Catching up with my backlog of beer reviews, all in the service of writing more this weekend. This one I wrote while enjoying a beer out on the patio on August 6.
This time I am grilling a pizza outside, because we’re having problems with the oven not lighting up but still pouring gas into the kitchen. So, while it’s hot inside anyway, we’re depending on the range and outdoor grill until we finally get around calling the repair guy.
Today’s beer is a Hopothesis Drafty Windows farmhouse ale. Hopothesis is the brand that was started by Ike Orcutt in 2012. They started with a session IPA that was contract-brewed at Minhas in Monroe, Wisconsin (the former G. Heileman Brewery), which a plan to expand into its own brewery. In fact, Ike gave me a “test bottle” of the Draft Windows” at Hopothesis’ debut party at The Beer Bistro way back then. For watever reason, those plans stalled, and Orcutt to start Buckledown Brewing in Lyons. The Hopothesis brand kind of languished for a while until it was recently purchased by Finch Brewing. Presumably it will soon be made at Finch brewery, but the bottle I picked up now still has “Monroe, Wisconsin” on the label.
Again, I am using the Riedel Veritas beer class, which was sent to me to use and comment on. This is a tulip-shaped crystal glass, just right for this kind of style. From the bottle, the beer shows a bit of a murky brown to tan color, with a very short-lived ring of foam at the top. The smell is pretty malty, nice enough in itself, but there is a lack of the warm ferment funk or spice you would expect with a farmhouse ale.
What I also get is a light orange peel among the malts in the palate. It comes across more like a Doppelbock than a saison. A bit of Belgian style sugar puts this a little too much toward the sweet side. I would hope that once Finch gets their brewery situation settled, they’ll look at the formulation of this beer, as I would not expects Manhas to be able to handle unusual styles like this very well. A farmhouse or saison needs a little space of its own the cultivate a bit of funk away from the rest of the brewery.
Note: While I’ve been writing about beers that have been sent to me gratis for my comment, this beer is one that I purchased myself for the purpose of this review.
This is my attempt at writing an article using the dictation feature on my MacBook rather than the Google Voice service. It does seem to create text a little faster than Google, and seems a bt more reliable when I’m sitting outside with a brick wall between me and the in-house wi-fi. Just sorting through another resource that should make me more productive in my writing.
