Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Beckamoyces Aasskraquii

First it was the use of the "recently isolated plumbers strain of Brett called Beckamoyces Aasskraquii" in Cascade's Beck Berry. Now it's the addition of "Bourbacide" to the freshly tapped barrel of cherry bourbon double red.

I'm OK with a brewery having a little fun with their beer descriptions, but what am I actually drinking?

Part of me wants to shrug it off, and say "who cares? if it's good, it's good right?" (and it is!), but another part of me thinks it's a little weird to list fabricated ingredient names in something you expect your customers to consume - joke or not - without a little further explanation down the line.

I've heard beck berry was the result of accidental brett infection. I also know at one of the events at the raccoon lodge, Ron handed out a couple of tasters of a brett beer described then with the name beckamoyces aasskraquii - presumably the accidental brett infected barrel that ended up being used in the beck berry blend. Fair enough, you get an infection, you don't know the actual strain of brett that got in there, you taste the beer, and you just give it a funny name, I get it.

How about bourbacide? Another term that google finds no further use of outside of the beer description it's used in. Did they pour a bottle of bourbon in the barrel and swish it around to "sanitize" the inside before aging beer in there, is that the joke?

Is bourbacide like b. aasskraquii - just the name of another base beer?

Help me out here.

5 comments:

  1. Who cares as long as it tastes good.

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  2. @ anonymous:

    I guess I do, and I guess cascade likes it that people like I do, or else they wouldn't be included in the beer descriptions.

    It's probably fun to see a beer nerd get all worked up over your silly inside jokes.

    So many people try and take beer a little too seriously, and it's nice to be reminded to lighten up once in a while I guess; but still, I like when the brewery gets in-depth with the explanation of the processes and ingredients involved to make the beer you're drinking. I think it adds more value to the experience.

    Or maybe I'm just sensitive that I'm not really in on the joke.

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  3. I have to say, I was wondering the same thing about the bourbacide, and since I didn't make it over there last night for the tapping, hadn't had a chance to get any further info on it. I thoroughly enjoyed the beck berry and am looking forward to trying the bourbacide soon. Maybe I'll rough up a barkeep while I'm there for more info :).

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  4. Totally agree with you, pedXer. "Aasskraquii" is not funny enough to overcome the "ew, gross" thoughts it puts in my head.

    Or, if you really did make a delicious beer out of something unspeakable, then just lay it out and brag about how brilliant you are.

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  5. Bourbacide is the name they give to one of the threads of Bourbonic, is just a really bourbony strong brown ale, picking up it's notes from the bourbon barrel it was aged in. I've had it alone from the barrel and it was very tasty.

    Beckomyces is just named after Beck that works at the barrel house.

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