The Spirit World

A few weeks ago I was out with my friends. We went to two different pubs. At both places someone came up to the bar and ordered an Irish Car Bomb. Alright, this was right after St Patrick’s Day and the bartenders seemed to be sick of people ordering Irish Car Bombs (not sure why).

As I’ve said before, my beer geek friends are skeptical of this whole beer cocktail business, but it seems to be catching on in the real world outside of beer-geekdom. A friend of mine called me to the other day. He was all excited because he had seen some beer cocktails on the menu at a pub he had just visited. He knows I’m writing this series on beer cocktails, so he says, “Do you have something to write with?” I grab my pen and he dictates.

The first is called a Tiger Tail and it’s right on the theme of the last two weeks: blending with barleywines. A Tiger Tail is equal parts barleywine, stout, and lager. Perhaps, the bartender pours the beer so that you end up with three layers? I presume that the barleywine (being the highest end specific gravity) would be on the bottom.

Later, I tried this experiment myself, but the beers I chose didn’t give a three layered effect, but the result was an interesting blend. I choose three beers from the Weyerbacher Brewing Company in Easton, PA and blended them: Blithering Idiot Barelywine, Old Heathen Imperial Stout, and Merry Monks Belgain-style Golden Ale. The Blithering Idiot by itself is a strongly flavored mix of sweetness and hop bitterness. The Imperial Stout is milky and roasty. The Merry Monks is light bodied and provides a hint of banana in the aroma. Blended together they result in a not unpleasant concoction. I blended the beers in equal parts and none of them dominated. All three combined to produce a complex, but potent brew.

Back to what my friend was telling me on the phone: The next blend he told me about is likely a regional concoction named after a local body of water, Commencement Bay (Tacoma, Washington’s harbor). A Commencement Bay is three-quarters hefeweizen and one quarter-stout. The resulting color is probably a good match for the harbor. You can make up your own using a locally brewed hefe and stout and name it after a harbor, lake, or river near you.

The last beer cocktail my friend described speaks for itself — the Mother-in-Law is a blend of what? You guessed it, bitter and stout. Not that I approve of such stereotyping. My own Mother-in-Law is neither bitter nor stout. She’s sweet and sophisticated, so I suppose that Donavan’s recipe for a Mother-in-Law would be Chambord Raspberry liqueur blended with Bière de Champagne (more about this later, the beer, not my mother-in-law).

After getting off the phone with my friend, I decide to run to the beer store to pick up a few bottles of beer and I noticed the owner had put up signs over in the premium beer section for several beer blends involving Lindemans Framboise (Raspberry) Lambic. So I picked up the necessary ingredients to make a Chocolate Truffle, an Oatmeal Cookie, and a Raspberry Cream. Those beer blends will be the subject of my next Brewsday installment.