Ok, so over two weeks have gone by since Thanksgiving, but I wasn't around the week after Thanksgiving (still in Maryland visiting the family) and this week I have been catching up here at work for my missed week. So, anyway, here is a quick rundown on the beers we had for Thanksgiving Day.
First, we opened up the Hottenroth from The Bruery. My family eats late (like 5pm or so) so we opened this around 12 or so to get things going. It was just my wife and I at that time. As always, a great beer. With the low abv, this was a nice way to start. Tart as always with lots of nice lemony flavor. Maybe not the best beer for the end of November, but I don't care, it was good.
People started showing up soon after that and we started getting down to some real business. We moved to the Ithaca White Gold. I was really excited for this one. I should have held that excitement. This beer was WAY over-carbonated and a mess in general. It nearly exploded and we lost almost half the bottle down the sink. Just a real mess. And then, to top it off, there was a ridiculous amount of sediment in the beer. Nasty looking dark sandy type of sediment. Yuck! I, being the stingy bastard I am, didn't want to waste it though (hey, I paid good money for that beer!). I had some. It tasted good, at least after I let the sediment settle out a bit. But, with the over-carbonation and all of the sediment, it took time. As I said, still decent flavors, slight tartness with good bready feel, but it was hard to get past the problems we had. Ugh.
After that, my wife opened up the Rodenbach Grand Cru. I was busy working on the white gold so had very little of the Rodenbach. This was a beer EVERYONE that tasted loved. My sister, my cousin, my mom even! So, I barely got any of that even after I had finished the white gold. Oh well, I know the beer and know it is good.
It was then time to sit down for dinner. We opened two bottle with dinner, Saison DuPont and Lost Abbey Judgement Day. Saison Dupont is always good of course, but I felt like it may have been slightly light struck. I got a bit of that green bottle smell. My wife insists that that was just the barnyardy goodness of the beer, but I am still not so sure. Well, this still went great with dinner for sure. The Judgement Day may not have been a good choice however. I think the beer was just too heavy for the normal Thanksgiving meal. It just disappointed a bit. Good, but not as good as I remembered it being on tap. No one really enjoyed the Judgement Day, but the Saison definitely received good reviews.
Finally, after dinner, we pulled out that '06 DFH Fort. This was good. Still a bit boozy though, even after four years! But, the booze was way smoother than it could have been. I enjoyed it a lot as an after dinner / desert type drink. Quality quality beer with lots of that great raspberry flavor. Very few tried this one as well unfortunately. A few, and they liked it, but they didn't want much. Guess they couldn't handle the 18% abv of the beer.
So, the day in beer had its ups and downs. I am still pissed off about the White Gold, but hey, it happens I supposed. I am more upset that Ithaca allowed that much carbonation into the beer. Definitely something they need to work on. But, I had a good day of good beer. A LOT of good beer.
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