Today its the turn of a few bottles bought a year ago and secreted in my old landlord's larder - that's one way to prevent premature drinking!
Brooklyn Brewery's "big bottles" are bottle conditioned 750ml and as such are designed to pair well with food. Today its the two Brooklyn Local beers up for review. Both are "big" in more ways than one, weighing in at 9%ABV each.
Local 1 is a strong golden Belgian ale (think Tripel) Golden coloured, with plenty of carbonation and cork popped. Fruity
yeast esters on nose, banana, lively carbonation, sweet, strong malt and
boozy finish with a touch of pepper. It works particularly well with St Vernier cheese from Waitrose, but any soft rinded cheese will do just as well.
Local 2 is a dark dubbel-style ale, again made with the Brooklyn Belgian yeast and refermented with champagne yeast. It makes use of wild-flower honey to give a richer texture and flavour. Another lively bottle, the cork shot across the room! The beer stayed put though. Opaque ruby with plum on the nose. Rich fruit, milk chocolate and robust malt body in this one.Works rather well with Keen's mature cheddar, but not quite so well with taleggio despite washed rind cheese being recommended as a match.As with the Goose Island vintage range, these are decent beers, but you can get the Belgian classics for much cheaper in the UK. I'd not buy either again but happily drink them if offered.
I've also enjoyed the topics (though, unfortunately, have no wisdom of my own to impart). Agree that these are too expensive here to buy much of, but I liked them both - especially No. 2, which had neither the blandness nor the cloying sweetness I always fear in US-brewed dark Belgian-style beers. (I'm a devotee of the Port Brewing Company, but I find that many Lost Abbey releases fall into the cloyingly sweet category...)
ReplyDeleteI'm beginning to accept that I'm not a fan of dubbels in general, maybe the candy sugar, maybe the particular dark malt they use I'll have to investigate further.
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