Jason:

The Buffalo Brews podcast. From Framingham, Massachusetts to Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. This is the second part of series nine of Barely Getting Started.

This is Warmer Winters.

Craig:

Yes.

Jason:

Insert dramatic pause here as it's 18 degrees outside.

Craig:

Jason looks at me like, am I supposed to like do a big wind gust? And this winter is getting warmer, warmer. Well, there's a storm brewing with this one, right?

Yeah. I mean, the artwork on this alone, I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. So Evergreen, yes, out of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.

You know, again, warmer winters, the theme for this series, basically just looking at beers kind of brewed, designed for these colder months. So let's kind of just recap what we just had as well as, you know, what we're kind of looking for. You know, you had alluded to stout season in the last episode.

Stout season kind of, to me, is right around Black Friday and then all through winter. You know, you've got locally, Big Dutch does the Wednesday before, I think, is their Stouts Giving. Black Friday, obviously, is kind of owned by Bourbon County brand Stout from Goose Island with their release of all their beers and their bourbon barrel aged beers.

And it's kind of like the signal of it's colder weather. It's time for bigger beers. It's time for darker, more robust.

But we're not necessarily just falling into that trope. We are, A, I was looking for beers that, you know, the brewer is intending for you to enjoy during the winter, whether they call it a winter beer or not. So we started with Extra Layer by Jack's Abbey, which they were calling a Winterfest lager as opposed to Oktoberfest, which, you know, you talked about Copper Legend and, you know, obviously, they're very well known for their lagers with Jack's Abbey.

But the Winterfest being a nice maltier, caramel toffee, definitely a nice, you can actually take a bigger sip of that at 6%. And now we're going to transition into a darker beer. We have, they're marketing it as a Winter Porter.

It's not an official style, so a base style of porter, but they are making it a Winter Porter first by naming it Nor'easter or the North Easter, which is, I looked up real quickly because I always know that it just means, oh man, somebody's in trouble. It's kind of like when you hear a tropical storm, Ed is coming through, you got your Nor'easters and it's a cyclone, but it's typically with snow. Is that correct or what is your knowledge of it?

Jason:

I, you know, it's the upper atmospheric cold weather cyclone. It's kind of like our, what do we call it, the bomb cyclone that hits these areas. So it's a rotating storm, usually puts the whoop on New York City every once in a while.

Craig:

Well, it's, it's the Northern part of the Atlantic ocean, I think when the cyclone comes off of that and it's during the colder. So yeah, the can has, you know, kind of a cyclone cloud coming in, looking like he's just going to blow snow all over you with a face and lips puckered.

Jason:

Like something you used to see on the news in the 80s, you know, when they had it on the weather map.

Craig:

The weather maps down there, it's like, oh no, he's coming. And you're going to, you know, buy yourself an extra milk and loaf of bread.

Jason:

What did Mayor Griffin used to say back in the day as a two, a two six pack storm or something to that effect?

Craig:

There you go. The storm measured in how much beer you're going to need. So we're jumping up from 6%, we're going to increase by 50%, which makes it how much percent there, Jason?

This is Scott Steiner math as far as I'm concerned.

Jason:

6% increase that by 50. 6% increase by 50% is going to be a, that's going to be 9%. There you go.

There you go.

Craig:

Nice to be a math teacher. 22 and a third. Well, some people would be like 56%, Craig.

No, no, no, no, no. We're increasing by 50%, not adding 50% alcohol. So yes, we're, we're taking half of what we were drinking and putting it on top.

So we, we gotta be careful here.

Jason:

We're in Imperial territory now.

Craig:

Absolutely. So I talked about Jack's Abbey and like their Baltic porters and you know, they had that framing hammer. So this is going to be in that kind of territory.

They're calling it a winter porter, but with it being that high ABV, it's kind of Baltic porter territory. However, to make it even more winter and you know, quasi festive, they have vanilla, fig, chestnut, and maple syrup. So I mean a lot of those things to me say winter, right?

I'm Italian, chestnuts roasting over an open fire. You know, we always think of that. Figs are always kind of indicative of the holidays.

And you know, you think of, you know, more, more festive times when the figs are brought out. Maple syrup, you usually, you know, could just picture yourself in the woods, just tapping trees in the cold and getting that maple.

Jason:

As we detailed in the holiday mega-sode last episode, figgy pudding, not a pudding. It's actually a cake. Yeah.

Craig:

Yeah. You know, you would, you would be misrepresented if you showed up with fig pudding thinking that was figgy pudding. So I cracked this bad boy open, if you didn't hear it, I kind of snuck it in there.

Not a ton and to be expected with a higher ABV, ABV kind of is a killer of head and foam retention. Should get a good foam when we pour it. Now it's a porter, so I'm expecting this to be pretty dark, not, you know, opaque black.

Jason:

That's dark.

Craig:

That is dark. But it's kind of pouring opaque black and I could see it kind of forming a beige-ish, you know, slight light brown beige mocha head. So it does have a nice little head to it.

When it cracked, it was one of those ones that, you know, doesn't foam up quite a bit.

Jason:

Yeah.

Craig:

But it is creating a nice, there we go, another, another good pour there. Another set of twins there. But yes, I'm looking at a dark brown slash black beer with a nice tight lacing of foam on the top.

You have very tiny tight bubbles. It is definitely not white. It is tannish beige, got a couple of fisheye bubbles in there, a little larger.

And then you've got, you know, these undertones as I hold it to the light. It actually is, you know, pretty opaque. There's not a lot of light coming through that and I can imagine that a lot of that is due to the additional adjunct flavors that we read there.

So to kind of recap, we're drinking a winter porter. So porters being a little roastier, taking a step above our brown ale and going from toffee caramel into our roasty kind of coffee-like notes with still a little hint of nuttiness and a hint of caramel, but it definitely leans more towards the coffee in the roast. But then that vanilla, fig, chestnut, and maple.

So I mean, all of those things, it sounds like a good beer for cheese. Okay. I could just see a lot of that stuff being drizzled onto a, or placed on a charcuterie board.

Okay. With a lot of cheese, you know, give me some fig with any type of cheese and I'm happy. Drizzle a little bit of maple over some brie or some, you know, roasted chestnuts.

How do we feel about pepper jack on this one? Pepper jack? Pepper jack and maple, I can kind of see it.

A lot of times people with pepper jack, they go, you know, this is like that six degrees of separation. Like how do we get there? So to me, pepper jack, I see a lot of pepper jack on burgers with bacon.

And I see a lot of bacon that become, you know, maple glazed bacon. And so I can see the nice maple, you know, like a maple candied bacon with pepper jack cheese. I could see that.

And I could tell you whether I would pair it with this beer after I taste it, but by the sounds of things, I think it would work. So another cheers. Cheers.

Let's take a whiff and a sniff and a little taste.

Jason:

Oh, that's a delight.

Craig:

Definitely vanilla. Okay. I'm getting some vanilla.

Jason:

Yeah.

Craig:

You know, figs, to me, figs don't have, you know, a lot of times we don't have fresh figs around here. We have...

Jason:

Get them at Wegmans once in a while.

Craig:

Yeah. Every now and then you get a fresh fig, which is delightful. It's like a little plum.

But when you get figs, usually they're the dried version. Not a ton of aroma because of that tough exterior. You kind of get that aroma when you taste it.

So kind of like a caramel vanilla. And then definitely now on my second whiff, the maple. At first whiff, I was like, ooh, vanilla.

And now it's, no, that's not caramel. That's maple. And yeah, she's there.

She's definitely there. So this is a thicker one.

Jason:

That's a punch in the face right there.

Craig:

Not boozy for 9%.

Jason:

Now there's your fig.

Craig:

Yeah. Yeah. It's all coming around.

I'm looking at my glass. I have some nice Belgian lacing. It kind of is just sticking to this edge of the glass as my liquid level is going down, my volume is decreasing.

And that just, you know, A, shows that I have a clean glass, but then B, that this beer had a nice head and has got some, you know, some protein in that head there to cling to that glass.

Jason:

Is that the chestnut I'm getting on the finish?

Craig:

All right. You're forcing me to drink again here.

Jason:

Almost to the back of my tongue.

Craig:

It's tough because every time I try to make chestnuts, like my grandfather always made chestnuts and he was great. I never really liked them because you crack them open, you know, he would cut the little X in it and it would be not too hard to open. The only saving grace is they were a little bit buttery, but usually it was just like a chalky, very like dense, almost like a doughy type of nut.

It wasn't, wasn't nutty, like a crunchy nutty. It was just this very soft, crumbly, kind of chalky experience. And every time I would grab one because it sounds so good and it's so warm and you would just be like, man, this is, this is good.

I'll wait till next Christmas for another one.

Jason:

Martha Stewart used to say at her holiday specials, go get your chestnut roasting pan. It was like, honey, where's the chestnut roasting pan?

Craig:

Think about a single use item. That's not something I see. It's hanging on the wall next to the stuff you don't use.

But I get a little bit of nuttiness and, you know, obviously that's going to come from it being a porter and the malts that are involved in this as well. But it is it's one of those beers that lets you know it's a beer, not in the sense of, you know, I think people think that when it it's a it lets you know that it's a big beer because a lot of times when you think of it's a beer, I think of just pure Pilsner and lager. And it's like, oh, yeah, there's that light malt flavor that I remember from the first time I sipped a beer as a kid.

This is one that's just like, OK, slow down. Like the the extra layer that we just drank.

Jason:

It's hardy and it's deceptive.

Craig:

Yeah, it really is a little toothy. Yeah. It's you know, at nine percent, it's definitely enjoyable because it doesn't have like a harshness to it.

Not that harsh is not enjoyable, but I do see this going very well with some cheeses. I can definitely pair this with something a little funkier. I do think I would like this with like a triple creme, like brie or some sort of brie that's got a lot of like that maple go really well with it because I'm thinking like maple glazed pecans and that chestnut and that buttery chestnut kind of tone that would go well.

But it needs it needs some like a serious opponent to step up to it because it's good.

Jason:

It's going to punch you in the mouth because if you don't put somebody that's against that, they can punch it back.

Craig:

It's you know, it's going to be a one way fight. Yep. So it does finish.

It's got some roast to it, but I feel like all the sweet tones, right, like the vanilla, the fig, the maple, those three really tone the coffee and roast notes down. It makes it kind of like that person that, you know, likes two to three lumps of sugar or spoons full of sugar in their coffee. And, you know, if you ever pick up the wrong coffee mug when you're just hanging out with a bunch of people and you're like, oh, my God, this is not mine.

And who likes the diabetes as much as this coffee indicates? Because I am I'm a coffee with a little bit of cream kind of guy. Yeah.

I don't really like my coffee sweet because I just don't I don't not I'm typically more savory and roasty like breakfast kind of person versus super sweet pancakes.

Jason:

Right. All that stuff.

Craig:

Save that for dessert.

Jason:

You know, you know, Evergreen Brewing as Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, like we said at the beginning of the episode, they first of all, very artsy cans. If you go onto their website there, this is just a small sample of all the cool things they've got going on there. They apparently they hire some local artists that do some of their work and every thing that they ever have made is a great artsy can.

They own a farm out there. And what I found out was that they feature 100 percent oak fermented mixture cultures and lambic style beers. That's their their big specialty.

So this is a step to the side for them. But this is a winner. I love this because it's it's it's not quite deserty, but it is a treat.

Craig:

Well, you know, you asked the question last episode, you know, for stout season, what would you tell someone they should try? I'm like, oh, you should go and get this winter porter because if you didn't tell me this was a winter porter, I would just think that this was a stout, you know, especially at nine percent stouts were originally just a more formidable version of the porter. So to me, this has all the characteristics of like, you know, some of your pastry stouts.

It's not super thick, but it's definitely a couple of notches above the lager we just tried. And with it being a porter, I wasn't expecting it to be too thick. But then again, you know, all the additives to it to get the flavors that if you're if they're actually using real figs or, you know, vanilla is just most likely an extract, you know, they might use vanilla beans.

But I always find that if someone uses the actual vanilla beans, they put vanilla beans on that. They want you to know it. And then figs and then the chestnut, you know, I'm assuming that some of these are extracts, but you could have them just steeping this stuff at any part of the brewing process.

But a lot of times when you condition the beer and it's just sitting while it's fermenting and kind of just getting its carbonation and just kind of mellowing out, that's a good time to add some stuff and that could thicken things up a little bit.

Jason:

They're known for the growth and production of local ingredients, vegetables, fruit, honey. I wouldn't be surprised if this maple came from their trees.

Craig:

Yeah. And it's not as heavy maple as it is on the smell. Like first smell vanilla, like I said, and then you got that maple.

We kind of looked at each other like, oh, there's the maple. And as I drink it, it is a nice blend of all the flavors. Like fig definitely doesn't jump out to me.

It's very maple vanilla forward. But there's this underlying nuttiness to me. Fig is kind of like one of those things, like I said about those raisin type notes I get here and there where you kind of get it.

But unless it's like I've had fig saisons, I've had some fig is the only thing in there. That's when you can kind of really pinpoint the flavor. Whereas the fig in this will get a little lost behind vanilla and maple because it's just like, OK, maple is a maple and vanilla are very distinctive, sweet flavors.

Fig, unless they used a ton of figs, you know, would probably just kind of fall to the mercy of the maple and the vanilla. But you get a little bit of it, a little bit of that like raisin kind of just dark fruit note. And again, that just kind of comes with the darker beer territory.

Higher ABV, when I took my last gulp, because I finished mine, I took my last little gulp and again, still no real like kind of burn to it. But that last gulp was like, oh, yeah, this is 9 percent. And then as I made before I did that last sip, to me, I can always tell a quality beer when the foam and the head retention is there.

And at 9 percent, I was able to swirl this around. It created a full top layer of foam again, which basically means that there you go. Jason's over here swirling away like a nor'easter.

Jason:

So we have to go counterclockwise.

Craig:

There you go. Get away from us. I'll take the cold.

I'll throw an extra layer on. But, you know, a lot of people don't realize all the science behind foam and there's like a whole branch of things. But basically, you know, the proteins from from the malt get trapped in the carbonation.

And as the, you know, the bubbles start to go rise to the top, they pull, you know, there's kind of like this fat and protein net structure that's created that pulls it to the surface. And that's kind of what creates foam and well-made beers, even with a higher ABV, like 9 percent should still see some good foam. And I was expecting that the foam would dissipate quickly because of that higher ABV.

But this is you could tell that this is a fresh beer, a well-made beer, and it is definitely a formidable beer.

Jason:

Yeah. Bravo. Bravo, for sure.

They it looks like that they've done a great job with this. I was going to jump onto their website and actually pull up a couple of their what would you say? What's the term?

Flagship beers.

Craig:

There we go.

Jason:

That 9 percent didn't hit me that hard.

Craig:

Come on now. Yeah, usually flagships are their year round.

Jason:

Yeah, they and like I said, you know, they they do produce a lot of their own ingredients that they do in a lot of their different beers. Yeah, it's interesting that they do incorporate fruit and vegetable into certain beers. You think you just go to other half and see the broccoli beer and think, you know, that's a word of note.

There's no broccoli in the broccoli beer at at other half. But they do a great job with this. I was pleasantly surprised at this because, you know, we've had a few random breweries that I've never heard of.

I've never heard of Evergreen. And then doing the research on this, I was really excited to look at their website and see the different things that they have on their list.

Craig:

You know, I've gotten some they make some good West Coast IPAs. I think right now I've got Juicy Juice is like I think one of their flagship IPAs. So I've gotten quite a few stuff from them.

I use one distributor to get them and they just they have a nice variety of styles. You know, when you have a brewery that does, you know, very few styles, unless I really need to fill that gap, I kind of, you know, can take or leave those that brewery unless I'm really looking for something from them. Whereas, you know, I have a lot of places I get beer from.

And when I'm just going down a I'm looking at styles then because, you know, I shop based and what I need in the shop, then, oh, man, here's five different West Coast IPAs or here's five different winter style beers. What would what do I want to bring in? Well, one, I want to bring some that's got a cool name in.

I want to bring something that if I take a look and I could see the can art, oh, that's going to jump off the shelf. And then, you know, you read something like, all right, Nor'easter. That's a good name.

The artwork's fantastic. Vanilla, maple, fig, chestnut, call it a winter porter. It's like, sign me up.

You know, it's not not super Christmassy where people are like, man, I don't want that after January 1st. This is one that, you know, people should be enjoying to help warm up the winter for them all the way until spring.

Jason:

They I finally got on to their to their website. It took me only like 10 times for me to refresh because, you know, it's a it's a computer. What do you expect?

Technology, right?

Craig:

Right.

Jason:

But they some of the callbacks to our earlier episodes, you know, they have a great hell is called Hell Yes. They have a Schwarz beer, like we were talking about last episode, Pilsner called Wilderness Camp. We've had two Pilsner episodes.

One is one of the is probably the most downloaded episode of barely getting started ever, because I think when it comes to Pilsners, I don't think people understand enough about how they're made or what goes into making a quality Pilsner. I always say if it's not a Czech Pilsner, it's not a real Pilsner, but we all know that there's there's different styles.

Craig:

There's German, there's Italian, you're overseas and you're in that area. That is true. If it's not a Czech Pilsner, it's not a Pilsner.

No, something else.

Jason:

No. And then they have what they call a Dortmunder export lager.

Craig:

Yes.

Jason:

Yeah. Do you know about this?

Craig:

Well, there's there's yes, there's Dortmund like there's Dortmund Gold from Great Lakes. That's one of their flagships. Dortmund export beer.

So it's like, you know, take those German names. They just slap beer on it. Black beer, dark beer, red beer.

So that they had export beer, B-I-E-R, and that was from Dortmund. And, you know, it's kind of a it's a little maltier lager. It's still golden.

And it's it's just to me, it's it's not quite a Maybach where it's a light colored Bach, but it's kind of in between a lager and a Maybach where it's got a little bit more silky notes to a lager. Yeah. But yeah, Dortmund, you know, that's it's just those towns that just become famous for the beer that they brew.

Jason:

And that was one of them. I think that's what we're talking about a lot with the German styles we're talking about. It's one of my one of my favorite conversations that we had was we were talking about in the Dunkel series or Dunkel.

We were talking about a Dunkel. It means dark in German. Where where's the what's the name of the brewery?

Varsteiner. Where is it located? Varsteiner, Germany.

Craig:

So dark beer from Varstein. Enjoy it. Okay.

You want another? Keep it moving. Right.

Right. Exactly. But that's how a lot of their stuff and, you know, all the names.

It's like, where where does it come from? Like, you know, Rauk beer. Like, where's Rauk beer?

And Rauk beer is typically from Bamberg, Germany. And it's like, OK, and then you talk about an obscure reference, right? Yeah.

And then you're just like, OK, I pull up Dormunder and you pull that up. Well, that's what I love about German beers is they're all, you know, it's kind of like this is what we're known for. And like right now we have an Alt beer on tap.

OK. And I had a ton of people ask me, what's an Alt beer? What's an Alt beer?

And I'm like, it's kind of like a Kolsch, but the darker version. Right. It's a hybrid ale, but Alt beers are from Dusseldorf.

So, you know, just like Kolsch is from Cologne, you know, Dusseldorf was making a beer called that they called Alt beer and Alt translates to old beer. And it's meaning, well, we're brewing it the old style, but it's with the new yeast strain. So the new yeast is lager yeast, but the old style is ale.

So that's how it was kind of a hybrid. They were just, hey, we're going to make an Alt beer. It's an old style beer, even with the new lager strain.

Jason:

You know, it's a matter of getting to Germany at some point and just getting lost in everything that they've got going over there, because it's, you know, I'm just in the last two minutes, I've learned so, so much. I didn't even know that there was such a beer called a Dormunder. Oh, yeah.

So it's now we've gone into these different styles. You know, Dusseldorf, now we're in Dusseldorf, not to be confused with Heinz Duffenschmerz.

Craig:

Oh, yes. No, no, no. Yeah, if you if you really go down the rabbit hole, the Germans have a lot of what's called just historic beers.

And, you know, we had one, I think, I don't know if I would talk about any episodes, but like an Atom beer. And then there's there's Lichtenhammer or something. There's there's just a lot of different Atom beers, big out of what, Eli Fish?

Yeah. Eli Fish, that was actually the Atom beer I had, you know, a dark, high ABV, smoky beer that can or may or may not be soured. So either acceptable, it's up to the brewer.

And, you know, just just interesting stuff. I mean, that's a part of why I wanted to be a Cicerone and then do what I do here at Magic Beer. It's like you get into these deeper conversations and, you know, that's the trouble when you're barely getting started.

You start taking the tangents, especially at those nine percent. We got we got two more heavy hitters coming.

Jason:

So yeah, I've done the research on these two, you know, gentlemen start your engines. But we're definitely going to we're going to warm up the winter for sure. Sure.

And, you know, if you're a true beer aficionado, your lips should toss everything that we just talked about the last two, three minutes here. You should be able to at some point at least put your lips to it to see whether or not that you like it. Understand tasting notes, understand aroma notes.

But one of the things that's for sure, Nor'easter, Winter Porter out of Evergreen or Evergreen Brewing in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. This is one that you definitely want to put to your lips. This is a fun, fun trip right here.

Craig:

Yeah, this is like an after. Like, I don't see I would see myself eating this with an appetizer, but this is more of like a dessert beer, a by the fire beer or just after dinner.

Jason:

The shakunari board is laid out and you're just slow sipping.

Craig:

Enjoy it. Campfire beer or, you know, I always say campfire beer, but it's too cold to go out in the campfire. So to me, it's like sitting.

On the couch, around the fire, even though that might not happen. But like, you know, if we're watching the Bill's game and you're just having a couple and this might be a good option for one of them watching the Bills play in the snow, drinking a Nor'easter. Not a bad idea.

Jason:

Wonderful. You know, that's two down with two to go. Like you said, two pretty heavy hitters coming up here.

This has been a series nine, episode two of Barely Getting Started. And I am Jason. And he is Craig Altobello, the the Lord of Larkinville, the Baron of Beers, the what else?

Mayor of Magic.

Craig:

Mayor of Magic.

Jason:

And so until next episode, cheers. Cheers.