Tasting Notes: New Glarus Enigma

Appearance: Pours a dark but translucent pinkish red.  Thin light pink head, which dissipated quickly, with no lacing.

Aroma: Funky and tart.  A barnyard funk, but still a sour cherry tartness to it.

Mouthfeel: Light.  Rolls right off the tongue.  More carbonation/effervescence than I was expecting based on the small head.

Flavors:  Tart at the front, then cherry and vanilla come out.  Almost tastes like canned cherry pie filling.  Finishes with a little barnyard funk, a touch of vanilla, and a very strong sour apple sourness.

Overall: Not my favorite sour or fruit beer, or even my favorite New Glarus sour or fruit beer.  Definitely nothing bad about this brew, but nothing really excited me either.  This might actually be my least favorite New Glarus beer so far, and it's hard to put a finger on exactly why.  Where their other sours and fruit beers not being overtly or offensively sour, and their hoppier beers being a bit malty comes across as balance and finesse, and even approachability across styles or even to non-beer drinkers, this one just seems too sweet, light bodied, and bland for a barrel-aged sour, but not quite malty or mild enough to make it an approachable session beer.  Again, definitely nothing bad about this beer, but if I had a fridge full of the full New Glarus lineup, this would probably be my last choice.

Tasting Notes: New Glarus Raspberry Tart

Appearance: Pours a deep but translucent amber, with a slight red tint.  Effervescent, with lots of little bubbles rising while being poured, and while sitting.  Interesting for such an effervescent beer, also had a decent sized, off white, almost light caramel colored head, with great retention, but minimal lacing.

Aroma: Sweet and tart raspberry.  Just a tiny bit of funk.

Mouthfeel: Fairly light, but does leave a little bit of a syrupy sensation behind.

Flavors: Well balanced.  Starts out just the right amount of tart, noticeable but not offputting.  Gets sweet, without ever being syrupy or sickeningly sweet, with a subtle vanilla note, and rounds out just tart enough to pucker your lips a little bit and leave you wanting more.

Overall: Good beer.  Tart enough to please us sour-lovers, but balanced and gentle enough that even people who might not usually drink sours could drink it.  Sweet enough to please some unlikely beer drinkers, without being syrupy or tasting artificial like some popular framboise.  A great beer to introduce a wine or cocktail drinker to craft beer.  And a great fruit/sour beer to introduce a beer drinker who might not usually drink them.  Not a lot of malt or hop flavors, but also not quite the same as a lot of better known fruit beers or sours.  Definitely will be picking up some more of this when I am back in the dairy land.

Tasting Notes: Avery Samael's Oak-Aged Ale

This bottle is from Batch 5, bottled in April 2009.

Appearance: Pours a very dark, toffee brown, with a caramel colored head, which though thin, had pretty good retention.

Aroma: Boozy, sweet, chocolate, dark fruit.

Mouthfeel: Heavy, full bodied, but not as syrupy as I would have expected from a beer with over 16% ABV and as much sweetness on the nose.

Taste: Caramel, chocolate, booze, sweet.  Picked up a lot more caramel and less chocolate on the palate than on the nose with this one.  Definitely a booziness (as would be expected from a beer with this ABV).  Almost a sherry or port flavor.  Plum and oak on the finish, which lingers for quite a while.

Overall: Interesting beer, and definitely have to be ready for it and expecting it to enjoy.  It mellows a little as it warms up and breathes (as any 4 year old barleywine probably would).  Unlike some other barleywines, this beer is not aggressively hopped, leaving the malty, boozy, and sweet flavors in the spotlight.  Great beer, and unlike a lot of quads, barleywines, and other sweet and boozy beers, it actually comes in a 12 ounce bottle, which is great!

Absinthe? Is it legal? Is it safe? Will it make me crazy?

Absinthe is one of the most misunderstood and mysterious spirits on the market.  Its history is full of road bumps, prohibitions, and myths that make it that much more confusing, and appealing.  So, here's a list of the common questions people ask about absinthe.

What is Absinthe?
Absinthe is a spirit with grand wormwood, green anise, and fennel flavoring.  Unlike most other spirits, it is not overly regulated or protected by laws, meaning distillers can make any number of products, and legally call them absinthe.  It also does not fall into any of the seven major "families" of spirits (vodka, rum, gin, tequila, whiskey, liqueur, or brandy), since it does not meet requirements for any of them, and unlike liqueurs (which can similarly contain just about anything) is not bottled with any artificial or added sweetness.  So absinthe can have a fruit (usually white grape, and typical of the most traditional high-end absinthes) or grain base.  It can be redistilled to instill flavors and colors, or can have them added through essential oils or compounds (cold compounding).  They can be clear, or any number of shades of green.

That being said, absinthe is usually a fairly high proof (90-148 proof) spirit which tastes like a very herbal version of licorice and contains wormwood or wormwood oil.

Is absinthe legal?
In most parts of the world, at present time, yes.  In some countries (Spain , Portugal, the UK, and others), absinthe has always been legal.  In most other Western countries, absinthe was banned some time between 1906 and 1915.  Most of those bans have been lifted between 2000 and 2011, due to conflicts with EU regulations, with other national food or beverage laws, or just a general cultural shift.

Is the absinthe that's now legal in the U.S. real?
Yes.  The largest confusion in this is that there was a product, pre-2007, which was called "Absente," which contained no wormwood oils, and was artificially sweetened, but was similar in flavor profile to absinthe.  This product was nothing like the "real" absinthe available at the time in parts of Europe.  In 2007, the FDA redefined a part of the food codes to declare anything with under 10mg/kg of thujone could be called "thujone free," and thus could be legally produced, imported, and sold in the United States.  This limit is lower than in some European countries, so our absinthe may have less wormwood and thujone in it than some European brands, but it does contain all the same ingredients.

What is thujone?  Is it really a hallucinogen?
Thujone is the chemical found in wormwood which is in the same family as THC (the chemical in pot which gives it its psychoactive properties).  Although both critics and artistic fans of absinthe claimed that this chemical gave it dangerous hallucinogenic properties, this has been scientifically disproved.  Thujone, and thus absinthe, will not make you hallucinate.  Nor will they trigger the same receptors that THc will in the brain.  That being said, it is not conclusively proven one way or the other whether thujone has psychoactive properties independent of alcohol.  Toxicity studies have shown both psychological and physiological effects of thujone, but only in concentrations nearly impossible to reach by drinking absinthe, especially since the high proof would lead to experiencing serious alcohol issues long before the threshold for these effects of thujone were felt.

That being said, in my personal experience, abisnthe gives a different type of buzz.  It is much more mellow, and clear-headed than the buzz I get off of drinking other spirits.  It is a little thought provoking, or some might even say "mind opening."  Then again, I've experienced a different type of "whiskey buzz" than "vodka buzz," and different types of buzz based on where I am and who I'm with, so we'll leave it for the scientists to figure out if the "absinthe buzz" is caused by thujone, one of the many other botanicals used in absinthe production, or just the experience of the whole absinthe ordeal.

Got questions?  Comments?  Suggestions for future posts?  Post them in the comments, or send them to livingbuzzed@gmail.com or @livingbuzzed on Twitter!