KOTBR #97 - Lost Abbey Poetry

The Lost Abbey brewery has been highly praised in the craft beer community since they opened their doors in 2006. Tomme Arthur has been brewing some of the highest rated and most sought after beers in the world and the brewery does an amazing job labeling and marketing their beer.

One of their more interesting marketing efforts is the Saints and Sinners Clubs. For 2010, memberships to the clubs entitle you to semi-monthly allotments of beer and a set of glassware along with other benefits like options to buy extra bottles, discounts, and admission to private events for club members only. The Sinners club offers more wild brews, but memberships go quickly and it is rather expensive to join. The Saints club is a little less expensive, but the brews are a little less wacky.

When the 2009 memberships opened, I bit the proverbial bullet. Lost Abbey does not ship to Indiana, so collections of the bottles required sweet-talking a family member into accepting these semi-monthly shipments (Shipping is an extra $20.00 from the brewery each time, by the way) to her home in Illinois.

Over the course of a year, 14 new additions to the collection were gained on our frequent trips back to visit family. Each shipment, with the exception of the July allotment, contained 2 bottles of the same beer. July's shipment contained 4 bottles, each a different variety.

After all was said and done, the club (initial cost plus shipping) was just at $290.00, almost $21.00 a bottle. Usually a bit more than I'd pay for a single bottle, but the overall experience was worth it, I think. Would I do it again? Probably not, at least not the Saints Club. The Sinners Club, though, is a different story.

So what's this all for then? What's the point if we can't get the beer here anyway? Well, more than once in our travels we found ourselves standing in front of a row of these beers, trying to pick which ones to buy, wondering which ones deserved space in the suitcase since the descriptions on the bottles were vague at best.

So, if you find yourself in front of a row of these incredibly alluring labels, how will you know what's inside? How do you pick? Our crazy poems probably won't help, but we hope they entertain.

Witch's Wit

Review is a practice we've often rehearsed
The ninety-seventh time we've met somewhere out
In the language of Lost Abbey we became well versed

Ten total bottles for which we had thirst
A tasty group with considerable clout
Even small samples might leave us submersed

"A Witches Wit must surely be cursed!"
I said at the start of our route
But in tasting I realized the mistake of my outburst

A flavor with which my mouth was aspersed
A feeling continued the day throughout
As toward my mouth my glass was coerced

A Belgian-style ale brewed with honey and spices traversed
The commonly used description a brewer's copout?
For it was the flavor of candied grape that I felt showed up first

The mug scores below are tightly dispersed
My notes became a flameout
Some are better, best or worst
As nine more bottles of Lost Abbey are yet to be nursed

Lost Abbey Witch's Wit
Mike: 3.3 Mugs | Gina: 3.8 Mugs | Rodney: 3.72 Mugs | Jess: 3.6 Mugs | Matt: 3.7 Mugs | Chris: 3.2 Mugs
KOTBR Score: 3.55 Mugs


Devotion:

Lost Abbey Devotion Ale

Mike: 3.0 Mugs | Gina: 3.25 Mugs | Rodney: 3.2 Mugs | Jess: 2.7 Mugs | Matt: 2.5 Mugs | Chris: 2.9 Mugs

KOTBR Score: 2.92 Mugs

Carnevale -
Oh Farmhouse ale,
Didn't we imbibe you earlier?

Rustic Saison,
You tease me with notes of blankets and hay.

Lemongrass and grapefruit,
I was hoping for more of a party.

Lost Abbey Carnevale Ale
Mike: 2.75 Mugs | Gina: 3.2 Mugs | Rodney: 3.3 Mugs | Jess: 3.8 Mugs | Matt: 3.75 Mugs | Chris: 3.4 Mugs
KOTBR Score: 3.36 Mugs

Red Barn Ale - (We've reviewed this beer before, scores are new)

Tart toasted toffee
Presents Pineapple pepper
Refreshing Saison

Lost Abbey Red Barn Ale
Mike: 3.5 Mugs | Gina: 3.85 Mugs | Rodney: 3.3 Mugs | Jess: 3.5 Mugs | Matt: 3.0 Mugs | Chris: 3.3 Mugs
KOTBR Score: 3.40 Mugs

Lost Abbey Lost and Found - (We've reviewed this beer before, scores are new)
Review by way of Found Poetry, via Beer Advocate reviews:

A fine lookin' 750ml bottle
happy to see me: it overflows
Like a murky rootbeer
devilishly fresh phenolic madness

Figs and sweet toffee
Baking a loaf of bread
with the bottom remnants of Grandma's spice drawer

Hitting the tongue with a well-rounded assault
dark fruits gal-our
warming, but reassuring
Ah, the Dubbel.

Lost Abbey Lost and Found
Mike: 3.4 Mugs | Gina: 3.4 Mugs | Rodney: 3.5 Mugs | Jess: 3.9 Mugs | Matt: 3.6 Mugs
KOTBR Score: 3.56 Mugs

ENGLISH SONNET
Inferno Ale
This beer, I know I have seen it in Chicago
Mysterious artwork gives way to poor description
A purchase I have many times chosen to forgo
Alas, about this decision I have always felt affliction
Despite my poor decisions in the past -
Ho! It stands before me!
Inferno, we meet at last
I can only imagine what your style must be
A blonde ale it would appear
Such a floral aroma accompanied by banana and lemon
The mild character is surprising and reveals my fear
A bit of grassy hops with lemon and cream in fusion
This poor ale, weak in its life, reveals the ravages of age
In its youth, I shall revisit, so that its true flavor I may justly gauge
2.7 mugs

Lost Abbey Inferno Ale
Mike: 3.0 Mugs | Gina: 3.2 Mugs | Rodney: 2.7 Mugs | Jess: 2.9 Mugs | Matt: 3.25 Mugs
KOTBR Score: 3.01 Mugs

LIMERICK
Gift of the Magi Ale
Caramel penetrated the sinus
Nutty brown with almonds, the finest
Earthy hops were in there
Caramel flavors to pair
Though it finishes with latex dryness
3.1 mugs

Lost Abbey 2009 Gift of the Magi
Mike: 3.3 Mugs | Gina: 2.9 Mugs | Rodney: 3.1 Mugs | Jess: 3.9 Mugs | Matt: 2.85 Mugs
KOTBR Score: 3.21 Mugs

Judgment Day- (We've reviewed this beer before, scores are new)

Judgment Day AleA palate it may assailBe sure to stock four or fiveIn the event this day shall arrive.

Lost Abbey Judgment Day Ale

Mike: 3.4 Mugs | Gina: 4.5 Mugs | Rodney: 4.0 Mugs | Jess: 4.3 Mugs | Matt: 3.75 Mugs

KOTBR Score: 3.99 Mugs

10 Commandments

Wish I were there, beer
Notes might say big spice dark fruit
Could have been tasty.

Lost Abbey 10 Commandments

Gina: 2.6 Mugs | Rodney: 3.5 Mugs | Jess: 3.3 Mugs | Matt: 2.5 Mugs

KOTBR Score: 2.97 Mugs

Serpent's Stout

As the tongue tires,
The night develops.
Much like the chocolate flavor upon my tongue.

Alcohol burns and coffee emerges,
The night develops.
Much like the dried cherries and figs upon my tongue.

Light disappears under the toffee head,
The night ends.
My tastebuds are toast.

Lost Abbey Serpent's Stout

Mike: 3.8 Mugs | Gina: 4.3 Mugs | Rodney: 4.0 Mugs | Jess: 4.6 Mugs | Matt: 4.0 Mugs

KOTBR Score: 4.14 Mugs

KOTBR #47 | Yay Belgium

For our latest roundtable, four knights met two friends (Matt and Chris) at the home of Matt (of Matt's Beer Blog fame) for a Belgian Beer Style Blowout. So without further ado, on to the reviews.

Jason

So the intent of the latest roundtable with Matt and Chris was to try a variety of Belgian-style beers. By complete accident, all the Belgians we sampled were brewed in America. Unlike the previous roundtable, when we reviewed a selection of Danish brewed beers that were American in style. Going from Europeans-pretending-to-be-Americans to Americans-pretending-to-be-Europeans. Completely accidental, but very poetic nevertheless.

In the spirit of Belgians in America , I will review these beers in the most fabulous of Belgian styles: Smurf



Perdition by Russian River Brewing Co. - This Biere de Garde poured with a light brown color and a light smurfy, sweet smurf. There were hints of toffee and coffee, but a very underwhelming beer, leaving me with not much of anything there but aftertaste. A Peewit of a beer. 2.25 smurfs

Lost Abbey’s Judgment Day - This dark brown beer had smurfed of dark fruit covered in brown sugar. Despite the nice smurf taste, the mouth was left dry after. My final written judgment: smurfy, smurfy smurf time! Dubbel my smurf, so to smurf... 4.0 smurfs

Lost Abbey’s Lost and Found - If you had put this smurf in front of me and I didn’t know it was a quadsmurf, I would have smurfed that it was fresh apple cider from looks alone. It had an extra smurfy fruit fragrance with more fruit smurfiness than Judgement Day. Makes me think of Smurfette. It leaves my mouth very smurfy. 3.75 smurfs

Brewer’s Art Green Peppercorn Tripel - I didn’t know what to expect from the label, but I must say, I was happily surprised by this smurf. The nose was all over the smurfin’ place. But not peppery. It looked like a wheat beer with a big pilsner head. The smurfiest smurfin’ beer I’ve ever seen! It looked like a Snork party in a glass! The flavor matched up with the nose, but in addition, it left a peppery bite on the back of the smurf. La la la la la la, la la la la la! 3.65 smurfs

Southampton Grand Cru - Holy smurf! Super sour smurf! It smells like a Gargamel’s taint; or like after Azrael sprays all over the smurfin’ place. It pours cloudy and dark gold. The taste is a bit tart but also has some carmely, buttersmurffy hits, creating a smurfy flavor that doesn’t match up with the nose at all. No smurfing way! 1.5 smurfs

Unibroue Terrible - I don’t know if any other smurfs will get this, but it smells like a Unibroue beer. Lots of dark fruit and plum. Alcoholly and smurfy. But of the Unibroue beers, I find this Belgian Hefty Smurf Dark Ale to be the smurf. 3.55 smurfs

Three Floyd’s Alpha Kong - This beer is the Papa Smurf of Belgian Hefty Smurf Pale Ales. The nose is smurffy and alcoholly, giving thoughts of Laffy Taffy or Big League Chew. The flavor is also smurffy and chewy. Lots of smurf. It is smurfy and thick. A take your smurf away kind of beer. 4.25 smurfs

Barley Island Sinister Minister - Smurfed down version of Unibroue beer. It may be as sinister as Gargamel, but it is about as successful as his attempt to snack on Smurfs. 2.00 smurfs


Mike

In honor of Belgium's World Champion and all around bad-ass bicyclist, Tom Boonen, and his 16 year old girlfriend, Sophie Van Vliet, I present 16 word reviews.



Russian River Perdition - Sweat tea color. Sharp nose. Tight front, light, sour on sides of the tongue. All mouthfeel. 2.74 Mugs

Lost Abbey Judgement Day - Nail polish nose, heavy almost syrupy mouthfeel, full of caramel and grape. Grape plus cough syrup. 3.11 Mugs

Lost Abbey Lost and Found - Lighter nose. Sweet candi sugar and grape notes. Nice bubbly front, light but not lingering mouthfeel. 3.24 Mugs

Brewer's Art Green Peppercorn Tripel - Banana / pepper nose, super-lively mouthfeel, top of mouth taste. Banana plus vanilla custard? Tart or bitter? 4.41 Mugs

Southampton Grand Cru - Funky "off" nose, nose carries into front but dissipates quickly, back creamy, tasty, and yet funky. 3.10 Mugs

Unibroue Terrible - Dark milky-ish color, fruity Unibroue nose, balanced, sweet, about what you'd expect from the Unibroue crew. 3.27 Mugs

Three Floyds Alpha Kong - Apple, banana, nail polish nose. Silky mouthfeel. A really great beer from Indiana's Kings of Brewing. 4.78 Mugs

Barley Island Sinister Minister - Malty, inky nose (yes, nose). Watery, malty. Not particularly "Belgian". Subdued. Hard to follow Alpha King. 2.22 Mugs



Matt

Russian River's Perdition – Underwhelming. The flavor and nose were just not there in sufficient abundance to make much of an impression. Kind of like the proportion of German speakers in Belgium, less than one percent of the population, yet is still an official language of the country along with Dutch and French, spoken by 60 and 40 percent of Belgians, respectively. 2.2 mugs



Lost Abbey Judgment Day – This one was reddish brown in color. The nose was full of yeast, but the flavors included plum and black bread, which along with salt is a traditional offering to guests in Russia. The Belgian contingent accompanying Napoleon's Grand Armee into Russia (as Belgium had been conquered and annexed by France as part of the First French Republic) in 1812 found no such hospitality, less that 100,000 of the 700,000 strong invasion force made it out of Russia. 3.2 mugs

Lost Abbey Lost & Found – This was much spicier than its Lost Abbey brother. The mouthfeel was incredibly smooth and the peppery aftertaste lingered for a while. The persistence of this flavor is reminds me of the persistence of plastics in the environment. A Belgian-American named Leo Baekland invented the first commercially viable plastic in 1907, Bakelite. 3.6 mugs



Green Peppercorn Trippel – The nose was a bit footy, which I found somewhat disconcerting. After I got past that though, I detected some banana and I found that it was really a pretty tasty beer. Again, it had a peppery flavor to it and an effervescent mouthfeel. I was pleasantly surprised by this one, not unlike Timecop, which starred Belgian martial artist Jean-Claude Van Damme and Ron Silver who is not Belgian. 4.1 mugs

Southampton Grand Cru – I said to my self, "I can't wait to drink this one" when I caught a whiff of the dirty laundry coming off the rim of the glass. The mouthfeel and taste can best be described as sticky and sickly respectively. The stomach lurch brought to my mind images from Belgian anatomist Andreas Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica. Vesalius was among the first anatomists to contradict the models of Galen and Aristotle. His method of suspending cadavers from a rope to allow him to move them around to see their anatomical structures, and his willingness to examine human remains meant that physicians and surgeon barbers had a more accurate understanding of how things work. 2.0 mugs

Unibroue Terrible – The banana nose and flavor of sweet roasted grain made this a very agreeable beverage. Also agreeable to the small "d" democrat in me is the regrettably brief historical period of the United States of Belgium, which only lasted from January to December of 1790. This effort to modernize the legal and political system came to an end when King Leopold II succeeded his brother Joseph II whose epitaph reads, "Here lies Joseph II, who failed in all he undertook". 3.81 mugs

Three Floyds Alpha Kong – This beer is a full on assault against sobriety and sanity, a dangerous juggernaut of a beer. It's really sweet and I simultaneously tasted Creme-Savers, caramel, marshmallows, and probably a dozen other flavors that I missed in the hubbub. The flavor and alcohol are huge on this one. Almost as big as the planet itself. A Belgian cartographer named Gerardus Mercator revolutionized the method of showing large portions of the planet while balancing the distortion you get when you flatten out a curved surface. Mercator's model maintains direction and shape over the size of continents, which increase with the distance from the equator. He also devised a method for creating hollow papier-mâché globes, which brought the price down considerably from the wood or gilded brass spheres that had been available until that time. 4.2 mugs

Sinister Minster – I got a whiff and taste of wheat toast from this one. It also had a nice quick finish. Julius Caesar called the land currently known as Belgium, Gallia Belgica, as it was a northern province of Gaul inhabited by a tribe known as the Belges. He called the Belges the bravest of the Gauls as they lived the closest to Germania and were far away from the rest of the region. 3.88 mugs

* * * * *

KOTBR final averages:

Perdition by Russian River Brewing Co. - 2.40 Mugs
Lost Abbey’s Judgment Day - 3.43 Mugs
Lost Abbey’s Lost and Found - 3.53 Mugs
Brewer’s Art Green Peppercorn Tripel - 4.05 Mugs
Southampton Grand Cru - 2.20 Mugs
Unibroue Terrible - 3.54 Mugs
Three Floyds Alpha Kong - 4.41 Mugs
Barley Island Sinister Minister - 2.70 Mugs