Uinta Brewing 17th Anniversary Barleywine is surprisingly subtle

At 10pm on a Friday night, we're being real cool cats and playing Battlefield 2, probably against a bunch of pimple faced kids taking a break from World of Warcraft. But before I head to Bar Pico, we're celebrating our supreme awesomeness with a celebratory 17 Anniversary Barley Wine from Salt Lake based Uinta. I was 11 when their brewery opened.

When I say 'playing,' that's not what I meant. We're raging on them, spanking them like a bad child. Just dominating them...That makes us cooler, right?

There is a very light, but sweet caramel aroma from this 10.4% beast. The taste is the same but also with a nutty flavor. For a barleywine, the alcohol is hidden well. The flavor profile isn't raw and needing to be aged or rich and complex, but is rather very subtle and drinkable. It's very becoming of a barleywine, I must say. For the beginning of my Friday night, this is a pleasant start. TRANSFORMERS rating.

Uinta Tilted Smile Imperial Pilsner isn't as desirable as Joan Holloway

Well, today is my officially my 28th Birthday. The party started Friday with the All-Denim extravaganza, continued Saturday with Beach day Sloshball and followed through with lobster and a partial mash homebrew. I've been celebrating this day three times over before the sun debuted on May 9th 2011. Cookies for lunch and chips and dip for dinner is all I need for birthday celebration. I'll be out all this week and I'll be tasting 7 or 8 breweries this weekend with my parents and David.

Some people would argue that you have to do something for your birthday, or that you shouldn't be alone on your special day. To them, I say that thinking is for the birds. I've been surrounded by great friends enjoying memorable experiences for 72 hours. I think I'll be okay if I take a night off, open up one of my favorite beers as an appetizer before the beer of the day, demolish some guacamole and watch my best show on TV, Man Men.

Next to all the special whiskey we keep in the hard to reach cupboard above the microwave, I keep a bottle of North Coast Pranqster and Drake's Denogginizer Imperial IPA for a special occasion. Tonight is perfect for the Drake's, which has an incredibly rich caramel and Munich malt. It's inspiring enough that I have decided here and now to design my next homebrew to hopefully create a malt of this caliber and richness. It's amazing. 

But the beer of the day hales from Utah and is a strange bedfellow. Almost as strong  as the 9.75% Denogginizer, the wacky Tilted Smile is an Imperial Pilsner. This is our second imperial pilsner, a very odd style but one that some American brewers apparently like to play with.

I immediately taste that it's too malty. On the flip side, David says that it's not hoppy enough. He's right. An imperial malt bill needs an imperial amount of hops to balance it out. Unfortunately, Uinta didn't adjust accordingly for their increase in alcohol. Maybe they kept the same IBU number as they had with their regular pilsner. Either way, it doesn't work. I'm not impressed, ARMAGEDDON rating.

I'm going to climb onto my soapbox for a second here to spout about Imperial Pilsners as a style. To me, increasing alcohol content serves two purposes. Obviously, one is you create a potent beer. In order to make a higher content brew, you have to increase the amount of malt. This allows for a greater complexity of malt to be used - or so I think. As a style, however, Pilsner are brew to be clean and crisp. They are not known for their complexity. I really don't see the need for them. Maybe they're fun to toy with, but I don't understand why you make them.

Uinta Summer Solstice Kolsch precedes a rare bird sighting: 3 French Hens

I picked up the Kolsch because my latest homebrew, the Heisenberg's Honey Wheat, is made with a Kolsch yeast and it's getting raving reviews from people, so I'm on a quest to sample other beers with similar yeast profiles in order to compare. 

It says HooDoo on the Surly Goat menu but google says otherwise. Tonight's beer is the Summer Solstice Kolsch from Uinta Brewing in Utah and the evening is shaping up to be a good night for beer.

It's remarkably crisp and clean but there is nothing clean about it. It's an excellent summer patio beer, that you could drink a sixer of and not be overwhelmed by hops or flavor. It's only 4%, so you probably need to drink a sixer to get properly sauced, so don't forget about your friends Bloody Mary and Mr. Mai Tai. TRANSFORMERS rating.

But guess who Surly Goat decided to stock? Bruery Three French Hens. It's only 18 bucks! The bottle, which you can't find at a store anymore, probably costs at least $14 or $15. For this years The Bruery's limited run of the 12 Days of Christmas, this price is quite a steal. Here's my old write up: 3 French Hens. French Hens can be aged for up to 9 years, but Matt and I aren't going to let that happen. For America Dammit.