I know I'm over a week late, but in honor of Sam Calagione's new show Brewmasters on the Discovery Channel, I wanted to review the beer featured in it's first episode, Miles Davis' Bitches Brew. I have only watched the premiere, but it is a good show and I recommend it for beer lovers and even non-beer enthusiasts who are interested in seeing what goes into brewing fine craft beers. Congrats, Sam, and hopefully you get that record deal with Sony.The episode goes into detail what Sam was looking for in this beer, a fusion of imperial stout and African tej, an Ethiopian honey wine. Usually when I review a beer, I try not to read too much into a label or what I've read on a website about it so that way I don't have preconceived notions on what to expect. Since I've already watched the episode, that's going to be near impossible, so I'll try to pick out the ingredients I saw in the show in what I drink.
Appearance: Pours a dark viscous black with brown lacey head of about a finger. It looks superb and really inviting.
Smell: Roasted malts, chocolate, and coffee really dominate the scent. I could also be picking up some sweetness from the honey, but this is why I don't like prior knowledge because I don't know if the smell is from suggestion or I'm really smelling it. On the other hand, I wish I knew what gesho smells like so I could try to pick it out.
Taste: Very interesting, tamer than what you would think from an ale where 3/4 of the blend is imperial stout and from the strong malt scents. There is still some roasted malts in there, but the honey and earthy hop flavors (I'm guessing the earthy hop flavors is the gesho) are more present on the finish.
Mouthfeel: Between medium and full bodied, smooth, perfectly carbonated, and surprisingly a little thin, but I guess that is the tej cutting into the stout. The bitterness on the finish cuts out any alcohol on the aftertaste.
Drinkability: One of the reasons I love Dogfish Head and Sam Calagione is the willingness to take risks, be creative, and do unusual things. A blend of imperial stout and tej, essentially a honey wine, sounds so out of whack, but they pulled it off. It's so different and strange that it's impossible to classify it and compare it to anything I've had. Not only that, but it's incredibly easy to drink at 9% abv, which could get me into trouble. I highly recommend this beer and the show Brewmasters which airs Sundays at 10p.m. on the Discovery Channel. If you've had this brew too, let me know what you think of it, I'm interested to see other people's takes on it. 9/10
Glass type: Duvel tulip glass
Serving type: Bottle, 25.4 oz.
3 comments:
FYI the show is actually on its 3rd time slot (make up your mind Discovery!) and is on Thursdays at 8pm now.
Spot on review, Mike. I liked the interplay between the roasted stout malts and, sweet honey, and the bitter gesho. I've got a bottle of the first batch and the 2nd, might be interesting to compare them.
Dammit, are you serious? Haha, I guess Discovery's website lied to me because I saw in my dvr that a show was recorded on Monday and was confused. I would love to do a comparison between batches. I assume what I had was batch one, but don't really know. The bottle date information is "2010 D" which doesn't help.
Nice review. I'm becoming more and more interested in trying this beer. I have passed on in a few times now since I don't typically care for most of the DFH 750ml releases. I respect the effort and creativity that goes into them though.
If you guys end up comparing the first batch with the second it would be cool to hear how it turned out. From the show it seemed that Batch 1 was pushed out the door really fast and only with that one pilot batch. I'm wondering if they tweaked the beer since then. I also found it interesting that the release of the 2nd batch was pretty well timed with the shows premier, so who knows if they had time to do much.
I have been pleasantly surprised by the show. I've only watched the first episode so far, but it was pretty good.
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