Beer reviews, news, commentary, and more from a guy who just likes to drink beer!
So, funny thing. Today, being America's Independence Day, I almost did a video review for a beer from Belgium. Luckily, I rectified that just before I started recording, and came up with Lagunitas Brewing Company's Censored Rich Copper Ale. Check it out!
This is the 20th video review I've done! I'm kind of getting better. Anyway, this is the excellent Blood Orange Gose. It's an acquired taste, but if Goses are your thing, this is a solid one. Enjoy!
All of the beers in today's write-up are hoppy, but have a little twist to them. Let me tell you, this is a trio of really good beers, so let's get to it!
Juicy Mandarina is an IPA from New Belgium Brewing Company's Hop Kitchen series, and features a whole lot of wheat beer characteristics, including 3 different types of wheat as well as a Hefeweizen yeast. It pours a hazy gold color with a thick white head. It leads with nice mild-to-moderate citrus notes that support a decent hop bite. I got some grassy notes and maybe a hint of dankness as well. There is also a slightly juicy quality in the mouthfeel-definitely present, but not quite biting-into-a-fruit level. I enjoyed this IPA--it hits a good avenue of what I like, combining the wheat qualities into an IPA.
Next up is a seasonal hoppy Red Ale from Coast Brewing Company called Carnie Fire. The first things I picked up were malt with spicy and earthy notes, along with piney hops and a good amount of bitterness. There was also a slight sweet note in there--maybe vanilla or something sugary. Overall, there is nothing mild about this beer. It is a big time flavor experience.
Finally, Founders Brewing Company's ReDANKulous Imperial Red IPA. It pours a deep brown color with some ruby highlights, and some of the initial flavor notes include fruits like cherries and perhaps plum and other dark fruits. There are also some spice notes and plenty of dank hoppiness. For clocking in at nearly 10% ABV, it's not really boozy, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Another beer where these great flavors really push through strongly. Great stuff.
After taking a week off, there is a wealth of beer news to get to--in fact, we can't even cover it all in six! Here is the latest Six-Pack of News.
Zymurgy magazine, the periodical for the American Homebrewers' Association, polled their readers to determine the 2016 Best Beers in America. As this was a nationwide poll, the list is essentially a ranking of beers that get good-to-great distribution cross-country. You're unlikely to find small breweries on the list simply because not enough people get to try them. In addition to the Top 50 Best Beers in America, Zymurgy readership also ranked Best Brewery, Best Portfolio (quantity of different beers), and Best Imports.
Earlier this month, Vinepair released their recommendation of 8 fruit-inspired beers to try this summer. It includes breweries with a variety of distribution levels, so everybody should be able to find at least 2 to 3 of the beers on this list. The list includes the excellent Founders Rubaeus, which was recently reviewed on this very site.
I post this story not to bash A-B InBev--almost everybody has lost a ton of money since the so-called Brexit vote in the United Kingdom on Friday, with the world losing something like $2.1 TRILLION dollars on that day alone. But this St. Louis Business Journal article notes that A-B InBev's share of losses totalled $11.9 billion.
In news of local interest, South Carolina lawyer Brook Bristow, who specializes in beverage law (which was a thing for awhile in this state) reports on how the state Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is cracking down on donations of beer from producers to non-profit organizations and events. Because this state always needs to be a bit bass ackwards.
Zach Fowle of DraftMag has some thoughts on aging "bad beer", though he's talking less Keystone Light and more beers that are thick and alcohol-dominant (even using descriptors like "cough syrup" and "rocket fuel" at points).
BrewStuds notes that included in a release about the California Craft Beer Summit and Beer Festival is the fact that the great state of California is now home to over 700 breweries. This works out to roughly one in every six breweries in the U.S. being located in California.
I don't want to be click-baity, but I tried a bit of a jokey title for my video.
Taddy Porter from Samuel Smith Brewery. Enjoy!
Today's trio of beers have one thing in common: all have some sort of fruit used in their recipes. Let's dive in!
Leading off is the Lexington Spring IPA from Natty Greene's Brewing Company. This IPA uses smoked malts and fresh peaches for their unique flavor. Pouring a hazy deep gold color, the peaches merge will with hops for lots of citrus and tropical fruit flavor notes. There's plenty of peach specifically, of course, though the beer is not especially sweet. There are also some dank and piney hop notes, as well, and the beer has a pretty clean finish.
Next is Harpoon Brewery's Summer seasonal Camp Wannamango pale ale--feel free to guess the fruit addition. It pours a light gold color, and has some citrus hints, but the big hitters are mango and peach, with a bit of funk also present and a moderate hop bite at the very end. There is plenty of fruit pleasant in this pale ale, but like above, is isn't overpoweringly sweet, which I enjoy.
Finally, SPF 50/50, which is Red Hare Brewing Company's version of a Radler. Radlers are a German mixed-style of drink, where some type of beer is typically mixed with lemonade or something similar. Red Hare has taken their core Gangway IPA and mixed it with their own house-made grapefruit juice to create their unique India Pale Radler...can we call it an IPR? Anyway, it pours a pretty hazy straw-gold color, and is quite sweet, far sweeter than anything else reviewed here. The sweetness is cut slightly by a very light hop bite and some piney hop notes. Sweet grapefruit is the primary flavor note to this Radler--everything else is pretty well in the background. A well done beer, but a hair too sweet for me to enjoy more than one or two.
As promised, here is the final entry for this week's Beers of Summer series. This is Holy City Washout Wheat:
It's been kind of a slow week, beer-wise. I bailed on a Six-Pack of News because there hasn't been too much going on, unless I want to write about ANOTHER beer coming to cans or the latest of A-B InBev trying to take over the world (which, admittedly, is a little bit soul-sucking). I may find one or two news items to write about this weekend, but no promises. The Six-Pack will return, as soon as there are interesting things about which to write.
I also only have a couple of beers to review. This issue, I guarantee, will be resolved this weekend. Both of these beers somewhat unintentionally fall into the week's Beers of Summer theme from Monday's video, so this all really lined up nicely. Enough chit-chat. Let's get to the beers!
Our first offering is a collaboration between Oskar Blues Brewery and the World of Beer bar chain, and is called American Summer Hoppy Wit. As expected, it pours a nice golden color and is pretty clear/see-through. Citrus notes dominate this beer, but in a way in which the bright witbier and yeast citrus notes blend well with citrus coming from the hops. There were also some mild spice notes, most notably some clove, as well as a very mild hop bitterness coming around at the end of the sip.
Second, and last, is the Nitro White Ale from Boston Beer Company, aka Sam Adams, and their fairly new nitro can project. The beer's color falls somewhere between lemon and orange, and is quite hazy. As mentioned, this can has a widget that releases nitrogen into the beer when opened, a la Guinness. This results in a frothy, creamy head of microbubbles, and a creamy mouthfeel. Mild citrus notes were the first thing that came to me as I took the first sip. I also get a bit of a unique flavor that comes from the nitrogen. It's hard to explain--it's not really a flavor, but every beer that's infused with nitrogen has a unique background taste that until recently I had just associated with mild English ales. Moving on, there are some mild spice notes, again with cloves but also maybe something like nutmeg or all spice/five spice. The mouthfeel IS creamy, as expected, and it has a pretty clean finish with little aftertaste, which is surprising for a beer under nitrogen.
Coming tomorrow: the Beers of Summer series, which totally always included this beer review, concludes with a video review of Holy City's Washout Wheat. See ya then!
In this video, I list a couple of my favorite summer beers and review another. There will be another summer beer video review later this week. Cheers!
Last night was a really good beer night for me. We'll get to them in the back half of this review. We'll be starting with a seasonal from SweetWater Brewing Company.
Goin' Coastal is their summer seasonal, an IPA with pineapple. Surprisingly, the citrusy hops used in the beer are what I picked up first, getting some grapefruit notes. A blend of tropical notes, including the aforementioned pineapple. The beer didn't have a ton of body, but I found it to be really juicy, especially in the finish, which I attribute to the fruit used in the process. Overall, though, I felt like I got more citrus (citrus and pineapple can be a bit similar, right?), along with some piney hop notes.
Next up was a "Star Trek"-themed beer, one of several being made this year in honor of the franchise's 50th anniversary in 2016. Brewing by Shmaltz Brewing under the fictional "Federation of Beer" banner, this particular was called Vulcan Ale (Genesis Effect), after "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock". After getting over the gimmick--seriously, check out this bottle:
--I dove into the beer. It's a bit hard to tell on the bottle, but it's a red session IPA, and it pulled off the balance very well. Pouring a reddish-copper color, I found the beer to be pretty malt forward with some dark fruit notes, and mild pine hop notes.
Getting into some beers from last night, I first had the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale from Lexington Brewing and Distilling. This beer pours a reddish copper hue, and spends up to six weeks in bourbon barrels, yielding many delightful flavor notes. I initially got vanilla, followed by some burnt sugar, and malted milk balls towards the end. It also contains a very small amount of booziness, but it's not even close to overpowering.
Finally, Founders Brewing's Kentucky Breakfast Stout, another beer spending time in Kentucky Bourbon barrels, though this beer is aged for a full year before bottling and release. Between this and the style (Imperial Stout), the result is tons of flavor and lots of alcohol (12% ABV). Lots of coffee, and TONS of chocolate flavor notes. I got a mild amount of bourbon booziness, though less than I expected. It was pretty sweet overall, with some smoke hints throughout and a bit of a smoky aftertaste. This was my first time having this highly-regarded, and it was truly terrific.
Programming note: Tomorrow (June 20th) is the first day of Summer, and as a result, I will be doing a video about some of my favorite summer beers, including a new beer review or two! Stay tuned!
As I mentioned in Sunday's post, I noticed Highland Brewing Company was starting to get into the canning game. Turns out, they had been canning just one beer, but Beer Street Journal reports they will release their second canned beer later this month. BSJ is also reporting that fellow Asheville, North Carolina brewery Hi-Wire is also following suit, canning their new goze, while Longmont, Colorado's Left Hand Brewing just announced a canning initiative starting this winter.
Philadelphia recently played host to a charity "pop-up street pub" run out of a tractor trailer by Deschutes Brewery.
A North Carolina Native American tribe is suing Anheuser-Busch over use of their symbols in Budweiser advertising. If you look at the picture in the link, you can see the circular, multi-colored logo in the upper left hand corner, and the tribe slogan under "Bud Light".
The Travel Channel recently posted an article featuring 6 international hot spots of beer brewing, from Australia to Scotland.
Finally, DraftMag and others reported that Stone Brewing Brewmaster Mitch Steele is leaving Stone at the end of the month after a decade with the brewery. He plans to open his own brewery, calling it "a bucket list thing." Steele is responsible for many of Stone's top beers, including the Enjoy By series and others, and wrote a book on IPAs.
As promised, here is a video review of the Hefeweizen from Paulaner Munchen brewery, who have been making beer since 1634.
Coming up Wednesday, another Six-Pack of News, plus a Beers in Review and another video review later this week!
Today will conclude the Asheville series with some of the highlights from Highland Brewing Company and Frog Level Brewing.
But before that, there was one other location I wanted to mention again, and that's Pour Taproom. Pour has two locations in the Carolinas and one in California, and they have a concept that I absolutely love. You are given a pint glass and an radio frequency tracker. You touch the tracker to the beer label above any of 30-40 accessable taps, then fill your pint glass with as much or as little beer as you like--the RF tracker tallies how many ounces you pulled. Once you're done drinking, you turn in the tracker which has kept track of ounces pulled of each beer AND the price PER OUNCE per beer, and you pay your bill. It's a fantastic concept, because you can just try a couple of ounces of beer for a dollar or less, or just pour a half of something high gravity/high alcohol without wasting beer. They had a good mix of beers too: locals, domestic crafts, import crafts, Belgians, ciders.
Now, onto Highland Brewing Company.
One highlight of this visit was their Warrior Series Mosiac Rye IPL, about which I did a video review already. We had an additional beer from the Warrior Series, the Tasgall II Scotch Ale, which was sweet and mildly boozy (checking in at 8% ABV). There were cherry and dark fruit notes and a slight boozy aftertaste. We also checked out their summer seasonal, the Early's Hoppy Ale, which had a slight graininess followed by nice tropical hop notes, along with some pine and maybe a hint of citrus. This was a really nice summer beer. I had also noticed that Highland was starting to join the wave of breweries that are canning instead of bottling beer. I don't know if that will be for certain releases, or if they are doing a wholesale transition.
Finally, on Monday, before heading home, I stopped at Frog Level. After grabbing a sampler of beers I had never had before (we only tend to get their top core beers here in Columbia), I took my tray outside and treated myself to this view:
A porch in the woods overlooking a stream. Absolutely beautiful.
Some notables from Frog Level included their summer seasonal, a Raspberry Shandy with mild berry and some grainy notes. I found it to be very smooth to drink and mild overall (to the point that I could have used a little more raspberry fruitiness, and I tend to not be a fruit beer guy). It's a very solid summer beer, though.
They also had a unique brown ale called Smokin' Joe Brown. I had had their Nutty Brunette, which I believe is also supposed to be a brown. Smokin' Joe sets itself apart with its cherry wood-smoked hops. A smoky and roasty note comes through in this beer, along a hint of cocoa and some nice malty sweetness.
Another beer I had never had before was their Shell Back IPA. It was a hazy orange color, with tons of citrusy notes, including orange and assorted citrus rinds. I found it to have a pretty juicy mouthfeel with a mild hop kick at the very end and in the aftertaste. With so much juicy citrus and so little hoppiness, it almost played like a wheat beer.
Some other beers I tried there included a chile beer called Cinco Ranas Picante made with local peppers, including Carolina reapers. I just can't get in to chile beers. I also had their Catcher In The Rye Red, which was fairly light with a nice malt-hop balance, and the Tadpole Porter, which was solid and tasty, but I didn't drink much of, for assorted reasons.
So, this concludes my "brief" rundown of my trip to Asheville, NC. To be honest, it probably could have been another couple of installments, but we'll move on to some non-Asheville beers later this week. Also, coming tomorrow (Monday) will be a video review from Paulaner Brauhaus, who have been making beer for roughly 500 years!
In the latest video review (two this week!), a really neat beer from Stone, under the Stochasticity series. Learn all about it below:
Coming this weekend: More from Asheville, including the best of Highland Brewery, and hopefully another video review (though, I don't know what, yet).
We talk about big corporations, small craft breweries, and everything in-between in this week's six-pack. Let's do it!
In a union of two mega-corporations, Starbucks Coffee Company will be partnering with Anheuser-Busch to produce, bottle, and distribute ready-to-drink versions of Starbucks' high-end Teavana tea brand.
I fear this may go the way of my recent Black Sour Ale experience, but Schilling Hard Cider is creating a cold-brew coffee nitro hard cider, to debut later this month. I promise, if this makes it to my area, I will DEFINITELY give it a video review, if only so you call can see my reaction face to the apple/coffee combination. Wishing all the best on this for Schilling. Seriously.
Jester King Brewery just began farming on 58 recently-acquired acres near their Austin, Texas brewery. Jester King, producer of wild and farmhouse ales, along with sours, has planted "plum and peach trees, blackberry bushes, and a melon patch." They also are testing wheat on the plot. Eventually, Jester King hopes to utilize many of their own fruits, vegetables, and grains for future production.
Wal-Mart is getting into the craft beer game with beers brewed by Trouble Brewing being sold in 12-packs in Wal-Mart stores.
Rolling Stone reports on cast members of Lin-Manuel Miranda's firestorm of a Broadway musical "Hamilton" who have collaborated with beer experts The Happy Hour Guys to create the "Hamilton"-inspired Rise Up Rye, the first beer under the Broadway Brews Project charity banner.
Finally, if you'll pardon me some news of personal interest, Brewbound published a press release from the Jersey Shore's Cape May Brewing Company announcing the release of their new Mooncusser Pilsner. Cape May has a taproom in southern New Jersey, always pouring well over a dozen beers in addition to their own root beer and ginger ale. Congrats, guys, and see you this summer!
We continue the tour of Asheville tonight with three different breweries.
Our second-to-last stop on Saturday was at the Wicked Weed Funkatorium. Now, my parents and I had visited and had lunch at the Wicked Weed Brewery earlier in the day, but they have a separate facility a few blocks away known as The Funkatorium, their home for barrel-aged sour ales and other funky beers, serving up to a dozen at any given time. The barrels are quite prominent, as the storage area is right off the tasting room, and you can see rows of aging barrels stacked high full of maturing beer. Here, I had a pre-determined flight, starting with their La Bonte w/ pear. This was a fairly rich and slightly hazy yellow color, and starts as a Belgian-style farmhouse/Saison that is blended with Blonde sour ale and then flavored with French pears and bottle-aged. I found this to be fairly mild overall, and not necessarily my favorite, though I feel this is more a reflection on me: I need to be in the right mood for Saisons, and I'm not much of a pears guy, either.
Also in the flight were 3 of their barrel-aged sours, which were a little more up my alley, as much as my palate held up (again, we'd drank at least 10 different beers prior to this point). The Marina was a more pale yellow color, almost evoking white wine. The peaches and apricots used in the barrel-aging really came to the fore, flavor-wise, though, as expected, we got little to no sweetness out of them. Next was Amorous, which was a nice orange color, with citrusy flavor notes to match. Noted as a Sour IPA, to me, most of the hop characteristics were overtaken by the sour. The final sour was Recurrant, which was aged with Currants in cabernet barrels. I had hoped my parents, who are more winos than beer snobs, might take to this one a little more than the others, owing to the wine-barrel aging. My dad tolerated all of the sour ales, my mom wasn't a fan at all. They did enjoy our split dessert of vanilla ice cream with berry compote made with sour ale--the contrast of sweet ice cream and sour compote was quite delightful. I enjoyed the ales at the Funkatorium (probably the Amorous was my favorite), but, again, my palate was getting fatigued, so we had just one beer at one last stop.
At Asheville Brewing Company, I had their flagship IPA, called Shiva. Shiva has nice citrus notes, and a good amount of dank piney hops. There is also a good amount of bitterness. This was a well-executed IPA, and I need to head back here to give them more of a try.
As promised, here is a video review of Brooklyn Brewery's Summer Ale. A little different than I was expecting. Enjoy!
Tomorrow: Another Beers in Review, with more from Asheville!
Tonight continues the look back at the beers of Asheville, North Carolina. We'll be covering two different breweries in this entry.
Starting off is Bhramari Brewhouse, a newcomer to the Asheville scene that is essentially split in two: a standard restaurant and a much more stripped-down taproom and patio, where you can drink within feet of the tanks. Everything here was a little bit off the beaten path, in a good way. One of our drinking experiences was their Carolina Common Ale served both "as is" and infused with apples and star anise. The straight Common uses locally-sourced malt, just like the Highland IPL I tried in Monday's video review. It pours pretty orange color, and was fairly sweet (many of their beers were on the sweet side) with caramel notes and a bit of grain and toasted malt. The infused Common was also quite sweet and yielded a caramel apple flavor, along with a mild black licorice kick (from the anise). On my palate, the entire flavor profile kind of melded into cherries and strawberries at the very finish. Again, these beers were pretty sweet, but just stayed on the tolerable side.
The Night Sauce Stout was a big hit with both my parents and myself. Super tasty with lots of chocolate and a hint of coffee. I also caught notes of roastiness and caramel and just a bit of black pepper as well. Complex and tasty, this was a great stout.
We also tried their Lorelai American IPA. Sadly, I don't have a many notes on this beer, except that it was a bit of a tropical fruit bomb. I enjoyed it, but my dad, who is quite the hop-head, did not. There was also a Black Goze that combined the coffee notes of a porter or stout with the lemon-sourness of a Goze. It didn't work for my personal palate, but I expect they hit their own target perfectly.
Our next stop was Twin Leaf Brewery. They weren't doing flights, which was just fine, as after several beers each at Bhramari and Wicked Weed (discussed previously), we were more than happy to throttle back a bit. I spent most of the time teaching my mother about Cards Against Humanity, so I may have created a monster there. I had their White Noise Witbier. I found this to be a really well-executed wheat beer. It was crisp and clean, with clove, wheat, and even some spicy notes. There was also just a hint of citrus, probably orange. Again, really solid in style.
Hey! We made it to a second one of these! Great job, everybody!
I have the Mumford and Sons cranked, the articles picked, and I'm ready to write. Let's do this!
We'll start with the bad news first. Josh Weikert of beer-simple.com talks about what could happen if the craft beer bubble burst, with a hint of on-target bemoaning the lack of discussions on craft beer quality.
Hot on the heels of last week's article on the craft beer industry's massive valuation potential comes an article from Chris Furnari at Brewbound that says craft beer sales growth has slowed significantly to around 6.5% growth, down compared to last year (17% growth). There may be some cause for concern--nearly flat growth at grocery stores/drug stores/Wal-mart/etc.--but I doubt that the double digit growth seen in this and other sales avenues in 2015 was really sustainable. The Brewer's Association tries to pull out some of the so-called-but-not-really craft beer brands, specifically Blue Moon and Shock Top, to paint a better picture. Those two brands ARE DOWN (to the point of negative growth) significantly, but to cite them specifically without looking at other brands owned by Big Beer is unfair. In fact, some such brands, like Goose Island, Founders, and others are doing exceptionally well.
Onto happier news, Governor John Kasich of Ohio signed Sub H.B. 37 which, among other things, eliminated ABV caps on Ohio-produced beers. Prior to this, there was a limit of 12% on beers brewed in Ohio. Looks like this law may have also made some exceptions for taproom and brewery service.
Web-video service Vimeo has a roughly 20-minute documentary on the beer scene in Charleston, South Carolina, including how the city's culture influences that scene. The documentary is about two years old, but a lot of the spirit and sentiment remain relevant.
Chicago wrapped up their Craft Beer Week this past weekend, and Tribune reporter Josh Noel has some impressions on some possibly lesser-known Chicago breweries.
Finally, beer for dogs! Dogs struggle internally with some of the ingredients in human beers, but a U.K.-based company called Woof and Brew have created a dog-friendly "beer" made of "barley malt, dandelion, flax, and 'chicken flavoring'", aiming to create a common social ritual for both the dog and his/her owner.
I brought this beer back from Asheville, NC. It was bottled 20 days ago. Check it out:
I'll have more Beers in Review from Asheville tomorrow, and will have another video review (tentatively Brooklyn Summer Ale, but don't hold me to that) later this week! Cheers!