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And now comes part two of the double header this week as the tour takes me all the way back west to the state of Idaho.  I don't have anything clever to say about Idaho really, minus maybe a pretty bad potato joke so I won't even take a crack at it.  I will say that I was glad to find a beer that came from this state. Considering how embarrassingly little I know about this place, I can now at least say that they have some craft beer that you can go purchase and enjoy.  

                                  The Grand Teton Brewing Company is based out of Victor Idaho and has been around since 1988.  They are also a regional brewer with their beer only being available in 15 of the 50 states, most of which are located out west (except for South Carolina, strangely).  They produce 10 beers in total, five of which are brewed year round and the other five are part of what they call the Brewer's series which are beers they make in larger bottles and are also available year round.  Bitch Creek is a type of beer known as an extra special/strong bitter, which I've never officially had before.  This style of brew is known by having a balanced approach to its hop and malt profiles and has similar taste characteristics to a porter.  I'm normally a fan of darker beers so I'm looking forward to tasting an unknown offering from an unknown state (at least to me).

Nuts & Bolts:

Color & Pour:  The color is similar to that of a porter with this beer having some hues of dark copper and deep red.  There is virtually no head much like the beer from earlier this week because of its overall low carbonation.

Smell:  It has a deep, earthy profile that could almost be mistaken for chocolate from the malts being used and just a little bit of floral notes peeking through from the hops.   

Feel:  It has a thicker feel than most porters or any other dark beers like brown ales or amber lagers.  It feels more closely associated to a stout but doesn't sit as heavy.

Taste:  It has a nice toasty profile that doesn't taste burnt, but in place of that burnt sensation you might have been expecting is the little bit of spice and bitterness you get from the hops.  Neither of these taste characteristics are overpowering of the other and you can experience both almost simultaneously.  

Rating:  4.5 out of 5 Pints

I managed to pick two good ones in a row after a brief string of frankly disappointing efforts from previous weeks.  The type of beer suggests something more similar in taste to an IPA but that is quite misleading.  It is noticeably hoppy but you also get great flavors of toasted malt as well.  It's a very well balanced beer and I can guarantee that if you enjoy darker beers, you'll enjoy this one among your usual favorites as well. 

Cheers,

As promised, this is the first beer of the double header that's coming your way this weekend and has taken me all the way out to the little state of New Hampshire.  I'll be honest for a moment, with this one I'm charting into some unmapped waters.  You may or may not have noticed that of all the different beer types I've chosen to highlight in this blog, I've never done an IPA and there's a reason for that; I simply don't like them.  Every IPA I've ever tried has always seemed bitter for the sake of being bitter and not really focusing on any other element.  It always seemed to be about who could be the most extreme instead of making an IPA that was well balanced.  But for the sake of expanding my own horizons as well as continuing to highlight as many different beers as possible in my writing, I'm willing to venture into the fire one more time.

                                  Smuttynose IPA is made by the Smuttynose Brewing Company based out of Portsmouth New Hampshire.  They've been around since 1994 and are currently in the process of building an entirely new brewing facility.  They are a regional brewer and according to their website, they serve beer all along the east coast and as far west as Wisconsin, so I guess I got lucky.  They produce 24 different beers with 5 of them being year round.  They also do something called a short batch series where they will only make 20 to 30 barrels of brand new recipes and then they're gone which I think is kind of unique.  The finestkind IPA that I'm having is one of the year round options and is described by the brewers as being lightly bodied, nicely balanced with it's hops, and a golden color that becomes hazy as they bottle it unfiltered.  It's 6.9% ABV and has gotten incredibly high ratings from the people over at beeradvocate.com.  Nothing left to say now but down the hatch.

Nuts & Bolts:

Color & Pour:  It does have a nice golden color with just a minimal glow of orange to it.  The head is thin and the color reminds me of a slightly off-white card stock.

Smell:  There is a nicely balanced floral aroma that feels surprisingly multi-dimensional.  On one hand, it smells a little spicy but also quite light and a little bit sweet with just a hint of fruit all simultaneously.

Feel:  It didn't feel as light bodied as I was expecting it would.  It feels very similar to many of the other American pale ales I've tried but is nicely balanced in weight and bubbles.

Taste:  Spicy right as it hits your tongue and then the bitterness from the hops starts to rush in right behind it.  Then you start to get some of the other taste notes as you continue onto your second and third sip with the little bit of citrus essence and it finishes just a little bit dry.  Overall you get the feeling of balance and ever so carefully measured ingredients to get these taste effects.

Rating: 4.6 out of 5 Pints

I was nervous about giving the IPA another try but I seem to have found a definite winner.  It certainly isn't a beginners IPA and if you're looking for something that's on the lighter side I wouldn't start with this but it's so incredibly well balanced in both flavors and the way it smells that it all comes together to make a truly enjoyable beer.  The Bros on beeradvocate rated this beer as world-class and I gotta say that it's hard to disagree with that assessment.

Cheers,

If you follow this blog you're probably already asking me " Didn't you already do a review on a stout?  There are so many other beers out there to review, why are you doing another one?"  Well there are a couple of reasons I'm writing about another stout, and this one specifically.  One is that I've already seen Leinenkugal's Summer Shandy on the shelves, which means summer seasonals will be coming out in full force very soon and stouts will be harder to come by.  Another reason is because the New Glarus brewery is located close to where I live and is very much a local favorite.  I would be doing a great disservice if I never wrote a review while I lived here about something New Glarus made.  And finally, I wanted to review this beer specifically because it is a seasonal beer that is only made bi-annually, meaning it won't be back on shelves again until late 2014-early 2015.

                                   The New Glarus Brewing Company is located in New Glarus Wisconsin and is about a 45 minute drive from where I live on the stateline with Illinois.  It's considered somewhat exclusive by the locals because it is only sold and served in Wisconsin.  According to beeradvocate.com, they currently have 30 active beers and have an overall rating of 95 out of 100 which is pretty remarkable.  New Glarus is a company that is always willing to try a new recipe and make a new beer.  But they also understand that they aren't always successful with what they make and will pull a beer that isn't selling and will simply discontinue it.  Some companies will make a beer that isn't very good and will keep trying to sell it to you anyway, which really doesn't do anyone any good.  Now for the tale of the tape.

Nuts & Bolts:

Color and Pour:  Like every stout it's a very dark brown, almost black but with no tints of red to it like most stouts.  This is probably because of the coffee that it's brewed with.  It has a toasted marshmallow colored head when poured and starts thick but gets pretty thin as you continue to drink it.

Smell:  Surprisingly, it smells almost nothing like coffee.  Kind of a slight shock actually.  Instead, it's sweet and malty, with just a little bit of floral scent from the hops on the back end.  The only way to really smell the coffee is if you stick your nose into the glass and breath deeply.

Feel:  It has a mouthfeel that is closer related to an amber ale than a stout, but with a slightly heavier flavor feel to the palate than a by the book amber ale could give you.

Taste:  Well for starters, there's coffee (obviously).  But the coffee flavor isn't overpowering of everything else.  You can still taste all of the malts and even just a hint of the hops.  It's sweet and noticeably toasty but generally mild in it's flavors compared to other stouts I've tasted, which in a way is a bit of a letdown.  You expect a stout to be this heavy, powerful and pungent beast in a glass and this just isn't.

Rating:  4.1 out of 5 Pints

I still give this beer a solid rating because although it isn't as powerful as many other stouts you'll encounter, all the elements work together nicely to give you an easy drinking beer with good flavor.  A friend of mine once described New Glarus like this.

"New Glarus as a company doesn't make any one beer that could be considered spectacular, but they make beers that are easy for beginners.  They won't win many blind taste tests compared to other beers of the same type, but they serve as a great stepping stone beer for anyone that is looking to try something new."

Well said.

Cheers,

First off, I'd like to wish everyone a happy St. Patrick's Day in advance, as I know many of you will be out at the bars when the sun comes up.  The only thing I ask is that at some point you put down that giant mug or cheap plastic cup filled with month old Miller Lite dyed green and instead enjoy a local craft beer instead.  Support small business and so on and so forth.

                       Anyway, onto the been for this week.  This beer comes to us from Victory Brewing Company based in Downington Pennsylvania.  Downington is located just under an hour west from Philadelphia and has just over 7,000 people.  According to beeradvocate.com, Victory Brewing Company has made over 100 beers since it came to life in 1996 and currenly is producing 24 different beers according to their own website.  Not bad at all for a brewery working in a town with only 7,000 people.  This beer is rated very highly on beeradvocate.com and the company itself has earned an overall score of 94 out of 100 which is also pretty incredible.  Now this beer I'm drinking is an american pale ale which means it should have a pretty even flavor and aroma of both malts and hops.  Enough talk, time to drink.

Nuts & Bolts:

Color & Pour:  It has a very rich, amber color that almost glows when you hold it up to light.  After you pour it into a glass, it has a bright white head that likes to stay on top, not very thick but noticable and clings to the glass as you drink it.

Smell:  It smells very floral and spicy, even a little bit earthy almost with a hint of tea to it.  Smells incredibly similar to an India Pale Ale but less intense.

Feel:  It feels thick as you're sipping on it because of the head that sits on top, but as you continue to drink it feels no different from any other light beer or lager.

Taste:  The first taste you can notice is the spice and floral notes from the hops which works together great with the malt base that gives it just that little bit of roasted flavor and slight bit of earthiness.  And it leaves a combination of both of these flavors in your mouth even after you've stopped drinking it.

Rating: 4.6 out of 5 Pints

This beer just seems to hit all the right notes. It tastes rich without being too heavy, it's spicy without being too intense, and the malts that were used just seem to perfectly blend in with the hops.  And even better than all that, it's a beer that would blend in with any situation.  It's great for those out there who may consider themselves aficionados who would enjoy the nicely balanced complexity of flavors, right down to the guy whose looking for a beer to bring to a tailgate to enjoy with his friends.  Hats off to the Victory Brewery for this one.  If your other beers are as good as this one, you've got a new customer for life.

Cheers,

If the title of this posts sounds pretty foreign compared to what I've been bringing you so far, you would be correct.  It is in fact Italian, but that's what caught my eye when I was looking for a beer to write about.  I gotta be honest though, I am not even slightly familiar with Italian beer or the style it's brewed in.  Hell, even the only english on the entire label is the Surgeon General warning that pregnant women shouldn't drink.  

                                     Peroni has been made in Rome since 1846 and according to beeradvocate.com, only has six beers currently being made.  It is classified as a European Pale Lager so the expectation of this style is that it will be very hoppy in flavor with some bitterness but will also have different malt notes due to it's lager style of brewing.  I've never tried a beer from Italy before so let's see what they've come up with.

Nuts & Bolts:

Color/Pour:  It has a very light, golden color to it and very bubbly when first poured.  It has a very thin head on it that disappears almost immediately once it's in the glass.  

Smell:  At first sniff, it has a very powerful odor of hops that completely mask anything else you might smell.  But if you let it sit in your glass for a minute and let it breath, you can start to smell some of the other grains and malt notes that were used in the brewing process.  Leave it to the Italians to make a beer that you have to let breath like a wine.

Feel:  Has the feel that any light beer can provide you, however it's also not very bubbly once you're drinking it so it won't sit heavy.

Taste:  To put it in overly simple terms, it tastes like Heineken Light.  Maybe less bitterness and hop flavor, but Heineken Light.  It's flavor is very mild, slightly malty and only slightly bitter from the hops on the back end.

Rating:  3.1 out of 5 Pints

The reason I was willing to give this beer above a three is because if you look at this from an objective standpoint, it covers all the bases of what a European Pale Lager should be.  It's hoppy (kind of), it's malty (definitely), and it has a pale golden color with a touch of bitterness (yes).  So if you are a fan of European style light beer that tastes very similar to a product like Heineken or Stella Artois, then you can add this to the list of safe bets.  Beyond that though, there isn't much else to say about it and that's kind of disappointing.  

Cheers,

Before I start in on this review,  I have to admit that I made a pretty rookie mistake when it came to choosing the beer I was going to write about.  It's been my mission since day one to try and avoid anything made by a large beer conglomorate and instead bring you smaller brands and craft brewers.  I was originally going to write about a gluten-free beer called Red Bridge.  I was excited about it too because I've never had a gluten-free beer and I was all set to drink it and report my findings to you all.  And then I discovered that it was made by Anheiuser Busch.  So after some feelings of disgust and general disappointment with myself, I got back in the car and returned to the liquor store to get a different beer.  This is the beer I chose.

                                      O'so Brewing Company is a microbrewery based in Plover, WI which is right off of I-39 going towards Steven's Point WI in the central part of the state.  According to their website, they are one of the fastest microbrewers in the state of Wisconsin and not too long ago opened up a bigger facility to keep up with demand.  The beer that I'm drinking from them this weekend is their summer seasonal called 3rd Wheel.  It's a Belgian Pale ale style beer brewed with rose hips and another ingredient called paradise seeds.  Along of course with all of the other ingredients that go into a Belgian pale ale such as aged hops and natural spicings and flavorings depending on whose making the beer.  Well it all sounds good so far so let's dive into it.

Nuts & Bolts:

Color/Smell:  Being that it's a Belgian Pale Ale, it has a blonde straw color with some orange tones added into it.  It has a slight white foamy head that doesn't remain with the beer while drinking it.  The smell is very floral but not in a traditionally hoppy way, but in a flower garden sort of way.  This probably has a lot to do with the rose hips along with the orange tones in the color.  It also smells spicy like cloves and you get a hint of that wheat smell from the brewing process as well. 

Taste:  To be honest, there isn't a whole lot to report on the taste.  You can taste the rose hip ever so slightly, but other than that there is no punch to this thing hardly at all.  You don't get any of the wheat tones until about two minutes after you've taken your first sip, there is no sensation of spice or clove at all, so all that's really left for you to taste is the light bitterness of the aged hops.  I will give it credit for one thing however, it has the appropriate mouthfeel for a pale ale.  It isn't too heavy and it's flavors are light, making it in some ways the ideal summer beer for people to drink.  

Rating: 2.8 out of 5 Pints

Courtesy of my favorite liquor store Everette's, this beer comes to us from Lakefront Brewery Inc. out of Milwaukee WI.  The brewery was founded in 1987 and according to beeradvocate.com, they have 35 active beers including their year-rounds and all of their seasonals.  Lakefront also boasts an overall rating of 91 out of 100, which is quite impressive considering the variety of beers they serve.  But I'm here to talk specifically about the Fixed Gear American Red Ale.

                                     This beer is 6.2% alcohol by volume and classfied as an american style amber/red ale.  In 2012, it took home the Silver Medal at the Great American Beer Festival for American-Style Amber/Red ale, so add that to the list of positive press for this company.  But that's enough of all the boring backstory and other information, on to the good part.

Nuts & Bolts:

Color/Smell:  Much like you would expect with an amber/red ale, it's certainly reddish in hue, but it also has tones of orange and even light brown, making it the sort of thing that perfectly reminds you of fall.  Just as a brief disclaimer I seem to have a bit of a head cold so I will do the best I can do describe how it smells.  It has a very floral and spicy aroma that comes off as very dry and hoppy toward the end.

Taste:  At first sip, there is a distinctive bitterness similar to an IPA that continues to linger as you drink it.  It has a mouthfeel almost similar to a stout so it feels almost thick as you're sipping it.  However the hops it's brewed with that give it that bitterness also gives it a pleasant floral taste that you can notice right away.  It's slightly sweet with only the smallest hint of caramel.  The dryness that I described in the smell of this beer does not seem to find its way into the taste, which is neither a good or bad thing just an observation.

Rating: 3.9 out of 5 Pints

This is the kind of beer best enjoyed with a meal of your choosing while out with friends.  It's refreshing without being too overly bitter or overly sweet.  It's only knocks are for being a little heavy on the stomach and having less of a head than I would have liked to have seen.  All in all, a solid beer.  

Cheers,

This beer was recommended to me by the Owner/Proprietor of Everett's Party store in South Beloit, Illinois named Matt.  Very nice guy, very knowledgable of what he has in stock.  If you live in the Wisconsin/Illinois stateline area, you owe it to yourself to check this place out.  While he was telling me about all the different types of stouts he had in stock and where they came from, this one caught my eye because being the Michigan boy I am, I like to buy local when I can.

Bell's Brewing Company is located in the town of Comstock, MI just east of Kalamazoo.  I was familiar with Bell's previously because of their summer seasonal beer called Oberon, which is still on my list of all time favorites.  Expedition Stout however is their winter seasonal, and in many ways it has what you expect to find with a beer made in winter.  Dark, heavy, and lots of complex flavors.  And considering that this beer has a 94 rating on beeradvocate.com, this one should sit higher than some of the rest. 

                                        Now, I was told by Matt that this beer should be treated more like a wine as opposed to just your average beer; meaning that you should keep it slightly cooler than room temperature, drink slowly, and drink minimally.  However, the packaging says to keep refigerated, mentioning nothing about drinking slowly or minimally.  So, because I care, I decided to try it both ways.

Nuts & Bolts:

Color and Pour:  Color is very very dark.  When held up to the light, you can detect a hint of redness much like someone poured french press coffee into a merlot.  When poured, it comes out very heavy and there is not much head but a small ring of bubbles that like to grab onto the glass and stay there.

Smell:  When room temp, it smells slightly fruity with a stiff smell of alcohol following closly behind, very similar to red wine.  When cold, the alcohol smell is kept to a minimum and smells more like chocolate and roasted malt.

Taste:  When it's room temp, it tastes very roasty almost like coffee with hints of chocolate and a lot of malt flavor in the sip as well as the aftertaste.  Similar almost to Negra Modelo which is odd considering that those two beers couldn't be any more different.  When it's cold it still tastes very malty, but also sweeter and more like chocolate.  The coffee notes are no longer noticeable.  

Feel:  It has a heavy feel as expected that coats the whole mouth, but when sipped slowly feels no heavier on the stomach than your run of the mill tap beer.  

Rating:  4 out of 5 pints

I know that I've made several comparisons to wine with this beer, but that comparison in many ways is pretty accurate.  Even Bell's themselves said that this beer "offers immensely complex flavors crafted specifically  with vintage aging in mind, as it's profile will continue to mature and develop over the years."  Sounds a lot like wine to me.  So don't be afraid to let this one sit in the back of the fridge and be forgotten about for a while, only for you to rediscover it and enjoy.  And at $15.99 a six pack, it's probably best enjoyed sparingly like a wine as well.

Cheers,