Fine Barley Wines A Real Love Affair

Mother Nature may not offer much to look forward to in this nether season between winter and spring. But for beer aficionados, the annual arrival of a new crop of barley wines is like a second Christmas.

The latest releases of two of the West’s best - Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot, and Bridgeport’s Old Knucklehead - recently showed up in the Spokane area.

These aren’t the sort of beers you greet by sitting down with a six-pack for the evening. They’re potent brews with intense flavors often compared to brandy or sherry. Like hearty red wines, they’re most flavorful when served at close to room temperature, around 60 degrees. And their alcohol content ventures into wine territory, typically approaching 10 percent by volume (about twice that of the average microbrew).

In short, they’re sipping beers - ideal, in this season of romance, for sharing with someone special.

And while it’s always interesting to try them fresh from the brewery, most barley wines benefit from a year or two of aging to smooth out the taste and texture, like a fine cabernet.

The results aren’t always predictable. I’ve been to brewers’ parties where we sampled four or five vintages of various barley wines. While older is usually better, some stand the test of time more gracefully than others - and a bad year becomes painfully apparent.

Sierra’s Bigfoot, even more hoppy and piney than the California brewery’s Christmas-season Celebration Ale, can be a true enfant terrible to the uninitiated. The just-released 1998 edition starts out somewhat soft and innocent, but that’s immediately followed by a mouth-filling, resinous hop bite and a lingering, almost metallic aftertaste.

For comparison purposes, I cracked open a ‘97 Bigfoot. While still a challenging beer, it was fuller and richer, with a slower-developing bitterness and a better balance between the sweet malt and spicy hops.

A better bet for beginners is Bridgeport’s Old Knucklehead (the Portland brewery follows the British tradition of beginning barley wine names with the word “old”). While still plenty strong, it’s much milder and fruitier than the Bigfoot.

The 1997 Knucklehead (which was released in November, but just recently made it our way) is relatively tame and drinkable, although there are a few rough edges. But the real treat was trying one of the ‘96 bottles I stashed away, which had developed a big, rich, round body with a slightly syrupy sweetness and a pleasant hoppiness in the finish.

Let’s hope the new Knucklehead ages as well, although there’s a little less to work with - an alcohol content of 9.1 percent by volume, compared to 9.9 percent for the 1996 bottling.

Rogue’s Old Crustacean (“Old Crusty,” for short) falls somewhere between Bigfoot and Old Knucklehead in intensity. While we haven’t yet seen a new bottling from the Newport, Ore., brewery, you might still find some of the 1996 vintage kicking around. It also has mellowed nicely, although it still packs some hop punch.

Look for barley wines in Spokane at such specialty stores as Jim’s Home Brew Supply and Huckleberry’s Fresh Markets, as well as the Viking Tavern. In Coeur d’Alene, Capone’s Pub & Grill is expecting some of the excellent Leviathan Barley Wine from Fish Brewing in Olympia.

And for a homegrown spin, Casey’s Pub & Grill in Post Falls plans to bring back its raspberry-tinged Proprietor’s Reserve Barley Wine for St. Patrick’s Day.

In the air

Maybe it’s the mild weather - or maybe it’s the fact that the Christmas beers started coming out in October - but many microbreweries already are introducing their spring seasonal beers.

Newcomers include Grant’s SpringFest Ale, a malty brew made exclusively with Willamette hops, and Samuel Adams’ White Ale, a Belgian-style beer spiked with orange and coriander.

Maybe it suffered in the shipping, but the advance sample of SpringFest I received was slightly harsh, with an abruptly short finish - somewhat disappointing in the wake of Grant’s respectable Winter Ale. The Adams White was similarly lackluster, with less vibrant flavors than the Thomas Kemper version.

Among the returning veterans are Full Sail’s superb Equinox ESB; Pyramid’s subtly smoky Scotch Ale; Kemper’s golden, smooth Maibock; Adams’ sturdy, deep Doppelbock and a draft-only Doppelbock from Widmer.

Pub crawl

There are plenty of post-holiday seasonals on tap at area brewpubs as well.

One of the more unusual is the Ram’s steam beer, an old California style previously revived by Anchor that uses a lager yeast fermented at warmer ale temperatures. The result is a beer that combines the smoothness of a lager with some of the heartier flavors of an ale.

In the bock department - strong, malty lagers traditionally brewed for spring - there’s the return of the original Treaty Rock Bock at Casey’s, a maibock at T.W. Fisher’s in Coeur d’Alene (which recently added a golden ale to its regular lineup) and a Bock at the Moon maibock at M.J. Barleyhoppers in Lewiston that will be tapped in a Feb. 19 celebration.

Fort Spokane is offering Leprechaun’s Gold through St. Patrick’s Day, a light-colored but deceptively potent beer made with honey. Look for dunkelweizens (dark wheat beers) at Solicitor’s Corner, flavored with boysenberry, and C.I. Shenanigan’s, using a traditional Bavarian yeast that imparts banana/clove flavors.

And the Bayou Brewing Co. has finally traded in its Oktoberfest for a winter ale dubbed Melt Down, in honor of the warm weather. It’s a reddish brew dry-hopped with Cascades and served from tap handles shaped like nuclear fuel rods.

Bottle field

Those new bottled beers from Sandpoint’s Pend Oreille Brewing Co. have started showing up in Spokane, and they’re well worth checking out.

The fresh, clean City Beach Blonde Pilsner is fuller and more flavorful than Sam Adams’ rendition of the style, which won a recent Drink magazine taste-off. HooDoo Porter is plenty tasty - smooth and chocolaty for starters, with a dry, roasty finish - although a bit on the thin side.

Idaho Pale Ale has some hop accents from dry-hopping with Cascades, but less bitterness than usually associated with the India pale ale style. It seems somewhat short on character compared to the draft version of the beer (not uncommon in the translation to bottles), but a couple of co-workers with whom I shared samples pronounced it firstrate.

By the way, in last month’s rundown of newly bottled microbrews, we overlooked Barleyhoppers, whose Rattlesnake Red and Huckleweizen have been available in bottles in North Idaho since October. You should start seeing them in Spokane this month, beginning at the Huckleberry’s stores.

, DataTimes MEMO: On Tap is a monthly feature of IN Food. Write to: On Tap, Features Department, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. Call 459-5446, fax 459-5098 or e-mail to rickb@spokesman.com

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rick Bonino The Spokesman-Review