Friday, stronger offshore winds carried smoke from the Bolt Creek and White River fires into the greater Puget Sound area and is expected to hang around through tonight. An Air Quality Alert is in effect for most of western Washington this weekend. The air quality around the Puget Sound region is unhealthy due to wildfire smoke. Sounds like an opportune time to stay indoors and drink Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Smoke Beer Flight.
In the centuries before temperature controls, grain for brewing was dried over an open flame, imparting a smoky quality to the resulting malt. Over the years, brewers have learned ways to keep that often acrid flavor out of their beers. In Bamberg, Germany, the rauchbier (smoked beer) tradition is still going strong with a handful of breweries that produce different types of smoked beers, including Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen. While the beers of Bamberg are almost exclusively lagers, most American smoked beers have a dark ale as their base. Porters are most common, the most iconic of which is Alaskan Brewing’s Smoked Porter. Today, we present Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Smoke Beer Flight, a to-go flight of smoked beers, because sometimes smoke is exactly what you want. Just as with scotch, wine and even the humble brisket, a beer with these pungent flavors can become truly transcendent, a hearty food for the soul.
Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Smoke Beer Flight
Matchless Blackberry Smoke Shop
5,5% ABV
This version of Matchless Brewing’s Smoke Shop smoked sour series is brewed with Skagit Valley Malting conditioned on Washington grown blackberries for a bracingly sour with strong notes of blackberries, barbecue sauce, and lemon custard.
Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier – Urbock
5.9% ABV
Aecht Schlenkerla Urbock is the complex sibling of their classic Märzen smoke beer brewed in accordance with the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516, in which its barley malts are smoked over beech wood logs. Its higher smoke malt concentration and longer maturation in the 700-year-old cellars underneath Bramburg create a flavor profile of most intense smokiness beautifully balanced with deep malt sweetness. Its smoky aroma is already noticeable in the smell, combined with a fine hoppy note. On the tongue, expect strong malty flavor, rounded up with the smokey taste and a light bitterness.
Alaskan Smoked Porter
6.5% ABV
A repeated Gold Medal winner at the Great American Beer Fest, Alaskan Brewing‘s Smoked Porter nearly as old as the brewery itself, dating back to 1988 when it debuted as one of the first smoked beers in the States. A testament to the beer’s lifespan, Alaskan releases Smoked Porter in limited yearly vintages, each with their own unique identities. Relying on techniques derived from Alaskans who brewed more than a century ago, Alaskan uses direct heat from local alder wood to malt its barley — a process also recognizable to those who love smoked salmon. And the water for the beer comes from a nearby glacier. That’s all fine and dandy, but let’s get to drinking. A robust woodsmoke aroma backs up the beer’s name even from a distance. Smoked Porter’s flavor follows suit on the smokiness, though less intensely than the smell. Roasted malts, molasses, plums, and a puckering charcoal all swim up from this complex brew.
pFriem Maple Syrup Barrel Aged Smoked Porter
9.1% ABV
pFriem Family Brewers‘ porter is made with smoked malt brewed to high strength, then aged in barrels first used for bourbon, then maple syrup, and finally this Maple Syrup Barrel Aged Smoked Porter. It’s potent, smoky, and rich, with the aroma of syrup you’d drizzle on a stack of flapjacks, followed by notes of pecan pie baking in a wood-fired oven, rich toffee, and dark chocolate delight the palate before giving way to a decadent finish.
Hel & Verdoemenis Scotch Whiskey BA – Brett
11% ABV
The Hel & Verdoemenis Scotch Whiskey Brett BA, a variant of de Molen’s flagship, is aged for 6 months on a smokey whisky barrel, with the last month being infused with a Brettanomyces strain, which adds more and more funky red fruit notes over time, but offers chocolate, sourness, roasted coffee, smoky barrel, and dryness now.
LINK: Peaks & Pints cooler inventory
