Brewery Home: Brouwerij Het Anker, Belgium

Serving Style: Bomber into pilsner glasses

Beer Style:

Appearance: Deep deep brown. light brown creamy head. Adam went ahead and poured his like an ass and the head looks like a root beer float of seasoned goodness. Tiny little bubbles coming up very rapidly.

Aroma: Smells like citrus and spices. For the ABV and how thick it is the smell is pretty subtle. We just thought it would smell more like Christmas. Regardless, it smells like dark sugars and fruits and the alcohol percentage is not evident in the aroma.

Taste: Wow there bubbles! Burst of bubbles on our pallets that settles down to a thick creamy spice. The spices are reminding us of black liquorish . Its like black liquorish was turned into a very high ABV beer… But its not that minty weird obnoxious liquorish. Its actually quite tasty. The alcohol is present but it comes and is accompanied by dark fruit and sugar flavors that mix it extremely well. After every swig my tongue waters and craves for just a little more. As it warms it opens up and the alcohol taste becomes more of a warm wine-like flavor.

ABV: 10.5%

Drink one or all?: 12. if you can handle it…

Cost: $9/Bomber (normaly $11)

Overall:

Adam:17/20

Cannon: 17/20

Solid choice for a random evening. Very warming and just a “comfy” kind of beer. something that would be paired with cheese and a warm fire very very well. ( Also, I’m really digging on this brewery)

e first, a beer that I picked up for a local beer nerds gathering, the #gents.

Brewery Home: Middleton, WI

Serving Style: 12 oz into pint glasses

Beer Style:Munich Dunkel Lager

Appearance: Medium-fluffy off white head with medium lacing. Body itself is a crisp dark amber with rich reds around the edges.

Aroma: Complex and dark munich malt sweetness that round of the front and back. The middle mixes the dark ‘brown-like’ sugars with balanced, spicy noble hops. Clean with no obvious flaws.

Taste: Very much along the lines of the aroma. The sweetness of the malt is not too cloying and meshes nicely with a clean bitter hop finish. The malt character is still fairly light (at least for what I consider dark) and has an overall dry profile. Medium carbonation gives its great drinkability (I’m taking that word BACK), which right there, this beers best feature. Elaborate in all the right places but still an easily sessionable beer on a cold fall evening. Jenny calls it ’solid, but good’.

ABV: 5.4%

Drink one or all?: Sessionable, but I’d do one or two

Cost: $8/6-pack

Overall: 16/20

Brewery Home: Milwaukee, WI

Serving Style: Pint glass (as average as can but, but adams all proud his glass has a football etched into it…)

Beer Style: IPA

Appearance: Quite unfiltered. Orangy amber with a thin head that keeps replenishing itself and looks like its going to lace pretty decent. It appears to be highly carbonated which is making the little bits of hops dance like pre-pubescent boy in the mirror who thinks no ones watching (while secretly listening to Miley Cyrus)

SIDE NOTE: After that comment adam went ahead and told me a joke… So this boy says to his father “this boy at school keeps making fun of me and calling me a fag.” Father says “Next time punch him in the face!” Boy says “yeah, but hes kinda cute…”

Thanks Adam…

Aroma: Chuck Norris shrunk down into your glass to give you a hop round house straight into your nostril. Just floral. Quite pungent . Quite formidable.

SIDE NOTE (2): Guy asks a girl “So what are the chances of getting with you tonight?” Girl replies “I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last person on earth.” Guy laughs and says “If I were the last person on earth who’s going to stop me?!”

Adam then paused for a moment, laughed at himself and said “Thanks a rape joke.”  Thanks again Adam…

Taste: Tree’s? Flowers? Did someone spike my miller lite with hop pellets?! Obviously they wanted to celebrate the fact that they could put hops onto beer. other then saying its hoppy and bitter adams awkward jokes are pretty much the highlight of this extravaganza… also just found out the ABV is 6.9. Did not see that coming… just tastes like jizz from the plant from Little Shop of Horror to me…

ABV: 6.9%

Drink one or all?: One

Cost: $7-8 for a six pack?

Overall:

Adam: 14/40

Cannon: 12/40 (Not for me…)

Have not been here for a while… been to poor… sorry :( but Adam and I are making a special appearance for a brew we picked up at whole foods! Funny bit about this beer, it was marked at $7.50 on the shelf, the cashier rung it in and told us it was $17.15… A near by manager grabbed the bottle, check why we thought that and gave it to us at the $7.50 price! That label was immediately ripped off the shelf… Lucky us! So we’re expecting this beer to be extra awesome for the price! (Also, it got cloudy when it chilled in the bottle. pretty cool?)

Brewery Home: Portland, Maine

Serving Style: Wide Mouth Glass

Beer Style: Ale Aged in oak bourbon barrels

Appearance:Unfiltered, cloudy golden ale with a very white head. the head looks like its going to stick to the side pretty hard. Just looks like a light Belgian beer.

Aroma: Fruit. can’t even smell the bourbon? it was bottled in September so maybe it hasn’t aged long enough? Adam’s finding it to be a pretty potent brew for being a belgian style. can’t smell the alcohol with the 11%. I think its kinda just a mellow smell, i was hoping for more spice and hops.

Taste: The bourbon barrels come through in the flavor, but again it was bottled in the past 2 months and probably would come through a little more if it had some time to sit. But the fruit comes through as a kinda tropic flavor, banana? coconut? It actually even tastes slightly like Malibu Coconut Rum. once it warms a bit it has more of a rum flavor than a bourbon. kinda cool but just different. the alcohol comes out much more as it warms but its not to offensive. The head laces and sticks around like an unwanted STD (But it was so worth it and penicillin will clear that right up!)

ABV: 11%

Drink one or all?: One. Unless your on a mission not to remember. then go for it killer!

Cost: $17 per 750ml (But not for us!)

Overall: 17/20 ]]> http://www.beertastic.org/2009/11/allagash-curieux-curious-in-french/feed 3 http://www.beertastic.org/2009/05/anchor-steam-beer http://www.beertastic.org/2009/05/anchor-steam-beer#comments Mon, 25 May 2009 05:57:09 +0000 Brian http://www.beertastic.org/?p=1004 Cannon and Andy here. This review was actually done a few hours before Dark Lord, but shhhh dont tell anyone. It’s a beautiful day for beer. If you didn’t know already, Anchor Steam is an old old brewery based in San Fransisco that played a major part in building enthusiasm for small, craft brews.

Brewery Home: San Francisco

Serving Style: 12 oz. bottle into tasting glasses

Beer Style: California Common Beer/Steam Beer (made with lager yeasts at ale fermentation temperatures)

Appearance: Dark amber. Brian: “almost like tree sap. Mine (Cannon) has a strong off-white head, good lacing.” Lightly filtered, looks full bodied and beautiful.

Aroma: First sip is a mild sweet, molasses or brown sugar. Faint hints of dark roasted malts. The lightly citrus hop bite only comes in the very end. It gets sweeter (with more hay-like, earthy) as you empty the glass.

Taste: Dark and roasted but with the strong, smooth notes of a lager. Cannon thinks it’s too dry for him, almost irony; “still it makes my mouth water…my tongue is crying.” Great mouthfeel overall. Thick on the first sip but the hops and bubbles bite on the way down, refreshing. Andy definitely gets the lager yeast notes: “it has a nice progression start to finish, ends semi-sweet with good balance.” Stop drinking for a moment though and you’ll notice the strong bitterness of the hops.

ABV: 4.9%

Drink one or all?: 3 or 4. Great session beer.

Cost: $8/sixer

Overall: Andy: 16+/20 (right up my alley), Brian: 15/20 (even though I usually despise these bitter ales)

Brewery Home: Munster, Indiana

Serving Style: 2 glorious, wax-dipped 650ML bottles, 2009 vintage.

Beer Style: Russian Imperial Stout

Appearance: Blackness. Definitely two cups of rice (Metalocalypse reference, get with it). Viscous and truly ‘like motor oil’. Swirling it around in the glass leaves a brown layer clinging to the sides. Small, dark tan head; bubbles struggle to get to the surface, many get crushed mercilessly on the way. No lacing from the head, the blackness of the brew destroys all. Tom: “it’s blacker than the blackest black times infinity” (another Metalocalypse quote, and quite fitting really). This beer (and bottle, woah…) is incredibly metal. We are all geeking out while we thrash to Hot Cross on the stereo.

Aroma: Hold on tight, a hop hurricane is coming through. Very strong hoppy front that melts into an awesomely weird soy-sauce-milkshake-godly-vanilla tidal wave. Cannon gets sweet fruit (raisin) and brandy kicks too. Think dark fruits and dark roasts. On fire. In a deep dungeon. With Slayer turned up to 11.

Taste: Wow, that’s easily the greatest beer we’ve all suckled on so far. The collective room just had their minds blown. Many people are screaming with excitement and Hot Cross is blasting so here is a group stream of consciousness description of the dark flavor: “DELIVERS. warm wood…starts salty and ends sweet…excellent mouthfeel, smooth and almost creamy, coats the throat…it’s warming me from the inside…beer milkshake…aggressive hop front that morphs into warm (bourbon-y alcohol) roasts and finishes dark and wonderfully evil. Brian: “I wonder what tree this was fermented in.” Scott lays down the understatement of the night: “Wow. Now that’s a fucking beer.” Andy/Jim: “when you get this you get this incredibly euphoric feeling as it goes down your throat.” Some may say that this beer overly sweet, but regardless I think this is right up our collective alley.

ABV: 11.0%

Drink one or all?: One. Enjoy slowly.

Cost: $15/bottle + Golden Ticket + 36 hours of consciousness – some self-respect

Overall: 21/20.
There is a TON of hype around this one (ourselves included). We think this beer can deliver on most of it.

Brewery Hometown: Quebec, Canada

Appearance: Espresso/black coffee but with a light carbonation look. The head is/was thinner and light in appearance than expected for how dark the beer itself is. ALSO, it comes CORKED.

Aroma: Does NOT smell dark at ALLLLLLLLL. Smells like a Belgian citrus with spicy notes we can only claim to be coriander? Reminds Adam of a Hoegarrden on the smell. Fruity, don’t know what fruit, but fruity.

Taste: Thinner than expected. So far this beer has only been one oxymoron after another. It looks dark but smells nothing like it, as well as tastes nothing like a dark beer but most importantly, the beer isn’t Terrible. The fruity taste develops from just carbonation and then hits the side and back of your tongue. This is when the flavors roundhouse you in the face…but then they disappear so quick you just want more to figure out what the hell just happened in your mouth. You can not taste the alcohol, at all; sneaks up on you like navy seals on a pirate. We let it warm and even then we can take huge swigs of it, sooo good and smooth. Bitterness is so low the bite is almost non existent. This is a dark beer?!

Alcohol: 10.5%

Drink one or all?:  If you can drink the whole thing you’ll probably be ready to move to something that will get you less fucked up and won’t trick you. If you can drink it and want another one, more power to you. It’s going fuck you up.

Cost: $9 750ML

Overall: The canooks have tricked me. Terrible was all a big misleading LIE. Something we both may get just for a pregame or chill beer for another day. So easy and tasty, it’s worth the money and the time spent with it.

Brian: 18/20

Adam: 18/20

SOLID

Brewery Hometown: Chicago

Appearance: I have it in a 312 pilsner glass and it just looks like 312…however a little paler and cloudier in appearance. The head is a thicker foam than I was anticipating considering the light appearance, overall pretty solid yet fluffy and inviting.

Aroma: Sweet orange citrus. Maybe like a faint orange juice that’s slightly fermented. I know that’s not really appealing sounding but it truly is an inviting scent. There is some spice in there that seems to warm it up the overall profile and make you smile.

Taste: Different; the first sip I was expecting a wave of citrus flavor with warm spices but I got none of that. The flavor is very mild while the beer is still in your mouth, and when you swallow it the flavor develops into what I was looking for. The appearance isn’t tricking you, it is fairly thin; crisp and easy to drink with a bold flavor. I can’t help but smell it every time i take a swig and it only amplifies the tastes of spice and soft finish. As the beer finishes it releases a vanilla-ish flavor that makes it way more in line with a belgian (than which it started, but in a good way). The carbonation is pretty excessive but it works beautifully with all the flavor. I took a break from this for a couple of seconds, took a quick big swig and it actually made my mouth water afterwords. The orange peel stays on your lips. Lick them: it tastes like you’ve been eating an orange (pretty fucking cool). This beer is 80% Belgian style ale blended with 20% Belgian style ale aged in wine barrels with orange peels. Now I wonder what the beer straight from the wine barrels tastes like…

Alcohol: 6.5%

Drink one or all?: It only comes in the 650ml and I would suggest drinking all of it.

Cost: $6 for a 650ml (1PINT 6FL OZ, 22FL OZ) bottle :(

Overall: Goose Island has not let me down. This is nothing short of what I’ve come to expect from them. I only wish it were a little heavier on the vanilla and alcohol content, but still worth while. Biggest downside is the bottle size and price. The orange peel lingering on your lips was so cool and unique, I will always remember that. Classy and smooth.

Brewery Hometown: Boston

Appearance: Dark. Nice thick, creamy head with stubborn lacing. Dark amber tones, not opaque but its getting there. The head settles into a creamy, lovely mess.

Aroma: Andy: “more complex spices…shit, the names are escaping me. Strong malt and (very flowery) hop overtones with caramel?” Chris: “nice, hoppy” Cannon: “Smells like an IPA mixed with a dry wheat thing”

Taste: The hops attack immediately followed by a charge of citrus; surprising considering the initial scent profile. Well balanced throughout is the darker malty flavors of a brown ale. Seems to be a fairly decent IPA/Brown ale bastard child. Andy: “I get how this is a dark ale…nice” Chris: “between dark beer and a strong wheat beer…maybe it can’t decide” It has a hoppy, crisp finish that works; much better than what we started the night with. Easily the favorite of batch we tried tonight.

Alcohol: 4.5%

Drink one or all?: Two or three. Decent.

Cost: Guessing $8/sixer

Overall: Overall: Andy: 13/20 not bad, not great, Chris: 15/20 like it enough, Brian: 14/20 better than the others, Cannon: 12/20 bland and lost the carbonation quick.

Brewery Hometown: Boston

Appearance: Oh baby that is red. Surprisingly dark head. We are licking our lips.

Aroma: Interesting; a maple syrup sweet almost, with darker malty overtones. Possibly a walnut-like (Chris: “planters mix nuts?!”) followup. Chris: “subtle sweetness…nothing is really catching me right now”
Nothing else ever did.

Taste: Chris and I both had a ‘WOAH not expecting that moment’. Fiercely bitter/dry. Andy: “nearly offensive, that’s mouth puckering” Chris: “its almost salty” Andy: “Chris is definitely right…salty!!! My mouth feels like it just ate a bag of pretzels” Chris: “massive dry mouth” Out of line with what we thought it was going to be initially from the aroma. Andy: “alright this is rude…sorry…I can’t support this” Chris: “definitely gets only MORE bitter as it warms” Adam: “sour, bitter aftertaste that is killing me”

Alcohol: 5.4%

Drink one or all?: One with chips. Lots of chips.

Cost: We guess $8/sixer

Overall: Andy: 8/20 Rude when warmer, Chris: 10/20 Better very cold, Adam: 11/20 Can’t drink it without food, Brian: 12/20 Liked it, but its losing me.

Brewery Hometown: Rochefort, Belgium

Appearance: It looks like someone took my glass and scooped out some dirty ass pond water, and they made sure to scrape the bottle of the pond to get chunks in there… enough said.

Aroma: Subtle sweet caramel undertones. Malty with a fruity scent. I’m finding this smell to be inviting but not as potent as I would think with the darkness of the beer and what it could be. Some sort of spice…

Taste:I think I made a mistake by taking a big swig at the beginning, because the alcohol hit me like it was spiked with vodka or something. So it DOES NOT seem to try very hard to hide the alcohol. The caramel scent is actually a component in the beer this time. This beer has a way of finding places in your mouth you didn’t know could be a part of the beer experience like the roof of your mouth. I had no idea the roof of my mouth could have this bubbly refreshing experience. Extremely carbonated and very alcoholic…I feel like my breath smells like an old alcohol right about now. (I have now adapted a new drinking strategy, get it in and get it down!) This new strategy has given a WHOLE new world to this beer. It’s no longer straight vodka; it’s got that caramel, dark sugar flavor with maybe a little chocolate? Actually very very easy to take down. Still has a slight bite from the carbonation but it develops into a very smooth and flavorful Belgian ale.

Alcohol: 11.3%

Drink one or all?: Only the 1

Cost: $6/11.2oz.

Overall:14/20 I had read some good reviews on this beer but personally found it to be a tad bit to strong on the alcohol and not enough flavor. Give a try but you have to be ready to drink it quick. Also the price tag REALLY hurts…