Great Divide Brewing Co - Oak Aged Imperial Stout

Wow, has it really been almost two months since I last posted a review, let alone a post on my blog????!!!!! Things have definitely been crazy here, not that I'm making excuses. But I can gladly say that soccer has returned to my life!!!! Not only is it World Cup time, but last week I actually broke out the old boots and helped with a youth soccer camp. Damn I'm out of shape. Today was the first day I got out of bed without the aches and pains I'd had all last week. But mad did it feel good to get out there again and kick the ball around and run. I miss this sport so much. Why can't Rolla have an adult league??? Yes, there's a league here, but they play on a basketball court at The Center... Not gonna happen.

Speaking of soccer, how about the tie yesterday??? Yes, we got a fluke goal, but we got a goal and tied England. We have yet to lose to them in the World Cup. Yes we are a big 1-0-1 against them blokes!! I can honestly say that I had picked England to win our group with us coming in second. Now it's all up in the air. I really think that Friday's game against Slovenia is going to make or break us, who would've thunk that????

Well I regress, now that I've already had a couple sips of my Yeti, I'm already starting to feel the "Imperial"ness of it. It pours dark as molasses with a very dark, bubbly head. The head finally calms down, but leaves its tracks on the side of my glass.

Everything about it screams IMPERIAL. I can smell the chocolate and roastiness of a stout. I can also smell the alcohol of it. Not complaining there. Upon first sip I can tell this is oak aged. Oak just seems to give a smoothness to everything it touches. Being a wine drinker as well, I love a Norton (Missouri represent!!) aged in oak. I am also detecting the hops. Very smooth. I can smell, the alcohol, but don't detect the alcohol warmth that I have in imperial stouts before. This is definitely a plus.

The after taste is smooth. I have a thin coating on my mouth, but I don't get the bitterness you would expect from a beer that boasts 75 IBUs. This is a very well balanced brew. Overall, I'd rate this a 49/50. I will definitely pick up another one of these again sometime.

Now I hope to have a couple more posts up this month and next. July is our families annual trip to Colorado. As usual we will be hitting up Fort Collins for there wonderful breweries, but this year we are also hitting Colorado Springs and Oskar Blues in Lyons. I plan to keep everyone up to date as we travel and sip the brews.

Till next time, U-S-A!!!!

Southern Tier's Un*Earthly Imperial IPA

After I got home this evening, I decided to take the dogs outside and relax on our new lawn chairs. I decided, why not try a beer that RJ and Christie gave me. Seeing that is was a warm evening, I went for the IPA.

Southern Tier Un*Earthly Imperial IPA


Wonderful aroma. Well balanced. I can detect the Cascade and Chinook hops. A wonderful combination of the "C" hops. Mild malt aroma. Slightly copper in appearance with good head retention.

The flavor is a little more malty than a normal IPA. This is very interesting and tasty!! My only problem is the diacetyl that I detect. It is the "buttery popcorn" flavor that many have described. This is definitely not a flavor that is found in IPAs. The inclusion of red wheat is most intriguing.

What a wonderful mouthfeel. There is great carbonation and some slight alcohol warmth. No astringency is present.

I would have to give this beer a 44/50 just do to the diacetyl I detected. Would I try this again? Most definitely. The 11% ABV is a nice touch to this well balance IPA. Perfect for an evening of unwinding and enjoying the warmer season outdoors!!

Weston's Drop Kick Ale

I'm back after a little hiatus from reviewing. The weather here is wonderful now, so I'm trying to spend more time outside. However, spending time outside makes me want to drink more beer.....

About a month ago I picked up a six pack of Weston Brewing Company's Drop Kick Ale. What first attracted me to the beer was the pledge that Weston made to donate money to the KC soccer club for every 6 pack or keg sold of the DKA. Being a soccer fiend, this was right up my alley.

After I opened the bottle and poured a little I got a very caramel, malty smell. Perfect for this category. There was a mild hop aroma with no esters. DKA is copper in color with good clarity. A thin ring of bubbles persist after the pour.

There is a nice bready malt flavor. Good balance bitterness. I didn't detect any DMS. I noticed a slight diacetyl flavor, but this is common. There is a medium mouth feel. Great carbonation and no alcohol warmth. There is a minor astringency, but smooth overall.

This is a great example of a Brown Ale. The DKA has a very pleasant taste and easy drinking. I would definitely buy another 6 pack.

Bahamian Brewing Company

Definitely been awhile since I blogged. Things have been crazy.... The wife and I just got back last week from our honeymoon. A wonderful cruise to the Bahamas. Great food and some good beer.

As is customary for our vacations, we had to tour a brewery. I had read that there was a brewery in Freeport, Grand Bahama, so we had to check it out. While walking around Port Lucaya and sampling the food (had some great fried conch) we talked to a couple taxi drivers to see what it would cost to get to the brewery and then to the cruise ship. We finally found a cab that would do the whole trip for $30.

He had obviously never been there before, our first stop was at an actual liquor store. He obviously had not been to the brewery before, luckily he got directions from the liquor store. It was just down the road and on the left. We pulled in and as you can see by the pic, it looked just like a warehouse.

We went inside to what is actually a liquor store that sells the beer that is produced at the brewery and other alcohol. We asked about a tour and sadly were told that tours were by appointment only and that maybe we could get one the next day. Only problem, our cruise left port in a couple hours. When we thought we were screwed, we learned what true Bahamian hospitality was. One of the guys offered to take us through the brewery even though he didn't know much about it. He worked with the finished product.

So I gladly explained the process of brewing to our guide and our cab driver, yes, he came in with us. At the very end, our guide asked if I had had any of their beer before. I told him I had actually had their Sands pilsner for lunch, but that was it. So he pulled out his keys and opened a door for us. Low and behold, the tasting room......

The Bahamian Brewing Company offers four different brews. Sands (pilsner), Sands Light, Strong Back Stout and High Rock (lager). My favorite would have the be the stout. It was very smooth. Great balance and mouth feel. Just a great beer all together, even Becca enjoyed it.

I sampled the stout and lager while Becca and the cab driver had just the stout. Yes, our cab driver had a beer with us!! Can't beat that. We had to stop by the gift shop on the way out and buy some merchandise to remember this great brewery.

Did I forget to mention this brewery has only been around for 3 years? Check out more about this brewery from their website.

www.bahamianbrewery.com/

Magic Hat #9

Here's my first beer review!!

Magic Hat #9 - A "not quite pale ale". I would defiently have to agree with Magic Hat's description. It uses the crystal and pale malt like a typical pale along with the classic Cascade hop and a new hop, Apolo. This new hop isn't available for homebrewers yet. It is a high alpha acidic hop (15-19%).

Overall, it was nice, crisp and clean. A little estery and some slight notable corriander. Not much after flavor or bitterness. Poor head retintion. Definitely a british pale ale, an IBU of only 2o and british yeast. I would call this a session beer, low ABV (5.1%). Good for the summertime, especially after working outside.

Would I rush out to the store to buy some, no. Would I turn one down if offered, no.

I'd give it 3 out of 5 beer mugs.

My Double IPA

Well I've always been a fan of the hops. It started with American Pale Ales. I loved the citrus, floral kick of the hops. Then I had my first IPA. It was 75th Street's Good Hope IPA in Kansas City. I was blown away. Since then, if I can find an IPA in the store or at a restaurant or brewery, I have to try it.

Then I heard about Pliny the Elder from my SoCal friend RJ. Living in Rolla, MO doesn't afford me the opportunity to imbibe in this highly regarded beer. Luckily I'm an AHA member and get Zymurgy. I noticed in one of my issues they interview Russian River Brewery and they gave a recipe.

I modified it a little by substituting Cascade hops for the Centennial hops. Kept the Columbus and Simcoe hops. Other than that, I stuck to the recipe. I tried something different this time though. I did a cold crash on the secondary to really drop the sediment. Only problem, it was too cold for the yeast to interact with the sugar fully. This left me with an under carbonated beer. Was I pissed. There was some minor carbonation, but not enough. It had great flavor, it was just missing that extra umph of carbonation.

So luckily for Christmas my dad got me a Corney keg and his old 20 lbs CO2 tank. So today I finally assembled the tank and keg, transferred the beer, injected it with CO2 at 16 psi and put it in the beer fridge.

Here's to hoping it works!!

PS - I haven't named the beer yet, so if anyone reads this and has some ideas, let me know.

My take on the canned Craftbrew

My family and I always travel to Colorado in the summer to camp, enjoy the outdoors, and enjoy the wonderful craft beer of the state. This past year, by dad and I were at the local liquor store deciding on a six pack when we saw Oskar Blues Dale's Pale Ale. We thought, pale ale in a can??? We gotta try this.

I went to crack open the first one and couldn't help but imagine the taste of Bud Light before it touched my lips. Wow!! What a shock. Hops galore!! This was already a winner in my book being such a hop head. And yet eveytime I took a sip, the hop flavor surprised me.

Did I think much else about the canned craft brew after that? Not really, not until recently when I started using Twitter and following some great bloggers (@hoptopia, @TheBeerWench, and @AndyTheBeerman). I started reading blogs and learned that there are great reasons for going with cans.

One is the seal, bottles are either crimped on or twisted on. In a sense, there is only one seal where as with cans, there is a double seal. As any homebrewer knows, a bad crimp in a bottle cap will ruin a beer. I am very fortunate that my wife has only crimped one bottle cap poorly, what a trooper!!

Secondly is the lack of light that will affect the beer. As most homebrewers know, brown is the best way to go. It limits the amount of light that enters the bottle.

Also, cans are lighter than bottles, more easily recycled and more easily stacked on stored shelves.

So far I've only had two canned craft brews, Dale's Pale Ale and Caldera's IPA. I enjoyed my Caldera's on a float trip this past weekend. It was snowing and 27 degrees out, so I wasn't swirling it around to review it. My goal is to find all of the craft beer that is canned and review them.

My only problem is that I live in Missouri. The majority of our canned beer is AB-Inbev. I know of a few liquor stores I can hit up in the bigger towns. I also plan to make a trip to Oskar Blues this July. If anyone has suggestions or canned beers they want reviewed, let me know. I plan to keep a running list of canned craftbrew.

I do need to give credit to a couple blogs for my inspiration:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/01/serious-beer-canned-craft-beers-reviews.html

http://stephweber.hoppress.com/2010/02/12/cans-not-just-for-pbr-anymore/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Stay tuned for more....