One nice thing about moving was that a pal from the OBC who came to help also brought me beer. Which, let’s face it, is required after moving a house. Or really, anything that is good or bad in equal doses.
There should be beer.
Point is, I was brought a Cascadian Dark Ale (link opens to a pdf) by one Jeremie Landers and have been using it to slake my thirst for the past week, so I thought I’d give him some ups on what is clearly a style of beer he loves to make.
Despite having had this style of beer a few times before, it’s still a little weird to pick up a dark beer and get a strong pine nose from it. However, if I drank it blindfolded, I’d say that it was an IPA with coffee notes and a really smooth body and I’d wonder; what’s not right about this IPA?
Now I can’t say I’m well versed in the style; coffee flavors are ones I approach with caution unless the next word is ‘cake’ but this is clearly not an IPA, not a porter and it’s pretty damn tasty. Unlike many CDAs Jeremie avoids the acrid coffee bitterness that tends to finish many beers of the style I’ve had, which is why I don’t drink many CDAs. I don’t like coffee and coffee dregs are awful: why let a beer finish that way?
But Jeremie’s beer doesn’t do that; it has a piney-resin bitterness at the end, which drops off quickly so the finish is very, very clean. It’s a damn fine ale and he’s right to proud of it.
