Region: Asheville, NC

Price: 5.2% ABV

Style: Extra Special/Strong Bitter

Sight: amber

Smell: bread dough, toasted pine nut, cinnamon, earth

Taste: toast, spicy, yellow pepper, peanut

Overall: ESB!  This is the first beer of this style that I’m reviewing ever—I can’t imagine why, though.  I mean, what isn’t absolutely irresistible about something that describes itself as an Extra Strong Bitter?  If that doesn’t sound just perfectly charming, I don’t know what does…  

It starts off with the smell of rising bread dough and a prominent nuttiness, like when I’m toasting pine nuts for pesto or something.  A hint of spice emerges with some earthiness from the hops.  On the palate, the nuttiness continues like peanuts roasted in their skins, and the flavor of bread turns to toast—delicious, white bread toast.  No butter, no jam; just toast.  Also the tangy bitterness of the inside of a crisp, sweet, yellow bell pepper jumps right up and catapults off of the finish.  I’d say this has got great balance—spicy hops, bready malts, and vegetal-borderline-fruity esters make a lively, albeit savory, trio.

LAMMSBRÄU ORGANIC PILSNER



Region:  Neumarkt, Bavaria, Germany

Price: $9.99/4-pk at Total Wine

Style: Pilsner

ABV: 4.8%

Sight: hazy lemon yellow, speckly carbonation

Smell: weed, white grapefruit, straw

Taste: citrus, cantaloupe, sweet rolls, straw, grassy hops

Overall: Organic and Reinheitsgebot-ready, this is a classic, clean, archetypal pilsner that you could confidently offer to anyone that asks “What does a German pilsner taste like?”  That suspiciously… “how-do-you-say… herbal?”, slightly skunky aroma that may or may not remind you of a certain type of college apartment (we all had that friend) is there to greet you, as I find with most pilsners (the ever-present reminder that hops are indeed in the cannabis family).  It’s accented attractively with white grapefruit in the top notes and doughy bread as the mellow base, with a waft of hay.  The carbonation is at the level of about how bubbly club soda feels after it’s been mixed—not super aggressive, but not creamy either.  On the palate, the nuance of weed fades completely, replaced by rounder fruits (melon), sweeter bready malts (think of the rolls they serve at O’Charley’s), and a fresh, grassy hop on the finish.  Crisp and clean as a pilsner should be, this is definitely one to remember to resurrect once summer rolls around.

LAMMSBRÄU ORGANIC DUNKEL



Region: Neumarkt, Bavaria, Germany

Price: $9.99/4-pk at Total Wine

Style: Dunkel Munich Lager

ABV: 4.8%

Sight: rust

Smell: cinnamon pinwheel, molasses, blonde roast, wet earth

Taste: cinnamon pinwheel, toasted pine nut

Overall:  Also an organic proponent of the Reinheitsgebot, this beer really makes me feel like I’m drinking one of these:



Aroma-wise, it smells like a bakery—cinnamon pastries and gingerbread accented with Starbucks’ blonde roast.  There is a base note of damp earth—here “earth” is no euphemism for something stinky and manure-like; I really mean “earth” as in how potting soil smells, or the forest floor after a rain.  On the palate, that gooey, nutty cinnamon pinwheel definitely dominates.  Cinnamon, dough, and a pronouncedly toasty nuttiness cover the bases on this medium-bodied dunkel.  This is smooth, somewhat mellow, and something different-but-not-too-crazy that you could easily get your Yuengling, Fat Tire, or Samuel Adams people to branch out into.  It would also make a great dinner beer for any grilled or roasted proteins you may be serving (especially pork or beef).

Region: Belgium & Colorado

Price: $10.99/22-oz at Total Wine

Style: Fruit beer

Sight: clear ruby, cotton candy pink circlet

Smell: fresh-picked cherry, Pinot Noir, purple or red Flintstones vitamins

Taste: dark Hudson cherries, dry rosé, spice cake

Overall:  My very simple understanding of this undertaking in the Lips of Faith series is that a cherry lambic from Old Belgium blended with a non-cherry ale at New Belgium.  Right from the pour this beer is absolutely gorgeous.  It’s a glass full of my birthstone—ruby—with a wide column of fine, miniscule bubbles floating silently but expediently from the depths to the surface. As a whole, it looks so clean, clear, and unflawed that it’s as if someone found a perfectly smooth, solid, oval ruby, and happened to have a piece of glassware that fit it like a glove.  Stunning—I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever looked upon a prettier beer.  I’m sure, however, you’re also interested in its personality, so I’ll move on to the aromas…

Something about this smells just like a Pinot Noir—bright acid and tart red fruit.  The cherry note is very fresh, barely ripe, right off the tree.  Funny enough, there is also a snap of something that recalls the Flintstones vitamins I’d crunch on my way to elementary school—specifically the red and purple ones.  

There is no candy and nothing artificial on the palate whatsoever.  If you’re used to your cherry lambics being sweet, look again—New Belgium has fine-tuned a tastefully dry blend here.  It tastes like a cherry fruit chew; not the fake plasticky kinds like Life Savers or Gummy Bears, but rather the responsible-school-lunch varieties you never fully appreciated for their nutritional value—the ones made from 100% real fruit juice and little else.  The cherry flavor is very real and unadulterated; it doesn’t taste too far off from the dark cherries we keep on the table at home.  

There’s a protean maturity at play here that I really admire; somewhere this beer crosses a line and acheives wine-like complexities and flavors.  I’ll go ahead call it “vinous”—but not in a heavy Port or busty Cabernet kind of way.  It drinks like the dry rosés of Provence: light- to medium-bodied, fresh red fruit flavors, zero residual sugar, especially satisfying during spring and summer months.  It’s satisfyingly circular that this beer has traveled all the way across the Atlantic to America, only to bring me right back across the Atlantic to the South of France.

I don’t think I can recommend this highly enough.

Pair this with a bagel & cream cheese to achieve maximum deliciousness.



Region: Kansas City, Missouri

Price: $9.99/4-pk at Total Wine

Style: Farmhouse/Saison

ABV: 8%

Sight: cloudy marigold, sudsy crown

Smell: white grapefruit, orange rind, ginger, coriander, nutmeg

Taste: citrus, yellow cake, herbal, ginger, cinnamon

Overall: Even with a slow pour, Tank 7 is super-easily agitated and very quickly stacks up a very loose, soapy foam.  Huge carbonation happening right off the bat.  The smell of a saison takes me straight back to summer—I was drinking saisons ALL the time.  As cold as it is outside, I wish it were summer, so already this beer is very dear to me.  On the sip, this is probably the least-herbal saison I’ve ever had—the flavor of yellow cake introduces borderline sweetness right at the center of the palate.  There’s a little bit of an aromatic herbal quality that chimes in like thyme or basil, but it mostly veers towards spice-cake spices: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg.  Grapefruit and orange citrus notes keep this light and airy .  Surprisingly, the carbonation doesn’t scratch and claw its way across the tongue, but rather softens and rounds out quite pleasantly with little more than a reassuring tingle.

MOA BREAKFAST

Region: New Zealand

Price: $18.99/4-pk at Total Wine

Style: Fruit Beer

ABV: 5.5%

Sight: slightly cloudy yellow-amber, steady carbonation

Smell: cherry Tums, grape juice, yeast, sunscreen

Taste: witbier, Capri Sun, cherry Tums, slightly bitter

Overall:  Brewed with Nelson hops and cherry juice, this oddball little “breakfast” beer is just the style you’d want if you’re starting early.  It pours with a fluffy white crown, presents understated fruit aromas, and carries itself with a light, almost creamy softness.  It tastes mostly like a gourmet witbier, decorated very modestly with faint candied cherry flavors.  Texturally, the yeast lends a little chalkiness, which combined with the cherry flavor, reminds me a cherry-flavored antacid.  On the finish, the beachy aroma of sunscreen wafts through, which is puzzling but not undesirable.  It’s an easy beer, and it especially steps up to the plate when actually paired with toast & eggs.  It turns unbelievably fresh, and at only 5.5%, Moa Breakfast is careful not to ruin your day.

Region: Escondido, California

Price: $7.49 at Total Wine

Style: Imperial IPA

ABV: 9.4%

Sight: furious carbonation, orange amber

Smell: hay, weed, pine

Taste: resinous, biscuit, basil, pine, tangerine

Overall:  Sweet baby Jesus.  A giant wet haybale, bundled pine needles, and a thick haze of weed smoke shrieks out of the glass like some kind of hysterical disaster signal.  (“M’aidez. M’aidez.  We have been bodily crushed by a crap ton of hops.”)  It’s very intimidating, and at first whiff I’m nearly stunned, and I have to take a second to get it together because now I have to go in… 

I have to say, once it’s on the palate, it’s not as spiky as it smells.  A squelched, buttered dinner biscuit is the only hint of malt as far as the eye can see; from there on out, it’s all hops.  Super-mega-fresh hops.  It hits all the big hop notes with a very heavy, very certain fist.  Evergreen.  Herbals. Citrus.  West Coast IPAs are not normally my style, but if I get to drink one, I’m glad it’s this one.  It’s a titan, and it has a good, expressive arc. Garden basil strikes first, then a grove of pine trees, and then a surprisingly fleshy and supple tangerine finish.  I’m not even going to broach the subject of balance since this is clearly not the point, but I do want to say that I think this is a game-changer, and I’m really happy for all of you who got to try this, which I think is clawing its way to the top to be the emperor of the Imperial IPA category.

(I also want to mention that this is the best label design I’ve ever seen from Stone.  A masterpiece in itself.  Props.)

New Holland High Gravity Series Charkoota Rye Smoked Doppelbock

Region: Holland, Michigan

Price: $3.99 at Total Wine

ABV: 8.4%

Sight: molasses brown, good clarity (not cloudy or completely opaque)

Smell: cedar, dead leaves, pretzel dough, gingerbread

Taste:  cedar chips, molasses, scotch, campfire smoke, espresso

Overall:  Holy smokes.  I mean really.   A LOT of smoke.  Not only do I taste the wood smoke, but I also taste the plank that the smoke came from. Smoky cedar fills every corner of this doppelbock, and it gets really complex.  It reminds me of (go with me on this one…) when I would go to a park playground with my family when I was in elementary school, and there were cedar chips all over the ground, and my sister and I would play on the jungle gym, and we’d all sit at a wooden picnic table in the early autumn under some trees, when the leaves were just starting to turn, and we’d have lunch.  Aromas and flavors don’t always get so specific, but in this beer they do.  Something living in that woodsy flavor really takes me back.  Under all that there’s a doughiness and a sweet shade of molasses, like you get when you make gingerbread cookies.  It’s a little boozy, with a malty scotch-esque note wrapped up in that little alcohol punch, and a warm espresso note peeks out of the finish.  This is definitely a curl-up-in-four-blankets-and-let-it-snow-outside-for-all-I-care type of beer.  (You must know what I’m talking about.)

Region: USA (national)

Price: sample

ABV: 5.5%

Sight: clear honey-amber, soapy head

Smell: shy hops, butterscotch, sugar cookie

Taste: slightly sweet malt character, thin, mild

Overall:  So this beer is really adorable.  It’s a sample I got from an awesome beer rep I know who is not only a sweet guy and a sharp thinker, but he’s a genius merchandiser.  Batch 19 is a relatively new concept beer by MillerCoors, which is derived from a pre-Prohibition-era recipe.  (It’s especially cute to me because they’re merchandising it in the craft beer section of the store.)  

It pours a transparent honey color with a soapy, loosely-bubbled froth at the top.  It smells nice… but it’s really quiet.  Some sweet whiffs of butterscotch and sugar cookies hover politely over the surface, and also the scent of what I’d like to call “socially awkward hops.”  We all know that socially awkward person who is clearly present, and generally well-liked, but they don’t know how to insert themselves into the conversation that’s happening around them.  They lean in, but never really contribute, and they’re obviously slightly uncomfortable.  That’s how the hops appear on the nose.  I get the shadow of hop character…but they don’t say anything.

Flavor-wise, this beer throws itself into a bit of a marketing quandary.  ”Defiantly bold beer.”  Maybe it was, in 1919.  On the palate, Socially Awkward Hops don’t even make it to the party.  There is some cushy butterscotch sweetness from the malt, and no rigid structure.  This beer is soft, and on the finish, it’s almost not quite sure when to leave.  It’s not particularly crisp, nor is it robust, streamlined, thick, or spicy.  I’m trying to figure out what aspect of it could possibly be considered “bold”—besides the audacity of its marketing angle.  It appears to be desperately dodging adjectives at every turn.  Is it tasty?  Yes, it’s tasty enough. It’s likeable, approachable—even if it’s not particularly filled-in or structured.  I think PBR people would find it pleasant.

It’s a real eye-opener to come off of craft beer for a moment and try something by one of the big boys.  It’s like at the end of The Wizard of Oz when, after a life-changing journey through magic and technicolor, Dorothy goes back to plain old black-and-white Kansas.  When I drink beer, I’m spoiled—I’m used to big statements, wild colors, extreme flavors, bonkers ingredients, and mad scientists pulling yeasts out of their beards.  Batch 19, while it is a neat concept, doesn’t know what “bold” is.  It’s never seen a road paved in yellow.

Region: Michigan

Price: gift

Style: double IPA

ABV:  8%

Sight: cloudy orange, tenable 1cm head

Smell: menthol, butterscotch, cantaloupe, tangerine candy

Taste: grassy, tangerine, concrete, menthol, dandelion

Overall: I really like this IPA.   I will say this—you get more malt on the nose than on the palate.  The aroma is a tangle of citrus, tropical fruits, butterscotch, and the theme of my last two weeks fighting a sinus cold: menthol.  I get a great big summary of Hall’s Lemon Cough Drops going on in this glass.  On the palate, there are floral and herbaceous attributes, like you just mowed the grass through a patch of dandelions.  Citrus swings in for a quick meet and greet, again dragging along its much louder and less attractive friend called Menthol.  Interestingly enough, in the middle of all of these somewhat delicate herbal flavors, a big wall of steel or concrete springs up.  Something about this tastes like building materials—imagine what it might taste like if you were to lick a rusty I-beam.  (Not recommended.)  You get the whole industrial-complex-paving-over-the-meadow vibe, with that incomprehensibly gigantic bittering hop looming over the fruits and flowers. Is this balanced?  I’m going to say no.  But once in a while you might want something a little (read: a lot) hop-heavy, and this might very well hit the spot.

Region: Marshall, Michigan

Price: around $2 (sorry I don’t remember) at Good Bottle Co.

ABV: 7%

Sight: caramel brown

Smell: Folger’s coffee grounds, plywood

Taste: cold black coffee

Overall:  My dad is always trying to get me to like coffee; it hasn’t happened yet.  I just don’t drink it.  I have made progress, though.  I actually used to 100% loathe any nuance of coffee, but since I got into the beer world, hints of coffee or mocha don’t bother me much anymore.  The first thing I was ever okay with drinking that had a hint of coffee was Brew Dog’s Old World Russian Imperial Stout—it was then that I realized I didn’t have an issue with the flavor of coffee, but rather the consistency of it.  There seemed to be a flavor/texture mismatch.  Coffee has such a strong flavor, and its watery texture doesn’t seem to support it.  However; big, bold coffee flavor swimming in a big, thick stout was finally an acceptable pairing for my palate.

This beer takes me a step backwards, though.  I thought coffee and I were cool, but I was wrong.  Dark Horse Perkulator is not much of a doppelbock, but rather a coffee ground receptacle.  There are literal coffee grounds infused into this beer, aaaaand that’s pretty much all I can taste.  And this doppelbock is not thick or richly textured; it has nearly the same texture as coffee itself.  So this beer drinks rather like a cold cup of black and vaguely alcoholic coffee.  Thin texture, coffee flavor straight out of the filter, and…not much else.  If I loved coffee, I suppose I would love this beer.  However, I don’t.  I love doppelbock, which this does not resemble.  No doppelbock-biscuity-sweet-malty-goodness present here.  Just coffee grounds (Folger’s, from the smell of it).  

Sorry guys, I can’t finish it.

Pouring this one out for my homies.

P.S. Also, can we talk about how a used coffee filter looks like a napkin full of potting soil that someone just picked out of a wet garbage can?  That’s all I can think about while I’m trying to drink this.  I just can’t.  Moving on…