Before I delve into this week’s beer, let’s talk about beer in general to develop some context. These days, most beers can be distinctly classified as either ales or lagers. Ales are usually fermented and aged warm, around the low end of room temperature. Ale yeasts are happiest at this temperature, and they convert the [...]
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Hop aroma dominates Green Flash’s pale ale
Last week I reviewed a light, delicate beer perfect for a summer day — the Troegs Sunshine Pils. This week I’ll be shifting gears a bit by reviewing a veritable hop bomb, Green Flash Brewing Co.’s West Coast IPA. The India pale ale style originated in England in the mid-1800s. The famed brewing waters of [...]
Sunshine Pilsner packs flowery and malt flavors
Summer is nearly here, and with summer comes warm weather, baseball games on TV, and of course, summer beer styles. Among the many traditional summer styles, I have to say that Pilsner is one of my favorites. And when I say Pilsner, I’m not talking about Bud Light Lime or Miller Chill. I’m talking about [...]
Liopard Oir Farmhouse Ale lacks complex flavor
One of my favorite warm-weather styles is the saison, which I have been missing the past few months. So in honor of the return of air conditioning season, I took a browse through the Belgian style section and came away with Lavery Brewing Co.’s Liopard Oir Farmhouse Ale. Lavery Brewing Co. is the brainchild of [...]
Bourbon barrels lend malty vanilla notes to Heresy beer
Last week I wrote about Weyerbacher’s Insanity, a barrel aged barleywine. Well, this week I couldn’t resist cracking open Heresy, the bourbon barrel-aged version of Old Heathen, Weyerbacher’s Russian Imperial Stout. Why this sudden interest in barrel-aged beer, you may ask? Well, the superficial reasons are that I happen to like bourbon and that I [...]
Insanity lacks hop flavor
There are a few beers that I keep my eye out for, and this week I ran across two of them, Weyerbacher Brewing Co.’s Insanity and Heresy. I’m saving the Heresy for another time, but I couldn’t resist cracking open the Insanity. Weyerbacher markets its Blithering Idiot English barleywine year round, but every February the [...]
Cidery notes in Tripel brew
This week has been rather warm, so I decided to crack open a lighter beer. I’ve been doing a lot of IPAs, so I went with a Belgian instead, grabbing Moab Brewery’s Tripel. Moab was started in 1996 by John Borkoski and Dave Sabey and claims to be the only brewery still in Utah, although [...]
Imperial India contains sweet taste, piny aroma
As the weather has warmed up, I have begun to crave some more hops. I love barleywines, especially during the winter, but I’ve been suffering withdrawal from a lack of fresh hops. To remedy this, I grabbed a bottle of Rogue Ales’ XS Imperial India Pale Ale. This beer is part of their XS series, [...]
Sierra Nevada Torpedo offers malty sweetness
The beer I selected for this week is a favorite of mine from the old, dependable Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Sierra Nevada was founded in 1979 by Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi, two homebrewers who wanted to turn their hobby into a career. The company started in Chico, Calif., and draws its name from the [...]
Goose Island’s Sofie gives off malty sweetness taste
This week I tried a beer recommended to me by the proprietor of Mad Greek’s Pizza, which happens to stock a solid selection of single beer bottles for the next time you want to try something new. This fine gentleman recommended I try Goose Island’s Sofie, which is a saison, or Belgian farmhouse ale, and [...]
Old Grand-Dad boasts overpowering flavors
This week I am reviving a long-dormant section of my column: the liquor review. I love American whiskeys, and I try to review things that are interesting but within the price range of a student, so I picked up a bottle of Old Grand-Dad 114. Most whiskey is sold between 80 and 100 proof, but [...]
Victory’s Oak Horizontal provides excellent flavor
Victory Brewing Co. was started by Ron Barchet and Bill Covaleski in 1996. The brewery itself is located in an old Pepperidge Farm factory, and the brewhouse has recently been upgraded to an automated 50-barrel system made by Rolec. The brewery has grown immensely in popularity since it opened, and it now distributes three of [...]
Samuel Smith’s organic ale an excellent choice
I’ve been reviewing barleywines the past few weeks, and I’ve got another one queued up for next week, but I decided to take a break and try something a bit lighter. I have a soft spot for session beers, and this week I grabbed a bottle of Samuel Smith’s Organic Best Ale. Best ale is [...]
Stone’s Old Guardian ale improves with age
This week I’m starting a new series for the new calendar year: English Beers. For my New Year’s Eve party I picked up three barleywines, two sessions and an IPA, which I will write about in turn over the next month and a half. The first victim is Stone’s Old Guardian Barley Wine Style Ale. [...]
Chocolate stout surprises with raspberry flavoring
One of the more recent trends in brewing has been to use a wider variety of ingredients, especially compared to beers produced early in the craft beer revolution. These include the many fruit beers now commonplace in craft breweries, as well as maple syrup; various spices such as nutmeg, cardamom and yarrow; and even some [...]
Vanilla wood releases sweetness in Scotch ale
This week I tasted the third beer in a series I’m doing: Innis & Gunn’s Rum Cask. This beer is a scotch ale, which is a family of beer seen only occasionally here in the United States. These beers are typically very malt focused, so they are casualties of America’s obsession with hops. I’m beginning [...]
Sweet and tart hard cider not for the faint of heart
One of the hidden gems of the alcoholic beverage industry is hard cider. The massive increase in regulation following Prohibition, combined with the lager wars of the mid-20th century pushing out almost everything with, well, flavor, resulted in the virtual disappearance of this wonderful beverage from common consumption. This week I will be reviewing a [...]
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