Deschutes “Symphonic Chronic”: Megaphonic

There is a growing, well, for lack of a better term, “substratum” of US craft beer that’s been labeled “convenience store only”. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably seen some of ’em: tall, 19.2 ounce cans, usually cartoon or otherwise attention-grabbing artwork, and the message “9%” large and unmistakable, there on the front.

As one of those tiresome beer snots who does NOT, like EVER, buy his beer in a convenience store, I didn’t find out about these beers for a very long time. But we were taking one of our frequent day trips around this magical state of Washington, one sunny afternoon in late spring, and found ourselves in a line for a ferry, with maybe an hour to kill. As we were hungry and, on this unseasonably warm afternoon, THIRSTY, I walked out of the ferry lot to a nearby independent market and looked in their beer cooler and…it was like looking through Stargate. A whole new world was there, clearly visible…and a bit frightening.

I was alarmed but, as alarm doesn’t negate thirst, I bought the only one with an ABV significantly less than 9 and split it with Judye. We had an hour and the ferry ride before driving again, she was behind the wheel, and I had 3/4 of the beer. But I noticed that the beer, with which I was very familiar, in its 6.5% form, was different…larger in all dimensions, hoppier, less streamlined. Still a great beer but not as balanced and…WTF?

Deschutes, at that time, did have an entry into this semi-unholy Jiffy Mart sweepstakes…but I never saw it. Royal Fresh was in 19.2s and probably Fresh Squeezed was somewhere around, although not in this remote Arctic outpost called “Western Washington”. Here, no Deschutes at all, other than six packs of their regular beers, in our Quickie Marts. I know ’cause, two weeks later, after dwelling on this new…Thing, I went out and purchased eight of these 19.2/9% behemoths and did a tasting. No Deschutes to be found. And I found a certain…theme to the beers: BIG, massive flavors across the board. BIG hops. Fat malts. Creamy textures. Noticeable sweetness, even in the big IPAs. Palate-coating textures. BODY. More sheer Body than this website. (Though easier to consume)

I tried putting myself into the mindset of the sort of person who would get all aflutter about a 9% beer in a 2XL can…and failed. It appears, anyway, that Job One of this school of beer is Getting Hammered, as quickly and flavorfully as possible, as MOST of the beers were okay but none really jumped out as exceptional.

Well…

Now one does.

I sorta knew that, if Deschutes ever decided to lower their aspirations enough to enter the field, they would do a better job than any of the others, so I was nowhere near surprised when I tasted Symphonic Chronic Double Dank IPA 9% ABV. That’s a mouthful to print on a label. Happily, it’s also a mouthful in your glass…No, wait. I’m sorry…My inner beer geek once again rears its ugly head. “Glass”? My bad. The folks who buy these beers are either A) being responsible sorts who wait until they get to the park or the riverbank to open the cans or B) pour them into a red Solo cup so the cops won’t know it’s beer. (Pro Tip: They do.)

It bears noting that Symphonic is NOT a new beer. It’s been sneaked into an IPA mixed pack for a while, in its original 7.2% version, delighting all of us geeky types who bought that pack for the other beers and wound up liking the Mystery Guest just as much or more. If Deschutes was to get interested in taking any one of their roster and pumping it up to 9.2%, they picked the right one. The other ones in that and subsdequent four IPA six-packs – Inversion, Fresh Haze, Fresh Squeezed, to name a few – were such widely-known quantities that big changes to any one would invite howling from their sizeable fan bases. Symphonic was mercifully free of most preconceptions, so Symphonic it is.

Now, as it is my JOB to remove all considerations aside from What’s In The Glass (can, Solo cup, Mason jar, whatever), and just focus on the beverages and nothing else, here’s the LARGE breath of fresh, albeit HOPPY, air that emerged when I opened Symphonic. Citra, Chinook, CTZ, Mosaic, Simcoe, Idaho 7 hops add up to a bonanza of bright, juicy tropical fruits, everything from mango to pineapple to tangerine. DANK pine resins, grapefruit, savory herbs, and a sweet spruce patina. The texture is the only question: this is a LUSH ale. “Lush” often works a cross-purposes with “refreshing” which usually requires more “crisp” than lush. In this beer, it works. The mouth-watering quality we look for in summer beers is usually and more easily obtained by acids, i.e. the “crisp” element. But it also happens when our palate is strongly stimulated with big flavors, in the way that we sometimes describe steaks as “mouth-watering”. That’s what Symphonic does: it’s sheer scale of flavors benignly overwhelms the taste buds and stimulates that mouth-watering phenomenon. Honestly, I had only rarely tasted a beer that did that to me and it took a minute to catch on. I also had that happen with that towering lager outlier, Samichlaus, the first (and every) time I had it and now it’s ably complemented by something on the other flavor end of the continuum. This ale reminds me most of what I imagine would happen if you took a can of Fresh Squeezed IPA and mixed with some of my favorite Deschutes IPA, Pine Drops, something they apparently no longer make but which did “DANK” like Mozart did little ditties.

This is a fine can o’ suds, here. As convenience store offerings go, this is the Maserati in a garage full of Kias. I am really not a candidate for MiniMart sales campaigns (I now take a cooler along on all our day trip jaunts) but if I were, my perusal of their beer cooler would take only long enough to find this label and open the door. Yeah, I AM a fuggen beer snob. Never denied it for a second, and that tasting of the rest of the convenience store brands tells me I’m not missing much. But if I want this beer, which is primarily for that market, I would absolutely drive over to the Country Boy Market, just up the hill, and buy it proudly.

If you’re looking for that big can of 9% ale with balance, body, muscles, and FLAVOR, this is it. Git sum.