I recently got involved with some other beer blogging geeks on Twitter who were putting together a collaborative review of a new saison called Buddha Nuvo. The idea to write a collaborative review was witty (and fun) because the Buddha itself was collaboratively created. How many brewers does it take to make a Buddha? 14. And they’re all from Colorado breweries you know and love. The brewing process was fascinating and worth reading up about. For this post, I’m going to stick with my own experience with their final product.
A word of caution: I am not very good at describing beers. I can’t tell when there’s an undercurrent of sour apple or black currant-coriander-steak sauce notes. I’m challenged in other areas of beer drinking as well. A beer almost always smells like nothing or like bread. This one smells like bread. When I say that this beer paired nicely with edamame and cinnamon graham crackers, that’s mostly because it’s what I had for dinner. So I am not a professional. But I do enjoy beer and anyway I shelled out $40 for this bottle, so I’m at least going to get a blog posting out of it.
In spite of my beer-word ineptitude, I was determined to take this tasting very seriously. My approach was scientific. I sampled it at several different times of day, over the course of five days. I tasted it at a variety of temperatures (a benefit of nursing a beer) and elevations (upstairs and downstairs). I tried it when the dog was in the room and when he was not, I tried drinking out of the same glass as my wife, and I tried it naked. I then ran the data and drew conclusions. Well, a conclusion: this beer is awesome under almost any circumstance. I then tried to do what I know I cannot: describe the beer. It didn’t go well. But you’ve already been fairly warned, so here’s what I came up with:
Buddha Nuvo tastes like a dozen loaves of really good bread were thrown into a barrel. Then a pumpkin was thrown in. Then the bread and the pumpkin were lit on fire. The barrel probably also caught on fire a little (it would have to, I think). Then the whole thing was doused with bubbly white wine. And bottled.
I haven’t spoken to any of the brewers so I cannot verify how much of my description is fact and how much of it is something other than fact. You have to imagine I’m not far off.
A final remark, about the price: I was talking to my friend “Joe” about getting a good job and making some real money. Joe is practical and grounded. He’s going to school for a job he knows will not make him rich and he’s comfortable with that. Don’t you ever dream of owning a Ferrari or something? No. He'd lose interest. A car’s a car. I told him I could get on board with that. Joe also said he was giving up beer for a while. It was an unnecessary expense. Sure, I said. You don’t need beer to live. Gotta keep a budget when you’re in school. Then I came home and finished my Buddha and realized that, while I may not need beer to live, I don’t think I would lose interest drinking this Ferrari. But maybe that’s just the 12% ABV.
The collaborative review with the Twitter folks is still in the fermenter; I’ll post a link when it’s finished. In the mean time, if you have tried Buddha Nuvo, what did you think?
