August 18, 2010 by Ben Hallman

jake@connectstatesboro.com

    Last week we discussed four good bottles of beer, four brews that guided me away from the chaff and into the wheat. Or rather, into the malted barley.
    These examples all stick to the basic four beer ingredients (water, hops, barley, and yeast,) which is why I find beer so interesting; the array of flavors coaxed out of combinations of these four items boggles the mind.
    But, in the end, there are limits as to what you can do with the basics, boundaries across which innovation no longer brews drinkable beverages. What to do when this happens? Get nuts.
    Brewers, high on creativity and hellbent on conquering the world, conjure insane recipes by tossing previously-unheard-of additions into their cauldrons. The results produce the most complex assortment of beverages ever unleashed on us, the happy imbibers.
    Sure, sometimes the beers work, sometimes they don’t, but there are worse things you can do than sit around and explore the right-brained side of the craft beer world.
    And when I say sometimes they don’t work, I mean sometimes they fail disastrously. Perhaps the most extreme of these barleyed Hindenburgs is the infamous Mamma Mia Pizza Beer. Yup. Pizza Beer.
    It gets worse.
    This creation out of Illinois is an ale brewed with… wait for it… basil, oregano, garlic, and tomatoes. Thus, Pizza Beer. And it is every bit as horrific as it sounds. The only way to explain the taste is to have you remember the last time you drank excessive amounts of beer and went one slice of Holiday’s Pizza too far.
    Like I said, sometimes they don’t work.
    But when they do, the results can be stunning. The depth of flavor found in these spruced-up recipes provides some of the best evidence that beer will eventually overtake wine as the epitome of the snob drink.
    I mean, wine is just old grape juice left in a barrel for a while. Beer needs crafting and polishing, the touch of an artisan. (Remember that the next time some twit scoffs at you for offering him a Gaelic Ale while he’s drinking Malbec. You have to make beer. Wine just happens.)
    The most common addition to the Big Four is fruit. Any fruit. Multiple fruits. Fruits you didn’t even know existed (what the hell is dragonfruit? Somebody just made that up.)
    In fact, fruit beers now come across pedestrian; when you can buy cactus-flavored Michelob Ultra, you know the practice of fruiting your beer has lost all shiny newness.
    So howzabout peppering your beer? There are habanero pale ales, cayenne pepper pilsners, black pepper Belgian stouts. Just last week I drank an Allagash beer brewed with white pepper and sweet potatoes. And I’ve heard adding Rogue Chipotle Ale to your Bloody Mary makes for the best hangover cure ever. But why stop there on the spice rack?
    The decline of summer means the stores will soon be stocking pumpkin ales, a style of beer that generally attempts to murder you with lethal amounts of nutmeg.
    Gotta be a downer for a second — pumpkin beer is another total myth. Pumpkins do nothing to the taste of a beer. These beers get their flavor from the pie spices added to the recipe, not because you toss oversized gourds into the brewkettle. Yet breweries know that if you packaged these ales as Cinnamon Allspice -n- Nutmeg Beer, nobody would buy them.
    And just wait until fall ends, when the Winter Warmers start filling the shelves. This cozy style of seasonal often offers beers that taste like a tray of grandma’s Christmas cookies.
    Yet, when it comes to my personal taste in beer, nothing creates quite a stir in me like a gussied-up imperial stout. Some of the best, most sought-out beers in the world are imperial stouts coupled with indulgent, delicious adjuncts.
    But to appreciate these beers, you must clear your mind of Guinness. You must accept that Guinness Draught is light beer despite the seeming oxymoron. Imperial stouts are a beast all their own, with almost no relation to their wimpy Irish cousin.
    Let’s start with Dark Lord Imperial Stout, brewed by Indiana’s Three Floyds. This monstrous beer includes coffee, vanilla, and Indonesian sugar, creating the liquid equivalent of the greatest Ho-Ho of all time.
    Then there’s The Abyss, from Deschutes Brewing in Bend, Oregon. A truly wondrous bottle, this pitch-black, viscous potion is brewed with licorice and molasses, then partly aged in bourbon barrels.
    But nothing compares to my all-time favorite beer, Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout. This uber-rare masterpiece starts with the recipe for original Breakfast Stout, brewed with oatmeal, chocolate, and coffee, a good beer in its own right.
    But Canadian Breakfast Stout ups the ante to an insane level by taking this initial concoction and then aging it in barrels that first held bourbon, then maple syrup. You heard me. Bourbon and maple syrup.
    Granted, bourbon-aged maple syrup sounds delicious in and of itself. But when the soul of these flavors is grafted onto an already-delicious stout, the results are nothing short of perfection.
    I could attempt to describe the flavors contained in one pint of Canadian Breakfast Stout, but I would blow past my word limit like a Baptist passing the Fast and Easy. Sufficient to say, this beer is the one beer every self-professed beer geek should be allowed to try.
    The imagination of modern craft brewers is their greatest asset; we need not worry with good beer growing staid or dusty any time soon. Innovation continues to make beer the best drink on the planet, and I’ll arm wrestle anyone who says otherwise. (Note that I didn’t say I’d win.)

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