Beer Aging

Excellent information on the wonderful world of planned beer aging...

http://www.dogfish.com/community/news/press-releases/5-things-you-should-know-about-aging-beer.htm

Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge

Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge, brewed by Bockor Brewery, is a barrel-aged Flanders Red Sour Ale from Belgium.  Wait, what?  Yeah, this is a completely different animal from everything else I've reviewed here.  This may actually be a fairly short review, because, well, you kind of just need to taste it to understand it.

My first experience with sour ales came a few years ago at Beer Advocate's Belgian Beer Fest Night of the Funk.  I was immediately hooked.  Let me be clear, though, these aren't for everyone.  Obviously, you need to be a fan of sour flavors.  I mean real sour.  But wait, beer isn't supposed to be sour!  Why not?!  I actually find this style to be incredibly refreshing.  It's definitely a warm weather beer for me.  My first experience with Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge was only about a week and a half ago at Eulogy, an amazing Belgian beer bar in Philadelphia.  I tried it, loved it, and reserved myself to the fact that I'd never find it in a store.  Four days later, I found it in a store, Julio's Liquors in Westborough, MA.

This 5.5% a.b.v. beer pours a beautiful reddish-brown, with a fairly small head that dissipates rather quickly.  It smells a bit sour and fruity, but until you take a sip, you're completely unprepared.  It is fantastically sour!  I swallowed my first mouthful and my mouth just started salivating from the sourness.  The dominant flavor is sour cherry, but there's a bit of crisp, tart apple in there too.  The label mentions vanilla and cocoa, but I don't taste that at all.  They're way too subtle to stand up to the sourness.  The beer is a bit reminiscent of a tart champagne.

This is not a session beer...you won't be drinking bottle after bottle of it (which is good, because it's not cheap).  But, if you're looking for something new and interesting, I really do suggest you try a sour beer, and if you can find it, Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge in particular.  I will say, there are a lot of times where I would have no interest in drinking this beer, but when I want something bright and refreshing to wake me up, this will be way up on my list.  I give it an A, with the above disclaimer.

National Beer Day!

Today is National Beer Day! On April 7th, 1933, after 14 years of sobriety we were allowed to drink beer again!

Growth of craft beer

Excellent growth in the craft beer industry...keep drinking good beer everyone!  Read the article

Peeper Ale from Maine Beer Company

Peeper Ale is my first experience with the up and coming Maine Beer Company.  Their uncomplicated labels and limited distribution area got me interested.  The numerous positive reviews I've read of their brews sealed the deal.  You also have to love a company that uses only wind power, donates their spent grains and yeast to local farmers and donates 1% of their profits to environmental non-profits.  OK, I guess you don't have to, but I do.  While still on the search for their heralded Lunch IPA, Peeper Ale had been described to me as an incredibly drinkable beer.  So, here I am.

As you can see in the photo, this is a very light, golden-colored ale, with an almost comically fluffy white head.  Stick your sniffer above the foam and you can smell the citrusy hops.  This is not going to be a hop bomb, by any stretch of the imagination.  At 5.5% a.b.v., it's not going to knock you on your butt either.  Yes, I'm not describing the kind of beer I normally drink, bold flavors and body, but I'm an equal opportunity beer lover.

Now, the taste.  The taste is pretty much what I expected.  It's a very tasty, average bodied ale with a nice, slight hop bite.  I can see why people like this.  This is a very sessionable beer (i.e. I could drink it all night long...if I had more).  It has enough bite and flavor to keep your taste buds interested, but not so much that they get tired.  Don't expect lots of complexity here.  It's as advertised...a craft brewed American ale.  But, for what it is, it's done quite well.  With this being their most basic beer, I definitely look forward to what else they pull together.

I would highly recommend Peeper Ale, if you're in an area that carries it (most of New England and PA I believe).  I think this would be great on a nice summer day.  I give it a solid A-

Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin

Let's take a break from the world of stouts and try something very appropriate for the first day of Fall.  Pumpkin beers are about as Autumn as you can get.  Many people, as far as I can tell, look forward to the pumpkin beers as much as they do the colorful leaves and crisp, comfortable evenings.  The problem is, I've never really been one of those people.  While I'll have a pumpkin beer here or there, I've never been one to seek them out.  They've never particularly stuck with me.  I tend to partake of my pumpkins in pie form.  So, I'll say right now that I don't have too much of a frame of reference for this particular beer.

You'll remember the review I did of Shipyard's Smashed Blueberry awhile back.  Smashed Pumpkin is another in Shipyard Brewing's Pugsley's Signature Series, their line of big beers.  Did I like their take on pumpkins as much as I liked their take on blueberries?  Let's find out, shall we?

The beer pours a "light coppery orange" according to the bottle.  You know they wanted to say that it poured a light pumpkiny color.  A tall, pale orange-ish head sits atop the beer, just begging to be smelled.  To me, so much of this time of year is connected with smells.  Smashed Pumpkin is no exception.  Getting my nose right into the glass, while carefully avoiding actually inhaling foam, I immediately smell spices...nutmeg for sure and perhaps cinnamon?  The rest of the smell is, well, I don't know how to describe it, but all I can guess is that it is the pumpkin.  I think pumpkin is so intrinsically linked with nutmeg and cinnamon that I can't quite recall what it smells like on it's own.

The taste is where I start to be a little out of my element.  Don't get me wrong, the taste is great.  The pumpkin and nutmeg stand front and center.  A nice hoppy crispness is present, but graciously takes a secondary role.  The 9% alcohol doesn't hit you over the head.  This really is a very tasty beer.  Where I have a problem is...I don't know if this is better or worse than some of the other good pumpkin beers out there.  I have absolutely had worse.  There are beers out there that just taste like the spices or they're sickly sweet.  Smashed Pumpkin is quite nicely balanced.  Not too sweet, not too spicy, seemingly just right.  But, I just can't say it's the best out there.

Let's see if I can wrap this all up.  Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin really is a tasty pumpkin ale.  Is it the best out there?  I have no idea.  Is it the best I've had in my very limited pumpkin beer career?  I'd say it certainly is.  If you're a fan of this style of beer, I think it's certainly worth a try if you can find it.  If you're much more of a pumpkin beer connoisseur than I am, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.  How does it compare to others you've had?  Are there others I absolutely have to try?  I'm giving Smashed Pumpkin an A-.  While I'm not normally a pumpkin beer guy, I will certainly get this one again!

Founders Breakfast Stout

OK kids, have a seat and I'm going to tell you a story...

Once upon a time, there was a brewery by the name of Founders Brewing Company.  They created a magical elixir and dubbed it Breakfast Stout.  Many other breweries made beers that they thought were better.  They were wrong.  And beer lovers lived happily ever after.

Yeah, that was a crappy story.  I'm not much of the fairy tale type.  What I am, though, is a fan of big beers.  I've said it before.  I don't want to drink a 30-rack of swill and get drunk.  I want to sit around and enjoy a couple high quality brews.  I want something that makes my taste buds somehow grow vocal chords and say "wow".  Breakfast Stout is one of these beers.

My first experience with Breakfast Stout (and Founders themselves) was several years back at the Extreme Beer Fest in Boston.  While their other beers were all excellent, Breakfast Stout was in a league of its own.  It was something more than any stout I had ever tasted.  Everything about it was amped up.  How, you ask?  Well, let's dissect it.

First, the bottle.  How can you resist a bottle with a chubby kid eating breakfast from a Founders bowl?  Sure, this has nothing to do with the beer inside, but they really do have some amazing artwork on their labels.  The label itself does give you a hint as to what you're in for.  The description of the beer...DOUBLE CHOCOLATE COFFEE OATMEAL STOUT.  Did I need all caps?  Yes, I think I did.  Read it again.

I wish you could smell this beer through the internet.  It smells of smooth, rich coffee (they use Sumatra and Kona coffee...good stuff).  It smells of rich, dark chocolate.  It smells of roasted malts.  Hops?  Not a chance with those other smells.  As you can see, it also pours with a beautiful chocolatey head.

The taste?  Oh, the taste.  Wow.  In the words of Ferris Bueller, "It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."  That coffee smell...it's front and center in the taste as well.  It's not bitter coffee, it's smooth, rich coffee.  The chocolate?  Yeah, it's here too...intense, semi-sweet chocolate.  It's no secret how well chocolate and coffee play together.  Here, that fact is taken to the extreme.  The label mentions 60 IBUs and 8.3% ABV.  The 60 IBUs is middle of the road in terms of hoppiness in a strong stout like this.  They don't have the oomph to overcome the other flavors (I can certainly taste them though), but I guarantee I would notice if they weren't there.  They balance out the richness of the beer.  As for the 8.3%, you don't taste the alcohol, and remember, this is something you just have one or two of in a night.

Wait, what about the oatmeal?!  OK, when I created this blog, I said I wasn't going to use snobby-sounding words like mouth-feel.   Welllll...it's time to mention mouth-feel.  Oats do amazing things to beer.  Due to their protein and lipid content (I actually had to look this up), they increase the viscosity and smoothness of the beer.  This leads to an enhanced mouth-feel (how the beer feels in your mouth).  Breakfast Stout feels like it coats your mouth.  It's a wonderful thing indeed.

So, do I really need to sum things up?  Founders Breakfast Stout really is the stout I judge all others by.  Are there better stouts out there?  I've had a couple I put evenly on par with this, but they are few and far between.  Oh, and did I mention that they also make a couple special versions of this?  Kentucky Breakfast Stout (aged for a year in bourbon barrels) and Canadian Breakfast Stout (aged in bourbon barrels that have been recently aging maple syrup).  If you find a bottle of Breakfast Stout, promise me you will buy it and give it a taste.  You shall not be disappointed!  This amazing beer gets a definite A+ in my book!  Cheers!!!