A BevMo sale bottle. Off the P&P: Initial nose was sweet and jammy with blackberry. Initial taste was rather tart though. Tannins around the edges, a little tight there but the rest is like a half deflated gumball. I can't decide if this is flabby or just needs some time.
Man, I am really impressed with these Beer Camp brews. So impressed that I am opting for the last variety in my case, even passing over the bottle of DFH Palo Santo Marron that's been burning a hole in my refrigerator shelf. I'm not very familiar with the style though, and it's a little confusing. Bocks are something of a strong lager. Doppelbocks are obviously double strength bocks. Dunkel/hefeweizen is a dark/light wheat ale (though 'hefe' apparently means 'yeast'). Weizenbock, then, is a bock strength wheat ale.
Yet again, I am impressed by the depth of these beers. Hefe flavors up front, but they get one-upped by the strong spicy wit character that charges onto the palate. A touch of citrus on the back end. Seriously, this is like the all the best parts of Blue Moon, Hoegaarden, and some other great hefeweizen. I'd like to try it next to another couple pours, one with an orange slice and one with a lemon wedge. There is some sediment in the bottle, but I didn't notice until I had finished the pour. At 6.8%ABV, it's a little high for sessioning, but it's full enough that you don't want to pound them down too quickly. A 6-pack of these would make for a lazy afternoon.
I don't drink black ales that often. I suppose that may change as Cascadian darks/IBAs become more developed. I don't think it's a style I come across very often either. From the pour to the bottom of the glass, this was a great brew. As soon as I started pouring, I got a fruity whiff. The head looked good, fluffy and I thought this might be a stout for a moment. First sip was a knockout. Deep and wide, the malt complexity is beyond even a lot of stouts I've had. Tons of coffee, chocolate, cocoa, dirt, all things good and brown. The mouthfeel is smooth and creamy without going full-on Guinness Draught nitro. The density is there, just between the standard porter and strong stout. And this is a black ale. Plenty of lacing down the glass. I almost wish they had a little extra sweetness to complement the chocolate, but I'm glad they didn't. It keeps the flavor robust until the very end where there is the hint of milk chocolate. Easily a dessert beer, it'd go with a big, fat chocolate cake pretty well.
After much hype, I have finally decided to try a Coppola wine: PS, naturally, and of course, on sale. P&P tasting: A bit spicy up front, peppery, but not a lot else. Maybe some earthy woodiness bordering on gritty. Maybe like a decomposing log. Classy. No legs to speak of. Tannins are lying pretty low until the end. A little oily. Currently: not impressed.
I was pretty pumped to try this DIPA from Camp #29. I love IPAs and imperial IPAs and lately, there's also double IPAs. I don't recall seeing many being labeled as DIPAs until recently. Rather than being straight-up imperial IPAs, there appears to be a bit of a distinction, in my experience. DIPAs are certainly stronger than IPAs but a touch lower in ABV than IPAs. This one is 8.5%ABV. The malt character is still present, and there is noticeable restraint on the hopping. The result should be a extra hoppy but still well-balanced IPA with an extra kick in the pants. Imperial IPAs, I find to be more "no brakes, no brakes!". So DIPAs are waltzing a fine line between IPA and imperial IPA.
Anyway, the pour was a hazy orange. The head retention wasn't great but swirling the glass halfway through, I could produce a luxurious, superfine head. There wasn't much I could get out of it at that point other than big ass hops. And hoppy, it was. Well-balanced too. No blowouts or 1-D stuff here. Not a hop bomb but more like a hop cluster bomb, superbly complex, persistent, and long-lasting. Finish was clean with no stickiness, excess resin, or off-flavors. The glass even finished clean, no lacing.
Maybe it's the homebrew character that makes me dig it so much, but I like this beer a lot. There's a million IPAs out there, but this one was made by a regular guy at beer camp and that's awesome. It's a confident beer. I don't think I would want to sit down and have more than one or two though, especially on its own. Even typical bar snacks may not hold up well here, but a spicy (specifically Thai) entree might be good.
Found myself in Beltramo's one day and saw these Best of Beer Camp cases from Sierra Nevada. I had been getting a bit burned out on all the heavy stuff I'd been drinking (stouts, porters, brown ales, malt-bombs) so some solid lighter ales sounded awesome. It's only appropriate that I start off the pack with the California Common. I don't drink Commons very often, mostly because Anchor is only so great and there simply aren't that many others out there. Since I don't have a lot of experience with this style, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. If it were just another Anchor, that would have actually been ok with me tonight.
I felt some noticeable weight in the pour and the head died quickly so that was interesting. I gave it a sip and was blown away. This was like a solid pale ale with malts taking stage over the hops. Up front, it was sweet and more intensely so than its appearance would indicate. It gave way to some citrus and grass before kicking in just the right amount of hop bitterness on the finish. Carbonation was refreshing and held up through the glass. The body was noticeably thick, if you think about lagers or ambers. It held itself together well despite the carbonation level, and it imparted almost a creaminess to the sweetness. This is a great beer, and I would be perfectly happy to have a summer picnic dinner off the grill and drink nothing but these all night.
Picked up Anderson Valley's rendition of a dubbel the other day. I'm starting to feel some revival of my interest in Belgian beers after that Arend Tripel. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed them. Head died off immediately while I was fiddling with my camera, so that's a bad sign. Smell is pleasant but not quite on style. Taste is pleasant but not quite on style. Mouthfeel is pleasant but not quite on style. This is a weird beer. It's definitely an "abbey -style ale" with some emphasis on the "-style". It's pretty malty with some fruity notes but it's just not all there. At the end of the day, it's not a bad beer and is easy-drinking. It's like a batter in the box, full count after a couple swings and misses, and then getting beaned. I don't know what that means.
Also, I finally got a new camera, so that's great. My hand was a little forced because I was starting to notice the sensor defect on my Casio Exilim P&S (which I had bought to replace my older, and apparently high grade Exilim, whose shutter stopped working) more and more. Scored a sweet deal on a Pentax K100D, and the picture quality is so much better. It's amazing what a little DoF control can do for a viewing experience. Not playing with any editing yet but I'll take some time to do at least some cropping eventually.
Picked up a couple new beers from WF tonight after a week of disappointing drinks. Anderson Valley is an ok brewery so far. Nothing super distinctive but not bad. Kinda bored with it. But good grief, it's worlds better than that Drake's Denogginizer. This at least tastes like an IPA.
Totally random loose can from WF. No idea why there's one can of a winter seasonal hanging around, but I didn't ask too many questions. Yoink. Also, unintentionally poured into a matching glass. I love matching things. 'Fireside chat' is a reference to FDR's fireside chats so I suppose that's why he's on the can. ALSO, I don't know how I ended up with all these darker beers in the middle of summer.
Pop and pour impressions. Immediate nose is crushed blueberries and blackberries and rich, earthy mud. Full-bodied in the mouth, initially a touch of tartness but the tannins unwind quickly into a luscious velvet rug. Pleasant astringency. For 2009, it is pretty decent already. Picking up on some strawberry; oak, as well, if you let it linger. Fairly round up front, almost a bit mushy but firms up well enough. Looking for a bit more intense flavor though. We'll see how it develops after some air.
A loose bottle from WF's Belgian beer section. After the Arend, I was looking forward to this one. Upon closer inspection of the bottle, this is indeed imported but has a weird label. Ok, gave it a pour, and it looks ok. Gave it a smell. No spice, no sweetness, just some wood, sour fruit, and a bit of funk. Taste is flat, thin on the malt, thin on every nuance except for that metallic finish. It's both weird and totally plain at the same time. I can't really quite put my finger on it. I'm nto even sure what kind of beer this is supposed to be. From context, I would assume a dubbel or tripel. Strength, 6%ABV, would lean towards dubbel. It looks a little like a dubble. But it doesn't smell or taste like a double. What gives?
A gander at BA says this is supposed to be a tripel and reviews are mixed. It averages a B+ but I saw a few Cs on the most recent reviews. Bad bottle maybe or just a regional twist on the style. Some other folks picked up on floral, and that might be the weirdness I perceived before. Lilac was mentioned, I would add lavender and a notion of flower petals.
After that incredibly disappointing so-called imperial IPA, I almost wanted to give up drinking for the day. But then I remembered that I have a backlog of beers to review. So here we go with the Bison Organic Imperial Brown Ale. I realize that trying another "brown" beer could be a bad idea after trying to drink that wonky imp IPA brewed with menstrual blood, but I have faith in Bison.
The pour was a little disconcerting as it was rather still. A tiny head did develop though it didn't stick around long. Nearly opaque in color. Smell is roasty, toasty, dirty, dark chocolate so there's a nice complexity to the nose. Of course, taste is the most critical point for me. I have a history of shaming many a brown ale for not being Blackstone Nut Brown Ale. I've just come to expect that nuttiness and residual sweetness. To me, nut brown ale are simply more enjoyable to plain brown ales. As expected, there was not enough nuttiness here but also not very much sweetness, which is surprising to me. I would expect a higher final gravity here. The extra malt is present, but I still think it could have done with a bit of extra nonfermentable sugar.
I still think this is a pretty good beer though. The taste is clean and balanced, but it's just more of a cooler weather beer. Not sure what kind of food pairing I'd go with here. It's no dinner beer and pairing with a chocolate dessert is pretty cliche. ... Just tried it with a medjool date, and it wasn't that great. I'm going to go ahead and say this would probably be good with oatmeal or granola. ... Yeah, works with granola and peanut butter chips, probably more so with the peanut butter. I think part of it is getting that extra sweetness but the granola adds the extra overall body to the robust but relatively light-feeling beer.
Random pickup from WF. Drake's is a regional-ish brewery that I had been planning on visiting but after this one, I might be reconsidering. There is nothing quite right about this beer. Maybe I got a bad bottle. Maybe. But the reality is that this beer is brown. It is an imperial IPA. Already off to a bad start. Head retention is low but not surprising. Aroma was pungent and strong but not in the bagged pellet hop kind of way, more like a vegetal, dark-salad-greens-going-mushy kind of way. A tinge of metallic, maybe little roasted malt. I enjoy high IBU beers and this is no lightweight at 90 IBU, but again, something is not right. taste is too malty, too toasty to the point of being burnt with an unpleasant, stale hop finish. It doesn't come off as 90 IBU, and there is no balance to the hop character, no distinctive hop flavors or aromas. It reminds me a bit of a time in high school when a crate of pears got left in the trunk of a car for a couple months and baked in the sun everyday. Oh, I just got the notion of coagulated blood as well. That burnt taste is actually a bit rusty.
Just taking a look at the bottle now, this received a silver medal at GABF 2009. Honestly, I have to believe that this must be a bad bottle because this is a terrible beer to have won a silver at GABF. Unless there were only two beers in the Imperial IPA category that year. Even then, I would be hesitant to award a medal to such a screwy output.
You guys, I'm not even going to finish this beer. It's that bad. Move on the the next review which is what I did.
Loose bottle from WF. I haven't had a bonafide tripel in a while. I used to spend a lot of time in the Belgium aisle at my local bottle shop. I'm not sure how I relocated since then back to IPA country, but this is a welcome change of pace. Pour from a standard 11.2 oz bottle made a beautiful, luxurious head, excellent head retention with heavy lacing. Creamy with a little bit of maltiness to round out that Belgian spiciness. The complexity is too awesomeMYMINDISBREAKING. I should really spend more time on Belgian beers. I wish I had more words to describe this one. Bottom line is that it's just a great, enjoyable beer. It is 8%ABV, so this is a dangerous one. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but this one feels like a hit.s
Description on bottle: "Tripel / Belgian-style Ale brewed with rice and Thai basil". Not going to lie, this could get pretty weird. But after stopping by their tasting room, I trust them. They do inventive, creative recipes, and none have been terrible. The bottle also says "SUMMER FUN". Ok then.
Thick head off the pour quickly settles down to a persistent cap with a steady stream of bubbles. I get some lemongrass in the nose along with some of that typical Belgian witbier spice. Thai soups have a great blend of spicy and sour which can be initially confusing to the palate. I kind of feel that way with this one. There's a lot going on, but I'm having trouble separating all the elements, many of which are very brief. Rice is obviously mild; I think I catch a bit of it on the finish. Overall, this is certainly a drinkable, enjoyable beer, but I'm not sure if it's memorable. Certainly, the notion of rice and Thai basil will stick with me, but I don't think I would be able to recall the taste in the future.
Another sale item from BevMo. Pop and pour tasting: Immediate jammy nose with a bit of alcohol heat on the tail. Tannins are very mellow, round and relaxed. The puckering is a little on the weaker end but it's also not flabby. Note that this is 3 years older than the Vigilance PS I recently had. Very juicy blackberry with some toasted oak around the edges. I'm having this glass with a spicy red lentil soup with beef, so it's assertive enough as long as there's not too much pepper sauce added. I think it'd taste better with a grilled steak, but lots of things do.
Picked a few wines the other week from BevMo. It's a bit weird to think that I have not drank any wine this summer, despite being in the most well-known wine producing state. Then again, this is also craft brew country for me. So cheers.
Sourced from Red Hills, Lake County. Tasting notes on the bottle: 25.0 and 26.5 degrees Brix, French and American oak for 18 months; "Well balanced wine. Notes of Blueberry, Blackberry, and creamy vanilla." I am getting primarily blueberry but the tannins are super astringent on this one. Extremely tight off the pop and pour. I'll only have a glass or two tonight and see how it does with some breathing time tomorrow.
After a day of exposure, the tannins have unwound a lot, making it finally drinkable. The typical velvet is present. Berry flavors are all accounted for, though a bit flat. Grape jam, even more blueberry, with barely a blackberry tart. Nothing offensive but nothing to write home about. Of the $10-12 class PSes I've had, this is solidly in there. I should probably try harder on these reviews too.
Bomber sitting in the fridge for a while. I have too many options at this point, when selecting a new beer for the night, and I haven't even gotten into wines this season. A standard IPA, it tastes like a standard IPA. In such a crowded space, that's not really something you should expect. Unfortunately, Rubicon IPA is very vanilla. It more or less hits all the markers but there's nothing memorable or outstanding. The hoppiness is pleasantly high for a regular IPA, but I got a rather stale, hop pellet-y impression from it. There's not much else to say about its profile because of it. Which reminds me, I really wish I was more familiar with individual varieties' nuances. Hop tea party?
There's nothing offensive about this beer, but nothing impressive. In some sense, that's a terrible thing. Many breweries use IPAs as their flagship (but it would be great if there were breweries known for killer ambers, stouts, lagers, or something else), and producing a vanilla IPA in that space doesn't always leave the best impression, and in some cases, it doesn't leave any impression. Bland is one thing IPAs should not be.
Drove down to San Diego this past weekend for a pretty sizable beer tour. Over three days, we hit 9 breweries as well as the San Diego Zoo and Legoland in Carlsbad, which is probably the most epic thing I have ever seen in my entire life. The San Diego Zoo has a rep for being pretty awesome, and it did not disappoint. Of note, I have finally seen a giant panda in person. They are as hilarious as I expected.
A solid morning and early afternoon was well-spent. There is also the Safari Park, but we didn't have time for that this time around. We also fit in a couple hours at Legoland which is coolest place I have ever been. There were Lego builds of Vegas, San Francisco, New York, iconic battles from Star Wars, and plenty of random Lego builds throughout the park.
I should also mention that I didn't take notes. This was mainly in the interest of time as we had a fairly tight schedule. Plus, impressions should suffice. As I've said before, it's not always about good beers and bad beers. At the end of the day, there are beers you remember and those that you don't. First brewery on the list was Stone.
In Escondido, Stone is the largest in SoCal and, I believe, the largest craft brewery in CA. This place is the epitome of West coast philosophy and probably the beer mecca of the west. Their facility, of which I didn't think to take pictures at the time, is by far the nicest of any brewery I've visited. Their brewing floor is expectedly huge but is walled off by floor-to-ceiling glass panes which allow a view from their restaurant which is also fantastic. The high vaulted ceiling carrying over from the brewery makes for a wide open space and floor-to-ceiling glass on the opposing wall minimizes the separation from the indoor and patio dining sections. The ambiance is very big, uncrowded, simple, and natural...dare I say, organic. The food is naturally organic and local when possible and is quite tasty and fresh. I had a buffalo burger which is always nice to see. Beyond the patio is a small but walkable garden, complete with waterfall and pond. It's all done very tastefully and none at the expense of the other components, so bravo, Stone. They also said they're planning on opening up a hotel across the street which should be pretty epic. I will have to come back for that.
I had a Cali-Belgique IPA with my meal which was a great representation of the Belgian pale ale style. This was a beer I had been putting off for one reason or another, but seeing it on tap, I decided I probably wouldn't see that again anytime soon. I thought it was milder than Stone IPA and had a well-rounded spice profile that balanced well with the hop backbone. The Belgian influence is present, and all the bases were covered on this one. I would definitely drink this more often.
Their guest tap list was also pretty impressive. The Biscoff Break and Before, During, and After Christmas by Evil Twin Brewing, a brewery from Denmark.
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Tour was the standard spiel, and our guide was pretty funny and had a sweet beard. Tasting was four pours from the standard lineup, and the swag in their shop was pretty cool. They had swingtop potbelly growlers and swingtop 1L bottles; they also had a fill price for 40 oz Kleen Kanteens. They also had awesome glasses, a lot of different, unique styles for some of their specialties: tumblers for Double Bastard, tulips for pales, wide-mouth flutes for Vertical Epic, a pilsener-like glass for Arrogant Bastard. Cases of 15th Anniversary were up for early sale, which I would have liked to have bought but they weren't breaking up cases yet and my money probably would have been better spent elsewhere.
Green Flash was tucked away in a commercial park that also housed some genetics research places. Weird. Their tasting room was a large, cordoned area of their brewing warehouse and was run rather more like a bar. A nice touch was contracting with good-looking food trucks to provide the munchies. Their bar was very street fair-style but with way more taps, which came out of nondescript, white building which could have been a portable shed.
Palate Wrecker IPA, Trippel, Le Freak IPA, San Diego Saison, Cuvee Trippel, Double Stout, Sugar Smack Dubbel.
For dinner, we tried to get into Pizza Port at Solana Beach, but it was packed. We ended up just driving back to Carlsbad and got into the Pizza Port there, which was also busy, but larger and easier to find seating. The pizza was great and the draft list was pretty diverse. We got the Whambo IPA and Great American Brown. Whambo was a slappy IPA with a really strong hop character. I actually didn't get through the pint because I had a headache and it was just a bit too assertive after a long day.
Pizza Port was a fitting end to the day as Lost Abbey was the first stop the next day.
Lost Abbey is the Belgian-style side of Port Brewing. Their beers are bottled in bombers, corked, and pricey, but not without good cause. Left to right: Road to Helles, Witch's Wit, Serpent's Stout, Wipeout IPA, Mongo IPA, Old Viscosity Barley Wine.
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And then Devotion, Red Barn, Lost & Found, and Judgment Day. 
Devotion is a blonde ale which was average to me, maybe a little overcarbed, but I'm comparing to something like Leffe. Red Barn is a saison, nothing to say about it. L&F is a dubbel, Judgment Day a quad. Both were pretty tasty, and I might pick up some bottles to bring home.
The brewery itself is small but nice, previously inhabited by Stone. Despite being a random bar built in a warehouse as is typical, the staff and patrons made for a much better atmosphere.
Next stop was Ballast Point which was a new, high priority brewery for me ever since I saw their Sculpin IPA take top seat in a readers' poll for best IPA and, consequently, tried it. Tour was interesting since they talked about their continual expansion, basically knocking down walls and sprawling into the neighboring floor space of the commercial building. Ballast Point also has a budding distillery section though I didn't get to try any of that. I believe a vodka should be hitting shelves soon to be followed by a whiskey with rum and gin plans down the line. A bit diverse but Rogue has done just fine on that road. They also mentioned that eat batch of Sculpin takes $10K of hops. But the magnitude is lost on me since I don't know what they're paying for hops and which ones. We did the full board tasting: Wahoo Wheat, Ballast Point Pale Ale, Calico Amber Ale, Piper Down Scottish Ale, Black Marlin Porter, Sextant Oatmeal Stout on nitro, Fathom India Pale Lager, Big Eye Ipa, Sculpin IPA.
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The first round was fairly meh, porter was average, stout was super light with the nitro line. Fathom IPL was an interesting twist and would like another shot at it sometime. Having had the Sculpin before, Big Eye didn't bring much to the table.
We headed over to Hess for their one-year anniversary bash. It was a lively event tucked away in a light commercial/warehousing district, complete with two food vendors, a t-shirt printer claiming to be able to screen a Hess shirt "in 6 minutes or it's free", and a band that was setting up as we were getting ready to leave. I went for the Unno Anum BPA, I suppose their anniversary brew, which came with the nice willi glass and discounts on fills. The Unno Anum was pretty good, and it wasn't something I expected to see from such a new, small brewery. We also had tasters of their porter, a rye imperial stout, and the orange honey wheat.
Around the corner from Hess was AleSmith. I had never heard of this brewery until recently, by happenstance really, trolling Google Maps for random breweries. They are highly rated, and for an SD brewery, that means a lot. In fact, their distribution only appears to go as far as north as LA so I guess I'm lucky I bought the bottles I did. Had I known just how limited their distro was, I would have bought more. Left to right: IPA, Old Numbskull Barley Wine, Speedway Stout, Grand Cru, Nautical Nut Brown, Anvil ESB.
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All the beers at AleSmith were quite good, and it's not common for a brewery to have a big lineup and nail it on every one of them. A well-deserved rep.
On the way back to the Bay Area, we stopped at the Bruery in LA, rolling in a few minutes before opening. A fish taco truck was parked outside. We forewent the snack as we were headed to another ale house nearby for lunch. The Bruery was a nice setup, and I liked their flight tasting mechanism. You buy in for 5 pours, get a nice full-size tulip, and 4 bottlecaps to cash in for your next 4 pours. Kinda cute.
Salt of the Earth (geuze with truffle salt) and Saison de Lente. SotE was crazy and killer. I tried to get a few bottles but they were all out. I could definitely taste the salt and truffle influence, a very interesting beer.
Cuir 3rd Anniversary Old Ale and Black Orchard (dark wit bier):
Batch 300 (oaked tripel with citra hops) and Loakal Red:
Iniquitus (Belgian golden strong) and Bierbauch (oaked imperial maibock):
Acer Quercus (smoked brown ale) and Run BMC (imperial pilsner):
Mischief (hoppy Belgian golden strong):
We stopped for lunch at Ladyface on the way out of LA. The draft list was not bad for being an eatery, and we got a flight of part of their offering. La Blonde (I think), Trois Filles Tripel, Ladyface IPA, Chesebro IPA, Picture City Porter.
Most were so-so but I remember the the porter had chocolate shavings on top. The regular, Ladyface IPA, I thought was much better balanced and a better drinker than the Chesebro IPA, which is actually a too-blown-out imperial. Food was decent though rather overpriced for the portions. It was bit of an anti-climactic finish after the Bruery and the weekend in general, but you make do with what you get.
Naturally, I also got a lot of swag: about 9 bombers, though a few of them are extras to trade back home; a glass at pretty much every place; and a shirt and a sweatshirt, my first brew-related clothing. I figured I needed to be able to show some cred at brewfests. I'll take a big picture of all the glass and swag when I get back at the end of the summer.
I forget why I finally picked this up or why I had been putting off picking it up. I had a bottle last week and remember it being good but I already had a few drinks in me so that's not really the best indicator. I've been sick recently so this is the first beer I've had since.
The pour looked nice though the head faded a bit quickly. However, I could see some bubbles continually rising. Smell is fairly mild but is predominantly hot oatmeal and chocolate chips. The taste matches; solidly chocolate on the tongue, finishing like a piece of high-content dark chocolate right down to a bitter finish. I think a bit of residual sweetness would have been nice. I can definitely see this pairing well with a dark, savory beef stew or French dip, but not chili or stroganoff. I'm thinking things with strong brown gravies or simple, unadulterated beef and not acidic. Maybe a shaved corned beef and swiss on dark rye or pumpernickel. A fruit (figs?) and cheese plate or chocolate would be tasty as well, but I don't know enough about cheese to make any recommendations. MAYBE SOME DAY. Getting pretty hungry now.
Picked up a few ginger beers/ales from WF some time ago. I've always like ginger ale (which is what everyone must get from the drink serve on an airplane) and found ginger beer to be rising in popularity lately, but this summer, I have been killing it on the ginger scene. Ginger teas, ales, beers, all pretty good stuff.
Reed's Ginger Ale uses 25% pineapple juice and some honey, lemon, lime, spice and obviously ginger. It is gluten, caffeine, and preservative free. They also add "Fresh Ginger" to the nutritional information on the back. I don't think I've ever seen juice used in a ginger ale. It gives a root-y, earthy taste up front. 17 grams of ginger bring the bite which is fairly mild but long-lasting. Compared to soda ginger ales like Canada Dry, it's less sugary but sweeter in a syrupy way. The lower carbonation might let that be more pronounced here.
I remember Vernor's ginger ale soda being quite good and highly carbonated. I think that's still my favorite ginger ale.
Yet another BevMo bomber. Ninkasi sounded familiar for some reason, but I can't think of when I would have come across the name. Based out of Eugene, OR, Ninkasi is apparently the name of a Sumerian goddess. Not sure if she blessed this beer or not. While Tricerahops is a cute name, there's not much double about this. The pour seemed promising. I got a nice hop aroma from about a foot away. The head faded quickly into a moss. The first sip was underwhelming. Hop intensity was thin and tinny and only on the back end. Maltiness is pretty thin despite looking a little darker and thicker. The only saving grace is the 8.8%ABV. I don't normally rate any IPA poorly but this one is something else. Nothing sits quite right in this one.
BevMo bomber. I went to a SF Giants game today (8-1, Giants) as part of an event so I thought it was appropriate to crack open this one tonight. Brewed, presumably, in response to the Giants' World Series win last year, pale two-row, crystal, black, and flaked Canadian malts make up the grain bill with a variety of sources. Mt. Hood and Liberty hops came from Yakima with oranges sourced in-state. 6%ABV
I initially dove into this beer without reading the label or BA. I picked up orange tones and initially thought this was a porter. A quick read on BA said this is actually a American Black/Cascadian Dark ale. My suspicions on the orange were validated after taking a read on the label. I've actually more appreciation for Cascadian darks now that they've finally put a name on the product. The whole "black IPA" just never jived with me and always left me disappointed. I found this beer to fairly enjoyable overall. I approached it more like a porter going in and liked it that way. I don't have enough experience with Cascadian darks to make a good judgment on its representativeness. So I'll abstain on that regard. A drink is a little creamy and balances well with the level of carbing. The orange flavors get drowned out for the most part during and as the pint wears on. After most of this bomber, I don't feel particularly full, which is a nice feature of Cascadian darks. It's under-hopped, but, in this case, acceptable to preserve the citrus. Overall, it's a decent beer and probably more interesting for Giants fans.
Moylan's is one of those breweries that I only got to read about on places like The Full Pint because they don't distribute so far east. California is full of these mythical breweries that are brewing killer IPAs, diverse flavors and pushing the envelope on styles, and that sort of craftsmanship helps the evolution and growth of craft brewing. Moylan's is on my list of breweries to visit but I couldn't resist have a taste.
This bomber is yet another from my BevMo haul. The Nor Cal IPA has a slew of awards from the CA State Fair and World Beer Championships, first one dating back to 1997. For a beer to be in a lineup for so long is a good sign, and along with multiple awards, indicates consistent quality. Label indicates it's dry hopped with two varieties. No doubt, this is a solid IPA. The hop intensity is great without being an imperial so the body is light as well. And a light body leans towards good drinkability. I found this substantial IPA to be quite drinkable on its own, and it'd go fine with a meal and not leave you feeling bloated. At 6.5%ABV, it's a bit high to be sessionable, but nevertheless, it's a great casual beer.
Part of the BevMo haul. Red Hook makes a sessionable ESB but I don't see or buy much Red Hook on the East coast. An imperial IPA from Red Hook? Ok, I'll bite. Of the 5 bottles I bought, 4 were imperial IPAs and one was a silly Chinese lager that came in a Buddha bottle. Hilarious.
Pour was looking might viscous into the pint glass. A look under light was surprising dark and reddish for an imperial IPA. Whenever I have an imperial IPA, I always have Southern Tier Unearthly in the back of my mind. Wonderful color, diverse hop profile in both smell and taste with a killer IBU. Big Ballard is not in that tier. The sweet malt up front was nice at first, got some tender apricot tones, but as this glass goes on, the malt starts to overpower the relatively mild hop bitter. I could probably be convinced that this is an imperial red or amber. A bit of a miss but not a bad beer, certainly. At 8.6%ABV, it's surprisingly drinkable despite some of the malt heaviness. I could knock back a few pints in a night but I wouldn't be that interested in what I'm drinking.
