- Bottoms Up (RSS)GABF: A beer that’s right for the time: Wynkoop Obamanator
By William Brand
Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 12:23 pm in Uncategorized.
Anybody who reads this blog knows that although I strive for impartiality in beer and everything else, I don’t have a drop of Republican blood in my body. So, when I made it into Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s Wynkoop brewpub Sunday for lunch, I immediately ordered a sampler of Obamanator.
It’s Wynkoop’s tribute to Barack Obama. It’s in the German maibock style, 6.7 percent, a clear copper color with a beautiful head of crisp, white foam.
Truth-telling time: I love Wynkoop, it’s the pioneering brewpub in what used to be a desolate part of Denver. Wynkoop opened in an old warehouse and things began to happen, not the least of which was nearby Coors Field with its very nice Sandlot Brewery.
But the beer? I’ve never been a big fan. It’s very good beer, but to me it falls short of great. That’s how I rate Obamanator: TWO AND ONE-HALF STARS. Great name, but just an all-right beer. The beer tastes dry, lacks the great biscuit malt taste of a champion Maibock. Certainly, I’d drink it again, but a champ it is not.
Swallowing my words, I also sampled three most-excellent Wynkooo beers:
- Wynkoop Wixa Weiss won gold in the South German-style hefeweizen category at the GABF Saturday. I agree. It’s an excellent beer: Unfiltered pale lemon color, cloves on the nose, malty, spicy taste and lots of spice and cloves in the finish. THREE STARS PLUS
- Wynkoop B3K won gold in the German-Style schwarzbier category: An opaque brown with a striking roast malt nose, taste is dry with lots of black and roast malt in the finish.
- Wynkoop’s Green Chile Beer THREE STARS. Excellent. Lots of chile spice, but well-balanced. The mild chiles don’t overpower the malt. It has striking balance. I’ll drink this one again.
My fave chile -spiced beer is Eske’s Green Chile Bees FOUR STARS, found only at Eske’s Brewpub & Eatery in Taos, NM. Like Wynkoop’s Steve Eskeback’s beer has great balance, but it’s on a grander scale: Bigger malt and rising, intense, chile heat, but not burning and searing like Cave Creek’s chile beer. Summary: Both Wynkoop’s and Eske’s are highly recommended.
Photos; Top, the Wynkoop brewpub, Right: Obamanator.
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October 13th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Ah, Eske’s!!
Being born and raised not far from Taos, I remember many nights there back in the early nineties. I think they had just opened.
Eske’s was one of the brewpubs that brought me around to good beer (along with the now defunct Hubcap Brewery in Vail, Co, where I lived later on). I’ve told stories of their Green Chili Beer to anyone that would listen for at least fifteen years now.
The thing about New Mexico Green Chili is that it has a flavor profile unlike any other pepper in the world. For native New Mexicans, no other chili even comes close, and we take our chili VERY seriously!
Eske’s always brought out the characteristics of the chili so nicely and made it fit into the flavor of the beer, nobody had heard of such a thing way back then and hardly anyone pulls it off decently even today.
Thanks Bill, for mentioning one of my blasts from the past! I’ll drink a Bert and Ernie Barley Wine tonight just for the hell of it.
Cheers
October 13th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Wow Dave, you and me both. I’ve been a green chile fan since I was a kid. We have family in New Mexico, so we visit a lot.
I discovered Steve Eskeback when he had a tiny brewery at Embudo Station on the way to Taos. I was fascinated with how he made a science of it. He’s always used only one kind of chile, grown down by Las Cruces. He said last year the chiles are getting really hard to find.
If you have Eske’s barley wine, you must go to Taos occasionally. Next time you do, drink one for me.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:40 am
I know Embudo Station well… You’ve gotta love a restaurant that you can pull up to in your raft or kayak!
The chili is from Hatch, nothing else like it on the face of this earth! My father “puts up” two bushels a year for me and then mails it. I may have the only house in the Bay Area with Hatch green chili available 365 days a year.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Dave, Haven’t gotten to the Wyncoop recently but will have to go “see”. I assume you’ve tried Coopersmith’s Sigda’s Green Chili beer (Ft. Collins)? One of the better balanced chili beers imho. Now I have to get to Wyncoop to compare. thx.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Unfortunately, I have not., Haven’t been to Ft. Collins in a while. Let us know what you think of Wynkoop’s. Don’t suppose Coopersmith bottles theirs?