Alright, so just to get it out of the way: I know that in the past I’ve given riesling a bit of a tough time (though really it was more directed at Mr. West). In fact, I may have suggested that Riesling’s new marketing slogan should be Riesling: When You Just Need to Start Some Shit at a Bridal Shower. I may have done that (good thing the internet doesn’t remember things like that). But there’s a time and a place for everything, and according to my Southern compatriot Hardy at Dirty South Wine, Thanksgiving is exactly the time and place for Riesling. He even goes so far as to call it “home run, pull down yer pants juice!”. That sounds like fun! You can race your grandmother to see which of you reaches that goal first! Now that I’m done making you barf, let us take a look at Polka Dot Riesling.

The Lowdown: Riesling is traditionally grown and produced in Germany, and Polka Dot is no exception, hailing from the Pfalz region. Though there are dry versions out there, Riesling is typically a pretty sweet wine. I know this going into it, I’ve had Riesling before, and I’m not planning on giving it a bad rap just for being sweet, that’s dumb. “Oh dear, I had no idea this limoncello would taste of lemons! Nobody warned me! My delicate sense of taste has been irreparably damaged. F+.” I would be a jerk if I did that. The sky is blue, grass is green, Jeff Dunham isn’t funny, and riesling is sweet. FACTS OF LIFE. Moving on…

The Whiff: Lots of fruit scents coming out of this wine, which is to be expected. Pear, green apple, and maybe some apricot in there. If it tastes like it smells, I can see how this would pair well with Thanksgiving food. A fruity, cold, biting sweetness to cut through the hearty gravy-slathered turkey and stuffing and everything else. I get it.

The Taste: It’s sweet! No duh. It’s also very crisp and clean, downright refreshing even. The low alcohol content (10.5%) makes it very drinkable. Not particularly complex, pretty much apple flavor all the way. It’s basically like biting into a big green apple. I mean, I could probably pick some other fruit flavors out of there if I tried, but the one you’re going to taste and notice is apple, because it is FULL ON. Just to be clear, this tastes like actual apples, not that nasty syrupy retch they put in appletinis.

Huh, I was just poking around the Polka Dot website (wordplay!) and saw they have a whole section of Riesling cocktails. If I’d seen that sooner, I’d definitely give one of them a shot, but alas…the bottle, she is empty. If you’re interested in that kind of thing though, go check it out.

Would you drink it again? Indeed I would. I think it would be great for Thanksgiving or any big hearty meal like that. You know how when you’re eating a big plate of food, especially holiday food all covered in gravy and mixed and mashed together, and it’s great, but after a while it all kind of tastes the same and you need a taste break? This would be a great taste break, a light fruity contrast to the rest of the meal so you can dig in and get back to shoveling Thanksgiving WIN down your throat.

Would you recommend it? Yes. I’d probably even go as far as to try and convert some anti-Riesling folks with the Thanksgiving thing. Not that I would keep holding Thanksgiving dinners to prove the point, I’m not a MADMAN, but I would use the idea to win them over. As I said, there are dryer versions out there, so maybe I’d start with that if they were being buttholes about it.

Overall: A solid, if not particularly complex Riesling that demonstrates what it means to appropriately pair wine and food. A-

Today I’m going to be taking a look at a brand new liqueur from Kahlua, Kahlua Coffee Cream.  It’s a limited edition product rolling out to stores now for the holiday season.  It is what it sounds like: Kahlua coffee liqueur blended with cream.  Easy, right?  If you like Kahlua, you’ve probably already made a similar drink yourself, because a-no-duh, it’s delicious.  But this is NOT like a bottle of pre-mixed TGIFriday’s Long Island Iced Tea (barf!) or even some of Kahlua’s own pre-mix offerings like Mudslides or B-52s.  It’s more in line with their Especial or Hazelnut liqueurs, carefully selected ingredients blended to make a singular liqueur suitable for drinking on its own or in a cocktail.  For the sake of comparison, it’s similar to Castries or Baileys or Amarula.

I’m going to forgo the usual formalities and just get down to it.  If you like Kahlua, you will like this.  Pour it over ice, then into your face, and repeat.  I tried coming up with a drink using KCC (abbreviations, get with it grandpa!), a variation on the classic Irish Car Bomb meant to be sipped as a cocktail rather than slammed down your gullet.  However, upon attempting said cocktail, I remembered why you chug an Irish Car Bomb: cream curdles in beer.  Doh! So instead of a delicious drink I could be proud of and share with all of my friends (and you guys*), I had a nasty curdled waste of perfectly good booze that I had to throw down the sink.  Sad, eh?  Luckily, people much smarter than me came up with some great cocktails at a recent Thursday Drink Night.  I also have it on good authority that a number of people will be using KCC in this week’s Mixology Monday.  CRISIS AVERTED.

I feel like I haven’t even explained how it tastes.  More than most coffee cream liqueurs, KCC is much more coffee-forward.  Not too much though, I’m not a coffee drinker and I still love this stuff.  It’s sweet, but well balanced enough that it’s not cloying.  There’s not much else to it, if you like Kahlua, I’ll bet dollars to donuts (whatever that means) that you’ll like this.  Like I said, it’s limited for the holiday season, so grab some before it disappears!

*KIDDING, you know I love you, my sweet sweet bitches

Back to basics, gang.  Last beer of Beer Week!

So for this last beer, I had a number of great choices to write about.  Smuttynose’s Star Island Single, Bell’s Kalamazoo Stout, Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout, Weyerbacher’s Imperial Pumpkin Ale, and this one, Pennichuck’s Rustwagen Hefewiezen.  All are great beers (at least the one’s I’ve tried, and the others by reputation), and any one of them would have made a great cap to Beer Week.  In the end, I went with the Rustwagen because if my quick Googling was right, only something like 6 people have tried this beer and bothered to review it.  It’s a relative unknown for most people, so I thought I’d bring it a little more attention, because that’s what it’s all about, right?  Trying new things, getting the word out about good beers to good people.  You can look up any one of those other beers and read literally HUNDREDS of reviews about them, they don’t need my help.  These guys do.  So let’s get to it, shall we?

The Lowdown: Rustwagen is an traditional unfiltered hefeweizen, a style of wheat beer.  The “unfiltered” refers to the yeast, which is left in the bottle either to continue fermentation, or in the case of many hefewiezens add to the flavor and mouthfeel of the beer.  The Rustwagen pours out a deep yellow-orange, super fizzy head, and is completely opaque.  Here’s a look at the yeast sediment in the bottom of the bottle (it’s totally OK to drink, don’t be scared):

If that photo looks strange or out of focus, it’s because I was standing on a chair like an idiot, putting the beer bottle up to the light fixture with one hand while taking the picture with the other.  Apparently in that moment I forgot that there are plenty of floor-level lights I could hold the bottle up to and get the exact shot I wanted.  I hadn’t even opened the bottle to start drinking yet!

The Whiff: As soon as I poured this, I caught a light lemony whiff.  Sticking my nose all up in it, it didn’t get more intense, just a nice soft lemony scent.  There’s some general wheat/bread in there, and under it all a little bit of yeast funk.  Not a bad funk, good funk.  Like The Brothers Johnson funk.

ANYWAY…

The Taste: Right away I get wheat with a citrus tang on the front end.  After the first gulp that tang gives way to just a little bit of a lemon flavor.  The bread carries over from the nose, almost like a banana bread kind of thing.  There’s the tiniest bit of spice under there, and then it tapers off and finishes clean.  It’s true to the style and it’s a really easy-drinking beer.  Easy-drinkin’ is important here, as it’s a pretty big bottle (just under a fifth) so it’d better go down easy at that quantity.  Like I said at the beginning of the week, being enjoyable is what it’s all about, so this beer’s a winner for me.

Would you drink it again? Yes.  It’s a good quality brew that’s perfect for these end-of-Summer-but-not-yet-Fall days.  It’s light and citrusy and easy to drink, but the underlying wheat and spice hints at the rich seasonings and flavors of autumn that are just ahead.  A great beer for these transitional months (and other times too, of course).

Would you recommend it to someone else? Yes.  This is one of those beers that’s so easy to drink that anyone will like it, but is complex enough that beer snobs can enjoy it too.  And beer snobs should enjoy something, right?

Overall: A solid beer from the little guys.  Give it a try!  A-

Going to do something for today’s review.  Seems that when I posted yesterday’s Lightening Round some lady got all upset and commented (I’m paraphrasing) “Waaaahhhh!  Why are you only reviewing fruit beers? WAAAHHHH ME NO LIKEY!  CHANGE MY DIAPER,  YOU GIRL“.  Apparently this individual doesn’t understand how beer works, so I’ll clarify.  When I use words like “citrus” or “fig” it doesn’t mean the beer was actually made with those things, it just has the scent or taste that is most easily described using those scents and tastes we’re all familiar with.  I thought that was pretty clear, because NO DOI but apparently I get called a “girl” if I use descriptors like that.

So in the interest of avoiding such complications today I’ve chosen one of the most beery beer I had on hand, Stone Levitation.  On the back, it says that it is only made with “water, barley, hops and yeast”.  NO fruit.  All beer, nothing but beer.  BEER.  In honor of this particular reader, I’ve decided to present Stone Levitation in the most appropriate way I could think of.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the beginning of…

Chapter 1

Stone Levitation was anxious.  It was the first time in a long time she’d been out on her own in…well she couldn’t remember.  Sure, she still poured out a deep chestnut, same as she always had, but… she’d been dating that Arrogant Bastard for so long, she was nervous and unsure of who she was anymore.  He was always so rough and aggressive, and it just didn’t mix with her toned-down and easy-flowing ways.  Tonight, she told herself, was a session for herself.

Pretty as she ever was, and ready for some excitement!

She took a taxi to a cafe on the other side of town a friend had told her about.  Low-key and not one of those filthy meat markets filled with a bunch of stuck-up stouts and porters.  A nice place, with nice people.  She chose a table in the corner and quietly scanned the room with her eyes.  Could the guy for her be out there, in this quaint little cafe?  She didn’t want to get her hopes up, but she allowed herself to feel cautiously optimistic.  Just as she thought she’d seen everyone in the cafe, a figure in the shadows caught her eye.

Who was this man?  His features so striking, his demeanor so calm and assured.  As her gaze lingered, he turned his head and caught her staring.  Startled, she hung her neck in shame and began blushing.  Had she blown it?  Surely a man like this wouldn’t be interested in her.  She scolded herself for being caught doing such a silly and obvious thing, scolded herself for thinking she deserved to be happy, that someone like him could be interested in a plain old amber ale like her.

Her head still down, she heard heavy footsteps approach her.  ”Hello,” a deep voice said.  She looked up, “I’m Jack Lord Tiki Mug,” he said ” may I join you?”  Flustered, she stammered “Oh…uhm yes, of course…won’t you sit down?”

“I’m sorry to be so forward, but I couldn’t help but notice the floral hops I was smelling, and had to introduce myself to the woman they belonged to” he said as he sat himself.  ”I like to think of my hops more like pine, but I see what you’re saying.  Thank you for noticing, not a lot of guys would” She said.

“How could I not?  I just knew that a woman with such hops would be the kind of malty, even-keeled drink of brew that I just had to get to know”

Was this really happening?  How did he know all this about her?  Things like this just didn’t happen to someone like Stone Levitation.  It was like being in a movie!

Getting acquainted…

“Well,” she said, growing more confident, “I have been told that I’m very drinkable, and I’ve been known to have an earthy, nutty finish.”  Where was this boldness coming from!  She hardly believed the words as they left her cap, but this handsome gent didn’t seem to blink an eye.  In fact, a knowing smirk covered his clay lips as he said “Let’s get out of this place, shall we?  I know a quiet place where we could pour more…privately.”  Swept up in the moment, she took his hand, whispering breathlessly  ”Yes, let’s go now” as they got up from their table and vanished into the night.

——————–

That’s all I have so far, but here are a few sneak peeks at what lies ahead for the sassy Miss Stone Levitation:

Stone changes into something sexy and see-through

THEY DO IT

You should really click through on some of those pictures to get the full-on gauzy soap-opera effect.  I hope that’s a sufficiently manly and non-fruity way to review a non-fruity beer.  I’m also pretty sure I just invented Beer Fan Fiction.  YOU’RE WELCOME.

The actual name of this beer is Thomas Creek’s Stillwater Vanilla Cream Ale, but that is exactly one word too long to fit into the title area.  Sorry Stillwater.  Anyway…

The Lowdown: I gotta say, I’m kind of excited about this beer.  It just sounds good, you know?  Other than “stillwater”, that sounds a little stagnant, otherwise though: great name.  But I hate having high expectations about a beer, because they are all too often dashed upon the rocks like last year’s lobster pots, and that hurts.  I suppose if a beer didn’t look good from it’s presentation and branding, nobody would buy it, right?  Sure, that’s how beer works.  So no hard feelings.  I went a little stupid taking lots of pictures, so get ready (I’ve got to keep myself entertained somehow):

Ok, I’m done being a jackass (for now).  On to the drinking!

The Whiff: Not much here.  Faint vanilla, and a general “beer” smell.  Doesn’t really mean much one way or another.  We soldier on!

The Taste: Hmm.  Well, looks like the nose was “on the nose”, GET IT!?!  Not a whole lot going on, weak vanilla flavor, light creaminess, and some very gentle hops.  It’s not bad, it’s just not doing much either.  To be honest, I bet you could give this to someone (not telling them what it is) and they wouldn’t even say “Pardon me sir, is this a vanilla cream beer you’ve given me?”  It’s really that subtle.  The upside is that same subtlety would allow you to drink many of these beers without getting sick of them.

Would you drink it again? Sure, but I don’t know that I’d go out of my way to buy it or pay much more for it than other beers.  It’s just not that exciting.

Would you recommend it to someone else? Probably not.  Like I said, not because it’s bad, there’s just not much going on to get hyped up about.  YAWN.

Overall: Sometimes all the great marketing and fantastic pictorials featuring magazine covermodels can’t make up for the fact that a beer is just kind of meh.  C+

Let’s get this party started! (Party = me drinking and writing by myself in front of my computer.  Living la vida loca, people!)

The Lowdown: Honestly, I’m wary of fruit beers.  They tend to come in two different varieties, either: 1) strange artificial flavoring that makes it smell and taste like bad medicine, OR 2) barely any fruit flavor at all, buried under the beer because the brewer was too scared of ending up like #1.  A reasonable fear, but kind of defeats the purpose of putting fruit in your beer, doesn’t it?  Anyway, it is with this trepidation and these preconceptions I approach Samuel Smith’s Organic Cherry.  I pour it into a glass, it comes out a deep red-orange with a pink-tinted head that quickly dissipates. Let’s go!

The Whiff: Nice full cherry smells.  Not medicinal.  Sweet, pleasant, and only faintly beer-like.  I don’t want to get too optimistic here, SO I WON’T.  Total master of my emotions, bitches!

The Taste: Wow.  Cherry.  SO MUCH.  Let it be said: Samuel Smith did not hold back on the fruit flavor for this beer.  Not even a little.  And it’s good!  Seriously guys, this practically tastes like cherry soda.  But…not exactly.  If cherry soda was made with REAL cherries, definitely sweet but with a little bit of tart and a little bit of bitter to round them out (help from the hops?  MAYBE), that’s what this tastes like.

A QUICK ASIDE ABOUT CHERRIES: I know most people think of maraschino cherries as the tiny neon-red super-sweet balls of fruit that tend to reside in that most unnatural red syrup and get thrown on top of whipped cream or dropped in a Shirley Temple (or God forbid, a cocktail).  NO.  That is fruit made into candy.  Sickly-sweet artificial candy.  If you want a treat, look up what maraschino cherries were, and then look into making your own (or buy some from the pros).  They are incredible and made of WIN.  Your cocktails just got upgraded from “SELL” to “DON’T BUY”.  It’s really happening*.

THAT SAID, this is like real cherry juice from real cherries (which is what one would hope for, based on the “organic” label).  Only bubbly.  And alcoholic.  It barely tastes like a beer, to be perfectly honest with you.  Some people may not like that, and that’s fine.  It’s not incredibly complex and I mean it when I make the cherry soda comparison.  In terms of straight-up deliciousness though?  YES.

Would you drink it again? YESSIR!  To be honest, I probably wouldn’t drink more than one of these in a night (they’re big bottles, more than a pint), even if I was going for the gold in the Good Times Olympics. It would be a great way to start off a night though, or a taste break after drinking a lot of regular beers.  A tasty sweet (but not too sweet) pick-me-up.

Would you recommend it to someone else? Almost universally YES.  The only people I wouldn’t recommend it to are snobs who get hung up in the machinations that go with being a critic that for some reason require us to shun things that are just GOOD simply because they’re not complex enough or authentic enough or WHATEVER and somewhere along the way we forgot how to let go and just enjoy something for bringing happiness.  For all that tends to go with this job for those of us who are critics or reviewers or tastemakers or whatever you want to call us, we are a LOT less discriminating in our everyday consumption than we let on in our reviews.  There’s a lot of reasons for that (another discussion for another day), but my point is that I LIKE THIS JUST FOR BEING TASTY and I’m not ashamed of it.  From here on out, any artifice, any snobby or high-falutin’ put-onnery I may have had in the past is hereby GONE**.  If it’s good, I’ll let you know straight-up.

Overall: I’ve said enough, you should know by now if this is for you or not.  For my tastes? A-

*Damnit people, get my pop-culture references!  If you know it, shout out in the comments, you’ll make this grizzled old blogger happy.

**Was I very snobby in the past?  I’m not sure.  If I was, IT’S GONE…and if I wasn’t, you won’t miss it.

That’s right gang, this whole week I’ll be covering BEERS.  Reviews mostly, but if you guys have questions about beer or want to see me cover a specific topic, let me know and I’ll see what I can do!  If I was a smarter man, I would have planned that part of it (the sending in questions and topic ideas part) a little better, but I’m not!  If reading blogs by a fancy-pants smarty-face is really that important to you, go read Albert Einstein’s or Copernicus’s blog or something.  I’m not linking to them because I DIDN’T DISCOVER THE THEORY OF INVERSE FARTING OR WHATEVER and I’m too dumb to figure it out.  Also, I heard they stopped updating their blogs awhile ago.  Deadbeats.

Anyway, BEERS.