Velvet Rooster: Putting the Cock in Cockel-Doodle-Do

With Thanksgiving in sight, our thoughts turn to the comfort of strong beer and the balm so desperately needed after a long day filled with gluttony, professional football and the taunting of blood relatives. Here’s one fer ya... Velvet Rooster, a Belgian Triple produced by Tallgrass Brewing of Manhattan, Kansas, is now available at Festival Foods in Oshkosh. It’s an easy drinking 8.5% beer, with a bit of apricot in the nose, a beautifully creamy mouthfeel and a swirl of fruity esters that finish with a good hit of peppery spice. Definitely worth a try. And it’s fun pouring a Belgian Triple out of a 16oz can. Sorta trashy, yet totally refined.

One other quick tip: if you need something that your less beer-enlightened guests can glom onto during the Thursday feast, but don’t want to resort to Bud/Miller/Coors, pick up a growler of the German Pils now on tap at Fratellos in Oshkosh. It has a terrific, bready malt character with a firm, herbal bitterness on the tail end. It reminds me a lot of some of the pre-Prohibition homebrew lagers I’ve tasted recently. A real beer that anybody ought to be able to enjoy.