Beer Friday #10 -- Post-Session Beer Day Blues

Well, Session Beer Day, yesterday, was great. I spent the afternoon at the Bulls Head Pub in Lititz, Penn. (and I'll be back Sunday afternoon to do a whiskey dinner...still a few tickets available!) cruising through 16 taps of session beers at 4.5% and LESS. Great time, some great conversations, and some very nice beers. I'll run through them in capsule style (like I did with the big beers from Split Thy Skull). But I'm kind of dealing with the let-down at this point, the post-Session Beer Day blues. I need some good music to get me going again. Liked this version better anyway; electrifying.



New Glarus Zwickel Bier, 5.3%
A "Zwickel" is a little valve on the side of a fermenting vessel where the brewer can, with proper care and sanitation, pull off a sample of the beer in the tank. An invitation to "tickle the zwickel" is always the high-point of a brewery tour: fresh, unfiltered, unaltered beer, as usually only the brewers get to taste. It's the real stuff.

Some lager brewers will package -- lightly -- a 'zwickel' beer, also called a 'kellerbier,' or 'cellar beer.' The beer gets minimal filtering, usually just a long settling in the tank, and is packaged for quick sale. Get it, drink it, love it. Let's see how Dan Carey did on this one; expectations are high.

Beautifully bright, dark straw gold, bright white head. Wetly-fresh bread, grassy-floral noble hops aroma: it smells fresh, which is the key to a good zwickelbier. Tastes clean, malty, balanced with a bitter finish. A bit sweet up front, but the hops quickly kick in.

Have you heard people say, "This tastes like beer"? Or complain about beers that don't 'taste like beer'? This tastes like beer.

Verdict: Good

Starr Hill Daily Grind Peppercorn Farmhouse, 6.2%
I like pepper. Not peppers, though I like some of them, too, but peppercorns, ground (or whole). I would have been one of those guys sailing leaky wooden caravels around the Cape of Good Hope, searching for the spices of the Indies, because I would want more pepper than anyone else. I'm told that the Pennsylvania Dutch love black pepper, and I do, and once I saw a Berks County friend shake pepper on his ketchup till it was black, that was me. Love that.

So when I see a peppercorn beer, I dive in, and I've rarely been disappointed. The Daily Grind smells a bit perfumey -- but peppery -- and I can't seem to raise a head on it, but I'm still optimistic. Sweet and yeasty, and I'm looking for the pepper. It's subtle, but it's there, and as I take another sip, I can feel it build a bit. But I'd really like more. More sips don't do more; we've hit peak pepper. I'm bummed, because the Starr Hill King IPA Habanero I had the other night was NOT subtle, it did the trick. Sigh. I'll have to keep looking.

Verdict: Okay

The session takeover at the Bulls Head

Session Beer Day Round-up at the Bulls Head
I went up to the Bulls Head Public House in Lititz, Pa., for Session Beer Day yesterday. They did a total session beer tap takeover: all 16 taps, including the two beer engines, were pouring beers at 4.5% and under. Beautiful thing, and only TWO of them were "session IPA." I tore into them, and here are some impressions.

Loch Ness Scotch Ale (tagged as "Malty Brown") -- Might have been my favorite of the day; on cask. "Malty brown" indeed; good body, chocolatey sweet malt, not a bit of cloying stickiness, great beer. If there hadn't been all the choice, I'd have happily drunk this all afternoon.
Neshaminy Creek Croydon Cream Ale -- Clean, lightly sweet, a bit of breadiness, and fresh as a daisy. Nice pint.
Stiegl Radler Grapefruit -- My guilty pleasure. "Like a beery Squirt," as one person put it, and it captures the best of both. The grapefruit is just tart enough, the beer's there without being gak weak. Totally enjoyable.
St. Boniface Bulls Head Bitter -- From a local brewer (Ephrata) specifically for the Bulls Head; nicely done, drinking easy, great light balance of malt and hops. Exceptional.

Enjoying the Tarte Nouveau

Weyerbacher Tarte Nouveau -- Light, tart, refreshing, just enough going on. Well-done sour session.
Oxbow Space Cowboy -- Session-strength biere de garde, which I've learned recently is not so odd after all; BdG was often relatively light. This one's good from nose -- spicy, malty -- to tail -- clean bitter finish. Nicely done indeed.
Ballast Point Mango Even Keel Session IPA -- I always have high hopes on mango beers -- love mango! -- always disappointed. This smelled perfumey with mango, almost too much, and then the beer just slapped me with stupid bitter in the mouth, totally out of frame for its weight, and the mango tasted way off. Not good at all, I left over half of it on the bar.
Harviestoun Old Manor -- Also cask, and delicious. Brit malt -- chewy, tasty, dry, biscuity -- and earthy hop, and light carbonation so you can actually taste it all. Delicious pint.

Verdict: Stellar Session!

Beer Friday #9

It's Beer Friday #9, and beer is a famous aid to love (ill-considered and otherwise), and it's Date Night in the Bryson home, so...what else could we play but this classic?



It's also the last Beer Friday before Session Beer Day, April 7, so today I'm doing all session beers, as defined on the Session Beer Project page: tasty, multi-pint drinkable, and 4.5% ABV or less. Pretty easy, these days.

Guinness Dublin Porter, 3.8%

I've had this beer three times now: last July at Davy Byrne's in Dublin, last month at...Davy Byrne's in Dublin (lucky, what can I say?), and now today. The other two were draft; this is not significantly different, which is great. One thing that won't happen today is that little frisson of sheer terror I felt when I thought the manager pulled out a pistol in the back of the place while having a sharp discussion with a waiter; turned out to be a heat gun that he was using to touch up the weatherstripping. It was a moment, though, I'll tell ya.

I'll tell ya this, too: if you're looking for "robust" porter, or "imperial" porter, or "Baltic" porter...this ain't it. This is a quaffer, and it has a very light body, a light roasted grain quality, a light chocolate note, and a hint of hop bitterness at the close. That said...if I had another, I'd drink it, like I did at Davy Byrne's. I've heard people slag this beer for being too thin; during last year's "heat wave" in Dublin (got up to almost 80°!!), it was beautifully quenching. Just what it's for. Still, I have to admit, if there were a good mild on, or Deuchar's, I'd probably be one-and-done on this one.

Verdict: Okay

Magic Hat Low Key Session IPA, 4.5%

I'll be honest: "session IPA" has become increasingly problematic for me. It's come to symbolize the depressingly low amount of true variety in American brewing, and the reductio ad amaritudinem of the beer-drinking niche masses. "All Must Become IPA" seems to be the challenge phrase of brewers ("Unless It Is Sour" being the in-group response). And since brewers started making "session IPA", the whining resistance to lower ABV beers has diminished significantly. As I remarked years ago about pilsners; as long as they have their hop-soaked sucktoy, they're fine.

Still, it's all session today, and what's in the fridge is what's in the fridge, so session IPA it is. Magic Hat's had a weird history with IPA for me. There was Blind Faith, which was good, and then not so good, and then good again. There was HiPA, which I loved, till it disappeared, and now it seems to be back again. There's the grapefruit-infused Electric Peel, which despite a growing suspicion of the whole fruited IPA movement on my part, I kinda like. And now there's this. Let's see.

Not screaming hops on the nose, more like a malt-balanced lager with a little bit of lemony citrus in there. Oof. More disappointing on the tongue: this is simply bitter, without much flavor of hop to it at all. I'm trying hard to find redeeming character here, and oddly enough, it's in the malt. There's a half-decent base beer under there, but the overhopping — cack-handed overhopping — is killing it. I'm afraid we have our first Crap beer. Magic Hat can do better, and I hope they kill this, or pull it in for a quick retooling.

Verdict: Crap

Omer Vander Ghinste Kriek des Jacobins, 4.5%

I can't recall the last time I had a genuine Belgian Kriek, and that's a damned shame. I got this sample from Lanny Hoff at Artisanal Imports; Lanny's carried great beers for almost as far back as I can recall, so expectations are high. Fruited Flanders sour, 4.5%: perfect for fighting the Session IPA Blues. Let's go!

Beautiful ruby beer with just-barely-pink foam: happy stuff. Tart cherry nose, with an additional acidic edge to it that's clearing my sinuses. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Roundly balanced, a beer that clocks in on your tongue with BEER over here and CHERRY over there and SOUR over there and JUICY over there, all hanging off opposite sides on the edge of the spinning top that is this beer on my tongue. One small complaint: about halfway through the bottle, it's getting a bit sticky in the back of my throat. I try a big swallow, and that's gone, but a small complaint.

It's not killer. It's not crazy, or over the top, or wicked sour, or any of that. And sometimes I WANT that; sometimes I want to get puckered and almost scared, sometimes I want to get hopsmacked right in the chops. But when I want to have a beer that lets me breathe, just enjoy life? I want a beer like this, a beer that knows what it's doing, does it well, and really delivers. Nicely done. Thank you, Belgium.

Verdict: Good

Doylestown R5 Lager, 4.5%, draft

Named for the old designation of the SEPTA Landale/Doylestown line, R5 has been out and a bout for a bit, and I grab one when I can. Tonight I took a bit of a longer linger with it, and here's what I found. It's a quick entry; I did say, it's Date Night!

Very nice lager, good mouthfeel for a session beer (which so few have), and no off-flavors. Disappearing quickly, too. Not overly hopped. Good quaff.

Verdict: Good

Good Beer Friday #8

Normally at this time on Good Friday, I'd be running through the music for the 3:00 services with the St. Andrew Chamber Group. This year, sadly, I'm sidelined with lingering effects from the cold that's kept me from reviewing most of the past three weeks: gravel voice. So I'm going to drink beer and listen to the songs I'd otherwise be singing. Join me: Johnny Cash's version of "Were You There". (putting this up on the day after Good Friday because I didn't get out for a draft till today...)



Omer Traditional Blond, 8.0%

I love the family-owned Belgian breweries. Brouwerij Omer Vander Ghinste has been owned by the Vander Ghinste family for four generations. They mostly make pilsner -- gotta pay the bills -- but they're making a set of traditional ales as well, and Omer is the big blond in the family. A Vander Ghinste named Omer has run the brewery for all four generations; kinda solid. I like that, too.

So what do we have here? Bright yellow beer, clean white foam with tenaciously tight little bubbles. All beers are beautiful, but this one's especially captivating to the eye. Oh, and the nose, too. Sweet clovey candy, orange marmalade, sweet and spicy without being sticky or cloying. It smells interesting, which is what I'm looking for.

Sipping time. First thought: 8%? Really? That's scary. Because this drinks like about 5.5%. Well-attenuated but not thin, and still spicy-sweet without being sticky. The fizzy fine carbonation runs all over my tongue and teeth and roof and cheeks, what a rush! This is more spicy than sweet, and there's no stickiness in the finish at all. That's by God well done, and I'm kinda regretting that I gave half of it to my wife!

Verdict: Good

Goose Island Four Star Pils, 5.1%

Whatever shall I do? Goose Island is owned by ABInBev! I believe I shall taste the beer with an open mind and leave my readers (both of you) to decide what to do with the information. I will say this: Goose has always made refreshing and thirst-quenching beers, and I expect more of the same in this 16 oz. can. Let's crack it.

Hmmm...kind of funky smell like pineapple and sweet cream; not unpleasant, just totally unexpected. Is this some more of these new hop strains brewers have been experimenting with? Still, it looks proper, with a beautiful white bloom of foam. Tastes better: malt, bitter hop, the right body, clean finish.

Something's different, though, and it's not the pineapple. I'm not liking the way the bitter and malt balance, and the hops taste...burnt, or blaring, or harsh. It's just not clean, integrated. I'd maybe have another pint...but I wouldn't buy a case.

Verdict: Okay

A Bunch Of Barleywines, 7.5% and up, draft

First flight

I went down to Tattooed Mom in Philly today for Split Thy Skull XXI, the long-running barleywine/strong beer festival I blogged about Thursday. Hoo-whee, it was a good time. I didn't taste everything, but I had 8 of them, Here are some capsule reviews.
New Crustacean Barleywineish Imperial IPA Sorta -- Way different from the old Old Crustacean. Blonde, not dark; sweet and light and bitter, not bitter and hard and menacing. New age stuff.
Southern Tier Back Burner -- Everything Southern Tier does well: big malt, big hops, big body, and not clogging the pipes. Finesse? Yeah, in 14" naval rifle style.
Alesmith Old Numbskull -- A clearly big beer, but light on its feet, nimble. Orson Welles dancing ballet. Impressive achievement, and one I like...but I like da heavy heavy monsta sound, too.
21st Amendment Lower De Boom -- Only one I finished. Good stuff, big but drinkable, and not overly zealous on the hopping.
DuClaw Devil's Milk -- Fat all around, big in every direction, this is a great example of how Jim Wagner hits the mark every damned time...but never gets the cred. Underrated brewery.
Summit Old Blaggard -- Tasted kind of worty, grainy, but delicious. Sometimes that really, really works, and this is one of them, because it adds a huge note of freshness in a style that benefits from it.
Pizza Boy Wonder Whine -- Always impressive, Pizza Boy delivers again in a beer that was one of the biggest I had all afternoon (12.5%) but the fruitiest and most varied. Fun!
Smuttynose Barley Wine -- Wow. A throwback, not a fossil. One guy at the bar was not impressed, I told him: this is what barleywine tasted like in the 90s. Back when there were fewer of us to please, and brewers brewed for themselves. Hat tip to Smutty for staying on that: heavy malt, big yeasty esters, just enough hop. An unshaven, unapologetic barleywine.

Verdict: Stellar event!

Beer Friday #7

Missed a few there.

I got really sick for a while; a head cold that knocked out my sense of smell, and a cough that kept me from getting any kind of decent sleep for about five days. Add to that a quick trip to Ireland to visit the new Tullamore Dew distillery (much more on that soon), on which I may have pushed things just a bit...and I was in no shape to even write a blog post, much less one in which I was reviewing beers or whiskeys. My apologies. But I'm back now, with enough of my senses and wits about me to get to work on this!

Music? I'm in Colonial Williamsburg for the Ales Through The Ages symposium this weekend (more on that very soon as well!), and I'm working right next to Chowning's Tavern, where this song, "Nottingham Ale" was recorded in 2010. Seems appropriate. Enjoy!


Hardywood Cream Ale, 4.4%

A fine pour

I totally crushed one of these when I arrived in Williamsburg last night after about six and a half hours on the road from Philly, and let me tell you: refreshing. Looking forward to a more relaxed and reflective sampling today. (My thanks to Carl and Joan Childs, my brother/sister-in-law, who are hosting me in Williamsburg this weekend, and whose refrigerator I'm raiding for these samples!)

Again, as I sit here on Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg, carriages and contemporary-clothed guides rolling and strolling by, I thought it would be a good idea to have a truly American beer, and cream ale is all that. Snarl and snark as you may about light, fizzy beers, cream ale is, in my opinion, the apotheosis of that whole category; light and fizzy brought to a peak of not lightness and fizzyness (because that would be this shit), but to the optimal intersection of light-mouthfeel-sweet-bitter-tasty-refreshing,

Hardywood's version zeroes in on that intersection pretty closely. I've been drinking a lot of the classic Genesee Cream Ale recently (the brothers-in-law in upstate NY always have a suitcase of it cold, and that's a long drive too!), and if anything, the Hardywood's maybe a little too flavorful. If so, that's a 'flaw' I'm more than happy to overlook. Nose is sweet, even a little fruity, with a yeasty-hoppy cut to it (the beer's unfiltered, and that's my only issue here: did it have to be hazy?), and that all follows through on the palate. The finish manages to be...wet, almost like a little splash on the tongue (and just a hint of bitter pull) that makes this such a refreshing beer that I'm a third of the way through it without intending to have had more than a sip or two. Beautiful session beer at 4.4%, too.

Very impressed with the way Hardywood Park Craft Brewery has handled beers from their barrel-aged big boys (including the vaunted Gingerbread Stout) down to this light, happy drinker; haven't had a bad beer from them yet. Add to that a cool sense of history: Richmond was where canned beer was first introduced, in 1935, so of course this comes in cans. Well done, Hardywood, well done.

Verdict: Good

Sierra Nevada Five Hop Experimental IPA, 5.8%

Oh, Sierra Nevada. It's been an interesting trip. First they were pioneers, then they were solid citizens, then they were staid and boring, then they were cutting-edge pros. Erm...from where I sat on my barstool, they never changed. They were simply, consistently, amazing. I've rarely been disappointed by Sierra Nevada.

That said, I've been let down through over-expectation, so I'm trying to tamp that down here. The new rush of experimental hop strains has not always left me impressed: "tropical" fruit, limp lemon, kinda-pine, wood grain, coconut...really? So I'm actually a bit skeptical going into this, but let's have at it.

Well...it has a beautiful cap of foam, I gotta say: Sierra Nevada brewing quality at work, there. The nose is full, but subtle; I want to say, it's this...but then I smell something else, too. Orange creamsicle, soft pine (sweet spruce?), and a fluffy general richness. A poofy pillow of a nose, but then the beer splashes in and it's sharper, brisk, and then hop-sticky on the back end. Nice change-up; you could make it to the majors with a pitch like that.

In the end, though...tasty, and well-made, but not exceptional. I'd have one, and keep hunting. Or maybe just launch another Torpedo.

Verdict: Okay

SweetWater Hash Session IPA, 4.2% 
(draft, at the Green Leafe, Williamsburg)

I wandered down to the Green Leafe, a student oasis, and it was cool and quiet on this summery March afternoon. What to have...the choices were good, but then I saw one I'd meant to try: the Hash Session IPA. SweetWater does this "hop hash" thing where there's more resin/lupulin and less leaf in the hop addition (I think that's right), and it's supposed to give the beer a more intense hop flavor/aroma without the "tannic" effect of the leaves. (Again, I think that's right.)

Well, I'm all for that. Let's try it. Light yellow, bright and clear, with a lemony-pine lilt to the nose. It's a bit thin on the palate, but not watery, and the good thing is that it's just right on the bitterness; it pulls and dries, but doesn't crush on the close. That's a nice beer: it's not overly bitter, it's not overly sweet, but it's not dull either. Thing is...does it call for another? I don't think so. I'm already thinking about my next beer, and it's not this one.

Verdict: Okay

Beer Friday #6

I wasn't sure what music I wanted to go with this week. But after I tasted the Boon Mariage Parfait Gueuze, a beer I hadn't tasted in years...nothing less would do. Enjoy Dimitri Shostakovich's Festive Overture.

I love that stuff.

Boon Mariage Parfait Geuze, 8.0%
I still remember my first Boon Mariage Parfait. It split my nose open like a well-used outhouse; raunchy farmhouse assault, swelling bacterial aromas, brutal. And yet...I kept going back for more, like with a truly great raw milk cheese. I never forgot that, even when Boon tamed down a bit.

Then I got this sample from the Rare Beer Club, and I wanted to see if it still had that power, if it still gave up that funk. The cork popped sharply, the beer fizzed mightily, the dark gold color and bright white head were beautiful. Nosing time.

Well, it doesn't smell like a shithouse. What I do smell are classic geuze markers: blood, old iron, horse blanket, deeply tart grapefruit, soursop, and finally, some malt in behind. There's a sweetness to it that makes me a bit suspect, but let's get it over the lips.

A blend of sour, bitter, oaky tannin, and dry brett. The fizz is great, but the main body is so blended, it's almost too well-blended. Don't get me wrong: this is good, very good, and I intend to finish the entire 750, but...it falls short of the true greatness it used to possess. I've seen people ding Boon for not being "as sour as Cantillon." I don't think they get it. I'm not a lambic expert, but I've had far more than my share, and the truth is, "lambic" doesn't mean one thing, one type of beer. There are differences among them: piercingly sour, crisply astringent, raunchily funky, dryly woody with brett. This actually reaches across several categories and brings them together. To be fair, the finish is spectacular, the beer's best aspect, where the full range of complexity catches fire and lights up your mouth.

Welcome back, old friend. You're not what you were, but what you are is worthy, and loved, and a great way to fill a glass.

Verdict: Good

Innis & Gunn White Oak Wheat Beer, 6.4%
This is where I get confused, by the confusion over wheat beers. The front label of this one says "Wheat beer with bergamot, orange peel, and orange oil added." Which sounds more like a witbier, right? Then the back calls it a "German-style wheat beer," aged 46 days over oak and finished with the bergamot and orange. So what the hell is it? Style considerations aside, let's find out.

It sure doesn't smell German-style (or look it; no huge head): mostly it's the bergamot (think Earl Grey tea) and the oak — mostly vanilla — in the nose. So let's have a sip.

Very creamy (almost feels nitro), like many of the Innis & Gunn beers, and not a trace of the German weissbier character. The orange and bergamot and oak are all there, though, and they come together in a weirdly pleasant way. It's beguiling, truly. I like about 1 in 3 of these Innis & Gunns, and I never thought this would be one of them from the description, but even though it tastes kind of sweet, weird sweet, the oak and the bergamot balances it. I like this one, and it's bewitchingly different.

"Different" is good, these days...as long as it isn't disgusting.

Verdict: Good

Søle Clink, 4.9%
(I'm just going to type Sole, without the fancy ø every time. Had this on draft at a place that shall remain nameless.)
Is the pale ale coming back? Mebbe? Please? A new "gypsy" brewery in our area, Sole Artisan Ales created Clink as their "anytime" beer, a heavily dry-hopped pale ale without a ton of bitterness (though -- spoiler -- it does show up in the finish). I haven't seen it a lot of places, despite having some connection to the people who make it (as in, I've met them and they stay in touch), so when I saw it today I grabbed one.

Clean and clear, light yellow, white head. Good aroma -- pine and citrus, the American classics -- and the hop and malt are beautifully balanced in the beer. There's a bit of minerality that I'm not sure is the beer (might be the lines), and then the hops really kick in at the finish. A solid beer, not a great beer, but solid.

This, or another decent solid beer? Love the one you're with, baby.

Verdict: Okay

Beer Friday #5

Getting ready to leave for the weekend, and this was always one of my favorite road songs.



So let's have some beers, woowoo!


Victory Anniversary 20 Experimental IPA, 5.5%
A 5.5% "refreshing session ale"? No, guys, it damned well isn't. I really thought Victory of all people got this; they have sub-4.5% beers on tap at the brewery all the time. This is the kind of bullshit I expect from breweries that don't give a shit about anything but sales, not a brewery that has always cared more about the beer, and about truth. I'm concerned about this, and yeah, it's pissing me off. We can do better. If "session" doesn't really mean anything to you, stop using it. If "session" just means "we hope you drink a lot of this here beer," stop using it. If it means "great-tasting beer with significantly lower ABV than average," by all means, use it. I have no trademark, no enforcement authority, just my small bully pulpit. I intend to use it.

REFRESHING SESSION ALE...5.5% ABV -- What kind of bullshit is that?

But I'm a professional, so let's give it a fair taste. Nose is pretty shy; all I'm getting is some faint sweet lemon, despite a very vigorous pour and plenty of fluffy white head. It's a gorgeous beer, but the aroma's a bit like a Wet-nap from a barbecue joint. Well, damn. The taste isn't much more electrifying. There's good bitterness at the end with some of that lemon lift, and a decent malt float, but otherwise, this is pretty tame stuff. What the hell?

I really expected a lot more for a 20th anniversary beer from Victory, after the awesome 10th Anniversary Alt, and even the recent Vital IPA, which I found damned tasty. This one just isn't doing much for me, and that's the beer talking, not the label with its "Session/5.5%" crap. Middle of the road, and the least exciting Victory beer I've had in quite a while. I'm hoping for more from the (official?) XX Anniversary Imperial Pilsner.

Verdict: Okay


Coronado Imperial Blue Bridge Coffee Stout, 8.0%
Expectations are high here: I like Coronado beers, and I love coffee beers, so I couldn't wait to get this in the glass. This is a bumped up version of Coronado's Blue Bridge Coffee Stout, celebrating the landmark San Diego/Coronado "Blue Bridge," which I have to admit has figured prominently in a series of nightmares I've had in which I'm driving across it...and it suddenly ends, leaving me flying through the air like Henry Gibson the Illinois Nazi. I'll try to muscle past that.

Pours very dark indeed, no surprise. Huge, no-nonsense coffee nose: mocha, bright acidity, some cocoa and unripe apricot. Very promising indeed. Whoa. I was going to start typing in flavors, had even started, when the totality hit me. That's one beautiful beer in toto, as the entirety, as a well-sculpted integral sensation: seamless. I appreciate that kind of thing a lot more since learning about whiskey. Nothing sticks out, but it's not because it's not big; it's a whopper. But everything is in place, the balloon expands evenly. I could drink this entire 22 oz. beer way WAY too quickly and easily. The Cafe Moto coffee and malts meld beautifully. The only nitpicky little flaw I find, and I hesitate to even call it a flaw, is that there's a touch of stickiness at the end. But to point it out is to quibble. That's a damned good beer.

Verdict: Good






Now...I promised to try to get a draft in, but I'm going to ask you to wait for it. I'm going to a brewpub (Elk Creek Cafe in Millheim, PA) tonight, with my wife, and I'll take notes, and post it up here as an update tomorrow.

Elton's ESB, 7.0%

Nitro pour at Elk Creek Café and Ale Works. 20 oz. pour, $5: good value! Great buffed leather color, moussed foam, and a nose full of juicy Brit malt and earthy, herbal British hops. So smooth and full, slippery and supple with malt, and fully hopped with those tricksy Brit cones: so unfamiliar to American drinkers in these days of super-citrus and power-pine that many think a beer like this is underhopped. Not so, and this is firmly bitter, but balanced. Drank several of these Friday night, had some more last night, and it's a good brunch beer today.

Verdict: Good

Beer Friday #4

Okay, back to the music. I sang Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine a few years ago with the chamber group at St. Andrew's in Newtown, Penn., and lately it's been running through my head. I asked my choir director for a recording, and he pointed me to the Cambridge Singers. Quite peaceful, but at the same time energizing. One of my favorite bass parts, so well-matched to the words.


Relaxing, right? On to the beer!

Hijinx Pitch Penny ESB, 4.7%
My draft for the week, sampled yesterday afternoon at Isaac Newton's in Newtown. I've been to HiJinx and think it's one of the better examples of the recent new crop of breweries in eastern Pennsylvania...but I rarely see their beers. When I spotted this one — on the heels of a discussion with someone about how few ESBs there were available lately — it made what was looking like a tough decision (Isaac's usually sports a pretty great tap list) into a slam dunk.

Nice color; perfect copper penny look of an ESB with a coffe crema head. Not a ton of aroma; what's there is mostly malt. Mmm, and so it is on the palate. Not as fully malt-tilted as Fullers, and that's maybe a style issue (not as big a one as the jackass next to me, who smells like he's a Lebanon bologna that was smoked over Marlboros. Going outside is not enough, fella, try standing upwind of yourself next time!)

Okay, back to the beer. ABV is about dead-on, that's an up-check, the color nails it, another up-check, and if it's a bit too bitter, well...it's America. I'll tell ya...throw a different yeast in here, give her a touch more malt, maybe tweak the hops a bit, and you'd have a kick-ass altbier. Something to think about. In the meantime, I'd go back for more, and I think it's the best HiJinx beer I've had. Not enough ESBs, as we said to each other in that discussion I mentioned.

Verdict: Good

Starr Hill Reviver Red IPA, 6.2%
I remember when Starr Hill was a little storefront juke joint in Charlottesville, running an old, old JV NorthWest system, with Mark Thompson's energetic good-beer vibes flashing wildly around the place. They had a weirdly grand plan for blending good beer and indie music, and I know I thought, yeah, whatever, good luck with that.

Well, the joke's on me. Starr Hill's been pretty successful with that plan (didn't hurt that Mark won a damned sack-full of GABF medals over the years; good beer deserves success), and the label of Reviver — an octave of piano keys — is a reminder. Good for them! They still put out pretty damned good beer, though, as was the case before, it tends to get overlooked by the geekerie. Let's see if they're right or wrong.

Very aromatic, with pine and juicy citrus singing over it, but not like the Fauré, more like a gospel choir getting real busy...but when I take that first sip...almost all that lively is gone, smacked down in a double shot of bitterness and overdone specialty malt. The happy hops try to break through, like a couple rays of sunlight in the dark blood-red gloom, It's a big enough beer, but it's big like a mean sonofabitch in black overalls. I may not have been as hard on this if the hops hadn't smelled so damned good, and I wanted it to be that way, I wanted that piano to ring out "The Old Landmark" and get Jake to see the light. I'm just not feeling it. If they could have kept this lively and still big, I think I'd have loved it. But I'm left wanting it to be something it's not.

Verdict: Flawed


Deschutes Hop Henge IPA, 8.9%
Hop Henge is a new set of hops every year. Hop research is getting so advanced that this year, two of the three hops in Hop Henge don't even have names yet. That's the kind of shit you can do when you're Deschutes and you're so close to the green gold of hop country. The third hop is Mandarina Bavaria, which is supposed to "lend hits of orange, mandarin, and tangerine." Somebody wake the druids, it's time to try this.

Smells like the non-alcoholic fruit punches my grandmother used to make. She was a genius at combining fresh fruit, canned and frozen juices, and a little bit of soda to make some really delicious drinks. Fresh, fruity, and no pine there a-tall. Nice.

Like drinking sunlight, boys and girls. Honestly, I took a glass, and I had this memory of walking through the woods behind my aunt's house 45 years, sunlight streaming through the trees. Light bright stuff this is, and the fruits are subtle in the mouth, the bitterness is trenchant but balanced (at 90 frickin' IBUs, it's balanced), and the finish does not put the pliers to my tongue, instead there's a lingering sticky resin pull and a nice undertow of those fruits. Sure doesn't drink like 8.9%, either, more like 5.9%. This is dangerously, drinkably delicious.

Look, you get it. I could go on, but to tell the truth...it's about 5:15, I'm done for the day, and I'm gonna go drink the rest of this. Cheers.

Verdict: Good

Beer Friday #3

As I sit in the bunker — my office is in the basement again, and I know my family calls it The Bunker, I just know it — with the blizzard coming, and Trump fulminating, and Bernie warning of fiscal disaster, well...this seemed legit.


Ergo, nothing but butt-kicking beers will do.

Tröegs Nugget Nectar 2016, 7.5%

The New Label

I bought a case of this beautiful annual release at the Beer Yard in Wayne last Saturday. I've had a couple few some already, and you need to know...oh, hell, most of you already do know, but this is a ripper. Let's open it before someone grabs it away.

First off, beautiful pour. You guys with your "shaker pints are ugly" crap can suck it: copper and cream looks great in a shaker. That juicy aroma comes right off the top, too: vibratingly-fresh citrus, pine (bark, needles, sap, that dark-meat wood in the middle), and yeah, a bit of dank weed. I kinda miss the cat piss I used to get from this one.

Take a mouthful. Not a sip, not with this beer, take a mouthful and hold it. Bitter, flavorful, that pine and pith tearing up my palate and making my glands squeeze. The thing I've always liked about Nugget Nectar is the way it turns my mouth into a boppit clown, those ones you smack and they fly backwards and hit the floor and whip right back up to get hit again (did any of you have one of them? When I was about 10, I'd go down in the basement and just smack the shit out of that thing). Take a drink, wham with the bitterness, and about the time I notice the wham's gone away and the pine's running around in my mouth like a crazy chihuahua, I decide it's time to take a drink, wham with the bitterness, and about the time I notice the wham's gone away and the pine's running around in my mouth like a crazy chihuahua, I decide it's time to take a drink, wham with the bitterness, and about the time I notice the wham's gone away and the pine's running around in my mouth like a crazy chihuahua, I decide it's time to take a drink...you get the idea. Clearly the only way I'm going to experience the finish on this one is to drink the whole beer, because I'm not pausing between drinks long enough to experience it.

Hell, it ought to be snowing now.

Verdict: Good

Abita Bourbon Street Imperial Stout, 10.0%
Not your normal, but I would expect nothing less from Abita. The mash includes oats, for one; and it sure sounds like the beer — the stout — is lagered, "cold aged," for six weeks. Then it does eight weeks in "small batch" bourbon barrels. As a whiskey guy, I'd really like to know what Abita thinks "small batch" bourbon barrels are; craft distillers' barrels, or Beam barrels from their "small batch" series? Or something else? I dunno. To the beer!

Had to let this warm up; it's damned cold out in my garage right now. But even after an hour in deep-bowled Duvel tulip (I know, I know; I grabbed it on impulse) there's still a tight collar of persistent tan foam around the edge, and the aroma is pulsing at me from over a foot away. Let's go. Deep bittersweet chocolate, fresh coffee grounds, toasted pecans, and caramel aromas. Luscious. Ah ha. Not a syrupy, under-attenuated mess at all, this is a scarily light-bodied 10%. In fact, there's just enough body to handle the booze. Chocolate syrup, light bright Kenya AA coffee, sweet rolls, and some of that pecan...but the bourbon barrel character is restrained, an accompaniment rather than a steamroller. It's coming through at the finish, though, and that's nice.

I'd like to like this more, but the lightness is too light. If you're going to go big, barrel age an imperial stout, you ought to go big, I'm thinking.

Verdict: Okay

2SP SIP (Stigz's Imperial Porter) imperial porter, 8.4%
2SP is one of the crop of new breweries here in southeast Pennsylvania, and this is my draft beer for the week. I dropped down to the Hulmeville Inn again this afternoon, figured to get a taste of pre-storm frenzy...but not in this more working-class bar. Just another day for cable installers, welders, and fire fighters, which is part of why I like going there. The other part, of course, is the truly great draft beer selection, with local stuff like this (and Tired Hands, and Neshaminy, and Yards), and plenty of the best from away as well.

2SP's brewer Bob Barrar is well-known around here and at the GABF for his excellent big dark beers; when he was at Iron Hill Media, they called him The Machine for the clockwork way he won GABF medals. I figured this was the way to go, and I wasn't wrong. This is a big sweet chocolate cake of a beer. Get a whiff; ahhh. Chocolate, cocoa, Graham crackers, and light coffee beans on the nose. Annnnnd...the same on the tongue, with maybe a bit more coffee. Gotta love an honest nose.  Wait, wait...there's hop note on the end, too, just to wrap things up.

Creamy smooth, rich and sweet. Actually reminds me a lot of the Abita, but no barrel is mentioned, which makes a difference. Is it what most folks expect from "imperial porter"? Probably not, in these lupulin-drenched days, but I found it delicious, and could have gone another round if I hadn't still had to pick up sidewalk salt, and the day's mail, and gas for the snowblower, and a nice block of cheddar...just because. Now we're hunkering down, just me and the family, with only a fridge full of food and about 300 bottles of whiskey between us and starvation. See you on the other side.

Verdict: Good

Beer Friday #2

Don't expect music every week, just because I had Aretha in that first one. That said, I'm gonna hit you with some more this week; an old favorite rockabilly tune I just rediscovered on the InterWebs, which made me so happy, I wanted to share it.

Jack Scott (according to Wikipedia) has been called "undeniably the greatest Canadian rock and roll singer of all time", for what that's worth; he was from Windsor, across the river from Detroit. This song was only his second on a national label, and hit #11 on the U.S. charts...and it was a B-side. I had a box of my Aunt Carol's old 45s from when she was a high schooler in the 1950s: this came out a year before I was born. Good stuff, great sax. Have fun.


Yards Golden Hop IPA, 6.0%
I got this case from brewer Tim Roberts, part of a complicated trade of whiskey and beer we did just before Christmas. Golden Hop was brand-new at the time, and I had a draft while I was waiting. One thing I noticed right away was the aroma, a sweet blend of fruits: grapefruit, sweeter citrus (mandarine? clementine?). The hops are Amarillo, Mosaic, and Cascade; they're working well here.

I wanted the taste to be as good, but it's not, quite. I like it, and it's slowly disappearing from the garage (now that the cold weather's finally arrived), but... The mouthfeel is light, and the fruit character from the hops comes off as almost tart rather the flavorful intrigue the nose set me up for. There's a slightly medicinal pull to everything, strongest at the beginning. I do like that it doesn't blow me away with bitterness, but I'd almost like some more of it. It's just...not quite, and definitely not living up to the promise of the nose.

Verdict: Okay

Einstök Icelandic Toasted Porter, 6.0%

Time was, you wanted Icelandic beer, you went to Iceland. You know, it was a bragging rights kind of thing. Especially with the price of beers in Iceland; whoa, Nelly! But it was worth it, because not only did you get the beers (and the Untappd badge to prove it), you got to go to Iceland! Now it seems you can get Icelandic beers pretty easily, which is kind of cool, considering beer's only been legal in Iceland since 1989. My first trip to Iceland was because of beer: Ölvisholt Lava smoked imperial stout, to be specific, which was definitely worth the trip, but again...you know, Iceland!

Iceland! Iceland!

So that's a roundabout way of saying I got this beer from a friend who knew I'd been to Iceland and wanted to share it. It's a "toasted porter" made with Icelandic-roasted coffee. Surprisingly, it appears to be bottle-conditioned (sediment stayed in place; the beer's pretty bright, if quite dark in color). I've been smelling it for the past 15 minutes while I opened it, wrote this, found the two pix (from the brewery and my last trip to Iceland, respectively), and got ready to taste...and it smells great. Dark chocolate, coffee, pastries, more coffee, flowing out of the glass, doing a Bugs Bunny grab-me-by-the-nose-and-drag-me-in thing. I give up; gotta have a sip.

Well, that's pretty good. Good mouthfeel, plenty of coffee and chocolate, and a nicely fresh character that's appealing in an imported beer. I like porter, too, and this is the kind I like: not a dark IPA masquerading as a porter. The hops are properly restrained. Finish is a bit sweet, but also has a hint of ashes, which is kind of cool coming from the land of volcanoes. The problem is that the whole thing's pretty sweet, and I'm having a hard time getting around that. I think this would be good with food (beef stew, chicken molé; desserts especially), but just at a bar, drinking? I want it dried out a bit more. I don't think this is a flaw, but I do think it makes it less than it could be.

Verdict: Okay


Spring House Session Pale Ale. 4.2%
I did mean to get this out earlier in the day, and to that end, I stopped at the Spring House Taproom in Lancaster on Monday, on my way home from the Farm Show, to get a beer. I do want to include a draft in each week if I can. But...then I forgot that I HAD taken these notes until I went out late this afternoon to get a draft beer to review and saw the notes...so you get a double.

A big Session Beer Project Thank You! to Spring House for calling this "session pale ale," the "session IPA" handle gives me the gripe. This is a bright, light pale ale, and I liked it. It's pale yellow, with a zippity nose of brisk lemon pith/zest and tropical fruit. A well-attenuated light body, but a nice grip; a bitter glove on the tongue that coats and holds the whole mouth...but the next sip opens it up again, fresh and tasty. Finish is clean, even a little fruit on it. That's an all-nighter. ($6 for a 20 oz. glass at the Taproom)

Verdict: Good


Cigar City Puppy's Breath Robust Porter Nitro

Cigar City is one of the most hyped American breweries going right now, and my experience with it has been a mixture of extremes: beers that are just boring, and beers that are just fantastic. When I saw this at one of my favorite local bars, the Hulmeville Inn, I had to try it.

It looks like you'd expect: dark, dark brown with a creamy tan nitro head. Smells like you'd expect: a bit of coffee, some baker's chocolate. But it's not what I expected in the mouth at all, given "robust" porter! This is sweet, smooth, and even a bit rich, like a whoopie pie in a glass. See the Einstök above; there, the sweet's not right, not full-on. This embraces the sweet, it knows it and goes with it. It's like the difference between a slightly sweet peanut butter and Nutella. Or those gross King Hawaiian rolls and a sticky bun. This is like eating a donut; if I feel like it, I'll have another and grin.

Verdict Good.

Beer Friday: #1

Ha! You were maybe expecting "Foamy Friday"?

I don't do that crap. Beer deserves a bit more r-e-s-p-e-c-t.



Feel free to fire Aretha up while you're reading the reviews. I did while I was writing them, and it made the beer taste better, just like drinking your beer from expensive, hand-blown, wildly-accurate-designed-by-pseudoscientific-principles beer glasses that are "pretentious as shit"!!!

Aw...no, it didn't, not really. But I did enjoy the process more that way. Speaking of the process, here's how I'm going to do this. Unless otherwise noted, these beers are samples sent from the brewery, chilled to proper temperature, and sampled from a sleeve pint glass (because I'm an ornery bastard). I will also be trying to include one draft beer each week.

On to the reviews.


Yuengling IPL, 5.0%

Got some fresh at the brewery on Monday, so you bet I'm gonna review it. They want to see this go year-round; does it have the stuff?

It pours pretty, dark gold with a bright white head. Aroma is fresh lager (fresh-moist white bread, tiniest hint of sulfur!) and piney-grassy hop. Not a hint of skunk; IPL comes in brown bottles, thank you! The mouth is a relatively light lager with that bit of extra body you can expect from Yuengling, and an amount of hop flavor (pine, grapefruit zest, and something fruity...melon?) and bitterness that is definitely more than you expect from Yuengling. At 60 IBU, this is twice as bitter as their long-time hoppiest brew, Lord Chesterfield. The bitterness kicks in about a second after entry, gripping in the back, and turning it up in the finish. It's like a subtly spiced curry; the bitterness builds as you get through the bottle. The first gulp doesn't impress, but by the fourth, you can feel the hop every time you breathe; interesting effect.

This is a hard one to pin down. It seems simple, and you could drink it quickly and say it's simple...but it's not. There's a nice little twist here, and I'm not sure if most of us will catch it. I'd like more malt here, the body lets me down, and I'd like more hop aroma from something calling itself India Pale Lager. That's the problem here: expectations. After Yuengling absolutely nailed it with last summer's weissbier, I figured this one would be bolder. And even though the hop continues to breath-mint me on every inhalation... Damn. This beer is not giving up. A 4-ounce and done sample would not do it justice. The further I get into the bottle, the more I like it. It's no Prima Pils, but it's not meant to be. It's not a killer, but it's no baby bottle either.

I still want more, but it's better than I thought on first look. I'd like it sharpened up, I'd like more body, but it's not going to get "Flawed" for being not up to the expectations engendered by the name.

I'm going to encourage Yuengling IPL to be pleased to walk away with "Yawn," because that's not really that bad. Maybe tweak this before the next seasonal release? Maybe a bit more body? Maybe a bit more aroma hopping? Maybe then you'll have a killer on your hands.

Verdict: Okay...with potential


Allagash Interlude, 9.5%

I've been thinking to myself lately, 'You know, I don't like sours, don't like Brett beers, don't like funk.' But damn it, I know it's not true! Because I liked sours and Bretts and lambics 30 years ago, liked them right up through about 2008, when I went off them for a while after full lambic immersion in Belgium. When I tried some new ones...damn. No. But now, drinking my first Interlude in years, it's coming back to me.

This is almost too complex to describe. First, it's a coppery color, with very little foam. The nose is sharp, acidic; there are barnyard aromas and it's a bit reeky, but there are these sharp fruity notes, even some sweet candy flitting around. The beer's thick at first sip, then thins across the tongue: Brett funk and woody dryness blend with punk-sweet fruit and sour honey. It's like tasting some wild fruit I've never had before. A bit thick, a bit sweet, but mostly beautifully buggy.

And it drinks better and better as it warms (served WAY too cold, unfortunately). Wow. it gets even more friendly as it gets toward room temp. This is the funk I remember. This is the funk I desire. (Served on draft at Manny Brown's in Newtown: $7 for a big goblet)

Verdict: Stellar


Hamburg Hoppenstance, 8.0%

Hamburg Brewing is a small outfit south of Buffalo that opened in 2013. I hadn't heard of it before December 26th, when my brother-in-law Chris gave me this four-pack of Hoppenstance double IPA for Christmas. Happy to dive in; let's have a look.

Pine floats above the surface with a speckling of fruits tickling the nose. Very clean aromas, and the beer's clean too: bright gold, paper-white head. Take a great sip; and it's bitter but balanced, with a solid slice of hop bitterness backed with a table of malt. It's a well-built beer, nothing wrong with it, but I'm looking for something to make it stand out, and it's not there. There's nothing wrong with it: a small brewery making a solid, local double IPA. I'd love to try it in Hamburg at the brewery tap, nice and fresh.

Verdict: Okay