Beer By the Year

There's only one way to know how age affects a particular brew: by tasting it. Fortunately for you, dear reader, I was willing to accept such a rough assignment, and spent a recent Tuesday night with my friend and fellow beerophile Zachary Sachs in the restaurant's Tavern Room polishing off six bottles of rare vintage suds. The things I do for NEWSWEEK. A sip-by-sip synopsis: of the evening:

Zach starts with a 2004 bottle of Hitachino Celebration Ale from Japan ($13). When asked for a description, our chummy blond waitress—let's call her Claire—tells us it "tastes like Christmas." Zach, who is Jewish, nods knowingly. I select the aforementioned 1992 Thomas Hardy's Ale ($23), a high-octane English concoction that Garry will later call "the most-sought after vintage beer in the world." Claire claims only that the Hardy's is "drinking beautifully," to which I respond with my best "but of course" smile; a bon vivant like myself would expect nothing less. A few minutes pass before she returns with our beers, decapping Zach's Hitachino and pouring my Hardy's into a snifter. "Watch out for sediment," she says. "If that's something that bothers you." I briefly consider chortling—who, me?—but instead cup the snifter, palm up, and swirl. I feel decadent. Zach sips his Hitachino first. "Delicious," he says. "I'm getting some citrus, some spices." I agree, citing coriander, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla bean and orange peel—all of which are conveniently listed on the label.

On to the Hardy's. In the snifter, it's a deep, viscous amber. The smell is strong: caramel and molasses, maybe a little apple. I take a swig, and, despite my utter ignorance, I'm immediately sold. Not to say that the stuff isn't strange. For starters, it's thick and syrupy. There's no fizz. And it's nearly as rich as sherry. But the flavors—nuts, oak, pear, butterscotch—are so nuanced, so balanced and so robust, for a fleeting moment I feel as if I'm sipping the sun-dappled autumn afternoons of my childhood. Only with slightly more alcohol.

Our second round is somewhat less eventful. Zach's 1998 Sinebrychoff ($15), a porter from Finland, pours a translucent ebony, tastes of cafe mocha and, for its mildness, ranks at the bottom of the night's bottles. The Finns, we decide, are not to be trusted. My 2005 Schneider Aventinus ($13)—an eisbock modeled on the concentrated beer Bavarian brewers would extract from ice when their barrels froze in transit—is much more interesting. It's dark brown and full of yeast; the aroma is musty, with notes of banana and cloves. My first mouthful is smooth, malty, hopless and—oddly enough for brew named "ice lager" in German—tropical-tasting. By the time Claire returns to fetch our third and final round, I have identified the equatorial influence: grape bubblegum. I decide to keep this to myself.

We finish with a pair of Americans. Sadly, my notes from this last lap are largely illegible—perhaps because I ordered a 2003 Dogfish Head World Wide Stout ($21), which, at 23 percent alcohol by volume (enough for five bottles of Budweiser) is the strongest beer known to man. Alcohol content alone would make this smooth, roasty black brew worth its steep sticker price. But as an added bonus it's actually tasty, with a little boozy bite and a lot of raisins, figs, coffee and dark chocolate. I swill it recklessly. Meanwhile, Zach has already downed half of his 2001 Brooklyn Monster Ale ($18), a bottle-fermented barley wine that's caramelish, copper-colored and clouded with yeast. His verdict? "Second-favorite," he says. "Beats everything but the Hardy's."

Moments later, we catch Claire and ask for the check. "Gentlemen, the last two are on the house," she says. "It's great to have connoisseurs like you come in." Connoisseurs? Until tonight, Zach and I were vintage virgins. But that's the thing about aged beer: it elevates the essentially egalitarian experience of getting drunk, and, in so doing, manages (for a brief moment, at least) to make kings of us commoners. Which is a nice change of pace every once in awhile for the Norms of the world—and pretty darn democratic to boot. We stumble home shortly thereafter.

© 2007