This week’s column presents a unique opportunity for me, as I will not only be reviewing a beer but making the case for the recognition of a new beer style.
Lenny’s R.I.P.A. is the brainchild of Jeremy Cowan, founder of Schmaltz Brewing Company. Schmaltz does not have its own brewery. It owns recipes that are produced under contract by brewing facilities owned by other companies. But the beers start and end with Cowan and his cohorts at Schmaltz, who hatch the ideas and manage the Schmaltz brand, which includes both the He’Brew line of ales and Coney Island lagers.
As you might have guessed, the He’Brew beers are centered around a Jewish marketing theme. All of the beers are kosher. Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. is touted as the first in what will apparently be a series of tributes to Jewish stars. This one’s a tribute to Lenny Bruce, an influential comedian convicted on obscenity charges in 1964. He died of a drug overdose in 1966 and was posthumously pardoned by New York Governor George Pataki in 2003.
Before I delve into the particulars of this beer, let me offer a word about styles. For about the past 10 years, there has been something of a fine line between double IPAs and American-style barley wines. Both are high-alcohol, excessively hopped beers. Both are lighter in color than brown ales, porters or stouts. Barley wines should be a bit darker in color than double IPAs, with a more robust caramel-malt backbone, but plenty of beers labeled as double IPAs could pass for American-style barley wines in a blind tasting.
This whole confusing situation was only made more complicated a few years ago, when the wheat wine style emerged. Essentially, a wheat wine is any very high alcohol beer made with a large percentage of wheat. The only one brewed in the Southeast (at least that I’m aware of) is Terrapin Gamma Ray, which could also be considered an imperial hefeweizen (another non-existent style that perhaps should exist). Wheat wine is still a barely-recognized style with few commercial examples.
Well, if you’re going to recognize barley wine and wheat wine, I can’t think of a good reason not to recognize rye wine as its own style, except that there are probably not much more than a dozen beers currently produced that would qualify. But rye imparts more flavor than wheat, so it’s more distinct. I say that any beer with an ABV over 7 percent and a prominent rye character should be considered a rye wine. Who’s with me?
Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. is officially classified as a double IPA, and serves honorably as one. It has copious amounts of Cascade, Simcoe, Warrior, Crystal, Chinook, Centennial and Amarillo hops added late in the boil for intense citrus hop aroma and flavor. In addition, it packs a 10-percent ABV punch.
I know exactly what hops they use because Schmaltz has the single greatest beer geek feature of any brewery website in the world: They post the exact recipes of their beers on the site, and not the namby-pamby “features crystal and Munich malts and finishes with Cascade hops” stuff you see on most sites. Schmaltz posts the actual spreadsheet with the strike temp, water volumes and mash schedule that any professional brewer could use to brew precisely the same beer sold by Schmaltz. Now that’s some chutzpah.
Because I have examined the recipe, I can inform you that rye malts make up 20 percent of the grain bill of Lenny’s R.I.P.A. Not only does the rye make for a spicy flavor profile, it has a high beta-glucan content, which adds viscosity to beer. This is a thick, heavy brew.
In what might fairly be described as a stroke of brilliance, Schmaltz adds ground caraway near the end of the boil—a spice that contributes to rye bread’s signature flavor. Then they dry hop it with loads of Amarillo and Crystal hops. It’s the bastard love child of Hercules Double IPA and fresh-baked Jewish rye bread.
I’m not sure what Lenny would say if he were alive today, but I suggest trying this with some spicy Mexican food. You need intense flavor in the food to stand up to this behemoth. Of course, a Reuben sandwich on rye bread would be an obvious pairing choice, and probably delicious.
“Hopped Up” is a weekly brew review by Danner Kline, founder of Free the Hops and co-organizer of the annual Magic City Brewfest. Send your feedback to danner@freethehops.org
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