Morimoto Hazelnut Brown

Celebrity chefs are nothing new to the American food scene, but over the past several years they have begun to pay more attention to beer. While I think this is good overall, especially as they begin to bring high quality craft beers into higher class establishments traditionally reserved for wine and liquor, it has also resulted in the permeation of their brands into the beer market. The poster child for this is Morimoto’s collaboration with Rogue Brewing Company, which has brought at least four different beers under the Morimoto name to Philadelphia. According to Rogue’s website, three of these beers were brewed specifically for Morimoto (Soba Ale, Black Obi and Imperial Pilsner), while the fourth is simply a rebottling of Rogue’s Hazelnut Brown Nectar under the name Morimoto Hazelnut Brown. This fourth beer was the only one of the series in stock at the Foodery, so I decided to give it a chance.

Rogue Brewery opened in October 1988 as a brewpub in Ashland, Oregon by Jack Joyce, Bob Woodell and Rob Strasser. The company struggled at first, and decided that if they were going to succeed they needed to expand beyond Ashland. Mohave Niemi, director of the Port of Newport, convinced Joyce to open up their second brewpub in a vacant storefront, which she rented to them on two conditions. The first was that the brewery give back to the community once they were established, and the second that they always display a picture of her naked in a bathtub in the bar (and they still do even after her death). Masaharu Morimoto came to the US in 1985 after operating a restaurant in Japan, and quickly established himself in New York City. While working at a Japanese restaurant named Nobu, he gained celebrity from the TV show Iron Chef. In 2001, he opened his eponymous restaurant here in Philadelphia, and he began working with Rogue to develop beers in 2005. This was a perfect fit for both parties, as Morimoto’s expertise is with fusion food styles and Rogue has always designed their beers to be consumed with food.

The Hazelnut Brown poured a clear, dark brown which appeared a golden red when held up to a light. The head formed as only half a finger of coarse, light coffee colored foam, which dissipated in under two minutes. There was a ring of foam left around the glass, and the beer did leave a little bit of lacing as it was drunk, but overall the head disappeared surprisingly quickly. The aroma was dominated by a roasted coffee scent, but some sweet malt and hazelnut notes served to add a much needed complexity. The body was moderately thin, but the carbonation was quite odd; it was very fine and sharp, but not sparkly at all. This was very interesting sensation that I don’t often experience in beer, and, and served as a nice counterpoint to many of the highly carbonated, almost champagne-like beers I’ve had recently. Overall the body was quite creamy, but did not linger; I found this quite impressive, as most beers I’ve had with any significant body at all seem to coat my mouth and linger for several minutes afterwards. The initial taste for this beer is of sweet malt, but that is quickly displaced by a roasted malt, almost like a good stout, in the middle of the taste. The big finish for this beer is a massive hazelnut taste, which also leaves a very dry impression behind.

Overall, I thought the beer was fairly well balanced, although the amount of hazelnut in the finish was a bit of overkill. The beer went down quite easily, but the strong hazelnut character means that I’ll reserve this beer for interesting food pairings, rather than an every day beer.

Alcohol: 6.2%

Price: $5.99/22 oz

Appearance: 4

Aroma: 4

Mouthfeel: 4

Taste: 3.5

Yards Brawler

As both my loyal readers may have noticed, I have a bit of a soft spot for obscure beer styles. One that many of you have experienced, although few knew that they were drinking at the time, is the English mild. This style, while largely extinct in Europe, has begun to crop up in America, with the local example being Yard’s Brawler.

Milds are the low alcohol session beer version of the brown ale family. These beers are typically very malt focused compared to bitters, utilizing only enough hops to offset the sweetness of the malt. This non-hop focus should not be mistaken for blandness, however, as they can exhibit a huge range in flavor from a lightly toasted character to deep caramel or chocolate notes. The mild style originally developed in the 1800’s as public demand moved from aged beer to a more fresh taste. By the time of the First World War, many breweries sold multiple strengths of mild ranging up to 7% ABV, but the rationing measures instituted by the government forced each brewery to reduce its average original gravity to 1.030, or approximately 3% alcohol. Most breweries reduced their most popular beers, such as milds and bitters, to even below 3% so that they could brew limited quantities of high gravity beer. Unfortunately, the rise of light lagers in the 1950s all but destroyed this style, although recently it has capitalized on the American microbrewery revolution.

Yards Brewing Company is a small craft brewery located right here in Philadelphia, in the Northern Liberties. The owners, Tome Kehoe and Jon Bovit, began brewing in college, and soon fell in love with the process. After working at a brewery in Western Maryland, they founded their first brewery in 1994 in a garage in Manayunk. As the demand for their brews increased they moved to a new facility Roxborough, after which Jon Bovit left to pursue other interests. New investors Bill and Nancy Barton moved the brewery again in 2001, this time to Kensington, but by 2007 they had again outgrown their facilities and moved to the Northern Liberties. At this location they now offer tours every Saturday, and their tasting room is open 7 days a week.

Brawler poured with one finger of off-white, medium fine head which dissipated in under a minute, leaving no lacing behind. The beer itself was a light brownish copper color, but with some red highlights when held up to the light. The aroma was nutty and malty, with virtually no hop aroma at all. Carbonation was fairly high, giving a sharp, sparkly sensation, and overall the body was moderately thin. The taste was very malt focused, with both an underlying sweetness and some hints of roasted character, but the finish had a slightly astringent quality. Overall, I thought it was a little bit thin, but this is to style, given that my base of comparison is mostly big American and Belgian beers.

I found this beer to be both flavorful and drinkable, and I recommend giving it a shot. The style itself isn’t very common anymore, which is unfortunate as it provides an excellent malt focused alternative to the ubiquitous IPAs and APAs that have flooded the market and mouth puckering hop bitterness often found in them.

Price: $1.99

Size: 12 oz

ABV:4.2%

Appearance: 4/5

Aroma: 4.25/5

Flavor: 4.25/5

Mouthfeel: 3.5/5

Supplication - Russian River

This week we have the second beer from Russian River Brewing Company. The first beer I reviewed was Damnation, which was a very good example of the Belgian Strong Ale and proved to me that Russian River can produce a good, basic Belgian style beer. The second beer I’ve tried is called Supplication, a brown ale that has been aged in French oak Pinot Noir barrels with sour cherries and several different strains of souring agents.

The brewery was created in 1997 by Korbel Champagne Cellars when they decided to diversify their markets by entering the brewing business. Vinnie Cilurzo, then head brewer, began winning awards within two years, and in 2002 Korbel sold the brewery to Vinnie. Cilurzo soon moved the operation from Guerneville to a new, larger brewery in Santa Rosa, California so that he could meet the rapidly increasing demand for his beers. Currently, Russian River offers a variety of beers in bottles and on tap in their brew pub, but their primary lines are their IPAs and Belgian-style beers.

Most beers are brewed using a strain of the Saccharomyces genus of yeast, which has been selected over time to provide a specific flavor profile. Ale yeasts typically belong to the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which typically form a thick layer of foam on top of the wort during fermentation and work at a relatively warm temperature of 60-70°F and finish quickly. Lager yeasts generally belong to the species Saccharomyces pastorianus, which ferment much more slowly at sub-60°F, but finish with a drier, cleaner product.

There are many other species of yeast, however, and the beer in question this week is fermented using yeast from the same family, Saccharomycetacae, but a different genus, Brettanomyces. Brettanomyces produce distinctive sour flavors, which give sour beers their name. The yeast is in Supplication is actually a blend of three different species of Brettanomyces (B. claussenii, B. bruxellensis and B. lambicus), backed up by Lactobacillus and Pediococcus, which are two strains of bacteria that also provide sour flavors. Both Brettanomyces and the bacteria slowly ferment sugars that Saccharomyces will not, resulting in a dry beer that continues to mature in the bottle.

Supplication poured a clear, reddish gold with a thin, light tan head. The head was extremely fine, and persisted for a very long time; it actually reformed quite easily upon swirling the beer in the glass, and left a beautiful, long-lived lacing on the side of the glass. The aroma was a complex sweet and sour, that managed to be strong and delicate at the same time. The body was fairly thick, but this was offset by the fairly high carbonation at low temperature, and began to thin out at warmer temperatures. The taste was very sour, to the point that it reminded me of Warheads or Sour Patch Kids, however it was much smoother than I would have thought possible. The sour of the cherries blended perfectly with the sour beer character, and all the favors complemented each other without clashing.

What truly made this beer, however, was its behavior at warm temperature. Good beer should get better at warm temperature, as your taste buds become more sensitive and more compounds begin to volatilize; this can cut both ways, however, as increased temperature will also reveal off-flavors (now think about why some beers insist that they be served “Cold As The Rockies”). This beer, however, opened up beautifully; it just became more and more complex, while the sourness mellowed out slightly. I was not able to detect any off flavors in this beer, and the flavor profile was just way beyond my palate.

Honestly, I have never tasted a better beer than this one. It was so complex, and just got better and better as it warmed up. The flavor profile and depth is more reminiscent of wine than most beers, so make sure you grab a wine glass or snifter so that you can appreciate the aroma. I cannot recommend this beer enough, although be warned; the price of this beer is in keeping with its quality.

Size: 375 mL

Price: $14.50

ABV: 7.0%

Look: 5/5

Smell: 5/5

Taste: 5/5

Mouthfeel: 5/5

Nut Brown Ale - Samuel Smith's Old Brewery

Lately I’ve been bouncing all over the beer color and taste spectrum, jumping from double IPA’s to Belgian Strong Ales to most recently a Russian Imperial Stout. This is largely because I try to find interesting beers, which to Americans means extremely strong in taste and alcohol. The few more restrained beers I have reviewed tended toward the lighter end of the spectrum such as the Kölsch and California Common styles, so I decided it was time to rectify this by trying a more temperately flavored dark beer. After browsing the coolers for something to fit this requirement, I finally settled on a Northern English Brown Ale.

Both of my readers may recall that I reviewed Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout over the summer, and I decided to stick with this brewery and give their Nut Brown Ale a shot. Samuel Smith’s Old Brewery was opened by Samuel Smith after he inherited the brewery from his uncle William Smith in 1886. The brewery itself dates back to 1758, having been the home to several different companies since that time, and is considered to be the oldest brewery in Yorkshire and the only remaining independent brewery in the city of Tadcaster. The brewery still draws its water from its original well, and has continuously used a strain of yeast since prior to 1900. Samuel Smith’s is noted for consistently producing very good beers, which typically serve as benchmarks of their respective styles.

Brown ales vary by region throughout England, and the Northern varieties tend to be a bit drier and hoppier than the Southern beers. The proper glassware for this style is a pint glass or mug as this is an everyday beer, lacking the complexities that stronger English beers such as Barleywines exhibit. Good food pairings for this beer would be earthy or nutty cheeses or a grilled meat, which will complement any roasted grain characteristics in the beer.

The nut brown ale poured a dark brown color, but when held up to the light a reddish hue was quickly apparent. The clarity was quite good, and both the clarity and the colors are typical of this style. The head was a light brown color, almost like that of coffee with a lot of creamer in it, and the texture was quite coarse due to large bubble size, which came as a bit of a surprise. The aroma was a pleasantly sweet, toffee-like smell, which was not overpowering or cloying at all. I did not notice any of the hop aroma or fruity scents which are sometimes present in this style, but by no means are these required, and it was quite enjoyable without them.

The first thing I noticed when tasting the beer was the surprisingly smooth texture; given the course head consistency I expected a very spritzy beer, but this was not the case. The carbonation was overall fairly moderate, although I noticed a sparkly quality on my tongue several seconds after taking a sip. The body was moderate but lingered, largely offsetting the effect of the carbonation. There was a bit of hop bitterness midway through the taste, but the main taste was a very pleasant caramel sweetness. This taste was not particularly strong, and overall the beer was pretty dry, but it is a defining characteristic of this style of beer that often ranges toward a toasted or biscuity nature. I was slightly surprised as the more caramel rather than nutty character, as this is a Northern English brown ale, but regardless it was an excellent taste. The aftertaste of this beer was a slightly bitter roasted malt taste, which was quite reminiscent of a stout such as Guinness.

Overall, this was a moderately flavorful beer that was balanced more toward the malt side. I quite enjoyed it, and I plan on trying some more of Samuel Smith’s brews in the future. I recommend trying this beer if you typically don’t typically like “dark” beers since the taste is so mild in comparison to stouts, but you still get a hint of roasted grain character.

Size: 18.7 oz

Price: $3.69

ABV: 5.0%

Look: 3/5

Smell: 3.5/5

Taste: 3/5

Mouthfeel: 3.5/5