Utah Brewery Map

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

New Beers from Mikkeller

Thanks for hanging in there y'all. This is the the slowest it's been here at Utah Beer for a couple of years. There's Just not a lot of local beer news happening right now.

I could throw a lot of national and international stuff your way, but let's face it. If it doesn't affect you, should I waist your time with it?

What I have for today does affect you if you live around the Wasatch Front. Two hard to get beers made their way to the Bayou, they sound fantastic.

"Better late than never", I say that a lot and it's true. We often get seasonal beers a little late for the Holiday they're meant to coincide with. This first beer is was meant for Easter, it will also work for the odd Wednesday in May.

Mikkeller Funky (e)★ [fung’ke e’st r] (Funky Easter). This is a wild fermented Belgian ale similar to Mikkeller's beer "It's Alive".

Compared to the It's Alive, the Funky e*star is higher in alcohol and fuller in body. If you are a fan of the wild ales then this one should be right up your back door. The Bayou only received 72 bottles, enough said.

I've had Mikkeller's Beer Geek Breakfast and Beer Geek Brunch and they are both exquisite, so I have high hopes for Rauch Geek Breakfast (also known as Mikkeller Beer Geek Bacon). This beer is brewed using the same recipe as their Beer Geek Breakfast Stout but with all the base malt replaced with smoked malt (Rauch).

The flavor is dominated by smoke, as a well as some coffee and chocolate. Many people shy away from smoked beers. This super full bodied beer is likely not for the timid.

Only 4 pallets of this beer came into the US so we are quite lucky that Mark got his nerdy little beer paws the minuscule 5 cases he got.

Cheers!

5 comments:

kent said...

I'll certainly be giving these a shot. Especially the wild fermented one. I'm a bit leery of smoked beers, how smoky is this one? Any reports?

Mikey said...

Smokeyyyyy! This is a peaty beast. Think scotch on a bed of espresso. Though It's not boozy beer around 7.5%.

Don't expect alot of tartness and sour from Funky Easter. This one is really mellow Sweet malt flavors kick things off and are joined by good amounts of grapefruit flavors balanced by a very mild funkiness. As you get into it, the funkiness takes over a bit and carries through to a mildly bitter ending. Yummy!

Mark said...

I really liked them both. The Funky E*Star is like a big Biere de Garde. Some funk but not too sour. Very nice. I could drink this one a lot (if we had more).

The Rauch Geek is a great sipper. I originally was going to share it with Kileen but she wasn't digging on it so I got it all to myself. It really grew on me the more I had of it. Smokey and roasty. Mikey nailed it when he says scotch on espresso.

Ricky H. said...

I love smoke beers, I can't wait to try to Geek Rauch. Thanks for letting me know Mikey.

---Ricky H.

Ricky H. said...

Yesterday a friend of mine and I stopped by and picked up a couple bottles of the Smoked Geek Breakfast. Damn, thanks sooooo much for posting this! It was bliss in a bottle, I am a huge fan of smoked beer of any type but especially stout. They said that they only had 40-ish bottles left, so I hope I can pop back in and drink a few more.

---Ricky H.