If I’m going to review a different brewery each week, then I’ve only got one shot to discuss the home team, Ithaca Beer Company. Turns out there’s no time like the present. They just released two new brews in the Excelsior! series: TWELVE and LeBleu.
Don’t look for LeBleu in stores. It sold out after only two weeks. Sold retail for $15, there’s already been one sold on eBay for $75.
Ithaca brewer Jeff “Chief” O’Neil contends that these big beers Ithaca puts out are meant to be conversation pieces, and I have to agree. I stood in my kitchen, sipping the TWELVE with research assistant Todd, comparing it with LeBleu. A formal review, we decided, was impossible. We’d have to resort to metaphor. In that case, TWELVE is deep, rootsy funk. Parliament, James Brown… the Ohio Players. It’s nasty and rich, with syncopated flavors. Smells like an armpit. A goddam, sexy armpit. LeBleu? That’d be jazz, baby. Light and delicate, yet innovative, complex and rooted in tradition. Coltrane, Monk.
The two beers have one similarity: both have roots in Belgian styles. That’s about it, other than both being incredibly interesting and delicious. TWELVE is a quadruple—a very strong wheat beer, malty and feisty with flavor. LeBleu is like nothing else, a sour ale made with wild yeasts and then blended with blueberries. Pours red like cranberry juice and has a light pink head. I drank the entire 750-ml bottle in one sitting and puzzled over it the entire time. In a good way. I won’t be tasting anything like that again—that is, until I crack another one at TAP New York this spring.
No comments:
Post a Comment