Brewed By: Pipeworks Brewing in Chicago, IL
Purchased: 22oz bottle (Batch #167) bought at West Lakeview Liquors in Chicago, IL; 2013
Style/ABV: Abbey Dubbel, 9.0%
Reported IBUs: ?
It's Wednesday night, so it's NOT Unofficial Pipeworks Thursday™! Yay! Exclamation points!!! Tonight's beer is something special, so let me say mean things.
At some point, we all mature and stop brewing Stouts and IPAs and start making some Abbey-style Belgian Ales. Unfortunately for Pipeworks, they also didn't mature to realize that the Red Hot Chili Peppers are middle-of-the-road douche rockers. I don't want to totally dog the Peppers and their songs about sex, California, and having sex in California...but their last few albums have been a chore. Of course, tonight's beer is paying homage to Blood Sugar Sex Magik, one of the good ones. Even a bag of douche nozzles hits a dinger twice in their career. Blood Sugar Sex Magik came out in 1991, and pretty much rocks from start to finish with songs like Breaking the Girl, Suck My Kiss, I Could Have Lied, and Give It Away. It's also a punishingly long album at over 70 minutes, and features the radio friendly killer Under The Bridge. Under The Bridge is the song that launched 20 more songs about Dani, California, and having sex with Dani in California. My jokes are repetitive, kind of like Chili Pepper's singles. Anyway...About Pipeworks:
"What we've got you will definitely want to get and put it in you. Dates, Sugar, Yeast, Magik is a Belgian Dubbel brewed in collaboration with Cleetus Friedman of The Fountanhead and inspired by the classic album of the nineties. Ample amounts of dates, Belgian candi and dark demerara sugars and Trappist ale yeast will take you to the place you love (take you all the way) and make it difficult to give it away (even to your momma, your pappa or your daughter)."
Rating: Below-Average (2.0/5.0 Untappd)
This is a Light Below-Average, and mostly due to technicalities like lack of carbonation and middling to low complexity. I almost went with an Average rating because I really dig some of the flavors going on here, and I think this beer has serious potential...I know this is a collab brew, but I hope Pipeworks will brew this again and tweak the process a bit. Belgian Ales are kind of my favorite thing, and I love me a good Dubbel, Tripel, or Strong Ale. Compared to the infected Blue Lady, this beer might as well be the divine juice from a monk's loins. That said, I'm going to pair the second half of this with a burger...this is worth checking out for all you Pipeworks fans, and I'm hoping to see future batches tweaked or a carbonated version of this on tap.
Reported IBUs: ?
It's Wednesday night, so it's NOT Unofficial Pipeworks Thursday™! Yay! Exclamation points!!! Tonight's beer is something special, so let me say mean things.
At some point, we all mature and stop brewing Stouts and IPAs and start making some Abbey-style Belgian Ales. Unfortunately for Pipeworks, they also didn't mature to realize that the Red Hot Chili Peppers are middle-of-the-road douche rockers. I don't want to totally dog the Peppers and their songs about sex, California, and having sex in California...but their last few albums have been a chore. Of course, tonight's beer is paying homage to Blood Sugar Sex Magik, one of the good ones. Even a bag of douche nozzles hits a dinger twice in their career. Blood Sugar Sex Magik came out in 1991, and pretty much rocks from start to finish with songs like Breaking the Girl, Suck My Kiss, I Could Have Lied, and Give It Away. It's also a punishingly long album at over 70 minutes, and features the radio friendly killer Under The Bridge. Under The Bridge is the song that launched 20 more songs about Dani, California, and having sex with Dani in California. My jokes are repetitive, kind of like Chili Pepper's singles. Anyway...About Pipeworks:
Pipeworks has humble roots. The brewery was founded in Chicago in 2011 by Beejay Oslon and Gerrit Lewis. The duo were both homebrewers that met while while working at West Lakeview Liquors. In 2011, they began to raise money for their brewery using the online Internet site, Kickstarter. Olson and Lewis were both educated at De Struise Brewery in Oostvleteren, Belgium. With that knowledge, and the money from their kickstarter, Olson and Lewis created a unique brewery that is smaller in size, and intended to brew smaller batches of beer. The company's motto is "small batches, big beers." And indeed, since the brewery has been around, they've been releasing a lot of one-offs and small batch releases. At one point - and maybe still - the goal was the release a new beer every week. You can read more about the brewery at their website HERE.
Tonight's beer is brewed with dates, and Trappist yeast, so good things should lie ahead. The bottle states:
"What we've got you will definitely want to get and put it in you. Dates, Sugar, Yeast, Magik is a Belgian Dubbel brewed in collaboration with Cleetus Friedman of The Fountanhead and inspired by the classic album of the nineties. Ample amounts of dates, Belgian candi and dark demerara sugars and Trappist ale yeast will take you to the place you love (take you all the way) and make it difficult to give it away (even to your momma, your pappa or your daughter)."
It's worth noting that "Fountanhead" is misspelled on the bottle. It's also worth noting that Fountainhead is a restaurant/bar in the Ravenswood/Lincoln Square/North Center neighborhood of Chicago. Cleetus Friedman is an executive chef at Fountainhead. And lastly, "demerara sugars" are just dark/brown sugars.
Depressingly...the beer pours totally flaccid. I kicked up maybe a centimeter of tan head, and that rapidly dissolved into the beer's raisin-colored/brown body. This isn't the first flaccid beer I've had from Pipeworks; and these things do happen...but yeah. In bright light the beer is a super murky/hazy orange/brown color, with some strangled carbonation trying to reach the surface. There are some legs...and a ring of bubbles sticking to the side (but not really lacing). As an aside, the new orange logo'd caps are fucking awesome.
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| Pipeworks Date Sugar Yeast Magik |
This actually smells alright, with big banana, plums, and tons of candi sugar. It's not overly complex, and it reminds me a bit of Kwak, which is a touch worrisome. If you haven't tried Kwak, don't. There's a touch of phenolic spice and clove on the nose as well, and lots of shades of undefinitive stone fruits.
Unfortunately, the lack of carbonation carries through in the taste, and this is a style of beer that really needs carbonation. The taste is alright, better than Kwak to be sure...but not by a lot. There's dark candi sugars in here, pretty strong plums/dates, and grain. There's also a bit of Quad-like booziness and overly ripe fruit: bananas and apples, namely.
Pipeworks brews A LOT of beer, so I've come to terms with the fact that they'll occasionally have some issues (the infected Blue Lady batch; the flat bottles of Nisperos De Batata). The cool thing is Pipeworks does tend to fix their beers in later batches. I recall early reviews for the End of Days citing a lack of body, but latter batches have totally nailed it. I also don't know how prevalent the carbonation issues are for this batch...so we'll see how this one goes.
That said, this beer is without carbonation. It has a medium-full body, and the palate depth would be good if not for the lack of carbonation. Complexity is low. Thankfully, this beer isn't boozy or hot...it's not quite the hot mess that Kwak was, but yeah. I'd like to see how this tastes with proper carbing and maybe some time in the bottle/fermenter. DAE secondary? Up front is candi sugars, bananas, and sweet dates; that rolls into more of the same with some Quad-like booze and overripe fruit; the back end has a touch of bittering, with some lingering sugary fruits. There's a note of grain/oats/creamy...which I've seen before in other Dubbels, but yeah. Le.
Rating: Below-Average (2.0/5.0 Untappd)
This is a Light Below-Average, and mostly due to technicalities like lack of carbonation and middling to low complexity. I almost went with an Average rating because I really dig some of the flavors going on here, and I think this beer has serious potential...I know this is a collab brew, but I hope Pipeworks will brew this again and tweak the process a bit. Belgian Ales are kind of my favorite thing, and I love me a good Dubbel, Tripel, or Strong Ale. Compared to the infected Blue Lady, this beer might as well be the divine juice from a monk's loins. That said, I'm going to pair the second half of this with a burger...this is worth checking out for all you Pipeworks fans, and I'm hoping to see future batches tweaked or a carbonated version of this on tap.
Random Thought: Dear Red Hot Chili Peppers,
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