Odd, but I could swear I’ve already reviewed this.  But no, I haven’t, or at least if I have, I’ve lost it somehow.

Darn, and here I thought I could just drink it for the pure mindless pleasure of drinking.

Funny how that works.  Drinking beer has become a task.  At least, if I am to review it, I have to pay much closer attention to the beer itself, and take notes.

There’s a good side and a bad side.  The good side is, I appreciate the beer more if I’m entirely focused on it.  The bad side is, well, obvious.

Oh well, I need to just suck it up.  No one is forcing me to do this.  And if I start whining, someone needs to jam their boot into my behind.  I’m drinking beer.  Wow, such a hard job.  Poor me.

Anyway, about the actual brew in question:  Smells sweet, yeasty, and of dark malts.

Tastes rich, smooth, sweetly dark, with a kind of Malt-O-Meal grainy chocolate yumminess.  Very tasty! 

I also find it has a delicate edge to it.  This is a surprisingly refined dark ale.  I hereby proclaim it to be groovy, and award it with a 6.7 on the Holy Grail Scale.

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“A hop lover’s delight!” says the label. “In the India Pale Ale tradition, this brew is very hoppy in both aroma and flavor from the generous amounts of Cascade hops used in brewing. Look for a medium to full body and golden straw color. Enjoy!”

Well… I hope I do! And I also hope it helps knock me out of this lonely Sunday afternoon funk in which I’ve found myself.

Pop goes the top. I take that first sniff. It most definitely features a hoppy aroma. Hops and yeast is all I smell.

First sip — an explosion of hops. Sparkling, bold, not too green, bitter but not overpoweringly so. They weren’t lying. It’s as hoppy as you can get without being a frog. It’s as smooth as you can get while being this hoppy.

This is a fine India pale ale, and I hereby officially deem it Groovy. I also bestow upon it 5.7 on the Holy Grail Scale, and am happy to report it has helped lift me out of this funk.

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I’ve found the Holy Beer.

Well, kind of.  In the novel I’m writing, I’ve determined the secret ingredient of the Holy Beer:  juice from the fruit of the tree of life.  Which, in the novel, turns out to be pomegranates.

This beer (obviously) has pomegranate juice in it.  That’s why I picked it up, thinking…  Hmm, I can use this in the novel.

Popping the top, this brew smells … mealy.  Not in a bad way, just in a raw grain way.  There’s the faint aroma of wheat and a trace of, I think, greenish hops.

I take a taste and am somewhat surprised.  It’s different than any other beer I’ve tried, and that’s saying something.  It’s sharp, delicately bitter, and tangy but not in a citrus way.  Must be the pomegranate, but I don’t taste pomegranate.  In fact had the label not clearly given it away, I never would have guessed it was in there.

It tastes somehow … primitive.  Must be the unfiltered wheat?  But it’s refreshing, and I like it.  A lot.  I could drink one after another.

Methinks they’ve found a perfect recipe for keeping a wheat beer from being boring.

I have to share this bit of the label text:  "Deep in the heart of the Adirondacks, a top secret grove of pomegranates grow wild and free.  They are protected by ‘ferocious’ bears!  We traded them ten tons of honey to make this unique brew."

So, it’s made by bears?

Looks like I’m not the only fantasy writer in the brewing business.

Anyway, I hereby proclaim this to be a groovy brew, and award it 7.77 on the Holy Grail Scale.

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This is a English Amber Ale from Montana.

What is it about breweries and dogs, anyway?  I see more dogs on labels than anything else.  Dogs and devils.  Some devilish dogs as well.

This one is a nice looking black lab named "Chug" featuring the inscription "No whiners."

Enough about the label … let’s see how it tastes:  Aggressive and tangy, this brew features a vivid hoppiness that rides herd over the flavors, keeping the malts in line and preventing them from straying.  It energetically tingles the tongue right before the hops bloom, the bitterness swells, the beer fairies sing and dance, and it all fades to a clean malt finish. 

I like it.

I hereby honor "Chug" the black dog as an officially groovy brew, and award it 6.7 on the Holy Grail Scale.

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“Handcrafted Ancient Ale, with barley, honey, white Muscat grapes and saffron.”

Dogfish Head claims to have recreated the earliest known fermented beverage in the world, crafted from evidence found in none other than the tomb of King Midas.

This may be the Holy Beer.

I have to admit, I’m rather excited, and just a little nervous.  What if I do find the Holy Beer?  Does that mean I’m done?  This website gets shut down?

Fin?

We’ll see.  I pop the top.  Take a sniff.

Oh, man, the roast barley smells wonderful.  There’s an undercurrent of saffron and just a hint of grapes.  Very interesting, and it has my mouth watering.  So, without further ado, I put the bottle to my lips and tip her back.

Okay, it’s … weird.  Like a beer/wine cocktail.   Not bad, not fantastic.  Can’t tell yet if it’s Holy.  I have to sip this nectar and ponder the meaning of life for a bit.

Halfway through the bottle, and I have this odd feeling that my breath is flammable.  It’s not that high an alcohol content, though — a respectable 9% but still, that’s not enough to flame my lips, though for some reason it feels like I could.

The tastes are subtle and delicious.  This isn’t one of those over-the-top bang-on-the-head fantastic brews, but it’s fantastic in its own quiet way.  The honey sweetness is a perfect counterpoint to the barley and saffron.  There’s a bready, biscuity undertone that is quite pleasant.

This may not be the Holy Beer, but it’s definitely a contender.  I’ll rate it a… um…

Wait.  Hold on.  Is this really a beer?  I mean, the more I sip, the more it tastes like I’m drinking Champagne.  But they’re calling it an ale.

A quandary!  I seriously don’t know what to make of it.  Indecision has cost it some points.  I hereby bestow upon it a respectable 6.7 on the Holy Grail Scale, and proclaim it to be groovy.

And now pardon me while I go look in a mirror to make sure my tongue hasn’t turned to gold.

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REVISITED: 13 Months Later, it still stands up to this original review:

It’s been a long time coming, me discovering the Lagunitas Brewing Company.

Inspired by the sudden and strong affection I felt for their Hairy Eyeball Ale, I made sure to pick up another of their beers, this time the Maximus India Pale, and again I experienced love at first sip.

Lagunitas has genuine beer mojo. Seriously. "The force is strong in this one."

I’m drinking the Maximus and am trying to quantify the pleasure. It’s difficult. It’s like fine literature metamorphosed into an ale. I usually don’t wander into BeerAdvocate territory by describing things such as "mouthfeel" — the term makes me shudder with its pretentiousness — but here, well, it’s justified. Maximus has body, silkiness, the right weight, the perfect amount of carbonation, a singing taste of hops like a lover’s embrace around the palate. The malt hits with a precise backbeat, thrumming at the proper volume. The aftertaste lingers like smoke after a beautiful fire.

Again, like the Eyeball Ale, I find myself taking a long luxurious sip and having to lean back, feeling the goodness spread through me like a warm blanket on a cold night.

I’m stopping the praise here before it gets overwhelmingly corny. But, yes, I like it that much.

This beer hits high on my Holy Grail scale, weighing in at 8.1.

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Not only is this the Kegs & Barrels brew of the week, but it’s also one I’ve been looking forward to for quite a long time. It’s already been established here on GroovyBrew that Lagunitas is the Ultimately Cool Brewery. Just about everything they produce is so over-the-top good that I start drooling the moment I see the bottle.

You can see that I am somewhat biased in this brew’s favor even before I’ve tried it. No fair? Well. Think about it. If you please someone often enough, they’ll be eager to see you again. That’s how it is between me and Lagunitas. They’ve earned the bias.

Also I happen to know they have a good stock of these over at my local beer heaven. If I like this as much as I think I will, I’ll be heading back over there tonight to stock up for the rest of the week.

On the label it reads: “The first sip is for thirst, the second one for pleasure. The third sip is for knowing, and the forth for pure madness.”

Let’s test this out.

I pop the top

I take a nice healthy sniff. I smell yeast, subdued malt, and alcohol. Nothing really jumps out at me.

First sip: I’m reeling from pleasure. It wasn’t a little sip by any measure, and it was literally confusing in its tumbling rush of different flavors. Left me feeling a little dazed, with a “What the hell just happened?” feeling.

Second sip: Sweet, rich, thick, almost syrupy in texture, so strong and smooth I can not analyze the flavors.

Third sip: Chocolaty malt so completely intermingled with the thick forest of hops that it is really hard to tell them apart. A heavy, rich flavor, bursting at the seams. Sweet coffee aftertaste.

Forth sip: Low carbonation. Silky on the tongue. I have to lean way back in my chair, close my eyes, and just enjoy it.

Okay, enough analyzing and reviewing. I just want to partake without distractions. This groovy brew is most definitely a Holy Beer Contender and I give it an outrageously high 9.1 on the Holy Grail scale.

And I am most definitely going back for more. So, my friends, if you want some, you better run, now, and get it, before I beat you to it. Especially since you can buy four of these for less than the price of one drastically inferior Rogue Old Crustacean Barleywine in it’s fancy earthenware jug.

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Come on, how can you resist a brew called "Wee Heavy?"  I just looked at the bottle and heard Scotty’s voice saying the name.

"Aye, Captain, and I might say we’re a wee heavy!"

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, go watch some old original Star Trek episodes.  M’kay?

Moving right along.  I’ve cheated on this one, it’s already open and I have been freely imbibing.  Also — I’m already feeling it.  So I need to rush this before I lose my coherence.

Popping the top, I sniffed, snorted, and sucked on the open bottle, with no result.  This beer has no scent.  It must be too heavy, or something?

Hmm.

Raising it to my lips I took that first sip and almost, but not quite, had to sound the gulp alert.  This ale has a complex and busy flavor, all of it good, but I’m not sure how well balanced.

The first impression is that the beer is rather mild, then there’s a sudden surge.  A deceptively light hoppiness emerges, lasting for about 6 seconds before it is overtaken by a wonderfully aggressive wave of light brown malt, and from that crests deep, sweet notes of butterscotch.  That in turn fades to reveal another, different hoppiness, lightly bitter and hinting at citrus rind. 

All this in about 20 seconds, after which it fades almost completely, leaving you with a strong desire to do it all over again.

I’m impressed by Wee Heavy’s overall smoothness and body, and am quite pleased by the buzz it’s provided.  I like it so much, in fact, that I hereby proclaim it to be a Holy Beer Contender and rate it at a respectable 6.3 on the Holy Grail Scale.

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For a long while I had been looking forward to sampling some beer during my layover in Germany, and imagine my sadness to discover (through lack of understanding of proper time-zone math) that I arrived there at 6:00 AM Frankfurt time, and there was not a drop of beer to be had. 

At least not at the airport, and I wasn’t about to leave the airport.

So with Germany a bust, I continued on my trip, arriving here in Finland, and had dinner at a little place in Hyvinkää called Hemingway’s (yes, named after Poppa Hemingway).  After ordering some smoked salmon I asked the waitress what beers she had, and not being able to understand her very well, I just told her to bring me something "dark."

Leffe Brown is what she brought, and oh my, am I happy she did.

This Belgian monk-brewed beer has a surprisingly light body, with a toasty caramel malt flavor and a nice hoppy aftertaste.  It’s perfectly balanced and absolutely delicious.  If I had to criticize something, my only nitpick is that it might be just a touch too sweet.  But as you loyal readers know, I have a sweet tooth.

I give this a very respectable 6.7 on the Holy Grail Scale, and hereby proclaim it groovy.

Amen, brothers!

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Sorry to all the other breweries out there, some of which are very cool, but these guys have you beat. The GroovyBrew Ultimately Cool Brewery Award goes to Lagunitas of Petaluma, California.

Case in point, this Lumpy Gravy seasonal brew, a one time shot get-them-while-you-can beer that has been brewed to honor the 40th anniversary of one of Frank Zappa’s most incredible albums.

I pop the top of this 22 oz. bottle, sniff some warm, strong, and sweet dark malt scents, and tip it up to my lips and immediately gulp down at least 11 oz. without a breath. It took me by surprise. My lips locked around that bottle, my arm and fingers froze, and my tongue commanded the body to suck this sweet nectar down. It was anarchy. The brain was no longer in control.

Indeed, you could even put forth it was the beer that was in control.

It’s a rather hot and humid Friday night here in McKinney, Texas. I have my bedroom window open and the box fan is desperately trying to coax slightly cooler air in from outside. I’m sweating all over my tee shirt. Hard to believe that just last week it snowed not once, but twice, right here — shutting the city down.

In two days I’ll be in Frankfurt sucking down some German brew during a 4 hour layover. In fact my open suitcase is here on my bed, ready to be filled. I am not filling it, however … I’m sitting here drinking this wonderful beer.

It’s dark, sweet, very malty, with a prancing hops aftertaste that takes over about 37 seconds after the malt fades. Alcohol content is respectably high. Much like a Zappa melody, there’s not a sour note in the batch, but it is all over the place as far as experience. The taste zooms, zings, and buzzes like Frank’s guitar.

Is this beer a fitting tribute to Zappa? Hell yes. It is also a Holy Beer Contender, and as stated above, this rings the alarm for the Gulp Alert.

Thank you Lagunitas. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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