Beer Around Town

I dropped into Belmont this week, thought I’d maybe grab a glass of the notorious Black Albert and pick up a few bottles for the week. New on the shelves are the beers from Laughing Buddha. I’ve heard a bit about this new Seattle brewery, unique ingredients added into your standard common styles. With titles like Purple Yam Porter, Ginger Pale, and Mango hefe, there isn’t much mystery in what to expect. Now the only question, does it work?

The intro to Laughing Buddha for me was the Purple Yam Porter, a porter, heavy on the sweet vanilla and chocolate, milky smooth. The yams, they are there, soft in the finish. I’ll admit, I didn’t really care for the beer, but I don’t really like yams, in fact, the beer just rocked me back to being passed the dish of yams covered in marshmallow mush. So, overall, it’s not my thing, but I bet some grandmas out there might groove on this.

2nd up was the Pandan Brown Ale. Brewed with something called pandan leaf and palm sugar. Here is what is said about the ingredients:

Pandan Ale represents a major advancement in Asian style beers. It is a complex brown ale brewed with crystal, chocolate, and honey malts. We have also given it a Southeast Asian flair by adding palm sugar and pandan , a nutty and fragrant leaf. Pandan, also known as bai toey (Thai) and lá dua (Vietnamese), is considered an essential ingredient to Southeast Asian rice dishes and cakes. This is a truly unique and flavorful beer that you will enjoy. Pandan Ale is a dark, full-bodied beer that will complement spicy Thai and Indian curries, as well as savory Filipino and Indonesian stews.

Now to be fair to this beer (since I approach yams with extreme prejudice) I paired it with some Thai curry like suggested. Actually overall this was a pretty nice beer, stays on the sweeter side throughout, soft chocolate up front and a plum flavor lingers on into the finish. I can’t say it paired with the curry all that well, the sweetness overtook the spices in the curry, but this would probably be great with some Tso’s chicken or something a touch sweeter, but overall this was pretty nice.

I’ll update on the rest of them in the next few days.