Night Shift Barrel Society Release #4: Cezanne

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Brewery Visit, Massachusetts, Night Shift Barrel Society, Night Shift Brewing

It was once again time to swing by Night Shift Brewing Company to pick up a Barrel Society beer and see what was going on in the taproom.  I knew going in there would be a bunch of new beer available, but I was also happy to see that they have expanded their collection of arcade games a bit by adding Road Blasters and Asteroids.  Playing Road Blasters again really took me back to my childhood.  I am more familiar with the NES port, but the game publishers also got more than their fair share of my quarters on this one back in the day.  Cheers to free plays!

My first beer of the afternoon was Cezzane, the fourth entry in this year’s Barrel Society lineup.  These beers have been a hot commodity on tap this year and this is actually only the second one I have gotten a chance to try so far.  Listed at 10.5%, this saison aged in sauvingon blanc barrels with wildflower honey and Brettanomyces certainly did not disappoint.  The smell was subtly sweet and funky.  The taste offered more of the same, light traces of honey with a faint funkiness lingering in the background.  The finish was dry and quite clearly influenced by the white wine barrels the beer was aged in.  The mouthfeel was perfect, thick and smooth, almost creamy with low carbonation.  Big fan of this one and torn between wanting to open my bottle right away and letting it sit for awhile.  I’ve had some good experiences aging honey beers, so I will put my willpower to the test.  A very nice entry into the series for sure and I am happy I got to it while it was still on tap.

For my next round, I went with a flight to check out all the new beers that had been released in the last week or so.  First up was an Oktoberfest called Oldenberg, released for a brewery event last weekend.  It poured a copper/orange body, as expected of the style.  The taste was a bit different from what I’ve been drinking lately as toasty malts outweighed the sweetness that characterizes most of the others I’ve had so far this season.  The roasted malts then give way to lager yeast on the finish.  I’ve tended to prefer slightly sweeter examples of this style, so this was not my favorite of the year.

Beer number two also debuted last weekend and was rather interesting.  Called Pretzelbier, it was inspired by pretzels and they absolutely nailed their goal with this one.  The beer tasted bready with a touch of toasty malts and came complete with a hint of salt and a peppery mustard seed finish.  Really an interesting brew, but I am not sure how much of this I’d want in one sitting.  My guess is something a bit more than a sample glass and less than a few pints.  Really well done though and props to them for a food-themed beer that really captured its inspiration.

Next up was the latest installment of the brewery’s One Hop This Time series and showcased Vic Secret hops.  This beer was pretty fantastic.  It tasted like a blend of orange and grapefruit juice hopped with piney resinous hops.  The finish was just a touch breadier than I might have expected but overall this was a top tier beer and my clear favorite of the flight.  This series of beers keeps on getting better and better, with this particular one also being one of my favorite Night Shift IPAs of all time as well.

Finishing things off was Awake, a porter aged with coffee beans.  This wasn’t a bad beer, but I think it suffered in my mind due to comparisons to Bean Porter.  It was a little too roasty for my preference and it didn’t have the same thicker mouthfeel some of their coffee porters have had in the past.  Wasn’t my thing, enough said.

So that wraps up another enjoyable visit to Night Shift Brewing.  I had a couple of fantastic beers and played some old school arcade games.  Not bad for a work night.

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Earth Eagle Brewings in Portsmouth, NH

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Beer, Beer Review, Beercation, Brewery Visit, Earth Eagle Brewings, New England, New Hampshire

On our return home from Maine, my wife and I hit up one last brewery before returning home.  There were a few options in the area, but I felt that Earth Eagle Brewings was the place to go.  Their diverse and out of the ordinary lineup of beers was something that appealed to me, and we both enjoyed our previous visit.  It also didn’t hurt that they had a gluten free cider on tap for my wife to enjoy.

Upon entering the brewery, we noticed right away there had been some changes since our last time there.  They’ve re-arranged the taproom, and while I’m not sure if they added extra space or not, it certainly felt a lot larger than I remembered.  The decor was still an eclectic mix of outdoorsy New Hampshire relics and Native American tribal designs that gave the place its own distinct character.  They also now have a few guest taps available, featuring a mix of local and nationally distributed beer and cider.  Definitely a nice option, and it allowed my wife to enjoy a beverage alongside me.  She had a cider from North Country called Fire Starter, which rather successfully blended cinnamon, nutmeg, and Habanero peppers to earn high marks from her.

For my part though I was more interested in a flight of the house beers, in particular any gruits. They really wowed me with this style last time we were there, and I was looking to try some more.  Lucky for me, they had two pouring that day.  I started the flight off with Sam Boocus, a 5.0% sour gruit brewed with elderberries.  It poured a pinkish, grapefruit juice-like color and had a sweet, inviting aroma.  The taste was a playful blend of sweet and tart fruits and berries and was extremely delicious.  Mouthfeel had a juice-like thickness at the end and not too much carbonation.  Very nice beer.  The other was a Scottish gruit aged in an apple-brandy barrel named Funky Willie.  The taste incorporated both sweet and smoky malt notes, a wee bit of funk in the middle, and a finish where vanilla and the barrel presence really asserted itself.  The low carbonation was perfect for this beer and a glass of it would make for a great beer to sip on a cool fall evening.  Felt like 5.5% was a bit low for everything going on in this one, but overall pretty good.  These were exactly what I had hoped to find at the brewery and they did not disappoint.

The flight also featured a pair of wheat beers, Cereal Killer and Cherry Ferale.  Cereal Killer was a bready and slightly sweet Wit with a spicy floral finish.  Playful carbonation accentuated the tastes, but overall this beer wasn’t really my thing.  I typically don’t go for those flavor profiles and it didn’t really stand out for me among the other beers offered.  The second was a cherry weizen called Cherry Ferale.  This one was a touch yeasty and had a distinctive wheat and light malt base.  The cherries were subtle but noticeable; not really taking over the taste at any point but clearly present throughout.  I liked this one better.

Rounding out the flight of six beers were a brown ale and a session IPA.  The first of these was the awesomely named Phoenix Brown, which if it isn’t named after Phoenix Down I’ll just go on thinking was.  It was a smooth and toasty Brown Ale which tasted of toasted malts and just a hint of their dry-hopping efforts in the finish. While Brown Ales aren’t usually my style, this one I really did find enjoyable.  They key was how the smoothness of the beer really complimented the roasted malts rather than having them stand out on their own.  The final beer of the day was a 4.5% Session IPA called Half Jack.  Session IPAs are very hit or miss for me and this one was the latter.  It was a bit too assertively bitter for my liking and the bready malt base seemed to accentuate that.  A little more sweetness in the malt and juicier/toned down hops are what I like from this style, so I am chalking this one up to personal preference.

So that rounds out my latest visit to Earth Eagle.  The two gruits were the stars of the show, with Sam Boocus being my favorite and also one of the best beers I had over the course of the long weekend.  I had a great time there and really appreciated the variety of styles they had to offer.  Definitely a place I want to come back to.  I recommend it as an essential stop for anyone in the area looking to try some good beer that will give them a break from the same old styles.

Road Trip: Portland, ME

Tags

Allagash Brewing Company, Beer, Beer Review, Beercation, Bissell Brothers Brewing, Brewery Visit, Foundation Brewing Company, Maine, New England

My wife and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary by taking a trip up to Maine last weekend.  On our way up we stopped at Industrial Way, an unassuming commercial road in Portland where a few of Maine’s breweries have made their homes.  Talk about a nice neighborhood!

Our first stop of the day was at Allagash Brewing Company, who for over 20 years has been serving up high quality Belgian-inspired beers.  Any beer enthusiast is probably familiar with at least a few of their offerings, so it was exciting to see where all the magic happens.  They have the largest facility of the breweries in the vicinity, claiming an entire lot to themselves.  From their parking lot you can see some large brewing tanks and an outdoor seating area.  Before entering the taproom/bottle and merchandise store, you are greeted at the door by a friendly host who, in exchange for viewing valid identification, will present visitors with a token redeemable for a free flight of four beers.  You can also make arrangements to join a tour (also free!), but our schedule  did not allow for it.

I did, however, have plenty of time for the free flight of beer.  Consumed in the order above from left to right, my first sample of the day was House Beer, a Belgian-style Pale Ale.  The taste was quite nice; lightly hopped dry grapefruit accompanied by the distinct flavor of Belgian yeast.  Mellow and light, this started the day off on a high note.

Next up was Saison, which tasted a bit fruity (think orange zest) and lightly peppery.  It had a dry, crisp finish and was probably about what my ideal for this style would be.  I really enjoyed the subtleties of the flavors.

Brew number three, Confluence, was something a bit bolder, a 7.5% Belgian Pale Strong Ale blended with the brewery’s proprietary strain of Brettanomyces.  It had a citrusy, funky Brett-influenced taste upfront that transitioned to sweet malts before coming to a bitter, hoppy, and funky finish.  The Brettanomyces really asserted itself in this one, but the variety of other tastes blended well with it to create a very complex and interesting beer.  This was probably my favorite of the flight though the next beer up was certainly pretty amazing as well.

Closing things out was the brewery’s classic Belgian Dark Ale, simply named Black.  It poured a dark black body and had an inviting roasted chocolate smell.  It tasted again of roasted chocolate, light roast coffee, and sweet malt.  The mouthfeel was soft and silky and brought an outstanding flight of beer to great finish.

Allagash has a top-notch facility and poured some really great beers, both of which can be enjoyed at a price that can’t be beat – free!  Any beer lover passing through the area needs to stop in here at least once to check this place out.

Our next stop, across the street, was Foundation Brewing Company, which shares a warehouse unit with a few other breweries.  None of these are as big as Allagash so while they do each have their own units and taprooms, they are set up more like adjacent storefronts as opposed to individual stand-alone facilities.  Making our way past the cornhole area and long bench outside the front entrance, we walked into a very small serving area where you could purchase beer and merchandise.  There was indoor seating in the back among some of the brewing equipment or the aforementioned bench outside.  We went for the bench to take advantage of a beautiful day.  I, of course, ordered samples of each of the five beers pouring.

To start the tasting, I was poured two golden-yellow saisons, Eddy and Wanderlust.  Eddy was 5.7% and featured a whole lot of citrus fruit taste upfront before giving way to a light yeast and more subtle pepper and spice notes.  The flavors all came together well for what is probably one of the fruitiest saison I have had the pleasure of drinking.  Wanderlust was also very fruity, though a bit smaller of a beer at 4.5%.  It was also distinguished by having a bit more of yeast presence and a floral, almost bubblegum-like taste.  It was also notably hoppier than Eddy, so much so that this could easily be taken for a Pale Ale.

The next wave of samples presented a variety of colors and flavors.  I moved on to Zuurzing, billed as a sour saison.  It had a tangy and funky strawberry taste and drank like a tart juice.  There wasn’t a lot about this other than a slight dryness to the finish that made this recognizable as saison, but that aside I was a big fan of this one.  Moving on, I got to Burnside, a roasty Brown Ale.  I thought this beer was about average for the style, but I don’t really have much to say about it.  It wasn’t bad, this style just doesn’t usually excite me.  Rounding out the flight was an IPA named Afterglow.  This is another one that I really enjoyed.  It had a nice resiny/piney hop presence backed up by some more bready than sweet malts.  All in all this was a very solid flight and I was certainly quite happy a had a chance to stop on by.

After finishing up at Foundation, we went next door to pay a visit to their next door neighbors, Bissell Brothers Brewing Company.  You enter their taproom by going past an outdoor seating area (complete with food truck) and are greeted by a serving counter in front of you and an indoor seating area with a few tables and a pinball machine to the left.  There were only two beers pouring that day, but they were both exceptionally good.

I started with Baby Genius, a 4.0% American Blonde Ale.  As one might expect from the size and style, this was  really refreshing and crushable.  It poured a cloudy almost nuclear yellow.  Taste was piney, almost spicy, tropical hops on top of a yeasty and grainy base.  I could see this one tasting kind of odd once the hops start to fade, but it was super fresh while I was there and tasting great.  The other beer pouring that day was their popular IPA named The Substance.  This one poured a cloudy straw yellow color.  The taste was a great mix of juicy fruits and really dank hops.  Neither flavor really asserted itself over the others, but rather worked together to form a cohesive and delicious beer.  I was super excited to come home with cans of these packaged the day before our visit.

Located in the same building complex as Foundation and Bissell Brothers is yet another brewery, Austin Street Brewery but they unfortunately did not fit into our plans this visit.  I had plenty of beer by this point and we needed to get on with our voyage north as evening was rapidly approaching.  They’re definitely first on my list should we get the chance to swing by again, which I do hope ends up happening.  There’s a lot of great brewing going on down on this stretch of road and any traveling beer enthusiast really does need to take note of this as a destination to hit up.  You’ll be glad you did.

You don’t believe in the Great Pumpkin!?!? – Blind Tasting, Part 3

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Blind Tasting, Fall, Magic Hat Brewing Company, Pumpkin Beer, Pumpkins, Samuel Adams, Souther Tier Brewing Company

It was time to get back out there and try more pumpkin beers.  I have a mini-fridge full of them, so I wasn’t about to let one bad tasting spoil me on the whole patch.  Although this round produced some bizarre results, it was an improvement upon the previous one.  Here’s a look at what came out of the refrigerator for me this time.

Beer number one started things off on an odd note.  It had a pale yellow body, just slightly hinting at amber, and a fizzy white head.  The smell was bready yeast all the way, which also dominated the taste up front.  The beer then developed a strong floral taste before coming to a rather peppery finish.  This beer would best be described as crisp and peppery as nothing about it suggested that it was a pumpkin beer.  The mouthfeel was on the thinner side and rather strongly carbonated.  I was certainly confused; had my peppercorn saison been opened by mistake?  The answer was no.  At this point I should tell you that this beer was Pumpkin Batch by Samuel Adams, labeled as a 5.6% fall seasonal saison brewed with real pumpkin.  Huh?  Suffice to say, this was a miss for me.  It tasted nothing like a pumpkin beer, my whole reason for picking it up, and I found the peppery finish too strong and unchecked.  Don’t know what else to say about this one.

The next beer didn’t exactly do much to restore sanity to the evening, but it was at least delicious.  I was apparently overzealous when selecting beers for my Oktoberfest and pumpkin tastings and another one of Southern Tier’s fall seasonals, this one called Harvest, snuck its way into the mix.  It had a brown label that blended right in with the others, apparently a bit too well as I assured my wife that other than the aforementioned Peppercorn Saison, everything left in the fridge was a pumpkin beer and fair game for pouring.  While I won’t include it in my pumpkin rankings, Harvest did redeem the brewery following the Pumking debacle last tasting.  Briefly, the beer poured a cloudy, dark yellowish amber body with a bubbly head.  The smell and taste both brought forth a flavor profile I love so well: sweet caramel malts and piney, bitter hops. The beer gets ever so slightly boozy as it warms (ABV is 6.7%) and I could swear there was a subtle hint of fall spice on the tail end of the finish.  Or it could have been the power of suggestion.  Either way I was confused again.  Medium bodied with the just the right of carbonation to carry the style.  Overall this was a very good beer, but one that has to be disqualified from the contest.

And now the final beer of the evening, Wilhelm Scream Pumpkin Ale by Magic Hat Brewing Company.  It feels like it’s been forever since I last had a beer from Magic Hat (my mercilessly unforgetful drinking buddy Untapped says 2.25 years almost to the day) as the brewery did not really keep my attention once I became more fully immersed in the world of beer.  This offering, however, was quite solid.  Competitively solid even.  It was the darkest brew of the night, pouring a deep amber and copper body.  It smelled of sweet malts with a hint of fall spices and perhaps even (at last!) pumpkin.  The taste was malty and vegetal, with a mellow fall spicy finish that blended vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  There was also a mild bitterness that occasionally came through.  The mouthfeel was on the thicker side and the carbonation was rather high.  This is the one place where the beer faltered.  The carbonation was a bit too aggressive, causing the beer to start foaming up in my mouth mid to late sip.  It didn’t ruin the beer for me, but it did make a bit harder to enjoy a mellow yet flavorful 5.4% pumpkin ale that was just begging to be drunk with ease on a cool fall day.  That flaw aside, this beer restored my faith in the pumpkin tasting, which I’ll admit had taken a hit at this point.  I don’t know that I would have picked up this beer without making it my goal to try all the pumpkin beers I could find, and I can’t say for sure I would have given it a totally fair shot not drinking it blind.  So cheers to Magic Hat for putting out a fine pumpkin ale.

So we end things here on a positive note.  I am keeping high hopes that this is where the tasting turns around for the better and we can start placing some beers in the upper tier soon.  As things stand now, here are the latest rankings:

Upper Tier Beers (Best of the Best)

(None Yet)

Second Tier (Good but not the Best)

1. Dogfish Head Brewing – Punkin Head
2. Brooklyn Brewery – Post Road Pumpkin Ale
3. Magic Hat Brewing Company – Wilhelm Scream Pumpkin Ale: This would have been upper tier if not for the mouthfeel issue.
4. New Holland Brewery – Icabod Pumpkin Ale

Third Tier (The Average)

1. Captain Lawrence Brewing Company – Pumpkin Ale
2. Two Roads Brewing Company – Roadsmary’s Baby
3. Samuel Adams – Pumpkin Batch: I admittedly was not thrilled with this beer, but it did not deserve banishment to the bottom tier on the grounds that it was drinkable without requiring concentrated effort.

Bottom Tier (Never Again)

1. Southern Tier Brewing Company – Pumking
2. Steadfast Brewing Company – Pumpkin Spiced Ale

Oktoberfest! – Part 2

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Goose Island Beer Company, Oktoberfest, Samuel Adams, Spaten-Franziskaner Brau, Steadfast Brewing Company

Looking to get past the unfortunate second round of my pumpkin tasting, I switched back to sampling Oktoberfests in the hopes of finding something good again.  Thankfully the beers poured were all solid, making for a much better night.  Slight spelling variation aside on the first sample, they were again all simply named Oktoberfest.  Here’s what came out of the fridge this time.

The first beer turned out to be from the Boston Brewing Company, more popularly known as Samuel Adams.  Drinking Sam Adams Octoberfest has become one of the first signs of fall  for me and I was happy to have enjoyed my first of the year.  It poured a golden, light orange body topped off with a bubbly just barely off-white head.  The smell was subtle but brought on the style’s characteristic malty sweetness and perhaps just a little bit of roast.  The taste offered a moderate amount of sweet malts up front and a solid, bready finish.  There was a different kind of sweetness on the finish than was present up front, perhaps more dark fruit than caramel.  The beer was medium bodied and well carbonated, almost, but not quite, on the edge of being too carbonated for my tastes.  This was a solid beer and is deservedly a fall staple around these parts.  At 5.3%, it was the mildest of the beers poured, though not by a lot.

The next beer was from Chicago’s Goose Island Beer Company and was another light orange/golden bodied brew.  It smelled very strongly of sweet malts and the taste followed suit.  Sweet caramel and toffee flavored malt dominated the front before they tapered off into a more fruity finish, accompanied by a slight bitter roastiness.  Apparently the recipe incorporates apricots, and this certainly explained a lot after the reveal.  The mouthfeel is moderate yet sufficiently thick to carry the malts  Carbonation is moderate and noticeably less than the first offering.  I liked this beer a lot, largely due to being a big fan of caramel/toffee malt flavor profiles.  The sweetness might not make this a great beer for drinking all day, but it certainly wouldn’t stop me from having two or three.  At 6.4%, this one was the strongest of the day, towards the upper end of what to expect for the style.

Last up was a beer from Munich’s own Spaten-Franziskaner Brau.  This one poured a light pale copper body without the deeper golden characteristics of the first two.  The aroma was slightly sweet but dominated by a bready, yeasty smell.  As for the taste, the beer had some sweetness up front and an assertive pilsner-like crisp malt character at the end.  The finish also contained bready yeasts and was somewhat spicy.  Mouthfeel and carbonation were both medium to allow for easy drinking.  Overall, and I may not want to show up in Germany for a bit after saying this, the taste profile didn’t really do it for me.  In the interest of fairness I drank this beer first on my second tasting of each beer (after waiting a while and drinking plenty of water) and still felt the same.  It wasn’t for me.  Apparently sweet malts are where my palate is at right now.  This beer was a more moderate  5.9%.

For those keeping track, the rankings after round two are now as follows:

1. Goose Island – Oktoberfest: Huge fan of the malt profile.  Clear cut front runner.
2. Sierra Nevada & BrauHaus Riegele – Oktoberfest: Jumped this up a spot.  I kept thinking about this beer after the last tasting and having had a few more beers in the style I felt like an adjustment needed to be made.
3. Spoetzl Brewery/Shiner – Oktoberfest: I still really like this one, but the shine is off a bit after two other very good assertive malty and sweet offerings.
4. Samuel Adams – Octoberfest: Tough call on placing this one.  Carbonation I think puts it at number 4, behind the Shiner.
5. Berkshire Brewing Company – Oktoberfest
6. Spaten-Franziskaner Brau – Oktoberfest

March of the Pumpkins – Part Two

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Captain Lawrence Brewing Company, Fall, Gluten Free, Pumpkin Beer, Pumpkins, Souther Tier Brewing Company, Steadfast Brewing Company, Two Roads Brewing Company

Hello and welcome to the second round of my Second Annual Blind Pumpkin tasting.  Not going to lie, this round was something of a disappointment, so take this as your warning about these beers.  Let’s do this thing and move along

Beer number one was Pumpkin Ale by Captain Lawrence Brewing Company.  It poured a golden orange/amber body with a thin, fizzy white head.  The smell was moderately sweet with a ton of spices.  It mellowed out a bit as the sample sat there, but the aroma sure came on strong at the start.  Given this, the taste was somewhat surprising.  It had toasty malts upfront with just a hint of the usual mix of pumpkin spices by the finish.  There was also a slight a bitterness and just a hint of booziness as the beer warmed up, which seemed odd considering it was only 5.5%.  I would put both mouthfeel and carbonation at moderate.  Overall this wasn’t a bad beer, but I didn’t find it particularly inspiring either.  I was kind of disappointed that it was a Captain Lawrence offering as I had recently spent a day enjoying the hell out of their IPA at the New York Renaissance Faire.

Next up was an old nemesis of mine, Pumking by Southern Tier Brewing Company.  I have not liked this beer the past few years but wanted to give it another try.  Never again, I say, never again.  It pours a light golden, just slightly orange color without much head to speak of.  It was by the smell that I recognized my foe.  Sweet, buttery, and a whole lot of spices.  The taste was more of the same.  Total spice bomb of nutmeg, cinnamon, and artificial pumpkin spice.  It also tasted a bit buttery to me with a cloying sweetness that gives this beer a messy taste.  The mouthfeel is thick and oily smooth with a very light amount of carbonation.  I wanted to drain pour this but my wife insisted that I finish it on the grounds that I knew what I was getting into when I bought it.  She’s not wrong, but this beer sure was.  Some people love this beer, and my opinion may even be in the minority here, so I’ll be leaving all the rest for them.

Last up was Roadsmary’s Baby by Two Roads Brewing Company.  This one surprised me after the reveal.  Last year I had rated this beer fairly well, but this year I didn’t much care for it.  It poured a deep amber body with a slightly foamy white head.  The taste was roasty malts upfront which transitioned into a moderately spicy, somewhat boozy finish.  A bit of vanilla rounds out the booziness as the beer warms, and finding out later that this was rum barrel aged makes a lot of sense.  Mouthfeel was creamy and lightly carbonated, well suited to the flavor profile, but unfortunately this beer just never really came together for me.

It wasn’t part of the blind tasting, but a dishonorable mention also goes to Steadfast Brewing Company for their Pumpkin Spiced Ale.  This is a gluten free beer my wife had picked up to enjoy with me but wow did this miss its mark.  Spices were way out of balance and it tasted like drinking a strong blend of fall potpourri and nothing about it even remotely suggested that it was a pumpkin ale.  She took a sip, I took a sip, and then I am sorry to say we poured it out.   This is certainly saying something as we have joined forces to power through some pretty rough gluten free beers.  Disappointing for sure.

So, the rankings after this tasting debacle are as follows:

Upper Tier Beers (Best of the Best)

(None Yet)

Second Tier (Good but not the Best)

1. Dogfish Head Brewing – Punkin Head
2. Brooklyn Brewery – Post Road Pumpkin Ale
3. New Holland Brewery – Icabod Pumpkin Ale

Third Tier (The Average)

1. Captain Lawrence Brewing Company – Pumpkin Ale
2. Two Roads Brewing Company – Roadsmary’s Baby

Bottom Tier (Never Again)

1. Southern Tier Brewing Company – Pumking
2. Steadfast Brewing Company – Pumpkin Spiced Ale

Oktoberfest!

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Berkshire Brewing Company, Blind Tasting, Brauhaus Riegele, Oktoberfest, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Spoetzl Brewery/Shiner

Pumpkin beers of course aren’t the only new offerings beginning to fill up the shelves this September.  Fall also brings with it a wave of Oktoberfest beers and in keeping with the spirit of the season, I will be doing another series of blind tastings focused solely on these offerings.  The methodology is the same as with the pumpkin beers; I hit up some bottle shops, load up on singles, and then my loving wife prepares some samples, typically three per tasting session.  After recording my thoughts the beers are revealed.  Appropriately enough, all three beers sampled for this first session were named Oktoberfest, so O’zapft is! (at least in my kitchen). Let’s get on with the first round!

My first Oktoberfest style beer of the year turned out to be from Berkshire Brewing Company.  I loved this beer as a sample and continued to enjoy it as I worked my way through the bomber, though it did get a bit tough to finish it off solo as it gets pretty aggressive as the bottle goes on (and especially as it warms).  At 7.5% this beer was slightly bigger than one might typically expect for the style.  It poured a deep amber/caramel body topped off by a foamy white head.  The smell was sweet and the taste was quite similar.  The sweetness started right up front and carried on through to the end.  The finish was caramel malts, just a hint of bitterness, and some alcohol heat.  A thicker mouthfeel really kept this beer together well.  It wasn’t entirely what I expected it to be, but I sure did like the way it tasted.

Next up was a more classic take on the style which to no surprise to me was brewed by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, who teamed up with German brewers Brauhaus Reigele for this year’s release.  It came in at a sneaky 6.0% and poured a golden yellow body with a fizzy white head.  Smell was just slightly sweet with subtle hints of light malts and a bready yeast.  The taste was rather crisp and carried over the light malt and bready yeast tastes suggested by the smell.  The sweetness was also present but was not particularly prominent.  Mouthfeel was on the lighter side of medium and there was a moderate amount of carbonation.  While this beer certainly wasn’t as big and bold as the first offering, it was quite good in its own way and left me wanting a big stein of it outdoors on a clear fall day.  I’d say they hit their mark on this one.

Last beer of the session was put out by Spoetzl Brewery/Shiner.  At 5.8%, this beer was just barely the mildest of the day.  It poured a light amber, almost golden dark orange body.  The smell was a tantalizing blast of sweet, rich malts.  The taste that followed was almost exactly the same and quite fantastic.  Sweet, rich dark malty goodness with hints of caramel.  Mouthfeel was medium plus thickness and the carbonation was on the lighter side of medium.  I really liked the malts going on in this beer and was quite happy with it.

To my pleasant surprise I really lucked out with this set of beers.  All of them were enjoyable and that makes this initial ranking particularly difficult, especially since there was so much variety in how each brewery interpreted the style (definitely something I’ll keep an eye on).  These three should all end up in good standing when all is said and done but for now one has to finish on top and another has to finish on the bottom.  It took a lot of thought, but after round one the standings are as follows:

1. Spoetzl Brewery/Shiner – Oktoberfest: The malts really did it for me.
2. Sierra Nevada & BrauHaus Riegele – Oktoberfest: While the Spoetzl Brewery’s won on taste, if I was going to drink one of these beers all day at a festival, I would choose the Sierra Nevada. This beer was right on the mark for the style and left me wanting more.
3. Berkshire Brewing Company – Oktoberfest: While I really liked this beer, ultimately it wasn’t as drinkable as the Sierra Nevada and didn’t come together quite as well as the Spoetzl did for me.  That said, I still wouldn’t hesitate to pick up one of these again.

These are my standings, and I am sticking with them.  I seriously considered flipping 2 and 3 (or even 1 and 2) but ultimately had to go with my gut feeling and leave it at that.  And thus the bar has been set pretty high for round Oktoberfest round two.  Cheers!

March of the Pumpkins – Part One

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Brooklyn Brewery, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Fall, New Holland Brewery, Pumpkin Beer, Pumpkins

Fall is in the air:  baseball games are getting more intense; kids are going back to school; and pumpkin beers are starting to fill up the shelves.  While I understand there are some beer folks out there who are less than excited about this development, I myself enjoy getting into the seasonal spirit and like to sample from the patch of new beers available.  I’m not one for seasonal creep, but now that the calendar has flipped over into September I am getting started on my second annual blind tasting spree of pumpkin beers.

The concept is pretty straightforward.  I go to my local stores, stock up on a bunch of pumpkin beer singles, and later on my wonderful wife pours three of them into taster glasses for me to sample.   After I have recorded and discussed my thoughts, the beers are revealed.  It was a lot of fun last year, and I couldn’t wait to get started this year.  So without further ado, here are the results after the first batch.

The first pumpkin beer of the season was Punkin Head by Dogfish Head Brewery.  This was also my favorite of the set.  It poured a medium orangish body, topped off with a thin foamy white head.  The smell was mostly vegetal malts with a hint of pumpkin spices.  The taste was mellow and creamy upfront.  There’s also a slight pumpkin taste that about midway through turns to spices/pumpkin pie.  There’s also a sweet maltiness throughout that blends into the spices well and really makes this beer work for me.  ABV on this one is higher than most at 7.0%.  While I doubt that it will remain my favorite, this was a very solid beer and should end up well placed in the grand scheme of things.

Next up was a new beer to me, Icabod Pumpkin Ale by New Holland Brewery.  This was decidedly the loser of the three.  The pour was a dark orange body with a thick, creamy white head (get used to this sort of description).  Not too much going on in regard to the smell.  The taste starts out nondescriptly with mellow malts, but then there is a sudden spike in vanilla/fall spices halfway through that really throws me off.  It comes out of nowhere and is a bit too much for my tastes.  Mouthfeel is medium plus and the carbonation is a little light. Checks in at 5.5%.   I’m calling this beer a miss because the spices came on way too strong and there was not much else there to balance them out.

Rounding out the first set was Post Road Pumpkin Ale by Brooklyn Brewery.  This is one I have good memories of from previous years but this time around, while enjoyable, I was a bit surprised after the reveal that I did not rate this one higher.  Of the three beers poured today, this one had the lightest colored body (still orange) and had a nice foamy, white head.  There’s a moderate spice smell that made me a bit worried going in following the Icabod, but fortunately the taste turned out better on this one.  This has more of a malty sweetness up front that takes hold before the spices kick in towards the finish and give this beer a balance the previous one did not have.  This one had a thicker mouthfeel than the others and it suited the tastes well.  This was the most mellow of today’s beers at 5.0%.  Overall, I put it just behind the Punkin Head.  I don’t think this is a contest winning pumpkin ale, but I do think it was pretty decent.

So, after one round the standings are as follows:

1. Dogfish Head Brewing – Punkin Head
2. Brooklyn Brewery – Post Road Pumpkin Ale
3. New Holland Brewery – Icabod Pumpkin Ale

I suspect this list will shake up a lot as the fall goes on.  Despite being solid enough beers, I don’t see either of the top two sticking around that high for long.  Nothing against them, I just hope/expect to have at least one or two offerings really blow me away.  However, after considering the bottom beers from last year’s tasting, if number three is the worst pumpkin beer I try this season I will have done alright for myself this year.

Stayed tuned for Round 2!

It’s All Beer and Games at Night Shift

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Idle Hands Craft Ales, Night Shift Brewing

I had a Barrel Society bottle laying in wait for me at Night Shift, so I used the opportunity as an excuse to visit one of my favorite haunts (although, admittedly I haven’t been getting there as much as I’d like lately). While I was away, there were two notable changes that made this visit particularly enjoyable.  The first of these is that Night Shift  is now sharing their space with Idle Hands Brewing, their old neighbors. Idle Hands found themselves without a place after they were cleared out to make room for a casino and Night Shift has granted them temporary refuge within its walls.  The result is a bit more happening on the brewing floor and the addition of a guest tap through which they can serve up some of their beers.  The other new addition was two free play classic arcade machines, Centipede and Street Fighter 2.  Centipede I can take or leave, but Street Fighter 2 was a lot of fun to play again after all these years.  I was a bit rusty but can say I at least put together a good run with E Honda.

While taking advantage of the gaming opportunity, I also had to try out the latest additions to the tap list, starting with Snake Eyes by Idle Hands.

It checked in at 6.1% and was billed as a Farmhouse IPA.  Poured into a snifter glass it came with a nice two to three finger fluffy white head atop a light straw/golden body.  Smell was earthy yeast and just a hint of pepper.  The taste was a smooth blend of yeast, malt, and light amount of pepper.  There wasn’t a lot about this that brings to mind an IPA for me, though a subdued hop presence on the finish blended in quite well with the more upfront peppery taste.  Mouthfeel was very soft with a medium plus body.  I’m not always a huge fan of this style but this was obviously well made and I could see myself drinking more of it.  The key for me was that the pepper didn’t blow away the other subtle flavors in the beer, allowing me to  enjoy the subtleties.

My second beer of the evening was an old Night Shift standby, Ever Weisse.  Released yearly as part of their Berliner Weisse series, this is one of the beers that brewery built its reputation on.  It’s a sour ale aged with strawberries, kiwis, and hibiscus.  The most recent batch was released just over a week ago, and this was my first time tasting it since last year.  It poured a distinct golden pink color that strongly resembles grapefruit juice and smells fruity and just slightly funky.  The taste was also quite distinct with tons of sweet strawberries and just the right amount of tartness.  Nothing crazy, but just enough to let you know you’re drinking a sour.  The mouthfeel is syrupy thick with a little bit of fizz at the end.  At just barely over 3% this was a great, tasty, and easy drinking beer on hot a summer day.

This was definitely a good visit.  Two good beers from two good breweries, all under the same roof.  Add in the video games and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Looking forward to heading back in a week or so for the next Barrel Society release.

The Strange Library, Haruki Murakami

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Book Review, Haruki Murakami

In 2008 I picked up a compilation of short stories by Haruki Murakami entitled An Elephant Vanishes. I loved the style and eagerly Skyped my wife, who was then halfway around the world in Korea, to tell her about my new discovery. Coincidentally, she’d just picked up Kafka on the Shore, also by Murakami, and was equally impressed. Since then, I have devoured every one of his novels that I can get my hands on, so I was quite happily surprised when I discovered a new short story/novella, The Strange Library, while perusing my library’s ebook catalogue. I immediately downloaded it and was quite pleased.

The novella is short and sweet with only a handful of characters.  Without giving too much away, it is the tale of a boy who goes to the library to read up on the tax codes of the Ottoman Empire but instead finds himself imprisoned deep underneath the building.  While there are no references to cats or scotch, there are many characteristic elements of Murakami’s style packed into the book; an eerie and fantastical other-world existing on the edges of our own, a mysterious woman, and even a sheep man (but probably not the one seasoned readers have come to know).  Adding to the sense of weirdness are a variety of images included throughout the text that offer up snapshots of the main character’s surroundings.

I enjoyed this book and flew through it in about half an hour.  It grabs the reader from start to finish and left me wishing there was more (in a good way).  I am really happy I picked it up as I haven’t read anything by Murakami since 1Q84 came out a few years back and am saving Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage for the Fall/Winter.  Not sure why exactly, but it feels more like that kind of book.  Reading this though certainly increased my anticipation for the next one.