Tales of Homebrewing

Since I’ve taken such a long break from blogging, I feel like I need to update a few readers on the status of my homebrewing adventures.  While perhaps not my most popular posts of all time, they also get some of the most thought provoking responses.  Anyway, right now I have three different brews I’ve created since my last homebrew posting, and I’m working on a brand new one right now.

Hoppy Groundhog Dark Shadow – Black IPA

This past birthday I hit a minor lifetime achievement by reaching the age of 30.  I say minor because everybody does it.  While ithoppy groundhog labels feels like a kinda big deal to the person involved, it’s probably not nearly as big as we all make it out to be.  Anyway, I had decided to brew this beer right around Christmas, and it was ready right around my birthday (Groundhogs Day), so I figured name it after the holiday that shares my birthday.  Overall it’s probably my favorite beer I’ve brewed thus far.  I like one of the ones a little further down on the list here, but I think this one is still an all around better beer.  I actually entered it in a homebrew competition, but I’m an idiot and just put it in the IPA category and not specialty beers.  I was basically disqualified. It’s a bit heavier and more roasted than your typical black IPA, but I think that’s what I like about it.  The hops don’t blow you away, but I think they are present enough to still have it hold strong as a black IPA.

Heisenberg Honey Wheat

This beer was an attempt to take a different direction.  I had been hanging out in the realm of dark beers for a while, and I wanted to make something lighter and easier drinking for the summer.  I saw this recipe online, so I tweaked it a little to make my own.  The beer has about a pound of orange blossom honey added rather late (last five minutes) to the boil.  It helps to make the beer a bit sweeter, but I did run into a slight issue on this one while brewing.  My parents had gotten me a wort chiller for Christmas, so I wanted to make use of it.  Unfortunately, since I was still brewing on my stove, I lost the boil when I put the chiller in to sanitize.  Therefore, the honey wasn’t really added during a boil.  I tried to compensate for the mistake, but it may have effected the outcome.  Lately the hops have really kicked up on this one, so it’s kind of like a hoppy honey wheat.  Ultimately I had to pay tribute to one of my favorite Vigilantes. However, I’m not sure you can still think of him as a vigilante.  Is Walter more of a villain now?

Pretentious Hopster – Red IPA

About a year ago I tried to make an imperial IPA that was probably my biggest disappointment as a homebrewer.  The bottles never managed to carbonate, and I ended up with 48 bottles of syrup.  Ultimately, other than the black IPA, it’s been my only Pretentious Heisenbergattempts at making a hoppy beer.  I love IPAs and hops, so I felt like I needed to have another go at it.  I decided to make it a red ale for the fun of it as well.  While this beer wasn’t problem free, I solved my issue with the chiller by purchasing a propane burner for use in the backyard.  This of course helped keep temperature up, but I instead had to handle a boil over or two.  I guess I need to learn how to control temperature a little better with my new toy.  The only other issue I had was with clarity.  There is a fine line of soot at the bottom of each bottle, but with a careful pour, it isn’t too much of a big deal.  This is probably my most aromatic beer to date, and it has some great hop flavor.  It’s only been drinkable for a week, but the malts are beginning to kick up to help balance it out.  Pretentious Hopster was the name of my failed double IPA, and I couldn’t let a great name like that go to waste.

Peppercorn Blonde (yet unnamed)

The next brew I’m aiming to create is for my late summer month consumption.  Within the span of a week or so I enjoyed a number of beers that feature peppercorns as the special ingredient.  Ultimately, that was all the inspiration I needed to look at giving my next beer a little spice.  One of the beers I had was a saison (which I have already brewed) and the other was a rye beer (which I hear doesn’t work well when you are doing extract brewing); therefore, I decided to choose a bit of a different summery type of style for my peppercorn usage.  A nice Belgian Blonde seemed like the right way to go. The recipe is still being finalized, but I would love to hear any suggestions for how to make this beer great.  I’m also a little unsure of when to add the peppercorns.  I thought I would add 2 ounces in the last five minutes of brewing and then add an ounce or two to secondary fermentation.  Has anyone worked with peppercorn before?  Is that overdoing it?  Just have to ask.

I’m slowly working my way away from extract brewing and into all-grain, but I have quite a few expenses coming my way, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep it moving just yet.  I’ll get there eventually.  For now I’m just having a good time.

peppercorns

May 22, 2013
Categories: Libations, Life . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Lyrics, Libations, and Life . Comments: 2 Comments

Beer Touring Oregon

As I said a few weeks ago, I traveled out to Oregon over the weekend to visit my brother who lives in Astoria, Oregon.  Having neverhaystack gone to visit my brother on the west coast, I was really excited to get out to the west for a much-needed visit.  I’ve only been as far as Colorado before, and I wasn’t able to drink at that time, so I was just as excited to finally get some of these west coast brews I can’t find back east.  Ironically, I’ve actually had and enjoyed quite a few beers from Oregon, but I quickly found out I hadn’t really had anything yet.

We got into Portland around 8 PM their time.  That of course meant it was already feeling like 11 PM our time.  I’m a night owl so it wasn’t a big deal for me, but my wife was certainly starting to hit the sleepy wall.  Since we were most likely heading back to Astoria pretty quickly, we decided to catch dinner in Portland before our hour and a half trek back.  Lacking imagination, we tried to head over to Rogue for something to eat and drink.  For some reason they were painting the place that night, so we had to find another Sleighrplace to go.  They recommended we head over to Cassidy’s.  Cassidy’s was alright on the beer realm, but it was great for food.  I had Sleigh’r Dark Double Alt from Ninkasi and Working Girl Porter from Fort George Brewing.  Don’t get me wrong, I can’t find either of these breweries over on the east coast, but I am actually quite familiar with both of them.  Therefore, I was really looking forward to getting something from some breweries I hadn’t had.

The next day we were off in the Astoria area and visiting some of the places around him. We first headed over to see the Pacific Ocean in Seaside Oregon first.  My brother informed me of a new brewery over there called Seaside Brewing Co.  Of course I had to go in!  While there I had some great brews.  Their imperial stout Black Dynamite was actually being brewed homebrew style right as you walked in the front door.  I of course had to have that one first.  Both Black Dynamite and their Lockup IPA were quite good.  If I lived over there I’d be there all the time.  While there I noticed a pamphlet for something called the North Coast Craft Beer Trail.

Evidently, while on the trail, you move up and down the Astoria area trying out different bars.  There are 11 bars on the list, and if you go to 9 of them, you get  a commemorative glass for your efforts.  Of course a glass may not seem like a big deal, but it gave me a goal to shoot for.  Not all of the bars were the best, but I had a lot of good beers.  Some of the beer highlights from the trail were the Black Bear XX from Alameda Brewing, Double Daddy Imperial IPA from Speakeasy Ales, the Roguenbier Rye from Rogue, and the Polish’s Black Walnut Stout from Fort George Brewing.

One of the biggest beer activities from the weekend was visiting Fort George Brewery’s Dark Arts Fest.  When I first heard about it I Festival glassmade fun of my brother for dragging me to a witchcraft festival.  Thankfully, I found out that instead it was a big stout festival featuring 40 different stouts from the Oregon area.  I was actually quite impressed by the way it ran.  They had different areas in their restaurant, on their porch, in their tasting room, in a performance area, and in the actual brewery for tasting of different beers.  They also managed to get some crazy big and amazing beers in as well.  Here are, once again, some of the highlights.  The Abyss from Deschutes, Super Nebula from Block 15 (aged in Pappy Van Winkle Barrels), Suge Knite from Boneyard (14%), and Spiced Old Baba Yaga from Bear Republic.  Fort George also put together 10 or so great stouts and barrel aged stouts for the event.  It was certainly one of the highlights from the trip.

One of my other favorite things to do while in a different area is go bottle hunting.  Thankfully one of the stops on the craft oregon bottlesbeer trail was at a bottle shop you could also drink at.  While there I purchased a Vertical Epic 2008 from Stone Brewing, Fred from Hair of the Dog, and Consecration from Russian River.  The man running the store was striking up some good conversation, so I asked about a bottle of Pliny the Elder.  Thank goodness I asked because he walked in the back and brought one right out for me.  Later in the week we found another shop run by a much less knowledgeable, but very nice, older woman.  Perusing around I found a bottle of Abyss and The Dissident from Deschutes.  Knowing I had to make a choice, I decided to go Dissident because I already have a bottle of 2012 Abyss.

Finally, after a few days of bumming around Astoria, we headed back to the big city of Portland.  My big goal while there was a toHair of the Dog glasses hit up a few breweries I couldn’t find back home.  My wife was controlling the lunch decision, so I brought up a bunch of different menus from brewpubs located in Portland.  She ultimately landed on Deschutes which meant I had to taste drive just about everything they had to offer.  In fact, I didn’t drink anything more than a 3 oz pour the entire day.  On the menu Deschutes did have a collaboration with Hair of the Dog called Collage.  I wanted to taste it, but it only came in bottles, so I had to buy one for the ride home too.  Finally, later that night, we ended up at Hair of the Dog for a tasting of the 7 beers they had available.  I enjoyed just about everything I had, but I loved the Fred, Adam, Doggie Claws, and Otto from the wood.  Certainly made me wish I could get a few more of their things around here.

Overall I had about 45 different beers over the course of the 5 days I was in Oregon.  Over half of them came in 3 oz tastings, but it helped me realize I had only touched on the tip of the craft beer scene in Oregon.  It was a great trip, and I hope to go visit my brother at his next location: Seattle.

February 21, 2013
Categories: Libations, Life . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Lyrics, Libations, and Life . Comments: 6 Comments

Fort George Brewing Co – Cavatica Stout

A few years ago my brother decided he would be joining the Coast Guard.  I’m not entirely sure I would blossom and flourish in that Cavaticaparticular setting, but he seems to be enjoying it.  One of the nice things about his job is that he gets to travel and live in a bunch of different areas.  He went to boot camp in Cape May NJ, was stationed in Boston for a time, and now lives in Astoria Oregon.  Since being officially stationed there he’s managed to take the boat to various islands, travel through the Panama Canal, and hang out in Guantanamo Bay for a little while.  I love to travel, so some of those actually do get me jealous.  Well he is about to move again from Astoria to Seattle, and we’ve never made it out there to visit him.  My wife and I change that next week.  Next Wednesday we fly into Portland to spend a couple of days in and around hipster paradise.

Being an avid beer lover, it sounds like Oregon could be a bit of Mecca for me.  My brother and Megan Vs Beer have managed to give me a few different examples of that.  I’ve received different beers from Deschutes, Ninkasi, Rogue, Hair of the Dog, and a variety of others.  Since we of course have to check out where my brother has been living the past few years, and it’s a free place to stay, we’ll definitely be heading back to Astoria.  One brewery I know I’ll be visiting while in Astoria is Fort George Brewing Co.

My brother informs me it’s right around the corner from his place.  It’s a brewery he had been telling me about for a while, and he made it even more interesting when he brought a variety of their beers back to the east coast for me.  I previously reviewed their Oatmeal Pale Ale, which I really enjoyed.  But I’ve worked my way through a few other beers from them as well.  I didn’t review it, but their Vortex IPA was really good too.  Since it is stout month, and I’m looking for a few ideas of what to do while in the Portland area, I figured it was about time to dive into their stout.

My brother has told me this beer is definitely his favorite, so I was holding on to it for a while waiting for the right time to enjoy it.  Fort George apparently has an affinity for spiders, so there are quite a few spider facts and pictures surrounding the can.  Although intrigued their love became the artwork for this particular beer, I’m not especially a fan of particularly large arachnids.  I’m trusting that they didn’t use them in the brew, so I was really looking forward to it.

This beer has a super dark oil appearance to it as it hits the glass.  Fort George goes as far as saying this beer will stain your cavatica glassclothes.  I didn’t really feel like giving that a test, so I’ll take their word for it.  There is a light brown/tannish head that develops on the pour.  There is certainly great lacing and residual sticky residue left on the sides of the glass after a nice little swirl.  Agitating the beer builds the thick and creamy head right back up.  Of course it was far too dark to get a sense of clarity, but you can see a little carbonation around the edges.

As a good stout should, both chocolate and coffee seem to dominate the aroma of the beer.  One nice thing is that they list the malts and hops they use in the brew on the side of the can and on the site.  There are no chocolate malts in the brew, but they use Munich which I suppose help give some of that nice dark chocolate smell.  There are some light roasted aromas that come off the beer as well.  These combine nicely with rather fragrant coffee scents.  The sweet malts are quite evident, but the hops seems to get swallowed up on the nose.  There is a slight woody earthy quality to the smell as well.

While there are certainly stouts out there that take it easy on some of the big stout aspects I love, I’m glad to see this beer features some nice bold stout qualities.  The beer has a typical sweet malt intro that is accompanied by some of the rich dark chocolate I pulled out of the nose.  The bold coffee flavors come in and are quickly met by huge roasted notes.  The big roasted flavors reach a peak towards the end of the brew.  Right near the end I get my first taste of some hop that could be hiding behind all that chocolate and coffee.  The beer ends with a nice sweet and chocolate flavored finish.

The beer borders on having an almost milk or oatmeal stout quality.  The big thick and creamy mouth is always nice for a bold stout like this one.  Thankfully they provided just enough carbonation to keep it slightly lighter; however, the bold roasted notes towards the end still keep it heavier throughout.

I’m definitely looking forward to finding my way over to Fort George brewery sometime next week.  I actually just saw that they will be offering this very beer aged in rye barrels.  I will certainly be on the lookout for that one.  If you’re familiar with the Portland and Astoria area, let me know some things I should be looking out for out there.  Maybe I’ll bring some good beer back for you.

Teacher Grade: A

February 8, 2013
Categories: All Posts . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Lyrics, Libations, and Life . Comments: 6 Comments

Cisco Brewers – Indie Pale Ale

I know it’s been a little while since I was consistent at posting, so I figure this double posting in one week is kinda crazy for everyone.cisco brewers Guess I’m slowly working my way back into it.  Anyway, since it’s been so long since I posted, I can use the happenings of the past couple months as my intro material for my next few blogs.

I’m not sure what most beer geeks get for gifts over Christmas, but over the past couple I’ve ended up getting a few different things for my most prominent hobby.  I got a wort chiller and a few other components for homebrewing.  I also got a few little knickknacks for my beer collection.  However, I actually found myself coming back from my Christmas festivities with quite a bit of beer.  My sister got me a six pack of some Southern Tier IPA, and my friend Meg got one of her friends to pick up a variety of different big bottles from the Vermont area.  While beer gifts always get me excited, it also helped prove to me that I make it hard on other people to find beer for me that I haven’t had before.

The variety was of course really nice to get; however, I was really looking to find a few bottles I hadn’t had before.  There was the Merry Mischief from Sam Adams as well as a few bottles I’ve had or could get in my area.  However, I was very happy to pull out a few I hadn’t had before.  This bottle from Cisco Brewers and another from Switchback Brewing Co really stuck out to me.  Switchback isn’t a brewery I’ve very familiar with.  Looking into them online, it seems like they are a really small company that is really just producing a few noticeable beers.  I was more than happy to grab something that I knew I couldn’t get around here.

This bottle of Cisco, however, was one I’d heard of before.  I’ve looked into a lot of different and interesting breweries over the many different reviews I’ve done for this site.  Cisco may be one of the most interesting to date.  They got their start homebrewing like a lot of other people who go full time in the industry.  They however seemed to have quite the hippy demeanor.  They called themselves a Nano brewery and did almost all their brewing outside at the start.  According to their site, their head brewer hand capped 60,000 bottles in their first year.  That’s dedication!  Reading about dedication like that had me really excited to crack open this bottle.

This one pours out a nice bright orange color with some hints of darker red and brown in there as well.  A very nice fluffy white head develops on top.  As you can see in the picture, the head isn’t overwhelming, but it is definitely a nice moderate amount.  Interestingly, there isn’t much of any lacing or sticky residue left on the side of the glass after the swirl.   The beer is extremely hazy so it was a little difficult to get a feel for the clarity, but it didn’t seem like there was a lot of visual carbonation.

cisco glassThe aroma on the beer is mainly dominated by some nice orange citrusy scent.  Other than the citrus, the big floral hop smell also steals the show.  The aroma seems to be overrun by the floral hops, but there does seem to be some light piney scents as well.  In addition to some of the citrus is some nice big tropical fruit and pineapple notes.  The sweet malts appear to be rather light; however, I did get a little tang out of the aroma too.

The most noticeable aspect of the taste is that it is a rather big fresh tasting beer.  The malt introduction is rather short and really only slightly sweet.  While the malts sit back, the hops grab the reigns and take full control of this brew.  Following some of the light sweet malts, you get some big citrus and orange flavor.  Those flavors lead quite nicely into the huge floral notes.  The floral aspects dominate the majority of the flavor; however, the hops move from the herbal floral to the sharp pine flavor in the second half.  The back half also moves from orange to pineapple and tropical fruit.  The beer ends with just a little bit of nice tang.

Overall I wouldn’t say the mouthfeel is too heavy.  The flavors are overall quite light, and there really isn’t even any syrup on this one either.  The biggest problem I have with the beer would be that it seems a little over carbonated to me.  As an IPA, the hops give off a great flavor for a hop addict like myself.

I haven’t seen this beer in my area just yet, but if you do see it on the shelf, I would definitely pick it up.  I would really like to see what a few other beers in their line-up are like.  I’m not sure I’ve heard about too many other breweries that can match the passion of these guys, so I’m thinking that much heart can’t create bad beer.

Teacher Grade: A

February 1, 2013
Categories: Libations . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Lyrics, Libations, and Life . Comments: Leave a Comment

Dogfish Head Brewing Co – Birra Etrusca Bronze

This post is my triumphant return to the blogging community.  I got a little jaded with my blogging by the end of last year, so I felt like Ietrusca needed to take a little time off.  While I really only meant it to be over the holiday break, I managed to get fairly busy over the past few weeks of the new year.  So I really felt like I didn’t have a lot of time to get on here.  It’s not like I haven’t been drinking craft beer or listening to good music.  Trust me, I’ve still been formulating different blogs in my head, but I just haven’t found the time to get back on here.  Hopefully you missed me and can’t wait to read my ramblings.

Even though I wasn’t posting anything on here, my views really kept up with the almost two years of posts in my history.  Guess I can keep contributing despite not actually writing anything new.  Also, while I was gone, it’s not like I have been buying and drinking craft beer.  My collection has continued to grow, I brewed perhaps my best beer yet (A black ipa), and I even took some notes for future reviews.  I’m not sure if I’ll abandon those notes just yet or not, but if you’re interested in reading my opinion on any of these let me know.  My notes are for Old KILTer Scottish ale from Olde Main Brewing Co, Blitzen from Blue Mountain Brewery, and the latest collaboration from Stone known as Perfect Crime.  I can put one of these up if there is interest.  Otherwise I’ll continue pressing on.

Anyway, I picked up this bottle a few weeks ago.  Dogfish is of course one the most hot and cold breweries out there.  There is no other brewery that produces some of my most loved and hated brews of all time.  Anyway, this is part of their Ancient Ales series.  Historically I haven’t loved a lot of the beers in this series, but I can’t help but feel the need to give it a try.  For this brew, Sam traveled to Rome to analyze drinking vessels found in 2,800-year-old Etruscan tombs.  Based on their findings, they brewed this ale using two-row malted barley and an heirloom Italian wheat.  Some of the specialty ingredients include hazelnut flour, pomegranates, Italian chestnut honey, Delaware wildflower honey and clover honey. While this beer had all the signs of things I typically dislike in my beer, I still had to give it a shot.  Plus it seemed like the perfect beer to get me back into blogging.

This one pours a nice bright orange reddish color.  It really has an almost candied quality to it.  There is a very substantial tan head that develops on top of the beer.  Some very light lacing develops on the side of the glass, and you do have some much more substantial sticky residue as well.  As you can tell from the picture, the clarity in this one is great with some very visible carbonation as well.  The carbonation bubbles back off overtime, but they are quite plentiful right after the initial pour.

EtruscaThe fruits in this one certainly dominate the aroma coming out of the glass.  The sweet malts are fairly large and back up the fruits quite well.  According to the bottle, they utilized both actual pomegranates and pomegranate juice.  Therefore, pomegranate is the biggest aroma that you get out of this one.  I pick up a little bit of the honey sweetness to this one as well.  There seems to be a little bit of light raisins, as well as, a bit of spice from some clove too.  While it doesn’t say it anywhere on the label, I seem to find some slight cherry aroma too.

Overall I would say the flavoring on this one is rather light.  Everything works well together, and you don’t have any huge flavors that dominate, but overall it’s quite light.  The sweet malts come out however they are somewhat subdued.  This beer hinges more on the specialty flavors that are added rather than the base flavors.  The honey sweetness combines with the malt intro to make it a somewhat sweet start.  Midway through a sour cherry and bold pomegranate flavor come in.  The pomegranate flavor carries through all the way to the end.  There is a kick of carbonation and yeast slightly past the midway point that adds a lot of character to the beer.  The yeast brings a little bit of clove and spice to give the beer a little needed kick.  The beer ends with some lingering pomegranate flavors and overall sweetness.

I would say this beer is rather sweet overall, but they did a good job of using a yeast that added a lot of character.  The beer is certainly dominated by a syrupy nature, but yeast and carbonation help to even it out.  The beer has a rather moderate body because of this nice mixture.

Rating this beer is a little difficult.  This ancient ale is also known as a gruit.  Historically I’ve never really had a love for this style.  So, as far as gruits go, I’d like rate it rather highly.  However, my actual rating system is based on whether I’d like to drink this beer again.  As far as returning to this beer, I don’t really see that happening.  So this may actually be the first beer I have to give a double rating to.  If you’ve been spurned by the gruit style like I have, then you should definitely check this one out.  I’m glad I had this beer, but I won’t be grabbing another bottle for me.

Gruit Grade: A

Teacher Grade: D

EtruscaWeb

January 29, 2013
Categories: All Posts . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Lyrics, Libations, and Life . Comments: 2 Comments

Visiting Flying Dog

I personally love to visit breweries.  I live roughly two to three miles from DC Brau, so it’s not to hard to visit a brewery about any timeRV I want.  I don’t actually get over there that often, but it’s nice to know I can.  I’ve tried to visit other breweries when I can.  I’ve been to Victory twice; although, I’m not certain they allow you to tour it.  I’ve been to Brooklyn; however, it was probably one of the worst tours I’ve been to.  Therefore, I was really hopeful my first time up to Flying Dog would be exceptional.

Flying Dog is a pretty popular brewery in the area, and they apparently love to give back to the restaurants that carry their products.  The GM at the restaurant I work at knows I’m a really big fan of beer, so he let me know about a special manager trip up to tour and taste at the brewery.  Thankfully, because my GM is awesome, he got me on the trip.  I was told to meet at the restaurant at 10 AM to catch my ride up to the brewery.  I wasn’t really sure what the ride would be like, but I was hopeful it wouldn’t be too bad because car sickness is a big problem of mine.   Arriving at the restaurant, I was extremely excited to see the Flying Dog RV parked on the corner.

Flying Dog boardThe RV is evidently the transportation Flying Dog sends out for these type of events.  The RV had some comfy seating around the perimeter, chalkboard paint for the walls, and (most importantly) two kegs of Flying Dog brew.  Ironically, the day before, another group from the restaurant had gone out and basically kicked both kegs.  Before we had even managed to pour a beer for every member of our group, we were totally out of beer.  Seems ironic on a trip all about beer.  Thankfully we managed to get some bottles on the way up to compensate for the empty kegs.

Getting to the brewery, we were immediately ushered into the tasting room to get to our free and unlimited tasting of some of the different brews they had available at the moment.  There were plenty of beers on tap that were a part of their standard line-up; however, there were a few interesting brews as well.  Flying Dog has been working on their single hop series of beer and, while I’ve had a few of them, the two they had on tap I hadn’t had before.  Their beers with brewkettleGalaxy hops and Nelson Sauvin hops were really good.  The barrel aged Gonzo porter was amazing and, having never had their coffee stout (Kujo) before, I was quite pleased with it as well.  The other beers were pretty good as well; however, I promise you I didn’t have the International Arms race beer.

After quite a bit of tasting, we headed off to tour the brewery.  If you read my review of my visit to Brooklyn, you know I got angry about how bad their tour was.  Thankfully, Flying Dog does a much better job.  They start you off on a wall full of different paintings related to the different things that got their brews brewing.  Everything from how their founder got the idea from climbing K2 to pictures relating to the great brews they’ve made and are making.  My visit to Brooklyn brewery involved standing in one room while a guy on a ladder pointed at different stuff and then we left.  At Flying Dog, we walked around the entire place.  We were shown all the different brew kettles, the hops, the fermentation tanks, the bottling, and the packaging.  They left no stone unturned.

Tour guideWe headed back to the tasting room for a few more good beers, and I couldn’t leave without picking up some rare bottles.  I grabbed a vintage bottle of their Horndog Barleywine from 2009 and a bottle of a brewery only St. Eadmon Belgian Dark Ale.  Don’t worry I’m sure there will be some reviews forthcoming.  Finally, right before heading out, we got to meet the CEO Jim Caruso.  I’m not going to say it was some crazy experience, but it’s cool to say I shook his hand.

In the end, I should have eaten a lot more that day because things got a little hazy on the way home; however, it was a great trip and I’m really glad I got to go on it.  If you haven’t been to Flying Dog before, you definitely need to get up there.  I’m sure they are slightly more limited on their tastings, but it was a nice place full of nice people.  Oh and the beer is really good!

December 20, 2012
Categories: Libations, Life . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Lyrics, Libations, and Life . Comments: 2 Comments

Sam Adams Brewing Co – Merry Mischief

To a certain extent, I find some of the beers of the Christmas season a little frustrating.  It’s a somewhat love and hate thing. merry mischief Big bold beers are great, but there are others that rely on a bunch of Christmas spices to give them that holiday flavor.  Coming out of pumpkin beer season makes it a little frustrating.  You leave these fall beers that focus on the flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove.  They, of course, tend to be combined with pumpkin, but you never really taste a ton of the pumpkin on a lot of these beers.  Winter beers then come out and, some of them, just take out the pumpkin and seem to brew a pretty similar beer.  They once again have cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove.  I’m still a sucker for seasonals though, so I can’t help myself when I see an interesting new bottle.

I picked this bottle up on a little bit of a whim.  When Sam Adams first started to come out with their more crafty options, I jumped on the first few that became available.  I liked that a more macro brewery was sticking with their craft roots.  I’ve missed more than a few options since then, but I couldn’t pass this one up.  The label may be the real reason why, but I was also just interested in the style.  I’d been hearing about an excellent gingerbread stout out of Hardywood Brewing Co in Richmond Va and, I also knew I would be trying their version the same weekend at my UFC and beer event.  I guess that tells you how long ago I had this beer.  Needless to say, there were some obvious differences in their attempts at the same style.

Sam Adams bills this beer a Gingerbread Stout, or ale brewed with spices, which I think was the first indication that I probably should have just left it on the shelf.  However, a big bottle under $10, and the ability to compare to another bottle kept it in my hand on the way to the counter.  Looking up the recipe, they state that the beer is brewed with the intensity and spices of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, & ginger.  It’s these spices, the same as similar pumpkin beers, that in the end had me less than pleased with this beer.

This one pours a super dark midnight black color with a fairly ample creamy and foamy dark brownish head.  There is tons of ample lacing on the side of the glass with quite a bit of residual sticky residue after the head finally dies down.  It may not be a huge amount of head, but it hangs around for a while.  The beer is obviously too dark for any sense of clarity, but you can see some very slight activity when you agitate it.  Swirling the glass also reveals that the beer has a slightly oily quality to it.

merry mischief glassThe gingerbread is certainly quite obvious on the nose.  The clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg comes across very strongly.  The beer has a very large gingerbread smell, but it comes across as somewhat pumpkinesque when combined with these other aromas.  I certainly didn’t want to smell a lot of these aromas so close to pumpkin time.  Especially when I’m already quite tired of pumpkin at this point.  Interestingly, the stout aromas don’t come out at all.  This beer is called a gingerbread stout, but the stout quality seems to be swallowed up by the rest of the spices.  The smell is quite crisp and clean overall.

The first sip reminded me of something that I really didn’t want to taste at that moment: pumpkin.  The malts kick it off; however, they aren’t too heavy or overly sweet.  Really almost all of the stout qualities seem to be rather lacking from the beer.  Part of the reason may be due to the wheat used in the malt bill.  They lightened it up just a little.  There is some slight chocolate flavor which is the most prominent stout quality you find in the flavor.  There are some slight hops in the middle that combines with some citrus flavors; however, the back half is dominated by the spices.  The gingerbread is quite noticeable; however, the clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg are far too powerful as well.  It’s got too much pumpkin remnants and not enough Christmas.  It ends slightly boozy with some rather intensified spices.

The mouthfeel isn’t overly thick, but it does lean slightly more toward a heavy feel.  There is some fairly good carbonation; however, it disappears rather quickly.  The beer is severely lacking in the stout qualities.  No roasted flavors or coffee, and you only get some slight chocolate notes.

I have a feeling my view of this beer was slightly tainted by having Hardywood Gingerbread Stout the day after; however, looking at my notes from the day before, they still aren’t positive.  When I told some people I was trying both to compare, they told me I was comparing a Ford to a Corvette.  Maybe the Sam Adams didn’t have a fighting chance with this one, but they could have done a lot more with the stout base.  If you want a good stout with some gingerbread, try to find a bottle of Hardywood.  It’s rare, but it certainly beats out this bottle.  Otherwise, I’d try a few of the other much better Christmas offerings out there.

Teacher Grade: D

December 18, 2012
Categories: Libations . Tags: , , , , , , , , . Author: Lyrics, Libations, and Life . Comments: 2 Comments

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