Hoptimum

Beer Name: Hoptimum
Brewery: Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
ABV: 10.4%
Serving method: 12-oz bottle in a tumbler
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

I couldn't find a date on this bottle, but I'm not too concerned. Sierra Nevada is reputable for bottle conditioning every single one of their beers, so this thing is probably going to be good to go for a long time. I asked the guy at Brewtopia for a beer that was so hoppy that when I drank it, Kate would be able to taste the hops.  This is what he recommended.

Hoptimum is an orangey beer with a copper color to it as well. It poured with a small amount of head, but I feel that I could probably modulate that based on how I poured the beer. Most of the head faded away after a couple minutes, but there was a ring that stayed throughout most of the pint and left some heavy spots of lacing. The aroma is very appropriate for the name Hoptimum, as the beer blasts the nostrils with hops. In a good way. There are some citrus notes, but it seems mostly to be floral and pine hops.

The aroma was a very good indicator of flavor, as this beer has a big hit of hops.  More like huge.  It's bitter hops from start to finish, with floral and pine flavors dominating and a little citrus in the back.  There's some malt in the background, but it's pretty hidden and mostly just shows up in the lingering aftertaste. This beer seems to warm up rather quickly, but that just allows to malt more of a chance to make its presence known. There's a pretty good carbonation to this beer, with a big mouthfeel.  For such a high ABV, the alcohol doesn't really come into the flavor.

Final thought - One of these beers is very nice. I think that drinking a couple of them in a single sitting might be a huge mistake though. It really sneaks up on you. This is a beer for dedicated hop lovers only. If you only like hops, you might not like this at all. And if you don't enjoy the delicious flavor contributions of humulus lupulus, get as far from this beer as you can. It is not for you.

-Jon

Double Stout

Beer Name: Double Stout Black Ale
Brewery: Green Flash Brewing Company
ABV: 8.8%
Serving method: 22-oz bottle in a pint glass
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

I don't know why the bottle says black ale when this is a stout.  I think that black ale is a different classification.  This is very confusing to me.  Obviously I need to stop thinking about this and start drinking this beer.

Double Stout is a very dark beer, not quite black but pretty close.  It poured with almost a finger of head that was pretty dense but faded away quickly.  It did leave a bit of lacing behind though.  There is a little bit of thickness to the beer when it pours, making it seem like it's going to have a sort of creamy feel to it.  This beer has a very nice aroma, with a bunch of chocolate and coffee.  The aroma only improves as the beer warms in the glass, so it's worth it to let it hang out a bit.  It's also an 8.8% beer, so there isn't any rush.  Sit back, relax, and enjoy.

This beer has a little bit of variety to it.  At first, while it's fairly cold, there's a lot of coffee flavors and a hearty dose of bitterness, mostly coffee, not hops.  As it warms up, more of the roasted flavors start to show up, with some chocolate in there as well.  There is still a light bitterness, but it's much less pronounced.  There's a lightly noticeable carbonation here, and the beer finishes slightly bitter with an aftertaste that is malty.

Final thought - With a delightful aroma and a nice flavor, this is a very good beer.  I recently drank a different style from Green Flash that wasn't treated too well (there's a point where the draft lines are just too cold), so I couldn't get a good read on what they were all about.  This beer shows that they've got their act together, so I'll have to track down their other stuff and give it all a try.

-Jon

Peachy Keene Kolsch

Beer Name: Peachy Keene Kolsch
Brewery: Elm City Brewing Company
ABV: Unknown
Serving method: 16-oz draft in a tumbler
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

I suppose I have to admit something: I am a sucker for beers with silly puns or wordplay in their names. This is 100% of the reason why I have a bottle in the fridge with a label that says "Hoptimus Prime" on it. Assuming you don't hate hops, how can you pass up something like that? I know I couldn't. As such, I was also unable to resist a beer with the name Peachy Keene.

Peachy Keene Kolsch is a dark golden beer. Not dark like a brown ale or anything, but noticeably darker than the Raspberry Wheat. There wasn't really any head on this one, but that seems to be typical of particularly fruity beers. There also wasn't any lacing to speak of. The beer has an extremely peachy aroma. If you like the smell of peaches, this is the beer for you.

Peaches dominate the flavor here. It's pretty much all peach all the time, from the first sip to the last. I like peaches, so this is a good thing in my book. It's also nice that, while sweet, it's not a sickly sweetness and it's not sticky. The beer is very smooth, with very low carbonation. It's not quite as sweet as a soda, but it's close. The finish is clean, and there is not much of an aftertaste.

Final thought - I liked this beer a lot. Kate was skeptical of me ordering a Kolsch, but not everything has to be a stout, porter or IPA for me to drink it. I am a diverse beer drinker, dammit, and people need to recognize this. I am glad I got this, and give it a full recommendation. Unless you don't like peach, in which case stay far, far away.

-Jon

Raspberry Wheat #2

Beer Name: Raspberry Wheat
Brewery: Elm City Brewing Company
ABV: Unknown
Serving method: 16-oz draft in a tumbler
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

Elm City seems to cycle through their beers pretty quickly, so this one was probably brewed not too long ago. We knew going in that during Happy Hour (actually 2 hours), wings were 45 cents each, but we didn't know that the beer was discounted too! It made our late lunch/early dinner even more exciting.

The Raspberry Wheat is a slightly cloudy, bright golden beer. It arrived with a thin head that faded away quickly but left a light lacing pattern behind. The aroma is very grainy, and there isn't much raspberry in it. The wheat seems to be dominating here.

Despite not being too noticeable in the aroma, the raspberry is fully present in the flavor. It's a nice raspberry flavor too, more like a real raspberry than an artificial syrupy flavor. There's nothing overly sweet or sticky about it. The beer has a very light carbonation and is very easy drinking. It finishes with a little bit of malt and a faint sweet aftertaste.

Final thought - This is a nice light beer that was perfect with a meal outside. I don't know if it would have been enjoyable in a dark restaurant, as there just seemed to be something about it that said "drink me in the sun!" And I was happy to oblige.

-Jon

Walker's Reserve Porter

Beer Name: Walker's Reserve Porter
Brewery: Firestone Walker Brewing Co.
ABV: 5.8%
Serving method: 22-oz bottle in a tumbler
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Bottled 4/21/11

I really need to start looking more carefully at bottles before I buy them. Although if this beer has been treated properly, that ancient bottling date is not going to make that much of a difference. Someday I aspire to have a dedicated area for storing beers in the cellar, or possibly even a large refrigerator for dedicated long-term storage. That would be pretty sweet.

Walker's Reserve Porter is a very dark beer, but not that dark for a porter. It's dark brown with some reddish and ruby highlights around the edges, and it seems a little thin. It poured with about 2 fingers of head, and then left a good lacing pattern behind. There wasn't much of an aroma at first, but as the beer warmed up, some muted hop aromas came through along with expected roasted malt notes, mostly dark chocolate. It's a fairly pleasant smell.

There's a good mix of hops and malt in the flavor of this beer, and a little more hoppiness than a standard porter, I think. It adds a little bitterness to the end of each sip and keeps my tongue on its toes. The hops are not citrusy and not piney, but they're noticeable, and the maltiness has a nice taste of chocolate. The beer has some carbonation, and it finishes slight bitter with a malty aftertaste. The mouthfeel is a little thin, but the flavor tries to make up for that.

Final thought - This was a pretty good beer. I was a little nervous after finding that old date on the neck of the bottle, but it turned out that I was worrying for nothing. Another enjoyable beer from California, e.g. the state we'll someday randomly pack up all our stuff and move to.

-Jon

Wilco Tango Foxtrot

Beer Name: Wilco Tango Foxtrot
Brewery: Lagunitas Brewing Company
ABV: 7.85%
Serving method: 22-oz bottle in a pint glass
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

I can never find a date on Lagunitas bottles, but this is a seasonal beer that comes out in February, so I would assume it's made sometime before that. It's listed as "American strong ale," which is something of a cop-out category for anything above 7% ABV that people can't classify into a more specific category. Also, 7.85% is oddly specific for a beer's ABV.

Wilco Tango Foxtrot bills itself as "A Malty, Robust, Jobless Recovery Ale." This does not give a large amount of information, although I am expecting malt. The beer is a dark coppery brown color, and it poured with just a bit of head. This faded away pretty quickly, but it still left a nice lacing pattern even though it's a little light. For a beer that boasts about its maltiness, there seems to be more than a hint of hoppiness in the aroma. There is some noticeable malty sweetness, but there's also a bunch of citrusy hops. From the description, I thought this might be a Kate beer, but I'm starting to doubt that.

Well, this is right on the border of possibly being drinkable for Kate. There is a nice hoppiness to each sip, but there's also a nice malty breadiness to it. It's actually kind of hard to pin down everything that's happening here. It seems like citrus hops at the beginning, with some other hop flavors mixed with the malts afterwards. At the end, there is a crisp bitterness that lingers just enough to make me want another sip. This is a very smooth beer from start to finish.

Final thought - Another winning beer from the fine folks at Lagunitas. This one reminds me of A Little Sumpin' Sumpin' but with a little more sweetness. Kate said we should move to San Diego at dinner tonight, but I think I could also handle moving to northern California and being near this place.

-Jon

Dark Truth

Beer Name: Dark Truth Stout
Brewery: Boulevard Brewing Co.
ABV: 9.7%
Serving method: 12-oz bottle in a tumbler
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Best by 10/27/13

That is not a typo. The "best by" date on this 4-pack is more than 18 months away. Maybe I'll pick up another and cellar it until I turn 31. By then, I'll probably have forgotten about it, so it will be like a birthday present to myself.

Dark Truth is an imperial stout, and, as such, is a very dark beer. It's almost solid black, although there are very faint hints of light around the edges of the glass. It has about a finger of thin head that faded away after a bit, leaving some lacing that didn't survive the glass. The aroma has some sweet roasted malts, some deep fruitiness, and what seems like a little bit of spicy hops. It seems like there's a lot going on here.

This beer has a very big flavor. There's the roasted flavors from the malt along with some light sweet flavors that are a little bit fruity. It also has some bitterness to keep the malt from being too much. The alcohol is faintly noticeable, as you might expect for something this strong. At the end, there is a roasted aftertaste that hangs on for a bit, giving way to a sensation of sweetness.

Final thought - Under the right circumstances, this beer is delightful. That would be: while relaxing, after letting it warm up slightly, and when you have time to sit back and sip it slowly. This beer has a ton of flavors happening, and you don't want to rush through it. That, and it packs quite the punch. Drink with care.

-Jon

A Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale

Beer Name: A Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale
Brewery: Lagunitas Brewing Company
ABV: 7.5%
Serving method: 12-oz bottle in a tumbler
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

Kate and I were excited to find out that Whole Foods Market has a craft beer section. Well, she wasn't that excited, but I was really excited and that was probably enough for both of us. The excitement was dampened a little when we arrived and we found that the selection was smaller than I was hoping for it to be. More beer choices is generally a better thing.

I did end up with a couple new brews to try, one of which was Lagunitas' somewhat ridiculously titled A Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale. This is a golden orange beer that poured into my glass with a big fluffy head. This faded away slowly, leaving a nice lacing pattern behind. The aroma here is a big blast of hops, with a major emphasis on the citrus hops. There's also a very noticeable sweet graininess as well.

The sweetness and hops are both present in the taste. Most prevalent to me is a sweet grapefruit flavor along with some other citrusy flavors, mostly lemony. It also has a bready sweetness to it that keeps the bitterness from the hops in check. Actually, this beer is not very bitter at all, unlike most hoppy beers. It finishes with a nice bit of hops and malt, and the aftertaste of hops hangs on for quite a while.

Final thought - This beer is great! It has a bunch of flavor, but it's not quite as bitter as their IPA or Maximus. There's a lot of sweetness here as well, and everything is very enjoyable.

-Jon

Tasman Red IPA

Beer Name: Tasman Red IPA
Brewery: Boston Beer Company
ABV: 6.75%
Serving method: 16-oz draft in a tumbler
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

Tasman Red IPA is from the same series of beers as Third Voyage, at least if the bottle and label style is anything to go by. It has a crazy looking person on the bottle if you're looking for it.

Tasman Red is a very deep ruby colored beer that arrived with about a finger of head. This head was thick and fluffy, and it faded away slowly while leaving a heavy lacing pattern behind. Another plus was that this beer came in a clean glass, so I had nothing to complain about. There is a nice aroma of citrus and pine hops, and there is also some caramel malt to go with it.

This beer has a very big flavor, mostly hops but with some maltiness in there as well. I suppose it would be apt to call it a "bold" beer. The hops are probably the main flavor, but the malt has enough presence to avoid being overshadowed. The beer finishes bitter, with an aftertaste of lingering malt with a bit of hops. I had this on draft, and it seems like it would be much better this way than from the bottle. There's just something about it.

Final thought - I enjoyed this beer, and it was very good with food. It's sort of a mix between a red ale and an IPA, and there's noticeable contributions from both. I would probably be glad to drink this again if I see it out somewhere.

-Jon

Watermelon Ale

Beer Name: Thomas Hooker Watermelon Ale
Brewery: Thomas Hooker Ales & Lager
ABV: 4.5%
Serving method: 16-oz draft in a tumbler
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

How have I never tried a beer from Connecticut before this one? That seems impossible.

Thomas Hooker's Watermelon Ale is a pale golden ale that arrived with a thin head. It left a good lacing pattern, but it doesn't stick for the whole glass. At first, there is a light watermelon aroma and some maltiness in the background. Then, as you drink the glass, the watermelon keeps getting stronger. It's sort of like watermelon candy after a minute or two.

The flavor of this beer is very nice. There's a good watermelon flavor, but it's not over the top and it's not a sickeningly sweet fruit flavor or syrupy. It's very light, and it works very well with the carbonation level of the beer, which is pretty high. The beer finishes with a slightly sweet flavor, but it doesn't linger overly long.

Final thought - Overall, this is a very enjoyable beer. It's probably right there with Hell or High Watermelon as far as fruit beer quality goes. The one thing I did not like, and this has nothing to do with the beer, is that it arrived in a glass that wasn't clean. Or maybe it was clean, but it wasn't rinsed properly. The point is that beer should be served in appropriately treated glasses, and there shouldn't be a patch of bubbles streaming off the side of the glass. Kate told me to send it back, but we hadn't gotten our food yet and I didn't want to be That Guy.

-Jon

Black Marlin Porter

Beer Name: Black Marlin Porter
Brewery: Ballast Point Brewing Company
ABV: 6%
Serving method: 16-oz draft in a tumbler
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Unknown

We learned a valuable lesson about Red Bones, which is that if you want to get a seat at Red Bones on a Saturday, go for lunch. A 10-15 minute wait is much more tolerable than an hour or more, especially when you're super-hungry.

There were a lot of beers that I considered, and I finally ended up picking this porter from Ballast Point because it seemed like a good choice to match up with the giant pile of barbecued meat I would soon be enjoying. Black Marlin is a very dark beer, bordering on solid black. It arrived with only a very thin head, but I think that is probably a result of the rookie manning the taps. He seemed a bit overwhelmed by the giant row of unmarked taps. There was still a nice lacing pattern at the end of the glass though. The aroma of the beer is a nice roasty coffee with some chocolate.

All the aromas in this beer come though in the flavor, with the chocolate a little more noticeable now than in the aroma. The roasted flavors are done very nicely, so they don't overpower the tastebuds. There's a nice light carbonation, and it's very drinkable. I think the flavors developed nicely as the beer warmed up a little, so I'd recommend letting it sit for a few minutes.

Final thought - This beer was good when I was drinking it alone, and it was equally good when I was drinking it with my meal. Ballast Point definitely has their brewing act together, so I'll have to keep my eyes open for more of their beers in the future.

-Jon

Simcoe Spring Ale

Beer Name: Simcoe Spring Ale
Brewery: Peak Organic Brewing Company
ABV: 5.4%
Serving method: 12-oz bottle in a pint glass
Born/Bottled/Shipped on: Best by Sept 2012

Peak Organic was having a beer tasting over at Ryan & Casey, so I figured I'd return some bottles and check out their wares. The tasting host was a very friendly guy, and I was the only person there are this particular time, so we got to talk about beer, and he got to hear the woeful tale of Kate's and my failure to procure any Peak beer at the 2010 Vermont Brewers Festival due to a thunderstorm. It is a very sad story. Also, I got a free pint glass because I ended up buying some Peak beer. Good times.

Simcoe Spring Ale is one of Peak's seasonal beers, and, despite spring having only just started, is about to be phased out in place of their summer brew. All these calendar shenanigans are a direct result of Sam Adams sending Summer Ale out at the beginning of April, and it's starting to annoy me. It's getting to the point where I need a beer spreadsheet to keep track of what seasonals are available when. Actually, that's not a terrible idea...

I'm getting sidetracked. Simcoe Spring is a slightly hazy copper beer that poured from the bottle with a nice fluffy head nearly two fingers high. (I did not drink the beer from my newly acquired pint glass, as that was hanging out in the packie and probably should be washed before use.) The head faded away fairly slowly, and it left a heavy lacing behind. The aroma is a bit hoppier than I remember it being at the tasting, but that could be because I tried the Hop Noir first, and its intense hoppiness dulled my senses. I'm getting some piney and citrusy hop notes, which makes sense given that this beer probably uses Simcoe hops. Unfortunately, this means that the beer I picked because I thought Kate might like it too is obviously going to fail in that department.

This is a nice citrusy beer, although the hop bitterness isn't nearly as much as the aroma might led you to believe. It's still hoppy, but it's an easily manageable amount of hoppiness. Maybe even someone who avoids hoppy beers would enjoy it. There's not really any maltiness here, so the hops have the whole stage to themselves. It's a fairly carbonated beer, but it's still pretty smooth. The finish is a little bitter, and there's a mild aftertaste of pine.

Final thought - Everything about this beer seems like it would be enjoyable in the gradually warming spring weather, which makes it baffling that it is around in January, February and March. I should probably write myself a note to pick some of this up next year and store it for later, but I am lazy and I won't. I will make a point of saying that this is a nice beer, and I would be glad to drink it again.

-Jon