Drinks With Nathan

Upcoming Event: Whiskey & Barrel-Aged Beer Tasting, Saturday, March 6th @ Amherst Coffee

This coming Saturday I’ll be leading a tasting at Amherst Coffee that I’m particularly excited about, given my appreciation for both beer and whiskey. The tasting will feature 4 whiskies, each paired with a beer that was aged in barrels from the same distillery. The stellar lineup includes both bourbons and scotches, and covers the gamut from bourbon barrel-aged imperial stouts to Scotch whisky barrel-aged old ales.

Here’s the complete lineup:

• Elijah Craig 18-Year Bourbon & Weyerbacher Heresy Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
• Eagle Rare 10-Year Single Barrel Bourbon & Mayflower Brewing Co. Bourbon Barrel-Aged Barleywine
• Springbank 10-Year Scotch & Brewdog Paradox Springbank Whisky Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
• Highland Park 12-Year Scotch & Harviestoun Old Dubh Highland Park Whisky Barrel-Aged Old Ale

Holy cow. I want this tasting to be tonight. I’m very excited. All four of these are top-notch whiskies paired with absolutely top-notch, palate-bending barrel-aged beers.This will be a great event.

I hear that seats are running low. So if you’re interested, give them a buzz soon. Don’t miss it!

Event Details

• When: Saturday, March 6th, 2010, seatings @ 5pm & 7pm
• Where: Amherst Coffee, Amherst, Mass. (map)
• Info: call Amherst Coffee @ 413-256-8987

Upcoming Event: Scotch Tasting @ Amherst Coffee

I’ve always firmly believed that scotch is a perfect year-round drink and that the only real challenge lay in determining which season suited a specific scotch. But it can be a challenge to find a scotch that is really best suited to the warmer summer months. If the cold of winter brings out the best in smoky scotch, what is it that the warmth of summer highlights in a scotch?

Answering these questions is no easy task, and so the folks at Amherst Coffee and I have teamed up to help you out with your research. On Saturday, June 27th we’ll be holding a Summer Scotch Tasting, featuring a lineup of 7 scotches that are all perfect summer drams.

• When: Saturday, June 27th – seatings at 5pm & 7pm
• Cost: $35
• What: a lineup of 7 scotches especially suited to summertime dramming

The lineup will include whiskies from Auchentoshan, Deanston, Littlemill, Glenkinchie, Ardbeg, Springbank, and one special surprise.

Upcoming Event: Bourbon Tasting @ Amherst Coffee

This coming Saturday I will be hosting a second whiskey tasting at Amherst Coffee. This time we’ll be tasting through a series of bourbons from a variety of producers.

Here’s the lineup:

• Blanton’s Single Barrel
• Eagle Rare 10 Year Single Barrel
• Evan Williams Single Barrel 1999 Vintage
• Four Roses Single Barrel
• Pappy Van Winkle 12 Year Lot “B”
• Tuthilltown Spirits Baby Bourbon
• Tuthilltown Spirits Four Grain Bourbon

This promises to a be a really interesting tasting. I believe the common misconception is that all bourbons taste the same, but this tasting will serve to fiercely dispel that image. I’ve no doubt that by the end of the night, we’ll all have a very different impression of what bourbons can taste like.

Seatings start promptly at 5pm and 7pm and cost $35. Seats are limited, so make a reservation at Amherst Coffee today! Stop by or call 413-256-8987.

2009 Beer Advocate Extreme Beer Fest Recap

I was recently lucky enough to go to the Beer Advocate Extreme Beer Fest that was held here in Boston. Thirty-four breweries showed up with upwards of 100 different beers that spanned the entire style spectrum – everything from The Bruery’s Berliner Weisse to Dogfish Head’s infamous ultra-high-gravity 120 Minute IPA and World Wide Stout. When all was said and done it was a fabulous time and I was totally impressed by most of the beers that I tasted.

A few beers were clear standouts for me:

• Founders Brewing Canadian Breakfast Stout: Tops among these was the Canadian Breakfast Stout from Founders. They took their excellent Breakfast Stout and aged it in maple syrup barrels (that themselves had once been used to age bourbon). The result was a luscious, full-bodied stout that combined flavors of coffee, chocolate, roasted grains, maple syrup and a distinctly creamy texture. Incredibly good.
• Lagunitas Hop Stoopid: I had only had this beer once before and was excited at the prospect of trying it again. Happily, it was so good that it actually exceeded my already high expectations. This is a Double IPA brewed to 8.2% and using mostly hop extracts as opposed to whole leaf or pellet hops. The extracts give the beer massive hop flavor and aroma without much of the bitterness or coarse texture often found in this style. The best part was that I found out that this was going to replace the Maximus as their year-round 22oz IPA, and the Maxiums was going to replace the regular IPA as their year-round 6-pack IPA. Great news!
• Lost Abbey Older Viscosity: I’d always been on the lookout for this beer and leaped at the chance to try it. An extremely thickly-textured imperial stout with strong notes of bourbon and vanilla throughout the nose and palate. This would be a stellar sipping beer for a cold winter evening.
• Bear Republic Apex: While Lagunitas’ Hop Stoopid has been my benchmark IPA for a while now, I still love the hoppy beers from Bear Republic. They described Apex as their “experimental IPA [that] allows their brewing staff to play and search for that ever elusive new hop blend and balance”. Coming in at 7.5% this IPA had a fabulously citrusy hop nose, incredible blend of hop flavors, and was very, very drinkable.
• Bells’ Hopslam and Bourbon-Barrel Aged Expedition: Two very different beers both from a brewery that doesn’t distribute anywhere near Mass., and both of them were fabulously good. The Hopslam was everything a hophead would wish for, grapefruit and citrus on the nose and loads of hop flavor with minimal bitterness. The Bourbon-Barrel Aged Expedition totally surprised me. I wasn’t blown away by the nose or palate, but the finish was literally spellbinding. The beer really opened up at the back of your palate with wonderful flavors of cocoa, milk duds, and creme brulee. An amazing finish.
• Founders Brewing Kentucky Breakfast Stout: One of the most highly anticipated beers of the day, they tapped the keg at 4pm to a big ovation. The crowd was crazy waiting to get this beer! This was easily one of the best barrel-aged stouts that I tried during the day. The bourbon flavors were very will integrated and not overpowering, lending an already great stout an extra edge that made it a fabulous beer. When this comes out in bottles, I’ll be eagerly lining up to get some.
• Three Floyds Behemoth and Dreadnaught IPA: These two beers were very good, and very similar. Both came in right around 10% and delivered huge pine and citrus hop noses, and lots of hops flavor and well integrated bitterness on the palate. The difference lay in the slightly more prominent malt character in the taste of the Behemoth. Both were excellent, and made me shed a tear that Three Floyds doesn’t make it out this ways.
• Founders Brewing Hand Of Doom: This beer finally convinced me that a very good IPA can handle the flavors of bourbon-barrel aging. In this case the bourbon barrel had given the beer a remarkably creamy smooth texture and vanilla custard overtones to accompany a subdued but notable hoppy aroma and flavors. It reminded me of how well the Allagash Curieux mixes the flavors of a Belgian Tripel and a bourbon barrel.

All in all I tried about 25 beers on the night, and most of them were quite good. While the above were the standouts, a number of others were right up there, including the Lost Abbey’s Phunky Duck, Smuttynose’s Oaked Blackberry Imperial Stout, Short’s Brewing’s Uber Goober, Sixpoint’s Gorilla Warfare, and Foothills’ Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon-Barrel Porter. The only disappointment were the couple of brandy-barrel aged beers that I tried and found simply too sweet, with the character of the beer having been overcome by the barrel. But that’s the beauty of 2oz pours, I didn’t like all of the beers I tried, but I also didn’t feel bad pouring them out.

In sum, the Fest was a great experience, tons of fun, and I can’t wait to go next year and see what other new beers I’ll have the chance to try. Because one thing was for certain, there simply is not enough time or capacity to try all of the great beers that were there. I know for certain that I left a few great breweries and beers untouched. But that’s ok, just all the more reason to go next year.

Upcoming Event: Islay Scotch Tasting @ Amherst Coffee

This Saturday I’ll be leading a tasting of Islay scotches at Amherst Coffee in Amherst, Mass. I’m really looking forward to it. Not only do I think it’ll be a fun time, but there will be a number of scotches that I haven’t tried in a long time. In fact one of them, the Caol Ila 12 year old, was the first bottle of scotch that I ever bought, and I haven’t tasted it since then!

Here is the full list of what we’ll be tasting:

• Ardbeg Airigh Nam Beist 16 Year
• Bowmore 15 Year
• Bruichladdich 17 Year
• Bunnahabhain 18 Year
• Caol Ila 12 Year
• Lagavulin 16 Year
• Laphroaig 15 Year

What a great list of whiskies! Right now, I’m tossing around ideas for how best to proceed with the tasting, specifically what order to taste them in.

There will be two tastings, one at 5pm and another at 6pm, limited to 10 seats each. To sign up, stop by the shop or call 413-256-8987.