Firestone Walker Brewing Company – Stickee Monkee (2018)

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Beer, Beer Review, California, Firestone Walker Brewing Company, Quad

Time again to get back into beer as well.  Here’s a pre-quarantine brew from back when things were relatively more normal.

Beer Name: Stickee Monkee (2018)

Brewery: Firestone Walker Brewing Company (Paso Robles, CA)

Style: Quadruple

ABV: 11.4%

Description: A Belgina-style Quad brewed with Mexican Turbinado and Belgian candi sugars before being set to age in bourbon barrels.  The bottle I had for this review was from the 2018 vintage.

Appearance: It poured to a beer-bottle colored dark brown body.

Smell: Sugary dark fruits mixed with hints of bourbon barrels.

Taste: Sweetness upfront in the form of Belgian candi yeast, molasses, brown sugar, and dark fruit. The yeast really picks up around mid-sip to take over and transition the brew towards a hot, bourbony finish with some hints of toasty malts mixing in with a very refined barrel presence.

Mouthfeel: Full bodied with low carbonation.

Hype: I don’t know if hype is the right word, but this brewery and a series of small, boxed bottles is extremely well regarded.

Overall: This was fantastic!  It’s a beer you’ll definitely be taking your time with, but you will definitely savor every sip.

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Firestone Walker Brewing Company – Helldorado

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, California, Craft Beer, Firestone Walker Brewing Company

Something about this beer really called to me when I saw it my go to bottle shop by work.  Maybe it was the style, maybe it was the nifty little box, but regardless I brought one home with me.

Beer Name: Helldorado

Brewery: Firestone Walker Brewing Company (Paso Robles, CA)

Style: Barleywine

ABV: 12.8%

Description: Briefly, this was a barrel aged blonde barleywine.  For more of the specs and story behind this you can get the details here on the brewery website.  The price of $10 for the one 12 oz bottle was right around my personal limit for the format but in line with what similar offerings go for in my area.

Appearance: It had an amber colored body through which I could just barely make out my fingers on the other side of the glass.  A thin, fizzy white head formed with the pour and dissipated very quickly thereafter.

Smell: Sweet toffee and honey, with warm oak barrel notes lurking in the back.

Taste: Sweet upfront, with notes of caramel, toffee, brown sugar, and again a bit of honey. The back-end was warm and moderately boozy.  It closed with a fading sweet heat and rising oak barrel notes.  As the beer settled in, the sweetness gradually faded in favor of the heat and barrel influence.

Mouthfeel: The body was slightly and right around medium.  Despite the bubbly head, the overall carbonation level was rather low.

Hype: I’ve come to expect some great things from these boxes Firestone offerings.  

Overall: I’m a bit torn.  On the one hand I did think was a good brew, but on the other it didn’t quite live up to my expectations.  Hard to put my finger on it exactly, but I think with perhaps a slightly thicker body and better blend of sweetness and barrel this would have rated a touch higher for me.

Firestone Walker – Luponic Distortion: Revolution 004

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Beer, Beer Review, California, Craft Beer, Firestone Walker Brewing Company, IPA

I absolutely love this brewery’s logo.  It’s hard to imagine something more badass than a bear and lion about to throw down in a bare-knuckles boxing match.  Oh yeah, they make some pretty good beer as well.

Beer Name: Luponic Distortion: Revolution 004

Brewer: Firestone Walker Brewing Company (Paso Robles, CA)

Style: IPA

ABV: 5.9%

Description: The fourth installment in a series of IPAs brewed with a revolving set of hops.  For this particular beer they used a combination of four South African varieties.  You can find out a lot more information about this project on the brewery’s website.  My can was dated 11/15/2016 and I had right around it’s two month birthday (this post got  backlogged a bit).

Appearance: Translucent straw yellow/amber body topped off by a fizzy white head.

Smell: Crisp, piney bitterness with a little bit of sweetness mixed in.

Taste: Very clean and crisp.  Light tropical sweetness upfront, with a crackery malt and piney hop finish.  The flavors were very balanced and smooth as opposed to aggressive bursts of fruit and bitterness.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with moderate carbonation.

Hype: This brewery does tend to garner some attention, though I don’t believe there was much hype around this particular release.  It was, however, yet another one of the beers recommended to my wife around the holidays so I was once again curious to see how well the shop steered her.

Overall: I liked this a lot.  Light and refreshing, I enjoyed the departure from the hazy juice-driven IPAs I’ve been drinking a lot of lately.   A very pleasant reminder of just how good other approaches to this style can be.  Will be keeping an eye for future releases in this series.

Summer Session: Firestone Walker – Easy Jack

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, California, Firestone Walker Brewing Company

The session beers continue!  This next brew was part of a mixed six-pack I picked up the other day.

Beer Name: Easy Jack

Brewer: Firestone Walker Brewing Company

Style: Session IPA

ABV: 4.5%

Description: Firestone Walker’s take on the session IPA, it was brewed with a variety of hops coming from Germany, New Zealand, and the United States.  Giving my snifter the day off, I poured this bottle into a pint glass.

Appearance: It had a see-through light golden/amber body with a thin, fizzy white head fed by bubbles running up the sides of the glass.

Smell: Some faint sticky sweet aromas, but overall rather mild.  

Taste: Started out with a light lemon and orange zest fruitiness followed by some sweet, resinous hops on the finish.  There was a noticeable presence of bready light malts underneath, nicely proportioned to the hops.  Light, flavorful, and well-balanced.

Mouthfeel: Medium to light bodied with some lively carbonation.  There was also a bit of a sticky feeling on the finish that complemented the hops quite nicely.

Hype Factor: I really enjoyed this brew’s older “brothers,”  Union Jack and Double Jack, and have much respect for Firestone Walker.  As a result, I was looking forward to trying this one.

Overall: This was a very nice little beer, well-balanced with good flavor.  I particularly liked the hop profile that it ended with.  I think the SingleCut Billy 18 Watt is still my favorite session IPA so far, but I liked this one Good pickup.