Ghost Beer

It began as traditions do, unintentionally, with an ill-defined start date.  The tasting of aged beers over a small (select one as fits your tastes: Christmas, solstice, winter, maybe-we-should-call-it Festivus) party.  Originally I used it as an excuse to raid my own larder, but this year, others brought rarities.  One friend has a batch of Jubel 2000s and gifted one.  I have another friend who, knowing he won't actually be able to leave his own beer alone, gives me some to cellar for him.  And the big treat was a ghost from the past: Roots Epic, vintage 2008 (the fourth in the five-year series--thanks, professor, for the generosity).  Roots died a couple years back and there was no 2010 vintage.  The brewery lives on, for a time, in these last bottles.  (Jason McAdam, one of the two men behind Roots, carries on at Burnside, which is some consolation.)

Epic, you'll recall...

is a truly hand-made beer. The long process begins when [owner] Craig [Nicholls] smokes a small proportion of Munich malt (small by percentage, but 55 pounds in total) over cherry wood that has been soaked in Glenlivet, cognac, and cherries. The final beer finishes out somewhere around 14%.

At first release, Epic is overly sweet.  I once asked Craig when he thought the beer achieved maturity and he guessed five years.  The '08 was just about in its prime then.  If you follow the link above, you'll find my notes on a flight of beers from the release of the last one, in 2009.  I called the '08 the "sweetest of all the vintages."  No more.  The bottle we sampled had become smoky and chocolatey.  There's no point in discussing it in too much depth--you won't be able to get a bottle, anyway.  It was an exceptional treat to end the year, but bittersweet.  Wherever you are, Craig, I hope all is well.

Craig (r) and I from 2009.  More pics here.

 

Roots Epic Release in Pictures

Had a great time last night at the Roots Epic release party. I had the chance to chat with Craig Nicholls for a long time, and I have some news on the brewery, in addition to reflections on vertical tasting. But for now, busy as you all probably are this weekend, all I have time to do is post pics. (Though I should also mention that you might hustle down to the pub and see if there's any of the vintage Epic still on tap. My recommendation: the '05, which is plummy and smooth from age and oxidation, and the '07, which still has a robust layer of green, strangely fresh, sticky hopping. And you can pick up a bottle for the cellar, too.)

That's the '08, '07, and '06, left to right.

The '05 and my bottle (#94).

Craig Nicholls, treated to my characteristically
poor photography

Sally took this one, evidence of why I try
to avoid the buisness end of cameras.

When Aged Beers Are Still Green and Other Minor Discoveries

Although a last minute crap-out is often in the cards when I plan to go to a beer event (introversion, decrepitude, alzheimers--pick one), I did manage to make it to Roots last night. For my troubles I was rewarded with a great bounty: snifters of both '06 and '07 vintages of Epic, three bottles of 2008 Epic ($22/22 ounces or, inexplicably, $45 for 40 ounces--methinks the Roots boys skipped the business class where they taught the "volume discount" lesson*), and an introduction to Bill, the illustrious blogger from It's Pub Night. As a cherry on top, Bill was sporting a fine Honest Pint Project t-shirt. (It with embarrassment that I tried to explain, inadequately, why I wasn't wearing my own.)

But you care about the beer.

As I sniffed and sipped the icy Epics (and tried to warm them with chilled hands), a couple things came to me as snow does, lately, in Portland--softly and tentatively. The first is more an admission than a discovery: with beer as strong as Epic (14%), one travels to a land where the signposts don't mean anything. The aromas and flavors are saturated and dense--beyond the ken of someone with only a good palate. I was picking up notes I didn't recognize and couldn't describe. In the middle of the '06, for example, there seemed to be something toasted, but this made no sense; shouldn't anything toasted be swamped, Tsunami-like, by the liquor and hops and malt alcohol?

Observation two: big beer, more than other styles, has no fixed nature. The constituents wink in and out of expression so that in a vertical tasting, the best years might be dominated by different elements--alcohol here, oxidation there, hops in another one. (A point relevant to the Epics--see below.)

Finally, and this is the most surprising discovery: a one-year old beer can be green. The '07 wasn't quite done yet; its notes were too sharp-edged. You might not have noticed had the '06 not been available--but there it was, creamy, rich, softer, more appropriately stewed. I picked up a bottle for the larder, and I don't plan on cracking it for years--three at a bare minimum, five more likely, and maybe longer. Homebrewers know that you can tell what your beer will taste like when you bottle it. Sure, it's flat, warm, and unfinished, but you get the idea. That's what young Epic is like--halfway done. You don't spend a dollar an ounce on a beer so that your reaction is "I get the idea." Let it sit and you'll experience the idea, not intuit it.

Okay, some notes. We picked up a pour each of the '06 and '07 and tasted them side by side. Both were a very dark brown, but the '06 was murky while the '07 was brighter and had red notes. The '07 had zero head (could have been the pour), while the '06 had a gorgeous, creamy (if quickly-dissipating) frosting. I got more nose off the '06, something like those traditional fruit cakes that are made with liquor--lots of fruit and alcohol. Also a note of wood. The '07 was sweeter and smelled more like straight liquor. On the tongue, the '06 was a lot creamier, while the '07 seemed thinner and more viscous than creamy.

The '06 had a clearly identity in terms of flavor: the malt alcohol came forward while the liquor notes remained that, notes. I got a lot of toffee more than fruit, some roastiness and that toast. The '07 was liquor-forward, sharper and less refined. However, and here's the thing about age, it had a wonderful vanilla middle wholly absent in the '06. My attention went back to it on each sip. I wouldn't say it's worth cracking a bottle of '07 to find this note, but it shows how beers are not fixed entities, but evolutions of flavor and aroma.

____

Two other Roots-related items. First, they now have a full kitchen. I don't know how long, or how long I've missed it (though more than once, for sure), but you can now get cooked food. I haven't a clue whether it's good, but it's pretty fast. Even amid the rush last night, a friend I was with got a burger in about 20 minutes from ordering it.

Second, the side room is sort of open (see pic, circa 5:45 last night before the crowd arrived)--Cheers to Belgian Beers-goers will recognize the space. It's pretty raw, with the adhesive still on the cement floor, sheet rock unpainted, and no heat to speak of--but it made it possible for a lot more people to enjoy the Epic release.

__________________
*Okay, this may not be true. A commenter on another thread says they're 50 ounces--which would make them a slightly better per-ounce deal than the 22s, restoring order to the universe.