Spectre’s Sayings

Upon popping the bottle cap of this lovely beer, I was immediately struck by a nutty aroma. Wow!

Oh, yes. This is a Trappist beer. It definitely bears a family resemblance to Westmalle Dubbel, but there are differences as well. Whereas Westmalle has a very creamy head, Rochefort’s is more fizzy, like the carbonation in a soda pop. Rochefort tastes dryer. The ABV is not very different from Westmalle, so I’m assuming that Westmalle contains more unfermentable sugars than does Rochefort.

There is the previously-noted nutty aroma, plus a chocolate aroma, and a subtle fragrance of plums. The taste is rich, full of chocolate, and very pleasant.

Rochefort is to beers what champaigne is to wine. Yummy. A very satisfying beer. God bless those Trappist monks!

I have really been digging this beer this week. A light, refreshing German-style Kölsch beer with a mildly fruity aroma. The carbonation slowly comes out of solution while you drink it, but there really isn’t any head to speak of.

It’s a great session beer, or a great beer with which to refresh yourself after working outdoors.

Yummy!

Two Brothers Brewing Co.’s Prairie Path Golden Ale is a pleasant surprise. I didn’t much care for their Weisse beer, so I didn’t have high hopes for this one. I’m glad I was mistaken. This is a very clean, crisp, and refreshing beer. But, unlike an American pilsner, it has flavor. This is the kind of beer I’d like to drink after a hot day of mowing the lawn.

Prairie Path is mildly carbonated, with not much in the way of a head. It is brewed with Belgian malts and Saaz and Golding hops - the very best of ingredients (IMHO). The hop bitterness perfectly balances the malt sweetness. There’s a pleasant floral aroma, and the ale yeast did leave some fruity esters. In other words, this beer has some character.

It did have a rather substantial mouthfeel, and a slight aftertaste - somewhat reminiscent of a steam beer.

All in all, I was impressed.

A friend of mine challenged me to make a list of the top 10 beers. I told him that I hadn’t had every beer in the world, so that was impossible. He then amended his challenge to me for me to list the top 10 beers that I have had.

A very difficult proposition, since my tastes and preferences do change over time. And really, how do you compare a porter to a hefeweizen? But I thought I’d give it a shot.

I started out by making a list of what I thought were truly “world-class” beers. I ended up with a list of 20 such beers. Then I tried to put them in the order of how much I enjoyed them. I’m sure I made mistakes doing this. And deciding that this beer belonged in the top 10 and that beer belonged in the second 10 was difficult and painful. But, in the end, this is what I came up with:

10. Belhaven St. Andrew’s Ale
9. Goose Island Christmas Ale
8. Millstream Colony Oatmeal Stout Lager
7. Hacker-Pschorr Weisse
6. Samuel Smith’s Organic Ale
5. Samuel Smith’s Taddy Porter
4. Fuller’s 1845
3. Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier
2. Ayinger Brau-weisse
1. Westmalle Trappist Ale Dubbel

Honorable mention: Arcadia Ales’ London Porter Ale, Rogue Shakespear Stout, Samuel Smith’s Organically Produced Lager Beer, Samuel Smith’s Pure Brewed Lager, Hofbrau Munchen Original Lager Beer, Erdinger Oktoberfest Weizen, Fuller’s London Pride, Fuller’s London Porter, and Spanish Peaks Brewing’s Black Dog Ale.

Coniston Brewing Co.’s Bluebird Bitter pours a lovely honey color with a small head and gorgeous lacing. It has a citrus-like fruity aroma with a hint of …something. The bottle says it’s geraniums, but I can’t quite tell. There’s a rich maltiness that provides a nice mouthfeel and contributes good things to the flavor, and the hops are somewhat understated for a pale ale. There’s a spicy note and a bit of a flavor of pine resins. When the beer warms up to the recommended serving temperature, that note is actually pleasant, but if you serve the beer cold - as in, directly from an American refrigerator - then it becomes a stumbling block to enjoying the beer. The low alcohol level allows this beer to be a nice session beer.

Do yourself a favor and let the beer warm up to cool, not cold, before you drink it.

To sum up: not bad, but nothing to get excited about.

You won’t believe this:

Joe Six-pack will have to pay a lot more to get his buzz on if Assemblyman Jim Beall has his way.

The San Jose Democrat on Thursday proposed raising the beer tax by $1.80 per six-pack, or 30 cents per can or bottle. The current tax is 2 cents per can. That’s an increase of about 1,500 percent.

Gotta love California, huh?

Full story. H/T: Vodkapundit.

Sierra Nevada’s ESB (Early Spring Beer) pours a dark amber - nearly red - color with a small head and has a subtle floral aroma. This American take on a British ESB (Extra Special Bitter) is exactly what you would expect: the balance between the malts and hops is skewed in favor of the hops.

The maltiness is small but distinct, and there’s a bitter kick to the finish. But it’s a pretty good beer. This is what last night’s mild ale should have tasted like.

My local big box beer store carries Westmalle! Yay!

The text on the bottle reads in part as follows:

A classic session ale that combines subtle maltiness with an American citric hop nose. Pride & Joy is an American version of a British mild.

Yes, the maltiness is subtle - so subtle you can’t detect it. And yes, there’s a citrus hop nose. You can smell something like grapefruit and the hop floral nose. The acid notes in this beer are overpowering. When I took my first sip, the sourness just bowled me over - and not in a good way. I thought for sure that the beer had been infected by some bacterium during fermentation, and that it had been ruined. This beer was acidic and sour.

After a while of sipping it, the sourness-detecting taste buds became fatigued, and I noticed how strong the hop bitterness was. I’ve never had a British mild, but if they’re anything like this beer, I shall endeavor to avoid them. I’d categorize the bitterness in this beer along the lines of an IPA.

The beer pours an amber color with little head. There’s no appreciable lacing, but some foam remains on top of the beer even when near the bottom of the glass. The beer feels somewhat thick in the mouth. I wonder what the specific gravity is….

Anyway, I wasn’t a big fan. Three Floyds’ Scottish Ale was far better.

Illinois man hits it big with home brew

Today is the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition. Time to celebrate!

Friday night, my cousin and I took my brother out for an evening to celebrate his landing a new job. At one bar, we had three rounds, one each of Schlafly Hefeweizen (it has grown on me), Schlafly Pale Ale, and Boulevard Lunar Ale. And then we walked around the corner to another bar, where it was pretty crowded. We had two rounds of beer there (and my cousin and brother also had a specialty drink of some sort that I didn’t try).

The first of the two beers was Goose Island’s 312 Urban Wheat. It had a citrus aroma, somewhat like grapefruit. The mouthfeel was crisp and light. But the taste was rather unremarkable for a wheat beer.

But I really wanted to talk about the last beer of the evening.

Westmalle Trappist Ale Dubbel. This was, to put it simply, the best beer I have ever had in my life. Bar none.
I spent several minutes simply savoring the aroma. The thick, creamy head promised a good beer, and a great beer was delivered. I lack the adjectives to describe this beer. A taste of heaven.

Jessica at The Thirsty Hopster has an update on the Samuel Adams hops lottery.

I think it was really awesome of Jim Koch and the Boston Beer company to sell their excess hops for cost rather than engage in price gouging in this time of hops shortage.

Night before last, I was at my local beverage superstore, and I was talking with one of the staff about their homebrewing products, and I said that I’d sure like to get into the homebrewing hobby. She said that I should do it next year. I asked why, and she said because of the hops shortage. She said that she was getting a small amount of hops in next week, but that they would be gone again as soon as someone found out she had them.

I don’t know. Is this a good idea?

Goose Island’s Kilgubbin Red Ale is a mild, red-colored beer with a thick, creamy head. The taste is pretty smooth for the most part, but rather difficult for me to characterize. There’s a bit of a bite at the finish, but it’s not the bitterness of hops. Rather, it’s some sort of unusual spice. Cinnamon? Pepper? I’m not sure. But all in all, it makes a good session beer. I enjoyed two of them last night.

Update: A quick visit to the website informs me that the spicy finish is due to malted rye.