Gravity Head 2006

by Matt Dunn

Is your head attracting the beer with a force proportional to their masses and the distance between them? Or rather, does your head deform space-time so that the beer simply follows the curvature of the four dimensional manifold to your mouth? Interesting questions, no doubt. But would Newton or Einstein really care? Probably not. At Gravity Head, all that really matters is that the beers are huge and you probably aren't. Or maybe you are. Either way, you're in for one hell of a ride.

Mr. Roger Baylor has once again outdone himself. He's stuffed Rich O's Public House to bursting with a new Gravity Head record 53 different kegs of strong beer. The festivities started last Friday the 25th and will continue until all the beer is gone. Probably at least two weeks from now.

There were 17 strong beers on tap and two casks last Saturday when I stopped in to sample the wares:

Bell's Batch 7000
Dark Horse Sapient Trip Ale
EKU 28
Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter
Founders Dirty Bastard
Great Divide Hibernation Ale
Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout
NABC Stumble Bus 2005
NABC Thunderfoot Imperial Stout
Rogue (John's Locker Stock) Skull Splitter
Rogue XS Old Crustacean Barley Wine 2002
Samichlaus Bier 2001
Stone Double Bastard Ale
't Smisje Kerst
Unibroue Maudite
Urthel Hop-It Belgian IPA

JW Lees 2004 Port Barrel aged Harvest Ale (gravity cask)
Harviestoun Old Engine Oil aged in Invergordon Scotch barrels (hand pump)

Here are some of the beers that are slated to appear over the next couple weeks that caught my eye:

A Scotch barrel aged JW Lees Harvest cask is to appear on March 3rd
2004 Founders Devil Dancer Triple IPA
Great Divide Old Ruffian Barley Wine
Two Brothers Bare Tree Weiss Wine
2004 N'Ice Chouffe
Urthel Samaranth Quadrium
Gale's Prize Old Ale 2004
Avery "The Reverend"
JW Lees Moonraker
Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree IPA
And many more

Check Roger's blog, http://potablecurmudgeon.blogspot.com for details.

Ok, here are some notes I took about the beers I tried this year:

JW LEES PORT BARREL AGED HARVEST ALE, 11.5%abv (gravity cask)
Perfectly still. Zero carbonation. Big port in the nose along with some alcohol, but not too hot. Big malt notes in the nose as well. Hard to sort everything out with that port in there. This beer is very sweet. Big, fat, globular blobs of caramel-wrapped buttery nuts accented brusquely with sharp notes of port. Definitely a lingering bitterness in the finish with a stiff, bracing alcohol warmth after a couple sips. Just huge golden orbs of malt! Massive body. Fairly cloying. Great beer, but I'd prefer at least a whisper of carbonation and a bit less residual sugar. But definitely worth trying as it sure is interesting and fairly rare.

URTHEL HOP-IT 9.5%abv (draft)
An absolutely beautiful head on this beer. A dense, rocky, meringue-like sculpture topped each glass of this golden hop juice. A fairly discrete nose with a vaguely sweet scent, a touch of fermentation character and noticeable European hop notes. Definitely an herbal hop quality, not big, citrusy American hops. This same herbal hop quality dominates the palate as well. It's a fairly sweet beer I think, but the very high hop bitterness tends to obscure that. The quality of the bitterness adds to the perceived dryness of the beer. A fairly simple beer that is clean, well done, and sporting an interesting and potent hoppyness.

A beautiful glass of Urthel Hop-It.

HARVIESTOUN OLD ENGINE OIL 7%abv? (beer engine)
A very dark color. Opaque. A decent persistent head even from the beer engine. Perhaps a hint of carbonation in this beer or maybe it was just the sparkler at the point of dispense. A very malty nose. The roasty notes prevail but some chocolate slips in there. Hints of peat smoke in the nose as well. A rich, chocolate, toffee, burnt sugar flavor dominates the palate. The sharp, acrid burnt flavors are possibly accentuated by the scotch barrel aging. Nice meaty body but not overdone. The scotch lingers but it's definitely not a central character of this beer. It's pretty well assimilated and plays well with others.

GREAT DIVIDE HIBERNATION ALE 8.1%abv (draft)
Maybe one of my favorite beers of the day. There was nothing really special about this beer. It's just a very well made strong American ale. And I like that. A deep garnet read color beer capped with a small beige head of fairly persistent foam. Big hop aroma. Big American hop aroma, Chinook? Magnum? Columbus? Big hop flavor. Not too bitter, but definitely bracing. Not too sweet, but sweet enough. Rich malt character. A very well balanced beer, but big on both the hops and the malt. A sharply cut finish that is super clean. Really spot on. Reminds me of a Stone Arrogant Bastard but better. It's funny when a massive 8.1%abv beer is ìnothing really specialî. Ahhhh Gravity Head.

DARK HORSE SAPIENT TRIP ALE 8%abv?? (draft)
Nice hazy straw-golden color. Big fruity Belgian nose. Big ripe bananas but mostly green apple. Also got some hot, solvent like notes. Big cloves and green apple on the palate. A fairly dry beer for its size, it's pretty easy to drink.

NEW HOLLAND DRAGONS MILK 10.5%abv (draft)
Very dark, but not opaque. Can just barely see through the deep redness, the deep purple, the bruise, the subcutaneous contusion-if you will. A fairly dense beige head. Big nose. Huge whiskey notes in the nose. Some caramel in there as well. There's kind of a strange sharpness in the nose too. Maybe herbal sharpness or perhaps it's the whiskey or perhaps it's some fermentation character? Oddly enough, this beer's bark is bigger than its bite. A fairly mellow tasting beer, it's much cleaner and dryer than I was expecting. There is a bit of sharpness and astringency in the finish that might have to do with the rather low final gravity for a beer of this size and then you throw the whiskey in there for good measure and watch out now!

ROGUE (JOHN'S LOCKER STOCK) SKULLSPLITTER 8.5%abv? (draft)
A deep dark red color. Beige head with good retention. Great lacing on the glass. The hop aroma is kind of different. Big lemon rind to me. We all thought it was Fuggles, a traditional English hop, but there's no Fuggles in the recipe. A fairly harsh hop character on the palate that reminded me of Chinook hops. Some caramel notes there too, but as with most of Rogue's beers, this one has that distinctive Rogue finish: clean and dry.

Some people take their beer very seriously.

NEW ALBANY BREWING COMPANY STUMBLEBUS 10%abv (draft)
Made on site, this big beer was awesome. I love NABC and really wish they would distribute up to Bloomington, but I know that's unlikely at least in the near future. Things were getting fairly sketchy at this point so my notes aren't very complete. I have that this beer is a nice orange color with a very minimal beige head. Has a huge American hop nose which is very nice. Very big caramel malt flavors as well. Reminds me of Avery's Hog Heaven apparently.

At this point Radiohead's Paranoid Android is playing. The speaker is right next to me. It's loud. I'm fairly inebriated. After many hours of being some of the only people in the bar, I look around and notice it has really filled up. To get to the bathroom I had to navigate the tangle of legs and arms outstretched clutching half pints of strong ale all to the da-dada-da-da-dum-dumdum-da-da then the siren like guitar would explode: reeeerr reeeerr rereeeerrr weeeoooo weeeeooooo wooo. Man, I felt like I was in a Hunter S. Thompson book. That song is intense. I wish they wouldn't play that song at Gravity Head anymore

Then, as soon as I think I'm in the clear, there she lay on the table before me: BELL'S BATCH 7000 12%abv (draft)
The notes are useless at this point. I have a bunch of nonsense about big black and badass. Acridly roasty. Massive. Even after a whole day at Gravity Head this thing is a palate destroyer. A full frontal assault on the palate. My friend Ryan, speaking as Batch 7000, exclaims: ìDRINK ME! You cannot deny the roast! Burnt! BITTER! In your face fucking face plant IN THE SAND!!î He's about right. The last thing I have written about this beer is: ìit tastes salty at the endî. I think that's a good time to call it quits.

But we hang around for a while chatting with some of the FOSSILS (home brew club in New Albany) and I finish off a 2001 Samichlaus which is like shellacking my tongue at that point. But it tasted great. Waiting for the check and our take away beer (you can't go to Rich O's and not buy a bottle or two) I enjoy a pint of NABC's Community Dark Mild. It was great that they had about 10 non-Gravity Head beers on too. At under 5%abv this was just the refreshing pint I needed at that point. There was soft jazz music playing in the background. My check was less than I expected. I gave a good tip. Said my goodbyes. The painful memories of Paranoid Android and salty, sandy beer slowly fade away into the cool Indiana night-

The Vice President of the FOSSILS. Note he records the time he orders each beer.