Laphroaig 18 Year Old

Today I'll take a break from beer and review Laphroaig's latest expression -- an 18-year-old bottled at cask strength 48% ABV, 10% stronger than the Laphroaig 10 and 15 year old bottlings.  [Update 2011/04/26: An astute reader pointed out that I mistakenly said it was cask strength.  Yes, it's stronger than the 15, but not cask strength.]  It has been on the market for at least six months now, but I spend so little time in liquor stores these days that I didn't notice it until a couple of weeks ago.  Man, oh man, I'm glad I finally did.  I have a new favorite Scotch whisky. Well, the legendary sherry-cask Talisker 20 might never be displaced, but let's say that of all the whiskies available to me today, this is tops.

Laphroaig is a long-time favorite of mine.  I love the intense smoke/seawater/medicine flavors of Laphroaig 10; I appreciate the mellower, more refined presentation of Laphroaig 15; I respect the big Islay wallop of the Laphroaig Quarter Cask.  Take the strengths of those three variants and put them into one bottle, and voila, you have Laphroaig 18.  In other words, if you're a fan of the distillery and you haven't had this yet, you must try it.

The 15-year-old -- which by the way is being replaced by this 18 -- is a nice dram, but it always disappointed me a little bit because it gives up too much of the flavor you get with the 10-year-old.  On the other hand, there's no denying that Laphroaig 10 is perhaps a little too pungent.  The 18 is the best of both worlds.  It rounds off the harsh edges that remain in the 10, without losing the massive assault of peat smoke and iodine that defines Laphroaig.  The peaty, briny finish stays on the tongue for ages.  It's a big 'un, too:  96 proof.  Don't dilute this masterpiece very much, but to really open up the flavors, add 1 or 2 drops of water.

The price is a steal for this caliber of whisky:  right now it's $78 in Oregon liquor stores.  That price may be headed up: Google turns up prices over $100, and a California liquor store favored by some Scotch-loving friends of mine is selling it for $130 (for comparison, they list Laphroaig 10 at $30, far cheaper than the usual Oregon price).  Click here to order Laphroaig 18 from British retailer Master of Malt: it's a 70 cl European bottle, but remember to request your 16% VAT refund if you're ordering from outside the EU.

Terminal Gravity Single-Hop Horizontal

A few weeks ago at the Cheese Bar I got to try Terminal Gravity's single-hopped double IPA (Chinook). It seemed obvious from the parenthesized name that there must be other varieties out there, but it's a pretty stealthy project: I hadn't heard any publicity about it before noticing it that evening, and had no idea what other hops they had experimented with.

So hats off to Belmont Station for offering a horizontal tasting of three versions of TG single-hopped brews. Thursday night Lindsey and I dropped in for a quick flight. Here are my impressions:

• Chinook: most stereotypically "hoppy": resinous, orangey hops
• Columbus: mildest up front, but with a long aspirin finish (in a good way)
• Centennial: mildest overall, light citrus hop flavor

The underlying beer was a big, malty ale that clocked in at 6.8% -- think big Rogue ales and you'll have the idea.  A taster of Terminal Gravity's regular IPA was thrown into the flight, which was kind of a mistake -- it didn't stand up well against the heavier double IPA, even though it's a fine beer in its own right.  Scanning the internet for more information about the project, I notice that Bailey's Taproom served the same three single-hopped varieties at various times during February and March.  Anyone know if there are other hop varieties in the series?

By the way, uber-geeky Danish brewer Mikkeller has done a single-hopped IPA series with at least 10 different hop varieties.  Derek at Beer Around Town recently tasted a couple of them: one with East Kent Goldings, another with Tomahawk hops, which he says are the same as Columbus.  Interestingly, Tomahawk had the same effect in the Mikkeller as Columbus did in the Terminal Gravity, with the malt dominating at first, but a "sharp dry bitterness in the finish".  I'm glad Derek wrote about that, I had been pondering a similar experiment, but haven't tried any of the Mikkeller IPAs. Beernews.org has more information on the Mikkeller single-hop series.

If you see the Terminal Gravity single-hop brews on tap, they're definitely worth a try, especially the Chinook and Columbus flavors.

Your Thoughts on Beer Publications

Here you are reading a beer blog. It's unlikely that It's Pub Night is your only Internet source for beer information, so I assume you read other blogs, maybe online forums, or maybe you even subscribe to an antiquated email discussion group.

But what about printed media? Do you find any of these worth your time:

• Beer Advocate
• Draft Magazine
• All About Beer
• Brewing News
• Beer Northwest

I'm sure I left off some important publications.  There, I've admitted my own ignorance, you don't have to bring it up again in the comments, but please do fill in the blanks if there's another magazine or tabloid out there that you enjoy reading.

What got me thinking about this question was a comment on my San Francisco vs. Portland post.  The Bay Area correspondent for the Northwest Brewing News recommended the February/March 2010 issue of the paper, which had a cover story called Bay Area Alehouses.  As it happens, I had indeed read that article before my trip to San Francisco, but had not found it useful or memorable.  Why not?  For starters, it only mentioned a handful of places in downtown San Francisco, and I had no plans for going further afield.  Moreover, as I read the article, I noticed that it didn't mention any specific beers served at any of the bars, but it did mention the name of the owner or manager of every single place.  That must be fascinating information for a local insider, but for a tourist or dabbler it was useless and actually quite annoying to read such a tour de force of name-dropping.  So annoying that I put down the article and never gave it another thought until Mario brought it up.

It put me in the mood to write a blog post lambasting the NWBN for being such a lame publication.  Scanning the Feb/Mar edition I found another annoyance:  an article on beer pricing with a section headed "Let there be Honest Pints!", which didn't mention Jeff Alworth's Honest Pint Project.  But even though I was in a nasty mood, I couldn't find much else to complain about in that issue or the subsequent April/May issue (well, the Beer Bitch column is a joke that stopped being funny a long time ago).  Instead, I'm going to make a point of picking up the NWBN whenever I see a new issue; there's plenty of good information in there, especially about other areas I'm less up-to-date on.

This train of though also got me thinking that I need to put my money where my mouth is and subscribe to Beer Advocate.  The magazine itself never knocks me off my feet, but the BA website is an invaluable part of the community and I want to pitch my dollar into their tip jar.

So I ask you, gentle readers.  What are your thoughts on dead-tree beer publications?