Review: Jolly Pumpkin's La Roja among best sours in US

Latest batch bottled in June. Poured into oversize tulip.

La Roja is among the five regular lineup beers that Jolly Pumpkin makes. It is classified as a Wild Ale meaning that at least a portion of the fermentation process has been through spontaneous fermentation, in this case oak barrel aging. The beer picks up all the little yeast critters from the oak, hence the term - wild. Jolly Pumpkin, located in Dexter, is one of the few and possibly the only brewery and blendery that oak ages 100 percent of their beers.

The beer pours a rusty, brownish and very firm and clear like most JP beers. One finger head with some soapy lacing that dissipates pretty quickly. The nose is filled with biscuity malts come at you with lemon peel acidity, puckering tartness with some white peppercorn, winey and spritzy along the lines of grape skin. Suggestions of boot leather, shoe polish and oak.

The taste is tad a thin up front followed by grape skin, lemon peel, very tart raspberries (especially as the beer warms), granny smith apple, all rounded out on the palate with that great biscuit and breadiness, like rye bread or brown bread. The finish is fleeting but there is some tannin-like qualities that stick around. This is probably the most acidic JP beer in their regular lineup.

Roja doesn't get nearly the credit it deserves as one of the better, year-round and very available sour beers in the U.S. It's the closest thing I have to a traditional Belgian unblended lambic I have had from the states. This is something I try to have in my house at all times, it's great with dinner or breakfast. 

Weekly Beer Thoughts: The most wonderful time of the year

Fall is closing in fast. Put away those swim trunks and fish out those warm mittens and socks. This time of year not only brings on Michigan fall colors (the best), Halloween, football and the paralyzing fear of the coming winter season, but it also ushers in a new season of beers - Oktoberfest.

Oktoberfest, or Marzen (German for March), is a top-fermenting lager typically displaying very clean and crisp malt flavors balanced with slight sweeteness and a very fleeting hop profile. The alcohol by volume range usually falls within the 5 to 7 percent range, and the beer is best served fresh poured into a giant liter mug and served with, oh, maybe half a dozen German sausages and sauerkraut.

(Disclaimer: That is not me in this picture. I don't think so at least)

Being the premier beer destination it is, the southeast Michigan area has plenty of Oktoberfest events coming up soon. Local beer writer David Bardallis does a wonderful job cataloguing the various beer events in and around Ann Arbor, and has done just that with the Oktoberfest season.

Cheers!

Babies and beer

I have not posted to this blog in quite a while. As a matter of fact, there has been such a lapse in posting that the newspaper company I work for kicked me off of their site. In a way, it was freeing (is that a word?) but all that means is less people will be able to see my ultra insightful - some would say life changing, others pointless - musings on beer, food, sports, life, love etc. So to the four people who read my post regularly when it was posted on Heritage.com, all I can say is I'm sorry and I hope you have recovered and have moved on to other, albeit less distinguished blogs.

Having said all that let me begin by saying Hi! How are ya? I'm not bad, thanks for asking. Skin's a little dry. I have experienced some massive changes since I have last visited this blog that I originally created with the intention of keeping my loyal readers (thanks mom!) updated on the happenings and events in the Michigan beer industry and beyond. In addition, I wanted to fill this blog with many reviews because tasting good beer and appreciating the handcrafted nature of this very artisanal and wonderful product is winning half the battle to becoming a true beer geek! Whether that is a battle anybody wishes to fight, is another blog I meant to write but haven't - yet.

But wait, before you tar and feather me I have excuses! Ah, where would society be without the art of making excuse? Well, here it comes - I had a baby. Well not me personally like the title character from Alien Nation or somebody I saw on Oprah once, no it was my lovely and super-duper wife, Susan, who gave birth to our even more lovely and super-duper daughter, Lucille Isabelle, on Oct. 4. After that, it is safe to say that I had a little trouble keeping up with my poor, neglected blog although I was somehow able to keep current with the local beer scene. How lucky for you!

But seriously folks, before we had the baby that was one of my many, many questions was whether I would have time to continue pursuing my hobbies and maintain at least a muted social life with my wife and friends by utilizing a small network of family, babysitters and sentient robots. Now, almost a year later, my daughter is "walking," (I use the quotation marks because there is a lot of falling involved here, not sure if she is meeting the dictionary definition of walking yet), my house is not a total wreck most of the time and I have only sobbed in the bathroom from total exhaustion a handful of times. That in my book equals a big wad of success!

Looking back on what has been the first year of my kid's life, there have naturally been ups and downs, moments of pure joy followed by longer moments of sheer terror, but somehow in the middle of it all I have had a lot of fun. Believe it or not, Susan and I even made it to Founders Brewing Company - Founders Fest in June.

Founders execs chose this summer festival to debut the much anticipated Blushing Monk, which marked the first bottling Founders has ever done using 750 ml wine-like bottles. Called the Backstage Series, Founders will be bottling popular brewery only beers into the 750s and selling them through special events at their famous taproom in Grand Rapids (aka the best city in the universe) and through limited distribution to select accounts.

I am proud to say I was one of the first people to try the 2011 Blushing Monk having arrived early enough to get one glass of the lone barrel they supplied for the festival. Although there was some grumbling through the rank and file of beer geeks staked throughout the festival, there was plenty of Devil Dancer, Kaiser Curmudgeon and the elusive and world-class Cashew Mountain Brown to help collectively un-bunch everybody's underwear. Monk is a fruit beer made with a classic Belgian yeast strain that shows off notes of cranberry cocktail, fruit juice, strawberry daiquiri and, of course, very fresh and tart raspberries which is the beer's main component. Don't kid yourself on this one, this is definitely a raspberry-forward beer and the Belgian-like quality takes a backseat to the fruit.

Beyond that, drinking Devil Dancer super fresh from the barrel was an other-worldly experience and there was plenty to be had. Described as a "Triple IPA," if you are not a fan of bitterness and hops, than you should move on down the line sir or madam. This beer slammed your senses with big notes of pine, hemp, hop oil and some green onion oddly enough.

So as you can see from our Founders Fest experience, fun can be ha even with a brand new baby. Just make sure you have a mother-in-law nice enough to keep the baby overnight while you and the missus attend a beer festival. You can maybe borrow mine for a weekend!