Green Flash Pt. 3: Hop Head Red Ale

 

(A studious beer? Reading a 1918 classic:  

The Fanny Farmer Cookbook)

With a very rich copper tone that's almost ruby in some light, the Green Flash Hop Head Red Ale is a real classy lady. Well-balanced, complex, but not fussy. Brewed with dry hopped caramel Amarillo malt, it'a 6.4% ABV, with 45 IBUs. It's much more down to earth than Le Freak or the West Coast IPA that One Woman wrote about in the last two days. Not overpowered by hops, it smells of moist malt, resin, autumn leaves after a light rain, a hint of ocean breeze, and maybe, just maybe a memory of anise. 

Thinking of all those tinny, metallic, red ales on the market (yuck) One woman was concerned that red ale wouldn't go well with food (or with life, for that matter). Not to worry! This versatile red ale, which actually might be a young IPA in disguise (!) went quite nicely with a pretty salad of shaved candy striped beets and almonds with a lemon-shallot vinaigrette. 

The musical pairing of the evening is Billie Holiday–so refined, elegant, and complex in her music. Have you listened to her interpretation of Duke Ellington's "Solitude"? Lady Day--How can you sing about "solitude" and be so warm and uplifting at the same time, all the while, holding on to every word and emotion so carefully? 

And that does it for the three-part Green Flash series. Thanks for tuning in to One Woman, One Beer. Tomorrow she will report back with a new theme and new surprise. Will she go with a Belgian? A golden lager? Or... or...

Green Flash Pt. 2: West Coast IPA

Oh, sweet mother of all West Coast IPAs. Green Flash–which by the way, gets its name from the elusive green flash that happens for a moment as the the sun goes down into the ocean–has made one sexy, herbaceous beauty of a beer. What a perfect beer for this lazy, warm Sunday evening while Kiki's drunken beans made with yesterday's Le Freak, simmer on the stove. Such a treat. (Sorry, East Coasters - were you digging your car out of the frozen street, while I was pondering digging out some young native fennel out of my backyard?) It goes down real easy with with some roasted asparagus, and a baked fennel, potato and leek delight.

At 95 IBUs and 7.3% ABV, the West Coast IPA is the flagship beer of Green Flash, and there's a good reason for that. It has a lovely burnt amber color and a frothy head. "Extravagant" and "pungent" in their words; and still, there are also flashes of homey malt, citrus, and spring flowers.  Not sweet at all compared to Le Freak (the more I think of it, Le Freak is the perfect fancy burger beer). The "menagerie" of hops in West Coast IPA includes: Simcoe, Columbus, Centennial, and Cascade. It's all about the balance of these four hops for this IPA goddess of a beer. With this much hoppiness, One Woman wonders why this beer is not bright green. It went well with the meal that I had planned, but One Woman also imagined that it might go well with a salad of raw fennel and beets with citrus.

  

(One Woman captures the green flash on camera!!??)

The musical pairing for this charming belle of a beer: Duke Ellington's Black Brown and Beige Suite. Have you heard the banjo solo intro to "Come Sunday?" It's pretty wild, especially alongside all those velvety textures that Ellington gets out of his horn sections. "Caravan," which is one of the Ellington orchestra's signature pieces, is mean. Kurt Weill wishes he could have written that (no - not Kurt Vile, actually, maybe Vile too). Unfortunately, during Ellington's lifetime, the piece was rarely performed in its entirety since its premiere in 1943. For Ellington though, it was more important to have parts of the piece heard in doses that his audience could take, rather than let the piece rest. It makes me sad that many audiences and programmers still have it in their heads that a jazz composer doesn't have a place writing longer and more complex works, because it's an awfully gorgeous and historically important piece.

Le Freak (Green Flash Brewing Co.) - Girl's Night In

Charades in the kitchen downstairs thwarted my dinner plans to pair Le Freak with potatoes and leeks au gratin with braised asparagus. But as it turned out,  Le Freak went perfectly well with the Ortega burger with roasted chillies and avocado that one woman got from Flame Gourmet Burgers on College Avenue in Berkeley, CA. Although Green Flash describes the beer as a combination of "San Diego Imperial" and "Belgian Tripel," I would say it's more on the Imperial/IPA side of things than a Belgian. Which explains why the burger with chillies was the way to go with this one.

Green Flash is a San Diego Brewery that Mike and Lisa Hinkley founded in 2002. They've won many accolades in their short life, and their beer tends to be on the hoppy, high alcohol side –  Californian style. At 101 IBUs and 9.2% alcohol, Le Freak stays true to that spirit. It has a translucent orange-ish hue, smells like late harvest wheat, anise, candied orange peel. It's sharp without a bite, clean and amber like a tripel, but has the texture of an IPA. It's pretty well balanced, although it seems like it's trying a bit too hard, but what can you do if you're declaring freakdom?

One woman recommends pairing this brew with burgers, or some mole concoction.

Music pairing of the evening: Gilberto Gil, Gilberto Gil (1969) with Caetano Veloso and others. Psychedelic tropicalia but so much more.

Between words and acts the shadow descends
The identified object
The concealed, the flying saucer
The astral seed
Culture and civilization
Only interested me
As long as they serve as food
As tartar, a juicy plate

                              –Gilberto Gil (in "Objeto Semi-Identificado")


Or a juicy burger. Kanpai, gorgeous.

  
(An indoor picnic for Girl's Night In)