Saw this bad boy in the store last night. The guy said it was good, we’ll see. The diff, a belgian style wit. Label says its brewed with malted barely, hops, yeast, orange peel, lemongrass, coriander and San Juan water. Now I’ve had my share of wits, white beers, wit style wheats, etc. Blue moon made the style popular to the general public, but an informed beer drinker knows there are much, much better examples of this style to be had. The Diff is the official beer of the Durango Independent Film Festival, and is a limited edition seasonal. I’m a fan of Ska, both the music and the brewery.One taste says it all. This shit is good. It bursting with flavor. The orange, coriander and lemongrass add such a wonderful character to this wheat beer. It doesn’t stop there. As a matter of fact, I think the aftertaste is even better than the initial flavor. An extended wheat finish thats fruity, yeasty and refreshing. The only thing that would make this beer better would be a sunny summer day. Seems perfect for a backyard barbeque. With the recent trend in belgian beers becoming a little stale, the Diff does make a diff. Perhaps a lot of the US breweries that are emulating belgian styles are still in their infancy. After they feel comfortable that they have reproduced the classic belgian style, they will begin to add their own personality into the beer to create a true masterpiece, a hybrid. Its like an art student that has to learn how to paint in the classic ways before she can really express herself. To me, Ska has captured this fusion of styles with the Diff, its a beer that pays homage to the classic belgians, yet carries a distinct colorado personality.
Here’s an interesting beer. The small Beer. What we have here is essentially a “lighter” version of Anchor’s Old Foghorn barleywine. Instead of tossing out the leftover mash when producing the Foghorn, they sparge it again, producing a much lighter mash and a much lighter less flavorful beer. Back in days of old, many breweries followed this procedure up to three times. What’s interesting to me is that this beer still has significant flavor - reminiscent of the Foghorn, but really has its own unique character. And while the concept of the small beer makes economical sense, I can’t help feeling like I’m getting sloppy seconds. Though, if I am to drink a light beer, it might as well be the hand-me-down of a great beer, rather than the american light beer-flavored water variety. Overall, a pale colored ale with a quickly dissipating porous white head. It has a mild, sweet malty nose, with a hint of aromatic hops. The flavor is enjoyable, highly drinkable, though unremarkable. I like it because its a small beer. In a blind taste test, or if you were to remove the label however, I think I would find this beer somewhat lacking.
I bought one of these a few nights ago, stashed it in the fridge and promptly forgot about it. Tonight I discovered it in the back of the fridge. I was about to go to bed, but I couldn’t resist. I’m a huge fan of this beer. Not only the flavor, but the concept, the size of the bottle - it all adds up to create one hell of a good beer. Far better than the 2006 if you ask me. I’m a pretty big fan of most California breweries though. An admitted hop addict to be sure. It has an extremely broader spectrum of hop flavor. Its extremely enjoyable to sit back and dissect all the flavors as you drink. They’ve packaged it brilliantly as well. A fat 24oz beer pretty much means that once you pop the top, you’re drinking two beers. And two 6.7% beers at that. Which pretty much sets you back for a bit, gives you some time to contemplate beer a bit and enjoy life for a bit. Which is what I’m doing right now.
