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.

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.

Region: Rueda, Spain

Price: $13.99 at Total Wine

Sight: pale daffodil yellow

Smell: lemon drop, pineapple, piña colada, flowers

Taste: pineapple, wet rock, green and white Smarties, flowers, mango, medium-bodied

Overall:  What a success.  Out of 8,000 different wines in the store where I work, this is consistently one of my top go-to recommendations for a winning bottle of white wine.  Verdejo is a grape out of Spain—a lesser-known, cheerful, spring-and-summer white; one that could play the adorable little sister to the opulent, languid whites of the French Rhône.  Citrusy and tropical, but not so zesty as a Sauvignon Blanc, Verdejo tends to be a little fuller, slightly rounded, with only a hum of minerality.

Arindo smells like a vase of summer florals, candied lemon, and piña colada.  On the palate, a wave of pineapple rolls through, steeped with daisies and lime candy.  Stony minerality adds some shading and lends to a clean finish, which is basically a sun-kissed meadow of wildflowers, a hint of tart candy, and a touch of mango.  The most incredible thing about this wine in its entirety is the balance.  There are no sharp edges or jarring soprano notes; in fact, I would describe this wine as an alto.  It sits in the same warm range as a cello.  Not too deep or heavy, but still somewhat low.

As an added bonus, the rich, deep-set tropical fruits combined with the just-enough acidity of a mere suggestion of citrus actually make this wine a great partner to some surprising foods.  Foods like bacon burgers, pizza, or pastas in red sauce that you might associate with red wine may actually be a spectacular companion for your Verdejo.  Again I say, do not underestimate the white wine.  Try it for yourself!

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.)

Region: Valdobbiadene, Prosecco

Price: $14.99 at Total Wine

Sight: pale, almost clear in color, very busy bubbles

Smell: pear, lime, sugar cookie, cream

Taste: pear, green apple, toast, lime finish

Overall: This Prosecco is pale—but in color only.  It exuberantly bursts with personality the second it hits the glass.  The supercharged bubbles race to the top and form a crowded bead halo around the top of the drink.  Bright aromas of pear, green apple, and lime invite you in, with a bakery bass note of sugar cookies and cream.  These same flavors swirl across the palate, while the scratchy carbonation rolls with an attractive tension all the way through.  The orchard fruits lead the way to a dense core of brut toastiness; then zesty Persian lime finishes with a sweeping gesture.  This Prosecco can easily run with the best Crémants of France, and at just over $15, it will bring you the elegance of the true Champagne you covet—without the hefty price tag.

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: Veneto, Italy

Price: $16.99 at Total Wine

Sight: muted ruby

Smell: cherry, plum, milk chocolate, lavendar

Taste: fresh cherry, red currant, plum, mocha, roses, forest

Overall: This is an Italian red for Pinot Noir lovers.  Valpolicella is known for being somewhat light; but far from being flimsy and fruity, the Ripasso style boast more density and complexity than an entry-level Valpolicella, as it absorbs richness and flavor from post-Amarone raisins during the vinting process.  This one in particular is silky and bright, with food-friendly Italian acidity highlighting plush red fruit flavors.  Nuances of earth and an autumn forest contrast nicely with chocolate and mocha notes.  I love this wine and quite frankly I’m surprised that they don’t charge more for it.  I highly recommend this for someone who is used to drinking California and other New-World reds; this is a good middle ground between New World fruit and Old World restraint.