Nashville Food Blog

Eric England

​As we've gloated on Bites before, one of the great things about working at the Scene is that people send us free food. Even better, sometimes we get free beer. A few days before Halloween, the Magic Hat Brewing Co., one of our favorite out-of-state suds crafters (South Burlington, Vt.) sent a mysterious package.

One bottle was marked clearly (Howl: Black-as-Night Winter Lager), the other was tightly cloaked in black paper. While the Howl had a spooky label that seemed like a hokey Halloween tie-in, the witchy, black-shrouded bottle piqued our curiosity in a more mysterious way. So of course, it was time for a tasting.

I rounded up a few co-workers for investigative sips (or slurps). The mystery bottle turned out to be the latest in Magic Hat's Odd Notion series (offbeat, limited-time flavors whose labels beckon the customer to rate the brew online). The winter '09 entry is American Sour Ale, one of the more unusual beers I've ever tasted. It's actually sour (I mean really sour), but balanced out by malty, caramelly flavors in an amber haze.

Some of the colleagues' comments:

"Tastes like Sour Patch Kids: sour at first, then kind of sweet."

"Like Corona with too much lime."

"Mildly bitter, but not bad bitter."

"Smells a little spoiled"

And the best comment of all: "I taste kimchi, nutmeg and a kind of fermented thing."

We agreed the sour ale would be better with a meal, perhaps cutting the oiliness of fried food. Inspired by the earlier comment, my cubicle neighbor said he'd like to pair it with Korean food, perhaps kimchi itself.

After the sour tastebud shocker, the Howl black lager was a little dull. Nice dark beer flavors and not as thick and bloaty as a stout, but no great revelation.

The responses:

"A fine beer, but not distinctive."

"I really don't like this, but I really don't like dark beer."

"Dark but not overpowering."

And on that note, I invoke the spirit of the season. May you all have a delightfully dark (but not too overpowering) Halloween.