Enkidu Brew

Brewery: Kiuchi Brewery (Japan)
7.50% ABV
Poured from a stubby 11.2 oz bottle into a pint glass.

Appearance:  The color is black as sin with a red tint.  Even a careful pour brings an explosion of foam.  A heavy, tan head that consumes half the glass.  A lacing that will force you to give your glass a good washing after.

Smell:  Some people pick up a sourness in the scent.  It exists, but it’s on the back end.  Burnt chocolate and vanilla come through immediately.  More so than the espresso or coffee.  There is even a fruityness hidden somewhere between the chocolate and toasted malts.  They have put together a very odd combination of scents and it is definitely one of the most pleasing beers I have smelled recently.

Taste:  While the scent of coffee is lower on the smell list, after tasting you will find that it lives up to it’s name and then some.  The coffee flavor is fantastic, and is accompanied by a long aftertaste of the same.  Your tongue tells you that your nose isn’t a liar.  All scents are easily picked up in the tasting, although in a different order. Roasted malts, almost burnt, team up with a bittersweet chocolate to start the adventure.  A recognizable earthy, fig-like note put together with the vanilla and chocolate malts really keeps the strength and bitterness of the coffee down to a very manageable and drinkable level.  The alcohol percentage is disguised well.

Mouthfeel:  Very thick.  Very creamy.  Syrup-like.  You feel every bit and every bubble from the edge of the glass to the bottom of your throat.

Drinkability:  Do you like beer?  Do you like coffee?  If you answered yes to both, you have found a winner here.  I am a fan of the style, and won’t go crazy with any top placement on the list of coffee stouts out there, but Kiuchi has done Japan proud.  Their Espresso Stout has certainly made it’s way in my rotation.

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Via Union Leader:

The move comes after the company merged with a private microbrewery to form Craft Brewers Alliance, Inc., and sold a quarter of its shares to kingpin Anheuser-Busch InBev.

“This bolsters our brand family and makes us a stronger player in the craft beer markets,” Redhook plant manager Amanda Telford said. “It gives us something for everyone.”

Redhook, a publicly traded company with plants in Portsmouth and Woodinville, Wash., merged on July 1 with privately held Widmer Brothers Brewing Company of Portland, Ore., maker of Widmer Hefeweizen.

Redhook’s Portsmouth plant was already bottling and distributing Hefeweizen on the east coast for Widmer, providing groundwork for the deal. The merger is now opening up the Portsmouth plant to bottling a number of brands from Widmer and its subsidiaries.

Kona Brewing Company of Kailua Kona, Hawaii, and Goose Island Beer Company of Chicago, Ill., subsidiaries of Widmer, were swept up into the deal, enabling Redhook plant to introduce beers from these lines into New England markets.

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Only for one brew, and only for Chicago.

Dogfish Head and Three Floyds will brew Popskull, a limited-batch German-style brown ale, at Three Floyds’ Munster, Ind., brewery Thursday. The beer, aimed at hardcore micro-brew fanatics, will be sold at the Munster brewery and possibly some select Chicago-area retailers and bars.

“These are two shining stars in the beer world and both are very popular in Chicago,” said Jerry Glunz, general manager of Louis Glunz Beer Inc., a Lincolnwood distributor that works with both companies. “They are both very innovative brewers and people are very excited to see what they will produce.”

Lincoln Anderson, a sales and marketing representative with Three Floyds, said Popskull is a slightly sweet, high-alcohol malt beer. He estimates a 22-oz. bottle will sell for $12 to $25.

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This is the first I’ve heard of these guys.  We’ll have to take a closer gander as they are about two and a half hours west of Enkidu.  They seem to be running a decent little spot with cheap taps and live music.

Via Pisgah blog:

We ordered 22 bottles today to take the next step and get our Pale Ale in more hands. Thanks again for voting us the best brewery in Western NC. More beer is on the way. They will be our usual - unfiltered and bottle conditioned!

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Via Edmonton Sun:

A man who was stabbed at the York Hotel Saturday night opted to return to the bar to finish his beer rather than seek medical attention.

Police responded to 10401 96 St. hotel just after 9 p.m. with reports that a man had been stabbed.

When they arrived, they found the victim at his table drinking beer.

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Via North County Times:

Until zymurgy spreads elsewhere in the solar system, Stone Brewing Co. will have to settle for this accolade: According to Beer Advocate magazine’s annual survey, Stone is the top brewery on Planet Earth.

(”Zymurgy” is a highbrow word for beer-making, befitting Stone’s connoisseur market.)

Stone beat out such well-regarded competitors as Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Chico; Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo, Mich.; and Bières de Chimay, a Trappist brewery in Belgium.

A maker of famously hyper-hoppy beers, Stone also took five spots out of 25 for top beers. They are: Stone Imperial Russian Stout, (2nd); Stone Ruination IPA, (11th); Stone IPA, (17th); Double Bastard Ale, (18th); and Arrogant Bastard Ale, (22nd). First place went to Trappistes Rochefort 10 Quadrupel, brewed by Brasserie de Rochefort, in Belgium.

Beer Advocate magazine based its awards on reader ratings of the breweries and beers, as given on its Web site, www.beeradvocate.com. The awards were announced in December.

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Every day, more and more high-end restaurants are discovering what many of us have known for years.  Beer is great with food of all flavors.  They are also realizing that humans of all kind consume the drink.  From rich fancies to lowly slum diggers.  Beer doesn’t discriminate.  It loves us all.

Signs are showing 2009 to be the year where pairing food with beer finally takes off and begins to give wine some competition in the four star eatery department.

Today’s sign comes from Daniel Boulud, the French chef and owner of NY City’s restaurant Daniel. This spring, Boulud plans to open a brasserie, which is a fancy word for joint that serves alcohol with food.

“It will have a beautiful cement floor rather than stone from Burgundy,” he says. Even more surprising, it will feature food that pairs nicely with—of all things—beer. To build excitement for the downtown spot, his flagship, Daniel, will host its first-ever beer-tasting dinner in two weeks.

“I don’t say I’m an expert on beer,” admits Mr. Boulud. “I hope to definitely improve my knowledge of it.”

One year after the nation slipped into recession, high-end restaurateurs are discovering what bar owners have known for, like, forever: Beer goes well with hard times. As diners look for ways to trim their tabs, top-flight restaurateurs are carving out more room on their menus for brews—not Rolling Rock and Miller, of course, but exotic brews from around the world.

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Via App Shopper:

It’s always 5 O’Clock somewhere, right? Everyone says so, but now you can actually back it up.

Beer O’Clock shows you a countdown to 5pm in your local timezone as well as a world map with an indicator of where in the world the 5pm drinking session is just getting underway. One click away is a list of countries in the timezone currently celebrating 5pm. So count the minutes until the start of your local happy hour or call it quits early and have a beer at lunch, like they’re doing right now 1/4 world away.

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This morning’s New York Times travel section has a piece on the city of Philadelphia slowly returning to early roots as a brew town once again, with half a dozen breweries and pubs opening in recent years.  Most notably, each new bar in the area features microbrews.

From historically minded breweries that pay homage to our founding fathers, to bohemian pubs that craft unusual ales, the city is undergoing a kind of beer renaissance.

Much of the upswing can be attributed to Philadelphia’s bubbling night life. The new breweries, said Don Russell, who as Joe Sixpack writes a weekly column about beer for The Philadelphia Daily News, “are filling a need that’s out there being created by the local bar scene. Every single bar that has been opening up has a multitap system and is featuring microbrews.”

Combine that robust tavern scene with cheap real estate in emerging neighborhoods, and you’ve got the ingredients for a beer blast. In recent years, a half-dozen breweries and specialty pubs have opened in Philadelphia, ranging from boutique breweries that make micro batches to green-powered plants looking to become the city’s next biggest thing.

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Damn kids.

The brewer has stopped serving samples in hospitality centers at its Busch Gardens and SeaWorld theme parks. The reason: It had limited appeal among park patrons, spokesman Fred Jacobs said. Underlying meaning: It wasn’t profitable.

Instead, Anheuser-Busch will build more restaurants and attractions geared toward families with kids.

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