Browse Tag

beer

The last Noël

Affligem “Noël” Christmas Ale (Belgium) – Like drinking a Christmas cake, dark with spiced molasses and very nearly liquid dessert, this is very much an acquired taste. I think it would be better sipped from tiny cordial glasses rather than consumed in normal beer quantities. (3/10)

I’d like to bi a valve, please

Harpoon “100 Barrel Series” Island Creek Oyster Stout (Massachusetts) – Yes, stout. Yes, the unmistakable saline tang of oysters. I like stout. I like Island Creek oysters. I don’t like stout with oysters. So the merits of this wine are lost on me. (3/10)

Distribution

Long Trail “Brewmaster Series” Winter White (Vermont) – The more I drink of this, the more I like it. Blizzard spices and yeasty warmth are a good combination. (1/10)

Raspberry beret

[label]Otter Creek Raspberry Brown Winter Ale (Vermont) – I tend to prefer beer with fruit involved in its conception to beer in which fruit is more of a conceptual additive, but this is kinda nice, and the reasons are twofold: first, the brown ale is quite good, and second, the raspberry is nicely restrained. It’s a counterpoint…not a raspberry-flavored beverage on an absent foundation of allegedly brown ale, but a brown ale to which is added a suggestion of raspberry. I wouldn’t want to drink it all night, but it’s nice. (1/10)

Wassails in the sunset

Shipyard “Woodstock Inn Brewery” Winter Seasonal Ale “Wassail” (Maine) – Heavy, with the suggestion but not the actuality of wintry spices. Not that interesting, in that it attempts to replace character with density. (1/10)

High thanks

Wolaver’s “Alta Gracia” Coffee Porter (Vermont) – Yep, that’s porter. And yep, that’s coffee. Morning and evening, in one drink. “Good” is kinda beside the point…one either embraces the concept or doesn’t. (1/10)

The Baladin Casey Jones

Baladin “Super Baladin” Ale (Italy) – Take all the richly developed spice of an aged Trappist ale, then donate it to a liquid much lighter, livelier, and more vibrant than any such ale would be, and you’ve got this beer. Brilliant stuff. Redonkulously expensive, but probably worth it. (1/10)

Blizzard

Long Trail “Brewmaster Series” Winter White (Vermont) – Really quite clever, combining the spicy lightness of white with the richer, heavier expectations of a winter ale, and managing to work this alchemy without sacrificing either style’s character or overall balance. (12/09)

Drink a ginger day

Harpoon “100 Barrel Series” Ginger Wheat (Massachusetts) – Alcoholic ginger beer. Gee, if only someone had thought of that before. My sarcasm hides the fact that ginger beer is really all this is, ’cuz the wheat doesn’t enter into it. (12/09)

Theobroma presidency

[bottle]Dogfish Head “Theobroma” (Delaware) – Ale brewed with honey, cocoa nibs, cocoa powder, ancho chilies, and ground annatto. It sounds either fascinating or horrid, depending on the level of one’s beer purism, but it actually must be said that the recipe – apparently an ancient one, more or less – contributes not to a brew that seems like a misguided accident behind a Mexican pastry chef’s station, but rather something complex and appealing that reminds me rather suggestively of an aged Trappist ale. That’s praise from me, in case it’s not clear. I’m not always on board with Dogfish Head’s wilder explorations, but this is awfully tasty. (8/09)