Archive for January, 2008
Left Hand “Deep Cover” Brown Ale
Third up for this month’s Beer of the Month Club selection is the “Deep Cover” Brown Ale from Left Hand. I’ve had a lot of Left Hand’s beers. In general, however, I don’t get terribly excited about brown ales unless they’re some crazy Belgian variety or have some bizarre cask aging or some other such abnormality. So, for this reason, I never grabbed this off the shelf. Thanks to BOMC for forcing me to cover my bases here.
This beer pours a relatively clear medium-dark brown with just a hint of debris. There is a short but rich caramel head on this that laces up and down the side of the glass. The aroma of this beer is rich and heavy with toffee. The predominant scent is all sweetness with just a hint of nutty bitterness. In the mouth, this beer is truly a lot more than I expected! It seems fairly unassuming at the tip of the tongue, but an explosion of nuttiness hits shortly thereafter. Through the mouth, this beer maintains a richness that is seething with nuts, toffee, and some full dark malts. As the beer empties out of the mouth, it washes the palate clean and leaves us with an exceptionally refreshed and crisp feeling in the mouth. There isn’t a clinging aftertaste, but just the lightest hint of the malty sweetness. Overall, this is a great brown ale, and one I’d put right up there with the industry standard, Newcastle. This carries a similar flavor to Newcastle, but washes considerably cleaner and generally has a crisper affect. Good job, Left Hand!
Kulmbacher Eisbock
Kulmbacher Pilsner
Lo and behold, we just got another shipment from the folks at the Beer of the Month Club. This month’s shipment is looking pretty good, with a couple of great German offerings and a couple of good US brewed options. The first of these that I’ll dig into is the Kulmbacher Pilsner, a nice light brew that would likely be at home on a summer day a bit warmer than this winter NC day.
This beer pours a barely cloudy deep golden color with a lacy fine white head. The aroma of this is especially heavy with malt and a sugary sweetness with very little hop presence. In the mouth, this beer is peculiar. It is, initially, sweet and biscuity at the tip of the tongue, and then a metallic bitterness hits about halfway down the tongue. The sweetness doesn’t really proceed any further down the tongue, but it has good lasting power at the front of the mouth, so you end up with a dual aftertaste with a musty bitterness at the back of the mouth and this biscuity sweetness at the front. This gives the beer an interesting presence in the mouth, and I rather like how it all works out. While the flavors are simple by themselves, there is a complexity inherent in the way it sits in the mouth. Overall, this is a good beer, although it doesn’t carry a great deal of typical Pilsner flavor. However, this IS a German Pils, and they occasionally take more liberties than their Czech counterparts. Overall, it’s more interesting than most Bavarian lagers, but it won’t blow your mind. If you’re looking for a light beer with some interesting characteristics, though, this might just fit the bill.
Big Boss “Hell’s Belle” Belgian Ale
To be honest, it has taken longer than it should for us to review this offering from up-and-coming local brewery, Big Boss. I first had this brew at Milltown, a killer Belgian beer bar in Carrboro, NC. Since then, I’ve been seeking out this offering at all the local brewpubs, as it has heretofore been available only on draft. However, it recently came out in bottled form, and so it’s high time we review it!
This beer pours a lovely dense golden color with a thin white head. The aroma of this gives away the fact that it’s a tripel – there is a candi sugar sweetness and a light citrus hint. There is also a less pleasing sour tint to it that I can do without, but it’s the same scent that finds it’s way into many tripels. In the mouth, the initial sensation of the Hell’s Belle is a decent carbonation burn. After that, a rich candi sweetness rears it’s head and begins to blaze a trail down the tongue. During this trip, the primary sensation is of sweetness, with a citrus bite going hand-in-hand to keep the tastebuds alive and buzzing. The aftertaste of this beer is rich and carries just a hint of a nutty bitterness. Overall, this is a great beer that sticks well to the tripel genre with perhaps just a bit more sweetness than most. In my opinion, this sticks up to the best of American tripels on the market, and I intend to drink it repeatedly. Also, I can’t wait to make a visit to the brewery, and I feel ashamed that I haven’t already. These guys are putting out some seriously good brews that will likely be making their mark on the craft brew market soon, so keep your eyes peeled for them! And, while your eyes are peeled, take note of the excellent album art – strong work, Big Boss!
Top of the Hill “Ram’s Head” IPA
Well, if you were reading yesterday, then you already know the story of where Top of the Hill brewery comes from. So, I’m not going to dwell on that. But, I WILL dwell on the fact that the label art on this is a good looking Ram, no doubt created in the image of Rameses, the UNC mascot. That I can respect! And, this will round out the canned offerings from Top of the Hill. Feel free to stop into the restaurant for their more substantial list of draft beers – but, as for portable potables, this is all you’re gonna get!
The Ram’s Head is non-filtered but remarkably clear, and it’s a lovely ruby brown color with a rocky and persistent caramel head. The aroma of this beer is rich and malty with a good hop backbone. In the mouth, this beer is MUCH better than I recall from my hazy evenings at Top of the Hill! The initial sensation is of a rich sweetness that becomes sweeter and nearly cloying around the middle of the tongue. However, before things get out of hand, the hoppy goodness rears its head and brings a barrage of musty bitter hops to tackle the sweetness. The sweet aspects are nearly obliterated, and the bitterness commands the aftertaste and sticks with you for a long while after you swallow. Frankly, this is a great IPA, and much better than I had previously given it credit for. It wins big on all three aspects of appearance, aroma, and flavor. This is the first time I’ve purchased this in the portable can version, but certainly not the last. I’ll be glad to have a beer that I can enjoy at a tailgate while visually supporting UNC. Go Heels!
Butternuts Beer & Ale Heinnieweisse
After a slight change with a New England Brewery offering and then a retro-beer, I have come back to a Butternuts Beer & Ale brew. This time it is their Heinnieweisse beer, which has a great can logo of wheat stalks surrounding a hop cone.
The beer, poured into a Weizen glass, had a quickly dissipated finger of white head. The body of the beer was a hazy yellow-orange with a nice amount of bubbles rising at a moderate pace from the bottom of the glass. The aroma of the beer was of slight black pepper, heavy clove and yeast, and a fair touch of lemon to round things off.
In the mouth, the beer’s body was light in feel with some bubble action on the tongue. For taste, the clove and yeast hit pretty hard towards the front and middle of the mouth, with a sour lemon taste following towards the back.
Though I found the clove and yeast to be a little bit much, I found this to be a pretty fair beer. I have had better hefeweizen, but I have also had worse. I could see myself enjoying a can of this around the grill or after a nice hike during the warmer months.
Top of the Hill “Leaderboard Trophy” Lager
Unless you’re from the Chapel Hill area in North Carolina, you probably don’t have a clue what this beer is, and you probably shouldn’t. As far as I know, this beer doesn’t enjoy distribution anywhere beyond the cities immediately surrounding Chapel Hill – even there, it’s a limited distribution. Top of the Hill is a restaurant and brewery located on Franklin Street. It is, by many accounts, ground central to one of the country’s most revered college towns. And, on top of that, they happen to can two of their beers! So, this fits in well to our canned beer theme this week…
The Leaderboard Lager pours like most lagers – a clear light golden with a pillowy white head. The aroma of this is nearly nonexistent. It’s a very light smelling lager with just the lightest aroma of bready malt. In the mouth, this is definitely a malt-forward lager. The flavor is very light and refreshing with very little flavor initially. Around the middle of the mouth, though, there is a noticeable surge in bready sweetness that rides the wave down the throat and sticks around in the aftertaste. For a lager, this beer doesn’t wash especially clean, as the sweetness sticks in the back of the throat with a light syrupy texture. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as I like a lager with some substance sometimes. Altogether, this looks and smells like any macro-brewed lager out there. However, the taste is clearly superior. It’s not super big or mindblowingly good. But, it IS a good lager with a light but pleasant flavor that easily beats out it’s canned competition in your supermarket aisle. While this isn’t a genre I’m crazy about, I have to admit that Top of the Hill does a good job with this one.
Genesee Cream Ale
Since today is the “official birthday” of the beer can, I thought it would be interesting to review one of the styles of beers that was first canned, the cream ale style. Fortunately I was able to find Genesee Cream Ale in a can while on a recent trip to New Hampshire. This beer would probably fall more in the “retro-beer” type, since it was first brewed in 1960, rather than the “craft beer” type, but that is a slight deviation of the “beer can theme week” I am willing to live with.
The beer poured from the can into a pint glass gives a nice 2 fingers of pillowy white head, which ever so slowly dissipates into a thick covering that climbs the walls of the glass. The body of the beer is a clear, light yellow with a ton of little bubbles. I was quite amazed at the number and rate of bubbles, noting it looked like champagne (though in a pint glass).
The nose of the beer is rather one dimensional with the smell of fresh grain. This one dimensional aroma characteristic follows through into the taste with the taste of grain and little else. Though the mouthfeel of the beer was very light, it had a very smooth beginning and middle with some tingling at the back of the throat. I was surprised by this, having expected a mouthfeel that was going to be very active due to the amount of bubbles seen in the beer’s body.
For my first cream ale, I found this beer pleasant. I’ll admit I was not blown away by it and the beer is rather one dimensional, but I was expecting something along those lines. I am not about to go racing out to purchase more of it, but given the proper time and conditions I could see purchasing it again. I also find the history aspect of the beer to be interesting, being able to taste where American beer was a few decades back.
(To note Genesee is no longer brewed by Genesee Brewing Company, since they changed their name to High Falls Brewing Company in 2000. Ben reviewed a bunch of High Falls beers a while back.)
Ska Brewing ESB Special Ale
Hey you guys, it’s canned beer week! Frankly, in NC, I’m noticing that it’s hard to participate in canned beer week without reviewing some domestic macro-brew swill. I’m going to search further beer repositories around town to see what I can snag, but this offering here is the only canned microbrew I could find at the Triangle’s best beer store that we haven’t reviewed yet. So, in a nutshell, it’s looking dire for canned beer around here. But, mark my words, I’ll keep trying…
Some of you know that I’ve had a mixed bag reviewing Ska beers. A couple of their brews I really like, a couple of them I literally abhor. We even got one of the founders at Ska to comment here on SevenPack when I gave an especially scathing review (input that I certainly appreciated). So, I’m not sure what to expect from this. I haven’t drunk it in the past, due to my mixed emotions about Ska – but, since it’s canned beer week, I’m going to give it a go.
This beer pours a beautiful filtered dark amber color – truly a very pretty beer. There is a lasting thin caramel head on this beer, and the head sticks to the glass leaving an impressive spiderweb on your glass. The aroma of this is rich and malty and really very impressive – much better than you’ll find on most canned brews. In the mouth, this beer is initially a bit impotent, and I had a big ‘blah’ reaction. However, shortly after the tip of the tongue, this beer comes screaming in with a rather impressive flavor blast. About the middle of the tongue, we catch a big dose of biscuity malt and the rich sweetness of that quickly spreads around the mouth. This sweetness rules the beer until right at the back of the mouth and into the aftertaste. At this point, a nutty bitterness springs up and creeps back into the mouth to tackle the remaining sweetness. All in all, it’s an interesting beer that has pleasant and discrete stages in its flavor development. I must say, this is another victory for Ska, in my book. While this isn’t an especially refreshing canned beer, it would be great at a backyard BBQ sometime around spring or autumn. Quite tasty, if you’re into ESBs…
New England Brewing Atlantic Amber
Another day, another canned beer. Today I am moving away from Butternuts Beer and Ale and going with a brewery a little closer to home. New England Brewing is based out of Connecticut and has a line of three canned beers. Today I am going to tackle their Atlantic Amber.
First a quick note about the head for this beer. Though all the beers had sat in my beer fridge for at least a day, and all were handled the same way (ie I did not drop one or two by mistake), depending on which can I opened from the six pack the head varied greatly. Some cans had relatively no head (less then one finger), and others were bursting out of the can (three plus fingers of foam). Besides the variation in the head all the beers poured a dark red with some slight floating debris. For the beers with the greater head, there was definitely noticeable stickage once the foam had subsided down to a thin covering of small and medium sized bubbles.
The nose of the beer was a nice floral hop and caramel mixture, which got my mouth watering. In the mouth there was slight bitterness to the beer from the hops but this was nicely balanced with a sweet caramel and bread flavoring. The beer, which was light to medium in the mouth, had a nice refreshing and drying factor to it which I found very satisfying.
This is a good example of a quality beer found in a can. Definitely something that can be enjoyed in numerous places and occasions.
Butternuts Beer and Ale Porkslap Pale Ale
Continuing with the canned beer theme, and moving on to another Butternuts Beer and Ale release, I come to Porkslap Pale Ale. This is a beer brewed with ginger spices. Now I find ginger can be a tough spice to work with so lets see how this beer pans out.
A nice one finger of white head formed when I poured the beer into a pint glass. Very little stickage on the glass as the head receded to a thin covering with a few islands of big bubbles. The body of the beer was a nice clear copper color.
The nose of the beer was full of… at first I could not place it. It was neither malt nor hops, which are the ‘typical’ aromas of a pale ale, so I was a little nervous I got a bad beer. Unfortunately there was no information on the can about the beer, so I needed to hop on the Butternuts Beer and Ale web site. There I learned this pale ale is brewed with ginger spices. Now the aroma makes more sense. Along with the heavy aroma of ginger there was some bread aromas following it. I still did not notice any hop notes with the ginger taking center stage for my nose.
The taste is similar to the nose with ginger attacking the front and middle of the tongue. The end had a nice sweet/sugary bread flavoring to it which was quite nice. For some reason the taste seemed to get a little “watery” by the end of the beer. I’m not sure why and I know “watery” is not the most descriptive term, but that was the first description that popped into my head while tasting the beer.
Overall I enjoyed this beer, after I figured out I did not have a bad one. I think this is a case were the brewer would be advised to put a little more information about the beer on the can. I’m not sure I would take it as a session beer, because the ginger is quite strong, but I think it would be great with some spicy food (I’m personally thinking Thai, but anything with some good spicy kick should do). I would definitely pick up another six pack for a spicy food occasion.
(It probably goes without saying, but if you do not like the taste of ginger, I would advise passing on this beer.)
Butternuts Beer and Ale Snapperhead IPA
To start beer can week off I decided to go with Butternuts Beer and Ale‘s Snapperhead IPA. Butternuts actually has a few canned beers and I hope to review them through out the week. The “mascot” for this beer is a rather retro looking snapper fish. The fish seems to be wearing wrap around shades and listening to a Walkman. Interesting.
Anyway, poured from the can into a pint glass the beer was a amber orange with a slight haze to it. There was a single finger of head but it rapidly dissipated to a thin white covering. There was a heavy husky grain note to the aroma of the beer. Along with this huskiness, there was some hop notes with a slight lemon rind scent. In the mouth the beer had some nice bitterness to it, but there was also the overwhelming husky grain flavor predominating most of the mouth. I sensed some of the lemon towards the back of the mouth but nothing seemed to get past the grain flavoring.
I personally like my IPAs hoppier then this. The art of a good IPA is a nice balancing act between hops and malts, though if the balance gets skewed I’d rather it be skewed towards the hops. The malts in this brew just seemed to over power the hops with a grain taste. If you enjoy your IPAs more on malt side of the boarder, this beer should be right up your alley.
Beer Can Week
With January 24 the “official” birthday of the beer can, we here at sevenpack thought we would do a theme week of reviewing craft beer that comes from a can. Now craft canned beer is not as plentiful as bottled, but it is out there. One of the big promoters of craft canned beer is Oskar Blues. Sevenpack has already reviewed their Dale’s Pale Ale, Old Chub, and Gordon beers, but there are more breweries out there reaching for the can for their beers. In the coming week, we hope to review some of those beers.
If you want to help participate in this theme week, review a canned craft beer on your blog and either track back to this post or post a comment below with the review’s link. You can even include the “Beer Can Week” logo (as shown above) in your post if you want. The more reviews the merrier!
If you want to do a little more reading about the history of the beer can (and learn what the first canned beer was), the Brewery Collectibles Club of America has an interesting page delving into the subject.
Lew Bryson also posted a great read about canning in craft brew over at his First Draft column on portfolio.com.
Atwater Salvation IPA
I keep digging up brews in the back of the fridge from recent Beer of the Month Club shipments – this is another such beer. So, although I realize that this isn’t quite in keeping with the canned beer week, I figure it’ll be okay if I can fire it off tonight before Monday officially rears its head!
This IPA pours a fairly hazy deep golden color and has a rather malty aroma with a light dosage of floral hops. In the mouth, this beer is a unique IPA. Again, I’m getting a lot of sweet malt here with the hops taking a back seat when compared to most IPAs. There is also an interesting sourness that seems to become lightly citrusy towards the back of the throat. This beer has a very pronounced aftertaste that gets most of its kick out of that sourness that I just mentioned. It isn’t an especially pleasant aftertaste, to me, but it is pronounced and follows nicely after the beer’s trip through the mouth. Honestly, this doesn’t strike me so much as an IPA. It has an interesting wildness about it that I respect, and it’s unique in the flavors that it presents to the palate. However, I’m not catching enough hop here to really consider this an IPA. So, my take is that this is an interesting beer, although not one that I’ll likely drink again. And, if you’re in the mood for a standard IPA, this probably isn’t for you.
Mikkeller “Beer Geek Breakfast” Stout
This, while labeled as being from the brewery “Gourmetbryggeriet”, I do believe to have come from the folks at Haandbryggeriet due to similarities in all respects of the beer’s packaging (and the latter part of the brewery name). I’m not sure what those crazy Norse folk are doing but, for simplicity sake, I’m giving this credit to Haandbryggeriet, so correct me if you learn something different!
So, I’ll make this one quick. This is a breakfast stout involving oats and coffee. It pours a motor oil brown with a diminutive caramel head. There is a delicious aroma of coffee with a slight nuttiness and the lightest toffee sweetness. In the mouth, there is a ton of coffee here, and a bit of nutty bitterness. At the very back of the mouth, a fairly substantial sweetness creeps up and rules the aftertaste. And, that’s about it. It’s a good beer, but not terribly complicated. A bit more bitter than most coffee stouts, and a bit less heavy on the sweet aspects. Frankly, this would be a good beer if I hadn’t had the Terrapin Wake n’ Bake or the Founder’s Kentucky Breakfast Stout. The problem is that I have had both of these beers and they absolutely blow the roof off the mother when it comes to the breakfast stout category. So, I’d have a hard time recommending this beer, which is both less tasty and more expensive. Nevertheless, if you’re really into breakfast stouts and feel the need to try everything on the market, then go for it! But, if you’re just looking for the best of the genre, stick to the aforementioned brews.
