Quick Takes: Harpoon's Firth Of Forth Ale

As many an American across the country did, I spent the better part of yesterday in the kitchen, cooking up a feast for the family. On the menu? A non-traditional, but still excellent, rotation of Cranberry-Thyme Cornish Game Hen, marble-rye and sausage stuffing, and mashed sweet potatoes. A menu like this would, for normal folks, be accompanied with wine. Fortunately, I'm not a normal person.

To accompany my Thanksgiving feast, I cracked open a bomber of Harpoon's Firth Of Forth Ale. Guest-brewed by Scotsman craft-brewer Steve Stewart, the Firth Of Forth Ale was released by Harpoon as a part of their 100 Barrel Series of session beers. The bottle described the brew thusly: "a combination of Scottish malts and American hops give this dark Scotch style a malty, roasted character with caramel notes and a hint of chocolate."

My take? Most assuredly more malty than hoppy - the hops are barely there, to be honest. The malt and caramel are front and center with this brew, which lent itself nicely to an end-of-the-meal beverage. Didn't catch the chocolate, to be honest. The thing that I loved the most about this brew? The carbonation was minimal, to say the least. This was the closest I've ever seen to a cask-conditioned ale in a bottle.

If you want hops, this is not the beer for you. But otherwise? This was phenomenal. So, if you want hops, grab yourself a Caskazilla. This is a malty brew, through and through, and satisfied the palate all the way to the bottom.

6Pac June 2006 - Drinking Outside the Bocks

The weather in Syracuse, NY, in June of 2006 was worthy of actually being a month that took place in "Summer." I scooped up a sixer at Glenville (N.Y.) Beverage in the Capital District whilst on a sojourn to visit our editor emeritus and Albany bureau chief.

Since the weather prospects at the time were iffy, I decided to split my selections into three dark and three lighter. Among the "yellow sticker" beers (the ones that were eligible to be included in a $8.99 six-pack), it was hard to find six I hadn't tried before, but I was able to find a couple, even if some of them didn't exactly blow my skirt up at first glance.

Ultimately, here is where I landed:

1. Hook & Ladder Lighter
   
2. Mendocino Bock Beer
   
3. Erie Brewing Mad Anthony IPA
   
4. Abita Bock
   
5. Hook & Ladder Golden Ale

I know you're just dying to know, so I'll just dive right in.

• #1: Hook & Ladder Lighter. I have been seeing these Hook & Ladder six-packs all over the place lately, and I didn't quite know what the story was with them, so I haven't really been that eager to try them.
  
  Upon reading up on Hook & Ladder, they are based in Silver Springs, Maryland, and they donate a small amount of money to burn centers in communities where their beer is sold. So at the very least, if I didn't like the beer, I was giving money to a good cause.
  
  I was surprised by how much I actually liked this beer. It's a pale ale with a lagery look and feel. The reviews on Beeradvocate.com for this beer were savage so maybe it's that my expectations were so low, but it was surprisingly decent.
  
  The color is bright, brilliant gold. The heavy carbonation bubbles up like ginger ale. The finger of foamy head looks like Italian Ice. Looks like a light lager, but I won't let that scare me off.
  
  The aroma is real barley, with a very nice biscuity sweetness in the malt. The hop is ever-so-slight, and reminiscient of a pilsner. Again, even though this is a pale ale, you coulda fooled me. The smell is surprisingly solid.
  
  The taste is where I really was caught off-guard. The malt in this beer is so biscuity sweet, with none of the adjuncty corn & rice flavors I expected. Amazing how real barley makes all the difference. This is a very good summer beer. It's a little sweet and only a tad bitter.
  
  The feel of the beer is smooth to the touch. It's got a tiny nibble of a bite on the way down. Not chunky, not watery: just right. It's refreshing, and is a "respectable" summer brew. It's not off-the-charts incredible, but it's highly drinkable beverage, and one that didn't make me feel guilty for foregoing other, craftier alternatives.
  
  
• #2: Mendocino Bock Beer. One of my great joys is to visit the Saratoga Brewery, purveyor of the finest Mendocino products. This bock is one that I hadn't tried before, but given their track record, I'd bet dollars to donuts that I was going to like it.
  
  The color is a honey-colored orange, shiny like polished glass. The lace is spotty and the head is minimal and slushy. To take a whiff is to inhale a pale malt aroma with a mild but spicy hop. The malt is a roasted concoction in the nose, with a naughty splash of liqueur-like alcohol stinging the nostrils slightly. The aroma overall is very hard to detect, but what is able to be picked up by the olfactory glands is pleasant enough.
  
  The intial taste I sensed was a hint of roasted toffee in the malt, with a very conspicuous layer of alcohol therein. As it warms up, it becomes more burnt and more bitter. That's pretty much the story of the taste of this beer, other than the pale malt blooming toward the end as the clock runs out. Decent.
  
  The beer feels smooth and buttery; savory, for lack of a better word. There is a small sting on the way down. It's a mild and roasted bock. Not too bitter, but strong otherwise. A solid choice.
  
  
• #3. Erie Brewing Company, Mad Anthony APA. Although the idea of an "American Pale Ale" is becoming more and more popular, I rarely see beers that advertise themselves as such. Being a native Western New Yorker (yes, Rochester does count as WNY, Javen), I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the beers made west of the 315 area code.
  
  Erie Brewing has been one that I haven't really been blown away by, mostly because their Railbender is decent enough, but I never seem to be able to get it fresh. Also, it always seems that the labels on their bottles are always peeling off, as if they are applied by a kindergarten glass with Elmer's glue sticks.
  
  I was really nicely surprised by this beer -- even moreso than the Hook & Ladder Lighter. The look is a bright, sunny yellow; it becomes light orange when held up to a lamp. The head is thick, but not long-lasting. There is some minor icy lace. Clear for the most part, but containing a light haze.
  
  The smell is mild, somewhat hard to detect like the aforementioned Mendocino Bock. The only thing I can really sense is pale malt. Again, the aroma doesn't detract from the beer, but it's hard to find a hint of what to expect.
  
  The taste provided a nice apology for the coyness of the aroma. The flavor is a terrific citrus that goes beautifully with the spicy pale malt flavor. The spice in the hop is almost reminiscient of a Belgian White/witbier. What sets this apart from most mediocre pale ales is that fantastic citrusy hop, which injects it with a refreshing, summery dynamic.
  
  The beer feels a little on the fizzy side, but you can feel the carbonation making the flavors of the beer burst out and come alive. There is a nice thickness that came as a surprise. Overall I was really impressed by the citrusy, fruit-tinged flavor that was balanced by the pale malts. It's refreshing and easy to drink.
  
  
• #4: Abita Bock. Apparently honey-tinged orange is a popular color this year, because this bock exhibits that very look. In the thinner spots of the glass, it is closer to a dark yellow. The head is short-lived, but otherwise this beer is awfully attractive.
  
  The aroma gives off some very nice flowery pale-ish malts. There are hops, of the German (Hallertauer-esque) variety. A couple citrusy notes here and there but it's not altogether clear whether it's the hops or actual citrus.
  
  The flavor has more of that pale malt flavor, as well as the sweet, puckery citrus that we all so dearly enjoy. They two flavors go together very very well. There is a dry, semi-sweet start and a tart finish.
  
  All told this is a pretty good summery bock, with lots of tree-fruits and with a nice thickness that doesn't require choking down.
  
  
• #5: Sam Adams Double Bock. Not to be confused with the Sam Adams Triple Bock, this lighter, distant cousin didn't particularly tickle my fancy any more than the Triple Bock did.
  
  The color is a nice-enough ruby red with very little head. The look is hazy, but also shiny and glassy. It has the foreshadowing look of a winter ale. The aroma has the vague prsence of a mild barley, with some pale-ish malts. Moreso, however, there is the aroma of a sweetish berry or cherry; the smell is underwhelming, but the saccharine nature of the aroma comes through.
  
  The taste has the initial taste of sweet cherry at the initial sip, before turning to a darker and more burnt berry. It is dark overall, but has a Nutrasweet finish. Just as I don't love winter ales, this one isn't my cup of tea (figuratively speaking, of course). There is a slight Belgian ale spicy finish, but overall it's a double Winter lager.
  
  The bite on the way down is mercifully controlled. It is somewhat spicy and bubbly like Coca-Cola, but that doesn't quite salvage it for me. All told, the flavors skew far too much toward a puckery, cloying Winter ale sweetness. If you like that sorta things, be my guest.
  
  
• #6: Hook & Ladder Golden Ale. This is the final beer of the sixer, and it's a bookend of sorts, in that it's another of the Hook & Ladder series. This one is a golden ale, so naturally it has a dark yellow color. The head is thin and watery, but there is a hint of icy lace on the glass like frost on a window.
  
  The aroma is consistent with a golden ale or lager. It has the properties of a pub ale, but to a weaker, more watered-down degree. It's nothing unpleasant, just a tad wimpy. The taste is of a light English ale, a la Bass. The malt is actually of a decent sweet style; it's bready and with just a dollop of molasses. It does leave a bit of a malted aftertaste.
  
  The beer feels watery and leaves a minor, bitter film that is more like a lager than a golden ale. This beer is okay, but not awesome. Didn't hit me the right way like the Lighter at #1. It's drinkable, but should be priced among the BudMillerCoors instead of the crafties.

I have quite a diverse selection for July, so hopefully I can find the strength to trudge through all of them.

6Pac - May 2008

The weather here in Syracuse has not been indicative of the change of seasons this month of May. They say April showers bring May flowers, and though Mayflowers may bring Pilgrims, this so-called "spring" has brought little more than cloudy days and scattered raindrops.

So forgive me if I'm not quite in "summer mode" yet. It was only one week ago that I finally got some color on my pasty Mick-Kraut complexion. And though I'm sure that is tangentially related to the fact that I prefer to watch Battlestar Galatica with the curtains drawn than leave my home, I'll blame genetics, thank you very much.

That being said, the Sixer we selected for May was one that was split nearly down the middle between the India Pale Ale style which I love so much, and that of the Belgians.

The line-up is as follows:

1. Abita Jockamo IPA
   
2. Avery Redpoint Ale
   
3. Sea Dog India Pale Ale
   
4. Southampton Double White Ale
   
5. Fort Collins Rocky Mountain IPA
   
6. Weyerbacher Quad

The sixer was purchased at Finger Lakes Beverage in Ithaca, New York, a store that is worth the drive even if you are a complete imbecile with directions, as I am. Here are the respective verdicts:

• #1: Abita Brewing - Jockamo IPA. As far as I know, this beer bears no relation to my good friend, musician Tony "The Geek Love" DiGiacomo, but dare I say it smells nearly as wonderful. First of all, let me marvel at the look for a spell. It's a glowing copper-orange color with a massive, ice cream float-worty head. The carbonation shoots upward so as to look like a game of Space Invaders. The lace is thick, the head sticks around for a long-ass time. It's an otherworldly sight.
  
  The aroma is a rich, buttery-sweet malt smell, topped by a flowery perfume of hops. The malt is a perfect counterpoint, roasted but not burnt or bitter. It's excellent and magnificently balanced. The flavor is a perfumy hop, which tastes like it was aged in pine-chips. (Do people age beer in pine chips?) The hops make the whole affair just a bit sour, but not in an unpleasant way. Just interesting. The taste is different than the aroma in that it is all hops, with nary a hint of the malt to be detectable. It's a fine flavor, but more hop-intensive than expected. With its woody bitterness, I kind of wish there were some sort of sweeter malt counterpoint to balance it.
  
  It feels bubby and effervescent, like a glass of Schwepps. However it's thick and creamy, and gets even moreso as it warms. It's very drinkable, though more bitter than expected. Unbalanced on the hoppy side, but still a very nice beverage.
  
  
• #2: Avery Brewing - Redpoint Ale. From the Colorado Rockies (the mountain range, not the incredibly disappointing baseball team), comes this interesting red/amber ale. Its appareance is unusually thick and cloudy, a falu/brick red color. [Note: Yes, I said falu.] Puffy head that leaves a smooth film of lace. It looks quite thick and murky. Really a splendid appearance.
  
  The smell is a toasted malt aroma that has some notes of sweet sugar. Has the dual qualities of a toasted red/amber ale, and the brown sugary sweetness of a brown ale; the brown wins the duel in the nose. The taste has a sweet beginning, with some bold liqueur flavors, and a burst of strong alcohol. The roasted malt is tempered by a slight sweetness. It's a bold red/amber flavor with an added sugary sweetness. It's a tad saccharine, but not too bad.
  
  Feels full-bodied and creamy, leaving a lasting thickness on the tongue. It mellows out about halfway through. Overall, I'd say it's a substantial, complex, balanced beer. It's a solid brew, but possibly too thick for repeats.
  
  
• 
  #3: Sea Dog - India Pale Ale. This one has a magnificent look: a super cloudy, super dark orange. Has a large, puffy, pillowy head. Looks thick and hazy and awesome.
  
  The smell is a mild citrus and flowery hop. It's a slightly toasted sweet, bready malt. Also has a curious dark raisiny aroma. The flavor is a strong blast of alcohol, which is followed by a strong, woody hop. Ok, so the alcohol here is very very very strong for a regular IPA. The malt is sharp and burnt, roasted and gritty. This is a strong ale with hops. A unique taste for an IPA, actually. There is actually some coffee in that malt.
  
  The feel is bubbly and thick, yet milky on the palate. The final verdict on this one is that it's a strong but remarkably balanced IPA. The malt holds its own. It's a heavy beer but not extreme. It's not so much an IPA; it's a strong ale with hops.
  
  
• #4: Southampton - Double White Ale. This former Beer O'the Moment is very thick and cloudy, a bright sunny yellow. There is no head but I halfway blame myself for a bad pour. It looks sunny and refreshing.
  
  I smell some spicy orange peel, with a mild wheaty base. The smell is mild overall, but the orange/coriander and Belgian spiciness dominate. The taste has a spicy initial burst, but then a more sweetish fruity flavor. As it warms, a pleasant puckery sour flavor comes out. There are strong Belgian spices, but it's actually halfway between a Belgian ale and a witbier. It's a pleasant taste.
  
  The feel is fizzy but smooth. The feel is thick like juice on the way down. All told, it's a nice, spicy-sweet Belgian white ale. Easy drinking but with a small bite.
  
  
• #5: Fort Collins - Rocky Mountain IPA. The color is a clear, dark orange, with a finger of puffy head. The liquid stays completely still except for a few stray bubbles.
  The aroma is a strong resiny hop. It's a little sweet, but with a woody finish in the nose. Smells flowery, though a tad musty. The strength of the aroma is quite impressive. The taste is resiny, oily/woody hops, grounded by some dry, gritty malts. Woody and bitter on the back of the tongue. Flowery and estery, with pale crystal malts emerging.
  
  Dry and sandpapery feel. It's thick but in a good way. I would have to categorize this as a gritty IPA; bitter but not harsh. It's on the hoppy side but just balanced enough.
  
  
• #6: Weyerbacher - Quad. Now this baby was the big portabello of the sixer. It's a dark orange, just this side of rose-colored. The finger of flat head is murky, although the other side can be vaguely seen. It's one of the few beers I can remember that actually gets more cloudy by the minute.
  
  
  The smell is fantastic, a terrific spicy Belgian aroma with hints of citrus and orange peel and coriander. It appears to have a hint of strong alcohol. Bursting with additional flowery scents. Smells excellent. The taste is a strong initial injection of pungent alcohol, but with a spicy ending. It's a one-two punch of alcohol, then spicy, flowery esters. It's grassy. The citrus and orange that were present in the smell are nowhere to be found in the palate. This baby is really, really strong.
  
  The bubbly feel is thick like apple juice, and has a burn on the way down. It warms the belly like brandy. Or gasoline. This sucker is a choker; thick and bursting with alcohol. It's too thick to be drinking all night, but a wonderfully heavy one-and-done.

This sixer was not for wimps! Yet I got through it anyway. Hopefully the ecosystem in the three-one-five will improve over the next few months (it's been nice the last couple of days) and I can move onto some lighter brews. Suggestions are welcome, as are your wonderful erudite comments, criticisms and challenges.

6Pac - April 2008

Today we embark on a Beerjanglin' experiment, we will get a mixed six pack, we will drink the entire thing, and we will tell you about it. The emergence of mixed six packs has been a godsend to geeks such as ourselves, as it allows us to sample a great variety of beer one bottle at a time, rather than one full six pack, and at a cheaper price than at the local tavern. Because seriously, what could possibly worse than having to endure a full six pack of beer, when you can tell from the first sip of the first bottle that you aren't going to like it. Well, I suppose being hit by a meteor could be worse, but only by a slim margin.

At any rate, here is your line-up for this inaugural entry; the story of some beer I bought back in April of 2008, in six chapters:

1. GREEN FLASH BREWING - West Coast IPA
   
   
2. WILD GOOSE - English Style Amber Ale
   
   
3. AVERY - 14'er E.S.B.
   
   
4. WILD GOOSE - India Pale Ale
   
   
5. SIERRA NEVADA - Stout
   
   
6. MENDOCINO - Imperial IPA

And now, the verdict on each....

• #1: Green Flash Brewing - West Coast IPA. To call this sucker an IPA is like calling an Escalade a station wagon. This is a supremely bitter IPA offering, more akin to an Imperial ippa than the regular variety.
  The first thing that strikes me about this beer is its look, which is copper-orange and with big chunks of something or other floating around. It looks like it's suspended in amber. It looks big and chunky. The smell is full of those sweet, pungent west coast hops we all know and love so well. The hops in the smell are citrusy and flowery; breathtaking ... literally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Actually, I would have to say that this is one of the most perfectly-aromatic beers I've had. The smell is balanced, however the flavor is all hops. If you are a hophead, this is going to be right up your alley, but don't expect much malt in the flavor. It's a thick and chewy beer, and incredibly bitter. Just don't buy the "regular" IPA label.
  
  
  
• #2: Wild Goose English Style Amber Ale. While it appears like a standard red/amber ale. Like the West Coast IPA, the smell on this one is fantastic as well, although in a different way. The Wild Goose's aroma is smooth and buttery, showcasing a sweet and biscuity malt, with just a hint of butterscotch (and not spoiled kind). It has hints of honey and even a mild sweet grape. As it warms, the aroma becomes more roasted.
  
  The flavor is nicely balanced between a hint of sweetness in the pale ale-ish notes and the roasted amber malt. It tastes like a pale amber, and has a nice tension between the burnt and the sweet. Not bad at all. It becomes more sweet, but never cloying. A good, solid ale.
  
  
  
• #3: Avery 14'er ESB. There appears to be a glow coming from within this beer in the form of a hazy light orange. The smell and taste of this beer are both mild and balanced. The sweet and biscuity malt is the perfect counterpoint to the flowery-but-bitter hop presence. Starts sweet at the sip, ends bitter at the swallow. It's a perfect change-of-pace beer; not incredible, but incredibly pleasant.
  
  
• #4: Wild Goose India Pale Ale. Lots of bubbling carbonation floating to the top of this hazy bright orange brew. Leaves a nice icy lace and a big fluffy head.
  The smell is slightly sweeter than a normal pale. It does smell more like a regular pale than an IPA, that's for sure. There are some bitter hops, but more pislnery in the nose than IPA'y. A definite hint of pale crystal malts and even a hint of a burnt malt. To call it even an English IPA is pushing it.
  
  The taste is a bitter symphony of both malt and hops. The hops are a tad flowery, but overpowered by the pilsner/pale flavors. It could use a bit more balance, in my opinion. It feels bubbly and bites a little on the way down. It does mellow out after a little while. It's a tad too bitterly harsh to drink all night. (That's not to say I don't like bitter flavors, but this one could have used the relief of something a little more sweet or muted.) I'm honestly not a huge fan of pales lately for some reason, so that may be shaping my opinion here.
  
  
  
• #5: Sierra Nevada Stout.
  One of my go-to beers of the past winter. It's a dark chocolate brown with a head the color of Nestle Quik, big and puffy. The smell is burnt coffee and dark chocolate, charred to perfection.
  
  The taste is a beautiful balance of sweet dark chocolate & toffee, countered with the burnt coffee malt. Just a deliriously good beer. I'm sad to see it go away, but it kept me warm for many cold months. It is thick and rich. It feels milky on the way down, but smooth like motor oil. Only 5.8% but you'd never know it, cuz it gives the warm feeling if drinking brandy. Top notch.
  
  
  
• #6: Mendocino Imperial IPA. One of my all-time favorite IPAs of any kind, and possibly the first IPA I really fell in love with. Clear right orange color with a nice pillowy, foamy head. Sits still in the glass with no sign of carbonation.
  
  The smell of this beer is to die for. West Coast hops that are slightly piney, slightly citrusy, and completely intoxicating. Other than possibly Stone Ruination (of which this beer reminds me a great deal) there might not be a better balance of hop flavors on Earth, or Caprica for that matter. (Sorry, I'm watching Battlestar Galactica as I drink this.) This one has been sitting in the fridge for a few weeks, so it has just the slightest hint of mustiness, but we'll see what happens.
  
  The taste confirms why they used to ship these from England to India. The hops have a graceful citrusy sweet first taste (like a grapefruit, Javen!) and then a woodsy bitter second wave. It hits both parts of the tongue and together they form a terrific combo. The sweet tries to charm you; the bitter acts like it could care less if you like it or not. What a beautiful balance in the hops. The malt is really an afterthought here.
  
  As I'm drinking it, there are beautiful icicles of lace surrounding the inside of the glass. It leaves a bitter residue on the tongue, like nature letting you rent it out for a few extra hours at no charge. Magnificent. And 7.5%.

I hope this little journey gave you a couple of good suggestions. I certainly enjoyed the research.

Quick Takes: Kona Brewing Co's Longboard Lager

A couple of weekends ago (the same weekend as my jaunt to the Dogfish Head Alehouse), I found myself looking for beer in an essentially barren liquor store in a shady part of Seaside Heights, New Jersey. I was there because we were moving my brother out of an apartment in said shady part of Seaside Heights, and wanted to find something good to accompany an evening of watching DVDs of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" and "The Kingdom."

Sadly, I was faced with a shelf filled with what Glenn Gould might call "variations on a theme" - and that theme was macrobrewed American lagers and their watered-down "light" counterparts. I grabbed a sixer of Heineken Light for my brother (the same one who would order a Miller Light at Dogfish Head later that weekend, the cur) and was resigned to some Sam Adams when I spotted an unfamiliar looking sixer. The red packaging bore a new name for my eyes: Kona Brewing Company. The beer was called "Longboard Lager."

This was perfect for the day - I needed something that was drinkable from a bottle (any pint glasses in the apartment were either packed or dirty to the point of wretchedness). I happily grabbed it and was soon cracking open my first bottle. The result? Not bad. Longboard Lager was an American lager, much like the other alternatives, but this was a tad hoppier than your garden-variety macroswill; not hoppy to the point of being an IPA. Resultingly, the taste was a bit bitter - not a "bad" bitterness at all, but more of an emphatic crispness. The color? A pale yellow.

In short, this was a perfect wild-card beer. I was satisfied with Kona's product and would be intrigued to try other types of their beer. In the meanwhile, Longboard Lager would be a welcome change of pace in a cooler full of macrobrews, and I think it would be an excellent counterpoint to a steamy, beach-bound summer day. On this February night, though, it was a great drink for an evening with my kid brother and some "It's Always Sunny" DVD hijinks.

Quick Takes: Otter Creek Otteroo (Sparkling Australian-Style Ale)

You know what's thoughtful? When somebody very thoughtfully gives you a beer-related gift for the holidays. Those are the kinds of relatives you keep in the will, to say the least!

My younger brother Nick (he who, in the fall, reviewed Miller Chill) presented me with an Otter Creek Otter's Selection Gift Pack this Festivus - this pack included an Otter Creek pint glass and bombers of 3 so-called Otter Creek World Tour beers, through which I have been slowly making my way.

One of the bombers included in this gift pack was the Otter Creek Otteroo, described as an Australian-style sparkling ale (but made in Vermont). The bottle promised extra carbonation and the use of Australian hops and ringwood yeast. Admittedly, I was a bit wary of this beer - for all of my recently-acquired beersnobbery, I wasn't tremendously familiar with Sparkling Ales as a style, and went in expecting something like a fruit-less Lambic.

Really, though, the Otteroo wasn't much like any of my expectations. The extra carbonation was barely noticeable, if at all, only really serving to keep the head on my pour from bomber into glass at a bare minimum. As for the taste, I must say that this was a particularly malty, somewhat bittersweet beer - not at all a bad beer, really, but considering the exotic ingredients, it was nothing particularly spectacular. Given that the hops traveled halfway around the world, I would have liked to have been able to taste them more.

For a special-batch beer, which the Otteroo seems to be, I wasn't particularly overwhelmed. Overall, it was a decent pint-and-some, but if I return to the Outback for this type of beer, it probably won't be with the Otter Creek brewers as my tourguide.

Quick Takes: Sixpoint Belgian-Style IPA

Since the beginning of December, I've been spending the bulk of my time in New York City (a new job has me slowly relocating from the Capital Region to the outerboroughs of NYC ). One of the upsides of this switch has been a chance for me to explore some new breweries and beers.

Yesterday, while accompanied by my friend Juan (who, coincidentally, provides voice-over work for a series of commercials touting Miller Chill beer), I went to Great Jones Cafe, a lovely little hole-in-the-wall place on Great Jones Street in Manhattan with a great jukebox and a pretty solid beer selection. When I saw that they offered the Williamsburg, Brooklyn-located Sixpoint's IPA on tap, I jumped at it.

The pour of this beer was thick, with a hazy orange color to it. It was surprisingly creamy, which is something I've not really associated with IPAs before, but man, were those hops front and center. The strong hoppiness of this beer was supplemented by a citrus-y taste to it.

After the fact, I found out that Sixpoint's IPA is considered a "Belgian Style" IPA. Sixpoint's website is mum on what this means (actually, it's pretty quiet on most things - it's currently undergoing renovations), so I'm going to go out on a limb here and wonder aloud as to whether this means that it uses ingredients more commonly found in Belgian styles of beer in an IPA brewing process. I'm stumped, to be honest (but that's not hard).

Needless to say, I was very taken by this beer, and would gladly kill a man (or woman, or child) for another taste. Phenomenal.

Quick Take: Rogue JLS #23 Black Brutal 2007

Every once in a while, Rogue Brewery will put out one of their John Locker's Stock (or JLS) which is a special batch or limited edition. Kelly Coles Improper in Syracuse was serving #23 in the series, known as Black Brutal, a spin-off of their outstanding Brutal Bitter, which is available in bottles. I'll tell you a little about it.

The Look: It looks like dark brown chocolate milk. Has a light brownish head. It's incredibly thick-looking, like a suped-up brown ale or a slightly lighter porter.

The Aroma: I expected the burnt malt smell, but not the very powerful woody hop scent covering it up. Both smells, which wouldn't seem to really go together that well, compliment each other nicely. It's bitter but also a bit chocolatey sweet.

The Flavor: In addition to the burnt, roasted malt flavor that the smell foretold, there is a major chocolate accent in the taste. There is also a heavy, pungent molasses flavor that I didn't see coming. And some black licorice? It's both sweet and bitter. The hops are there too, but strictly as an accent to all the dark, roasted business going on. The malts are bitter and strong. You can almost taste the barley, as well as the alcohol. Yikes. Very good but not for the weak.

The Feel: It's really thick, one you have to sip, not gulp down. It feels like a brown ale, but tastes more like a strong ale. This doesn't mean it's hard to drink, it's just meant to be savored. No thin porter action going on here.

The Verdict: Think Rogue Dead Guy meets Saranac Caramel Porter. With a top layer of hops to boot. Technically, we are in September, and since football season has started, I'd say it's okay to start delving into porters and darker fare now. This one is a doozy; thick and challenging but also comforting like a warm glass of hot cocoa. Or a tight bear hug from your largest college buddy: sure it hurts a little for a second, but it's so comforting.

Quick Takes: Brooklyn Blast

Well, Brooklyn Brewery's brewer extraordinaire, Garrett Oliver, has done it again. He's created a new series of beers called "Brewmaster's Special Reserve" - limited edition beers that are brewed in small amounts and are being released to select establishments.

One of these "Brewmaster's Special Reserve" beers that we've seen in the Capital Region is Brooklyn Blast, described on the Brooklyn website as a "San Diego Strong Pale Ale," made with malts from Scotland and Germany and a variety of hops (most notably, from Yakima Valley in Washington state and from the Kent Valley of England).

The Brooklyn Blast is more realistically a double IPA - it's an incredibly hoppy beer that measures in at 8.2% alcohol by volume. And, my god, it is good.

The Blast smells wonderful - a great rush of hops, complimented with a tinge of citrus. It's got solid hop bitterness, but with a faint yet deft touch of fruit and sugar sweetness that separates this from other Imperial/Double IPA-type beers. It's hit or miss - if you're big into the hoppiness of the beer, you might get distracted by the sweetness. I enjoyed this; I'm not as much of a hop purist and liked the complexity added by the additional flavoring.

A tip of the hat to the Brooklyn folks for a job well done.

[The other beers in this initial run of "Brewmaster's Special Reserve" series are the Blanche du Brooklyn (a Belgian-style witbier), Brooklyn Abbey Singel (a Trappist style ale), and Antwerpen Ale (a Belgian style pale ale). In the Capital Region, we have seen most of these beers on tap at Mahar's and the Lionheart Tavern, as well as available in growler fills from Glenville Beverage. As for the Blast - it's currently on in all three places, including - intriguingly - on a nitrous pour at Mahar's. ]

Quick Take: Rogue Morimoto Soba Ale

Earlier today, following a hard day at the office, Mr. Bojangles and I decided to visit Albany's finest beer bar, Mahar's, for a couple of hard-earned beers. One of the nicer things about Mahar's is its rotating Rogue tap - lately, they've been offering a random selection from Oregon's finest brewery as part of their beer tour, and we've partaken in recent months of draft Chipotle Ale and 10,000.

Today, our beer tour lists read "Rogue Soba Buckwheat." Knowing nothing more than that, we both partook of a pint.

The verdict (on what we would later determine was Rogue's Morimoto Soba Ale)? In a word - meh.

The website describes the ale thusly: "Morimoto Soba Ale is brewed with Roasted Buckwheat, Pale malt, Munich Malt, 13-17 Carastan Malt, and Crystal Hops. The flavor is unique, toasty-nutty sensation with medium body and good hop bitterness."

The beer was, in many ways, remiscent of a Belgian Witbier, but with one notable difference - instead of a strong wheat taste and a strong citrus hint, it tasted a bit watered-down; while we like soba/buckwheat a great deal (a favorite Japanese dish of ours is a soba noodle salad with Thai peanut dressing and scallions), it didn't serve this beer tremendously well -it didn't have the lasting flavor of a Witbier, coming off as insubstantial in comparison.

In short, it wasn't a terrible beer. That said, we probably won't partake again.

Quick Take: Pump Station Smoked Hefeweizen

When we read that the Albany Pump Station was offering a Smoked Hefeweizen, we had to visit. According to their web site:

This version of our Bavarian-style wheat beer is made with beechwood smoked malt, imparting a more than subtle flavor. The yeast-derived banana and clove characteristics are there, too. Our Brewmaster's favorite; in fact, I'm drinking it now! 5.6% ABV.

As it turns out, the Smoked Hefe is something they have offered twice previously in the past three months, and we'd actually sampled it before. The Pump Station's standard Hefeweizen is one of the best we have ever had the pleasure of tasting; it's crisp and refreshing without getting too yeast-y or over the top. There is a beautiful banana and clove spiciness going on as well. While we admittedly have not visited often enough lately (maybe once every three of four weeks on average), it seemed that either the Hefeweizen was not offered - they often have Evans' Wit, an excellent Belgian style beer in it's own right - or that the customary spice of the Hefe was just a little different.

In our ignorance, we had sampled the Bavarian Style (Smoked) Hefeweizen and simply assumed that their was a slight variance or tweak in the batch, similar to what seemingly has happened - for the better - with the Pale Ale recently. The Bavarian Style Hefeweizen sign on the tap list apparently is the same whether it's the smoked or standard version.

In our defense, the underlying smoke flavor is much more understated than the web site's description would lead us to believe. The smoke characteristic is fleeting at best; just a hint on the nose and at the finish. It is light, bubbly and solidly spiced, but, to our taste, not as clean and pleasant as their normal Hefeweizen. All in all, an enjoyable, easy drinker, but not one we'd choose over either the Hefe or the Evans' Wit. Still, any excuse to visit the Pump Station is a welcome one, at least in our book.

The Shifty Fifty - An Endurance Test, Part 1

It seems a universal truth for the average beer drinker that we have all been more or less forced into drinking beer when we didn't want to. This tends to be a somewhat common thread throughout college, where beer tends to become not only a vehicle for intoxication, but also a sort of recreational activity in and of itself.

Long and many have been the hours -- for nearly any of us who have graduated to what we like to call "good beer" -- that we have had to trudge through so many delivery methods of bad beer: Power hours, keg stands, beer pong, flip cup, funnels, shotguns, three-man, drinking games, card games, board games, dares, double dares, the physical challenge.

It's a miracle, given the amount of morning-after agony these games have given us, that we ever continued to drink beer. Certainly, after a particularly sadistic number of waterfalls in some round of "Kings," even the heartiest drinkers would understand if we had given up on the fizzy yellow stuff for good. And yet here we all are.

And with this caveman-like philistinism seemingly behind us, we had assumed that the task of trudging through unwanted beers was likely a thing of the past, that the barbarism of forced alcohol intake was a mercifully distant memory. This was, however, before we discovered the Shifty Fifty.

Shifty's is a semi-charming, quasi-townie bar (plus a few bikers here or there) on Burnet Ave at the edges of the Eastwood section of Syracuse, New York. We have been going there on and off for the better part of 7 years, and our experiences have been ... shall we say, inconsistent. (For whatever it's worth, at least 4 of the bloggers who write on this here site spent the last "normal" evening of our lives there, watching a Monday Night Football game on September 10, 2001.)

We recently discovered that the bar was doing a promotion called the "Shifty Fifty," in which patrons are assigned a number and a light blue card with 50 beers listed on it. When you finish all 50 beers, you receive some sort of prize, but more importantly, you receive the self-esteem of having accomplished a task. Nay, a challenge.

Fellow scribe Willie Moe and yours truly signed up for this little experiment several months ago, and decided to chip away at it over several months, hoping to finish the 50 beers within a year's time. It didn't seem like that much of a challenge. Fifty great beers, and we get a t-shirt or something at the end of the mission. It's better than running a marathon or getting your PhD, right?

We didn't foresee a couple of challenges, from an encounter with a strange (seemingly crack-addicted but not homeless) man who asked us to buy him beer several times even though I gave him a $5 bill, to some struggles with the Gimli-esque barkeep. But little did we know that perhaps the greatest struggle we would face would end up being those fifty beers themselves.

Shifty's likes to consider this fledgling promotion a sort of "beer tour around the world," where you can sample 43 bottles and 7 drafts of all different styles of beer. This is a fine idea, however, they may have forgotten to take into consideration that many of the "fine" beers from around the world, while celebrated in their own native countries, run the gamut from mediocre to pure and utter crap.

By this beergeek's calculations, there are actually 31 quote-unquote "drinkable" beers (62%), or beers that we would order without a list forcing us at hole-punch. Peruse the lists below. [Note: This is, of course, my own opinion. What may be drinkable to me, might not be drinkable to others, and vice-versa. If I trash your favorite beer here, please don't take offense. Holes punched to the left of the name of the beers in the pictures below indicate they have been "crossed off" the list.]

The front page is promising. Perhaps Spaten aside, the drafts are all safe, competent picks -- with the exception of the superior Middle Ages ImPaled Ale. Of the bottled beers on the front page, only the Carlsberg and the Dos Equis Amber are beers we would thumb our noses at in regular circumstance. (Notice we knocked those two out pretty early.) So far, so good, we'd say.

The top of the reverse side is where the rubber really meets the road. Though there are a healthy number of fine offerings (the two Ithaca brews, the two Magic Hat selections, the Cooperstown Nine Man/Old Slugger tandem), the majority of these beers were not ones for which we would plop down money in a normal situation. Some, admittedly, we hadn't tried, yet we somehow had a feeling about. (Pacifico? Grolsch? Dos Equis Special?) It was this top half that would test our mettle in this enterprise.

On the second half of the reverse side, it appeared our luck changed for the better, with a couple of old stand-bys (Sam Adams, Saranac, Sierra Nevada) and a couple of our favorites (Stone Smoked Porter, Southern Tier IPA/Phin & Matt's Extraordinary Ale).

You may notice that we have been efforting to save the best for last. By my calculations, there are actually only three beers remaining that we "have to try." It's much like when the cable company only gives you certain channels you want if you order them with some sort of multi-channel package. The three mandatory beers we have left are Dos Equis Special, Pilsner Urquell, and St. Pauli Girl. After that, we are looking at a flavor feast. At press time we have completed 28 of the beers available in this endeavor, and will provide you with part 2 when we have completed the job. Wish us luck.

Until then, some random notes and glib ratings on the "questionable" (and sometimes suprising) selections we were forced into:

Whitbread Pale Ale: Heavy yeast flavor (sure it isn't "White Bread" ale? oh ho ho!), the yeast overshadows all other flavors. There is some pale malt. It mellows out a bit as it warms. It's fizzy and bubbly. B-

Brooklyn Summer Ale: Smells very wheaty with orange and a hint of lemon. Nice yeast and wheat combo. Light and a bit fizzy. The wheat/orange combo is predominant. Refreshing. Thickens up as it warms. B+

Tsing Tao: Corn/rice with a slightly thick feel. Tiny hint os orange peel. Leaves a thick film. Almost a weak witbier since the wheat is what comes out most. C+

Sierra Nevada Porter: Very dark, great head. Smells sweet. Light coffee flavor, balanced nicely with the sweetness. Really balanced and great. A really superb porter. A-

Peroni: The only smell is rice and corn. Italians should stick to surrendering and stop brewing. Very average. Tiny bit creamy. Not very good. C

Carlsberg: Actually a nice head and some good lace. Looks good, tastes bland. Very not good. C-

San Miguel: Straw yellow. Smells very bland, tiny hint of orange. Interesting. Unusually creamy. Almost has a honey flavor. Cloying sweetness with every sip. Molasses? Kind of a taffy pull. C+

Lowenbrau Original: Bland yellow color; dull and clear. Mild wheaty sweetness in the otherwise dull malt taste. Kinda smooth, relatively speaking. Actually not awful. Subpar?: yes, but not awful. The wheaty taste counteracts the sharp bitterness. C+

Sam Adams Boston Ale: This is actually a seriously refreshing change from the fizzy yellow stuff I've been downing. What strikes me here is how smooth and butterscotchy it actually is. Decent. B-

Old Speckled Hen: Decent golden look with some surprisingly decent head. Great lace. Maybe because of the clear bottle, but it's somewhat skunked. Pale lager-flavored malt. I have to blame the distributor for still transporting this in clear bottles. Surprisingly, there is a buttery smooth feel. C+

Negra Modelo: The color is light and clear brown. Not much smell at all. Tastes like a brown, somewhat watery. Not terrible, but again, subpar. A little roasted malty film. C+

Southern Tier - Phin and Matt's Extraordinary Ale: Fantastic, lovely hop smell. Slight chlorine aroma, but hops cover it. Grapefruity citrus taste, sweet, love it. Sweet ultra pale, lots of hops. B+

Quick Take: Blue Moon Honey Moon Summer Ale

When one thinks of microbreweries, they might think of Blue Moon. Then again, they might not. It depends on how much you know about beer, I suppose. For the unitiated, Blue Moon has quickly become a brand name for unfiltered wheat beer served at a wide variety of bars with a dainty little slice of orange as a garnish. For the initiated, Blue Moon is the demon spawn of Coors, unleashed to distract attention away from true craft breweries.

I tend to fall somewhere between the two; I can remember trying a Blue Moon somewhere between 1997 or 98 and enjoying it because it was different from my normal, ice-beer swill, but in the last couple of years, I've learned that I can do better with regards to Belgians and wheat beers.

That being said, today, circumstances (a visit to Lionheart in downtown Albany on $2 Tuesday) led to me trying a new variety of Blue Moon: their so-called Honey Moon Summer Ale.

The verdict: disappointing. One of the things I like about Blue Moon is the unfiltered wheat taste; I have a great affinity for unfiltered wheat beers. However, the Honey Moon is a filtered beer. The wheat taste is there, but the generally light coloring (it resembles a light pilsener in color more than anything else) and taste leads me to believe that the presence of wheat in the beer has been somewhat diminished. The website claims it uses malted white wheat, but it doesn't have a great effect in the beer. The honey in question is interesting; it's definitely clover honey as opposed to a more refined honey, but it really doesn't add much to the beer beyond an initial taste.

It's drinkable, that's for sure; but it's not the kind of beer I'd have more than one of. Ultimately, you can do better.

Quick Take: Magic Hat Kerouac

The folks at Magic Hat continue to frustrate us.

By all accounts, they are a class operation that really does a great job of not only marketing their product -- their Vermont-based beers are all over Central New York -- but also remaining interactive with their "fans," getting them to vote on beers, come up with names, and decide which batches should stay and which should go. They seem to be true advocates of the craft of brewing.



Additionally, they are constantly refining their product, turning over their product very efficiently for each season, and putting out new, sometimes experiemental beers. Some of them are fantastic (Roxy Rolles), and some of them didn't quite hit us the right way (Jinx).

But our main problem is that they don't always seem to make the most sound decisions when it comes to their beers. They market the hell out of their #9 (and rightfully so, given that it's probably the East Coast's number one "gateway beer" for non-beer drinkers), but it's impossible to find Roxy Rolles at this time of year.

Also, according to Wikipedia, they have discontinued brewing their decent Blind Faith IPA and pleasant Fat Angel pale ale. [Note: I won't mind this so much if they start pushing their Hi.P.A. a little harder and come out with a comparable pale ale.]

On a quick jaunt to Clark's Ale House recently, we noticed that Magic Hat was offering a brew of whose existence we had not been aware: Kerouac. (The beer is not mentioned on Magic Hat's website.) Since all the Magic Hat brews have a kind of hippie vibe, the name didn't really intrigue us as much as some of the other "tribute" beers we had tried in the past -- notably He'Brew's tribute to Lenny Bruce and Lagunitas's homage to Frank Zappa. (Besides, we read On the Road and it bored the shit out of us.)

We asked the barkeep what kind of brew this was, to which he replied "beet ale." Given the name of the beer, we had assumed that the bartender had meant "beat ale," as in the Beat Generation of Kerouac, Ginsburg, Burroughs, etc. Who would make a beer out of beets? But it soon became apparent that this brew was certainly not normal.

It pours a very bright red that looks more like some kind of juice that would come from an empty jar of cherries. It does not look like beer. It was at this point that we figured out that it truly was a "beet ale". The smell is almost non-existant; it is a very slight cherry (or we suppose beet) smell, but very slight. The rest of the smell is a bitter malt. The taste doesn't offer very much in the way of blowing our proverbial skirt up. There is that same bitter Bavarian malt taste that the smell foretold, but really not much else. It's almost like a winter ale, but without any of that tart sweetness whatsoever. And although the feel of the ale is a relatively welcome creamy viscosity, the drinking experience overall is simply dull. Ironically, because the beer is so bland and inoffensive, it's actually a pretty easy drinkin' brew. Still, Kerouac Beet Ale seems a long way to go for a pun.

We will always be rooting for Magic Hat, because we think it's got the right spirit for the beer-drinking public. Furthermore, we would rather have a brewery that takes risks and comes up with new and exciting batches, as opposed to those breweries that play it safe and dull. But this beet ale didn't quite get the job done.

Quick Take: Three Floyds Gumballhead

Clark's Ale House continues to be the class of downtown Syracuse. While the Empire Brewing Company still awaits its liquor license, and the Blue Tusk becomes some sort of discotheque after 8pm, Clark's remains consistent: no loud music, no TVs, Trivia on Wednesdays, good rotation of beers.

One beverage we had not anticipated seeing there several weeks ago was the Three Floyd's Gumballhead American Pale Wheat Ale. We had heard of Three Floyds Brewing Company in Munster, Indiana through the grapevine, and Beeradvocate.com generally rates most of their beers very high for style. A Pale wheat ale? This sounds like it would be some sort of unclassifiable Hefeweizen or Pale Ale with wheat thrown in. What we found was a truly unique drinking experience.

First of all, this is a very very hoppy beverage. It's like a great India Pale Ale, with bitter, flowery hops and that little bite on the way down. But it does not make a fetish out of the hops, or flaunt them, or simply over-hop for hopses sake. It's the perfect dry IPA upon the first sip. But then something happens. Something unusual.

There really is a "gumball" flavor at the swallow. The aftertaste becomes a sweet -- but not too sweet -- candy like flavor. Like a dry candy, say a bubble-gum flavored sweet tart. It's the perfect counterpoint to the bitterness of the first sip. In this way Gumballhead reminded me a bit of Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat, with the latter having a very pronounced orange sherbet taste. But Gumballhead proves to be far superior given the understated nature of the gumball taste, as well as the care that all Three of the Floyds took with the hops.

If you see it on a beer menu in the Northeast, get it.

Quick Take: Rogue Brew 10,000

Rogue Brew 10,000 Ale

We were lucky enough to have a pint of this one-off special offering from Rogue on Friday at Mahar's. It was created in celebration of head brewer John Maier's 10,000th batch of beer at Rogue. It was soft and creamy, but with a hop-fueled alcoholic bite. Somewhat reminiscent of a barley wine, but more complex and with a different "burn" on the finish. A smooth and malty DIPA? Rogue says that it doesn't fit any one style, and we certainly won't argue that. Plenty of good stuff going on in there. Really interesting beer, glad to have had the chance to try it.

What the brewery says:

Brew 10,000: One Brewer, Eighteen Years, Ten-Thousand Batches of Beer.

Brew 10,000 is not so much a style of beer, rather it is a new recipe using some of the best ingredients John Maier has ever brewed with... Vienna, French Special Aroma, and Maris Otter Pale Malts; Yakima Summit and German Saphir Hops, Free-range Coastal Waters, and PacMan Yeast.

Brew 10,000 was brewed only once, so its allocated and very, very limited. Its packaged in the swing-top 750-ml ceramic bottle and available only at select retailers...while supplies last...if you need to know where, ask Schuyler@rogue.com for a retailer near you.

Measurements: 21 degrees Plato, IBU 83, Apparent Attenuation 78,
Lovibond 18, ABV 10%.
No Chemicals, Additives, or Preservatives