A Pint Half Full

I've been on a dark beer kick as of late in search of new flavors.  More specifically, beers with dark fruit flavors - figs, cherries, mixed with chocolate and coffee.  Dark beers I've tried seem to have less hop bitterness and more emphasis on malt and spice complexity.  Harder to find in your typical beer store but really cool when you find it.  The two beers I describe in this post are a bit of opposites - the first is a Belgian Strong Dark Ale and the other is an Imperial Stout.  Granted they are two different styles but one has a really nice balance while the other just breaks you down into a trembling mess.

The Lost Abbey Ten Commandments - Flavor profile of dark cherries, dark chocolate with a smooth and slick mouthfeel.  Great balance between that sweetness and hop flavor.  Just blends together so well.  The beer tastes like a dessert.  A bit of alcoholic warmth coats the throat as you drink it but I thought the alcohol taste was hardly noticeable and masked by other flavors.  This one makes me want to try more of this style of beers.


Dogfish Head World Wide Stout - Looking forward to it since it's a Dogfish Head Stout but what a disaster!  Waaaay too strong alcohol wise and tastes like licorice or paint thinner.  I tried to choke it down but just was not feeling it.  Strong strong dark cherries and really high alcohol content.  As it warmed, the alcohol came to the forefront and dominated any flavor profile.  Sorry DFH.  Go try Old Rasputin Imperial Stout for what this style should taste like.

Summer is well underway, along with barbecues, pool parties, beach parties, and all the "summer" edition brews that accompany these occasions.  Typically light in alcohol content, crisp, and refreshing, summer styles are made for long summer days and nights, hanging out with friends.   Seems like the first summer beers come out mid-May and circulate until around August timeframe.  Believe it or not, beyond the normal mass produced fodder you'll find from A-B, Miller, and Coors, smaller breweries like Bell's or Magic Hat release some stuff especially for the summer too.  This year, I sampled a few summer beers from some other breweries and I can say that though they are better balanced and cleaner tasting, they are not all that great either!  But I'm going to rank the ones I did try so here are the 5 beers I've tried so far:

5.  Blue Moon Honey Moon Summer Ale - Syrupy like when you mix honey with water.  That's all I could taste and could not get over in this beer.  Yuck.

4.  Samuel Adams Summer Ale - They equated summer beer with citrus.  Way too much lemon zest that made this almost sour and too tangy for me.  The tang hangs around and left this film in my mouth that's not good for the summer obviously.  Still sticking to the Boston Lager.

3.  Sierra Nevada Summerfest - Clear, clean taste but minimal flavor.  Notes of grassy, piney hops if you really look for it.  Very effervescent which helps the refreshment factor but overall a little bland!  A little yeasty in the aftertaste.  Harmless fun.

2.  Bell's Oberon - Nice light medium body and hints of orange sweetness.  Some peppery notes.  Thirst quenching.  Not bad and fits into the summer style well.

1.  Magic Hat Wacko - Best of the bunch.  Seriously, it's berry colored.  The taste had hint of cherries which I loved rather than the typical citrus hints.  Nice malt backbone and would be pleasant on any summer day.

Try picking some of these up and let me know what you think.

I went on a little IPA binge a couple weeks ago, went to my Total Wine on the hunt.  As usual I stood there in the beer aisle, debating what I wanted to try.  It's like going to Toys R Us as a kid and picking which GI Joe you wanted next.  I was in the mood for something hoppy that would blow my mind, pucker my mouth, and shrivel my tongue (sometimes you're just in one of those moods). 

IPAs, or India Pale Ales, were originally brewed to survive the long journey from England to India along that "trade-route-that-we-learned-about-in-high-school".  These beers were brewed with tons of hops to take advantage of the preservative nature of the ingredient.  That means these beers are all about that hop bitterness and aroma that opens up your sinuses.  When tasted, you'll get a whiff of spice, pine, perhaps some citrus (grapefruit, lemons, oranges) followed by a dryness or at least lingering bitterness to the back of the tongue.

I asked the beer guy at Total Wine what he recommended and he told me about two beers from breweries from the West Coast.  Seems like alot of good beers are from Cali these days. 

Purchased from:
Whole Foods, Fair Lakes

ABV%:
6%

Type:
Amber Ale

Color:
Caramelly and red glow

Aroma:
Well rounded, fresh hops, with hints of oranges - not tangy like lemons or grapefruits.

Taste:
A pleasant hop bite that cuts through the blend of slight malt sweetness and bitterness.  A wonderful balance.  Tastes somewhat "juicy" and thirst quenching.  Ends with a little spice that reminds me of cayenne.

Overall:
I've heard of Troeg's Brewery before but the only beer I've had from them was Nugget Nectar which I wasn't too fond of.  I saw a 6-pack of the Hopback and decided to give it a try as it is one of their year round offerings.  I am glad I tried it.  Perfectly balanced, with the right amount of alcohol content, this is a refreshing beer perfect for bbqs and the summer.  It can be subtle and in your face at the same time.  Could drink multiple bottles with not problem.  The spice in the end just gives it a little bit of personality and kick.  Thank you Troegs! 

4.5/5

Three of my good friends chipped in to sign me up to three months with the Rare Beer Club.  This privies me to 2 750 ml bottles of "rare" beer a month.  Stuff that I've never heard before brewed with ingredients that I have yet to fully experience in my craft beer journey.  How rare you ask?  Only a few thousand barrels of these beers are brewed and this club has bought half of the stock for its members.  How do I know?  The Club sends a newsletter along with each beer you receive describing, in excruciating detail, everything from the brewery's background, the thought process behind the beer, and tasting notes.  By the way, this newsletter is front and back, single spaced, 12 pt font.  Pretty intense.

I read through the newsletter for De Proef Brouwerij's (it's Belgian) Flemish Primitive Wild Ale 2008 Special Vintage Reserve and quickly became overwhelmed.  This beer was brewed back in 2008, using wild yeast and a mix of your typical beer ingredients (hops and malt) and gruit.  Gruit apparently is a mix of spices that was used in beer before hops were used for its aroma, flavor, and preservative nature.  What was I to expect?  This has been aging for a couple years, wild yeast at work in the bottle, with a strange mix of spices??  I had no idea.  I wasn't ready.  I popped the bottle...

Cherry blossoms are in full bloom here in DC.  They start blooming the end of March and die around the second week of April.  Aside from the flowers, I learned that Capitol City Brewery offers a Cherry Blossom Ale for these couple weeks.  After braving the crowds and viewing the blossoms, had some of it in the downtown location.  It is brewed with a belgian yeast and then allowed to infuse with some cherry puree giving it a unique, silky mouthfeel, and cherry-sugar sweetness balanced with hops.  Smooth, drinkable and light.  Go get some before it's too late!

I was browsing around my Netflix streaming library and saw the movie "Beer Wars" available for streaming.  I thought perhaps this movie was like "Beerfest", a comedy about a beer olympic competition.  Far from it, "Beer Wars" is a documentary about the beer industry in America, attempting to explain why the "Big Three" beer companies dominate the market and how difficult it is for smaller breweries to gain marketshare and bring their products to the masses.  The documentary pretty much demonizes the Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors companies and makes you want to never buy or drink their products again.  It highlights Dogfish Head Brewing as an up and coming brewery trying to make its mark on the beer world and contrasts the passion of one man to the profit-scheming of corporations.   The director, Anat Baron, is pretty annoying as the narrator (see Michael Moore), admits that she is allergic to alcohol, and was the CEO of Mike's Hard Lemonade prior to making this movie (which knocked her credibility down a bit for me - that stuff is weak!).  However, it's a decent documentary, creating this David vs Goliath story and portraying the craft beer world with love and passion.  I did not like the extreme bias against and repeated hatred for the larger brewing companies (we get it!) and the following of one story line which seemed to contradict the agenda the movie was trying to promote.  Read on for more of my thoughts.