My Bar, Your Bar

For someone who considers himself a somewhat of a beer conessiour, I haven’t had too much experience with sour ales. My wife and I enjoy the lambic ales brewed by Lindemans that come in different brews based on specific fruits like raspberry, peaches, or cherries. Outside of those I’m hard pressed to recall any others.

What a treat it was to pick up a bottle of Rodenback on a whim to try! This is truly a complex beer that lends itself to descriptions that critics would use in describing a good bottle of wine. The ale is a beautiful medium dark brown with strong red highlights. Because it was unlike our American beers, it was full of debris floating around - and I knew I was into something good.

The nose was stinky. The kind of stinky that is good. The kind that an excellent cheese would have. The one that smells like toe jam and buttermilk. Or maybe like a great bottle of wine from Bordeaux that while it smells like cat urine or cow patties, it has a phenomenal character and elegant taste. Rodenback has a sour smell that conjours up dry, dirty, old athletic socks that some weirdo stuffed with yeast and left in a closet. The taste lived up to the sour ale description on the bottle. The beer was very tart, crisp, and lively. It was very easy to drink and surprisingly light bodied. There were definitely fruity flavors that were reminiscent of cherries and/or granny smith apples. It is a beer that is definitely worth picking up when your in the mood to try something different, and, honestly, I can see enjoying the ale frequently as the taste would pair well with some foods that a more ordinary beer may not go well with. So embrace the bizarre smelling brew. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Ah yes. But would he have sympathy for you?

Recently, as I was browsing in my local ABC liquor store, I came across a beer ominously called “Belzebuth.” The label features a mischeivous, playful devil doing what appears to be a touchdown dance. Of course this piqued my interest, along with the in-your-face 13% alcohol level the label isn’t shy about communicating. So I purchased a three pack and headed home wondering what evil I had potentially brought upon me and my family.

In hindsight, after studying the label at the store I should have known what I was in for. But I had intellectualized too much. In our modern times most of us who believe that the devil exists think of him, well, as Al Pachino in “The Devil’s Advocate.” You know, the smooth, articulate, and well dressed man who leads the good intentioned slowly down the wrong path by playing to all our human weaknesses. C.S. Lewis does a great job in “The Screwtape Letters” of portraying just how clandestine evil is when it goes to work on us. Not many people I know believe the devil actually has horns, a pitchfork, hooves, and body odor with a distinctive sulfuric quality. You know, that in-the-face evil waiting to jump out from nowhere, yell “boo,” and give us a few jabs with a sharp object.

Well, upon opening the bottle of Belzebuth and pouring it into a frosty mug, I realized that this is definitely the “in-your-face” devil that was dancing on the label. The smell was strong with musty yeast and slighty fruity, which was all but dominated by the smell of alcohol. This translated over to the taste, which was very heavy with alcohol. The beer also contained a malty molasses flavor with a tangy finish. Again, due to the high alcohol content it was hard to distinguish much more.

If you like your beer to hit you over the head and call you names, this is the one. Note that it is bottled in 8.5 oz. bottles so that you can still get off the couch after having one. As for me, I think I’d prefer my evil beer a little more Al Pachino, smoother and seductive, as opposed to this big, scary beer that hollered “boo” and poked me in the head with a pitch-fork.