This Is My Blood: Carnevale

Tomorrow's column entry will most likely be reserved for mushy conclusions and goodbyes, so that leaves today as the final day we drink a beer and break it down, just like Randy Mosher taught us. Let's go through the whole thing, one more time.

I tasted Carnevale on 12/30/20 at approximately 8 PM. It came in a 750ml bottle, and was corked. The only thing resembling any date printed on the label was a print that read "VINTAGE 2020," so I guess this could be 364 days old at most.

Uncorked, I immediately got a whiff of metallic. That's never a good sign. It wasn't overpowering like some other beers I've been disappointed with this year—I could still get a whiff of the fruity Belgian esters underneath it—but still, yeah, metal. Fuck.

Carnevale poured a deep golden color. The foam was out of control. The label said "pour gently"—whoops—but also sometimes this is a sign that the beer has gone bad. The foam plus the aroma did not bode particularly well. This beer has definitely been oxidized.

Sucks because I did everything I could to treat this beer with the respect it deserves. I even made sure the temperature was correct—it calls for 40-45 degree F—and yet the beer shows me no respect in return by clearly having gone slightly bad.

It did not taste terrible, despite that. The body was pretty thin for a Belgian, but I still enjoyed the spiciness of the Belgian yeast. I probably always will. Maybe my affinity for Belgian beers is what pulled this Carnevale back from the brink. If it wasn't for that unique fruity/spicy combo, then I would've had a lot worse to say about the thin/metallic combo that also clearly existed.

Carnevale was also bitter, but in the wrong way. Bitter not like hops, but like battery acid. At least that's what I got in the aftertaste. Again, it was subtle, but definitely not satisfying.

I'm wondering if I would've had these opinions if I hadn't opened Pandora's box this year when it comes to beer. Maybe I've had 1000 oxidized light lagers in my life, and I haven't said shit, just drank 'em like a good little boy, but now I have "taste" and "expectations" and all that nonsense, and all of a sudden I'm picky about what fancy Belgian beers taste like? Bummer, bummer, bummer. This knowledge is a double-edged sword—I can appreciate good beers, but now I am picky about bad beers. Would've been nice to not know shit about beer tonight and just drank a fucking beer, but we can never go back, ever.

Still, having said all that, I'm still gonna miss doing shit like this. Even if a beer isn't great, I still get to consider an inanimate object on a deeper level than I would have otherwise. I feel a connection to this beer, even if I didn't particularly like it. If you want to read that as self-loathing, then go for it; I tend to see it as simply an appreciation for the perfect and the imperfect alike.

NOTES

BEER: Carnevale

STYLE: Belgian Saison

ABV: 8.2%

BREWED BY: The Lost Abbey

LOCATION: San Marcos, CA

PURCHASED AT: IGA, when I was looking for a nice (but reasonably priced) bottle to drink toward the end of the year

PAIRED WITH: nothing, we were just chilling, enjoying the beer and each other's company

GRADE: 1.5 pukes out of 5

 

BEER COUNT: 544.5