Another tabernacle takeover month with Dovetail Brewery this time. This crew buckled down and cranked out 4 unique smokebeers at the same time, much to SmokeBeerMinistry’s surprise. And, you gotta love the names of these beers. Calling a spade a spade for a change! The Ministry appreciates this. How did beer culture get so far off track with names? I don’t want some stupid story about some old person who did or said something… and then the brewer claps back with a big F-U and names a beer after the old curmudgeon… Cripes! We don’t care. A Grodziskie is a smoked wheat beer. Typically smoked with oak wood and Polish in origin, this Grodziskie comes from Chicago, IL. With notes of spent firecrackers and fading bitterness, this beer fits exceedingly well within the namesake genre. And this brewery fits in exceedingly well within this neighborhood. The bar is packed with 15 or so bar seats and 15 or so tables, and has 8 bartenders behind it. All of them busy, and it looks like all of them love those little Underberg things. You know those little green liquor filled paper covered bottle thingies? They’re selling and drinking a ton of them, I guess its their thing. Imagine a thin and bubbly wheat beer that tastes smoky, that’s a Grodziskie, and that’s what Dovetails Grodziskie tastes like. Competency skills test passed. Overall score = 5 out of 7.
| Brewer | Dovetail Brewery |
| Beer Name | Grodziskie |
| Brewer’s Description | Pale in color with a spirited effervescence, Grodziskie is the specialty beer of its namesake town in Poland. More carbonated than Hefeweizen and lower in alcohol, this 100% smoked wheat beer features light, citrus-like overtones with a surprising glimmer of spice and smoke. |
| Food Pairings | Thick pizza, Chicago style |
| Brewer Location | Chicago, IL |
| Alcohol content by volume | 3.8% |
| IBU (International Bitterness Units) | na |
| Beer opacity rate 1 – 7 (light – dark) | 2.25 |
| Smell smoke? 1 – 7 (No – George Burns) | 4.5 |
| Smokepower taste: 1 – 7 Smokestacks | 4.5 |
| Sausage detection? Y or N | N |
| Beer thickness 1-7 (water – used motor oil) | 3.5 |
| Overall Happiness Rating: 1-7 (low – high) | 5 |
Good site they got here:
This is the final of 5 De Molen beer reviews, completing Tabernacle Takeover month with a respectable entrant, Spanning & Sensatie (Excitement & Sensation literally, Thrills and Spills in meaning). This beer is a solid smoked beer, with some bitter ashes, fleeting chocolate, and just a wee bit of heat which builds up slightly before the beer is done. This beer delivers what I must describe as that element that only De Molen can deliver, its a flavor that is distinct in all five of the DM beers I’ve had this month, and its the inarticulate nature of my mind grapes that drives me to invent the word DeMoleny. Out of the world’s upper echelon brewers, of which De Molen resides, Spanning, and pretty much everything else smoked that we’ve had, are in the middle of the road of the upper echelon. Like someone on the all-star team, but only used as an alternate. Or a world class dual citizen soccer player who has to choose the less competitive country to play for in the World Cup. It was a fun month, and expensive too. No ragrets. Maybe I’ll take next week off. Final smoke metric = 5 smokestacks.
Here’s part 2 for SMOKE CHASER, the bourbon barrel aged smoked barley wine beer by Tioga-Sequoia. There are no more than 999 of these still floating around out there, so if you want one, go now, but you should probably read this review first. Smoke Chaser Bourbon Barrel is one of 3 variants SmokeBeerMinistry got our hands on to review which began right after pouring it into the big glass seen above. It’s a lighter hue than the rye barrel variant, but considerably cloudier, however, my light meter shone (shined?) right through the glass, illuminating the entire beer like a light bulb, so a not so opaque beer. This beer smells about the same as the rye barrel variant, leaving a pronounced barley wine scent in the general vicinity of the pour. Smoke is there but on the expected lighter end given cherry wood was used in the smoking process. And the taste starts out as bitter; I like mine sweet, not bitter. You get used to the bitterness pretty quickly, probably because the 15.1% alcohol numbs every section of your palate (maybe I should have gone with the small pours as TS recommended). Barrel aging usually improves beers for me, but I can only hope this is not the case here. Smoke Chaser Bourbon Barrel is a bit frustrating, proper ingredients were used, barrel aging is a time consuming process, but the finished product is a below average score. In this particular case, I’d recommend backing down with some of the competing elements; cap it at 10% ABV, use less hops, and shorter barreling times. I’m a little concerned with the Smoke Chaser Double Barrel variant coming up next week. Tioga-Sequoia works to make progress towards our standards with a 3.25 overall smokestack rating (out of 7).
SmokeBeerMinistry 