This month’s installment of the Session is hosted by Tiffany at 99 Pours. The topic is: Novelty Beers. Have they gone too far?
I am a capitalist pig. As such, I am a fan of the free market and the competition and innovation a free market fosters. So, my feelings can be summed up with a couple words and two pictures…
I am willing to put up with the presence of this:
If it means that I can have this:
(Brewed with heather, honeysuckle, and hyssop.)
I don’t know that I would lump Debutante into the novelty beer category, particularly due to the sometimes pejorative nature of the term “novelty”. I do, however, consider it innovative. And the only thing worse than Rogue Voodoo Doughnut is a beer zeitgeist that stifles the type of innovation that occasionally lays an egg like Rogue Voodoo Doughnut.
Ha! Concisely put, and the Debutante sounds particularly wonderful
Thanks. It’s a beautiful beer. But really, I just wanted to say “beer zeitgeist”.
Amen to that! That bottle is the color of Pepto Bismol, but I’ll fight to defend its existence (but not to the death).
You are a true beer patriot.
As a fan of both Brewer’s Art and Stillwater, I’m saddened to say that I have not as yet had the Debutante. As for Voodoo, my thoughts of that beer are on record. You’re last sentence sums it up well.
You should get you some. It’s muy bueno. And it’s great with food. I think your position on Voodoo is probably the most reasonable…I’m coming around to accepting its existence. Maybe I would be there completely if it weren’t $12.
I missed this session as I was at work during the day and at a gig in the evening so didn’t have time to do any writing. Here in the UK novelty beers haven’t really taken off yet – BrewDog are probably closest with their Never Mind The Anabolics – apart from boring beer in bottles with novelty names and labels. Some people hold the belief that heavily hopped beers with an ABV of 8% or thereabouts – damn crazy fools that they are!
I’ve never seen Rogue Voodoo Donut in this country (although Rogue are starting to appear more often) but if I did I would buy it purely cos it looks so ridiculous.
Cheers
’8% or thereabouts’ should’ve continued to say ‘are novelty beers’
If you’re cool enough to be able to say you were “at a gig”, then all is forgiven for overlooking the Session. And sometimes I feel like under 8% (probably more like under 7%) is a novelty in our fridge. I guess it’s just part of the US’s continued macro rebellion.
True, sometimes to have the good there will be the bad. However, can we agree to tar and feather those who create the bad?
Damn straight!
Short, sweet and to the point, I like. Its a shame I don’t know either of these beers though.
Probably one of the main down sides of living in England is that it’s hard to get hold of the good American beers.
Thanks!
Stillwater’s saisons are excellent. They are consistently beautifully subtle and complex. Brian Strumke of Stillwater did some recent European collaborations (which will actually only make it to the US in limited quantities): A saison with Extraomnes called Migdal Bavel, and a Blonde Ale with Brasserie Thiriez, Amber Ale with Brasserie St. Germain, and Black Ale with Brasseries du pays Flamand, all under the name French Connection. I think he did a Spanish collaboration as well…
I wonder if you’ll see any of those in your neck of the woods?
Well said. I am still running across the Voodoo Bacon reviews almost every day. I will be looking for the Debutante now.