KOTBR Review #21: Delirium Tremens

Review 21 was unlike any other in that it was the first time we had unexepected guests; when arriving at BARcelona Tapas, we met Jeremy, Mary, Jeff and Jessica, who had read about us in INtake. We also had invited out old friends Brent, Adam, and Jason, so our numbers swelled to a total of 14 drinkers. After settling in and trying out some of BARcelona's fine food, we got down to tasting our feature beer, Delirium Tremens.

Jason gave the Tremens a 3.5 mug rating in a review that touched on everything from Don Quixote to Jack Sparrow:

It's a very nice Belgian beer, with sweet and dry flavors and aromas of apples and citrus. It is cloudy with a light orange color. The best part about this beer is that it gets sweeter with time. If you let it sit and warm up, more sugary notes begin to appear.

Jim explained tapas theory (my words, not his) and agreed with Jason that DT was a 3.5 mug beer:

...the Delirium Tremens has a huge fruity aroma, heavy with apple and plum notes. The flavor is similar to the aroma; it's fruity, malty, slightly sweet, and dry on the finish. I have, however, had more flavorful Belgians than Delirium Tremens. Still, this is a decent beer.

Mike sang in the words of the old Caucasian spiritual (the Golden Girls theme) and gave DT a 4 mug rating:

DT's nose is a fantastic thing - I could be happy just smelling the beer. Based on nose alone I'd think it was a five mug beer. Unfortunately the beer's taste doesn't quite live up to its nose - but that's not to say it isn't enjoyable. It's a flavorful experience of a beer, and begs to be really savored.

Kelly revealed that her friends and coworkers are all perverts before giving Tremens a 4 mug rating:

This beer starts out with a big carmel apple nose, and follows up with a cotton candy finish and sneaky ABV that reaches out and punks you in no time flat. A thoroughly enjoyable beer, but Belgian ales have stiff competition in the land of the Beer Geeks...

Chris "spewed forth some yada, yada, yada" and gave DT 5 mugs:

The taste is one of the most complex of any beer I've ever tried, and it has a light mouthfeel. It's got a real high ABV - 8.5% - so this is a good sipping beer. Don't drink too fast, unless you're a tubby bastard like me, then you can probably handle it. It's really one of my top 10 favorite beers.

All of the knights would like to thank our guests, Deano, and the folks at BARcelona Tapas for a fine time and some great food.

Tubby Bastards Eat Pretty People in BARcelona

See, this is what happens when you're the last one to the dance - or in this case, to post your review. All the other Geeks have already said anything of any importance. But since I've been absolutely abhorent about posting my reviews lately (Have you seen the one about the Racer 5 IPA from The Bear Republic from my May trip to California? No, you haven't because I have posted it yet!), I'm going to spew forth some yada, yada, yada for your entertainment.

As you know, we went to the new BARcelona Tappas in downtown Indy. Not that we wouldn't have checked it out, but we put it higher on the list since our buddy Deano is the managing consultant here. And we've grown to love that tubby bastard (I can say that because I'm a tubby bastard, too), so we wanted to check out his new project.

It was awesome to show up and have 4 unexpected guests. I mean, we always send out an invite, but nobody really ever takes us up on it. So we had given up on you. But we've been given new hope, and we expect to see more of you coming out now that we're cool enough to be resident beer geek experts for INtake. We really dig having other beer geeks join in.

The restaurant itself appears to be quickly becoming an "it" place. Bunches of pretty people who didn't look like they were ever geeks in their lives. LOSERS! So depending on your opinion, that's either good or bad. But that was really about the only questionable aspect of the restaurant for me. Chris, the manager, was extremely helpful. They had a side room booked for us, and was as prepared as they could be with having no idea what we were going to do. I take that back - one more questionable aspect - the beer list was given to us on a folded sheet of paper for all to share, meaning they didn't have a seperate beer menu. But hey, live and let live. Hopefully, they'll fix that. But the selection on that paper was pretty decent. They had six beers on tap - Stella Artois, Paulanor Wheat, Moretti Lager, O. B. Amber, Oberon, and, well, Bud Light. They also had 20 bottles, ranging from Coors Lite to Delirium Tremens, so one hell of a range.

The food was fantastic! Since I'm on a diet anyway, the portions were perfect, and I didn't feel like I was cheating. The chicken wings that Kelly ordered may be the best I've ever had - or at least real close. And I am a chicken wing expert. In fact, I'm putting together Hoosier Chicken Wing Geek as we speak! But everything we ordered and sampled was really great stuff. I've been here for lunch once before, and both mine and my wife's dish were very tasty, too. So I can say after trying at least 7 items from the menu, that nothing has been below very good!

You know we warmed up on the Delirium. I love Delirium. My good friend Traci - of Good Beer Show fame - introduced it to me, as she did the concept of drinking good beers, when we had less gray hairs. It's nose is fruity, giving off heavy plums, similar to Unibroue beers, which I think Jason mentioned. It's very blonde, and is obviously unfiltered. Lots of sediment floating around. The taste is one of the most complex of any beer I've ever tried, and it has a light mouthfeel. The bottle is best known for being white & opaque, with pink elephants and dancing aligators. It's got a real high ABV - 8.5% - so this is a good sipping beer. Don't drink too fast, unless you're a tubby bastard like me, then you can probably handle it. I don't know if it's the taste I like so much, or the memories of some good times up in Muncie that are associated with it, but I give it 5 mugs. It's really one of my top 10 favorite beers.

If you haven't gotten the chance yet, check this place out. It's definitely worth your time.

Now let me step up on my soapbox for a second. Don't be afraid of the homeless folks the next block down at Wheeler. They may just hit you up for some change. Tell them no, and send them on, preferrably to Horizon House if you're there during the day. They have to put up with a lot of shit at Wheeler - ie, go to church service or you get kicked out for the night, even if it's winter - and they're in a bad situation. But for the most part, when you get to know them (and I did working at Horizon House for three years), they're good people who have taken some wrong roads in life.

"You're going to a TOPLESS bar?"

…this is what every friend and co-worker asked me when I said I was heading to BARcelona Tapas for the next installment of the Knights of the Beer Roundtable.

Not topless. TAPAS.

Simply put, the American version of tapas (tä'päs) is just a fancy term for shared “small dishes”, or appetizer-like courses meant to be split among a group of friends. Our Roundtable outing at BARcelona was no different – we walked in to find a group of strangers and fans eager to discuss good beer with us. The more the merrier, I say! The dishes at BARcelona range from tomatoes in spicy tomato sauce, to goat cheese on crusty garlic bread, to smoky garlic chicken wings with jalapeno mayonnaise . Everything we sampled was good, and there was a LOT to go around.

Typically, topless tapas bars aren’t known for their stellar beer selection – most of the attention is on the wine and sangria. But since BARcelona is headed up by the illustrious Dean Wilson (the “Deano” in Deano’s Vino), we knew we stood a good chance of some above-average beer choices. Even though most of the draft beers had a decidedly domestic tilt, we did find Bell's Oberon on tap for a warm-up in addition to a listing of more adventurous bottled beers. (Here’s hoping that the lists grows and stabilizes as the restaurant settles in.)

Our reviewed beer of the evening was Delirium Tremens, a pretty well-known Belgian ale (and the one that was featured in the first-ever HBG photo shoot). Like Jim mentioned, this beer is definitely one that gets better the longer it warms up, so I took my time with this one (due in part to the fact that I accidentally poured the biggest head on my beer that I have ever seen.)

This beer starts out with a big carmel apple nose, and follows up with a cotton candy finish and sneaky ABV that reaches out and punks you in no time flat. A thoroughly enjoyable beer, but Belgian ales have stiff competition in the land of the Beer Geeks – so while I give this one a solid 4 mug rating, it’s not at the top of my list.

I didn’t do as much socializing as I wanted to do with the group, so I’ll belatedly thank the following: the groupies and guests who were wholly unexpected but welcome back any time; our server, who handled a somewhat rambunctious group with relative ease; Gina and Mike, for being such good hosts to the newbies; Jim, for not taking my picture; and Deano, who brings the party with him wherever he goes.

Even to a topless tapas bar.

If you threw a party, and invited everyone you knew*

*or didn't know

Hoosier Beer Geek has always been an open invite sort of thing; We're happy to have anyone who wants to drink good beer. When the most recent INtake article ran, it ran with a sidebar that extended that invitation to INtake readers.

The thing is, we've never actually had unexpected guests before. And what we do doesn't have much form - we're just drinking, after all. So when we arrived at BARcelona Tapas to find four new guests, it came as quite a surprise.

I hope that I served as a good host to our guests (Jeremy, Mary, Jeff and Jessica) - I got the feeling that they weren't exactly familiar with the blog, which meant that they didn't really know how we function - which is to say, we barely function at all. "So what do the Hoosier Beer Geeks do?" I was asked. "Well, we drink beer."

And that's pretty much the gist of it. If you come out we'll be happy to talk about beer styles, or local brewers, or what we've drank. We'll be just as happy to talk about soccer, the Colts, or music. In fact, we're a lot more likely to talk about the latter group.

* * * * *

My feelings on BARcelona Tapas are pretty similar to Jim's; I'm quite happy to have the option downtown, and everything I had was tasty. BARcelona is the sort of place that promotes the expansion of the pallet - which definitely runs parallel to the ideas behind Hoosier Beer Geek.

* * * * *

Perhaps I should have done a better job explaining to our guest the whole critical beer drinking process. Our feature beer was Delirium Tremens had a sweet, fresh, bubblegum-like nose that was intoxicating - after leaving my nose in the glass for what seemed like a good minute I began to grow self-conscious that perhaps I was putting on a show. But DT's nose is a fantastic thing - I could be happy just smelling the beer. Based on nose alone I'd think it was a five mug beer.

Unfortunately the beer's taste doesn't quite live up to its nose - but that's not to say it isn't enjoyable. Once on the tongue the almost overwhelming taste of applesauce comes through, and the applesauce taste also comes out in the nose. This is a chewy, appley beer - but not in any way like a cider. It's much too sweet for that.

Delirium Tremens is incredibly easy to drink, which can be a bad thing. Although the ABV isn't incredibly high, you will know you drank this beer. It lead to a coma-like sleep. I'd give this beer a four mug rating - it's a flavorful experience of a beer, and begs to be really savored.

Delirium Tremens @ BARcelona Tapas

For Knights of the Beer Roundtable Review #21, we chose to hit an establishment that Indianapolis has needed for a long, long time--BARcelona Tapas, the new Spanish tapas bar that is part of an effort to invigorate the eastern side of the Mile Square along Ohio Street. Making our roundtable special this time around were our guests. As Jason noted, we had a whopping party of fourteen for the festivities. Four of our guests simply popped in after reading last week's beer feature in INtake; three guests were the esteemed gentlemen who were also part of the INtake feature.

As a tapas aficionado as well as a beer geek, I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of a tapas bar in Indy. Unfortunately, our fair city has a reputation for being slow to change, and we are well behind the curve on the tapas phenomenon. While other restaurants in the city have done tapas, they didn't do the Spanish-style dishes that are the main feature at BARcelona. Consequently, I am very grateful for BARcelona's arrival in the Circle City. It saves me the trouble of having to trek up to Chicago for Emilio's or Café Iberico, which are great restaurants in their own right but not exactly conveniently located at 180 miles to the north.

So, Hoosiers, here's a crash course in tapas. Why should you love tapas? Because they're very flavorful, served in small portions--a welcome change from the typical American restaurant, where your main course comes on a plate the size of Rhode Island--and inexpensive. The smaller portions are also conducive to sharing with friends. Everyone can order a different dish for the whole group to sample.

Tapas usually consist of hot and cold plates. The classic cold tapas plates are marinated vegetables, olives, Spanish cheeses, garlic potato salad, and serrano ham. Typical hot tapas plates include fried turnovers called empanadas, and various meat, fish, and vegetable dishes coupled with distinctive sauces. From what I sampled, BARcelona gets the food right. I tried the spinach and mushroom empanadas, the patatas bravas (potatoes in spicy tomato sauce), and some marinated mushrooms. Though not the best tapas I've ever had, all three dishes were excellent.

Accompanying my tapas was the feature beer, which was Delirium Tremens, a Belgian beer. Throwing together Spanish and Belgian fare might be considered a strange pairing--sort of like Antonio Banderas and Jean-Claude Van Damme choosing to co-star in some sci-fi/martial arts/b-grade action flick. Not so. While taking in a Banderas/Van Damme feature would undoubtedly be a total waste of a hard-earned $8.00, the pairing of spinach and mushroom empanadas and the Delirium was darn near ideal.

Like many Belgian ales, the Delirium Tremens has a huge fruity aroma, heavy with apple and plum notes. The flavor is similar to the aroma; it's fruity, malty, slightly sweet, and dry on the finish. At 9% alcohol by volume (about twice the ABV of American macrobrews), Delirium Tremens is appropriately served in a snifter, which promotes the drinker's slow enjoyment of its potent aroma and taste. I have, however, had more flavorful Belgians than Delirium Tremens. Still, this is a decent beer. I'm with Jason here--a 3.5 mug rating seems about right.

All in all, Review #21 turned out to be a fantastic evening. We ate some food unique to the Circle City, drank some Belgian suds, and forged new friendships--all thanks to the power of beer.

Brewers and beer geeks join forces. From left to right: Jason, Jason, Jim, Mike, Chris, Gina, Adam, and Brent

Don Quixote de la Munchies, by Miguel Cerveza Sangrias

It's amazing what a little publicity will do. Last week, we're listed again in Intake Weekly (three times actually). This time, our next gathering is also publicized. We arrive at Barcelona, a new tapas bar in downtown Indianapolis, and the five Knights of the Beer Roundtable are joined by 9 squires, all of them very fit to fill the roll as our Sancho Panzas. And our Dulcinea? Good beer.

Because it is the mission of each true knight... their duty... nay, their privilege! To dream the impossible dream, to face the unbeatable foam, to beat the unbearable sobriety, to run where the drunk dare not go.

To right the undrinkable beers. To love hops and malts at the bar. To try, when your arms are too weary, to reach for a better beer! This is my Quest to follow that beer, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far, to fight for the right without question or pause, to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly brew!

Whoa, excuse me. I must be suffering from delirium tremens. Was that what Alonso Quixano suffered from? I don't normally break into Broadway musical numbers. Ask anybody who knows me.

A-hem.

Speaking of delirium tremens...

The beer of the evening was Delirium Tremens, a Belgian Strong Pale Ale from Brouwerij Huyghe in Belgium. You may have seen signs for Delirium at some of the better bars. Their logo is pink elephants. How appropriate!

It's a very nice Belgian beer, with sweet and dry flavors and aromas of apples and citrus. It is cloudy with a light orange color. The best part about this beer is that it gets sweeter with time. If you let it sit and warm up, more sugary notes begin to appear. Enough to make you stop singing Man of La Mancha songs and switch to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory songs (the Gene Wilder version, not the Capt. Jack Sparrow version)...

If you want to drink paradise, simply pour a bottle and drink it...

Sorry, I'll try to make that the last musical number of this posting.

Delirium Tremens is similar to Unibroue's La Fin du Monde. I like it better than La Fin because the flavors are better layered and finished in Tremens. Having said that, I'd have to give Delirium Tremens a 3.5 mug rating. It is not my favorite beer out there, but it is one of my favorites in this category of beer.

A few quick words about Barcelona... Last night, there were quite a few patrons enjoying themselves in groups small and large. Some questioned if they would do well being right next door to the Wheeler Mission. It seems to be doing fine from that respect. The food is very tasty, though they come in small portions that this steak and potatoes guy is not used to. But that's suppose to be the idea, they tell me. The wait staff was very friendly, though still a little green. But I think that will improve with age.

They have six or eight beers on tap, though mostly the standard mega-brews. The beer list had twenty or so bottled beers, including craft brews from Indiana and beyond, including imports. The beer list was out-dated when handed to us, which is a little frustrating. It would be nice if they could keep it updated. But I'm sure that will also improve with time, given that this joint is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, you will find a beer here to fit your tastes. I mean, Bell's Oberon was on tap, and that is always nice.

I'm going to finish by saying thanks to the our esteemed guests for joining us. These three fine fellows were also in Intake's beer guide and it was great to be introduced to them (or re-introduced in my case...I went to college with two of them). They have elected to use their inner beer geek to make good beers as their hobby and, hopefully one day, their profession. Yes, they've tried each and ev'ry beer recipe on the information superhighway. But more, much more that, they brewed it their way.

Sorry, couldn't help myself...

Deano's New Adventure

I was reminded today by a posting on Feed Me/Drink Me of something I've been meaning to make mention of on here. Deano, of Deano's, recently sold out his partnership of the wine shop on Mass Ave., and will now be taking on the challenge of Managing Partner at the new Barcelona Tapas that will be opening downtown on May 15. The good news from Deano is that all the beers on tap will be excellent, exampled by Delirium Tremens. I've never had DT on tap, but I promise I will be there early on to try it!