December 13 - DuClaw Brewing For Pete's Sake!

After visiting The Fridge yesterday and picking up some new need-to-try brews, I decided to call an audible tonight and pop open one of those instead of one I already purchased.  

I'll be honest, my palate doesn't feel as sharp as it did at the beginning of the month.  I guess the self-imposed duty of giving you, the reader, some quality notes is feeling the pressure.  Don't worry, I'll persevere.  This happens every year at the halfway point.  

From DuClaw Brewing in Maryland, comes the older, more sophisticated (and more alcoholic) brother of Sweet Baby Jesus, For Pete's Sake!  FPS is an Imperial Porter compared to little bro and is a strong 9% ABV compared to 6.2%.  

This brewing company was one of the first craft beer experiences that I had, and I spoke about it last year.  Long story short, it was before I knew how good craft beer could actually be and what its intent was.

Not going to tell you about it if you didn't read it last year...go read it for yourself and come back when you're finished...

DuClaw doesn't make a bad beer, and if they do, I've never had it.  There are some that are better than others of course. There's one that I prefer that don't even exist, but if you mix two together, you'll be glad you did.  The mystery beer I speak of is what is called the Sweet Naked Jesus; a 1:1 combination of SBJ and Naked Fish, a chocolate, raspberry stout.  

This beer poured a nearly opaque black with tinges of red mixed in.  There was a creamy brown head at the top of the glass and lacing for the entire hour that this bad boy sat in my glass.  It was definitely a sipper, but not for the reason you think...I"ll explain.

First, though, the aroma was an awesome peanut butter brownie.  That's it...

There was definitely lots of body with this beer.  The mouthfeel was sweet and heavy malt at first.  As the beer warmed (since we all know a higher ABV usually changes profile as it warms...right?) though, there was a more pronounced roasted dark chocolate flavor with it.  Regardless of warm or cold temperature, there was a nice bitter dark chocolate bite at the finish along with some decent alcohol warming throughout.  

For me, the awesomeness didn't make it past the aroma.  I don't know what I was really expecting here because there's only so much you can do with a beer.  You don't REALLY want a peanut butter beer, but the essence of one.  You don't want chocolate in your beer, you want chocolate malts to get some of that flavor, but again, not all of it.  You can't just throw chocolate, marshmallow, and graham cracker into a wort boil and expect to get an awesome, knock your socks off S'Mohr's Beer.  See the name?  I tried it...it doesn't work...

Brewers have to flavor their beer with the same ingredients and some adjunct ones; malt, yeast, water, hops and whatever else the brewmaster can add within reason (and sometimes outside of the realm or normalcy).  I knew I wasn't getting a beer that tasted like a peanut butter and chocolate cookie, but I still expected it anyway.  

...how to say what I'm trying to say...let me try again.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I got exactly what I expected, but still wasn't blown away.  I'll give it a 3.5 out of 5 tonight.  Don't get me wrong, I'd say it's worth the try for sure, but I'm not sure I'll seek it out specially another time.  I, personally, still prefer Sweet Baby Jesus! for my palate's taste.  Not to mention I can mix it with Naked Fish for another, totally different beer...

I could try to mix Naked Fish with For Pete's Sake...Naked Pete?  For Fish's Sake? 

...definitely not Naked Kramer...this was to be a "mind blown" meme...I don't think it worked right...