Saber-Tooth Squirrel Nut Brown Ale

Vitals

Scoring

(Also in solidarity with Charlie the Beer Guy.)

  • Appearance: 6 – I thought at first they had served me the wrong beer. It was not a medium brown, as I expected, but an impenetrable black brew.
  • Aroma: 8 – One whiff of the beer dispelled any concerns about a mix up. This beer has an intriguing, sweet note in the aroma. The brewer’s site describes it as a malty aroma, I’d go further and suggest it was almost a sweet caramel scent. Very enjoyable and not just a bit unusual for this style of beer.
  • Taste: 7 – The malty sweet wasn’t as noticeable in the taste, though it was indeed pleasantly malty. I didn’t get the “biscuity” flavor but found it pleasant enough, regardless. It had a nice, clean finish for such a malty beer, not leaving a cloying after taste or build up.
  • Mouth Feel: 7 – Very drinkable for such a dark beer. Light and refreshing.
  • Holistic: 9 – I liked this beer for its unusual character and especially its aroma.
  • Overall: 37 – I will definitely be ordering this beer, again. It cements Growlers as my new local favorite, based on this and the Iron Curtain stout I tried on my previous visit. Both were well executed, unique brews that go well with the local flavor and excellent menu.

Iron Curtain Imperial Stout

I finally made it out to Growlers. It was well worth the trip. I only tried their imperial stout but the whole family had dinner there. The food was excellent and the service was friendly. The environment is very comfortable with a nice local flavor.

Vitals

Scoring

(Also in solidarity with Charlie the Beer Guy.)

  • Appearance: 8 – This beer is a solid black, completely opaque. By the time it arrived at the table, the head was just a lace ring around the edge of the glass.
  • Aroma: 7 – Clean with a light hop note.
  • Taste: 7 – The strongest note in the flavor is hops. As I drank, though, the burnt malt built up a bit, but not too much so. I also got slight hints of licorice or anise as I continued to drink.
  • Mouth Feel: 6 – For such a dark, strong beer, the mouth feel was a bit thin. This may have been more of a problem with my expectation as it is a very smooth drinking beer, unlike some other stouts. It reminded me in this regard of Old Rasputin, one of my favorites.
  • Holistic: 9 – This beer stands up to all but my absolute favorite stout, DFH’s Worldwide. The fact that it is brewed locally and I could get it in a growler if I wanted leads me to give it some extra points.
  • Overall: 35 – My only fear is that the other, lighter beers on offer at Growlers won’t be as good. They have a wide selection of recipes and they rotate them both randomly and at the brew master’s whim. If this is the best beer until the menu changes, that is quite alright by me.

Growlers

On the way home from a local mall, following my trusty GPS down a route I would not have chosen, I passed Growlers. I believe this local brew pub used to be Summit Street Station. A quick Google revealed some promising details, including some favorable reviews.

I have not been, yet, but wanted to make a note of it here as a local source to check out.

Review Import Complete

I have finished moving all my reviews from my LJ site to here. I forgot how many reviews I’ve written. Actually, I never realized how many I had written over the past year. It is encouraging to see so many entries. If I was not home sick with a sore throat, I’d be tempted to pull something I haven’t tried out of the cellar so I could add another entry. Time enough for that when I am feeling better.

Better yet, I need to schedule a visit with my dedicated beer buddy, Cmar, who has recently resuscitated his own food and drink blog, Gustatory Libation Front. I’ll let the punk remark slide. I know he draws some of the inspiration for his reviews from other sites, sites I must also check out. But I like to think my regular invitation to drink out of my cellar and my notes and reviews over the last year have encourage the return of his site.

I may be delusional from lack of beer, though…

Beer!

Here is the new home of my intermittent beer reviews.

Brooklyn Local 1

Cmar brought this beer over some time ago and it has been in the cellar waiting for us to try it. Sheer coincidence that I paired it with the Ommageddon, I had no idea they were essentially the same style.

Vitals

Scoring

(Also in solidarity with Charlie the Beer Guy.)

  • Appearance: 6 – Pours out a deep gold with a hint of orange, mostly clear. Thick dense head that subsides to a bit more than a lace.
  • Aroma: 4 – Weak, mildly funky, though not as bad as the Ommageddon.
  • Taste: 5 – Like the aroma, less funky than the Ommegaddon. A dry hop finish with a hint of spice throughout.
  • Mouth Feel: 4 – More substantial but still thin. Not effervescent.
  • Holistic: 4 – Too close to the Ommegaddon for my liking. Between these two, I think I have finally found a Belgian style of which I am not a fan, the blonde ales.
  • Overall: 23 – Less offensive than the Ommegaddon but that’s about the most complementary thing I can say. For fans of the Belgian blonde ales, this may be a better choice than the Ommegaddon.

Ommegang Ommegeddon

Inspired by Cmar’s superior reviews, here are my notes on the latest new to me brews I’ve tried.

I acquired a bottle of the Ommegeddon at the suggestion of the Clipper City Brewery representative I ran into at a beer tasting.

Vitals

Scoring

(Also in solidarity with Charlie the Beer Guy.)

  • Appearance: 5 – This beer pours out a bit hazy and never completely cleared. It was a pale yellow, not especially encouraging. The white head was effervescent, on the first pour building up a bit too much and subsiding not quite to a lace in both glasses.
  • Aroma: 4 – I found the aroma to be a bit off putting. It was medicinal and a bit sour. Like the Hennepin also by Ommegang, it was very reminiscient of a typical green bottle import, a bit skunky. I could not distinguish any other favorable components in the aroma.
  • Taste: 4 – The aroma was an accurate bell weather of the taste. The bretanomyces yeast really just did nothing for me, the “funk” in the “funkhouse ale” on the label is accurate but not to my liking.
  • Mouth Feel: 4 – Weak, effervescent.
  • Holistic: 3 – I like other offerings by this brewer better, this may be my own bias, this may be a good example of the form.
  • Overall: 20 – I would put it by taste, aroma and appearance up against Gouden Carolus’ Carolus d’Or which I found to be superior in every respect.

Two Barley Wines

I’ve had the chance to partake of a couple of barley wines, lately, from two of my favorite breweries: Olde School for Dogfish Head and Below Decks from Clipper City.

Below Decks is part of Clipper City’s Heavy Seas line of craft beers. It was also the last of the series for me to try. Below Decks is a respectable barley wine, coming in at 10% ABV, and is pretty tasty. It does not have an overpowering taste of alcohol but also lacks any interesting notes beyond just the barley wine itself. Still, it drinks well, the last sip is as good as the first. I am not sure there is enough going on to age it and see how the flavor matures. I may try to age a bottle or two, anyway, just out of curiosity.

Even though the Below Decks is a solid second to the Olde School, I will get it again. Especially since I found it at my local beer and wine, not at my beer mecca.

The Olde School is a phenomenal beer. There is a lot going on and about the only flavor component I could complain about is the strong alcohol flavor. Otherwise, the beer is well balanced and like the Below Decks, drinks well. This, like Dogfish’s Worldwide Stout, is another I want to see it after some aging. I have a four pack set aside that I will age for a year on the expectation that doing so will mellow the strong alcohol taste and allow some of the other flavors to improve for the balance.

The Olde School is one of Dogfish Head’s three strongest beers, too, coming in at a hefty 12% ABV so fair warning. At least barley wines, for those familiar with the style, traditional are stronger, so hopefully it will be less surprising than some of the other high gravity craft beers out there.

Both of these beers are wonderful for the colder months, too, as they have a warmer character not in small part because of their strength. Enjoy them both while they are available. Olde School is a DFH rarity and Below Decks is a limited seasonal.

Stone XI

Stone’s Arrogant Bastard is the beer that converted me into a hop head. Unfortunately my experience with Stone since has largely been of a one note tune. There is one notable exception as far as I am concerned, their smoked porter which is a wonderful unusual beer, but otherwise everything else I have tried tells my palate the same story about the splendor of American hops.

I like American hops. I like all kinds of hops. But it is not the only reason I drink beer. Admittedly, Stone’s use of hops is to excellent effect, with a complexity that impostors simply never muster. But as far as my favorite brewers go, I have to push them based on their entire line, down below Clipper City and Dogfish Head which show a greater technical mastery in the variety of beers they produce and facility with which the produce each variety with the same quality and flavor, regardless of how different each is from the next.

So my expectations for Stone’s eleventh anniversary ale were bounded by my experience of their limited versatility recipe wise. Unfortunately, the XI is no smoked porter. The base ale is yet another respectable American pale ale. For me, though, it was somewhat ruined by one of the few flavoring components of beer I really don’t care for, burnt malt.

To me, burnt malt gives the beer a chemical or medicinal flavor I find entirely off putting. I have no doubt it has its own adherents, like any other distinctive aspect, compoment or adjunct of beer does. Its just not for me.

I’ll still rank the XI above many other beers, but it is maybe a second or third tier beer. It is one I will drink out of politeness if it is the only thing on offer. If the choice is between it and the typical domestic lager, no brainer. But even if a different Stone is on offer, I’ll take that over the XI. And while I have a couple of gift bottles of it in the rack, I will not procure more on my own. I’ll save those pennies for more favored brews and further explorations.

Young’s Double Chocolate Stout

I was going to make a beer pilgrimage this past weekend but when it came time for me to go I just wasn’t up to the drive. The beer mecca is not that far, really, but it takes a solid hour to get there and back and spend a reasonable time perusing what’s available.

made up for my sloth buy purchasing some interesting beers at My Organic Market the other day. Among them was something that caught her eye, give her tastes. She likes sweeter beers which includes some surprising selections like DFH Worldwide Stout. The fact that the beer in question s Young’s Double Chocolate Stout is not very surprising, then.

The double chocolate in the name refers to the use of chocolate malt, a particular degree of roasting I believe not a special variety as such, and the addition of real dark chocolate. You can smell the real chocolate immediately on pouring. Some claim to not be able to taste the actual chocolate in the beer itself. I could.

I found the additional chocolate wasn’t integrate enough for my taste. And the chocolate malt was not pronounced enough to meet it somewhere in the middle. As stouts go, though, it is respectable. It is better than North Coast’s Old Number 38 but is in no danger of threatening any of the imperial stouts I’ve had. It is not a particularly hoppy stout so may appeal to those who prefer a strong but not overly offensive (in the sense of being hoppy, not necessarily bad) beer.

I’d drink it again it it was on offer but I prefer Rogue’s Mocha Porter for a chocolatey dark beer and if I had to give Young’s another try, I’d want to sample something new to me.