Trade Beer Blog

I am looking to findd someone who has Southern Tier Chocolate Stout for trade. I live in an area of PA with lots of local brew pubs and can track down PA beers. Anyone have any of this fine brew left?

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A Good Beer Blog --

When I was at Bello Vino in Ann Arbor, beer manager Jeremy McClelland made sure I did not leave the store without this one. I used to have a hard time with rye beers but Bittersweet Lenny's RIPA not to mention a growing obession with my neighbourhood's Polish deli has pretty much cured me of that but not yet enough to have an all rye beer category going. The Founder's web page for Red's Rye does a pretty good job describing this 6.4% ale so let's see how much I agree with.

Rather than crimson, I'd call it deep orange amber but it does have a creamy tan head - though it drops to a rim and foam. In the mouth, it is a little lighter in body than sweet richness might make you think. It is actually relatively light except in the hopping but nothing is out of whack. Rye and hop mix in a genial spice on the swallow while, on the schnozz, there is plenty of grapefruit and tangerine peel in the hoppy aroma. A drier finish than a bigger bomb would be able to pull off.

I like it. A lot. Even if it is above session strength, it's still the sort of tribute to hoppy bigness that makes you wonder why anyone needs to go all twelve percent and double imperial IPA on you. Top marks from the BAers and deservedly so.

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A Good Beer Blog --

A very strange thing has been happening lately. I am going out to a store in my own town and buying the same Ontario-made beer week after week. I wrote about Lake Ontario's (not Lake Erie's) Great Lake Brewing's take on a winter ale a few weeks ago. That beer was a bit frustrating as, while I liked it, I had to buy it in a presentation pack for more than a bit too much. This beer, however, if anything is under-priced at $2.50 a tall can. Better than that, 666 has turned out to be a bit of a puzzle to my mind and in the brewer's description:

Brewed with 6 select malts and 4 premium hops, it has a rich mahogany colour, reminiscent of early English pale ales. The wonderful hoppy aroma is revealed even before your first sip, followed by a hearty malty body, and culminating with a pronounced bitterness. Prepare yourself for a devilishly good time...

Hmm...six percent...hearty malt body...English hops. Is this a Burton, the elusive Georgian and Victorian bad boy of pale ales before the advent of barley wines? My only possible comparator could be Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome, itself a likely pretender, reviewed back here and happily sampled every year. The only thing I think might be against that 666 is claim of final hoppiness but I won't know until I pop the caps.

As you can see, the Winter Welcome 2007-08 is much lighter, the dark amber orange ale sitting under white foam and rim. By comparison, the 666 is darker - chestnut with a fine rich tan rim and foam. On the nose the 666 speaks of roasty nuts with dark raisin, with a nod to oloroso sherry. The Winter Warmer leans more to orange marmalade but there's plenty of biscuit in there, too. In the mouth, the two have about the same mouthfeel and, if anything, the Sammy Smith offering is more bitter: fresh green salad herb mixing with twig blended throughout the orange-kumquat biscuit malt. A sip of 666 is more about a rougher bitterness framing the darker dried winter fruits.

Martyn Cornell, the Zythophile himself, recently summarized Burton's style in a few words - "a recognisably Burton Ale profile: red-brown, bitter-sweet, fruity and full-bodied, with a roast malt aroma." It's certainly hard to exclude this Canadian-Satanic joint enterprise of a beer from the categorization even if it were to turn out to be unintentional. It certainly is a lush brew, fruit-ridden with hop and a true roastiness within the grainy malt. Loverly. But is it Burton? Who knows? It fills a similar place in the pantheon but I would likely have to mail Martyn a sample. For now this side by side will have to do.

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A Good Beer Blog --

A very strange thing has been happening lately. I am going out to a store in my own town and buying the same Ontario-made beer week after week. I wrote about Lake Ontario's (not Lake Erie's) Great Lake Brewing's take on a winter ale a few weeks ago. That beer was a bit frustrating as, while I liked it, I had to buy it in a presentation pack for more than a bit too much. This beer, however, if anything is under-priced at $2.50 a tall can. Better than that, 666 has turned out to be a bit of a puzzle to my mind and in the brewer's description:

Brewed with 6 select malts and 4 premium hops, it has a rich mahogany colour, reminiscent of early English pale ales. The wonderful hoppy aroma is revealed even before your first sip, followed by a hearty malty body, and culminating with a pronounced bitterness. Prepare yourself for a devilishly good time...

Hmm...six percent...hearty malt body...English hops. Is this a Burton, the elusive Georgian and Victorian bad boy of pale ales before the advent of barley wines? My only possible comparator could be Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome, itself a likely pretender, reviewed back here and happily sampled every year. The only thing I think might be against that 666 is claim of final hoppiness but I won't know until I pop the caps.

As you can see, the Winter Welcome 2007-08 is much lighter, the dark amber orange ale sitting under white foam and rim. By comparison, the 666 is darker - chestnut with a fine rich tan rim and foam. On the nose the 666 speaks of roasty nuts with dark raisin, with a nod to oloroso sherry. The Winter Warmer leans more to orange marmalade but there's plenty of biscuit in there, too. In the mouth, the two have about the same mouthfeel and, if anything, the Sammy Smith offering is more bitter: fresh green salad herb mixing with twig blended throughout the orange-kumquat biscuit malt. A sip of 666 is more about a rougher bitterness framing the darker dried winter fruits.

Martyn Cornell, the Zythophile himself, recently summarized Burton's style in a few words - "a recognisably Burton Ale profile: red-brown, bitter-sweet, fruity and full-bodied, with a roast malt aroma." It's certainly hard to exclude this Canadian-Satanic joint enterprise of a beer from the categorization even if it were to turn out to be unintentional. It certainly is a lush brew, fruit-ridden with hop and a true roastiness within the grainy malt. Loverly. But is it Burton? Who knows? It fills a similar place in the pantheon but I would likely have to mail Martyn a sample. For now this side by side will have to do.

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A Good Beer Blog --

A very strange thing has been happening lately. I am going out to a store in my own town and buying the same Ontario-made beer week after week. I wrote about Lake Ontario's (not Lake Erie's) Great Lake Brewing's take on a winter ale a few weeks ago. That beer was a bit frustrating as, while I liked it, I had to buy it in a presentation pack for more than a bit too much. This beer, however, if anything is under-priced at $2.50 a tall can. Better than that, 666 has turned out to be a bit of a puzzle to my mind and in the brewer's description:

Brewed with 6 select malts and 4 premium hops, it has a rich mahogany colour, reminiscent of early English pale ales. The wonderful hoppy aroma is revealed even before your first sip, followed by a hearty malty body, and culminating with a pronounced bitterness. Prepare yourself for a devilishly good time...

Hmm...six percent...hearty malt body...English hops. Is this a Burton, the elusive Georgian and Victorian bad boy of pale ales before the advent of barley wines? My only possible comparator could be Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome, itself a likely pretender, reviewed back here and happily sampled every year. The only thing I think might be against that 666 is claim of final hoppiness but I won't know until I pop the caps.

As you can see, the Winter Welcome 2007-08 is much lighter, the dark amber orange ale sitting under white foam and rim. By comparison, the 666 is darker - chestnut with a fine rich tan rim and foam. On the nose the 666 speaks of roasty nuts with dark raisin, with a nod to oloroso sherry. The Winter Warmer leans more to orange marmalade but there's plenty of biscuit in there, too. In the mouth, the two have about the same mouthfeel and, if anything, the Sammy Smith offering is more bitter: fresh green salad herb mixing with twig blended throughout the orange-kumquat biscuit malt. A sip of 666 is more about a rougher bitterness framing the darker dried winter fruits.

Martyn Cornell, the Zythophile himself, recently summarized Burton's style in a few words - "a recognisably Burton Ale profile: red-brown, bitter-sweet, fruity and full-bodied, with a roast malt aroma." It's certainly hard to exclude this Canadian-Satanic joint enterprise of a beer from the categorization even if it were to turn out to be unintentional. It certainly is a lush brew, fruit-ridden with hop and a true roastiness within the grainy malt. Loverly. But is it Burton? Who knows? It fills a similar place in the pantheon but I would likely have to mail Martyn a sample. For now this side by side will have to do.

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A Good Beer Blog --

Cold beer is the work of the devil. Fact.

Right, now that we've established a baseline - let's move forward. When one of my local breweries, the mighty Greene King, announced that they were brewing a beer to be served with or without a head and cold, I was not too chuffed to say the least. I wrote about it in this very blog.

I think what upset me most was that they had used a name that was virtually the same as a past classic beer that they brewed. I don’t have a problem with them brewing something to attract the young feminine market of twenty something males and females. The more people drinking real ale instead of Euro-fizz the better. I just felt that this cold beer was not for me, as surely when you drink beer you want to taste it, which you can’t do when it’s cold.

By way of a compromise I decided to buy the bottled version (which incidentally is not "real" but pasteurised) when it became available in the supermarkets. I've just got around to trying the bottle that I purchased before Christmas. This 4.2% golden ale takes on an extrovert approach right from the first shhhsh of opening the bottle. Along with the expelling of CO2 comes the wonderful smell of hops. You immediately feel comfortable. You pour the gloriously light amber coloured ale into the glass. It's hop, hop, hop all the way. On first tasting you get a subtle malt flavour building up to a pretty heavy golden syrup body, along with hints of citrus. After that, slight hamster bedding tastes, which is never a bad thing. The hoppy aroma stays with this bloody fantastic beer all the way through to the bottom of the glass. This beer is equally as good as bottled Exmoor Gold. I made sure that my bottle had started to warm up slightly, the room temperature side of cellar cool before I opened it. My recommendation to others would be to do the same.

Pleasantly surprised by this experience, I intend to go forth and seek out the real ale version if I can find it in one of the decent pubs in town. I think I know where I might get it. If I do find it in one of the better watering holes of Bury St Edmunds, I shall order a pint, without the head of course, and then order a pint of IPA as well. I shall drink the IPA first thus allowing the St Edmunds to un-chill. Arses to you Greene King, not even you can make me drink cold beer!

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A Good Beer Blog --

So, calling the loss of two brown glass growlers is hardly tragedy, it's still cool to come out on top! It all started after a raucous party a month ago, where I brought two growlers of Old Balls Ale that I had brewed. After the party I forgot the growlers at Tom's house and promptly told him to hold on to them for me. Well - much to my chagrin - his roommate recycled them on me before they could be saved. Tom, wanting to make good, offered to buy a few to replace them and asked where he could pick them up. I told him to just get some beer in a growler some time and I would grab the bottles when he is done. Tom went above and beyond the call of duty picking me up two full growlers of Lake Placid Brewing Company's flagship beer, the Ubu Ale!

Now, I have had this beer before when I was in college and it has been reviewed here by Alan, but I figured this was a great opportunity to revisit this brew and brewery. Nestled away in beautiful Lake Placid, home of the '32 and much more famous '80 winter Olympics (BTW - suck on that Atlanta: in New York we are famous for good results in the Olympics) is Lake Placid Brewing Company. They are the makers of the Old 46er IPA and a whole host of seasonal brews and some other great beers served only at the brewery bar. However, Ubu is generally available throughout Northern and select areas of Central New York. You can often find it in either a 64oz growler, a bomber or even in the 6 pack (that's new since my days in the North Country). Lake Placid Brewery describes the beer as follows:

Our flagship beer, this English Strong Ale has developed an almost cult-like following in the Adirondacks and greater Northeast. Deep garnet red in color, Ubu weighs in at 7% alcohol by volume (ABV) but is known for its fantastic taste.

Now for those of you out there that brew, you know that "English Strong Ale" and "brown ale" and a whole bunch of other brews are actually pretty wide open styles when you look at the big picture of things. I would say this was a bit hoppy to be an authentic English Strong Ale, but honestly I could care less.

I poured this into a pint glass from the growler, it maintained the carbonation well considering it was filled at the brewery bar. The head had a delay in forming, but eventually built up to an off white color with a nice caramel smell. To me, it smelled more like cooking caramel, something you might find in a desert, as opposed to a caramel candy, if that makes sense. The head subsided slowly leaving a lot of lacing and some small white bubbles just under the surface of the beer when everything was settled. The color was a very dark copper out of the light, but directly in the light you could see the deep brick red hue. The first taste I had was crisp hops bit up front and followed with mellow malt finish. While Alan noted the chocolate, I didn't get that at first. I did, however, pick up the plum note and it finishes with a tart lasting bitterness. In the end, I was left with a pleasant warming in my chest, the result of a properly balanced 7% ABV brew. There is really no alcohol before that making this a surprisingly smooth brew.

If you have the chance, I highly recommend giving this brew a try. It's a staple of the Adirondacks and really hits the spot on a cold winter night while you are watching the Orange win their Big East opener. That's if you can stay awake!

One more quick CNY note: I ran into Kiernan from Land Mark Brewing Company whose IPA I tried last post at the Blue Tusk today for lunch. We talked about his IPA and I mentioned that I thought it might be a Euro IPA as it's a bit malty for an American. His response was that this was in the spirit of some of the older "east coast" examples of the IPA. He felt that the market was pretty filled with California IPAs and he was looking to do something a little more malty. He said that it would fit in with the Euros either because of the 6%ABV which is a very good point. I also saw Tim, head brewer at Empire Brewing Co. and chatted with him about profiling his operation. I need to have lunch at the Tusk more often (for many reasons)!

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A Good Beer Blog --

Stan was rightly giving me grief the other day or at least a lesson in life when I spoke of the Sam Adams line of beers. I didn't mean to be mean and I am a delicate flower in the face of such dressings down - but, as you all know, I am working with what I am thinking about beer pricing and value. To that end, I've suggested five general categories of beer quality. What is the goal of the five point scale? I suppose it is as useful as a Top 25 Brewers list or using the numbers 1 to 10 to rate a beer: it is a means to give order to things. And it is supposed to give order based on deeds not claims - sure, subjectively (as that is the essence of the experience of beer) but not to bash as I live in a post-sticks-and-stones universe. Further, taking up the challenge of Matt at Rutgers, I drove into another country and bought up not six not eight but seven different Boston Beer brews to make sure I had a clue.

Scotch ale is something one would think is very important to a Scot yet it is neither the national drink or the other national drink. There are plenty of examples in the archives and they share that sweet, toast and smoke malts the style is known for. Surely a nod to style that is otherwise defective can send a beer teetering from craft down into kraphtt, no? So - what with this one, 5.4% with a best by date of April 2008? If smell alone could win the day (and who amongst us has not thought that thought before?) this one would surely stand proud as craft with the deep apple butter aroma it gives off. Chestnut ale under a rocky lacing tan head, goes down in a rich wave of sweet malt (butterscotch, pear, apple butter, licorice, and maybe even blackcurrent) tempered by the burnt toastiness of blackened malt with a hint of twiggy hops, perhaps Fuggles, in the end. A lovely brew. "Tha's a braw bricht brew the noo!" Oor Wullie would say...if he ever grew up to be old enough to try one.

A solid effort and one that makes me offset the same brewer's white ale over there on the other side of line between craft and what is not quite craft. And, as part of a variety twelve pack for 14.99, great value. 19/20 BAers agree.

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A Good Beer Blog --

I really drink so little German beer, it is only right that I give it its own category filled with with a revisionistic retagging. And, really, what is a "quick note" anyway? You have no idea how long these posts take, the difficulty in finding a flag that you will mistake for a civic banner of a small rural Bavarian municipality.

When I saw this unfiltered kellerbier at Tully's last June for a reasonable $4.10 USD, I snapped it up. After the Bamberger Ungespundet-hefetrüb experience of almost a year ago, I was a fan of unfiltered lagers after one beer. Mönchshof appears to be a range of beers brewed by Kulmbacher Brauerei of, you got it, Kulmbach. It pours a sub-copper dark pine with an off-white head and gives off a nutmeg caramel sort of scent. In the mouth there is plenty of butter honey roundness in with the malt graininess, notes of nutmeg and maybe ginger and apple. Some drying hop but not steely so much as black tea. I am a bit surprised how rich this is and how it reminds me of a Scots heavy minus the black malt toastiness. Sherry-ish, amontillado-ish. The finish is a bit yogurt tangy but just a bit.

Utter capitulation from the BAers.

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A Good Beer Blog --

It does no good to write about beer and be alone. One has to cultivate a group, at least, who will share the wonderment when the good stuff is at hand. So it was then when the twelve from Weihenstephan were delivered from Sean of the brewery's the new Ontario importers, Beer Barons, there had to be a gathering to give it justice now six months before it is due to hit the LCBO shelves.

Kunt visited Weihenstephan's home town of Freising for us two years ago. This oldest brewery on the planet by its own reckoning is the maker of a range of Bavarian beers including the hefeweissbier and hefeweissbier dunkel that we shared. I think I had been unclear on the latter beer as I expected a wheat double bock or weizenbock but this was a lighter take on a brown wheat ale - and a very interesting one.

The first to be opened, though, was the hefeweisse and when it was opened all we could smell was banana cream pie. In the glass it pours a cloudy effervescent orangish amber under a think rocky orange tinged head. In the mouth there is cream of wheat, banana with a rather subdued clove and nutmeg presence. The yeast is whole milk rich and the finish is slightly black tea astringent. All in all, very rich bodied and soft water moreish.

The dunkel sits at an interesting middle point comparable to a balance between Schneider Weisse and its sibling Aventinus but really something different again. More brownish-grey turkey gravy in colour, the beer is virtually identical in strength with the weisse but a little less pungent of banana, clove and nutmeg. In exchange there is graininess and nut, like a good English southern brown ale with slight notes of plum and baseball glove leather.

Both rich gorgeous takes on weisse ales, the dunkel was deemed superior if only because it was so singular without being extreme. BAer reviews here.

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