Summer Session: Other Half Brewing Company – Baby Diamonds

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Craft Beer, New York, Other Half Brewing Company, Session, Summer Session

With the unofficial end of summer approaching I wanted to make sure I got in at least one more session beer before the season changed and fall seasonals take over the shelves.  This next one was a very timely gift from friends that just so happened to have a very relevant name.

Beer Name: Baby Diamonds

Brewer: Other Half Brewing Company

Style: Session IPA

ABV: 4.8%

Description: Listed as a smaller, session version the brewery’s Green Diamonds double IPA, this offering features Galaxy and Amarillo hops.  I gave it the usual snifter glass treatment, with a few leftover sips coming right out of the can.

Appearance: It poured a hazy (but of course) golden-yellow body with some tinges of amber underneath a thin layer of white foam.

Smell: Bursts of sticky sweet tropical fruit the instant the can was popped open.  The aromas were more subdued in the glass, but pretty intense upon first opening the can.

Taste: The taste continued where the smell left off, starting out with tropical fruits that quickly blended into a strong mixture of earthy and piney bitterness.  Going into the finish the beer picked up more of a bready malt and grapefruit character that subtly changed the nature of the underlying sweetness.  The hops lingered throughout, so much so that they left a lingering aftertaste.

Mouthfeel: Medium sticky body with a moderate amount of carbonation.

Hype Factor: I always hear a lot of great things about Other Half, but I so rarely get to try any of their beers.  It sounds like their releases can be in pretty high demand as well, so additional thanks to the friends who hooked me up with this.

Overall: An aggressively hopped beer that had all the taste and mouthfeel of a much larger DIPA.  As such, I’m not sure how sessionable I would consider this on my palate, but it definitely was tasty.  All I can say is that it’s bigger brother, Green Diamonds, must be one hell of a beer.  I recommend this for sure if you can get it, though I wouldn’t plan on making a day out of drinking these unless you need to fulfill a serious hop fix with your session brews.

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Summer Session: Jack’s Abby – Leisure Time Lager

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Beer, Beer Review, Jack's Abby Brewing, Massachusetts, New England, Session, Summer Session

Leisure time, what’s that?  Here we go with another session beer from a brewery with “Jack” in the name.

Beer Name: Leisure Time Lager

Brewer: Jack’s Abby Brewing

Style: Pale Wheat Lager

ABV: 4.8%

Description: Listed on the brewery website as a lager brewed with “wheat and a blend of spices including lemongrass, coriander, orange peel, and chamomile.”  I emptied a 12 oz. can into a pint glass for this review.

Appearance: It poured a cloudy, semi-see through straw yellow body with a frothy white head that dissipated rather quickly.

Smell: Slightly sweet, mixed with lager yeast and a faint bit of tea on the finish.

Taste: A little bit of sweetness upfront, primarily in the form of orange and lemon zest.  From there the beer picked up a wheaty, yeasty taste before finishing with a subtle mix of light malt, chamomile, subdued floral hops, and just a bit more citrusy sweetness.  Really nice blend of flavors that complimented each other well.

Mouthfeel: Just barely medium bodied with a decent amount of carbonation.  Went down nice and easy.

Hype Factor: No particular hype here, I simply picked this one up to get re-acquainted with a core offering from another one of my fantastic local breweries.  

Overall: Very tasty and really easy to go through quickly right from the start.  It had a  great blend of flavors and was both refreshing and relaxing to drink.  I could see this being an excellent beer to have in quantity for some outdoor day drinking on a hot summer day.  Nicely done, one of my favorite session beers so far this summer.

Summer Session: Stony Creek – Little Cranky Session IPA

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Connecticut, New England, Session, Stony Creek Brewery

This next session beer is a little something I picked up at random as a Father’s Day treat.  I’ll admit that it was the name and cool looking can that made this one stand out for me.  Not always the best basis for selecting a beer, but something had me feeling confident about this one.

Beer Name: Little Cranky Session IPA

Brewer: Stony Creek Brewery

Style: Session IPA

ABV: 4.5%

Description: A session beer from a brewery in Connecticut I hadn’t come across before.  It is the smallest beer in “Cranky” series of IPAs, which you can find a bit more about here.  I picked this up in a six-pack of 12 oz. cans that cost about $11.  Canned on date was 03/22/2016.  I drank the beer for this review out of a snifter glass.

Appearance: The beer had a coppery, amber body with about one finger’s worth of foamy white head.

Smell: Citrus fruit sweetness with a faint hint of bitterness in the background.

Taste: Citrus fruits upfront, mostly orange and mango with a hint of lemon zest.  Fairly light and resinous piney hops round out the taste through to the finish.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with a moderate yet lively carbonation level.  Really easy to drink.

Hype Factor: No hype on this one, was just picking up something new that caught my eye.

Overall: A pretty good beer, but perhaps a bit misclassified as an IPA.  I found the bitterness level and taste profile more in line with an American Pale Ale, though perhaps we’re splitting hairs with this sort of distinction.  Regardless of what you want to call it, this was an enjoyable little brew.  It might not blow your mind, but I did like it and it succeeded in making me interested to try out the bigger beers in this series.

Summer Session: Brewmaster Jack – Stray Dog Lager

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Brewmaster Jack, Massachusetts, New England, Session

My first porch beer of the year!  I am celebrating the occasion with another session beer, this one with an offering from Brewmaster Jack.  I’ve really enjoyed some of their beers in past entries, and was particularly impressed by Total Eclipse, their rye porter, when I had it after work the other day.  Sticking with my session beer theme, though, it’s the Stray Dog Lager that got the nod for this review.  

Beer Name: Stray Dog Lager

Brewer: Brewmaster Jack

Style: Amber Lager

ABV: 4.5%

Description: Described by the brewers as a “distinctively malty” amber lager brewed with two row barley, crystal malt, and Munich malt.  I’ve been feeling a need to diversify my choices in glassware lately, so I poured this beer into a Sam Adams perfect pint glass.

Appearance: It had a cloudy golden/light copper body with a wispy white head.  A steady stream of bubbles ran up the middle of the glass.

Smell: Sweet, much more so than expected.  A bit of lager yeast as well in the background.

Taste: Upfront there was a surprising sweet, tart, and almost funky dark fruit character with a touch of lemon zest mixed in.  Underneath the sweetness was a more traditional blend of light malts and lager yeast that stood out a bit more once the initial tastes faded a bit.  For the finish there was a toasted malt character that picked up some bitterness as the beer warmed.  There was definitely a sweet spot in terms of temperature where this beer tasted alright, but otherwise something seemed kind of off to me.

Mouthfeel: The beer was pretty smooth.  It featured a full body that felt on the thicker side of medium with a slightly less than moderate level of carbonation despite the aforementioned bubbles.

Hype Factor: Just my own excitement.  I’ve become a fan of this brewery and wanted to branch out and try a greater variety of their offerings.

Overall:  I was confused by this beer and wavered a little bit as about posting this review, mainly  because I was not sure if the funky fruit taste I got was intentional or if I happened upon an off bottle.  I looked up some other reviews to see what people were saying and since it didn’t seem to be totally out of line with what other people were getting (and a number of those people liked it), here we are.  The beer was definitely a surprise, but not the kind I was looking for.  Definite miss for me.  With this coming on the heels of having really enjoyed the Total Eclipse porter, I was also a bit disappointed that this is the offering I had lined up to feature here.  Live and learn.

Summer Session: Brix City Brewing – St. Stephen’s Saison

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Brix City Brewing, New Jersey, Session

My second session beer of the season happened to come to me a few weeks ago as a very timely gift, yet another bottle making the trip up from New Jersey with friends.  While not explicitly advertised as a session beer, this offering from Brix City Brewing in Little Ferry, NJ certainly fit the criteria for my purposes.  It also gave me with a good opportunity to check out a style I tend not to drink very often.

Beer Name: St. Stephen’s Saison

Brewer: Brix City Brewing

Style: Saison

ABV: 4.59%

Description: Described on the bottle as a Belgian styled saison.  On the company’s website, they provide a brief background on the style and bring up “barnyard” and “horse blanket” as the primary flavor descriptors.  Prepared to face some funk, I poured this into a snifter glass for sampling.

Appearance: Pale yellow/golden body with a one finger fizzy white head.

Smell: Slightly sweet with a distinctive spicy Belgian yeast influence.

Taste: Light and sweet upfront, followed by a subtle mixture of floral, banana, and peppery tastes imparted by the yeast with some mild spices thrown in for good measure.  I found all of these components complemented and balanced each other nicely with no particular aspect dominating over the others.  I did not get any of the “barnyard” flavors mentioned on the website, but that was just as well for me; I don’t mind some funk in the right beer, but I don’t think it would have added anything to this particular one.

Mouthfeel: Medium to light bodied with a lively carbonation.  Crisp, dry finish.

Hype Factor: Hype maybe isn’t the right word, but, full disclosure, I was really looking forward to trying this since one of my friends in New Jersey recently got an opportunity to do some brewing at Brix City.  How awesome is that?

Overall: Light, refreshing, and an all-round nice beer.  Saisons tend to be very hit or miss for me, most often missing due to an overly peppery finish or other such perceived imbalance that I find off-putting.  This beer though was definitely a hit.  What did it for me was the blend and balance of flavors working out just right for my tastes.  Looking forward to trying more from this brewery in the future.

Summer Session: SingleCut Billy 18 Watt IPA

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, New York, Session, SingleCut Beersmiths, Summer

It’s just about that time of the year for me to start thinking about session beers.  These friendly, refreshing, low-ABV offerings seem to have become quite a thing in the last year or two and for a variety of reasons now is the perfect time for me to start getting into them.  Appropriately enough, I had my first official session beer of the year on a hot, humid 90 degree day while enjoying a burger and some shaded patio seating at a local restaurant.

Beer Name: Billy 18 Watt IPA

Brewer: SingleCut Beersmiths

Style: Session IPA

ABV: 5.0%

Description: The brewers (and the beer menu) described this as a sessionable IPA packed full of “all the orange zest, pine and tropical lupulin crunch you demand.”  Sounded good to me.  I got to try this on tap and it was served in a snifter glass.

Appearance: It had a golden pale straw body with a thin bubbly head that left some wispy white lacing across the top and sides.

Smell: Sweet citrus fruit aroma with an underlying bitterness.

Taste: There was a refreshing blend of citrus and tropical sweetness upfront, accompanied by a surprisingly bold piney hoppiness that got enhanced by just a touch of orange zest.  On the finish the sweetness faded a bit and was replaced by a light, biscuity malt taste.  Very well executed.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with a moderate amount of carbonation, just about what you would expect for the style.

Hype Factor: I had heard some good things about this brewery recently and was wanting to try something on the lighter side when I saw this on the menu.  Seemed like it was meant to be.

Overall: I really enjoyed this beer and got out of it exactly what I hoped for.  It had a lot of flavor and was really refreshing to drink, especially outside.  Would definitely order this again and also consider picking up some for home if I see it around.  Excellent brew regardless of how it is categorized.