Left Hand Goosinator
Review Date
Tonight I was watching a movie. A cybernetic Goose was
chasing a beer geek through a shopping mall and, finally cornering him,
approached in slow motion, menacingly producing an object from his jacket.
Aiming it at the beer geek with deadly precision, he proceeded to open up
with a loud pop, and said in a strangely accented voice: “Come with me if you want to drink.” OK, so I really wasn’t watching The Goosinator.
I was drinking it. Sue me. But you never can tell what strange things are
going to pop into a beer enthusiast mind whilst he’s enjoying a pint or two. The other day, I was discussing via e-mail the recent
trend towards upward-spiraling prices on specially beers in the American
craft beer market. Not just any beers, mind you, but the cream of the crop:
oak-aged Tripels and stouts, smoked doppelbocks, bottle conditioned
rye-bock. I don't mind paying a premium for quality beer, and compared to
what wine lovers pay for top-notch stuff, beer enthusiasts still usually are
lucky by comparison. In that vein, tonight I review a bottle of Left Hand
Goosinator, a nice enough smoked doppelbock that I paid about $12 for.
It was a 750ML bottle mind you, a little more than two twelve ounce bottles.
And though I enjoyed it, I would not buy it again. Why? Because for about
the same price I could buy four bottles (2 L total) of Schlerkerla Ur-Bock,
an original German smoked bock that I like better and that really this is a
copy of. I did have trouble getting the beer out of the bottle,
first off. It had a dry cork that crumbled when I tried to remove it (not
the fault of the brewer), which is really a pain because the little bits
that fall into the bottle get into your beer. When I did get that resolved,
I poured the bottle into a one liter Paulaner Mass, basically one of
those really big beer mugs you see being swung about recklessly at
Oktoberfest. Left Hand Goosinator pours to a cloudy reddish
amber color with a towering chunky head formation and a decidedly smoky,
slightly fruity nose. When I sip, I get some wonderfully smoky notes of
pungent hickory (they use beechwood to smoke the malts in reality), green
olive, a hint of fruit and some vestiges of chewy sweet malt and chocolate.
The finish is a little sweet too, though the smoke flavors balance that out
and make the beer dangerously drinkable. The normally nutty chocolaty malts in a doppelbock are
a bit lost here, drowned out by the smokiness. That’s OK, though, since
that’s the intention. But that brings me back to price. Because though this
is a nice beer and worth trying (it’s a rare bottle conditioned lager,
another anomaly), I just think it’s way overpriced. Beware, craft brewers. Beer geeks will pay for quality,
but we're savvy enough to know when we can get a better deal elsewhere, too.
And who wants to pay $12 for the lithograph when you can have the original
for half the price?
And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.
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