Archive for the 'Beer Reviews' category
Golden Pints 2012
Better late then never is my motto, or at least it is for this post. Andy Mogg and Mark Dredge have been organizing the Golden Pints for the past few years and this time I thought I would contribute… eventually. Though the Golden Pints are UK focused, a little editing of the categories and I’m good to go.
Best American Draught Beer
Have not been to many bars this past year, but of the few times I did Jack’s Abby Jabby Brau was ordered a bunch of times.
Best American Bottled or Canned Beer
Boulevard Brewing Love Child #2. The next day after finishing my first bottle, I went out and bought another four. I do not remember the last time I did that with a beer.
Best UK/Overseas Draught Beer
Not even sure I had an overseas beer on draught this past year.
Best UK/Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer
I’m going with Thornbridge Kipling, with a close second going to Adnams Southwold Bitter.
Best Overall Beer
Westvleteren 12! Just kidding.
Port Brewing Company Mongo IPA. After a hard days work I always looked forward to having this. Bitter with a great mouthfeel.
Best Pumpclip or Label
Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project Meadowlark IPA. Colorful with great hand drawn artwork.
Best American Brewery
Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project. I can drink their whole line of beers any day of the week, plus their history line of beers has been fascinating.
Best UK/Overseas Brewery
I did not drink enough UK/overseas beer to name one.
Pub/Bar of the Year
Deep Ellum Allston, MA
Beer Festival of the Year
Didn’t go to any.
Supermarket of the Year
Cannot buy beer in supermarkets around here.
Independent Retailer of the Year
Redstone Liquors Stoneham, MA. Friendly, knowledgable staff with good prices. The trifecta.
Online Retailer of the Year
If I cannot get the beer local, I am not going to get it.
Best Beer Book or Magazine
Beer Advocate, but then again it is the only beer periodical I read.
Best Beer Blog or Website
Boak and Bailey. Well written, and concise. When my feed reader became clogged with hundreds of unread posts, Boak and Bailey was the only beer blog I caught up with, the rest got the “mark all as read” click.
Best Beer Twitterer
Umm…
Best Online Brewery Presence
Brewery websites have consistently been awful, so I tend not to bother with them. There might be an outlier or two, but I have not found them.
Food and Beer Pairing of the Year
I drink beer. I eat food. They might happen at the same time, but no thought goes into it.
In 2013 I’d most like to…
Write a bit more, and be more timely with it.
Jack’s Abby Copper Legend
Night Shift Brewing Somer Weisse
Slumbrew FlagRaiser IPA
Slumbrew. No it is not a new term for 40 ounces of Malt Liquor, or Fortified Wine. It is actually the name of a new brand of beer from new Massachusetts beer maker, Somerville Brewing Company. Slumbrew started hitting shelves at the end of 2011 with three styles: Hefeweizen, IPA, and Porter. Now I am a fan of the Porter style (living by the saying “The more Porter, the more better”) but America being the country of IPA drinkers, I thought I would start with that one first. Lets hope the beer is more appetizing than the brand’s name makes it sound.
The amber-orange liquid hits the beer glass and produces a rocky off-white head that lasts a short amount of time, even with the fare bit of carbonation in the body. The aroma is quite fruity with orange, macintosh apples, and passion fruit greeting my nose. Mixed with the fruit is a light cereal grain and caramel malt character. The mouthfeel is enjoyable with the beer making its presence known and a subtle roughness around the edges. I get more earthy, black pepper spice characteristics in the taste then the initial aroma profile lets on. The fruit is still present, but less defined, and the earthy bitterness finishes quite strong. For a 7.5% beer the alcohol was well hidden.
For an incredibly crowded beer style, this one does stick out from the pack. I am not saying it is the best IPA ever, but it is different enough to a) remember and b) have again. Slumbrew is not the most appetizing of names, but at least they are doing something different with their beer, which is what matters the most (as long as people get past the name).
NB The name Slumbrew is “a cheeky, irreverant reference to a bygone era” for Somerville, MA. Marketing people… ya gotta love’em.
Photo Credit: walknboston, Creative Commons License
Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale
I have never been timely with my reviews (and why change that now?), so I am going to review a Holiday Ale in February. Now I am not a huge fan of Holiday beers to begin with. Sure there are one or two I look out for, but most of the time I find them too dark-fruity, too spicy, too boozey, or all three. My co-worker however recommended Lagunitas Sucks, and valuing his opinion, I picked up a six-pack of the stuff a few weeks after Christmas.
Clear, golden-colored, with a head that rapidly receded to a faint white covering. Pine sap, grapefruit, mango, and hints of tobacco in the aroma. Clean with a heavy bitter finish. Does that sound like a typical Holiday Ale to you? For me it certainly does not. Though the beer was enjoyable it does not change my opinion on the Holiday style because the beer is not one… it is a Pacific Coast Double IPA.
Now you might be kicking yourself because you skipped over the beer, thinking it was a Holiday Ale. I would not kick too hard. Yes the beer was enjoyable, but it did not stick out from the rather crowded Pacific Coast Double IPA pack. (My co-worker recently told me he tried the Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale side-by-side with Lagunitas Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale and their was not much difference between the two for him.)
Photo Credit: walknboston, Creative Commons License
Boulevard Brewing and Deschutes Brewery White I.P.A.
The latest trend/fad in beer styles is the White IPA (soon to be renamed by the Pacific Northwest as Cascadian White Ale) with Deschutes Chainbreaker White IPA, Samuel Adams’ Whitewater IPA, Saranac’s White IPA, Anchorage’s Galaxy White IPA, Harpoon’s White IPA, and even Shock Top Wheat IPA (does that mean the style has already “jumped the shark”?) all being announced or released recently. I can understand why brewers are hopping on the White IPA train because it seems like a sales juggernaut to combine IPA (which is the largest selling single style in the US) with a White Ale (Witbier) (with Blue Moon producing upwards of two million barrels of the stuff a year* and their dollar sales increasing even faster than craft beer’s), and I am surprised it has not happened sooner. Commercially the White IPA combination only came about recently with a collaboration between Boulevard Brewing and Deschutes (this statement will probably be proved wrong by either a former employee of the The Vermont Pub & Brewery or Ron Pattinson), when they brewed their aptly named White IPA. Now I have in my stash said beer (the Boulevard Brewing version of the recipe), and decided to crack the beer open and find out what this White IPA style is all about.
“Enticing” was the first word in my head, when I caught the first whiffs of aroma, orange and fruit, emanating from the bottle. Poured into a tulip glass the golden-colored beer produced a rocky white head with a good inch and half depth that lasted four to five minutes, and did not disappear until half the glass was consumed. As the head’s bubbles burst, aromas of orange, green apple, herbs and yeasty tang ensconced in my nose. My first sips were full of coriander, and sage, which I did not find overly enjoyable, and a sour yeast finish. With time however, the beer’s orange and fruit flavor, initially noticed in the nose, made a more pronounced showing, though never truly overcoming the initial herb flavors. The sour was also counter balanced by a light bitter note. The beer throughout the session had a dry, crisp, and refreshing finish.
Now my foray with the White IPA was not on the best of terms. As I was drinking the beer I happen to notice on the label a “best by” date (in my opinion “best by” dates should be found more often on craft beer) of 02-2012, so my beer was nearing the end of its “life”. With that in mind, and my belief a fresher White IPA would display a stronger IPA characteristic that would counter balance the herbal notes of the White Ale, I am still on the fence with the White IPA style. Adding white ale’s herbal characteristics to the fruity chracteristics of the IPA style did not do anything for me. I am not a fan of herbal beer, and this did not help change that. I did however enjoy the sour-bitter combination the yeast imparted, and the dry, crisp, refreshing finish of the beer, so I am not against trying the White IPA style again. And with so many White IPAs coming out in the ensuing months, it looks like I will have plenty of opportunities to decide which side of the White IPA fence I am on.
*Guesstimate based on this post.
Photo Credit: walknboston, Creative Commons License
Dogfish Head / Sierra Nevada Life & Limb
Hey all – just a quick post on this bomber of Life & Limb, a beer that many of you are probably familiar with. Obviously, Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada are two seminal breweries in the ‘craft beer movement’. I love ‘em both and I think they’ve both done a lot to push the industry forward. Therefore, I was pretty excited when I heard about this collaborative brew using maple syrup from the Calagione farm (DFH) and barley from the Grossman farm (SN). Disregarding the potential quality of the ingredients, the innovative natures of the brewers promises something worth trying. And, I must say, the beer did turn out quite tasty.
This beer pours a very dark brown, with a dense caramel head. The aroma is quite rich – notes of maple, caramel, and dark cherry do it for me. In the mouth, it stays true to form. At British room temperature, the beer exhibits tremendous richness – full of caramel and dark malt. The maple flavors really take hold around the back of the tongue, as does some flavor of sweet cream – very dessert-like and delicious. It isn’t as viscous as a stout. Rather, it comes across as a rich brown ale with big flavors and some yeastiness that isn’t in your face, but may borrow a bit from their Belgian brethren.
And, that’s about it. Frankly, it seems a short paragraph to write about a beer with such big flavors and some considerable hype. However, I have to wonder – at what point do we experience everything under the sun? This is delicious, sure. But, to be fair, I feel like I’ve tasted it a dozen times before. Don’t get me wrong, this beer is sophisticated and well-crafted and delicious, but it is *not* so different that I haven’t tasted all of these flavors before. And, in that respect, it’s a disappointment. But, I guess we were bound to get here. When dealing with a beverage that stipulates little more than 4 ingredients, the flavors are bound to run out. Leads me to wonder what keeps wine drinkers to interested? At any rate, I’m curious who out there is doing really innovative things and making them work? The further the ‘craft brew revolution’ goes, the weirder we gotta get to stay innovative. And, eventually, the beer is going to start to taste like shit. It’s inevitable. You can only get so weird. However, I’ll bet there are still some breweries pushing envelopes out there.
I’ll tell you the brewery that’s making the most innovative-yet-delicious beers that I’ve had in a while – Furthermore Brewery. Those guys make a coffee lager that’s amazing, and their cracked pepper pale ale is nothing to sneeze at – both fairly low abv beers with medium flavor profiles. I feel like the breweries to push us to the next level will be breweries that understand how to integrate flavors while practicing restraint – something that is, for better or worse, lacking in the current scene.
All I’m saying is that, while I *love* the craft beer culture in the US right now, I’m beginning to get bored with Imperial versions of the same old beers…
Ninkasi “Tricerahops” Double IPA
Listen. I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya’, and seeing as it’s been a solid 2 months since the last SevenPack post at all, I figure we’re a little overdue. So, I come at you know with a special Pacific Northwest posting of a brew that we’re nowhere close to getting on the East Coast. Tonight, I find myself in Seattle and, after being disappointed by the taps at some local restaurants, I decided to sidle into the local Safeway to see what they had in stock. As luck would have it, they had a number of brews that tempted my tummy, from a Fresh Hop Deschutes to an Elysian IPA to this little gem from a brewery I’ve never heard of. Long story short, I have one more night in town, so I had to settle for a single beer, and something called “Tricerahops” is bound to win. So here I am.
The Tricerahops hails from Eugene, Oregon which is, by all accounts, good hop territory. It pours a great deep amber color that is, while apparently not heavily filtered, not altogether too cloudy either. The aroma of the beer is absolutely fabulous – there is a lot of floral Northwestern hop here, but also a great bready sweetness. It’s the kind of beer that makes you want to hold your glass to your nose like a Halloween mask. The taste here is also excellent. Early on the tongue, there is a substantial hop burn – this is full of west coast fresh hops. The sting on the tongue is quickly mitigated by that malt backbone and some buttery flavors, killing the burn and mellowing out the hops while bring a strong sweetbread flavor through the mouth. The mouthfeel of the beer is thick and decadent, coating the mouth with sweet malts and fresh hops, and just a hint of citrusy grapefruit. In the end, the beer finishes with another pretty sharp hop blast that kicks back through the mouth. That sharpness sticks with you for several seconds, but eventually the malty sweetness reigns the aftertaste. Frankly, it’s one of the longer aftertastes I’ve tasted in a beer in a while, leaving a lot of flavor more than a minute after my last sip.
I don’t know much about Ninkasi, and this is their first brew I’ve tasted, but *man* am I impressed. I’m very excited to taste more from these guys, but sad that I don’t know when I’ll have the chance! See you tomorrow, North Carolina…
Odell IPA
So, I’m not going to spend a ton of time reviewing this beer from Odell, because I think my past reviews will indicate how I feel about this. I’ve never had a bad beer from the folks at Odell, I think their label art is swell, and I reach for IPAs about 75% of the time. Therefore, it stands to reason that I’m going to like this. A lot.
And I do. Frankly, I’m surprised by the pour, as it is much lighter than expected, coming out looking more like a pale ale or a lager than a full-bodied IPA. It is really quite clear, but I’d wager unfiltered – just a hint of cloudiness presents itself. The head is stark white, fluffing up quickly but then dying down to a thin ring around the glass. A substantial effervescence remains, with tiny bubbles rising to the top of the glass throughout the session. The aroma here is full of fresh hop – very flowery with a substantial citrus hint. In the mouth, this is an IPA by the book, and one of the better IPAs I can recall having. There is a ton of sticky fresh hop flavor with a bit of pineapple citrus throughout the mouth. I wouldn’t call this very complicated – it presents it’s flavor at the front of the mouth, and that flavor remains all the way through to the aftertaste. Perhaps the citrus flares up a bit in the middle of the tongue, relaxing into more of a hop aftertaste.
All in all, I’d rank this up there with the old standards of IPA-dom, like a Dogfish Head 60-minute or a Bell’s Two Hearted. It’s an incredibly tasty beer, mildly sessionable, and impressive value for the cost. Odell’s remains one of my favorite breweries…
Rush River “Uber Alt”
One month later, and another special batch from the folks at Rush River. This one is their Uber Alt – a large take on the German Altbier, a typically rich malty concoction.
This brew pours a very dark golden – just slightly cloudy with great effervescence and a creamy dense head that just won’t stop. The aroma of this is just fabulous. It lives up to the style with rich baked bread aromas with an extra slight dose of sweetness reminiscent of cotton candy. In the mouth, this doesn’t disappoint. The initial flavor is quite sweet. In fact, it gives me a light sensation of SweetTarts. However, this is quickly mellowed out by rich sweetbreads and hints of maple syrup. The flavors are undoubtedly rich and decadent. However, the texture of the beer maintains a fairly viscous texture and flows through the mouth quite easy. The flavor tends to stick on the tongue, but the beer comes off quite crisp and clean.
Frankly, I couldn’t be more impressed with this stuff. It’s such an interesting combination of candy sweetness and rich maltiness, and such an unexpectedly smooth and clean mouthfeel, that it’s really unlike anything I’ve tasted. However, it’s not *weird*, like so many ‘different’ beers can be these days (a good thing in its own way). What Rush River has done here is to incorporate flavors we know in a unique fashion, providing a beer that is both familiar and new, and very tasty.
All in all, I think this is a fabulous beer and a great value in a 6-pack. For sure, you’ll want to watch yourself, as this rings in at a deceptively strong 8.5% abv. However, I highly recommend picking up a batch.
Rush River “Double Bubble” IIPA
Here is yet another brewery that I was not familiar with until spending some excessive time in the town of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I see quite a bit of Rush River around these parts, but I decided to take on the IIPA for my first dive into their catalog. This IIPA stands to be a bit more interesting (and boozy) as it is brewed with honey.
The pour of this is a surprisingly light golden color. Not quite cloudy, but not crystal clear, either – I’m guessing it is partially filtered. The head here is substantial but course, flaring up and then diminishing rather quickly. In the nose, I’m sensing an oddly nutty aroma. There is certainly a light sweetness from the honey and substantial hops, but the overall scent is more earthy than expected. In the mouth, as well, this beer is different than I had planned. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty tasty; but it isn’t what I expected. The initial flavor offers hints of ginseng – lightly earthy – before merging into flavors of bitter hops. The hops here aren’t entirely floral, tending more towards an English metallic hop style. Later in the mouth, I begin to sense the honey to a greater extent, almost as the beer is going down the throat. There is a sharp moment of sweetness before the honey diminishes into the background. In the aftertaste, I sense mainly metallic hop flavors. All in all, it is an interesting beer, but nothing I’d write home about. That being said, I’ve been hearing great things about Rush River from the locals, so I’ll likely try out some of their other brews.
Furthermore Fatty Boombalatty
This is the first beer I’ve had from Furthermore. I’ve in fact never heard of them at all, but I do like their labeling and good taste in styles. This, the Fatty Boombalatty, is basically an Imperial Belgian White. Being a huge fan of the classic white, Hoegaarden, I am quite excited to try this.
The pour of the FB is a cloudy deep golden full of effervescence, kicking up a pillowy white head that still maintains a thick cake on the top of the beer 5 minutes after being poured. In the nose, this has all the trademark aromas of a witbier in spades – lots of malt with a strong yeasty scent and light citrus notes. The flavor of this also leaves little to be desired. If you’ve had Hoegaarden, then you’ll recognize the general flavor here – but this is turned up to 11. Belian yeast takes center stage, providing lots of sweetness and some bubblegum flavor. On through the mouth we get some spiciness redolent of citrus and coriander. Down the throat, the coriander spice sticks around the middle of the mouth while that bubblegum flavor shoots up the nasal cavity, leaving a lingering sweet essence. Frankly, I couldn’t like this beer much more. It has the trademark flavors of a good summer beer, but it is rich and bold enough to nearly be a dessert beer. Refreshing and decadent in equal measures. It is probably good that this is as rich as it is because, at 7.2% ABV, you wouldn’t want to session too many of these. Overall, a fantastic beer, and I’m looking forward to trying more from Furthermore…
21st Amendment Bitter American
With Ben reviewing some canned craft beer, I thought I would hop aboard with a review of a canned beer I have recently been enjoying, Bitter American by 21st Amendment.
Poured into a pint glass, the beer’s aroma of floral, with a tweak of lemon, hop, and slightly sweetened malt emanates from the off-white head. This head sits atop a body that is crystal clear, amber-copper in color, and interspersed with meandering bubbles of carbonation. The beer’s display is aromatically and visually enticing.
In the mouth the beer is rather light on the tongue with some carbonation “roughness” to make it slightly interesting. Without the carbonation, the beer would probably have a rather watery mouthfeel. The hops take the more central role in taste. The floral characteristic noted in the aroma is more earthy mid-mouth, though the lemon note is still there, if not subdued. The hops don’t steal the show though, because the malt arrives with a character of bread drizzled lightly with caramel (its dessert bread). The beer finishes dry and bitter with a taste that is minty and fruity. As the beer warms the midmouth hop character starts displaying a pine note. The challenge to this pine note is actually letting the beer warm up enough to reach it.
This is a wonderful beer (and the can’s label is a definite bonus), and I have been thoroughly enjoying it for the last few weeks. The only downside to the beer is the fact it is a “seasonal”. A flavorful, sessionable (the beer is 4.4% abv) beer found in a can is something the American beer market needs more of, so hopefully this beer becomes a year round offering sooner rather than later.
Surly Coffee Bender
Second up on our week o’ cans is this selection from Surly. Now, Surly is a very Minnesota beer. In my couple of weeks in Minneapolis, I’m seeing this stuff everywhere. It’s the kind of local beer that, even though it’s a good craft brew, it will find it’s place amongst the taps of even your less-discriminating pubs. This is seemingly because it is so well-entrenched in the hearts of the Minnesotans that even your Bud Light swilling locals will pick up a pint. It’s good to have a beer that people associate with home, and Surly seems to be that beer here (along with Grain Belt, a substantially lower quality cousin).
This particular beer, the Coffee Bender is *not* anything I’ve seen on tap around Minneapolis, but I’m intrigued. My impression is that this is coffee blended with beer, as opposed to coffee brewed with beer. This, in itself, kinda turns me off. However, Surly speaks of their cold brewing technique for the beer – it’s a technique I’ve seen used to good results in iced coffees, so I’m curious to see what this does with a beer.
The pour of the Bender is very dark, but not at all as viscous as I expected. Rather, it pours quite lightly, churning up a thin caramel head that quickly dissipates. In the nose, this may as well be a bag of coffee beans. The aroma is intense and rich and could stand along any of the other better-known coffee brews out there. The initial flavor of the beer is lightly sweet, but doesn’t smack you in the face. However, it quickly grows to a substantial coffee flavor. Compared to most coffee beers (which are, admittedly, mostly stouts), the mouthfeel of the Bender is flaccid. It’s a light beer, it flits through the mouth easily, and it doesn’t have a tendency to stick to the tongue. That being said, this packs quite a lot of coffee flavor into a rather light ale. This is chock full of coffee flavor with just the slightest malty flavor to let you know there is beer involved. In the coffee beer market, most brewers are trying to do the biggest, most syrupy beer they an pull off. What Surly has pulled off is creating a coffee beer that is sessionable. It’s appealing, light, and refreshing – and it tastes like coffee. I think there are a lot of people out there who would really enjoy this, and I’m one of them. It might be easy for some to chalk this up as a lesser cousin to the Terrapin Wake-N-Bake Stouts or the Founder’s Kentucky Breakfast Stout. However, I think those folks would miss the goal of the Coffee Bender – actually making a beer that wouldn’t be out of place early in the morning (not that we condone that or anything)…
Tallgrass Brewing IPA
Hey folks. I know it’s been about a 8 years since I last posted anything. In the meanwhile, Dave has done a good job of periodically holding down the beer blogging fort. However, seeing as I’m stuck in snowy Minneapolis for the better part of the next couple of months, and seeing as how I discovered a great bottle shop just down the road from where I stay, it would seem rude of me to not share some of my finds.
This week I decided to grab a couple of canned beers. First up on the list is this IPA from Tallgrass Brewing. I’ve never had a beer from Tallgrass, a brewery out of Kansas, but they appear to have a stable of pretty traditional varieties on the shelf. I figure an IPA is a good place to start with any new brewery.
This beer pours a medium golden color – certainly darker than a Bud Light, but not quite as dark as the bigger IPAs from Dogfish Head or Bell’s. Upon pouring, the head rears up a light caramel color and quite rocky. As the head subsides, substantial remnants are left hanging on to the sides of the glass. To be honest, the aroma isn’t anything to write home about – there is some light hop presence, overpowered by a more substantial bready aroma. However, neither aroma is very strong, rendering this fairly impotent in the nose department. The flavor, however, is a pleasant surprise. The initial flavor on the tongue is surprisingly sweet, bringing lighter malts to mind. Shortly thereafter, there is a decent floral hop note. As the flavor travels down the tongue, malt and hop blend, providing a well-rounded flavor that isn’t at all overwhelming, but still manages to hold a substantial flavor. The aftertaste here is a bit more hop than malt, leaving just a light floral bitterness on the back of the tongue. I didn’t expect to be too impressed with this given the aroma, but it actually turns out to be a great medium-bodied IPA. I’m not sure about the ABV here, but it strikes me as a great session beer – pleasing the palate but not blasting the tastebuds. I’m not sure I’ll be rushing out for other Tallgrass beers, but I certainly wouldn’t complain if one found its way into my hand…
