Beer reviews, news, commentary, and more from a guy who just likes to drink beer!
Today's Christmas offerings come from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company and a mighty beer from Brouwerij St. Bernardus, a brewery I haven't had in about a year (so forgive me when I misremember the Abt 12 late in the video).
Coming Tuesday is one more round of Christmas beers, then a Christmas beer rankings video on Wednesday! But see you tomorrow for Beers in Review!
A quartet of beers ranging from local to international are on tap tonight. Let's start with the international, shall we?
From Brouwerij Verhaeghe in Belgium I had the Duchesse de Bourgogne, a Belgian-style Flemish red ale. It pours a matching reddish-brown color, and not much body, but this ale was loaded with fruit flavors. This is a result of maturation in oak casks prior to bottling. The fruit experiences were quite diverse: pear or apple, maybe cherry, with a massive sweetness. It was almost too sweet for my taste. In addition, Flemish reds typically have some sour attributes to them, and here they were more a complementary feature--not overly strong like I find in most sours. I expect this might be a result of having a legit Belgian Flemish as opposed to American attempts at the sour style.
Next up is the closest-made beer, American Kolsch Story by River Rat Brewery. It pours a pale straw color, and serves as a solid hot summer day beer. Initial impressions had bready and crackery notes early on in the sip. This gradually lead to hints of traditional German beer sweetness. It also led to a bit of a bitter finish, which was a bit surprising.
Next up is Oasis Brewing Company and their Scarab Red Ale. A pretty solid ale overall, I first got notes of graininess and even possibly corn. There was also a whole bunch of initial malty sweetness that dissipated pretty quickly after drinking. Again, solid, pretty tasty, but nothing spectacular.
Finally, what was supposed to be an Anniversary beer for Unknown Brewing Company, but it wasn't quite done on time. The result is 1.5-ish, an ale aged in Cabernet barrels with strawberries and vanilla beans. We'll get to all that shortly. The ale pours a cloudy bronze color and has a lot of body. As you might guess from the brief description above, the flavor profile has a whole lot going on. The Cabernet barrels shine through with strong initial red wine notes, leading to a kind of strawberry sundae thing going on from the strawberry and vanilla bean infusion. There was lots of sweetness (but not overpoweringly so, like the Duchesse above nearly was--note these were enjoyed on different nights) and even a little bit of funkiness. A hint of sourness rounded out this wonderful flavor experience of this ale. I had sat on 1.5-ish for a while before drinking it for no particular reason. Truly, I wish I'd drank it sooner and bought 4 more bottles. A really great drinking experience.
Red Hare Cotton Tail Pale Ale: A solid pale with largely piney hops, maybe with a hint of citrus (unless that was just hop bite). Pretty refreshing overall with a clean finish. Again, solid all around, but nothing too deep. At just 5% ABV, also fairly sessionable for a quality craft pale.
From time to time, beers tend to unintentionally stay in my pantry or fridge for a little too long. As a general rule, I tend to not publish reviews for these beers, as it can represent an unfair view of the beers' qualities. Rest assured, in a situation such as this one, I will always publicly make a note of it. While I have no doubt this beer's flavor changed, I found it still held up well, flavor-wise. The beer in question is Founders Centennial IPA. The hop profile tended to be in the background compared to flavors of dark fruit, possibly plum, and some caramel. There was also a fairly noticable booze note (7.2% ABV). The bottle was right at one year old, and I wonder if that contributed to some of sweetness, or at least the lesser hop notes. But I found it to still be a quite drinkable beer.
The final beer in this review is a simply legendary Abbey Ale from Brouwerij St. Bernardus. St. Bernardus Abt 12 is a Belgian Quad, and one of the original, long-time tentpoles of the craft beer industry. Coming in a 10% ABV, the boozy note comes through at the end of the sip as it warms up, but the flavor is dominated by dark fruit, red wine notes, and a solid cherry sweetness. It's exceptionally smooth, as those dark fruits follow all the way through the sip until the beer leaves your mouth. An excellent beer, to put it mildly, and one I can put on my imaginary top shelf of great beers I've tasted.