Golden Ale - New Glarus

Vitals:

Name: Golden Ale

Style: Belgian Pale Ale

IBU: 38

ABV: 7.0%

Gravity: 15 deg. Plato

Purchased at: New Glarus Brewery

Descriptions:

Appearance: Golden honey color; translucent with a lot of carbonation and 3 (!) foamy fingers of orange-tinted head. Great retention, lacing, and cap...good looking brew has me excited to try it out.

Smell: This is the only beer I've ever had that smelled straight and away like flowers. You get some slight honey aromas but flowers totally dominate the nose...smells awesome!

Taste: You get a tiny citrus taste up front (I'm not sure what citrus, specifically) followed by a huge, lingering floral taste. You can taste the spiciness of the Belgian yeast and a peppery quality most of the way through the drink. Herbal/floral hops give it a little lingering bitterness. This is not an overly complex brew, but it IS refreshingly interesting.

Mouthfeel: This is medium bodied and creamy with ample carbonation. It leaves you a bit dried out, though. Nothing really sticks out as being too great or poor about the mouthfeel here...which is ok.

Overall Grade: B+

Comments: This is VERY interesting...it's a good brew but it doesn't seem to quite fit the mold of most Belgian pale ales that I've had. It's cool as something different because it doesn't hit you over the head with yeast/bananas/spices as many Belgian beers do. Plus, as you can ONLY get it at the brewery, this is an excellent excuse to take a little drive out to the scenic New Glarus brewery and treat yourself to some delicious beer!

Cheers,

Hurls

Pepe Nero - Goose Island

Vitals:

Name: Pepe Nero

Style: Farmhouse Ale ("Belgian Style Ale" is on the bottle)

IBU: 30

ABV: 6.0%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Riley's Wines of the World

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours midnight black; NO light makes it through this bad boy. One finger of light milk-chocolate colored head that is quick to leave and doesn't lace much. A formidable cap is left atop this beer, though. Probably the best cap I've seen on a beer in a few years, maybe ever.

Smell: This beer smells...unique. You get roasted, earthy malts and almost a coffee-ish smell, yet you get a spiciness as well. The spiciness, in my mind, is probably ground black peppercorn and maybe anise. You get a faint chocolate smell, but the smell is mainly what I've previously described.

Taste: The chocolate is much more pronounced here and leads off the experience with sweetness. YOu also get some faint fig/date flavor, but not a whole lot. The beer evolves with the sweet roasted malt into more of a coffee flavor and, as it rolls back down your tongue, you really get slammed with the peppercorn taste. This beer hides its 6.0% ABV well and provides you with a very unique drinking experience.

Mouthfeel: VERY heavy and even creamy. This beer leaves your mouth surprisingly dry as well, which is a bit of a detractor here because it combines with the creaminess to give you a bit of unpleasantness in the mouthfeel.

Overall Grade: C (perhaps a B or B+ to dark/heavy beer drinkers)

Comments: I'm not totally feeling this one, though I can appreciate how unique it is. I would give it a try if you're into stouts/porters or other dark types of beers. It's a solid, but not great, effort that is unique enough to warrant paying $7-8 for a big bomber of it. Enjoy, and keep expanding your beer tasting horizons!

Cheers,

Hurls

Leffe Blonde - Leffe

So, a friend/former-professor brought this to our BBQ we held with the Ag Econ kids a few weeks back. I had one then and he said it's pretty much all he drinks. Of course I had to give it a try (and a review).

Vitals:

Name: Leffe Blonde

Style: Belgian Pale Ale

IBU: ??

ABV: 6.6%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: left at BBQ :-)

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a brilliant gold with about 2.5 fingers of bubbly white head that quickly fizzled out. Light to moderate carbonation is visible to the eye.

Smell: This is a VERY strong smelling beer, which is not necessarily bad (but not good either); it just is what it is. I get bananas and cloves on full blast. You can also detect a certain spiciness behind the cloves, but I can't quite figure out what it is. The spiciness is definitely a Belgian Ale thing (you'll get the same type of thing with a Bedlam! from Ale Asylum). Can't detect any hops here, but you get a certain peppery smell coming through very faintly.

Taste: I'm tasting bananas, cloves, and coriander here - so no real surprises. The beer holds together very well as a complete package, with nearly no bitterness; actually, you mostly get sweetness and then some spiciness at the bite with some alcohol taste coming through. The alcohol taste is usually not a great thing, but it plays well with the spicy bite - it warms you up at the finish. I think ZESTY is a good word for this beer. Solid, but not spectacular, taste.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied; a bit on the creamy side but with carbonation that prickles your mouth. I wasn't expecting this beer to be so heavy, but it's not really a detractor for me.

Overall Grade: B

Comments: I get the impression that this is a standard run-of-the-mill Belgian Pale Ale, but it's pretty solid. The 6.6% ABV is pretty big and you get a nice taste from this beer. You can most likely get this almost anywhere, so I don't believe this one is limited to Wisconsinites! However, I will say, for my money I would take Bedlam! from Ale Asylum over this to get a bit stronger of a taste/flavor and some hoppiness. Solid effort, though - definitely worth checking out.

Cheers,

Hurls

Hop Devil - Victory Brewing Company

I'll start this post out with a shout out to Mike and Amanda for turning me on to Victory Brewing Company. As true Philadelphians (and, consequently, huge Philly sports fans...always a good thing in my book) they stay true to supporting local companies. Victory is a Pennsylvania brewing company and, as such, their beer should be available all up the east coast I'd imagine. You should definitely check out some of their other efforts, some of which I'll make an effort to review on here eventually.

Vitals:

Name: Hop Devil

Style: American IPA

IBU: ??

ABV: 6.7%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Bottle Stop Liquors

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a deep ruby color, or possibly a rich rich amber. No visible carbonation, but there is good head retention; approximately 2 fingers of off-white (slightly tan) head. True to the name, the hop resins create a nice thick sticky lacing around the glass (get your mind out of the gutter).

Smell: This beer smells pretty darn good - spicy, piney hops and some caramel malts come through. The malts give it a nice sweetness that is definitely not present in all IPAs. The smell is somewhat understated for an IPA, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Taste: The hops definitely come through in a few ways in this beer. There is a certain earthy, piney and spicy (almost peppery) taste to the hops, which really comes through well and adds a degree of complexity not there in some of the purely hit-you-over-the-head-with-bitterness hoppy IPAs. There is a solid caramel malt backbone, which holds everything together nicely and offsets some of the hop bitterness nicely. Having said that, there is a lingering bitterness that bites for just a BIT too long for me. Other tastes are slightly bready and citrusy, but nothing I can outright identify. This beer also doesn't hide it's ABV very well; I would've guessed it to be a higher ABV if I was judging on taste alone.

Mouthfeel: This beer is thick, almost creamy for an IPA. The name again is alluded to with the mouthfeel, as the resins coat your mouth and keeps a layer on your tongue throughout the experience. This beer has an almost oily quality to it, which suggests a long boil with the hops.

Overall Grade: B+

Comments: Definitely give this beer a shot if you love hops, it will give you a pretty unique experience with some of the spiciness that it brings to the palate. I would buy this every now and then and break them out to two beers per time that I drank; this is definitely not meant to be put back all night (especially at 6.7% ABV). I wouldn't clamor for this on the regular, but I definitely give it my stamp of approval and, if you're a hop-head like me it is a must try.

Cheers,

Hurls