The beers of Iwakuni: Stone brewing's Double Bastard Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

This is one of the last from Hilgar's poarchbomb last year. It is the Double Bastard Bigger, Longer, and Uncut from Stone Brewing out of San Diego California. I have written on Stone before, so refer to previous posts about the brewery's history. The Double Bastard is an American Strong Ale, which has characteristics much like my beloved Barleywine and Old Ale, and is aged in whiskey barrels. It came out in October of 2016, so I wanted to give it a little bit of ageing time. There is a reason I am reviewing the beers he sent me in a certain order, stronger beers are better with age. I kind of wish I was able to have several bottles of this and then review them every year for five to seven years to see how they develop. Strong beers tend to reach their peak at about five years (up to seven for some), but can still be "drinkable" after almost 20 if they are kept in proper conditions. Generally I would want to age this for at least two years, but I don't have that much time here and I need to make room for others considering the cap on alcohol I'm allowed to have in the barracks.

It's as sideways as I am after having had it.

I received this beer in a 1pt 6oz. bottle with a crimpcap, bulbed neck, and broad but sloping shoulders. according to the date electro-etched on the front, this was bottled on October 14th of 2016. The bottle art features the Stone gargoyle in red and white mirror images on the body and it's head on the neck and crimpcap. I love the Gothic artwork and lettering. It says on the front "2016 Double Bastard Bigger, Longer, Uncut. A peaty as hell double bastard aged in scotch whisky barrels". On the rear is one of the longest epitaphs I have ever seen on a bottle. This is going to be a long post no matter what, so I'm writing it. "Weakness is worn on the sleeves. Boldness is within the heart. This intensified blend of barrel-aged Double Bastard Ale is all hear baby. The weak will find it to be a telltale heart. It knows of your fallibility. It smells your fear. The heart of the beer disdains you, as it disdains all thins homogenized, wimpy and uncultured. You do know the truth of yourself, no? If you hesitated to answer that, if even for a split second, that in and of itself is telling. If you aren't capable of knowing the reality of yourself, this beer can and will take the responsibility of informing you of what you should already know. (and if you've lost your way in this text already and are no longer clear about what I am saying, your reading pace has exceeded your comprehension pace. Go back, slow down and start over, bright eyes.) Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Evenly. Give yourself some positive affirmations. Breathe deep again. There. Feel better? If you followed those instructions, then set this bottle down and back away immediately, you new age poseur. Fight or flight, and I'd recommend the latter of you, tiger. Wet paper bags are more your speed.". It's aged in Islay Scotch whiskey barrels and is 13% abv. I will be using one of my coupious tulip glasses. I'm going to eat something so this doesn't completely lay me out, then we pop the top and see that head.

Nose from the bottle is smokey with oak and hickory as well as a little bit of maltyness. Color is a deep oak brown (ruby in the light) with a dissipating beige head. Nose from the glass is much the same as the bottle, it smells overwhelmingly like a smoked brisket but with a little bit of fruitiness on the back end. On first sip, peaty as hell is right! It is so bitter and peaty and smokey! This is not for the faint of heart, it is a savage beer. First it smacks you in the face with the peat. For those of you who don't know, peat tastes like when you get a truck bed full of black mulch and you dig your hand into the middle where it's really wet and then smell it. condense that smell, mix it with topsoil, and then age it for 25 years and that's peat. Then it moves to an intense smoked oak chip flavor, finishes with a touch of fruitiness, and then has a smoke aftertaste but more of a hickory than an oak. There is an alcohol essence all of the way through, it kind of sets the tone for everything. I think I can best describe this beer as such: it is the experience of eating a smoked brisket while smoking a deep, deep maduro cigar in your backyard after you got done with a hard days work of re-mulching all of the plant beds around your property, condensed and liquefied. If you don't know that feeling of accomplishment, you cannot possibly understand this beer.

I need a house. I don't mean that I need some place to live, that's not a problem for me. I mean I need a property that I own, live on, and take care of myself. Not just any property though, it needs to be at least 1/3 woods with a year long running creek going through it, big enough for me to put a barn or a large shop on it. A place where I am not shackled by close quarters living. Where I can build and collect anything I want with impunity. Where if I up and decide I want livestock, I can do that. And if I decide I want meat, I can walk into the backyard with an AK-47 and make that happen too (an inadvisable tool for euthanizing livestock, but you get the idea). I hope I can make that happen if South Carolina, someplace where I'm not so far out that there is no place to go to and I can own some rental property's in town. I want a place where I can bring all of the troubled souls I befriend that the rest of the world can't stand, and just hang out and talk about Gods truth. I want a place where I can brew beer made from barley I grew and fermented with yeast I cultivated in lab in an underground bunker I built. Damn if I haven't always wanted to build an underground bunker. I would use it mostly as a beer cellar (or disguise it as that). but I'm sure I would use it for so much more. I figure I could store emergency equipment and rations to service the local community, government be damned. I'm not some doomsday preper or anything, I'm just fascinated by underground bunkers. I saw an Imperial Japanese one In Okinawa. It was almost completely built with Okinawan slave labor. You could still see the tool marks on the bare rock parts of the walls. The commanders of the Japanese defense, Mitsuru Ushijima and Isamu Cho, committed traditional Suppuku in those deep, musty tunnels. The other officers held grenades to their chests, they actually have a mock up of the holes in the walls in there. They got it kind of wrong, but it's kind of a tourist trap anyway (not to say it's not cool or that that you should not go if you go to Okinawa, you absolutely should). This certainly took a morbid turn, but such is my profession. I could not see dying by my own hand, that is unfathomable to me. What have you really accomplished by killing yourself? There is so much more you could do. Whatever message you have sent will soon be forgotten, and if you believe in a hereafter (as I do) you face damnation. I suppose for them they believed they would inhabit a star island granted to them by the decedent of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, Emperor Hirohito, the marine biologist and mickey mouse fan (not to discredit him, he was a cool dude). By the way, He was an essential figure in ending the war in Asia, but whether or not he was involved with starting the war is subject to debate.

Emperor Showa

To sum up, this beer is not for everyone. It is certainly for those who love to go off on inebriated tangents about past conflicts and hopes for the future, but not for those of soft tastes. You have to suffer through the dirt to enjoy the glory of this beer. It is oh so terrible in the beginning and oh so sweet in the end. I suppose I love it's consistency. It's a harsh and dirty old bastard, but isn't that the manner of anyone worth hanging out with? There is no Heaven Without a Hell, you don't know something good without knowing something bad. This thing treads the edge, and can only be known by those who know the difference. I give this beer my seal of approval.

The beers of Iwakuni: Kaiserdom Dark Lager

Tonights beer is the Dark Lager by Kaiserdom brewery. I got this at the same World Liquer as the last Kellerbier, refer to that post for information on Kaiserdom brewery. I've had black lagers on the blog before (an Okinawan one recently), but I don't recall ever having reviewed one brewed in Germany. This should be a refreshing treat. 

The can is the same as the previously reviewed Kellerbier except for it's black color. It is the same 1000ml capacity (that's about 33.8 fl oz). According to the Kaiserdom website "The full impenetrable mokka coloured appearance with lucent red sheen is crowned by a creamy head. The roasted malt aromatic fragrance reminds of dark bread and fresh coffee. The velvety smooth malt flavor shrouded by a harmony of sweetness flows elegantly and  cleanly along the gums. The well-proportioned body appears warming and is complemented by a fine bitterness which finishes calm and dry", we shall certainly see. The site also says that it comes in at 23 IBU's and is a 110 on the EBC coloration chart. EBC (European brewing convention), by the way is the European equivalent of the SRM color chart I've talked about before. This beer doesn't get particularly good reviews on either Beer Advocate or Rate Beer. A troubling sign, but it by no means indicates that this beer is undrinkable.  4.7% ABV. I will be using the same generic Kaiserdom mug that came with the Kellerbier. Let's crack this can open.

Nose from the can is malty and oddly enough has a tomato juice scent. Almost has a saltiness to it, a little bread as well. The beer forms a both fluffy and creamy beige head. Color is jet black, dark as night. Nose from the mug is still malty, but has much more bread quality than before. There is another scent that I can't quite identify, but I'm sure it will come to me later. On first sip, It is malty all the way through with bread and salt. It starts with milk chocolate in the middle and then that evolves into dark chocolate and cream in the finish. The aftertaste goes back to milk chocolate but maintains the cream. It's a surprisingly light body, I would put it at upper light to lower medium. No acidity to speak of, finish becomes slightly dry as you drink it. It's a little sweet, not much bitterness until the finish. 

 

Now that prorate doesn't scream 1960's space race. 

I got King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's album "I'm in your mind fuzz" in today, listening to that now. So sea launched rockets right? Now I don't mean submarine launched rockets or ship launched, I mean rockets bobbin up and down in the waves. I was watching the YouTube channel CuriousDroid and he had a great video on a BDB (big dumb Booster) planned back in the 60's called the Sea Dragon. If it would have actually been built it would have been the largest rocket ever created at 150 meters long and 23 meters wide (that's 492x75 feet). The rocket was conceptualized by Robert Truax in 1962 to be the most cost effective rocket for getting large amounts of materials into space. It would have been a two staged rocket with a single pressure fed engine that would be built in a shipyard and then towed out to sea, fueled at the launch site, and then after it had righted itself from the weight of the fuel and everyone had gotten the hell out of the way, launched into orbit. Hypothetically, it would have created 80 million pounds of thrust and could lift over 990,000 lbs into orbit (with it's own 39,000,000 lbs of mass on top of that). When launched, it could hypothetically kill anyone within a five mile radius.  But why would you launch it bobbing up and down in the ocean? Well kids, a rocket that size would be so big that if you stood it up on land it would collapse under it's own weight. And then you would have something like the Russian N1 Rocket disaster, but on an even larger scale. 

Final thoughts. I don't know what everyone's trippin' about, this beer was delicious. Here I was expecting something hum drum and instead I get something great. Just goes to show how you can only go so far with other peoples reviews. You have to go out there and try beers for yourself if you really want to know if they are any good or not. So if you are out in the wild and see this one, go ahead and try it. I give this beer my blurry seal of approval. 

http://www.kaiserdom.de/en/unsere-biere/kaiserdom-dark-lager-bier

The beers of Iwakuni: Kiuchi Brewery Hitachino Nest Beer Nipponia

Back from my dry week. I failed miserably, but as I become more accustomed to not having a beer after work every day I think it will get easier to do. But anyway, I purchased this at the world liqueur in Iwakuni. It is the Hitachino Nest Nipponia by Kiuchi Brewery out of Kounosu, Japan. Kiuchi Brewery is actually a sake brewery that started in 1823 by Kiuchi Gihei using rice he had left over from collecting land taxes (in rice) from the local farmers for the Tokugawa Mito family, relatives of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Gihei was a friend of Fujita Toko, one of the founders of the Mitogaku school of thought which was nativist, isolationist, Neo-Confucian, Emperor worshiping, anti-Western, anti-Christian and created the phrase Sonnō jōi (Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians) and would eventually spark the Boshin war and create the Meji Restoration. Needless to say, as a White Presbyterian from South Carolina in the American military they would have hated my very being. But I digress, in honor of his friend, Kiuchi Gihei would name his flagship nihonshu (we usually call it sake in English, but sake is just the Japanese word for alcohol) Kikusakari, meaning "Chrysanthemum property" in reference to the Emperors chrysanthemum emblem. After WW2 Kiuchi Brewery would come to be considered a premium brewer as most sake brewers were cheapening their products to meet demand from the exploding economy, but owner Mikio Kiuchi resisted this and continued producing traditional high quality sake. In 1996 after Japan liberalized their beer making laws, allowing microbreweries to be started in the country, Kiuchi Brewery would start an associated beer brewing business called Hitachino Nest. The Hitachino Nest brand has gained much acclaim by taking western beer styles and Nipponizing them with local ingredients, while still staying true to that style. Tonight's beer was named Nipponia due to the fact that it uses varieties of barley and hops developed in Japan, it says as much on the bottle.

According to their website: "Nipponia is brewed using the revived Japanese breed of Kanego Golden barley which was first developed in 1900, along with another strain of hops called 'Japanese-bred Sorachi Ace'. Nipponia is a delightfully golden coloured beer with citrus edge and complex and lingering taste". I received this beer in a 550ml crimpcap bottle with heavy shoulders and a bulged neck. The cap and the label features Hitachino Nest's famous owl on a black background with grey waves and a gold NIPPONIA. On both the front and the back there is a similar epitaph to what was on the website, so I will not restate them here. Around the neck there is a "necklace" label with a picture of the Kiuchi brewery on top of the words NIPPONIA NI. This beer is 8% ABV. I will be using my dark beer glass from my Japanese set. Lets pop the cap and see the head.

Nose from the bottle is grain sour with citrusy, almost piney hops. Pours golden amber with a white, dissipating head, though it's still lively. Nose from the glass is much the same, except the hops really start to shine through the sour. On first sip, I'm not positive this beer hasn't skunked. It has. I let the sink drink that one, I'll get another tomorrow.

 I have retrieved a replacement. Hopefully all goes well. However, it should be noted that I forgot it in my car for two days so all might be for naught. Nose from the new bottle is also sour with a little bit of citrus hops. Color is the same as before, but this one holds a head better. A good omen, but what of the flavor? It has a blend of hay and citrus hops, with pine resin on the backside and a light grain sour finish, dry aftertaste. The last one definitely skunked, this one is much better. The sour characteristics subside as you drink, giving way to greater piney hop flavor. The aftertaste becomes a little bitter and more dry as well. It's actually a little bit sweet, some honey and fig flavor hiding behind the hops. I love beers that develop as you drink them.

So today is Easter Sunday. Every time Easter comes around I inevitably have to explain to someone that no, Easter is not a coverup of a pagan "spring equinox" holiday. Often the justification for this is in the fact that Venerable Bede (responsible for recording much of early English history) claimed that the word Easter came from the word Eastore, meaning "Radiant dawn" in high German and also the name of the Goddess of spring and love in Anglo-Saxon paganism. So, a few points on this. First off, modern scholars are pretty sure the word Easter comes from it's German equivalent Ostern, remember that English evolved out of German. Second, the modern celebration of Easter was established by the Council of Nicaea (which is in Turkey, not exactly a hotbed of German paganism) in the year 325 to more or less coincide with the celebration of the Jewish Passover. If you recall from all that Bible lern'in you done did as a child, the Sanhedrin made their move on Jesus immediately after Passover, as they were afraid of riots if they had done it during the celebration. Point three, everyone outside of Anglophone (and Germanophone) countries calls the observance "Pascha" or Passion in English. Kind of negates the argument, does it not? As for some of the non church traditions of Easter, those come mostly from "May Day" which legitimately does have pagan origins.
Final thoughts. It's an interesting beer. Not my cup of tea, but I can't fault it for not being exactly tailored to my tastes. It is well brewed and interesting and I certainly would suggest it to any beer connoisseur. I give this beer my blurry seal of approval.

http://www.kodawari.cc/?en_home/about/history.html

The beers of Iwakuni: Dupont brewery's Vieille Provision Saison Dupont

This is one of the beers from Hilgar's poarchbomb he sent me. It is the Saison Dupont by Dupont brewery out of Tourpes Belgium. The brewery started with the Rimuax-Deridder farm in 1759 and was well known for it's Saison and honey beer. The brewery as we know it today started in 1920 when Alfred Dupont purchased the farm for his son, Louis Dupont, to keep him from buying a farm in Canada and leaving. Louis had no children, and so he gave the brewery to his nephew Sylva Rosier in 1945, who would run the business with his son Marc and daughter Claude. Marc would manage the brewery from 1964 to 2002 when his nephew Olivier would take over. The brewery grew over time, and would start exporting their beer in 1990. In 2014 production would grow to 20,000 hectoliteres, 40% of that being for the aforementioned exports. Tonight's beer, Saison Dupont would become popular due to an American importer in the 1980's, though it has been brewed at the farm since 1844 during the winter to be drank by seasonal workers in the summer.

I received this beer in a 330ml(11.2 fl.oz) longneck bottle with slender shoulders and crimpcap. The label has sort of mid century styling, with the bold "SAISON DUPONT" mixed with the cursive "Vieille Provision" against a yellow checker pattern and green background. It says on the front that it was imported by Total Beverage Solution (a company name so generic you would think it was a tax shelter) out of Mt.Pleasant SC. I've been to Mt.Pleasant, it's near Charleston. It's a nice place, because it's fairly well developed but not crowded and unlike Charleston it's just far enough from the coast to not smell like mud flats and shellfish every time it rains. On the rear it says, "Brewed at one of Europe's last farmhouse breweries, Saison Dupont is a 4-star, world classic example of the Belgian Saison Style, Blond in color with a big, rocky head, Saison Dupont is dry and refreshing. Great with all grilled food.". We shall certainly see about that, but not much of a flavor description other than "it's blonde and tastes like a Saison". I like the cap, it's a simple hop flower on a shield with "Dupont Torpes" on it. I usually don't like Saison, but I'll man up and drink it, for Science! It is 6.5% ABV. Let's pop the cap and see that (supposedly) Rocky head.

The cap makes a nice hiss when pried off, always a good sign. Nose from the bottle is both sweet and sour grain, but it's not unpleasant or strong. I should have been a little more careful pouring, it exploded into head and now I have to wait for it to settle down. It is a hazy golden color with a white fluffy head with staying power. It has considerable small bubble agitation in the glass, most lively. I see what they mean by a rocky head, it looks like a mountain range. Nose from the glass is similar to the bottle, but the sweetness is more pronounced and the sour more subdued. On first sip, It is sweet, with a little sour grain finish, slightly dry, and with a licorice aftertaste. It is a very light body, not watery though, water would be heavier than this. Almost no acidity at all, probably the most alkaline beer I've had this year.

I took these, that place is unbelievable.

Listening to a Frank Zappa vinyl set I got at Stereo Records in Hiroshima. So (like I said) I took a trip to Hiroshima the Saturday before Palm Sunday. It's sakura season here in Japan, so everyone around the country went out to see the cherry blossoms. I always wanted to visit Hiroshima Castle and needed the driving practice (I'm learning to drive a bus out here, so I needed to make riding the center line a habit, it came in handy during the test). The original Hiroshima Castle built by the Mori clan in the 1590's was destroyed by Little boy, a 15 kiloton uranium bullet type nuclear device, in August of 1945 but a replacement pagoda was built on the site of the original in 1958 and the main gatehouse was rebuilt in 1990. The site still has all of the original stone ramparts and bases, which are angled in the style of east Asian castles. Although Hiroshima castle was meant as an administrative center for the city and not so much as a defensive position as it is build on flat land in the middle of Hiroshima at the very end of the Sengoku Jidai (the end of the warring states period with the unification of Japan under Toyotomi hideyoshi but before Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the Toyotomi forces after Hideyoshi's death and declares himself Shogun) it still retained almost all of the features of a functional fortification. These features would include sloped ramparts for the purpose of structural support in seismically active Japan as well as not allowing attackers to get right up against the wall in order to obscure themselves from the arrows of the defenders (which is a huge problem in straight walled castles), multi leveled terraces which allow defenders to retreat to a new set of walls if one set is compromised, as well as murder holes (for dropping things like rocks and boiling water and oil on attackers) and triangular and angled archer and Tanegashima (Japanese Arquabus, or military matchlock gun) holes. The masonwork of the castle managed to save a number of trees which are still alive today, and are known as the atomic trees.

 How much of a pussy can it be if it survived a nuclear attack?

Final thoughts. I loved this beer. I usually hate Saison, but I loved this one. This would be an excellent beer to introduce someone to quality beer with. It is very approachable, there is nothing heavy or intense about it, but it is not bland either. I'm glad I drank that. I give this beer my blurry seal of approval.

Information sources:
http://www.brasserie-dupont.com/Dupont/en/6971-history.html  Much of the history is paraphrased from this page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupont_Brewery

The beers of Iwakuni: Nanto Brewery IPA

I would like to appologize for the lack of original content this blog is going to have description wise. This is going to be a hammered pair in terms of reviews. Please refer to the Nanto brewery Black Lager for all of the information I have on the brewery and where I got this beer. According to the interweb, Nanto's IPA is much better. The black lager wasn't bad, so I have high hopes for the IPA.

This has the same heavy shoulder longneck bottle with pulltab cap.The design is the same as the Black lager, except it's an aqua color. The bottle says: "Rich citrus fragrance and the bitter taste of hops". Other than that, it is exactly the same as the other. 5% abv. I will be using the dry beer glass from my Japanese set. let's pull that tab and see that head.

Nose from the bottle is faint, but I would say it's a sort of sour bread with a bit of hops. It forms a nice white head on top of a golden orange body. Nose from the glass is the same. On first sip, those hops are certainly bitter on top of a sour barley taste. It starts out with bitter hops, then moves to a barley bread, and has a semi dry finish with those same bitter hops. The bitter flavor honestly does not even taste like hops, it tastes like dandelion greens steeped in a lightly hopped beer. It is a light body with medium high acidity.

Listening to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. I would call it psychedelic lounge jam rock. Their sound style ranges from mid 1960's to early 1980's, and has a very underground garage band feel. It's the kind of band that I can't imagine many people outside of their local area would have heard about before the internet. Their album art is fantastic, and kind of trippy. I ordered four of their albums, having only heard one and falling in love with the cover art of the others. It's good music to drink beer too, being very chill. I just looked them up, the band is from Melbourne, Australia and has released nine full length albums since forming in 2011. Man, they are doing something right with music in Australia. I might have to visit Melbourne to check it out.

Final thoughts. This beer grew on be a little bit as I drank it, but it still wasn't that good. Not worth the premium I paid for it. I think I'll pop open a STONE IPA now. I still have tonight and tomorrow before my no beer sabbatical. It's only going to be a week, so not bad. I just need to do this on about a monthly or bi monthly basis in order to keep beer as something I enjoy and not something I need.