The Brew Guru tastes Shipwrecked Door County Cherry Wheat, or, What took so long?

This week’s brew: Beer

Style: Light American lager

Brewed by: The Dharma Initiative

Availability: Production peaked in 1979, in one reality. Your best bet today is abandoned vans in the jungle.

What it’s like: Schlitz, before they fixed the formula.

In the glass: Through the watery body, the dominant flavor is syrupy corn with grassy notes imparted by shoddy brewing or by unintentional lagering in the sweltering rainforest. A musty character is no doubt a result of the latter.

Backwash: It might not be half bad ice cold out of a Barracks fridge, but that was a long time ago. Dharma didn’t cut corners with its electromagnetic control manifolds, its jumpsuits or its Merlot, but it had to save money somewhere, and that was clearly its Beer. Dharma ignored the nascent microbrew revolution, aiming instead squarely at the middle of the Beer market: the janitor or workman, ready for a cold Beer or 10 after a long day of being dogged by Horace.

This week’s real brew: Door County Cherry Wheat.

Style: Wheat ale.

Brewed by: Shipwrecked Restaurant, Brew Pub & Inn, Egg Harbor.

Availability: Try it straight from the tap at the brew pub, which is currently running at winter hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sundays. Shipwrecked beers also can be found in bottles (sans message) at some area liquor stores.

What it’s like: Don’t hear “wheat” and expect the fluffy body of a hefeweizen like Paulaner or Hacker Pschorr. This beer is closer to Leinie’s Berry Weiss, with cherries subbed in for the berries and the size of the beer cranked up a smidge.

In the glass: As with most cherry beers, the most unusual ingredient in this brew announces its presence immediately and forcefully even before the first taste. And as with most cherry beers, that flavor takes a back seat on the palate. There’s a hint of the cherry sourness, but the grain dominates, which is too bad because it’s pretty flat with a nondescript bitterness that seems out of place. The cherry creeps in again on the tongue between sips, a building and lingering aftertaste that’s quite pleasant. Other than that, Cherry Wheat finishes clean and is quite sessionable.

Backwash: A brew pub in Door County makes so much sense (during the summer, at least) that it’s surprising it took this long for one to open. This beer – the only Shipwrecked beer The Brew Guru has tried, out of a handful of styles – isn’t great. But it should be good enough to satisfy the tourists and perhaps good enough to attract local beer fans so Shipwrecked at least breaks even during winter.

2½ mugs (out of four)

A sad note: The world lost a true original last week when Andy Nelesen – Press-Gazette reporter, former BrewBaker’s staffer and Summerfest heavy – died at the cruel age of 38. Andy, the big galoot at left in the photo at right, with The Brew Guru and close friend Julie - loved good times. People with gas-powered, trunk-mounted daiquiri blenders rarely don’t. One of The Brew Guru’s fondest memories of Andy was sharing our first New Glarus Brewing Co. tour. While The Brew Guru reveled in the details – technique, ingredients, equipment – Andy saw it as something much simpler and purer: a pilgrimage to the birthplace of his favorite beer, Spotted Cow. Cheers, big guy. We all miss you already.

The Brew Guru tastes Point Whole Hog Six Hop IPA, or, At least they tried

Anyone find it ironic that the line “lookin’ like a fool” is in the “song” that Brett Favre serenaded his purple-clad teammates with last Sunday?

Besides, this rendition is better:




This week’s brew: Whole Hog Six Hop IPA

Style: India pale ale

Brewed by: Stevens Point Brewery, in the middle of Wisconsin’s “hand” (which only works if the hand has a badly dislocated thumb).

Availability: Six Hop is part of Point’s new Whole Hog series of limited release beers, which come in four-packs priced higher than Point’s usual sixers.

What it’s like: A garden-variety IPA from one of the many middlin’ West Coast breweries – Pyramid’s Thunderhead, perhaps – with the ABV cranked up to 8.7 percent.

In the glass: This beer pours a comely copper but doesn’t hold up to the promise the eye beholds. Six Hop – those would be Pacific Northwest varities Cascade, Cluster, Perle, Sterling, Willamette and Tettnanger, if you’re keeping track – lives up to its name, on the nose and exploding in citrus and flowers on the tongue. But it puts all its effort in the bitter yin of a good IPA and not enough into the sweet yang. The body – a hefty enough malt needed to balance all that bitterness – seems lacking. It’s a pitfall that makes a truly great IPA so hard to find despite what seems like every brewery’s best efforts.

Backwash: The Brew Guru loves the trend of breweries on the fringe of the craft beer pool dipping their toe into the deep end. Leinenkugel’s Big Eddy series from 2007 may be the gold standard. These big beers are a chance to see old breweries in a new light and showcase the brewing talent behind good beers you might take for granted. In this case, one miss – and Six Hop is one – does not necessarily bode ill for the other brews in the Whole Hog series. (The imperial pilsner, also available now, is a style that may be more in Point’s wheelhouse.) Here’s hoping breweries that make large amounts of good beer will keep trying occasionally to make small amounts of great beer as well.

2 mugs (out of four)