Just in time for winter, a homegrown Baltic beauty

Had this, the newest entry into Alaskan Brewing's celebrated coterie of craft offerings, arrived on my doorstep a mere month ago, any mention of it would have warranted inevitable, innumerable references to the visible proximity of Alaska to our neighbor country, Russia. But that was then, and this is December, a cold December to be sure, one when dark and roasty beers hovering around the 10% alcohol level make themselves quite at home. With a nearly luminescent label depicting an onion dome set afront a star-filled winter's sky, this ale, like their takes on alt and kölsch, is a decidedly stateside iteration of the Baltic Porter style. Like their barley wine and smoked porter, too, it's a reminder that this is a brewery that can do great things when free to take a big and bold approach. Without an overly heavy feel, this beer doles out dry fig and licorice in spades, with a compliment of hop and roast bitterness that doesn't dominate the taste as has become increasingly common like burnt coffee in American strong dark ales, Imperial stouts and the like.

Brewed with Madagascar vanilla beans and black cherries, and aged on toasted French oak, it respectfully doesn't punish the taster with these novel touches, marrying the effects of each quite well into the fabric of the malts. A textbook fireside ale, it demands to be paired carefully, deliberately. Good thing my two-year old daughter had just helped make a batch of gingerbread cookies. Between the molasses and the vanilla, you couldn't ask for a more perfect fit. Don't believe me?  Try it:

1 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup dark molasses
2 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup hot water
6 cups flour, sifted
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tbsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves

Cream the sugar and shortening together. Add molasses, vinegar and vanilla. In a mixing bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Mix in wet ingredients, alternating between the hot water and creamed mixture. Chill the dough for one hour before rolling out to 1/8" thick. Cut into awesome shapes. Bake 10-15 minutes at 350º F. Let cool on rack (or not) and enjoy.

Finding the right beer.

I was at a bar with some friends a few weeks back. One of my companions, Whitney, asked me why I like beer. It tastes bad, she said. It smells bad, she said. It's too filling, she said.

Of course, I (with some help of a couple other beer-swilling comerades) was able to counter all of those reasons. Beers come in an almost infinite number of flavors, tastes and aromas, we said. And if she thought it was too filling, there are plenty of beers that taste great but don't leave you feeling stuffed.

Whitney scoffed, as I knew she would. And I and my beer-loving buddies said eventually she'd find the right beer for her and dropped the subject as she consumed a hard liquor-based concoction with an unnatural color and that seemed to contain a lot of very dessert-like ingredients.

I was once like Whitney. I remember the first time I really tried beer in earnest. I was at a bar in Urbana, Illinois. I was visiting my now-ex-girlfriend Olga at college (I was still in high school in Chicago) and she and I met up with some of her friends and a couple of my cousins at a bar called Murphy's. At that time, my underaged alcohol consumption was limited to mostly vodka-based beverages - often vodka with cranberry juice - and some silly concoctions only underage drinkers trying to put together the most potent drinks for the least money could enjoy.

But my cousin David - a rabid consumer of good beer - decided I needed to drink beer. And Olga, born and raised in Poland and in possession of a very fine beer palette, agreed. So David, being over 21, went to the bar and got me (as well as himself and Olga) a beer. It was a Leinenkugel Red. He placed it in front of me and I looked at it. I smelled it. I took a small sip. I didn't care for it one bit. I managed to get it finished, but I didn't enjoy it at all.

At that point, if you told me I'd be posting to a blog about beer, I would have called you nuts. But Olga was determined that I'd like beer somehow. And so she kept introducing me to different beers - dark beers, light beers, ales, lagers, lambics, porters, stouts, IPAs, and everything in between.

And lo and behold, after trying a host of different beers, I found some that I began to like. And as I started to like more beers, I started trying more beers and finding more I liked.

To this day, I still don't like Leinenkugel Red. But I came back to beer because despite a bad first experience, I kept my mind open to the idea the beer could be a wonderful thing. And like Olga and David told me, I now tell people who say they don't like beer they simply haven't found the right beer yet.

If there's a moral here, it's that finding the right beer can be a daunting task, especially with all the crappy beer out there. But with a little help, I think even the most rabid beer opponent can find a beer they enjoy.