So what’s up…do you guys like the booze reviews, or are you bored?  Let me know in the comments if you love ‘em, hate ‘em, or whatever.  If not…what do you want to see more of?  Let it be noted: my be-hind is not an option (sorry ladies!).

This time…New Grist Beer by Lakefront Brewery

The Lowdown: So I was meandering the shelves of my local package store, looking for something interesting, when this caught my eye.  Not just the attractive packaging, but the line “Made from Sorghum and Rice“.  That’s a new one.  I mean, I know that sake and several other Asian alcohols are made from rice, but I don’t recall seeing an American beer made from it, and certainly not sorghum.  Consider my interest piqued!  So I grabbed it and placed it in one of my 4 shopping carts, and asked myself, why would anyone do such a thing?  Why make beer from something other than the tried and true ingredients we’ve all come to know and love?  My question was answered when I got home and looked them up online: New Grist is a gluten-free beer (no malted barley or wheat or any of that), made for people with Celiac disease, which requires a strict gluten-free diet.  It struck me, because I have a few family members diagnosed with Celiac in the past few years, so I know what a huge change it is to completely alter your diet like that, not to mention not be able to enjoy beer.  Thankfully the people at Lakefront Brewery have answered the call to help these poor souls in need of an ice cold one.

The Whiff: First of all…lots of fizz on the pour.  More like a soda than a beer.  More of that harsh crackle than the soft bubble of beer.  it’s also kinda cloudy, unlike the clear pour of an ale or the opaque blackout of a stout.  It is here that I decide that the standard rules for beer should be thrown out the door…this is an entirely different beast, in almost every sense, so I’m just going to take things as they come and try to avoid ccomparisons to other beers or beverages.

Oh right, the smell.  Very light, not a lot of scent coming out of it.  It’s a little bit citrusy, but more appley.  For a very short time when I was a kid, I remember this “healthy” fast food place called “D’Lites” or “D’Lights” or something, and instead of serving regular sodas, they served a sparkling apple cider over ice.  That’s what this reminds me of.  Crisp, cold, bubbling apple cider (but one which I’m sure didn’t have much sugar at this health-conscious eatery).  It was really a treat for us when we were kids, we weren’t allowed to drink soda much growing up anyways, but to have an apple soda was something special.  We didn’t give a damn about the health aspect, it was just something different and delicious.

The Taste: Whaddya know, APPLE!  Now, I must make mention that this beer is in no way marketed as a cider or apple-flavored or anything like that…it just is.  Only…it’s pretty weak.  If you’ve ever had a Woodpecker Cider or Hornby’s, this is similar, but waaaaaay weaker on the apple front.  I honestly have no idea what sorghum is, but apparently when combined with rice and bubbles, it tastes like some sad green apples crying into a bottle, and calling it beer.  Green apples robbed of all their character and dignity, I mean.  The flavor is really flat.  Lots of carbonation; the pour didn’t lie, and the flavor is simple and plain and weak.  There’s a little tiny bit of lemon in there, but it’s not enough to save this beer.

Would you drink it again? I highly doubt it.  it’s not bad per se, it doesn’t hurt me to drink it, but there’s just nothing there to really enjoy.  If there was no other beer around, and someone offered it to me, I’d drink it…that’s about the only scenario I can see happening where I’d drink this again.

Would you recommend it to someone else? Only if they had Celiac, and REALLY wanted to experience something that was distantly related to beer.  The fact that they don’t really publicize the apple aspect, or embrace it and crank up the apple flavor and call it a cider, bothers me.  That would actually be great, if they just rode the apple train and put a little more complex apple flavors in there and market it as such, I bet they’d do great.  As it stands, I can’t see anyone but the most desperate seeking this out and enjoying it.

Overall Score: 64

I really wanted to like this, but it just didn’t succeed on any level.

What, you thought I wasn’t going to review wines too?  You’d better go back to Thinking School, Jack!

The Lowdown: The Vinzelo is a red blended wine from Quinta de Ventozelo.  It’s made up of 4 different varietals: 30% Tinta Roriz, 30% Toriga Franca, 30% Tinta Barroca, and 10% Toruriga Nacional grapes.  I picked it up for a few reasons:

1. I’ve never had any of those kinds of grapes, so why not give them a shot?

2. It’s from Douro Valley, which is a region in Portugal already known for its Port wines, and word on the street is that it’s slated to be the one of the next big interesting wine regions.

3. It was under $10*

When I got home and looked it up to learn more, I found out that the 2005 won Top Value and was a recommended wine by Wine Spectator.  Let’s hope the 2006 is just as good (or better!).

The Whiff: I get all kinds of red fruits up my nosepiece.  Raspberry and…uhm, well other red berries, fresh and delicious.  It’s “bright”, if that makes any sense.  What I don’t smell…oak.  Tons of wines reek of the oak barrels they’re matured in, both in scent and in flavor.  Looking at the bottle tells me that there was no oak aging involved, that it spent it’s life growing up stainless steel tanks (just like my sisters!).  After having so many chardonnays and cabernets recently that were aged in oak (most are), it’s kind of refreshing to not have that soaked-in-sawdust element and let the grapes speak for themselves (Apparently, they all want free healthcare.  Who knew?).

The Taste: Fruit out the wazoo.  The red berries continue, and are joined by their rambunctious friends cherry and apple.  There’s more to it than that though, a creamy element, like a butter component.  It’s semi-sweet, but not like pure sugar (or, God forbid, White Zinfandel)…more like molasses.  Yep, that’s it, molasses…adding a little complexity to the fruit flavors, and giving it some backbone.  That being said, this is VERY easy to drink.  It’s a very soft flavor, no bitterness or “pucker” really (which probably means low tannins).  The alcohol is 12%, and it shows as there’s almost zero alcohol burn.  The alcohol burn is something I relish in other drinks, especially my whiskeys.  That warmth lightly burning your mouth and throat as the first gulp goes down, I love it.  But I’m perfectly OK with it not being here in my wine.  These bright delicious fruits backed up by a creamy brown-sugar backbone doesn’t need that alcohol weight that liquor has to fortify it. I know from this description it sounds like drinking pure sugar-water, but I promise you it isn’t.  It still very much has that red wine taste that all red wines have, and that I’m not quite able to describe any other way than that.

Would you drink it again? You betcha.  Really, this wine was good at teaching me some things about the kinds of wines I like and don’t like:

1. I don’t like a lot of oak

2. I don’t like bitter tannins

I’ve never liked bitter or sour things, so that’s no revelation to me (go to hell pickles, mustard, and olives!).  But to my knowledge, this may be my first un-oaked red wine I’ve ever had, and not having it there really changed the flavor profile.  As I said, I like LOVE whiskeys, and they’re often heavily oaked…and given all of the other flavor profiles of bourbon and scotch, I think oak is great flavor component in that context.  In my wines…not so much.  Based on this experience, I’m going to seek out some un-oaked chardonnays (assuming such things exist), because I suspect there might be some great grape flavors that I’ve been missing because they were buried under a mountain of plywood.

Would you recommend it to someone else? Yes indeed.  This is really a wine that’s great to just have a case of it lying around.  You could pull a bottle out and talk about Portugal and Douro and sound super-smart to your friends like you actually know something about wine, and it’s accessible (and cheap) enough that it won’t be overwhelming and could go with most foods you might serve.  If you’re friends with wine snobs, they’ll probably lament the lack of complexity and call it a “fruit bomb“, though not near as dumbed-down and simple as something like Yellow Tail**.  For the average person, it’s complex enough that they’ll not just enjoy it but feel smart for picking out the complexities that are there (that you’ll probably have to explain to them).

Overall Score: 91

Could it be more complex and interesting?  Absolutely, but for most people this will be a fantastic wine that’s more than worth the price.

*When you run your own website that makes you virtually no money and you’re not yet well-known for doing booze reviews so no booze companies are sending you free review samples, then you can call me a cheapskate.  Until then…enjoy all the free entertainment my site provides you!  Want to help out?  We sell shirts!

**Yellow Tail is like the Nickelback of wine:  critics across the board hate and despise them, cry from the rooftops how shitty they are and how there’s so much better out there, yet somehow they manage to sell millions.  People love them, no matter what they’re told by those who know better. This phenomenon can also be used to explain why people who are ordinarily rational human beings vote the way they do, despite knowing better.