Green's Quest Trippel Blond Ale

This is the second of the Green's Beers that I am reviewing. I drank this one at a party last night (first beer of the night!), and gave it out to about four or five people to try, so we really only got a tasting's worth of it, but it was enough for me to base this review on.

I have one more Green's to try and review, which I may end up trying later. I may wrap the thing up securely in Zip-Lock bags and put it deep into the center of my soft sided checked baggage, because those allergies yesterday have turned into a small cold and every taste bud is off and I've lost my sense of smell. Not so good unless I want to write "couldn't smell it, couldn't taste it..." Who cares how pretty a beer pours if it doesn't taste good!

I'm also adding (as suggested last night at the party) a "bottom line" section which contains an honest evaluation of whether or not I'd drink it/buy it/how much I liked it because reading back on the few entries I haven't really given that sort of thing and I probably should.

Green's Quest Trippel Blond Ale

Link: Green's Gluten Free Beer Site (actually a better one than the previous review!)

Look: Pours wheat gold, with a light densely foamed head. Not much lace to speak of but my friend pretty much took all the head out when pouring me a glass, and I had about three centimeters of head to work off of for this description. It has a murky character to it, but enough carbonation that you can still see it despite the cloudiness. This was poured into a pint glass.

Smell: My sense of smell is still off...so I'm going to work off of what my company said when trying this - "Smells like apple cider!" "This reminds me of hard apple cider." "I think this is like cider" - so there you have it. When I attempted to smell it I also smelled a hint of green apple cider, as well as some yeast, but that was about it. The cider smell was a little off from what a normal cider usually smells like.

Taste: The first thing anyone said about this beer after we were done with our first gulp is "this reminds me of dry champagne!" While I won't say it tastes exactly like champagne, the never ending carbonation, the fruity dryness, and the light, thin, bubbly mouthfeel definitely make it reminiscent of that. It's a little tart and most of us agreed that the aftertaste was a bit bitter for our tastes and didn't pair with the sweetness of the drink.

The Bottom Line: I'm not sure I would buy this one again. If I was going to go for a Green's I would definitely purchase the Discovery over this one. It cost $5.99 for a 500 ML bottle in Delaware.

Green's Discovery Amber Ale

I'm in PA with my in-laws family for Christmas. The house was stocked with regular beer and of course, wine. After two days of wine induced stomach aches (after two glasses! Seriously!) my brother in law kindly obliged to drive me to the liquor store in Delaware to pick up whatever sort of gluten free beer I could find. The selections, after looking a while and finally finding them in the singles section, were Redbridge (surprise!) and a Belgian type named Green's which I hadn't had before. You can probably guess I purchased a variety of greens. At 5.99 a bottle they were bit on the expensive side but gluten free beggars can't be choosers, and it's all in the name of science, correct?

There were three types, all sold in 500 ML bottles. I purchased one of each and am going to do three days of reviews. Because I can't take these back with me on the plane (our only check-able bag is soft-sided and I don't want glass bottles in it) I'm going to have to finish them before the weekend is up and we fly back to Colorado.

Only one of the three is labeled gluten free on the bottle, but a quick google search (thank you Brother-in-laws IPhone!) revealed that all three were gluten free and were okay for me to drink. I'm going to start with the one that is the lightest and work my way up to the Endeavor Dubble and Quest Tripel Ales.


Green's Discovery Amber Ale

Link: Greens Gluten Free Beer Page

Maker's Description: Medium-bodied with subtle caramel and nut flavor nuances. Refined, herbal hop aroma and finish. OG: 1.056; IBU: 32; ABV:6.0%

Look: This beer is a dark just-a-shade-lighter-than molasses color. It has great depth to the color, and looks dynamic when poured into a pint glass. Cloudy. It retains its fluffy cream colored head quite well despite swirling, and actually it took me two pours to get this one right it was so foamy! My husband poured himself a glass and found a similar problem, so maybe this time it's not just my bad pouring technique. After about ten minutes it peters up but it stays clinging to the side of the glass.

Smell: I'm nursing some allergies or a small cold (I know I shouldn't be reviewing right now, but this stuff isn't coming on the plane home with me!) so my sense of smell is a bit off...but this beer is strong enough that I'm able to smell the tangy highlights.

Taste: Very tart and tangy, with fruity notes. When my husband sipped this one he explained that it was almost like a cider, and while I wouldn't go that far it definitely has hints of apples and a bit of tartness to it. Jon noticed that it was thin compared to other ails that he usually drinks, but it seems thicker to me, who's palate is limited to gluten free beers. Aftertaste is tingly, and not at all bitter, but as it warms up the 6% alcohol becomes more apparent.

Where to Buy:I found this at Total Liquor in Delaware. I haven't seen this anywhere else, but I assume it is distributed elsewhere.

Hiatus!

Photo Update: Where we went - Maylasia!

I am going to be moving from Michigan to Colorado and then traveling for the rest of this month and most of December! I will not have internet access and things will resume at the end of December.

I hope you all have wonderful holidays. I will let you know where I went and what I drank (if anything! That may be tricky in the country and environment I am heading to) while traveling!

Questions and Answers

In the relatively short time that this blog has been around (I haven't even reviewed half a dozen beers yet!) a few people have emailed me some questions that I thought I would answer up here in case they come up again.

Q: Why did you start this blog?

I started this blog because I kept seeing gluten free beer reviewed by people who drink regular beer. Gluten free beer has a completely different smell, taste, mouthfeel, and texture than regular beer, and most regular beer drinkers can't quite get past that. Most of the reviews I read had something to the effect of "...but, if I had to only drink gluten free beer, I might have reviewed this differently." So, as someone who hasn't had a regular beer in three years, I wanted to come with a neutral stance towards gluten free beer, and review it without the assumption that it was something second rate or secondary to regular beer.

Q: Why beer? Why not wine?

I can find thousands of blogs devoted to wines of all sort, probably just as many devoted to beer but in all my searching, I never found a blog solely devoted to gluten free beer. So, I present to you the internet's first and only gluten free beer blog! :) (please correct me if I'm wrong! I'd like to link to them!)

Q: How did you learn to review beer? Did you take a class?

I never took a class, I guess I just started doing it. Way back in 2003 I had a flegling food blog called "Cuisine Urbaine" which detailed cooking in my studio apartment and restaurant reviews in Milwaukee. This blog lasted about a year before college consumed my life and I left my studio apartment kitchen. I learned to describe and review food just by doing just that - trying to put down into words what I was eating. Subscriptions to quite a few cooking magazines and religiously reading the New York Times food section helped me hone and refine my voice and see how things were done. I started reviewing beers the same way - I drank them and then tried to describe what was going on.

If you are interested in beer reviewing classes (for the gluten eaters) there are dozens out there. I have yet to hear of a gluten free beer tasting class, but if you hear of any, let me know! I will attend and review!

Jolly Pumpkin's Golden Manatee Belipago

Jolly Pumpkin is a microbrewery in Ann Arbor, MI known for its barrel brewing and tiny batches. It also has a cafe with good food that is vegetarian friendly! We have been having our cycling team meetings here for some time, and somehow I never noticed there was a gluten free beer on the menu. I guess with a name like "Golden Manatee Belipago" I somehow managed to write that one off. Jolly Pumpkin has some great seasonals, too., so if you can make it there around Christmas and are not a strict gluten free beer drinker, you will be rewarded greatly according to my teammates.

I had a cycling team meeting the other day at the cafe in Ann Arbor, MI, which is about 20 minutes from my house. I figured this was a great opportunity to try the Golden Manatee Belipago. This beer was on tap at the Cafe which is unusual for gluten free beers, mostly they are in bottles. This to me speaks of one of two things - either there are enough gluten free people in the area to warrant that, or enough regular people are ordering this to make it worth keeping on tap. Sweet! I have to say that of all of the gluten free beers enjoyed this is the one that people who are not strictly gluten free have liked the best. After this meeting, I realized that some non gluten free cycling teammates regularly order this beer!

Before I get to the description, just a heads up that I'm going to start pulling the company description here, to archive those as well.


Jolly Pumpkin - Golden Manatee Belipago

Link: Jolly Pumpkin's Beer List (pdf)

Official Description: "A delicious Belgian-style IPA, brewed with chestnuts, tapioca, sorghum, agave nectar and loads of the freshest hops money can buy. Fermented with two yeasts for a layered complexity, and dry hopped for a spicy mouthful of fun. Gluten free!"

Look: Golden or coppery, with a healthy layer of foam on top of it. Definitely got a beer mustache from this one. It was served in a chalice, which did its job preserving the head when gently swirled. Foam stayed until the end.

Smell: Fruity, sweet, and spicy! This beer has agave nectar in it, and this probably attributes to the peculiar type of sweet smell it has - not quite sugar, not quite honey.

Taste: This is a dry beer with a prominent hops undertone. I also picked up hints of spices, citrus, and yeast as well. It finishes bitter and has (like most gluten free beer) a medium thick mouthfeel with medium carbonation. I can't remember what the alchohol content was (not because of the alchohol content either, I just forgot to write it down!)

Where to Buy: Jolly Pumpkin in Ann Arbor, Traverse City, or Dexter.

Gratuitous Wedding Picture Post!

I don't think there is that much beer in this post - however there are some pictures taken in Lakefront Brewery, maker of New Grist gluten free beer!

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Beer Review - Anheuser Busch's Redbridge

This picture has nothing to do with beer, I just liked it!

Married life is settling down here in MI, and just to answer the "How is married life?" question everyone asks, married life is about the same as unmarried life, only we have much better dishes! I added some pictures to the gluten free wedding entry for your perusal! I'm back into the swing of things and mostly unpacked from our honeymoon and I'm ready to put up another beer review for you!

We are still (and probably will be forever!) working off the kayak packed open bar (see previous entry for info on that debacle...we broke two or three bottles and exploded a couple of cans trying to get it down off the car, FYI.) and I'm going to review the other gluten free beer that was packed along with the New Grist - Redbridge.

Redbridge is easily the most available gluten free beer out there. I've found it pretty much wherever I go and when anyone finds out a gluten free girl is coming to their party somehow this always makes its way into the host's fridge. While Redbridge is a passable "beer-ey" (I am now making up words to describe beer. I've hit new lows in beer reviews.) beer, it's not exactly the most flavorful hearty beer. I've always found it slightly bitter and a little thin for my taste, though it smells exactly like a beer should smell. It has an alcohol content of 4.8 percent, so a bit on the low side for me. (I prefer around six, when I can get it.)

While this is not my first choice for drinking, I do keep this one on hand for specific recipes and have to give this beer a huge plus for being a great kitchen beer. I make a green tortilla soup that calls for a half a can of beer (or half bottle in this case) and this is my cooking brand of choice. I believe the strong beer-ey scent has something to do with this, since the hearty, spicy smell of it simmering with green tortillas and peppers in my kitchen is excellent and makes my mouth water! Redbridge is also used in marinades for grilling and I use a quarter cup of it to make a dehydrated tofu jerkey for backpacking or just snacking in car rides.

I think Redbridge is probably one of the most cost-effective gluten free beers, as well, which is another excellent reason it makes a good cooking beer.

Anheuser Busch's Redbridge

Link: Anheuser Busch's Redbridge Beer Site

Look: When poured this beer has a quick foam, and is thin - any fizz in it rises and dissipates quickly. It has a clear quality to it. I usually drink this one straight out of the bottle, so I had to pour myself a glass (used a normal pint glass for this one). It has a light color - looks like any light beer. This one is strictly sorghum so that may contribute to it's pale coloring. Most gluten free beer I have tried have other things like rice or buckwheat in them but this one does not.

Smell: Beer-ey. I know you all love my made up descriptions, but this one is very classic. Sweet, too.

Taste: Ohhh, Redbridge....this is where I get frustrated. It is slightly bitter to my taste, despite it's sweet smell. It is, frankly, just a bit bland as well, and not so hoppy. Not much for aftertaste either. I believe cooking with it and paring it with things that are slightly peppery or spicy it changes the flavor for good, so that is what I usually do when gifted with a sixpack!

Drink With: I try to pair this with stronger flavored food, often Mexican food. Even better, use it in something! I've added the recipe for the tortilla soup to get you started at the bottom of this post.

Where to Buy: Nationally! Pretty much every decently large liquor store will have this.

Here is another gratuitous wedding photo for you before I get to the recipes!

Green Tortilla Soup - credit to Glitter

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
  
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 to 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 jalapeño, seeded and chopped
• 1/2 tablespoon chili powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
  
• 1 16-ounce jar tomatillo salsa
• 1 beer, any brand you like
• 1 quart veggie stock
• 1 can corn
• 1 can peas
• 1 red pepper, diced
  
• 1/2 cup crushed tortilla chips + more to serve with dish
• Optional garnish of hot sauce
  

1) Heat olive oil over medium high heat. Saute onions, garlic, and Jalepeno until soft/translucent. Smell and enjoy the simmering garlic and onions!

2)Add Chili Powder, Cumin, and Curry and simmer for a few seconds, until they start smelling rich. Sometimes I have to turn the heat down a bit here to let them cook a little slower.

3)Add the salsa, beer, and stock, corn, peas, and pepper. Simmer on medium until the veggies are softened. This takes about ten minutes.

4) While the soup is simmering, crush tortilla chips. You can do this by hand in a zip lock with a rolling pin (or a wine bottle, unopened or empty is best! Trust me, I know this). If you have a food processor, you can throw a few handfuls of chips in there and turn it on until they are coarsely ground. Add this to the soup and it will thicken!

I serve this with a dash of red hot sauce on top and chips on the side! Yum yum yum!

First Beer Review - Lakefront Brewery's New Grist

Jon and I at the top of the Ramsey Falls Trail - Smokey Mountain National Park

There's been a big gap in between posts since, you know...I've been busy honeymooning in a place with no internet connection or even cell phone service!

Jon and I left Milwaukee with a Kayak loaded up with the remainder of the open bar loaded into it, balanced precariously on top of our tiny car. I'm not sure how Jon, or my brother and father in law got it up there without breaking anything but the entire drive home to Michigan every time we would hit a bump or turn a corner we would hear bottles roll and clink.

I figure I should start out my first "review" with my old standard - Lakefront Brewery's New Grist. This is the first gluten free beer I had tried - my mom found a six pack and brought it home for my sister and I awhile ago. It wasn't very alcoholic but it seemed like a great beer to drink, one after another, on my porch chatting with my friends. Indeed, it is labeled as a session beer - and it serves exactly that purpose with me. For more information on session beers, go here.

This beer is very light, and just sweet enough that it has a tiny hoppy bite, enough to taste while it is in your mouth but not enough to really leave any sort of aftertaste. Because of it's lightness and sweetness, I don't tend to pick this up as much in winter, but it is the staple beer in our household in summer.



Lakefront Brewery's New Grist:

Link: Lakefront Brewery

Look: When poured this bottle of beer isn't ridiculously heady, though it is bubbly. I pour it into a pilsner glass (partly because we received some gorgeous ones for our wedding, and partly because that it really displays the color and "texture" well.) It is darker than the typical "light" beer, but only a smidge.

Smell: Floral, almost - sweet and light. This is a very bubbly beer, believe it or not and the bubbles tickled my nose when I sniffed to hard.

Taste: Sweet and light - can you catch the theme? This beer is relatively sweeter than the average gluten free beer, and has all the markings - the fresh, clean taste, the light texture, the fizziness - of a great summer beer.

Drink With: Summer food, or just by itself. And by summer food I mean Gluten Free Grilled Cheese, Salads, Gluten Free Pizza, Ice Cream, Gluten Free Cold Pasta Salads,

Where to Buy: This can be purchased at most organic or natural food stores - I believe whole foods has national distribution of this one. The website will give you further details.

How a Gluten Free Girl Had A Brewery Wedding

When my husband (husband! It's so neat to say that!) were talking about what type of wedding we wanted, we knew we wanted a "very Milwaukee" wedding. And...what is more Milwaukee than a wedding at a cream city brick brewery! Jon is enthusiastic about beer, and...I am too...only I have to be pretty careful about what type I drink.

Planning a gluten free wedding presented a different challenge - one that I had not encountered in any bridal magazine. I had to restructure and research everything from the Rehearsal Dinner to the cakes (we ended up with three and a cupcake tree. Don't get me started on baked goods!) I couldn't have the typical dinner with breaded everything and tons of dinner rolls, and a cheap barrel of beer wouldn't cut it for our palate or dietary restrictions.

Luckily, some of my favorite gluten free beer is brewed right in my hometown at Lakefront Brewery - their New Grist brew is as fresh as it is hearty and is so good I have to put threatening post it notes on the bottles in the fridge to keep Jon from drinking it all. Holding a gluten free wedding wasn't too bad once I got things rolling, and had some conversations with people to explain exactly what it was.

Our wedding involved a lot of bikes, so it made sense for us to have the rehearsal dinner at Cafe Hollander, a place with a great beer list that sponsors a lot of cycling events in the city. Coincidentally, it was right around the corner from one of my houses in college so I spent a lot of time there doing homework and hanging out with my friends there.

My great in-laws planned most of the rehearsal dinner working with Cafe Hollander to accommodate both my families gluten intolerance as well as my vegan bridesmaid. One of my favorite thing was working with them to choose the beer selection. Because they were not serving gluten free beer at the time but were interested in doing so our rehearsal dinner served as a sort of "test run" for them. I was able to simply suggest some of my favorite gluten free beers and they went out and got them! We had (no surprise to anyone who knows me) Lakefront's New Grist as well as a few others. I have to say that my wedding was the one event in my life where I wasn't really paying attention to the food and drinks, I was too busy being and getting married. Fortunately, Hollander made up a gift basket with a bottle of wine and the rest of the gluten free stash for us so we were able to take that home with us and enjoy it later!

We held the wedding reception at lakefront brewery - good beer was one of our requirements and having good gluten free beer brewed in house was a big bonus and we knew they would understand the dietary limitations and challenges of it. The space, while cavernous, had a lot of potential and filled up really well with all our friends. Everything went really smoothly and the chef was able to make three special plates for my mom, sister, and myself of gluten free food and we ordered a few cases of the New Grist along with the beer on tap. The reception was so busy and such a blur that I don't really remember the food (yikes!) but one of my favorite moments happened when all my friends from Milwaukee and I went and sat along the Milwaukee River and just drank beer and enjoyed ourselves like old times.

Here is my advice to anyone planning a gluten free wedding:

• Have really in depth conversations with the chef of the venue, not just the wedding planner or event coordinator. If the chef seems unsure of their ability or unaware of what gluten free even is (I did run into that talking to venues!) then feel free to move on to the next place.
• Most places will have wine, which you can drink if you a GF, but if you want beer, don't be afraid to ask if they can order some especially for you for the day. If you are plunking down thousands of bucks to have a giant party at their place, most will oblige
  
• Have two cakes - one gluten free and a larger one that is not. I found it was cheaper to order a gluten free cake for a "cutting cake" that jon and I would eat (and my sister and mom could eat a piece of) and then cupcakes for everyone else. Gluten free cakes can cost a pretty penny!