Firestone and Lagunitas Nights @ Toronado

So it’s been a very beerful week so far, as Toronado was hosting brewer’s nights for Firestone on Tuesday and Lagunitas on Wednesday.  In the future, I plan to post these events ahead of time so those interested can actually attend, but these came up quick, and my reflexes sent me off to the bar instead of to the blog. 

Firestone night was amazing.  They were serving all oaked beers, some oak-aged, some oak fermented.  They had:

• Union Jack – Oak fermented IPA
• Abacus – Oak aged barleywine
• Saucerful of Secrets – Oak aged Belgian strong dark ale
• Velvet Merkin – Oak aged oatmeal stout
• Saucerful of Merkin – Oak aged blend of the Belgian and the stout
• Parabola – Oak aged imperial oatmeal stout

I got the Abacus Barleywine to start and my first thought was, “Whoa, this is NOT a barleywine.  They must have given me the imperial stout.”  It was SO dark, and the oak gave it a creamy mouthfeel and vanilla flavor that I just wasn’t expecting, though I should have.  And this isn’t just oak we’re talking about, these are bourbon oak barrels they use, which imparts a whiff of bourbon to the beer.  It was really hard at first to believe this was a barleywine, and it was so rich, I thought I wasn’t going to be able to finish my glass.  But as it warmed up and I kept drinking it, I started liking it more and more.  By the time I had finished my glass, I was about ready for another, and might have gone in for one more if it hadn’t been 11% alcohol (!!! And that wasn’t even the top end of their spectrum, their Imperial Stout was 13%!).  It’s a FANTASTIC beer, but it caught me off-guard.  I’ve been drinking very hoppy west-coast Barleywines, and this was not that type of beer at all.  I will DEFINITELY order it again, if I can find it, but not when I’m looking for something light and refreshing.  You could drink this with dessert.

The second beer I had was the Saucerful of Secrets Belgian Strong Dark Ale.  It too was fairly dark, and since it too had been bourbon oaked it had some of the same flavors as the barleywine.  However, this beer had higher carbonation, as expected from a Belgian, and more prominent hops.  It was not quite as complex or interesting as the barleywine, but a more easily drinkable beer.  I spent each sip with the barleywine trying to figure out how the hell they made it taste that way, which I think is exactly what a good beer does.  With the Belgian, I sat back and enjoyed. 

I didn’t get to meet the brewers, though they were around for a long time, or at least their reps were, because it was pretty crowded and they were a justifiably hot commodity.   Highlight of the night might have been about midway through my second reasonably strong beer when one of the partners from my firm, my boss on my last case, walked in.  Hi Joe!  I didn’t even notice at first because I was too worried about the fact that Justin had just left and now Kathleen and I needed to ditch the weirdo at the table next to us who was trying to chat us up despite being old enough to be our dad.  This problem was solved when he got up to get a beer, we gave away our table to a big group, and squeezed onto the weirdo’s little table with my boss and his 8 months pregnant wife (who, luckily for all of us, the rest of society included, was just having root beer).  It was fun to sit down with one of the partners over a beer, and not at some pre-engineered bonding over lets all go go-kart racing-type event.

The other highlight may have been when I realized I was eating Kathleen’s sausage instead of my own only after tears were POURING down my cheeks due to the hot peppers. 

Lagunitas night had great beer as well, almost as good as the Firestone beers, and an even more fun social setting.  Toronado opened up the secret back room that sits halfway between their bar and Rosamunde.  I had always wondered what was back there.  Turns out, more seating!  Why isn’t this open every night?  The sales and marketing guys from Lagunitas were there with cheese and vertical tastings of several of their beers going back to 2004!  I love the whole concept of vertical tastings but had never actually done one before. 

The beers offered in verticals were:

• Brown Shugga - American strong ale (9.9%)
• Hairy Eyeball - American strong ale (8.8%) - but also spiced, almost an Imperial Winter Warmer
• Olde Gnarlywine - American barleywine (9.7%)
• Nuevo Noir - Belgian strong drown ale (6.3%)
• Possibly others I missed…

There was a somewhat different line-up available out front on tap:

• Lagunitas #10 - Saison
• Lagunitas IPA - American IPA
• Hop Stoopid - American Imperial IPA
• B2K - Eisbock
• Hairy Eyeball 2008 - see above

I’ve had the hairy eyeball before and really enjoyed it, served it at the Beer 101 seminar we had at my apartment in fact, but I came in a little carsick from reading Sunset in the car on the way home from PA (no, I wasn’t the driver, and yes, I read Sunset, and yes, I know I’m a weird mash-up of the interests of 50-year old men [homebrewing] and 50-year old women [regional lifestyle magazines], so I guess the only thing that’s clear is I’m an old person in a much younger body).  So, the upshot of that long parenthetical is that I got the Saison.  I thought it was very good for a Saison.  It was hoppy and highly carbonated like a pilsner, but with the slight twist that comes from the Belgian yeast. 

We then made our way to the back and I went through the line 2x to get 2 tastes and decided that despite my enthusiasm for vertical tasting in general, that I wasn’t up for it in this crowded an environment, where I’d have to balance my many tastes in my hands and try not to spill while being jostled every which way.  So I tried the 2004 Gnarlywine and the 2004 (I think) Nuevo Noir.  I can’t remember the Noir - just that it was tasty but couldn’t match the Saucerful from the night before, with all it’s bourbon oak accents.  The Gnarlywine was sweet and syrupy, very raisiny and figgy, a more classic Barleywine than the Abacus from the nigth before. 

My favorite of the night though was the B2K.  I had never had an eisbock before, I don’t think.  Bocks are strong beers with malty flavors and German-style Munich & Vienna malts.  They are light to medium brown with a large, creamy head.   Eisbocks are a special style of bocks that are distilled, not something you see in beer often at all, to increase the concentration of alcohol and flavor.  As a result, they have a darker brown color than other bocks and a higher alcohol content (9+% instead of 6 - 7%).  

The B2K was my favorite of the night.  It had a deep rich, mildly sweet malt profile and citric hops, and the high alcohol content kept it all interesting.  It’s retired, but it you can find it, buy it up fast!

A big hello to Felice, Justin, Matt, and Peattie for coming out and joining me.  I think I’m going to need to join Peattie’s entourage as he seemed to know everyone at Toronado.