Random Beers: Christmas Edition

Ah, the Holidays! The gifts, the family....the stress. What better way to relieve that stress than to quaff away at a fine selection of Christmas-themed beers; to float through the Holiday season on a fluffy cloud of beer-buzz? I can think of none.

Without further ado:

1) Delirium Noel. This beer is indeed Christmas in a bottle. Sweet nose, literally like baking sugar cookies. Tasted spicy, like mulling spices were used (you know...like mulled cider). Fruity, like cherries...sweet fruit, like a Christmas fruitcake. It's a good feeling, happy memories brew. 8/10, for being interesting and warm. Awwww....

2) Great Lakes Brewing Company Christmas Ale. Much like Delirium Noel, just slightly ever so less refined. Same sugar cookie scent, thugh this is a little more on the caramel side. Big huge sweet maltiness with little hops character; almost none, just a hint. Any more would be to get in the way of the mulling-spice taste and thick feeling you get in your mouth, like drinking sweet syrup. A "winter warmer" indeed. 7/10.

3) Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. They produce this beer every November/December for the holidays, and it is different every year. First and foremost, lots of grapefruit on the nose and taste, with piney hops throughout. The hops linger, giving it a nice, full taste. There was a hint of something like coriander in it too. I just can't get over the grapefruit. Great holiday offering. 8/10.

4) Bourbon-Barrel Christmas Ale. This is really really special. Murky, dark walnut color, creamy tan head. Smells incredibly like bourbon, also heavy on the vanilla, maple and allspice. Big huge bourbon taste; also vanilla, nuts, figs/prunes, molasses and mulling spices. HUGE beer, and mightily complex. The up-front burbon sting is tempered by that oakiness described above. 9/10.

5) Great Divide Hibernation Ale. Another big beer. Amber red, tan 1-inch head. Smelled of warm bread, spicy hops; almost peppery. Comes across at first like an IPA, but balances with a warm mulled-cider sweetness. 7/10.

6) Brouwerij De Dolle Stille Nacht. A mouthful to pronounce, for certain. Also, a mouthful of beery goodness. Pours hazy amber/oak-white with tons of sediment floating around. It's supposed to be a dark ale, but damn if it's not a Belgian Trippel; coriander, spices, fruity scent. Almsot tastes as sweet as a white wine, with sour fruit (apple, lemon), zest, syrup and an alcohol tang at the end. All in all, not bad. 7/10.

7) Sam Adams Winter Lager. Sam Adams is always a great fall-back beer. This is no different. Dark brown with amber hues. Smells of caramel and warm Christmas bread. Tastes very much of caramel, toffee and lots of cinnamon. Sweet, chewy, and warm. A great, balanced winter warmer. 7/10.

So, only 7 insteqad of 10, but we'll all live, I am sure. Enjoy these "winter warmers" and have a Merry Christmas!

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My Liver is Starting to Hurt

Good God. Week after week, beer after beer. While I love all the practice I'm getting tasting and rating beers for the Beer Judge exam.....I think it's taking its toll. The good news is the brewer's yeast keeps me.....regular. The bad news is that my body may soon completely reject plain water. It's tough to stay hydrated solely on beer.

At any rate....what's in my fridge this week?

1) Brouwerij Corsendonk Pater Abbey Brown Ale. This is a Belgian Dubbel/Abbey brown ale. It pours nutty brown with hints of red, and such a huge and active head (about 5 inches) that I couldn't get a 12oz. bottle in a 16oz. glass on the first pour! Smells of toasted malt and burnt hops. Strong taste; big hops immediately followed by a powerful nutty taste, mellowed by...apples? Tasty, smooth, medium-bodied beer. 7/10.

2) Stone Imperial Russian Stout. Oh. My. God. Just f-ing try this beer. Shut up. Don't ask questions. Shhh.. Pours as thick as motor oil, but is soooooooo complex. Currants, raisins. Dark, bitter baker's chocolate. Sweet hops. Warm alcohol finish. Over 9% abv, by the way. If this beer was a woman, I'd....well, I don't want to be crude. 10/10. 10/10. 10/10. Fuck.

Screw Guinness. I found my new Gold Standard of beer. Stone Imperial Russian Stout. You heard it here, folks. I am dumping Guinness for a new girlfriend. Oh, me and Guinness can still be fuck-friends, but I found my new soul-mate of beer.

3) Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale. Pours amber red with little champagne-like bubbles. The back of the bottles says right-off that you're not worthy to drink this beer. Pretty much, yeah. Oily hops, piney, mixed with peaches. Tasted about the same, with bready yeast. Bitter hops linger on the tongue. Another amazing selection from Stone. 8/10.

4) Bell's Expedition Stout. This is another Russian Imperial Stout style beer. As good as Stone's? Not quite (especially since me and Stone RIS are now dating), but a close second so far. Espresso, vanilla, molasses. Tastes pretty much the same, but finish with a coffee residual and a hint of raisin. It'd be better with just a bot more carbonation,. but a damn fine full-bodied beer. 8/10.

5) Sapporo Premium Beer. Meh. It's okay. A step-up from Bud/Miller, which isn't saying much, but it's clean. Very little hops presence; none really. Cereal-like taste, like corn flakes, with some corn husk grassiness still in it. Fizzy. Yellow. 6/10.

6) Delirium Noel. Ah! A Christmas beer! And it is indeed CHristmas in a bottle. Sweet nose, literally like baking sugar cookies. Tasted spicy, like mulling spices were used (you know...like mulled cider). Fruity, like cherries...sweet fruit, like a Christmas fruitcake. It's a good feeling, happy memories brew. 8/10, for being interesting and warm. Awwww....

7) Great Lakes Brewing Company Christmas Ale. A Christmas Beer theme! Much like Delirium Noel, just slightly ever so less refined. Same sugar cookie scent, thugh this is a little more on the caramel side. Big huge sweet maltiness with little hops character; almost none, just a hint. Any more would be to get in the way of the mulling-spice taste and thick feeling you get in your mouth, like drinking sweet syrup. A "winter warmer" indeed. 7/10.

8) Victory Brewing Company HopDevil Ale. Pours rusty orange and hazy, perfectly as an American Pale should, with a slight orange head. Sweet hops nose, sort of like honeysuckle. Earthy hops right up front, big bite, mellowed pretty quickly with caramel. Very refined, and very very strong. Hops stays on the tongue, but is definitely not over-hopped like some smaller micros do it (like they just discovered hops for the first time). Dry and crisp. This is simply a perfectly-done APA. 9/10.

9) Rogue Brewery Shakespeare Stout. This is a massively-hoppy stout, with less nuttiness and toastiness as many stouts, especially Imperials. It certainly sets it apart from the crowd, relying more on hops for big taste, like pale ales do. Chocolate and nuts up front on the taste, which is tempered immediately with a dry hoppy finish, which is the opposite of what you'd expect. 8/10 for uniqueness.

10) Ommegang Brewery Abbey Ale. Dark borwn wit a decent head. Great lacing on the glass. Fruit and flowers on the nose; a perfect blend of the two. Big roasted taste up front, with some sweet cherry fruit and roses on the laste, with a lingering hop finish. Active carbonation, but a surprisingly smooth and mellow brew. Great belgian abbey ale, brewed in New York. 7.5/10.

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What's In My Fridge This Week?

More swill!

Please allow me to share with you my Friday Random 10 beers. I crack open my fridge, bottle opener in-hand, and share with you, fellow beer advocates, the beers in my fridge.

1) My homebrew. I don't have any clever names for my homebrew, because that's just weird. It's an American Pale Ale, and has all the trappings thereof: hoppy nose, pretty floral, maybe a little grassy. Big hops bite up front, followed by an immediate mellowing by sweet malt (I used 6 poiunds of it in the brewing process afterall). Finishes clean, but after about 2/3 of the glass, it got just a tad "tinny." Not bad, if I do say so myself, which I do. 7/10.

2) Brouwerij Lindeman's Framboise Lambic. Raspberry beer. It pours rose red with a pink head, and has no discernable taste of malt or hops. It's all raspberry, folks, which is exactly what a framboise lambic should be (framboise being French for raspberry...). It was tart, but not heavy or syrupy. Very drinkable; it drank like champagne. Interesting, and worth a try. 8/10.

3) Sam Adams Black Lager. This is outstanding. Poured into the glass black as coffee, with a brown head that dissipated quickly. Smelled spicy, with slight chocolate and coffee. Tasted big coffee, chocolate undertones and a sweet malt. This is a great winter beer, though just a tad thin. No hoppy bitterness at all, so people who like sweeter beers will enjoy this solid offering from the Brewer and Patriot. 8/10.

4) Bell's Batch 7000. Holy moley. This beer is amazing. I could offer this beer in slices instead of in a glass. Thick and chewey. It poured midnight black on a cloudy night with no lights black. I smelled coffee and currants, with a little chocolate. The taste was an explosion. Just incredible. Coarse coffee, like Espresso, with a slight bakers/bitter chocolate taste that combines to yield a really heavy molasses taste; that really bitter molasses you use to make cookies, that turns out sweet and thick in the end...that kind of molasses. This was a huge-bodied beer that they'll only brew this once, so when it's out, it's gone forever. 9/10. No, screw it. 10/10.

5) Michigan Brewing Company Superior Stout. Smells of roasted coffee mixed with either dark chocolate or bakers chocolate. I tasted the roasted coffee up front that mellowed to a buttery taste. I really like that about this beer - the buttery taste at the end. Floral hops throughout. 7/10.

6) Bell's Two Hearted Ale. This is the Bells version of IPA. Pours a huge head, with massive, piney hops nose and flavor. Easy on the malt, but it's a hops-lover's hoppy IPA. Hippety hop. 8/10.

7) Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. First and foremost, lots of grapefruit on the nose and taste, with piney hops throughout. The hops linger, giving it a nice, full taste. There was a hint of something like coriander in it too. I just can't get over the grapefruit. Great holiday offering. 8/10.

8) Founders Breakfast Stout. Why breakfast? Coffee. Giant coffee aroma, hugely roasty, very similar to a can of Folgers with hints of prune and nut, toffee and chocolate. Real coffeehouse mocha cappuchino, chocolate syrup, with a dryer, cocoa powder bittersweetness easing into the finish. Complex, but quite delicate and smooth. 9/10.

9) Dogfish Head Raison D'extra. 20% ABV. Beer meets wine. This is a sweet malt-bomb. Raisins, currants, plums, brown sugar. Heavy and slippery on the tongue. They brewed this beer with loads of raisins in the end. Really interesting, quite heavy. I could only do 1 in a sitting. 7/10, because it's so...different.

10) Michigan Brewing Company/Celis Grand Cru. This is a great example of a "double wit." This tastes heavy on the citrus and spices, like a good Belgian should. Crispy beer, with bubbles as violent as champagne. Yeasty notes with the appropriate fruit/banana esthers. Solid beer from a brewery that started more than 50 years ago in Belgium, the exact recipe of which has now made its way to Texas and finally rests with the Michigan Brewing Company, of all places. 7/10.

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It's Done!

The beer is done! After weeks of fermentation, both in the fermenter and in "bottle conditioning," the beer is ready for the drinking.

The pictures posted here show the thick, rich head at the initial pour, and again about 5 minutes later, after the head reduced a little. The head stayed all the way to the bottom, and left a decent lacing, as you can see.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with our creation. It smells nicely of floral hops, maybe a bit grassy, though. Big hops bite right off the bat, mellowing almost immediately with a sweet malt taste. My only real moan is that after about 2/3 of the glass, it was juuuust a tad "tinny." All in all, though, I think it's a great effort, very drinkable, and Chief Asst. Brewmaster Mark and I are pleased as can be with our beer!

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Fun with Bottles

Chief Assistant BrewMaster Mark and I are every-so-delicately bottling our lovely concoction into bottles for a week or two worth of conditioning. If you enlarge the picture, you may be able to see a glimpse of the able hands of Chief Beer Intern and Bottling Assistant Vicki helping with the project. Kudos to Beer Spouse Jen for taking the picture.

The yeast in the beer has slowed a bit, so corn sugar is added to wake it back up. It is poured at this point into bottles for the yeast to feast on the sugar and make the beer's final alchohol content, as well as give it the natural carbonated fizziness we all expect in beer.

MArk and I were able to deftly keep a majority of the junk out of the beer as we bottled it, so there won't be so much sediment in the bottles. There always is some in bottle-conditioned beer; that's just the way it is. Gives you GREAT gas.

Within a week, we will crack a brew and see if we did it right. If it's flat, we wait another week. If it's flat after that....we biffed it. Good thing we have a Chief Beer Intern and Bottling Assistant and a Beer Spouse to blame, because it couldn't possibly be Head Amateur BrewMaster Me or Chief Assistant BrewMaster Mark...

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