft, slightly oily and very mellow, with flavors of hazelnuts, almonds, honey, vanilla wafers, and a subtle fruitiness. Very drinkable, in a pleasant, unexciting way. The finish is quite brief, with soft flavors of clotted cream, pears, and hints of citrus.
I like Royal Mile Whiskies description best: “a pleasant but undramatic whisky”. I think this really captures this dram perfectly. It’s thoroughly enjoyable, in an easy, unchallenging, friendly kind of way. Similar to my Maker’s Mark post of a couple days ago, this would make a great every day whisky for the scotch drinker (although, I have to admit that Maker’s Mark impressed me much more).
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Montevertine Pian del Ciampolo 2007
We tasted this wine a little while back, and while it stuck in my memory, the post I had begun working on gradually fell farther and farther down the queue as other drafts accumulated in front of it. Thankfully, I had cause to revisit it after attending a tasting featuring Neal Rosenthal himeself at local wine shop named Brix. The tasting included several Montevertine wines, including the Pian del Ciampolo, Montevertine, and Le Pergole Torte.
Without doubt, Neal Rosenthal is my favorite importer of wines today. His selection focuses on France and Italy, and all of the wines he brings in are consistently wonderful. I particularly enjoy his Italian wines, and have had several from Piedmont and the Valle d’Aosta in particular. What I find so enjoyable about Rosenthal’s wine selection is the degree to which each wine is such a unique, distinct expression of the winemaker and the place in which the grapes were grown and the wine made. I don’t mean to wax overly poetic about terroir, typicity, etc., etc., but across the board I’ve found that these wines all say something different from one another. This certainly owes to Rosenthal’s explanation of what motivated him to begin importing wine in the first place,
The objective from the outset was to work as directly as possible with growers who were dedicated to producing limited quantities of the finest quality wines and who shared [our] passion for “terroir”, that ephemeral “sense of place”…We prefer to seek out other small sources of supply rather than work with a cooperative, negociant, or large commercial producer to keep the flow of wine coming.
The Montevertine Pian del Ciampolo fits this driving motivation to a tee. The winery was founded in 1967 by Sergio Manetti and produced its first vintage in 1971. From the start, Manetti focused production on the Sangiovese grapes. Because the then-rules governing production of Chianti Classico did not allow for using the amount of sangiovese Manetti desired, in 1981 the winery left the Chianti Classico consortium and began producing its own unique, regional wines.
The estate is small, numbering just 10 hectares of vines spread over 6 vineyards:
- Le Pergole Torte: planted in 1968, surface 2 hectares, exposed towards N-NE
- Montevertine: planted between 1972 and 1982, surface 2.5 hectares, exposed towards SE-S
- Il Sodaccio: planted in 1972 and completely replanted in the year 2000, surface 1.5 hectares, exposed towards SE
- Il Casino: planted in 1999, surface 2 hectares, exposed towards S
- Selvole: planted in 1997, surface 3.5 hectares, exposed towards SE-S
- Pian del Ciampolo: planted in 2003, surface 1.5 hectares, exposed towards W-NW
The winery’s website states that 90% of the grapes cultivated are sangiovese, with the remainder made up of canaiolo, colorino, and malvasia bianca. According to the site,
We have deliberately avoided cultivating other types of grapes such as Cabernet, Pinot Nero or Merlot because we want to distance ourselves from the worldwide trend. Some say that the aforementioned grapes reflect the current globalized taste. And what happens if one day, after an excessive production, we are bored by such grapes? Switching back to traditional grapes would take many years. And, after all, isn’t it altogether possible to make great wine from Sangiovese? Our own experience says “yes”, especially when the Sangiovese in question is Tuscan…
The Pian del Ciampolo is the estate’s basic red wine. It is composed of 90% sangiovese, 5% canaiolo, and 5% colorino. After a manual harvest, the grapes are pressed and the wine fermented in cement cuvees for at least 25 days. The wine is then aged in large Slavonian oak barrels for 18 months before bottling (without filtration), and is held in bottle by the estate for 4 months before being released.
Tasting Notes
The bottle sports a simple, tasteful label, perhaps speaking volumes about the wine itself. It pours a velvety purple red, the color of rose petals. The nose is enticing, displaying a wide range of flavors, with notes of violets, cherry cordials, dark chocolate, damp earth. The palate is vibrant and fresh tasting. Initial flavors of flavors of sweet raspberries and cherries gives way to ripe strawberries, milk chocolate, and a touch of apple skin acidity. The texture is smooth and mellow, with soft tannins providing some additional body. The finish is bright with acidity, complementing flavors of early season raspberries and strawberries.
On the whole, this wine was utterly delightful. Flavors of ripe fruit and chocolates were supported by a sweet, lithe body. Definitely try this wine if you have the opportunity.
At the tasting Rosenthal held, we also got to try the Montevertine and Le Pergole Torte. Montevertine is the estate’s middle-level wine, and their year-in, year-out premium bottling. In complexity and nuance its a step above the Pian del Ciampolo. The Le Pergole Torte is the estate’s reserve wine, only made in exceptional years. It is certainly an exciting wine, displaying more power and depth than the other two reds. All three are very good, highly recommended wines.
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Glen Elgin 10-Year SMWS Cask 85.20
This bottle highlights my favorite thing about being a member of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Having access to single-cask, cask-strength bottlings of rare and unusual whiskies, or rare and unusual expressions of not-so-rare whiskies, is a real treat. The fact that all of the bottles are so uniformly good, and some simply outstanding, is just the icing on the cake.
The bottle in question tonight is a 10-year old Glen Elgin aged in a refill sherry butt. This is a distillery whose inauspicious start and the many bumps along the road that it has experienced during its history perfectly illustrate the very ups and downs of the Scotch whisky industry as a whole. That today it appears in the guise of a special bottling from one of the most reputed Scotch whisky bottlers is a testament to both its tenacity and the wrinkles that good fortune can bring.
This Speyside distillery was founded in 1898 at the height of the late 19th-century whisky boom. It was designed by noted distillery architect Charles Chree Doig, famed for the pagoda-style roofs he built atop several distilleries at this time, including Aberlour, Dufftown, Balblair, and of course Glen Elgin. After two years of work, the distillery began operating in early May 1900, only to close 6 months later when the whisky bubble burst and worldwide demand plummeted.
In 1930 the distillery was purchased by the major conglomerate Scottish Malt Distillers, and became a principal component of the White Horse Blend. As a result, the distillery experienced sustained success for several decades (barring a brief closure during World War II). It was thoroughly rebuilt in 1964 when the number of stills was increased from two to six, and has been in continuous operation ever since.
Until recently it’s rarely been found in single-malt bottlings. Instead, the vast majority of the whisky goes into various blends, most notably White Horse. Overall production amounts to 1.8 million liters a year, which is certainly a respectable figure. It’s owned by United Distillers who market the Classic Malts series that includes distilleries such as Oban and Talisker. Word is that they’ve chosen Glen Elgin as one of the next whiskies to begin including in this series. Their website does indeed include Glen Elgin, but I don’t recall having seen it in shops as of yet.
As most distilleries do who produce whisky largely for blending purposes, Glen Elgin uses both bourbon and sherry casks for aging their whiskies. Their four dunnage style warehouses are all onsite.
Tasting Notes
This is bottle number 85.20 from the Society, and has been named “Woweee!” by the tasting committee. It’s been bottled at 60.2% and is 1 of 650 bottles from a refill sherry butt that was filled in September 1999.
In the glass the whisky is the color of polished gold, with alluring amber highlights. The nose has inviting notes of fresh forest air, followed by light citrus notes that lead to vanilla custard, grade A maple syrup, and lastly some dry, oaky notes. The dram takes time to open up in the glass and reveal all of its nuances, but it’s worth the wait. Don’t rush this one! The palate is velvety, warm, and viscous. The flavors are rich and warming, and include caramel custard, candied orange peels, warm brown sugar cookies, and an undercurrent of citrus and maltiness. The finish is medium length, tantalizingly lingering, fruity, and sweet.
Another impressive bottling from the Society. The whiskies I’ve loved most from them have been their single sherry casks, most notably a 24-year old first-fill Inchgower named “A Farmer’s Friend”. What a whisky it was! Deep, deep sherried whisky flavors – caramelized brown sugars, glazed spiral ham, red raspberries and rum-soaked strawberries. Wow, I still remember it vividly.
One note on the Society’s new bottles – I’m not sure I’m sold. The shape is not really to my liking, a bit too eccentric to me. Reminds me a lot of the Bowmore bottles that also turn me off a bit. But, what I do like is the design of the labels and the info they’ve included. Now is included the type of cask, the name and number of the whisky, the Committee’s tasting notes, the bottle count, and on the back, a pithy little statement that reads,
We, the Tasting Panel, verify that the Scotch Malt Whisky inside this bottle has been passed under some of the most scrupulous noses in the world and approved for release as a Society bottling. Only single cask whiskies that promise to intrigue, entertain, and delight our members are selected, true to our motto: ‘To Leave No Nose Upturned’
I’ve always loved the tasting notes the Society includes in their newsletters and bottling lists, and this statement sums up quite aptly the Society’s tongue-in-cheek style.
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Maker’s Mark “Red Wax”
There are times when your just interested in having a whiskey. When what is called for is not a special single-cask or cask-strength bottling, or a rare whisky that you got a sample of from a friend, or that bottle of 30-year old Glenfarclas that really warrants a special occasion. No, in those instances what is called for is a straight-up, no-frills whiskey. A whiskey that doesn’t ask for contemplation, but for you to simply enjoy it.
But it still has to be a good whiskey. One that you can enjoyably sip while watching a movie, reading a book, or spending time with friends. One that doesn’t sear your palate with its raw alcohol, its youth. One that is dynamic and offers more than one dimension to your palate. Basically, one that both tastes good, and isn’t boring.
See, the problem here is that the special whiskies in your collection have raised the bar high, and you can’t just go back to Jack-and-Cokes. The whiskey you’ll turn to in those moments where you’re just looking for a good ol’ whiskey has to at least harken to the other, more dynamic and memorable whiskies that you drink on other occasions. Otherwise, the reality is that it’ll just be too much of a stretch, and the chances that you’ll enjoy it just too small.
Given my growing fondness for wheated bourbons, I decided to give a bottle of Maker’s Mark a chance. I’d only tried it on a couple of occasions before, and so I was unsure of how it would work out. But I have to say, I’m pretty impressed at how well this whiskey stands up in the glass. My expectations were mixed, but I’ve really grown to like this whisky.
On February 26th 1954, Bill Samuels fired up the stills at his newly refurbished distillery in Loretto, Kentucky. Five years later, in 1959, the first bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon went on sale. This was the culmination of Samuels’ efforts in setting up his new distillery, aided along the way by Pappy Van Winkle – who provided Samuels with the recipe for the wheated bourbon distilled at the Stitzel-Weller distillery -, Dan Street of Brown-Forman, Ed Shapira of Heaven Hill, and Jere Beam of Jim Beam. Along with advice and knowledge, each of these distilleries offered yeast samples to Samuels, as he worked to settle on the final recipe for his new bourbon. Van Winkle also provided samples of new make bourbon, so that Samuels and his distillers would know how wheated bourbon should taste when coming off the stills. In Bourbon Straight, Charles Cowdery writes that, “[Samuels] always intended to make a wheat recipe bourbon because he preferred that flavor, but he had his own ideas about how to do it. Mostly his collaborators kept him out of trouble.”*
Maker’s Mark has essentially stuck to offering one product throughout its history. There have been occasional special bottlings released in limited supply and largely only at the distillery, and a “Black Wax” Maker’s Mark Select that was sold in Duty Free and limited export markets (but not in the U.S.). But for all intents and purposes, the red wax Maker’s Mark is the distillery’s only product. (Until recently that is. Last month was announced the upcoming release of Maker’s Mark 46.)
Tasting Notes
Maker’s Mark is roughly six years old when bottled. According to Cowdery, they use 1000 gallon tanks for blending together the different barrels that make up any given batch, whereas most distilleries use much larger tanks for this purpose. This is indicative of the consistency of their barrels, since they don’t need to blend nearly as many of them as other distilleries do in order to achieve a consistent flavor.
The whiskey is the color of well-polished gold with a subtle amber tint. The nose has notes of pepper, butterscotch, honey, and a pointed hint of citrus that really highlights the softer, sweeter flavors. The mouthfeel is soft and lightly textured, with a whiff of heat that gives a sense of its youth. The flavors are sweeter than the nose, with high-toned sugars and caramel mingled with candied orange peel and an interesting golden raisin element, underscored by spicy, resiny notes. The finish has warm flavors of custard, salted caramel, vanilla, and lingering molasses and caramel brittle. The finish is very nice, a solid ending to this whiskey.
All things told, Maker’s Mark proves to be an easy-drinking whiskey, entirely suitable for sipping, and a good buffer between you and your more special bottles. Interestingly, this bottle has been open for 1-2 months, and during that time the whiskey has really softened. It’s not quite as brash as it was when the bottle was first opened. A glass tonight has more softness, and rounder sweetness than the whiskey initially had when I opened the bottle. I also found this recently with a bottle of Van Winkle 12-year. So, take that for what you will. Nice to know that you don’t have to rush through a bottle of these two whiskies.
All in all, this makes me look forward to trying the “46″ bottling that they will be putting out soon. It also makes me pine for the opportunity to try the Black Wax Maker’s Mark (an older version of Maker’s Mark), which has been spoken of very highly by folks such as John Hansell of the Malt Advocate.
*This quote and much of the other information in this paragraph comes from Cowdery’s excellent book, Bourbon Straight.
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