WTF Lagunitas Strikes Again

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I always get a little down after Christmas. From Halloween, til New Years, we have this mad rush of parties, and shopping, bacchanalian revelry culminating in a massive hangover that lasts for the first week of January. And once the holiday season is over, there is well, not much to do. Oh sure, we have Martin Luther King and President’s Day for a nice three day weekend in January and February. That is if you are lucky enough to work in an industry that has holidays. Hell, I found out California doesn’t even celebrate Columbus or Veterans Days, so fuck. It also doesn’t help that California winters feel like early fall. Oh sure, we had weather in the low 50’s for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it was 70 yesterday. Back in New England, I did enjoy the cold, gray, desolate snowy stretch brought in by January and February. But here in SoCal, it’s just more of the same. No frost nipped noses, hot showers, or snuggling under a blanket here in Los Angeles. I do see people dressed like it’s in the ’30s, though, because here 60 is cold. And boy do these people love to complain about the weather. I thought New Englanders were bad, they have nothing on Angelinos. It’s too cold, it’s too hot, everything is on fire. And when it rains? Forget about it. Turn on the news, and that’s all you hear about. If it’s going to rain, when, what highways will inevitably end up with a ten-car pile-up in the rain.

To combat this general discontentment, I’ve been making quite a few trips to my local corner store for beer and local Mexican snacks. I’m pretty sure the cashier thinks I’m an alcoholic, but damn are those Modelo Limon y Sal chelada beers delicious. This past Sunday, the boyfriend and I spent a cost-free day at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, thanks to LA Public Library. The museum was amazing, the gem collection alone was worth the trip. Of course, my favorite exhibit was the hall of birds. All my feathered friends preserved indefinitely to the delight of amateur ornithologists such as myself. We ended the day with a walk through the museum’s kitchen garden, sampling such delights as black sage, lavender, and lemon thyme. By the time I reached the Verdean path’s end, I had started thinking about what beer would go well with the garden herb smothered roast pork loin sizzling in my brain.

I trekked over to the corner store upon our return from the day of educational fun. Like most convenient stores (Apple Country aside), there will be a smattering of “craft adjacent” beers, nestled in with the big macro beers. Tucked in the corner near the bottom was a row of Lagunitas bottles I don’t recall having seen before, IPA, Little Sumpin Sumpin, and a 22 ounce of Wilco Tango Foxtrot. WTF. WTF indeed corner store, you’ve been holding out on me. The label on the bottle promised me a “Malty, Robust Jobless Recovery Ale” (whatever the fuck that means), and at 8.1%, I was down to clown. A quick internet search tells me WTF is a brown ale, something I haven’t encountered much of out in SoCal. Recently I had been thinking about all the illegal and dirty acts I’d be willing to perform for a bottle of Smuttynose Old Brown Dog, so finding WTF both shocked and delighted me.

Lagunitas is to California, what Sam Adams is to Mass, it’s sold pretty much everywhere. However, Lagunitas ubiquitousness does not a diminished beer make. I enjoy several of their beers (yes, even the IPA). Their beers are higher in ABV generally, but apparently, the markets out here haven’t caught on because the price is the same between types, it’s just greater value to get the higher abv beer! Now Lagunitas unfortunately no longer qualifies as a craft beer as of 2015 due to Heineken purchasing a 50% share in the company. Before the takeover of the corporate overlords, Lagunitas was your standard hop-heavy California brewery. Like many breweries, Lags began in 1993 as a homebrew hobby in founder Tony Magee’s Lagunitas CA kitchen. (For you East Coasters, Petaluma is about 50 miles north of San Francisco.) He eventually moved his operation to nearby Petaluma and began expanding production into Washington and Chicago. Personally, I feel like the addition of Heineken’s money hasn’t affected the quality of Lagunitas beer. What little I’ve read on the company, they are quintessentially California and highly independent. The more I write about San Francisco area beers, the more I want to visit the area. Ok, it’s like 90% wanting tour Alcatraz at night, 10% beer but still.
WTF WTF. I’m not jobless, but I feel confident I can still enjoy this beer. The Lagunitas website lists WTF as a limited release available from October – December, so obviously this is not a beer my local corner store will continue to stock. However, the number of bottles in the cooler was substantial. Judging by the beer I see other patrons purchasing, (Bud, Coors, numerous Mexican lagers) I’m sure my supply will be safe. Since trying the original bottle, I actually returned to the corner store and purchased several more. Spoiler alert, it’s a damn good beer.

WTF poured like a dream. A quasi see-through liquid with a rich chestnut color, topped with a luscious, thick, and creamy champagne-hued head (oh goody). Though not a stout, and not even on nitro, the decadent head gave Guinness a run for its money. I can forgive the lack of a nitrogen cascade effect with how inviting this beer appeared in the light of my White Christmas Yankee Candle (swag now please.) Is stoutesque a word? Because WTF is stoutesque in appearance. There was not a great deal of visible carbonation in the glass, even with the faint transparent quality of the malty liquid goodness.

Cue pretentious hand wafting to drive aromas towards my nascent apparatus. I actually found the smell of this beer a bit underwhelming, to be honest. Now the notes that I did pick up matched the color of the beer exactly, but I wished for a bit more. The charred biscuity notes of the chocolate malt came through the strongest. I also detected burnt (in a good way) caramel and raisin. All in all, like a nice overly toasted pain au raisin, definitely my cup of tea. Which goes well with a hot pastry, get it?

I was feeling pretentious when I poured this beer, see the tulip glass pictured, so naturally, I held a pinky up in the air while sipping. I would place this beer right in the middle of the scale for body, some might feel it should be moved up a notch or two. After swirling and swishing and doing a whole manner of naughty things with my tongue (to the beer you gross buttholes), all I can say is wow! The complexity of WTF’s flavor is a lot of baggage of unpack, in a good way.

The initial sip of the beer matched what minimal aromas I was able to glean from my glass. Imagine a casual stroll down the artsy part of your street, for me this would be La Brea- lots of bakeries and super pretentious design studios. As you pass in front of that little French boulangerie, you detect a hint of roasted buttery, yeasty goodness, ooh la la. Imagine entering that bakery, taking a seat at the counter, and studying the glass case full of warm baked treats. Everything looks amazing, baguettes, religieuse, raspberry tarts galore. But wait! What is that swirled crisp delight in the corner? Ahh, a chocolate croissant. Oui Oui! It appears magically on the plate in front of you, warm, soft, doughy, and crisp. You take a bite and the flavors of toasted wheat, bitter chocolate, and caramel wash over your tongue. That, my friends, is what the first sip of this beer tasted like. Flavors of chocolate malt, burnt caramel, and just a hint of bitter hops- my guess is Fuggles.
The last notes of the beer was a whole mishmash of tongue tingles. As I swallowed, the thought that came to mind was chocolate grapefruit. The resiny notes of the hops mixed with the unsweetened bitterness of the dark chocolate to create a pithy, fruity, cocoa delight. What great way to end, huh? Pithy delights. I have never used that phrase before. (Pith is the white part when you peel a fruit, for the new fruit user.)

5/5 Wonka Bars