Because I have nothing better to do this evening than move the assorted flotsam from my laptop off onto a portable drive - a 1Tb drive; now I feel old, I remember the days when you only got 140kb on a disc etc - I thought I might as well have a beer. Never had a Leelanau beer before, so I opened up a Petoskey Pale.


Another of the US imports from beermerchants.com, this classes itself as a pale ale aged in oak casks. Clean, simple beer then, right? Wrong. Petoskey Pale is a darn site more complex than the label lets on. It poured a hazy amber, a strong surge of carbonation leading to an intense head eventually collapsing under its own weight into brilliant white pinpricks.

The aroma belies the simple 'pale ale' tag. There's brett here but it's.... tangential. It's the fruits that are driving me mad... what the hell are they? Is that peach? One that's been steeped in a fragrant white wine? Even strawberry? Just a hint, mind, of those bits of over-ripe ones crushed in the bottom of a punnet when you pick your own.

Those sweeter flavours are carried along with a pleasing sour note and a surprising light citric hop feel. The brett keeps itching away and there's some lovely floral notes towards a pronouncedly sourer finish. Decent dryness throughout leaves a layer of near-herbally vineous flavours to play with around your palate.

I like surprises - that's why I take all the labels off the tin cans in the store cupboard so I never know what's going on my toast - spaghetti, custard... clams. And here's a genuinely surprising beer. A pale ale, Grand Cru, sour yet calm, barrel aged yet spritely and fresh, dry yet fulfilling. Perhaps it's not a surprise that Leelanau beers are brewed over at Jolly Pumpkin; Ron Jeffries has plenty of pixie dust to go around and it's put to great use in Petoskey Pale.

As you can tell from the picture, Ratebeerians seem to like the beer too. I was surprised to find that I was the first UK rater, though. I know it's not widely available, but I would have though a few hardcore raters would have tracked it down by now. My advice - go get some. NOW!

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I should have spent the day sorting out the Scoopies awards, but instead I decided to plough through 500 emails and then slice my hand open on the fractured neck of a bottle of fizzy stuff. So, with the blood swabbed from the laptop and a beer needed to ease my beating heart, it must be time to uncork Lost Abbey's Gift Of The Magi.


Let's dispense with my dearest darling's words of wisdom first. "It's not like potpourri" proved to be a stunningly accurate impression of the aroma, although the bulldog-licking-piss-off-a-nettle face followed by "it tastes better after a slurp of Coca Cola" doesn't somehow sum up the complexity that you feel Tomme Arthur intends with this beer.

It pours an interesting burnt orange body, with a spongy off-cream head folding like a cheap hooker who got punched in the stomach. Yes, Joey, that's the way I play poker too. There's orange peel, there's cinnamon (fair play to Mrs Reluctant, that was her first impression) but there's also an sourness (in a healthy, Belgian way) and a fair amount of Brettyness.

I had wondered about laying this down for next year - every other sip says I should have done (lose the sharpness, mellow the brett). Yet every other other sip says GREEN LIGHT GO for the fresh spice feel, raw lemon, more funk than a drummer strung out on Bolivian marching powder.

There's warmed turned earth, yesterday's pissy straw, liquid bread.... it's fun to drink but just a little, ahem, challenging on the palate. Truth be told, there are times when it feels like it's sticking in my clack a bit. Was that warm licorice? A cruel and unusual spice that's been recently relieved all over?

Having consulted the back bottle label, I now, like, totally get the Magi reference - gold beer made with some frankincense and myrrh. Yeh, the Frankenstein and Grrrr are clearly evident - WTF? I particularly liked the ratebeer review that said "I really need to smell Frankincense and Myrrh again to figure out what they are contributing here". Hint; if you've just written down seven different aromas and flavours and you're still left with something you still can't quite put your finger on, I wouldn't worry much about it. Like beeswax on an old oak table, I figure those Yemen resins are there to lift the beer to a higher plain, not to define its soul.

It's enjoyable, just not as enjoyable as I'd hoped. Rather like suffering Sunday school to join the Thursday night youth club only to find the snooker table was only half size. Yet there's a certain joy in continually topping up the glass, refunking the beer, blossoming the head, loosing an aroma that switches from fresh to dirty faster than a convent girl with a late pass.

I started off intrigued, became disillusioned and now have grudging admiration for certain aspects of its outlook. Insert your own religious allegory here.

Thanks to beermerchants.com for the beer
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