Karl: In order to tell you about the Wake & Moo Blend of beers, I have to tell you about Ben’s Chili Bowl in Washington DC. Stay with me here.
At Ben’s, a famous greasy-spoon style joint on U Street, they serve what’s basically a chili dog, chili fries, and all sorts of other chili-laden hangover cures. Now, if you were to break down their signature item, called a half-smoke, it wouldn’t be terribly impressive. The bun? Average. The sausage? Well cooked but not otherwise a huge standout. The chili itself? Good, but would you cross half the country for it? Probably not. But put them all together and it becomes a whole that’s far more than the sum of its parts. It becomes a coherent beast of a foodstuff, strong and hearty and rich. It’s magical, and it’s great.
I thought the same thing happened here with the blend of Wake & Bake and the Moo-Hoo or Yoo-Moo or whatever the sweet hell it’s called. Separately? Nothing spectacular. In fact, I didn’t write anything about the Chocolate Milk Stout on its own because I couldn’t really remember much about it. As I look at my notes, they just read as “Bleh, whatever.” And I don’t think I was in a bad mood that evening.
Put the two together, though, and they play off each other like a duet of beer music. The notes of chocolate and coffee and oatmeal and carbonation all roll together into a glass full of goodness. I liked this a lot, and I don’t know why. Barrel this, bottle it, throw it in a cask – the two together work great. If I lived where Terrapin was on draft I’d have to doublefist constantly just to pour the two together all the time. Alas, I don’t see this happening up here any time soon.
In general I love the idea of beer blends, and I believe it’s a trend that’s only going to grow in the future. Ryan and I first stumbled into it while sitting at the bar at Frontera Grill in downtown Chicago, when we found a blend of Rogue’s Mocha Porter with a Lindeman’s Framboise. It was gloriously raspberry-chocolate-y and a door-opener of a drink. Nothing was impossible any more. It’s nice to find further blends of beers that work just as well.
Ryan: I am pretty sure this is not the first time I have purposely “blended” beers. I bet when I was 22 I poured a freshly opened can of High Life into my glass that still had some Old Milwaukee’s in it. Ah, who am I kidding, I didn’t use a glass when I was 22. Straight out tha can was the way to go. Seriously though, pouring one kind of beer and another kind of beer into the same glass is still kind of foreign to me. Sacrilegious, almost. Sure, I had that Rogue Mocha Porter/Lindeman’s Framboise blend a few years ago but I kind of considered that closer to a mixed drink than a blended beer. It was under their fancy cocktail menu, if I recall correctly, and it was poured in to an over-sized red wine glass. It wasn’t until Karl and I hit up Goose Island’s tap takeover at Sheffield’s did I get over my uncomfortableness with blending two different beers.
‘“That’s blasphemy”, I thought. Blending two Bourbon County Stouts – what a waste. It’s funny that after you have sampled a dozen beers that doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. It also helped that the bartender said other people had been doing it to. So, Karl ordered up a coffee & cocoa nib BCS and I went for the cocoa and vanilla bean. Best decision of the night.”
So when Andrew told me he read Terrapin was pouring a blend of Wake ‘N’ Bake and Moo-Hoo I was intrigued. While I was not a big fan of these two beers separately, maybe combining them would make two okay beers into one good one. And you know what? It did.
The Wake ‘N’ Moo gave off a nose of fresh roasted coffee and peanut butter. The taste wasn’t far off with notes of roasted coffee, milk sugar and half and half with a dry, roasted finish. This blend, as I was hoping, took the flavors I liked most out of each beer and blended them seamlessly in to a very smooth and easy drinking beer. Even the carbonation was toned down considerably.
My hat goes off to you, Terrapin, for concocting a fantastic imperial-oatmeal-coffee-chocolate-milk-stout.
Andrew: Right before I received the shipment of Georgia beers, Josh gave me a heads up, “Just so you know, the brewery has been serving up a blend of the Wake ‘N’ Bake and the Moo-Hoo and they are calling it the Wake ‘n’ Moo. You might want to try it.” I’m glad we did.
Also, I knew Ryan and Karl would come around. In their mind the sum was greater than its parts, while I enjoyed the beers separately as well as the wonderful blend that is the Wake ‘N’ Moo. Admittedly this is the first beer blend I’ve ever had. I know both Ryan and Karl were raving about the blend(s) they tried at the Goose Island tasting at Sheffield’s over the summer, so I figured why the hell not, I’ll give it a shot. And the results? Yay for blends!
In the previous reviews of these beers I said that I thought the flavors were a bit muddled and subdued, just not what I was expecting. The Wake ‘N’ Moo resolved those problems. The chocolate and coffee and malts and carbonation just worked, everything played off each other very nicely. I can’t explain it much more than that. What a glorious concoction!
This marked the end of our journey through the beers from Georgia. Hopefully Josh and I can execute yet another trade soon so we can run Round 2 of “Dispatches From The South.”
Two years ago three guys with a passion for beer brewed with the purest of ingredients (or at least not corn and rice) took to the interwebs to preach the gospel of craft beer. Today – they bring you beer reviews from their personal cellar, thoughts on hard to find Midwestern craft beers and act as a beacon for those who love both beer and politics.
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