The Humble Gourmand

Winter is back in Iceland. For years the island nation reveled in staggering growth, an endless summer of wealth. Following the bank-shuttering crisis of 2008, however, Iceland has been forced into a sort of self-reflecting hibernation.

I, like Iceland, am going through a period of self-evaluation. I am returning to a simpler time; a time of restraint, of subtlety, following a long period of excess. Not financial excess on my part, mind you — my three banks are still up and running — but an excess of hops, those bitter and beautiful cones that add such wonderful flavors to beer.

I’ve loved hops increasingly over the last 3 years. I remember my first epiphany — drinking Magic Hat’s HIPA from a keg at a college party — after a period of affection for Belgian dubbels and tripels. I realized at that moment that my future lay in hops, their bittersweetness perfectly complementing life itself. I brewed myself an overhopped IPA for my birthday last year, right at the beginning of the near-fatal hops shortage. That shortage was a small crisis in my life, as it was for many (ohmygod, breweries will stop making hoppy beers because of pricing! Not the case). Since the shortage we’ve been in a period of screw-the-shortage-let’s-get-hopped. Everyone’s making a douple IPA Hop Damn! or an imperial IPA HopCrunk or a wet-hopped IPA Hopturnal Emission.

I’m the first to admit total and complete devotion to this American school of brewing. Just a month ago I called Bell’s Hopslam the Best Beer of 2009 (too soon?). For those of you who know it, it’s not subtle. It’s not restrained. It is the truffle-encrusted-abalone-served-by-six-foot-blonde-beauties-in-a-palace-of-ice of the beer world.

Recently, though, and very suddenly, everything changed. I tasted Slyfox Brewery’s Saison VOS, a Pennsylvania brewer and a Belgian-style, and was hooked. Its estery nose was everything that I’ve shunned for years, its subtle spicy sweetness a foreign flavor on my hops-addicted palate. I loved it, and immediately didn’t know who I was anymore. It made me feel good in spite of myself. That same day I had another taste of Hopslam, and as a junkie needing just one more hit to ease the comedown, I still liked it, craved it, but knew I had kicked it.

The next day I had Mikkeller’s It’s Alright!, a sour beer made with the bacteria brettanomyces, and knew my change was complete. It smells like a barnyard, or maybe three week-old blue cheese. Drinking it made me feel alive. The flavors are incredibly understated for its strong smell — a bit of light citrus tartness, maybe green apples. So different, so strange. So good.

As the economic world comes crashing down around us, so might the world of over-hopped beers. The bubble has burst. A fire has razed the hops from my tongue, but like a phoenix from the ashes, new intrigue has arisen. I think I’m going to go light a fire, put on a wool sweater, put on some Sigur Ros, and crack another bottle of that saison. It’s going to be a long winter.

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