Drayman's Porter

Beer Name: Drayman's Porter
Brewery: Berkshire Brewing Company
ABV: 6.2%
Serving method: 16-oz draught in a pint glass
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

Drayman's Porter is the beer that BBC uses for their Coffeehouse Porter, except that they don't normally include the addition of Dean's Beans coffee during the brewing process. Since the Coffeehouse Porter is pretty awesome, I am expecting good things from this beer.

Drayman's Porter is a very dark beer with ruby highlights at the edges. It poured with a thin head with surprisingly long retention. As I drank, the beer left a very detailed lacing on the glass, like an elaborate spider web. It was difficult to pick out any specific aromas, as they all were fairly faint. I think that maybe there was some roasted malt smell in there.

This beer has a great flavor. It's taste is roasty malt and no noticeable hops. In the finish, I also got a little bit of sweetness as caramel or toffee. There isn't much carbonation in this beer, and that works well with the style and flavor. I think any major carbonation would ruin the taste. This beer has a mildly roasted aftertaste, and it feels very thick as you drink it. It's like a meal!

Final thought - This beer is a definite keeper. It gives me a warm feeling inside when I drink it. It's a highly drinkable beer that I could enjoy quite a few of, provided I also had a ride home. Or was already on my own couch. Good stuff.

-Jon

Russian Imperial Stout

Beer Name: Russian Imperial Stout
Brewery: Berkshire Brewing Company
ABV: 8.5%
Serving method: 22-oz bottle in a pint glass
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

It would seem that I am only going to drink dark beers this year. Actually it's more that porters and stouts feel more like "winter" beers than light lagers and pale ales. I probably won't be drinking tons of dark stuff once it warms up outside, which based on this morning's temperature of -4°F will be sometime around June.

BBC's Russian Imperial Stout claims it will "transport you to the time of the czars," so if I disappear in the immediate future, that's where I am. This is a very dark beer with a hint of ruby coloring at the edges. It pours with almost no head and very little lacing. Like many stouts, it has an aroma of coffee and chocolate and seems a little sweeter than most others.

Ok, now this is a smooth beer. Maybe almost too smooth. It's almost not even beery. There's a lot of sweet roasted malt flavor in here along with the expected chocolate and coffee flavors. The beer isn't very carbonated, which contributes to the smoothness. It leaves a very sweet lingering aftertaste.

Final thought - This beer needs a little more carbonation and a little less sweetness. It's very tasty, but its aftertaste is a little too much. I can think of a few other stouts that I'd prefer.

-Jon

Coffeehouse Porter

Beer Name: Coffeehouse Porter
Brewery: Berkshire Brewing Company
ABV: 6.2%
Serving method: 16-oz draft (x 2)
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

Seems to me like the best beer to follow up a coffee porter would be another coffee porter! Actually that thought didn't cross my mind at all, which means I've started this post off with a terrible lie. Hopefully that will be the only one.

BBC's Coffeehouse Porter is a dark beer with ruby highlights. Apparently the amount of head on a beer is highly variable, because both of my pints had a huge head on them (think like 1 inch plus), but I have read other reviews where people said that their beers had barely any head. Well, tough cookies to them. This beer had a boatload of it, and it slowly faded leaving a ton of lacing behind. As expected, the aroma was mostly coffee with a little bit of creamy malt.

Now this is what I'm talking about! That beer had a perfect amount of coffee flavor with a nice mellow taste. There was a tiny bit of hops at the finish, but overall the whole thing was very smooth. There's also a little bit of chocolate in it as well. The beer has mild carbonation and a clean finish without aftertaste.

Final thought - This beer is great. Any fan of dark beers needs to give this one a try. Even non-fans should probably drink it. You can't go wrong!

-Jon

Cabin Fever

Beer Name: Cabin Fever Ale
Brewery: Berkshire Brewing Company
ABV: 6.3%
Serving method: 22-oz bottle in a pint glass
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown, best by 4/21/11

Wow, this beer is either really fresh, or lasts a really long time. April!?

I have been out of the beer game recently, which is sad. In actuality, I have been drinking lots of crappy beer, but Bud Light doesn't qualify for a place here since there's nothing "mmmm" about it. And also because a lot of it ended up making its way back out of my stomach by the same route it went in. Oops.

I am pretty sure that I've reviewed Cabin Fever before. In fact, I'm sure of it. But who cares? That was a long time ago, at a restaurant that no longer exists in that location. And it wasn't covered at this particular branch of the Mmmm [nouns] franchise. So let's revisit this tasty brew.

Cabin Fever Ale apparently fits into the "winter warmer" category. It's a copper ale with a mild head and a serious lacing pattern. It's like artwork. There's a malty aroma with a little bit of spicy hop.

As for the taste, it's more malty than hoppy. There's sweetness and grains, and a bunch of spices in the background. I am not feeling a whole lot of carbonation, and there's no bitterness. The aftertaste is a little sweet as well. If you don't like hops, you might like this beer, as they are very difficult to find here.

Final thought - Just like I thought last time I had it, this beer is delicious. I prefer it strongly to the other winter warmer I've had this season, although this was doesn't taste as much like Christmas. I suppose that if I were snowed in with a few growlers of this, things would be ok and I would not, in fact, suffer from Cabin Fever.

-Jon

Gold Spike

Beer Name: BBC Gold Spike
Brewery: Berkshire Brewing Company
ABV: 4.2%
Serving method: 16-oz pint
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

I guess that this beer continues the theme of railroads that Steel Rail started.

Gold Spike is a light golden yellow color with a slight head that is very short-lasting. I had it in a weird glass, and it didn't leave much lacing behind. The smell was similar to the smell of most mainstream beers, like Bud, Miller, or Coors Light(s).

This beer tasted like it smelled, which means it tasted like the basic offerings from the big American macrobreweries. Although Anheuser-Busch is now owned by InBev, so is that still an American company? Who cares, as that is not relevant to this discussion. The point is that this tastes like a slightly more beer-y version of those beers. I bet that Dave would like it, especially if we told him that it was Bud Light draft.

Final thought - I am not a big fan of those crappy Light beers. Obviously I'll drink them at places like the Festa or keg parties or while I'm playing a little pong, but in those situations, the idea is to drink as much as possible. If I'm relaxing with a beer, I want something with more flavor. Kathryn said she'd drink it again, so it looks like we have a hung jury here. Looks like you'll have to try it for yourself.

-Jon