Beer In Review

The beer pours a beautiful deep red color. Beer is pungent and sweet to the nose. Flavors immediately start off strongly sweet, just teetering on the edge of cloying. Notes are reminiscent of a dense chocolate cake. This does not last long, as a pile of hops tumble into the mix. The sweet and chocolatey things about this beer are rapidly doused in bitterness. I had a quite successful Valentine's with my wonderful girlfriend (who helped support me in my silly year of beer) but were I to find myself without her, this beer would be one of the first places I would turn, for its character and flavor are one of bitter regrets, loneliness and self-indulgent heartbreak.

It's been a great year all, thanks for indulging me.

This is the first bottle-fermented lager I can recollect having. As such, the first thing I noticed was how dry it is. This dryness turns into a quite bitter after taste. In fact, if you didn't tell me this was a lager I would swear it was a pale ale. Hiding at the tip of the beer is a delicat sweetness. I say it is hiding in the front, because it is rapidly chased away by the dryness, to the point that you almost forget it was ever sweet.

I probably have talked a lot of shit about Samuel Adams beer over time, but really I have respect for them and if I ever had any doubt in them, it is beers like the Stony Brook Red that work to restore my faith. The beer is a pungent mix of sourness, hearty malts and just there bitters. Sourness is not off the charts, but it is quite there, and anyone picking up this beer expecting the mild flavors of a Boston Lager will be blown away. As with most sour beers, I detect a lot of sweetness, but I find it more in the heaviness of the beer than in actual sweet flavor. There is also a slight, bitterness that nicely punctuates the sourness and masks the sweetness. 

ONe of the best IPAs to have ever touched my lips. Clearly, hops are the highlight of this beer. They are magnificently represented. The beer eschews extreme hop bitternes. The hops are quite sweet, relatively, and pacekd with a pine sap aroma. There is a potent flavor that I would describe as syrupy hops.

This is a delightful sweet belgian. It is pleasantly sweet with noticeable orange and lemon notes with strong wheats. Coriander is subtle but definitely there in the beer. Beer is exceptionally light, but the wheat really lends a sense of gravity to it. 

Sweet and delicate, like a fine zucchini bread? What I am saying is that this beer manages to be hearty feel but light and sweet in character. It has a real vegetable quality to it while proffering an olive branch to candy lovers. 

This beer made me sit up straight and pay attention. What appeared by bottle to be just another craft beer version of a German beer, was in fact a superb take on the style. Immediately one is struck by a smoked campfire like smell and flavor. What follows is a batch of warm creamy earth-toned malts. There is a sweetness and poetic nature to these malts that speaks of fields of barley and the smells of fresh farmed oats that I found inspiring, if not a bit cheesy when written. What I find the highlight of this beer is its perfect balance of thes acerbic smoky flavors with the creamed sweetness of the malts. Truly amazing.

This is an expertly made stout. There is nothing bad to say about it, from a beer lovers perspective. It is exceedingly crisp with sharp spiced coffee flavor. Malts are sweet, but not overwhelming and are full of a dry depthiness. (Haven't you heard? Depthiness is the new up and coming flavor in beer.) Really nothing about this beer feels sloppy or half done, just a crisp, flavorful, 

In a word, this festive bock is bittersweet. Sweetness comes in the form of warm caramel malts and roasted oats. Bitters follow in sharp, almost sour, hops and further darkly roasted malts. 

Pére Noël pours a dark cloudy amber. IT is heavy with wheat and oats a d populated with a dulled bitter flavor. Hops come off a bit peppery to me and overall the beer seems to have some spice to it. Pretty interesting beer.