Old Stock Ale 2012:
Greetings friends and fellow beer drinkers and a hearty welcome back to my attempt to wrap a koozie around the ice cold world of beer.  Today let’s look at another beer from that nice little brewery in California, North Coast Brewery and their Old Stock Ale 2012. This beer, an Old Ale style beer, is brewed with imported malts from England and is designed to cellar for several years to mellow and mature like a fine wine.  The beer pours a nice cloudy amber color with a fizzy khaki colored head, a nose of dark fruits and caramel.  The beer’s initial taste is heavy on a metallic roasted malt flavor that develops with the aid of carbonation fizz to a flavor similar to over ripened fruits and bread undertones that end in a heavy malt back end.  The aftertaste is similar to a caramelized sugar with spots of sweetness and burnt notes lacing together very well.  A very nice beer that has what seems like limitless possibilities with some aging behind it.  This particular beer made it almost a 6 months so the flavors and malts really had no chance to develop themselves but we can look at this as jumping the gun on the beer or establishing a baseline for future aging bottles that are to be acquired.  I prefer the latter but that’s just me. Schol, y’all. 

Victory Ranch IPA:
Howdy partners and welcome to the ponderosa where we round up beer reviews like cattle going to market.  You know, I’m feeling hoppy today so let’s take a gander at an IPA. No, wait, a DOUBLE IPA, yeah buddy, now that’s the stuff and I think the gang at Victory Brewing with their Ranch Double IPA.  This experimental beer was poured from a tap with a slightly cloudy golden color, a thick bone white head of foam, impressive lacing, and a nose of piney hops and resin.  The beer’s initial taste is a good mellow citrus and pine combo that grows to dominate the mid tongue while the citrus bows out on the back end succeeding its place on the palate to a strong bitterness.  The aftertaste swims in a sour resin flavor that carries a slightly creamy undertone of malts but make no mistake, the hops own this beer.  This is an impressive beer but it’s a shame that this beer was a single brew but hopefully that will change in the near future.  If you can find this beer on tap, GET IT and enjoy a beer that will only appease your hop craving but satisfy that rare beer itch that you maybe getting.  Cheers fellow hop heads.  
 

Coney Island Mermaid Pilsner:
Greetings and salutation fellow beer drinkers and welcome to another beer review for the masses.   Today let’s look a beer from those crazy folks at Coney Island (Schmaltz Brewing) and their take on the pilsner style: Mermaid Pilsner.  To be honest and up front, this beer really doesn’t do much to improve the image of Coney Island after the whole Freaktoberfest let down of 2012 but I promised Ariel I’d give her beer a review so here we go.  The beer was poured from a tap the prototypical clear golden color of all pilsners with a thin white head that leave some small traces of lacing early on and a nose of candied fruits with notes of malts and hops underneath.  The beer’s taste is strictly unoriginal with the front-end notes of malts coming on strong while the carbonation builds towards the mid tongue that allow notes of hops and some rye edge to come through and an aftertaste of light bread and hops that one can find in most decent American lagers.  The beer isn’t bad but it really breaks no new ground nor does it dare to be different for a drinker who spent considerably more for a glass/bottle of this beer versus what they could have gotten form one of the usual suspects.  My advice is that if you’re interested in this beer or a fan of pilsner there are many more affordable beers out there that offer you the exact same experience as this beer.  

Avery duganA:
Hello friends and neighbors and a toast to your arrival!  Today let’s look at a beer that is in the style that all of us truly enjoy: India Pale Ales.  Now if you don’t enjoy this type of beer then I’m sorry, you are truly missing out on one of the best beer types out there and one of the greats is Avery’s duganA.  This imperial IPA was brewed by Avery to have “a brutally bitter, dank, piney and resinous” flavor which is “designed for those seeking a divine hop experience.”  This beer was poured from a tap a beautiful clear golden color with not much head and a minimal amount of lacing with a nose of thick piney hops and citrus notes.  The beer’s initial taste is actually a brief sweet note that blooms to a sour fruit notes that blend nicely with the piney resin under notes that stick around on the back end along with a coating of film in the mouth.  Not for the beginner, this beer requires at least a well rounded beer palate before truly appreciating what this beer has to offer.  A great IPA, one worthy of the shelf space along side others that use that pernicious weed that some of beerphiles love so much. 

Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale:
Howdy one and all and welcome back to the best little beer website west of the Trinity River.  Maybe, kinda.  Well it’s a matter of opinion but let’s move on.  Today we get to look at my beer love, my joy, my reason for drinking beer (a good reason, believe it or not): Dogfish Head and now we get to enjoy their Indian Brown Ale, a brown ale that successfully straddles the line between a roasted malt ale and a medium hopped beer.  The beer pours a nice dark brown with an aggressively building off white head of foam that quickly reduces down but leaves decent lacing and a nose of roasted malts and dry hops.  The beer’s initial taste is akin to a pale ale with nicely balanced hop notes while the mid tongue and after taste is heavily dominated by heavily roasted malts that slip in and out of coffee notes and caramel notes with the aftertaste being slightly sour and smooth.  This beer, billed as a Dark IPA by Dogfish, is a bottle of beer that I never gave to much attention too since it’s availability is year round and my focus with them is more on their seasonal or rarity releases.  Boy, am I glad I cracked open this bottle, this is a good beer that can satisfy both the hop heads as well as malt beer lovers and it’s light on the palate despite it’s 7.2% ABV.  Easy to find and it’s worth the purchase of the whole six pack in my opinion, or at least a handful of singles to consume at your leisure. 

Lagunitas Sucks:
Hello one and all and a hearty welcome back to my little attempt bring sanity to an insane beer world.  Today let’s look at what is probably the first substitute beer in the short history of this endeavor.  Today we look at Lagunitas Sucks.  This ale was brewed in 2011 as a capacity limited (due to construction) brewery and since the brewers at Lagunitas thought it would pale in comparison to Brown Shugga, they figured the beer would suck so, hence, the name. That’s the story I heard and I’m sticking to it (till told otherwise).  The beer pours nice clean golden color with a good light foamy head and a nose full of hops and citrus/pine  notes.  The beer’s initial taste is very similar to most pale ales with a building hop flavor that rolls into a spiced hop mid tongue and back end while the aftertaste is very similar to a rye based beer with a mix of bread, hops, and a creamy undertone.  A much more complex beer then the Brown Shugga in my opinion this beer is a great holiday beer with the hops keeping this beer fresh and new.  Honestly, I think I will side with this beer if ever asked to pick between the two beers.  Locate this, enjoy it, and repeat.

Lagunitas Brown Shugga:
Greetings one and all and welcome back.  Today lets talk about brown sugar (sadly not the Rolling Stones song), in particular, Brown Shugga the seasonal release from Laguintas.  This beer which was the failed attempt to make a barleywine back in the late 1990’s and is the product of feeding brown sugar to yeasts, is one of those highly coveted beers for seasonal beer hunters and yes, I proudly put myself in that camp.  The beer pours a red-tinted amber color with a thin film of white foam that leaves some lacing and a nose bready malts and caramel.  The beer’s taste is pretty uniform actually with a semi-thick viscosity with a good balance of strong malts and caramel notes that can be interpreted as brown sugar to some, caramel to others.  The aftertaste is where one does notice a bit of booze but also a freshly baked bread taste that seems to cut a lot of the caramel sweetness from the front end of the beer.  This a good seasonal beer, defiantly worth hunting down and enjoying it. 

Dogfish Head Immort Ale:
Greetings dear hearts and welcome to a testament to beer craft itself.  Yes friends today we look at a beer that makes us not only happy we drink beer but wonder why there aren’t more beers like this in the world.  So lets get the obvious out of the way first: this beer is from Dogfish Head and I think my admiration for this beer maker is well documented and now, lets look at their Immort Ale.  This English Strong Ale takes maple syrup, peat-smoked barley, juniper berries, and vanilla and then aged in oak tanks to make one delicious beer.  The beer pours a nice copper color with minimal head of foam, no lacing, and a nose of vanilla and smoke.  The beer’s taste starts with a nice subtle caramel flavor that moves to a sweet vanilla mid tongue that carries smoke and floral notes with a nice oak addition on the back end of the tongue while the aftertaste is a nice mellow bend of oak and sweet notes of vanilla.  So this is not a beer that will knock off my favorite DF beer but this definitely vaults itself into the top five in their line.  Now the sad part: this isn’t available here in the Lone Star state (I got mine up in Delaware) but there maybe hope of this making it’s way down here sometime.  How do I know?  Faith, people.  Faith.  

Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye:
Hello one and all and welcome back to the light that is shed on that nest of vipers…I mean beers.  Today we stay in the continental United States and head to the Golden State, California, and look at a beer from their Bear Republic beer (incidentally it’s “Home of the Best IPA in the USA”, or so they say).  Going into this glass of beer I should have been skeptical since I’m not really a fan of west coast IPA’s due to their lack of strong hop flavor but I completely forgot this fact when I ordered it so I literally went into this glass of beer with no expectations which is how I go into all my beer reviews.  Honest.  The beer was poured from a tap with a nice amber color with a thin white head of foam that left good lacing inside the glass and a nose of piney hops and rye/wheat notes.  The beer’s taste starts off with a smooth citrus flavor that blends into a rye and pine flavor on the mid tongue and a citrus and skunk back end that is common in most good IPAs.  The aftertaste is a nice balance of all the flavors found in the beer and really the skunk is pretty tame and you are eager to take another sip to enjoy what a magnificent beer you have in front of you.  I declare this to be a  great IPA and that it has really flown under the radar for me until now is a mystery but rest assured dear readers, this is one beer you shouldn’t pass up on especially if you’re a hop head. 

Avery The Reverend:
Greetings friends and well wishers and welcome back, you were missed.  Today’s beer hails once again from that great beer producing state of Colorado and one of it’s more creative brewers, Avery.  Yes friends we once again look to that Boulder based brewery for not only drinking inspiration but also possible religious salvation.  You see, the beer I have chosen to enlightened us with, The Reverend, is a part their “Holy Trinity of Ales” line that includes Hog Heaven and Salvation.  So how does this Belgian Style Quadruple Ale taste?  Well first off the beer pours a nice cloudy amber color with a thick white head that leaves good lacing and a nose of sweet breads and fruits.  The beer’s initial taste is a bread like that develops a nice, subtly sweet flavor that starts off with the sweet bread/dark fruit taste that rolls into a caramel taste on the back end and leaves a booze heavy aftertaste.  A very enjoyable beer though the fact that it comes in a big bottle only doesn’t really help unless you’re splitting this with someone because it’s almost too much..  If I wanted to try this again I figure best way to enjoy this beer is to locate it somewhere on tap and enjoy a glass but there is nothing wrong with the bottle, just beware it’s rich and heavy.

North Coast Brewing Le Merle:
Hello one and all and welcome to my best attempt to shed light on the crazy world of beer.  Today let’s look at the other artisan beer from the fine brewers at North Coast Brewing, Le Merle (the other artisan beer of their’s, Brother Thelonious ,is a great beer for a great cause).  This siason style beer which pours a nice cloudy straw color with a fizzy white head of foam that leaves no lacing and has a nose of sweet fruits and grass notes.  The beer’s initial taste is much like a sparkling white wine with very noticeable fine carbonation that seems to carry a strong candied lemon flavor that gradually develops an alcoholic undertone and finishes with a mellow grassy flavor on the back end and adds a dryness- along with the previous flavors - to the aftertaste.  This is a great summer beer this light beer is one that would easily please the ladies in the reading audience due to it’s more wine like nature and light flavors.  A very good beer in my own opinion but not a beer I could revisit often unless company was around to share in it.

Lagunitas IPA:
Greetings and welcome fellow hop heads and today, I bring good news!  Well, actually, I hope each one of these reviews brings you happiness, joy, wealth (by the way, none of those are guaranteed results).   Today lets look at a beer that deserves to be looked at as an entry regular rotation IPA, right there with the likes of Dogfish 90 minute, Breckenridge’s 471 Small Batch, and several others (those two are favorite widely available IPAs for your’s truly).   Today we look at Lagunitas IPA, a nice IPA that is an awesome on ramp for those wanting to get into more serious beers.  The beer pours a nice blonde color with a bleached white head of foam that leaves decent lacing and a nice nose of pine notes and citrus.  The beer’s initial taste is heavy on those piney notes that moves to a good balance of the aforementioned pine and citrus on the mid tongue and back end while the aftertaste is a subtly dry and skunky but nothing to offensive.  This is one of the few Lagunitas beers that is widely available and is found in most bars that carry a decent bottle selection so I suggest trying one with a nice spicy dish (your food, not your date). 

Squatters Outer Darkness:
Hello dear hearts and welcome back to the one and a only beer review website that I write for (right now).  Today let’s stay domestic and  go to the land of Mormons, mountains, and a statue of seagull.  Yes friends, I speak of Salt Lake City and Squatter’s (Salt Lake) Brewing who makes today’s dark concoction: Outer Darkness.  This Russian Imperial Stout that was poured from a tap with a coffee black coloration, a thick foamy head that leaves a good amount of lacing, and a nose of subtle hints of roasted malts, dark chocolate, and caramel.  The beer’s initial taste is a smooth coffee like taste that quickly blooms to include dark chocolate notes and dark fruits that blend nicely on the back end as well as the aftertaste.  A very enjoyable stout, this beer deserves a lot more attention then it seems to be getting; seemingly swallowed up by other stout beers, but really, like all good thinks in life, this one doesn’t need to advertise the fact that it’s awesome because word of mouth is more than enough.  If you find this either on-tap or in the big bottle I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.  Enjoy. 

Widmer Brrrbon '11:
Hello all and a hearty winter welcome back to the best little beer website any of you have set your eyes on (I hope).  Today let’s do a sort of repeat/sort of new beer with a take on Widmer Brothers’ Brr with the Brrrbon ‘11, which is Brr, given an extra shot of hops and then stored in bourbon barrels for 4 months and, oh yes I almost forgot this key ingredient: it was “aged” for another year in my cabinet and now *drum roll* I get to share it with y’all! Figuratively, that is, don’t get to excited.  So today’s beer pours a nice ruby amber color with a bit of cloudiness with no head to speak of and a nose of hops and subtle floral notes.  The beer’s initial taste is very similar to the normal Brr but with a but more hop bite but then, then my friends, the bourbon kicks in and wow, the game changes.  The rest of the beer’s flavor profile is akin to a hybrid blend of a hoppy beer with bourbon notes that are mainly sweet caramel notes in the aftertaste and a whiskey like viscosity that is noticeable on the tongue.  Not sure what the aging process did to this beer but it certainly didn’t hurt it and just to make sure that this isn’t a fluke, I have grabbed a bottle of Brrrbon ‘12 and will let it mellow for year as well and see if the process repeats itself.  Before we go, a side note, I got to try Brrbon’11 on draft recently and it’s flavor profile was toned down and more carbonated then what I had in the bottle, enjoyable but nothing too spectacular. 

Deep Ellum Darkest Hour:
Greetings and salutations fellow beer drinkers.  Today let’s look local for our beer choice for today and once again we look to what is becoming the city of Dallas’ flagship brewery, Deep Ellum Brewery and their limited release beer: Darkest Hour.  This beer, a rye imperial stout, is poured from a tap a midnight black color with a thin coffee colored head of foam that leaves good lacing inside the glass and a nose of coffee with subtle caramel notes.  The beer’s initial taste is very typical with heavy coffee flavors that roll subtly to include some rye notes that aren’t to dissimilar to coffee with whiskey flavors (yeah, I wouldn’t know anything about that *cough* nothing at all) that mellow to a grainy burnt malt flavor on the back end and aftertaste.  Another great dark brew from the gang at Deep Ellum and, like all their other limited release beers, is a tap only beer.  So good friends- at least those of you who are local - hunt down this beer, drink, enjoy and repeat.   

Alaskan Smoked Porter:
Greetings and salutations my good beer drinking friends and welcome back to a review of yet another winter beer from the land of long winters.  Alaskan Brewing is one of those breweries that has been talked up to me by multiple sources but the one beer I’ve had from them thus far failed to impress me so much that I’ve yet to consider writing it up.  Not the highest praise.  So today let’s take another stab at the Alaskan line-up and look at one of their winter beers: Alaskan Smoked Porter.  The beer was poured from a tap as a black coloration with a minimally present head of brown foam, no lacing, and a nose of thick sweet smoky notes.  The beer’s taste is pretty uniform in it’s profile with a strong smoke flavor that is very similar to liquid smoke (in my mind) though it does have that nice mellow booze taste that cuts the smoke taste.  Smoked beers are nothing new to me but they seem to be gaining in popularity in the past year or so but they still vary in their quality and this beer is one of the higher quality ones out there.  If you get a chance to try this beer, I suggest you try it and enjoy what you have in your glass, it’s something to behold I assure you.   

Lagunitas Wilco Tango Foxtrot:
Hello all and welcome back to the beer website that not only entertains but educates as well (yes, you just might learn something today).  So as we continue to trudge through the beer world, Lagunitas continues to provide us with an enticing beer line up with names (like today’s Wilco Tango Foxtrot and Censored) to *ahem* a temptress that graces it’s label on certain beers.  Today’s beer is a sequel to 2009’s Correction Ale and this beer was supposed to be Recovery Ale, but alas, the recovery was not happening so the name was changed to Whiskey Tango Foxtrot or WTF.  Now, there is apparently a rule out there where it says that beer can’t be called “Whiskey” so they switch it to Wilco and, presto, this beer is born.  Okay, enough learning, let’s get to the reason we are here.  The beer pours a dark clear amber color with a decent off white head that leaves some lacing and a nose of malts, malts, a bit more malts and some spice and molasses.  The beer’s initial taste is creamy and thick with a touch of toasted bread flavor that rolls into a mid tongue of spices that give the beer a nice range beyond the malt flavors that dominate the beer.  The backend and after taste are malty with only a hint of hops floating around in there.  Not my style of beer really and I had a hard time enjoying it with the generous amount of malts in this beer.  If you’re one for malts, this is right up your alley and you don’t have to worry about me, I’ve already tried it and won’t be going back to it. 

Saint Arnold Icon Belgian-Style Pale Ale:Howdy all and welcome back to our ever continuing tour through the Texas beer country.  Where is that you ask?  Why it’s everywhere!  Yeah cheesy I know but it’s also true.  So let’s look back at Texas oldest craft brewery and look at their newest line: Saint Arnold Icon.  This first entry into this new line-up is a Belgian-Style Pale Ale that takes the traditional aspects of a Belgian beer and tones it down a few notches to make it more approachable for the average beer drinker.  The beer was poured from a tap and arrived with a light red color with a thin white head of foam that leaves minimal lacing, and a nose of piney hops with a touch of fruity malts underneath it all.  The beers initial taste is like the nose with a predominate hop taste that blooms into a mid-tongue of fruity notes that is quickly dominated again by the hops though they are less edgy than they were at first sip.  A dry mellow aftertaste rounds out this Belgian and it’s relatively easy to drink with it’s ABV hovering around 6% ABV.  A good beer that Saint Arnold has put out though it’s not as daring as the Bishop Barrel No. 1 that was released late 2012 this one does have one advantage over it: availability.  Currently the bottles of Icon that are for individual sale are being slowly rolled out across the distribution area but kegs are going out to local bars and should be available for your enjoyment and consumption while they last.  Enjoy. 

Baltika #5 Gold:
Greetings friends and welcome back to the seemingly endless trek through the beer wilderness.  So what can we say about a beer that official doesn’t exist according to it’s website?  What if I told you that this beer was from Russia?  Hmmm…the questions start to abound don’t they?  I wonder if Putin has something to do with this, I mean he was a former KGB man and he probably knows how to make things disappear.   So without much help from Baltika (they are the second largest Eastern European brewer and own, among others, Corona) let’s look at their No. 5 beer which is called Gold, brewed with a combo of pale and caramel malts.  The beer pours a clear golden color that has a thin white head that leaves some decent amount of lacing and a nose of artificially sweet corn and malts.  The beer’s taste is very uniform with not much depth to it and tasting like a watered down cream soda most of the time though the taste of a lager does rear it’s head in the after taste.  Not a good beer but not a bad one either, it’s just kind of there and really doesn’t offer anything new into the world.  Maybe it’s a good thing this is hidden from the general public. 

Brooklyn There Will Be Black:
Greetings and salutations fellow beer drinkers and readers of fine literature (what one of y’all is doing here I’ll never know) and welcome back to my attempt to put a little sanity into the wide world of beer.  Today we look once again at a beer from the good people at Brooklyn Brewery and this time, we go fancy and look at a part of their Brewmaster’s Reserve line: There Will Be Black is a Black IPA that again adds to my growing fascination of the dark elixir and it doesn’t hurt that it is very drinkable as well.  The beer, poured from a tap, arrives a nice black color with red hints along the edges of the glass, a nice thick off-white head that leaves tons of lacing in the glass, and a nose of very fresh piney hops and raw malts.  The beer’s initial taste and mid tongue are one in the same with a predominant hop flavor that makes one think they are drinking pine sap- and that’s a good thing, promise- while the back end flavor is a nice mellow malt finish that cuts the usual hop skunk down a few notches but still enough to be noticeable and dry.  A good and tasty IPA though and while it is in the same ballpark as Stone’s Sublimely Self Righteous, it’s confined to the bullpen.  If you run across this, give it a try but Stone is more widely available so choose wisely. 

Widmer Brothers Brrr:
Howdy folks and I’m happy y’all have decided to come back for some more quality beer reviews from yours truly.  Since we are still hanging onto this chilly weather I figure it’s appropriate we look (again) at a beer that’s labeled after what I heard a lot of people saying over the past 24 hrs or so: Brrr.  This winter warm from Widmer Brothers boasts “bold hop flavor, malty sweet finish” which, even without tasting, is a change from other winter warmers that claim they have “spice” or “holiday” flavors.   Now I know that I’ve already reviewed this beer but it was way out of season when I did so let’s try one at the peak of the season. The beer pours a reddish brown with a finger’s thick tan head, good lacing, and a nose of  piney hops and a touch of roasted malts.  The beer’s initial taste is that of fresh, strong hops with a creamy undertone that dissipates quickly while the sheer rawness of the hops grows on the mid tongue and a caramel flavor of roasted malts grows on the back end.  The after taste is mainly dominated by the hops but hints of bready malts do show up.  So a second look at this beer yields a better experience than the first and now gives us a better base to appreciate the bourbon barrel blend of the Brrr later on.  Till then folks. 

Shiner FM 966:
Hello friends and fellow beer drinkers and welcome back to the state of the Lone Star!  Yes friends today I stay at home and *ahem* work for you by looking at Shiner’s new Spring Ale FM 966, a farmhouse style ale named after the road the Farm to Market road in Shiner and shows itself to be a good entry level farmhouse ale style beer.  For a quick refresher farmhouse ale can also be called a Saison style beer and harbor traditional brewing methods that were used in winter months that allowed workers to make a beer for the summer months and are generally noted for their high carbonation and spices.  This particular beer pours a nice slight golden haze color with very noticeable carbonation bubbles, a bone-white fizzy head that seems more at home in a champagne flute then a pint glass, no lacing, and a subtle nose of fresh malts and grass notes.  The beer’s initial taste is heavy on the malts with no hint of hops and that familiar “liquid bread” taste which grows on the palate along with the carbonation through the mid tongue while the back end and aftertaste are subtlety spiced and very dry.  To me, this is more of a summer beer than springtime but I’m not in marketing and Shiner already has an awesome summer beer anyway.  My advice, grab a sixer (at least) of this and try a few then sit on them till May or June, whenever the blast furnace decides to hit us this year in Texas and enjoy it then.  Everywhere else, hey grab yourself some, this beer is light, high drinkability, and has a neutral flavor profile that makes this a good food pairing beer.  Till next time folks. 

Tommyknocker Cocoa Porter:
Howdy folks and welcome back to the fastest growing beer website on this side of the street.  Today friends let us jump back up that great beer brewing state of Colorado and look at a new brewery (to this site, the breweries been there since 1994): Tommyknocker Brewery which is located in the tiny town of Idaho Springs, CO.  This little brewery (which I’ve had a chance to eat at their restaurant) is one that I first noticed long ago because of their cleverly designed labels that featured gnome like miners running around and, sadly, they lost this look for a more modern look that frankly makes their beer blend in with the rest of the beers in the cold case.  So if it blends in with it’s external surroundings, the only way to separate it would be knowing just how good it’s contents are, so let’s look at their Cocoa Porter first.  This seasonal ale pours a nice deep brown color with a dark tan head that leaves some lacing inside the glass and a nose of coffee and dark chocolate.  The beer’s taste is pretty uniform from to back with a dominate flavor that seems to dance between cocoa powder and coffee with a back end that is almost champagne like in the carbonation fizz with a sweet after taste.  A nice mellow winter beer, best drunk cool, not cold like most porters.  If you get a chance to try this before it falls out of seasonal rotation. 

Blue Moon Winter Abbey Ale:
Hello one and all and welcome back to the wide and wonderful world of beer.  Today let us continue to look into the pool of winter beers and, yes, it is getting smaller but while the season persists, we’ll persist with it.  Today we look at Blue Moon’s winter offering: Winter Abbey Ale, a winter warmer style beer from the people who like to fruit their beer and yeah, fruit.  The beer pours a clear amber with a thin khaki head that leaves no lacing and a nose of overly roasted malts and some toffee notes.  The beer’s initial taste is very heavy on the roasted malts that march their way lock-step with an artificial spiced flavor that dominates the mid tongue and a back end that is a combo of the two and it isn’t that pleasant of a taste to have…oh and don’t get me started on the burnt bread after taste.  Not a good beer, really this is probably a new low for Blue Moon and it’s a far fall from their enjoyable Agave Wheat that is offered in their Summer packs.  Do yourself a flavor and avoid this one and grab another, hell, any beer out there when this is an option. 

Southern Star LeMort Vivant:
Hello fellow beer universe travelers and welcome back to the one place where the beer reviews believe in you as much as you believe in the beers being reviewed.  Today lets stay in the border of the great state of Texas and look at one of these new up-and-coming breweries here in the Lone Star State: Southern Star Brewing.  While I have developed a soft spot for these South Texas brewers, I haven’t given them a free pass on any beer they put out just yet and this beer is no exception.  Today’s beer is their seasonal beer Le Mort Vivant, a Biere de Garde which, for those who are curious, is very down to Earth beer style with esters and flavors that are can be described as “Earthy” or “fruity” or any other food based adjective that ends in “y”.  The beer pours a nice mellow amber color with some cloudiness, a thin, watery head that leaves no lacing what-so-ever and a nose of candied fruits and malts.  The beer’s initial taste is a mellow sweetness that is cut by some bready malts that allow some subtle piney hop notes to come through on the mid-tongue and a caramel sweetness on the back end and a dry finish.  A nice seasonal, one that is light enough to be enjoyed during the summer months but also has enough body to make it a decent fall beer as well.  If you can find yourself a can or two of this, I think you should grab them and enjoy what you find.  I really have no clue on how often this is brewed or available but I know that it is delicious and worth the hunt. 

Uinta Brewing Cockeyed Cooper:
Hello all and welcome to another beer review for the minority of beer drinker out there.  Yes friends, today we once again look at a barely wine beer, that delectable style of beer that seems to alienate 9 out of 10 people who are beer drinkers.  The while the beer’s style isn’t exactly a for sure seller to me, the fact that this was aged in bourbon barrels does elevate it in my mind (yeah, I’m easy to sway); so what does this brew out of Salt Lake have to offer?  Well Uinta Brewing has put out Cockeyed Cooper a big bottled barley wine that is a part of their crooked line of beers and is aged in bourbon barrels at least 6 months.  The beer pours a hazy amber color with hints of brown in the brew, a nice lightly carbonated head of foam and a nose of roasted malts, piney hops, and hints of brown sugar and sweet booze notes.  The beer’s initial taste is a nice thick malt flavor with a grape juice undertone that moves to a piney hop mid tongue that has hints of caramel and roasted malts while the back end is a combo of all these flavors with just enough vanilla to give one the idea that this may have seen the inside of a bourbon barrel at some point.  A very nice and mellow barley wine and should be enjoyed like a dark English beer (cool, not cold) and enjoyed slowly, very slowly because this is the type of beer that doesn’t sneak up on you but lets you know from first sip that it’s heavy in the booze department.  A great beer but just beware, it’s probably best enjoyed by the seasoned and adventurous beer drinker.
 

Maui Brewing/Dogfish Head Liquid Breadfruit:
Greetings and welcome friends of the beer craft and today let’s look at a collaboration brew from those awesome folks at Dogfish Head and the up-and-comers at Maui Brewing Company.  Today’s beer is called Liquid Breadfruit, named after the Pacific fruit that, when cooked, apparently tastes and looks like cooked bread on the inside.  Yeah, I’m not that intrigued but hey, it’s got Dogfish’s fingerprints on it and that must count for something, right?  So I figured that the people at DF had a lot of input in this and but after researching their involvement was limited to the idea of making a breadfruit beer and giving Maui Brewing a strain of yeast from that they have developed from a near by peach farm they were otherwise hands off.  Toss in the beer’s namesake fruit and toasted paypa seeds and this makes this beer a CANdidate (ha!) for the most interesting beer ingredients in a while.  The beer pours from a can a cloudy white and yellow with a creamy white foamy head that leaves decent amount of lacing and a nice citrus and cream nose that doesn’t overpower.  The beer’s taste is like most hefes though there is a nice citrus/tropical undertone to the beer that does carry through the sips of beer and it does seem to make this a different wheat beer than you’d expect.  It seems odd that they would release this beer this time of the year seeing how it drinks more like a summer beer than a winter release but whom am I to say?  Anyway, if you like a nice cloudy hefe and want to try something different, give this brew a try, I think you’ll like what you find. 

North Coast Brother Thelonious:
Hello all and welcome to another beer, another day and today, we get to look at not only a bottle of beer, but a big bottle with a cork!  So what beer do we have to look at today?  Well gentle readers it’s Brother Thelonious, a dark Belgian strong ale from North Coast Brewing and is a part of a charitable partnership with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.  We all love charitable beers here because they make us feel good for buying the beer and then even better for having consumed it- mainly ‘cause the means we can buy another one hence continuing to support the cause - but that is all dependent on the taste of the beer.  This beer pours a dark brown color with a decently thick and foamy head that leaves good lacing and a nose of sweet dark fruits and roasted malts.  The beer‘s nose moves the taste palate as being noticeable on the front end of the sip while the sweet dark fruits do sour a bit on the mid tongue and the back end taste is dominated by a creamy taste with a strange lemon-like taste underneath it all.   A smooth aftertaste with only a touch dryness being noticeable and really not much carbonation is noticeable despite the initial experience the head on the beer.  Not a bad little big bottle of beer it doesn’t break any ground but it is a very enjoyable drinking experience.