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

Hop Crisis Imperial IPA

You know I love the session beers. And you know I love the 21st Amendment Bitter American in particular, because it's a perfect American session beer: hoppy, drinky-drinky, and it comes in a can. And it's got a picture of a monkey on the can, so that's just a bonus.

But just to show you I also love me some big old beers -- as if you needed more proof -- I cracked out this can of 21st Amendment Hop Crisis I've been saving...Election Day seemed like a good time to do it.

It poured light gold, some white foam up top, and just a bit cloudy with hop stuff. The nose was awesome; pine and citrus zest boiling off of there with proper West Coast vigor. Now...this is aged on "oak spirals," and I wasn't sure how that would go. There was a breadth to it, not quite a creaminess but a rounding of the malt/bitter interface kind of thing that I found interesting. The bitterness was crushingly good, especially with fairly hot batch of chili we had for dinner; Hop Crisis banged right through that, and the spice perked up the bitter (as it will).

I'd do another, if I had one, and I'll happily do a bit of crisis management the next time I see one.

I WANTED an IPA...so I had one. A BIG STONE ONE!

The kids were away -- ha! KIDS, Thomas is 20 and Nora's 18, they went to see The Bourne Legacy (after we had a marathon of DVDs last night: Iron Man I and II, and 9) so I met Cathy for dinner at Char Koon, a little overlooked gem of a Chinese/Thai/sushi place right here in Langhorne, and I can't recommend it enough. We split an order of shrimp dumplings (tasted like the great ones I had at Ruby Rouge in Montreal (dump the "I eat dim sum in NYC..." douche-reviews and you'll see what it's like)), then Cathy had the house noodles and I had the Singapore noodles (smoky curry, delicious!).

It's BYOB at Char Koon, and I was packing a cooler. We opened with the Stone 16th Anniversary IPA, which was perfect with the dumplings. The 16IPA is spiked with lemon oil and lemon verbena, an herb I'm very familiar with (have a bottle of the dried stuff in my spice cabinet, too). It was plain in the nose, a lemony, herbal wash that really perked up the olfactory pleasure centers. There was a hint of the rye crack in there, too, a minty splash around the edges. In the mouth? A blast, but not a slam: this was a nicely balanced beer indeed. I'll be looking for more of it, and so should you!

(Followed it up with a bottle of Upright Brewing's 5, an IPA malt/hops recipe with saison yeast, and it was quite refreshing, tasty...but a bit overwhelmed by the curry. My fault, not the beer's, and I'll be looking for another bottle for sure.)

Southern Tier Unearthly IIPA

Picked up a bomber of this a few weeks ago for a project I'm working on. Did that earlier tonight -- a mixing thing -- and now I'm drinking the rest of the bottle straight. When I first poured it -- and again, if I swirl it up for a fresh airing -- there's a crisp, clean dairy smell; not milk, or cream, but that clean smell of scrubbed concrete and rock of the collection room. That fades into a smell of fruit, pine, and resiny plastic.

The beer itself seems underattenuated, thick and sweet, and the bitterness, surprisingly, isn't enough to clean up the end, which is a bit sticky. There's not that much bitterness here, really, a hot flash of it up front, and some stringing through the middle, but not that lingering bitterness you get from some much smaller IPAs. Plenty of hop flavor, but it's struggling to punch through that clog of sweetness.

I like some IIPA/DIPAs (don't tell the Session Beer Project). I don't like them all. This one ranges too high on the ABV scale and doesn't pull it off. If you're going to go this big, you've got to get a yeast that's big enough to eat it. This is reminding me of 120 Minute IPA, and not in a good way. If I want this kind of big malty sweetness, I'd rather have it without the half-hearted hopping: what we used to call barleywine.

Now that's an Inauguration Day Special Event

I'm hearing a lot about Inauguration Day beer events: Ommegang has a special Obamagang beer out (which the TTTB, those killjoys, did not allow as a name: "officially" it's Inauguration Ale, but now you know the secret name), bars in DC will be open till 5 AM, everyone's celebrating.

The Grey Lodge is celebrating too, as only they do: based on Scoats's weird obsession with the calendar. On Inauguration Day, January 20th (also known as 1/20), they'll be tapping a deadly weapon: a sixtel of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA.

This is the kind of beer that makes you start quoting Dirty Harry: "I know what you're thinking, punk. Did you drink six shots of 120 Minute, or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement. But being as this is 120 Minute, the most powerful IIPA in the world and will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: do I feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?"

Kind of makes me want to go out and vote for the man all over again. After a couple 120s, who knows, I might try to.

And if my editors are reading this...I really am getting work done this morning. Honest.

BridgePort Hop Czar

I'm watching the Eagles/Vikings game, it's just after the Vikings went up 7-6. I decided to pop a sample: BridgePort Hop Czar, an imperial IPA at 8%. (And in the time it took me to get that picture and crop it, the Eagles are now up 9-7. Sweating it out.)

Anyway, BridgePort sent me this sample (along with the Raven Mad Porter I wrote about a few days ago) -- whoa, interception, Eagles up 16-7! -- and I've been looking forward to it. So I poured some for Cathy, and some for me, and I'm drinking it. Hey, it looks great! Cloudy-sticky, incredibly long-lasting creamy white head, fine carbonation, and wacky strong grapefruit and pine aromas.

The hops are ringing my chimes, seeming to change with every sip, there are so many flavors here I'm only picking up bits and pieces as I go. We're told Hop Czar is "triple hopped," more than BridgePort usually uses, and I'm feeling it. Hop Czar is also damned bitter, clinging bitter, ripping bitter. But the malt's there to beef it up and sweeten it up, balancing that bitter. There's also some substantial fruitiness that keeps it all interesting. (Peterson does it again, 16-14, Philly still hanging on at the end of the first half.)

That's the good stuff, beerwise. It's good, it's bitter, it's hoppy, but it's missing the liveliness, the verve of something like the Blind Pig I had on New Year's Eve. The Hop Czar goes for the straight-up slam, a bit blunt, and I'm not nuts about that...except that's just not all there is to the Czar.

Look, I've made fun of Bob Klein's beer reviews in which the beers seem to change flavor in mid-sip. But I keep getting different impressions, every time I lift the glass. Sweet, blunt, fruity, pine, bitter, solid...a protean IIPA? Or is it just that there's so much going on it's hard to get it all at once. I'd still like to see more of that liveliness...but that's not the only kind of beer. I can get into the bludgeoning, too. Thumbs-up for the Czar. (Halftime, by the way, and I'm feeling like a Philly fan...how are they going to figure out how to lose this one? (Whoa, holy crap, Westbrook breaks loose for a big one: we win! This is getting weird...))