TASTING: Miraculous Jewbelation

I recently picked up one of the Vertical Jewbelation packs from HE'BREW (Shmaltz Brewing Company) at my preferred local liquor store.  It contains Jewbelations 8-14, as well as a bottle of Vertical Jewbelation, a mixture of all of them to date aged in a Rye barrel, an empty "Shamash" bottle, a package of Chanukah candles, and a very attractive beer glass to drink from.  Jewbelation is of course their annual special brew; on the eighth anniversary of the brewery, they brewed the beer I'm drinking tonight with eight malts, eight varieties of hops, and 8% ABV.  Every year, they brew a new recipe and those numbers go up by one (how long can they keep it up?).

Most of these I'm going to sit on and "cellar" for a while, but I just had to break out ONE of them, so I cracked open a bottle of the Miraculous Jewbelation (#8, the first) this evening.  It's delicious!

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

APPEARANCE: Very dark but not opaque; it's actually a very dark amber on the edges if you hold it up to the light.  Good initial head that, as you might expect from a higher ABV beer, doesn't last, soon reducing to a ring around the edge, but it leaves a pleasing layer of bubbles down the sides of the glass as you drink.

AROMA: Eight kinds of hops in one beer is very unusual, and you can definitely sense it in the nose.  It isn't overpowering at all, very well balanced, but very complex.  I'm thinking there was an emphasis on German hops, but I'm not sure.

TASTE AND MOUTHFEEL: So, so good.  Hop bitterness is prominent but extremely smooth (the years of aging may have something to do with that, of course).  Despite being a dark beer with a serious grain bill, it's not really roasty or burnt at all, rather rich and subtly caramel-y.  It's really just sweet enough to balance the hops, though, and the body stays pretty light without being thin.  The carbonation is perfect, leaving the beer only slowly as you drink it and seemingly helping to distribute each sip to every part of your mouth and carry some more of that hop aroma to your nose.

FUN FACTS: "8 is a miraculous number in Jewish life," the label informs you, providing many examples, such as:

• Chanukah, Passover, and Sukkot span 8 days,
• Solomon completed the First Temple in the 8th month of the 8th year,
• "Seinfeld" ran for 8 seasons,

among others.

There aren't many of these packs around, but if you have the chance to pick one up, you'd better do it.

TASTING: Sarcastic Doorman

Cracked open the first bottle of new brew tonight for a little sampling with Mr. Smashton, co-founder of the brewery.  It's our inaugural beer in a sense, the first one without any kind of kit involved, so we're pretty excited.  On the labels we went with the slogan, "The beer that finds you...  Wanting," but we could easily have gone with our alternate idea, "As dry as his wit, as black as his soul."

Appearance: Black as a cloudy night in a cave, and more or less opaque.  Tan head, largish bubbles but it sticks around pretty well.

Aroma: Roasty, maybe even burnt.

Tasting: Roasty AS HELL.  Not burnt, but lots of coffee & dark chocolate, malty but not over-sweet.  Amarillo hops are there, a little hint of citrus, but I'll probably add a larger late addition the next time we brew this.  Very rich mouthfeel, maybe a little closer to a stout than a traditional porter.  Definitely a sipping beer for a cold night.

Overall verdict: SUCCESS!

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