Friday, May 24, 2013

Dandelion Wine, er, Beer

With all due respect to Mr. Bradbury, Dandelion Wine has passed. Long live dandelion beer! New Belgium releases another two new beers destined to make you forget that this is the same brewery that makes Fat Tire.
First up is the beer that has a list of ingredients as long as the one on a bag of Doritos: Paardebloem Ale (that's catchy.) utilizes dandelion greens, "Grains of Paradise" (can hear Jim Koch's voice talking about Samuel Adams Summer Ale..), and peach juice, and blends that beer along with wood-aged beer. Throw in Belgian yeast and you've got Paardeblom. Ima use that one in Words With Friends. $8.99 for a 22 oz. bottle at Whole Foods on Carlisle.
The second New Belgium release uses a more traditional, all natural ingredient: pluots. Monsanto come up with this hybrid of apricots and plums? Before you go boycotting this beer, give it some love for its easy to spell, non-Paardbloem name: Pluot. As in a beer made with pluots. I only have had two pluot beers- Russian River Compunction Sour and our local Goat Head Brewing's Pluot Sour. While this Tripel-inspired beer does use brettanomyces, there is only a mild funk compared to the influence of the pluots. You can also pick up this beer at the Carlisle Whole Foods as well as other liquor stores. Whole Foods has this 22 oz. bottle for $8.99.

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