Rambling Reviews 12.7.2015 : Anchor Barrel Ale, Shock Top Twisted Pretzel Wheat, and New Belgium/Ben and Jerry's Salted Caramel Brownie Ale

It's that time again! More ramblings about some new and unique beers I've imbibed lately for your reading pleasure.

First up, Anchor Brewing's Barrel Ale, a new release that's part of Anchor's Argonaut Series. In a press release, Anchor Brewmaster Mark Carpenter described how they made it. "We took four well-loved Anchor beers and aged them separately in our used Old Potrero® Whiskey barrels. The beers don¹t undergo fermentation, though, so the aging process focuses on picking up flavors and aromas from the barrels. Next we blended the aged beers in a cellar tank with charred barrel staves for a secondary fermentation, allowing the beer to naturally carbonate, pick up characteristics from the staves, and let the flavors marry."  

What's impressive here is that it's very balanced despite all the strong flavors of charred oak, whiskey, some vanilla, dark caramel and toffee. Nothing dominates, the flavors melding effortlessly to create one nice harmonious brew. It's one of those beers where new flavors reveal themselves as you slowly sip through it. I also totally appreciate a dark, complex sipping beer that isn't an alcohol bomb at 7.5% abv. Just a delight to drink.

And then there was Shock Top Twisted Pretzel Wheat. Shock Top is a Anheuser-Busch brand that's fascinated me for some time. Shock Top offered me a sample of this special release, and I jumped at the chance. It's drinkable...but I didn't find it particular convincing as a pretzel inspired beer. It's not bad, but Twisted Pretzel Wheat suffers from a disconnect between its created expectations and what it actually delivers. It pours a reddish brown, without bready or toasty flavors one would expect from the color.  There's an artificial butter flavor that threatens to overwhelm the brew. And where's the salt? I found the lack of any discernible salt took away from the pretzel experience. I can see how Shock Top fans would find this to be a delightful twist on the Shock Top line. For me, it was an interesting experiment, unoffensive enough to drink, but the flavors really never came together to create something very enjoyable, never really succeeding in what it set out to do.


Another beer attempting replicate something else is the collaboration brew between New Belgium and Ben and Jerry's, Salted Caramel Brownie Brown Ale. True the progressive politics of the collaborators, proceeds from the sales of this beer go to Protect our Winters, a group devoted to fighting climate change. It's got something in common with Shock Top Twisted Pretzel Wheat in that I wasn't getting any salt here either, although I suppose they put some in there. There's some nice caramel and dark chocolate flavors, but thankfully those flavors don't feel heavy and there's very little sweetness. It's a humble brown ale jazzed up a little to be caramel brownie-like, creating a decadent drinkability. Well done.

Where art thou Shocktop?

Shock Top Honey Bourbon Cask Wheat

Early last year, I started getting e-mails from the Shock Top. Trying to generate some buzz of their new release, Honey Bourbon Cask Wheat, they offered me a sample which I reviewed.  The beer was the product of interesting ideas, the flavors  just clashed a bit and the combination just didn't quite work. My wife was less kind, finding its taste highly artificial. A couple weeks later, a Shock Top public relations person contacted me about an upcoming new release, Twisted Pretzel Wheat and even made Shock Top Brewmaster Jill Vaughn available for an interview. Of course, I jumped at the chance.

Interviewing Jill Vaughn presented some of the most difficult decisions I've ever had to make in the six years writing this blog. Obviously, Shock Top was making Vaughn available not out of the goodness of their hearts, but to help sell beer. Anheuser-Busch was positioning Shock Top as a "craft beer", competing with smaller breweries and in my opinion, putting out a product inferior in taste to similar offerings from other breweries. While interviewing Jill Vaughn was definitely news worthy and wanted to give my readers the opportunity to hear her story, I didn't want the interview to turn into a public relations bonanza for Shock Top. Thus, I choose my questions carefully for the interview. 

With the Shock Top public relations person joining the phone interview, I asked Jill Vaughn a number of questions on how she came up with Twisted Pretzel Wheat and some of the other Shock Top beers. At the end of the interview started to come some more difficult questions. First, I asked her if she read the reviews of her beers some on sites like RateBeer and Beer Advocate, where some pretty scathing reviews of Shock Top's beers were posted. She took a view deep breath and said she didn't visit those sites very often.  

I pressed further, asking "In a lot of craft beer circles, Shock Top with its association with A-B and its larger parent AB InBev is viewed as part of the Evil Empire, a “faux craft brewery”, and there’s a lot of negativity directed at Shock Top and the beers you brew.  What do you think about that?  How does that affect you?"  

A tough and somewhat confrontational question to be sure, but also a fair one. Given some of the ridicule and derision Shock Top gets in the craft beer community, I wanted to get her point of view of that. She was the person behind the beer lots of people were sneering at and this was an opportunity to tell her side and put a human face on what had been the focus of a lot of unwarranted derision.

Shock Top Brewmaster Jill Vaughn  in a promotional video

The Shock Top public relations person clearly didn't see it this way.  "Is this interview almost over?" she huffed after Ms. Vaughn gave a careful and thoughtful answer. It was late afternoon on a Friday and it seemed like both of them would much rather be tossing back Shock Tops at Happy Hour somewhere than deal with some wannabe Mike Wallace of beer. When we were done, they thanked me for the interview and the Shock Top PR person chimed, "We would really hope you get a chance to try Twisted Pretzel Wheat and we'd love to get your feedback."  She talked about keeping me up to date on future developments at Shock Top.

Funny, that was fifteen months ago and I haven't received so much as a single press release from Shock Top ever since.

Update: On November 10th, 2015, an independent PR firm contacted me about reviewing Shocktop's Twisted Pretzel Wheat.  So I guess whatever embargo I might have been under is over.

Is this shocking?

What would you think if you heard about a brewery releasing a new wheat beer brewed with honey, spices and aged with bourbon barrel staves?  Yet another craft brewer pushing the envelope, you might think.  Now what if I told you this was a new beer released by Shock Top, a product of mega-brewer A-B InBev.  You might dismiss it as a craft beer poser or a gimmick from a desperate corporation eager to win back lost market share.  Or you might instead conclude the A-B InBev has seen the errors of the bland, macro-lager ways and is trying to something novel and distinctive.

Before you dismiss Shock Top too quickly, don't forget nearly a year ago,  Shock Top wowed a bunch of BJCP judges with their experimental Campfire Wheat. The stunned judges found it tasted just like s'mores in beer form.  So I was intrigued after recently an e-mail from Shock Top asking me if I was interested in giving Honey Bourbon Cask Wheat a try, which I accepted.

So how does it taste?  Well, it was interesting, and I genuinely mean that in a good way.  I found it a little heavy, sweet and little floral from the honey with light woody bourbon flavors.  I didn't dislike it, but can't say I really liked it either. It takes a very deft hand to balance strong flavors like bourbon in a wheat beer and the beer seems to sag a bit under the weight of its honey and bourbon additions.   I must admit Shock Top carries a lot of baggage as an A-B InBev product which makes it hard for me to really judge objectively, but I give them a lot of credit for trying something new. All things considered, I'd have another one.

Shock Top seems to be making an attempt to emphasize the brewing process and ingredients and create something new and unique, which is a lot about what craft beer is all about.  At least that what it seems like when you watch their video on the beer, but if you listen to brewmaster Jill Vaughn closely, it does sound like this beer was at least partly motivated by the latest fads.   Maybe no matter how hard they try to be just about the beer, the big corporate instincts kick in and they can't resist them.  Anyway, just click on the video above  to see it for yourself.

My fellow beer geeks can sneer all they want at Shock Top, but Shock Top is a brand of ideas that results in mildly satisfying and at times shockingly good results.  You could argue that Shock Top's ideas amount to chasing fads, but if you don't think a lot of craft brewers are trying to copy each other's success, you just haven't been paying attention.