Samuel

I’m finally getting around to composing this Friday’s tasting notes. Most weeks, I write the notes as I drink the beer at my Kitchen Table, but this week I enjoyed a beer that is not (at least not yet) available to be enjoyed in Bottles. Instead, I went down to the new Cornucopia Bar and Burger (on Pearl Street just north of 5th) for their grand opening and a tasting of Oakshire’s new ESB.

I enjoyed this beer immensely, and especially so as I got to pick the brain of the brewery manager, Jeff Alhouse, about its pedigree. The thing that makes this ESB stand out from the other Oakshire brews is the yeast, a Fuller’s English ale yeast that’s incredibly dry and neutral. That keeps the beer remarkably true to style.

But to the anthropomorphization, you shout! Or maybe you don’t, but that’s what I’m going to do next anyway. I had a good time working on this, as I was brainstorming and bouncing ideas around with my friend Anthony (who turned me on to this tasting event. Hopefully beginning next month, he and I will be doing one joint tasting each month, where we give each choose for each other a beer to taste ‘blind’. We’re still working out details on that. More to come.

The Oakshire Hindsight ESB came to life as an American fan of English Football. He follows Manchester United, but is roots for anyone to beat the US team when the world cup rolls around.

For footwear he wears, fitting a European Football fan, Adidas Samba. He’s worn the same brand of shoe since high school. He likes the simplicity of not having to decide, and they’re muted enough in black and white to go with just about anything. That’s important to this beer, as it’s all about balance. Its motto is “all things in moderation, including moderation.”

The beer’s favorite musical style is Ska, but its favorite album is Rubber Soul by the Beatles. It’s definitely working class, but has dreams and aspirations of ever more. So, the beer’s actual job is as something like a parts clerk, or a factory worker. But it’s dream job is an international secret agent.

Its ideal weather is a perfect day, high summer when the world is still decked out in Erin green, but after the rains have died down. It’s a 75-80 degree day with medium/low humidity, and a few fluffy white clouds somewhere just this side of the horizon.

Its car is a beat up late model Ford Taurus that was a hand-me-down from a friend who couldn’t sell it or give it away to anyone else. But in the garage it’s restoring an Austin Healey Sprite. The car will probably never run, but the part the beer enjoys is the hard work and the hours spent in the garage working while sipping, interestingly enough, an Oakshire Hindsight ESB. Which is funny, since it isn’t in bottles. But maybe the beer has a kegerator.

This beer is bright, crisp, and fun to be around. It’s very straightforward, with almost no esters, phenols, or other off flavors. It tastes like malt at first, and like bitter hops on the finish, and that’s all. Nothing hiding, no mixed messages, it’s a purist beer. And it’s excellent. But there’s some subtle unexpected notes. Something floral. Something bready. Something characteristically English (I thought there was some Maris Otter or something in there, but Mr. Althouse told me not so). Actually I was reminded of the Bluebird Bitter I had, which is pretty much the quintessential English Bitter.

Overall, this is an imminently drinkable beer. It doesn’t have many surprises in store, and if I had to identify a weakness I’d say that it’s a little one dimensional. But that’s not really a weakness, as simplicity seems to have been the idea. So I’d call it a successful brew.

Until next week, readers, if you have any suggestions for beers you’d like me to review, please leave a comment.

PS – sorry no pictures, I’m writing this on my lunch break at work and don’t have time or wherewithal to go on an image hunt. Maybe I’ll add them in later.

Last Friday was a rough day following a rough week, and I did not manage to share a beer review with y’all. However, on Sunday I enjoyed the new Widmer brew and made some notes to post.

This is a Belgian style ale, and overall I was very pleasantly impressed by how true to style they managed to be. With most American commercial examples of Belgian styles, I have been underwhelmed by the nods they give to their European forebearers. A particular brewery in Colorado comes to mind whose products claim to be Belgian, but all taste the same. They just have a light version, a dark version, a strong version, etc…But I’m not going to name names.

My first impression was that this is a beautiful beer. It poured crystal clear with a wealthy, foamy white head. The beer is golden straw colored. The photo posted here makes it look a little orange, which is misleading because of the mash tun drying in the background. The odor is subdued, but complex. It’s somewhat bready, floral, and mostly fruity. The yeast character is noticeable in the smell.

This beer is very lightly hopped, so the flavor is immediately dominated by the malt as well as fruity characteristics imparted by the Belgian yeast (freakish little microbes, those Belgian yeasts). The hops come through after the initial hit of malty sweetness, and they are floral, spicy. The beer is nicely carbonated, and it bubbles around in your mouth. It’s sweet, a little heavier than I would expect, and it definitely coats the mouth.

Overall, for a 6.5% beer this is quite drinkable and tasty. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a session beer, but it’s very approachable and enjoyable.

Hello friends. It’s time, once again, for my Friday beer tasting notes. This has become a weekly feature here at samuelrutledge.com, and I’ve quite enjoyed it (not only because it’s an excuse to drink good beer!) I’m hopeful that I will shortly be able to announce new and exciting changes to the tasting notes section, but today is still a bit premature. Needless to say, this feature is soon to become more interesting and collaborative.
That said, let’s get to today’s review.

Tonight, I enjoyed a draught pour of the Ninkasi Brewery’s Spring Reign. I have to admit that I was not as focused or careful in this review as I have been in past weeks. The reason for this is that I spent my Friday afternoon and early evening at the Eugene Beer and Blog, which is a weekly event where blog people drink beer together and talk blog stuff. Several conversations of interest and import ensued, none of which is relevant to this post. In any event, I was conversing with others while trying to pay attention to my beer, which was rather a mistake. I enjoyed the beer, but didn’t pay it the attention it deserved.

My first impression of the spring release was that it looked fresh. After several months of enjoying dark beers, winter warmers, and beers designed for cold weather and heavy meals, I was excited to have a glass of beer that was straw colored with a lovely, tight, crisp white head. The head retained fairly well on the glass, and it kept it’s aesthetic for several minutes after I sat down. That said, it did dissipate before long and there was little lacing left on my glass. An aside here is that there was little lacing on any of the glasses around the table, which makes me wonder if the glassware at this establishment is actually clean. But I digress.

The aroma of the beer was green, fresh, grassy. Mostly hop and with very little malt on the nose. It smelled, appropriately, rather like spring. In keeping with the theme of offering footware metaphors at the aroma point of the notes, if the smell of this beer was a person it seems like it would be at home in Tevas or in Converse All Stars.

The first impression about the flavor is that it’s hoppier than I would expect from a spring seasonal. My general impression of spring beers is that they’re pretty boring, as a whole. This one is an exception. The hops add to a fresh, grassy, floral, herby kind of affect. The flavor is not one dimensional by any means, but it also isn’t terribly deep. The malt profile is simple and understated, leaving the hops to shine but not making any real effort to balance them. This leads to a crisp, dry, refreshing beer, but one that isn’t’ terribly interesting.

As far as mouthfeel is concerned, I’ll say that this is one area where I just wasn’t paying that much attention. Frankly, it felt like beer in my mouth. It wasn’t particularly watery, but it also wasn’t overly sticky. It wasn’t big, but it certainly wasn’t little. It was crisp. That’s what I keep coming back to; it was damned crisp. And that’s good.

This is the kind of beer you can drink for hours, for days. I could get a keg of this and just drink and play with power tools for a week. Two weeks, maybe, if I was stingy with my friends. This is a good beer for spring. It’s a hopeful beer, and a beer that seems to be a harbinger of change and better times to come. It’s approachable enough that even a seasoned Budweiser drinker could enjoy it, but has enough complexity to satisfy a terminal beer geek. The downside here is that the beer is a little boring, they have not done anything very gutsy. But this is a ‘your strength is your weakness’ situation, as the approachability and drinkability of the beer are directly related to the neutrality of it. Ninkasi, I think, has done it again. A damn good beer.

This brew is from Goose Island Brewing Company in Chicago, Illinois. The bottle says that it was brewed in celebration of the 1000th batch of beer brewed at their brewpub, which is now firmly established on my (long and growing) list of places that I’d like to visit one day. This is an intense beer by any measure. It weighs in at 13% ABV, which means that I will enjoy this all evening. It is aged in bourbon barrels for one hundred days. The 12 oz bottle I am drinking cost $4.99, and I found it at the Market of Choice.

This beer pours black, thick, viscous. It clung to the side of the glass as I poured it down. It must have a very high finishing gravity. The other thing I noticed as I began to pour it, even before sniffing at the glass, was the aroma; boozy, bourbon, roasty. This is an aroma that would be at home in a cordovan leather wing chair with a cuban cigar. The smell of this beer wears ten year old $1000 shoes. It nearly took Taylor’s nose off (she hates this kind of beer). The first hit of the flavor winds you a little. It’s a molasses, bourbon, chocolate, beer milkshake. After the initial hit, the flavors separate from each other and fill your mouth up. It’s a big, chewy beer. It’s a syrupy beer. In fact, it’s kind of a cloying beer. This is not necessarily a liability, but it necessitates very, very slow sipping. Other flavors hiding behind that initial wall of taste are sour, bitter, and fruity. There’s also a hint of some licorice/anise spice. But these are muted compared to the primary flavors, which are god damned overwhelming.

My overall impression is that this is a great beer, a big beer, an impressive beer. The one thing is that on drinkable/approachable it scores really low. Even seasoned craft beer drinkers might find this one overwhelming. It puts other ‘big’ beers to shame. But so what; let them drink water. We’ll drink this sweet ambrosia of the gods.

A lot of what used to be shorter blog posts have become twitter ‘tweets’. That means I’ve been ignoring this space a little. That stinks. I’m thinking about some regular features. I try to write at twitter haiku daily, and I’m thinking that I’ll do a weekly post here with all those. Also, I’m hoping to review/share tasting notes on a new beer every Friday (as finances permit). I haven’t been paying as much mind to national politics since the election as I usually do. I think that having a President who I like and trust takes some of the fire out from under me.

Anyway, you can follow me on Twitter, http://twitter.com/samuelrutldge
You can also follow toddlerhead, http://twitter.com/toddlerhead

This is described as a beer that combines old world brewing with new world flavor. I’m not sure in what way that sets it apart from any other craft brewery, since basically all the styles we brew have their roots in old world tradition. That said, I had to give this beer a chance (if only for the label – never a good reason to choose a beer, and yet one I succumb to all too often).

Pours fizzy with a vigorous but thin head, color is like bronze or natural stained wood.

Very little aroma. What there is is citrus.

First hit is bready from the munich malt, then sharp and citrus. Hop character is understated at first but the noble hop character really comes across in the aftertaste. Malt character is present, but not cloying.

Sharply carbonated and tickles the mouth. A little creamy, seems to coat the inside of the mouth. Finishes dry.

Overall, a lovely, drinkable lager. I could drink a case of these (but it wouldn’t be good for me). Not at all heavy handed.

I quite enjoyed this beer, although the hop character mostly masked the oak flavor. I expect that if it was kept at cellar temperature for a year or so, it would mellow into a near perfect ale. That said, I buy products from the Stone Brewing Company with the full fledged expectation that they will be hopped beyond recognition, and after all; the bottle say “you probably won’t like it.” I’m not going to do a full tasting profile, because I want to enjoy my beer and relish it, not try to analyze the experience. One note on appearance, though; check out how much lacing there was on the glass when the beer was done. That’s what I call good head.

At an earlier time, I wrote that people who post and share beer tasting notes that run down the various characteristics of the beers they’ve had are incredibly pretentious. I still feel that way, and I welcome your accusations of pretension. That said, I think that the best way to start brewing better beer is to really pay attention to the beer I’m drinking. That said, here are my tasting notes for the Old Godfather barley wine style ale from Speakeasy Brewery in San Fransisco. I am currently enjoying a 12 oz bottle.

Appearance: This beer poured with a rich inch and a half of off white head which dissipated to a light film of bubbles within a few minutes. The beer itself is cloudy, and richly caramel colored. As I drank from my glass, there was a moderate amount of foam lacing left on the sides.
Aroma: Like sweet bread with honey. Overwhelmingly sweet. Hop nose barely present. A lot of what seems like maybe biscuit malt.
Flavor: Moderately booozy, hops well balanced with malt, caramel followed by a strong hop finish.
Mouthfeel: A little overcarbonated. Othewise, fills the mouth up with an almost chewy sensation.
Drinkability: I could sip one all night.