First, HAPPY CRAFT BEER WEEK!!! 

In honor of this week, we have here an estimable  redux of sorts. One of our favorite brews EVER is Founders KBS, a big, rich, stout, aged for a year in oak bourbon barrels. We first had it with dessert at a Founders Beer Dinner. The ONE and only beer my wife makes a point of destination. It’s big, sweet, rich, chocolaty with the slightest edge of black, black coffee, and goes perfectly with dessert.
Since then we’ve had it in the bottle, where we find it to be VERY good, but not nearly what we’ve had from the tap.

So when I got a call from the aforementioned Bar Goddess, Shana, informing us that it had been tapped at The Lockview, our dinner plans became the order of the day.

Upon our arrival, we each ordered one and while waiting looked at the menu. I always tend to like their grilled cheese specials, often exotic grilled Dagwood sandwiches that happen to have some cheese in them. Dolli usually orders their Mac & Cheese, whatever else going into it, the basil and bits of roasted red pepper making it a singular and wonderful dish.

Our first sips of the KBS were every bit as delightful as expected. But I’ll admit that my rose colored glasses remembered it as bigger-than-life, more syrupy, sweeter and far more of a stand-alone or dessert beverage than it really is. So when my sandwich special arrived…

Hey Napoleon, let me have some of your TOTS!

The Missing Link: Italian sausage, sautéed garlic spinach, marinara, mozzarella cheese and caramelized onion on Italian bread. Served with hand-cut French fries…that turned out to be tots!

I was thrilled to find the KBS light and balanced to such a degree that it served perfectly as an accompanying drink. I WILL say that the sum of the parts of this sandwich, while tasty, crunchy goodness as always, pretty much came out as a toasted version of an Italian sausage sandwich, period. Perhaps the KBS overwhelmed some of the subtle flavor suggestions of this combo, but while good, not my fave.

On the other hand, our other dinner companion (Dolli did, in fact, get the Mac & Cheese, of course), had the following:

Ham Sweet Ham: Grilled ham, Missy’s seasoned sweet potatoes (allspice, cinnamon and butter), mozzarella cheese, all served in maple syrup on country buttertop bread. Served with tater tots.

First off, not something I would normally order, THIS turned out to be the sandwich of the hour! There was a sweet & savory thing going on here that worked brilliantly. It also grabbed those elements of the KBS, the sandwich and stout soaring!! It was a perfect pairing.

Earlier in the week, I picked up a couple bottles of KBS. The chocolate came roaring out of the bottle at first blush…settling in, KBS  would probably be awesome coming out of a waxed milk carton a month past the expiration date. It’s THAT good!

So, to start off this week, the three beers examined in this three parter are truly Three Kings: Two new Top 20 brews and one that’s been sitting firmly on a throne for a while now!~ Enjoy, folks.

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I had, over a short period of time, 3 brews, two new to me, one a fabulous revisit, and thought I’d share. The first was Flying Dog’s BAG, Barrel Aged Gonzo Imperial Porter, which I wrote about a couple days ago as Part #1 of the trilogy.

Next up was the Brooklyn Silver Anniversary Lager. Having lunch at The Lockview, Shana, our bar-manager-who-pays-attention, suggested I try the Brooklyn. And thanks to her for doing so.

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This celebrates Brooklyn Brewery’s 25^th anniversary. They somehow took a lager and ended up with a doppelbock, or at least that’s how it was explained to me. Coming to me from the tap in a snifter, the nose of this nice amber brew struck me as that of a fine “lager distillation,” the sweetness and grain presence just a little amplified.

The taste, at first blush, followed the same track. I wouldn’t call it a full fledged doppelbock, but it was also far more than a lager. Malty, bigger (if for no other reason, amplified by it’s 9% ABV), a little caramel…frankly folks, I don’t know WHAT it is, exactly. Even the weight of it in the mouth was more than a lager, but again, as if it had been cooked down a bit, just enough to make everything about it vivid and substantial, but not overwhelmingly so.

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Then it struck me. The bitter was there. There were hops in this boy, and that also differentiated it from lager, from doppelbock…it reminded me more of a seasonal brew I tried in Texas a while back, Phoenixx Double Extra Special Bitter from Real Ale out of Blanco, TX. Both brews focused, stylistically, on the malt component, thus rounded, caramely, a little sweet and tasty, but both surprising and standing out by showing a real, proper, and thoughtful nod to hops.

Additionally, as part of Brooklyn’s 25th offering, artists Fred Tomaselli, Roxy Paine, Joe Amhrein and Elizabeth Crawford created labels. Bottle-conditioned, collectors might want to grab these up and put them away, as this whole project seems headed down the right path.

So Brooklyn’s 25^th Anniversary Silver Delicious Whatever? Recommended, big time.

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I just had the great fortune of being introduced to, or notably revisiting three extraordinarily good beers over a short span of time. All three flirting with O.A (Optimum Awesome-ocity), they will each receive their own post which we’ll roll out over the next few days.

Flying Dog’s BAG, Barrel Aged Gonzo Imperial Porter is being shelved in stores as “new” but appears to be a re-issue from Flying Dog, and we can be grateful for that. I picked up a 750ML bottle of it and stuck it in the fridge waiting (cheap date, remember?) for someone to drink it with. That didn’t take long, but I’m going to be totally forthcoming here. I THINK I remember who I drank it with, can’t remember any notes of interest offered by him, and sadly (?), meaning I’ll GLADLY have to run out and get another one, can’t remember anything distinguishing in the nose, but I think I was coming down with something at the time.

What I do, remember, however, was not only finding the mouthfeel to be that of a classically clean light stout/porter, but the flavor notes (no head to speak of, btw) to be outstanding! The first thing that hit me was a unique flavor that had me repeating “Root beer? Birch beer?” It finally came to me that what I was tasting was a magical combination of the seemingly young and raw (perhaps uncharred?) wood of the barrel and a bourbon that rendered a far woodier and less sweet product than most BB offerings I’ve tried. Fueled by a notably solid 9.5% ABV, this was truly GONZO in it’s individuality…I mean the fabulous Ralph Steadman label does bear  the quote:

“It  never got weird enough for me.”
—Hunter S. Thompson.

Coming at the end was a delicious, rounded “milk” chocolate note, rendering this a complex, interesting, and most important, singular offering from our extreme brethren in Frederick MD. An A+++++ for this guy.

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