Illinois Is Getting Fatter
Steve Dahl Reminisces About Destroying Records
Kuma's Pats Itself On Back With Block Party
Chicagoan Involved In Mount Rushmore Ruckus
SUN-TIMES: BURRIS WON'T RUN IN 2010
One of our favorite seasonal beers at Chicagoist was Goose Island Oktoberfest lager. Our major issue with the beer was that the brewery always ran out of it by early September, right before Oktoberfest celebrations were just starting to kick into high gear. Besides, Goose Island's forte isn't lagers, anyway. With the exception of 312, they're all about brewing bold ales and bitters.
We were caught slightly by surprise when Goose Island retired their Oktoberfest beer and replaced it with their new Harvest Ale. This Extra Special Bitter lives up to the brewery's reputation and stands up to the scrutiny of fans of dark lagers who might be put off by the retiring of Oktoberfest. Harvest Ale is brewed using Washington Cascade hops and Midwestern toasted malt. When we decanted this beer, we could smell the hops immediately. The head on this beer was slight, but took a while to fade, leaving nice lacing on the glass. The Cascade hops lent a bright spice flavor to the beer to complement the caramel brown sugar sweetness of the malt. Harvest ale finished with a lingering, pronounced sweetness. It would be easy to classify Harvest Ale as a more accessible version of Honkers Ale, but that would be a disservice to both beers.
Best of all, Goose Island brewed enough Harvest Ale that we can still find it at the CVS pharmacy down the street from our house. Try it with some roast beef, a spicy soup like Mulligatawny, Cajun cuisine or cheddar cheese. Goose Island Harvest Ale is Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week."
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
Good pick. Though I don't like using quality beer for boiling, this beer is great for boiling ribs before you put them on the grill. Mix 2 beers and a beer bottle's worth of water with olive oil in a pan and shove in the oven for 45 minutes at 350F. Apply rub before you put it in the oven because it hurts trying to do it afterwards.
This beer keeps the ribs moist on the grill.
Goose island has always brewed wonderful Bitters. My notes date back to the "14 Year BItter" from 2002 that was cask conditioned. Every year, they changed it up, sometimes using UK hops (2003) and sometimes bumping up the alcohol level to nearly 7% (2006) and often filling it chock full of Pacific Northwest hops! Hats off to them for releasing a nice bottled version, just tasty enough for hopheads like me and hopefully just pedestrian enough that Bud/Miller/Coors drinkers try one and experience what a beer is supposed to taste like. Great choice. The Sierra Nevada Harvest is just arriving in the area, also, and is one of the best IPAs ever brewed in my opinion!
For folks looking for medium weighted alcohol contents, Harvest Ale comes in at around 5.7 percent by volume. So a couple go a long way here.
Decent pick. I really enjoy this seasonal. Much more hoppy and less sweet than some Okotberfests.
A lot breweries are moving away from Oktoberfests and releasing Harvests in their place. This is partly due to the hard time stores have selling beers labled Octoberfest once the month has passed.
FYI Goose Island had their old Oktoberfet on draft at the brewpubs.
There's also the fact that most Oktoberfests are kind of gross. This beer seems tamer in the bottle, but decent overall. I would much rather see this style as a fall offering than most of the crap that gets lugged out around this time (though at least they're better than the "summer" offerings)..
Oh, and using this to cook ribs? Ribs are gross to begin with. That's a waste.