A bit late Thanksgiving beer review

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.

Thanksgiving, A Day of Beer

So, this year, my wife and I decided that we were going to forego the normal wine drinking on Thanksgiving day at my parent's house. Since it has been nearly two years since we really started to get into beer, we felt it was time to see what we could do to try to open up my (conservative) family to something new. Gasp!

To start, I should say something about the Thanksgiving meal that we have. My mom makes the meal and it is pretty standard fare. Turkey, mashed potatoes, corn (out of a can!), stuffing, boiled carrots, green beans, cranberry sauce (again out of a can), and rolls (yup, you guessed it, out of a can). Needless to say, my mom is NOT adventurous or interesting in her choices for the Thanksgiving meal. Hell, the turkey isn't even brined. We tried to convince her to do that before and let me tell you we barely had gotten one sentence in before she shot it down. So, we have lots of uninteresting meal components with little flavor. Ok, that should make things easier as you can pretty much go with any beer. We do have appetizers but they aren't particularly interesting either. Basic cheddar cheese and crackers, peanuts, veggies and dip, and cocktail shrimp. I like the shrimp but they aren't interesting or anything. So flavors for food all around are blah.

Ok, onto what we are going to "match" with this completely and totally uninteresting food.

Beer #1 - The Bruery Hottenroth

We are starting off with one of our favorites, this very pleasant berliner weisse. This is a summer seasonal for The Bruery, but we managed to get the last few around last week for just this event (and because we love the beer so much). This is light and airy as well as being very low in abv to start the day. This should pair nicely with the light fair to start and, as I said, the low alcohol keeps you from getting too toasted too early.

Beer #2 - Ithaca White Gold

A different style to follow with this American pale wheat ale from Ithaca. This is one of my favorite beers I tried this year. I loved the nice tartness and good carbonation. It is a big step up in alcohol but well worth it for the flavor you get with this beer. It is definitely tart but has a nice body with the wheat used in it. Planning to also have this with the many different appetizers that will be out.

Beer #3 - Rodenbach Grand Cru

Oh, now we have a nice good one to go with dinner. Flanders Red Ales are some of my absolutely favorite types of beer. Yes, we have a lot of more sour/tart styles here, but we have a more wine drinking family so I think that this is the best way to go with them (without pulling out a hardcore gueuze or american wild ale). The fruit flavors with the slight sourness should go nicely with the dinner meal.

Beer #4 - Saison Dupont

For this beer, we are planning on going with a classic. Saison Dupont is just a fantastic beer all around and goes with so many different foods. However, I feel it was made for roasted fowl, such as our turkey. The rustic flavors will go well with the meal. Plus, we sort of had some tasting of this last Thanksgiving on a limited basis with my family and this beer went over well. If it works once, try it again.

Beer #5 - Lost Abbey Judgement Day

Now we are looking to push them a bit with this big strong 10.5%abv quad from Lost Abbey. The heavy sweetness and dark fruit flavors should do well towards the end of the meal. People so often think dark beer means Guiness and we are looking to break that thought with this beer.

Beer #6 - 2006 vintage Dogfish Head Fort

Possibly the piece de resistance right here. We came across this randomly at one of our local craft beer stores in Providence a couple of weeks ago and snatched it up. We think it was leftover from the BeervanaFest back in October that didn't get used. Needless to say, I was thrilled. Fort is a nice beer, but very harsh with that 18%abv. The aging on this should smooth it out considerably and make it extremely drinkable. I think that this may end up replacing the after dinner cordials that the family usually drinks. I am very excited to open this one.

So, there you have it. Not sure if we are going to get to all of these beers, but that is our goal. So, hope you are having some nice beers with your Thanksgiving dinner.