Surly Smoke

Busy weekend. Friday was full-on all day and night, and in a good, peaceable, manageable way. Saturday was another story. Yikes. People, yelling your order at the bartender when he's doing something and not looking anywhere near your direction, doesn't help your situation, it just drives him crazy. The voices! Why won't they stop?
And then finally they do. And when I get home, I need a really good beer. That one, that night, was a good ol' bottle of Smoke.

Smoke debuted in non-oak-aged form at the Autumn Brew Review in 2007 under the name Dahmer. Omar swore that that was the last time he'd allow Todd to name a beer. Not sure if he was kidding, or not. When I finally wrapped my hands around a glass of it with plenty of time to ruminate, in December of that year, here's what I wrote:

"Black as it gets, with a roasty tanned head. Looks absolutely perfect for the style.

Smoked malt from Bamberg in this, and it wafts out slyly, but confidently. There’s bacon down there, but I get salmon as well....mmm, smokey!

Taste: mmm, a beautiful mix of the roasted chocolate malts, the deep, dark fruits, like raisin and plum, but so smooth. The smoke aspect is just sliding along in the flavor, not a dominant aspect at all, but it hangs in there and never lets you forget it. The strength is sneaky, too, you don’t get hit on the head, but it creeps up on you, and invades your mind with stealth. Delicious stuff, and so easy to drink, though you have to pace it...too strong for sessioning! But you want to, you really really want to!

I have to wonder if other American brewed "Imperial Porters" are as faithful to the style and actually made as a lager, as Todd did here. How do you get this dark and this deep, with a lager? But it's a wise choice, as the flavor is there aplenty, and the mouthfeel is so smooth, so clean, so sumptuous, as well. This is one of my favorite styles, though the smoked porter variety isn't, exactly. So glad that the smoke is not intrusive, and merely in the end, a side characteristic, ...maybe the oak aging aided in the mellowing of the flavors? Whatever, it really came together in Smoke!

Really magnificent! This needs to go in bombers and blow some minds out there! Til that happens, I'm happy to drink it down on tap right here! Ahhh!!!"

That wish finally came true a couple of years later. Last November, 2009, Omar asked me to write the copy for the back of the bottles, and here's what I came up with:

"Ebony-hued, Smoke wafts out of the bottle and into your senses, borne on the wings of European traditions, wrapped in American innovation.
Lager -brewed, like any true Baltic Porter, with smoked malts from Bamberg, Germany, the home of Rauchbiers, then made mellow by aging on oak barrels. Chocolate and roasted malt flavors mesh with notes of raisins, plum, and fig,  with the subtle smoke on the side, for a complex and luxurious, yet silky smooth drinking experience.
It's a sipper at 9.5% abv, but everyone knows you can't have smoke without fire!"

After I submitted it to him, and he gave it the big thumbs up, something caught my attention. The first two sentences start the same, and they rhyme! If I'm not alliterating, I'm rhyming, even if unintentionally. Well, I doubt anyone noticed, but now that I've pointed it out, everyone will, and it's all over for me. Guess it's time to hang it up...

Nah. Anyway, the bottles didn't make it to market until spring 2010, largely because they were ordered from Germany. It was Omar who I heard first heard make the statement "American doesn't make anything anymore." The other week, Jason Sowards of Harriet Brewing lamented that he may have to order his Belgian-style glassware from China, because, well, no one makes that here.

Well, we make beer, good thing we've got that nailed down. So glad for that.