BEAR-ly Getting Started 11.1 - Peaches & Cream

Series 11 - Drinking Desserts. Jason and Craig open this fun series with a review of cream ales (see series 8.1 for more.) Then we dive in. We have so many questions as to what makes a beer like this so delicious. Much deserved praise of this and other great creations as this episode features Peaches and Queen from 903 Brewers of Sherman, Texas. 

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Transcript

Jason:

I got one question for you. Yes. If you go to a restaurant or you go someplace that has a dessert menu but you haven't seen said dessert menu, what's the one thing that you would hope that would be on that dessert menu?

If it's there, I'm getting mad.

Craig:

If I'm going to be like, if I'm going to indulge, I'm like a sucker for peanut butter. So usually it's like a peanut butter pie or something with peanut butter. Because usually that's also like something that they make in house versus like, I do love a carrot cake and I do love a red velvet, but most times, like I'm not like a tiramisu guy or anything, but peanut butter or something.

Jason:

I'm tiramisu. You're tiramisu? Yeah.

Craig:

I like tiramisu. Because some people are like, oh, they got tiramisu. Because my wife is 100% creme brulee.

Like if there's a creme brulee, she's usually getting it. And if it's like a peanut butter pie or a peanut butter tort or anything with peanut butter, I'm usually like, well, that's what I'll be getting.

Jason:

I literally just got the other day, some Jamaican creme brulee coffee. So we're going to see how it is because I'm a sucker for creme brulee too. All right, good.

That's a good, that's a good stepping off question. And why? Because we're talking about dessert beers.

That's right. I have a few favorites that are in my fridge at home. None of which that we're doing here because I, you know, these aren't readily available year round, A.

And B, some of them I don't have access to all the time as well. But this is going to be a good layout. This is a good selection that you put together.

Craig:

Yeah. You know, the last series that we just did was, you know, we went through our normal, with our cultures. We did our styles.

And I was like, all right, we want to keep this going. And I want to continue to have these themes. So the last series we did was that Perfect Pairings, where it was a beer that just had, you know, a base style paired with one additional flavor.

And we were like, this is a perfect pairing for that beer. So then I'm looking on the shelf for, okay, what can we do another series of at least four beers of? And you know, I grabbed a couple and I was like, all right, these are very dessert-ish style beers.

And I also don't want to try like, here's four different styles and we're just going to talk about the different adjuncts that are in each stout. I try to find different base styles so that we can also talk about that base style a little bit as a recap, even if we did it in another series some point. Talk about the base style and then how the added flavors blend with that base style to give us the overall impression and, you know, final product that is the brew.

And I was like, all right, I was able to grab four good ones that I thought would make for decent enough episodes. And you know, I got to come up with some sort of cliche and, you know, my alliteration or iteration of, you know, this is Drinking Desserts. I think we are something similar to that.

Delightfully desserts. Hold on.

Jason:

Delightfully Desserts.

Craig:

Drinking Desserts. Delightful. Drinking Dessert.

Jason:

Yeah. Drinking Desserts. Okay.

Craig:

So Drinking Desserts and I was like, let me see if I can find four dessert-ish beers or things that this isn't something that you're just going to drink a ton of like a lager. It's something that's meant kind of for dessert. So that has brought us to my first selection, which is from 903 Brewers.

They make some very interesting stuff.

Jason:

Fun, fun, fun.

Craig:

And I was tempted to go with one of their stouts because I probably have four still on the shelf that are all dessert-based, whether it's a cookie, like I have a macaroon stout. I have a haystack, which is like a peanut butter cookie stout from them. And then you name it, I've got a couple other that just are just decadent stout desserts.

Jason:

I think we had a chocolate chip cookie stout this winter that we picked up someplace and we ended up having that.

Craig:

And the stouts were always like 10%-ish. And I was like, I don't know if we need to do all these. You remember what happened the last time.

Yes, when we do all the high ABVs. But one thing they do awesome, they call it their cremaled treatment. They have these flavored cremales.

And it's kind of like, you know, stouts have pastry stouts and fruited sours have the smoothie style sours and others where, you know, you can just add a lot of fruit puree and you can add a lot of sweet marshmallow, peanut butter, jelly, jams, whatever to a stout. And they just kind of go together well with it. But there's not a ton of other base stouts.

You know, the wheat beer, like we talked about last series, the raspberry wheats, and you see a lot of flavored wheat beers, but you don't see a lot of, like, a bunch of different flavors added. It's usually like that single note, like that raspberry wheat we talked about last series. So this is 903's Peaches and Queen.

And the can is of a Mario reference of Peach, Princess Peach. And there's coins and they've got the blocks that you hit to get coins and power ups as well as the pipe to go down into the sewers. So one, you know, just got a nice label to catch your eye, nice pink.

But the Peaches and Queen is a take on peaches and cream. And in this case, peaches and buttercream flavored cream ale. And what I love about their cream ales, one, is they're a good price point.

So it's one of those, oh, if we try it and it's not what we want, it's not like, oh, I just spent $10 because it's a heavily fruited sour or it's inexpensive, high ABV stout. And I'm like, okay, I'm either dumping this or I got to drink the rest of this 10% amalgamation. So these, you know, like this is six bucks here and end up being $3.50 to take it to go. They do a banana pudding. I have had a pineapple upside down cake, all cream ales. There was a carrot cake.

I was tempted to grab that, but you know, we'll see why I didn't go with that. Also there's plenty of stouts out there. So I was like, let me utilize 903 for their, their cream ale.

And what they do is they add so much flavor. I don't know how they do it because this beer actually finishes like beer, whereas fruited smoothies style, like sours, there's a lot of people like this is actually beer where, you know, the first one I had of this was a rice crispy, peanut butter, rice crispy treat cream ale from 903. And it literally tastes like, yeah, it's, you taste like the rice crispy treat.

You taste the peanut butter. They also have peanut butter crunch where it's you like a tape on Captain Crunch and it tastes like the cereals, but it still finishes like a beer. And I'm like, I don't know if I really like this or don't really like it because it almost tastes like we just, instead of using milk, we poured a beer into our cereal.

And I don't think I would be doing that, but as a 12 ounce can to just enjoy at a reasonable price, they are really good. Because the carrot cake one, I was telling some people, I was like, you should try that because it literally tasted like carrot cake all the way down to the buttercream frosting. And then I finished with like this little bit of cream ale flavor to it.

So you know, I have had this peaches and queen, but I'll dissect it more when we pour it, but it's a 5%. So again, nothing too crazy. And it's one of those where you could tell they just do buttercream well, because I have had the buttercream in this beer and I've had the buttercream with the, or maybe I'm confusing myself.

The carrot cake might've been the cheesecake or the cream cheese icing versus buttercream. So they've got their frostings and their creams down this 903. But this is something that you would just think of for dessert.

I don't know. I mean, I'm from Niagara Falls originally, so we always had the peach festival in Lewiston very close by. And the big thing there was like a peach cobbler, or they basically had a little bit of like a crumble, but it was mainly just peaches with whipped cream.

So peaches and cream always resonates with me because it was, you know, like this once a year festival and then turned out to be a nice treat when you went to the festival because you can't go to the peach festival without getting the peaches and cream and so on and so forth. But when you think base beers, I don't usually think of a cream ale, you know, we've, no, I think we did do, yeah, we did that Captain Suburbia or Cream Ale is an American, cheers to American beers because Cream Ale is, you know, an American beer. It was once called Present Use Ale because it was just the ale for the time being.

And it was literally right after prohibition when people were demanding their beer, lager takes a little while. So cream ales kind of are very light in flavor and it's an ale, so it's brewed at higher temperature, there's a little bit more leeway in brewing ales as well as it doesn't take as long to condition. So you can just churn it out faster, but it was brewed to kind of taste and replicate the, you know, the certification you get from drinking a light crisp lager.

The other thing that cream ales had quite a bit of was corn because a lot of corn in America so they were using that as one of the grains to get some fermentable sugar. So those were kind of the things, you would get like a sweet corn kind of aftertaste, not like biting in a corn on the cob, but just a little bit of that sweetness that has that kind of creamy taste to it. And then you had, you know, light crisp and high carbonation.

And that makes a nice base because there's not a ton of flavor to it. So you can add to it where, you know, some other base beers might have a lot going on, especially with the high hopping rates or whatnot. So a cream ale does make for something just like a wheat beer makes a good base to add a lot of different flavors to.

So you know, without further ado, I bring it to you to see as I start to pour and before we do a cheers and dissect this beer, any questions or comments or anything you want to add about this beer we're going to enjoy?

Jason:

No, and you know, my thing is I enjoy a good dessert beer. I have a few, like I said, I have my cooler, one of my favorites being Mary Jane's Vale, which is a hazelnut stout that comes out of Upstate Brewing Company down in Watkins Glen. I think they're down in Elmira, New York as well down there.

The callback on the cream ale episode, barely getting started, 8.1 episode 130 of the Buffalo Brews podcast.

Craig:

Look at that.

Jason:

Yeah. Yeah. The Captain's Suburbia from Peacemaker Brewing out in Canandaigua.

And you'll learn everything, the, what is it, the something sulfide that is used that's specific to making cream ale is the dimethyl sulfide.

Craig:

There's usually some DMS that's allowed, the dimethyl sulfide. There it is. Yeah.

So, and DMS kind of has like a cooked vegetable or a creamed corn. It's one of those flavor compounds that taste different in the beer that it's in, as well as those who are drinking it. So some people, and this is one of the things that was tested on the Cicerone exam, but some people it comes across as like cabbage, vegetal, almost sauerkraut.

And some people it's just like, wow, no, that's totally creamed corn. And then in dark beers, it comes across as like tomato juice or like tomato puree, even like tomato paste. You can kind of just get the end.

So it kind of just takes a form of its own based on who's drinking and what it's in. And I think, you know, cream ales, when judged, if there's a small level of DMS that, you know, it is okay, it's acceptable, but it's still not, should, should never be too much or clearly present. It's just like a hint.

Jason:

And you guys playing along with the home game, it's DMS, not DMX. So it's like what, you know, drink that cream, drink that cream, 903 Brewers out of Sherman, Texas. There we go.

Yeah. They've, they've had quite a few award winners in their history. So a little cheers.

Craig:

I'm going to take a waft and a sip. Oh, that's fun. I mean, buttercream rain on the nose.

It's like, right. And buttercream, if you don't know buttercream, there's a lot of butter, you know, it's, I've made buttercream before. I'm like, oh, wow.

Like sometimes baking your own stuff is not the best because you realize what you've been eating and I'm like, okay, this is sugar and butter, you know, maybe a pinch of salt to make it go together. And obviously a little vanilla. It's not a royal icing where you just have sugar that's hardened.

But buttercream is just this whipped and I mean, there's a reason why it's such a luxurious kind of silky, delicious topping for cakes and whatever it goes in because it is creamed butter with sugar. And when you smell this, it smells like that outer layer on anything that would have buttercream and you just are like, I want a corner piece of that cake.

Jason:

So I can get that Wegmans birthday cake that they ordered me two edges of right there. Yep. We didn't cheers.

We got cheers. I thought we cheers.

Craig:

We didn't cheers.

Jason:

We did not cheers. We cheers. And the tape.

Craig:

I said, we're going to do a cheers and I'm going to do a swirl and a snip.

Jason:

And also there's one episode of the last series. We did not cheers as well. I believe it was 10.3. I believe we didn't.

Craig:

We are at 11. Yeah. The first, uh, all right.

Now we're in the, the second, uh, what's it called? It's decade with years, but we've started the second, the second, uh, the second 10 series, which we'll make it to 20. But yeah, if we go back, we'll get to the 20s, don't you worry.

I like it. I, as I'm sipping it more or sniffing it more and more, you get that underlying peach and it's, again, these guys do it. I don't know how they get the flavor in without it being super thick.

And I don't know if it's extracts. I don't know if it's, they're literally using peaches. Um, cause it's not, you know, it's not a clear beer, but it's, no, there's, there's nothing floating in there.

It's right.

Jason:

And there was no head retention with this. Once you poured it, it was, it was head, then it was gone.

Craig:

It's, you know, there's definitely something going on in here to get these flavors as spot on as they are. But like it's the type of peach where it's like, it tastes like not just the, it's not the outer flesh. It's when you get to that slightly, you know, pinkish reddish, uh, purplish part of the peach towards the pit.

Um, you get like all the flavors of the peach and that smell, it smells like ripe peaches. And then you take the sip. It's not super sweet.

It's not, um, over, uh, peachy or butter creamy. It's a nice blend of the two. And it does finish with like just a hint of bitterness.

It doesn't have as much the beer grain aftertaste as some of the other cream mouths that they have.

Jason:

The tiniest bit of tart on the back of it.

Craig:

Yeah. And then, you know, looking at the color one, you know, it has your typical beer color that is also blended with what peach juice would probably look like. I haven't really drank too much peach juice.

I mean, I guess, um, I try to avoid it personally, you know what, to be honest, I do have some peach nectar to make bellinis with on the weekends, but that's like a very thick and it's a lot darker than this. But I mean, this does have kind of like, you know, the white peach kind of vibe to it. When you look at the color, definitely hazy, you know, not opaque, but can't see through it.

It's not a super clear beer. You know, some of those wheat beers we've had or flavored beers are still crystal clear and they've just got that flavor to them. So you can tell they've been filtered.

So this, this looks to be an unfiltered beer, um, you know, you brought up not a ton of head retention. Um, but one of those that tastes like it smells and finishes still with a little bit of, you know, there's, there's a nice roundness to this where yes, it's sweet. Yes.

It's like a dessert beer, but it's not cloyingly sweet. It is not so decadent that, you know, I wouldn't be able to finish a full one of them. Am I putting down three of these during a session?

Probably not, but would I enjoy one of these after dinner, especially, you know, when I think of the peach festival and this might just be from personal reference, but peaches, they're, you know, they're more of a summertime vibe. I know you kind of get them if they're a cold weather fruit as well, but I feel like a lot of times peaches, um, you know, peaches, ice cream, peaches, cream, peach pie, anytime stone fruit, you see a lot of that in the summertime and I could see this being a warm weather just light, easy drinking, a sweet little finisher for a dinner or it's also, I think makes probably a good brunch or like breakfasty beer.

Jason:

So good. This could be fun. You could, uh, you could throw this in with a little, um, little Prosecco and this could be fun.

Craig:

Yeah. It's, um, you know, kind of like if you have like a peach jelly or jam or you put some peaches with your, your breakfast and then obviously buttercream shows up and I'm just cream on different types of waffles, pancakes, you name it. There's places that, um, are definitely doing dessert for breakfast.

Jason:

Play around with that. Um, who's it like Ballyhoo or, or, or it might've been Swanee house before they closed. Um, used to do where they would pour the beer and then they had this selection of jams that was underneath the bar and then they would add a spoonful of jam into it and give it a whip.

Craig:

Well, that sounds so Ballyhoo. That's how I know they do their cocktail. So I can see.

Okay. Then that's probably, that's probably what I remember then because I was like them, yeah, their cocktails instead of having like, you know, a strawberry puree or that they would use jams as the base. And um, that was always interesting, uh, with their beverage program.

So yeah, I can, you know, it's one of those that, um, you know, kind of when you think of jams, it's more of that like marmalade or, uh, you know, not so much. It's nice not to just always have a berry. Uh, berries are so prevalent.

Sure. The stone fruit and the peach in this, it's, it's nice to have just a different, cause a lot of times with a hops, you will get like peach orine hops and other, uh, a lot of the New Zealand and new world hops have a lot of nectarine and stone fruit vibes to them, but you're, you're just getting that from the hop and it's very subtle at best. And sometimes they're, you know, they're definitely like, oh yeah, I taste that stone fruit in there, but it's, it's just a part of the hop flavor, not an actual peach.

Jason:

Once you get those oils in there, then it's a, it's a thing.

Craig:

But uh, this, you know, like I said, the peach adds a little lightness to it versus super heavy berries and cream. Uh, even though, you know, like I said, you sniff this, you know, that there's cream involved. There's obviously, cause a lot of times when there's a whipped cream component or a cream component, it's like, oh yeah, vanilla.

And this isn't just vanilla. You smell it and it smells like somebody who's got the piping bag out and then you taste it and you're like, yes, that's vanilla. But I almost feel like I've just run my finger across the edge of a cake board where there's that little, just nice bit of frosting that stuck to the board after someone served the cake and you're just like, oh, well that's for me, I guess.

And you ended up trying a little bit more.

Jason:

Sometimes you just hope the spatula isn't completely clean from, from putting everything in the, in the pan to bake. Oh yes. It's like, yeah, could you take this over to the sink?

Yeah, after I'm done with it. Yeah.

Craig:

I remember it's one of those things that I, um, like I don't have egg beaters. I don't know what I, I, you know, usually use like a stick blender or something or a KitchenAid. I have a KitchenAid and that's me.

But my mom used to have the, but she would have you, you'd, she'd, you know, me and my brother hand us each one of the beaters and we got to clean the beater.

Jason:

Sometimes when they, mom's tapping the beater a little too much, I'm like, yeah, he's up on the top of there.

Craig:

Leave a little meat on the bone.

Jason:

That's right.

Craig:

Yeah.

Jason:

There you go. Yeah. Um, yeah, this is one where if somebody said, Hey, you like peach?

You know, I got, I got this for, you know, for a little dessert beer. You like peach? Yeah.

I don't mind peach. And then they pour this. I'd be like, all right.

Yeah. Okay.

Craig:

Yeah. You see a lot of peaches sometimes in mead. I see a lot of peach and stone fruit.

Jason:

Uh, but for a beer, very prevalent in mead.

Craig:

You know, I, I think they pulled this off very well. It is exactly as advertised as peaches and queen. Um, but being buttercream, so buttercream 10 out of 10, the usage, it is not super, super just sugary, uh, sweet and it's not over the top vanilla.

It literally tastes like buttercream. So good job on that. The peaches come through definitely.

If you didn't tell me it was peach, I would know or I would be leaning towards a stone fruit. Um, so that comes through. And then like I said, it still has a little bit of bitterness, a little bit.

And that bitterness as in, it's actually good cause it's balancing the sweetness of the peach and the buttercream. Um, but it kind of brings it home as, yeah, you're still drinking a beer. This isn't a wine cooler.

This isn't a soda. This is, this is a grain based beverage that we just decided to, uh, turn into a dessert for drinking.

Jason:

Well, to finish it out then I guess on the Mario theme. So, you know, peaches and queen, we've got princess peach there, but, uh, but I guess she's heavy as the head that wears the crown. She's got, she now has the queen crown and, and, uh, you know, I guess we can say one up to, uh, yeah, to this beer then.

Yeah. All right. All right.

Then, then, then, so that's one up and then one down in this three to go. Yeah. Three to go in drinking desserts.

You are listening to barely getting started. This is series 11 and I'm talking with Craig Altobello, who is the, uh, the, the, uh, all things magic in the magic bear. He is the bear.

He is the magic in the magic bear. And I am your humble host of the Buffalo Brews podcast, Jason Edinger. And we say cheers.