Let me be clear about this: I am not looking forward to fall. Summer is my season and I mourn its inevitable conclusion every single year. I have recognized for some time that this makes me a bad Canadian, but what the hell, it’s who I am.
Still, there is the reality that fall follows summer like the bill follows a night at the bar, so I appreciate that I might as well deal with it. And one very fine way to do so is with New Glarus Brewing’s Uff-da Bock.
I first tasted the Uff-da many, many years ago, when New Glarus was but in its infancy, and for some time I thought it had fallen from the brewery’s line-up. But in a recent shipment of tasting samples, there it was again, beckoning like a long-lost talisman. Its mere presence made me smile.
Tasting it, however, makes me positively giddy. Here is a bock crafted how all bocks should, with loads of deeply caramelized, almost smoky maltiness in the aroma and chocolate caramels with molasses accents in the big, mouth-filling body, supported by light hints of smoky coffee. The brewery calls it a beer “brewed to appease the Gods of Winter,” but for me this is the consummate fall bock, strong and dark and ideal for when the first chilly winds kick up off the western prairies. If I could get a hold of it, I would stock it and drink it and impose it upon visitors from Labour Day through to the start of December, and maybe just a bit beyond.
Wisconsin, this autumn you’ll have Uff-da and potentially the Brewers in the World Series. Enjoy both to the fullest!