Barrelful of brews: delayed tasting notes on Marin Brewing & Firestone

It’s been several days since the Marin Brewing Wood Aged Beer night at Toronado last Wednesday and the Firestone Night at City Beer Store last Thursday, but my homebrewing fiascos left me too worn out to write these up right away.  I can’t let them slip by unnoticed though, as the mix of beers I tried was too unique (sometimes in a good way, sometimes not so much…) not to review them.

First, there were the Marin Brewing Company beers.  Toronado was serving four of them, all aged in oak barrels.  These were:

• Grand Funk: Marin’s Star Brew Wheatwine aged for 2.5 years in Chardonnay barrels with Brettanomyces yeast.
• Super Funk: A blend of the Grand Funk (above) and Green Flash Brewing Company’s Super Freak (the Green Flash Le Freak, a Belgian-style IPA, aged in Grenache barrels with Brettanomyces yeast)
• Quadruple: Strong, dark, Belgian-style beer aged in a Maker’s Mark barrel with Brettanomyces yeast
• White Knuckle: Double IPA

Well, I’m sure you can guess where I started.  If you’re thinking Super Funk, you’re right – I love beers with complicated pedigrees.  However, I wish I could have gotten it as part of a flight of 5 beers and worked my way up to the final product.  If I could have had (1) the Marin Star Brew, (2) the Marin Grand Funk based on the Star Brew, (3) the Green Flash Le Freak, (4) the Green Flash Super Freak based on Le Freak, and (5) the Marin-Green Flash Super Funk based on Grand Funk and Super Freak, I would have been a very happy lady.  That said, after taking a sip of this beer, I was already a pretty happy lady.  Sure, this was partly just my relief at having something to sip after a marathon 11 hour brewing session, but it was also the smooth, oaky flavors of this blended brew.  The aroma was awesome, tons of oak and lots of grape.  There are a fair number of beers aged in wine barrels out there now, but I loved how this one balanced two very different wine flavors.  The Grenache grapes from the Super Freak came through in the nose: big fruit flavor that couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than grape, peppery spice, and a light dustiness.  Then the Chardonnay character from the Grand Funk came through in the taste, woody and smooth.  Maybe this is really more about oak that so often comes through strong in Chardonnay wines than the Chardonnay grapes themselves, but this was still a beer highly reminiscent of a Chardonnay wine.  Neither the Brettanomyces sourness nor funkiness came through very clearly — they were more subtle elements in the general mesh of tastes this beer had to offer.  Though I generally love big, bold flavors (especially when we are talking sourness or funkiness in a Brett beer), this was one time that I think the subtlety of the Brett was a good move.  This wine already had so many flavors layered on top of one another that it didn’t need another big “whoo-hoo, notice me!” flavor pushing up to the front, asking for attention.  I loved it and just wished I had gotten a 12 oz instead of an 8 oz pour.

Unfortunately, I can’t as readily endorse the Quadruple, which I tried next.  Strong dark, Belgian-style ales are a favorite of mine, as evidenced by my recent raving about Lost Abbey Judgment Day.  This one was just too sweet for my taste though, leaving me reluctant to finish even my tiny glass.  It had complexity, I’ll give it that, but not enough ‘bite’ from roast, or sourness, or alcohol to cut through the sweetness.  It was very fruity, with an unusual fruit profile for a strong dark ale, with light, tropical fruit scents and flavors being much more prominent than the typical raisin-y and figgy dark fruits.  In particular, there was a pineapple note that came through in the middle of the taste.  I’d say this is probably the result of either the Maker’s Mark barrels, the particular strain of Belgian yeast (some put off pineapple flavors), or both.  The taste ended with some light vanilla notes and Brett funk that I enjoyed.  Still, the sweetness was too much for me and I probably wouldn’t order this one again for myself.

On Thursday, ever dutiful beer journalist that I am, I headed out for another round of tasting, this time at City Beer Store for a lineup of Firestone Walker beers.  I’m only sorry I couldn’t stay longer because they had all of my favorites on tap.  They had:

• Lil’ Opal: Saison - a favorite saison of mine, previously reviewed here
• Double Barrel Ale: An English-style pale ale fermented in oak that is one of only two ‘non-India’ Pale Ales that I drink regularly, previously reviewed here
• Walker’s Reserve Porter: A Porter (obviously) that, like the DBA, is also one of only two Porters I really like, previously reviewed here
• Big Opal: Wheatwine (!! I love this style, but almost no one brews them, and I had been waiting to try this beer for months now)
• Abacus: Barleywine, previously reviewed here
• Parabola: Imperial Stout

Again, being fairly predictable, I went straight for the big beers.  I got a flight of 5 oz pours of each of the Big Opal, the Abacus, and the Parabola.  It was a wonderful way to sample the beers, since I could try the wheatwine and barleywine side-by-side, and let the Parabola warm up while I finished those first two.  Before jumping into each individual beer, though, it’s worth noting that the defining characteristic of all three is their viscosity.  These are heavy, syrup-y thick, full bodied beers – and to my mind, that’s what makes them exceptional above all else.  I liked the Big Opal and Abacus the best, though I’m probably alone in this opinion since everyone else filling up City Beer Store was savoring their glasses of Parabola and raving about it.  I did like Parabola, but favored the other two just a bit more, in part because the Parabola wasn’t different enough from the Abacus for my taste.

The Big Opal was smooth and creamy, with the big mouth filling viscosity I just mentioned.  It was a rich golden color and sweet without being very fruity.  Instead, it’s got some light caramel, some wheat spice and a bit of vanilla that probably comes from the oak.  It’s made with 50% wheat malt, of which half is torrified wheat, meaning that kernels of wheat are heated until they pop.  I’m guessing this might be part of the secret of the body of this beer, since torrified wheat generally adds to both the body and head retention of a beer.  This is something I’d drink like a desert wine: in small quantities with something creamy and rich.

The Abacus had rum-raisin aroma, full of dark fruits and booze.  As I moved from the aroma to the taste, the flavors shifted a bit towards chocolate and raisins, though the high ABV is still clearly apparent.  It has oxidized flavors or bourbon or brandy from its aging that I especially liked.  I started out at the beginning of the hour liking the Big Opal the best, but by the end, the Abacus edged it out for the #1 spot.

The Parabola was much like the Abacus in that it was also rummy and raisin-y, though definitely a few shades darker and with a roasted grain flavor that differentiated it from the barleywine.  However, as the barleywine isn’t particularly hoppy barleywine, and the imperial stout isn’t a particularly roasty stout, they both start to converge on a similar malt-y, syrupy, dark fruity flavor profile, of which I like the barleywine version a bit better.  This may just be because I like a lot of roast in my stouts.