It’s yet another brand-new-postcard-elba-segment for your enjoyment! Our good friend Virgil Dickerson from Suburban Home (you may remember our chat with him last week – found here) will be giving us a weekly review of his favorite Craft Beers in a segment we’re calling Virgil’s Beer of the Week.
For his first entry, he tackles Great Divide’s Grand Cru, and offers a contest for the readers. Read ahead brave potential contest winner!
Postcard Elba asked me if I’d be willing to contribute a beer of the week, and you don’t usually have to ask me twice to talk about one of my favorite passions in life, Craft Beer. As a note to anyone who might consider reading these weekly beer reviews, note that I will keep it brief, will do my best not to sound like an asshole (i.e. smelled malt and yeast tones, tasted notes of vanilla and grapefruit, etc), and will do my best to approach these reviews as how I might tell a buddy what I thought of a great beer I just had. As with all reviews, if you find something interesting, don’t take my word for it, go and seek it out and make your own opinion. There are worse things you can be doing than trying a new beer.
Great Divide is my hometown brewery and happens to be one of my favorite breweries in the world. One thing I have always loved about Great Divide is their ability to make most styles of beers and make them really well. Grand Cru often refers to a more elaborate version of a type of beer, but in this case, Grand Cru is its own offering. The style is described as a Belgian-style dark ale.
If you have had the opportunity to taste a number of the Belgian beers out there, you could compare this to a Chimay but Grand Cru is the bigger/stronger American cousin. At 11.5 percent alcohol, it doesn’t take long to feel the effects of this beer. I recently made a rule to try and only drink beers above 10 percent alcohol at home as I find I get myself in trouble when I set out on a path of imbibing those drinks at my favorite brewery. I made an exception the first time I drank this beer and did so on an empty stomach. That, my friends, is not recommended.
Back to Grand Cru, the things that stick out most to me are the similarities to Belgian ales in taste and feel and the sweetness that is way out in front. I burnt myself out on Belgian beers a few years back, but Grand Cru is a refreshing take on the classic style. Whether you are a fan of Belgium style ales, I highly recommend giving this beer a chance. Sold in 22 oz bombers or hopefully on tap at a great bar near you. Share this one with friends.
If you happen to live in Colorado, this is a big weekend for beer drinking. Avery has their annual Strong Ale festival this weekend and I might have just lucked into 2 free tickets. The Strong Ale Fest goes on tonight and tomorrow. Tomrrow, Bristol Brewery is having a firkin festival and unfortunately, other commitments are keeping me away from what should be a great day of beer drinking. Thanks Postcard Elba for the opportunity to write about beer.
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Virgil Dickerson
www.suburbanhomerecords.com
And now…the contest: Can you guess what brewery the pint glass in the photo is from? We will draw one lucky winner from all the correct guesses and that person will win one album of their choice from Suburban Home Records. Email your guess to postcardeditor@gmail.com
Virgil Dickerson is the owner of Suburban Home Records. Support his beer habit by supporting his fabulous label by checking out one of these recent and upcoming SH releases.
Out Now:
I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch In the House “The Sounds of Dying” LP/CD, Two Cow Garage “Sweet Saint Me” LP/CD, The Gamits “Parts” LP/CD. Austin Lucas “Collection” LP/CD, Micah Schnabel “When The Stage Light Goes Dim” LP/CD
Coming Soon:
Michael Dean Damron “Plea From a Ghost” LP/CD, Josh Small’s Juke LP/CD, Under the Influence Volumes 1-10 dbl LP/CD, Drag the River “Hobos Demos/Chicken Demos” LP/CD, Ruiner/Attica Attica UTI 7″, Cheap Girls/Noise By Numbers UTI 7″, Dead to Me/Flatliners UTI 7″
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