Lineage Oscura Obscura
FORMER BUTCHER AND THE BREWER brewmaster Eric Anderson likes to have fun and mess with people—especially beer drinkers. He decided to call his raspberry wheat Framboyzee (pronounced fram-BOY-zee) because, over the years, he got tired of people mispronouncing framboise (pronounced fra-bwaz). He also opted to call his German hefeweizen Hasselhefe because Germans love them some David Hasselhoff of Baywatch fame.
But those beers pale in comparison to the Butcher and the Brewer’s Albino Stout, a brew so offbeat that it messes with your senses. It’s straw in color but features a robust coffee aroma and flavor. In other words, it’s a light-colored beer that tastes like a dark beer.
“If you drink it with your eyes closed, you’d think you’re drinking a dark beer,” Anderson says while sitting at the brewpub’s bar. “I just think it’s funny. It’s playful.”
The recipe stemmed from his frustration with beer drinkers who say they don’t like dark beer. Anderson wanted to poke fun at them and prove that a beer’s color doesn’t define its flavor.
The reactions after the first sniff and sip are precious. Many don’t know what to say. Anderson had planned to make Albino Stout just once. But the beer sold so well that it made its way into the brewery’s regular lineup.
“The one rule I live by is brew what you want to drink,” Anderson says. “That’s how I do it. What’s the point of copying everybody else? Every recipe I make starts from the ground up. I don’t clone Sierra Nevada and then try to tweak it like I want it. Everything starts from the bottom. It’s like being a chef.”
AlpenGlow
Fat Head’s Brewery | www.fatheadsbeer.com
Fat Head’s Brewery
Production brewery/tasting room:
17450 Engle Lake Drive
Middleburg Heights, Ohio 44130*
(216) 898-0242
Brewpub:
24581 Lorain Road
North Olmsted, Ohio 44070
(440) 801–1001
First brewed: 2010
Style: Weizenbock
Alcohol content: 8.5 percent
IBUs: 22
Awards: Gold medals in 2014 and 2016 and a silver medal in 2012 at the Great American Beer Festival
Available: Year-round, but availability varies
IF YOU LIKE THIS BEER, here are five other Ohio craft beers to try:
• Great Lakes Glockenspiel
• Willoughby St. Otto
• Market Garden Big Wheat
• Blank Slate Tank Bottoms
• Christian Moerlein Emancipator Doppelbock
QUICK, NAME THE FAT HEAD’S BEER that has been the biggest winner at the Great American Beer Festival. Be honest. Your answer was Hop JuJu (two golds and a bronze) or Head Hunter (a silver and a bronze), wasn’t it? Well, both of those are great guesses, given the brewery’s reputation for hoppy beers, but wrong—at least as of 2016.
AlpenGlow, a weizenbock, has taken home two gold medals and a silver.
“Has it won three times?” Fat Head’s co-owner and brewer Matt Cole says with a laugh. “I knew it was at least twice but I didn’t know it was three times. It’s a damn good beer.”
Weizenbocks are strong, dark Bavarian wheat beers. AlpenGlow was inspired by Schneider Weisse Aventinus, Pennsylvania Brewing Co.’s weizenbock, and a doppelbock that Cole made while working at Baltimore Brewing Co. He also gives heavy credit to Fat Head’s brewpub brewer Mike Zoscak for rounding the beer into award-winning shape.
Fat Head’s uses a variety of malts, including a bitter chocolate malt and Munich malt, which help mask the higher alcohol level.
“We like it to have a rich malt profile but also a lot of character of dried fruit and some subdued chocolate,” Cole says. “It’s really modeled after the classic Bavarian weizenbock beers.”
The real magic, though, happens when the brewery ferments AlpenGlow with a blend of German yeast strains. The blending adds a layer of complexity to the flavor and provides the banana, bubblegum, and clove characteristics that wheat beer fans crave. Fat Head’s also uses a process called free rise fermentation, allowing AlpenGlow to ferment as the temperature rises naturally over a period of time.
“It’s probably one of the most complex beers that we make,” Cole says. “We have a lot of pretty complicated beers. But it’s one of those beers that there are a lot of extra steps we do in the process.”
As for the name, AlpenGlow stems from a phenomenon experienced by many skiers. “When the sun sets on the backside of a mountain, you get this little bit of a glow, and it has these really deep mahogany ruby highlights,” Cole says. “It’s a really pretty beer.”
Note
*Opening November 2017
Anastasia Russian Imperial Stout
Weasel Boy Brewing Co. | www.weaselboybrewing.com
Weasel Boy Brewing Co.
126 Muskingum Ave.
Zanesville, Ohio 43701
(740) 455–3767
First brewed: 2007
Style: Russian imperial stout
Alcohol content: 8 percent
IBUs: 68
Awards: Gold medal in 2012 and bronze medal in 2010 at the Great American Beer Festival
Available: November through March on draft
IF YOU LIKE THIS BEER, here are five other Ohio craft beers to try:
