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

(Summer) Fest - Capital Brewery

Vitals:

Name: Fest

Style: Marzen/Oktoberfest

IBU: ??

ABV: 5.6%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a nice, clear orange and looks to be highly carbonated. 2 fingers of head with fantastic retention and cap; the cap stayed at about a finger's worth, which is just incredible. The head was just very slightly off-white.

Smell: Smells very bready to me as far as malts go, like a grainy loaf of bread. You get some light hops smell (maybe grassy hops?) and some mild sweetness of the malts coming through. Simple but pleasant nose.

Taste: Very bread, with sweet malts up front. Lemon flavor as well as citrus and earthy hops hold the middle of the beer and a spiciness builds as the tastes roll to the back of your tongue. This sort of tastes like a much better and more complex European lager. There are also some grassy hops in there for sure.

Mouthfeel: I'd say this is on the light side of medium-bodied; very crisp on the palate and leaves you a little bit dried out. No big detractors.

Overall Grade: B

Comments: This is a pretty solid offering, which is just what Capital seems to do...they seem to make typical styles (a lot of German-influence in there) and they're all just OK. I don't think Capital really has a beer that I'd special request or ever have a craving for, but most of them are pretty drinkable. I will admit that I don't have much experience with this style, but this is worth a try if you're into Marzens/Oktoberfests. Probably a bit out of season by now but you might be able to pick up a little of the remaining from the summer brewing.

Cheers,

Hurls

Raging Bitch - Flying Dog Brewery

Vitals:

Name: Raging Bitch

Style: Belgian IPA

IBU: 60

ABV: 8.3%

Gravity: 18 deg. Plato

Purchased at: Harris Teeter in Herndon, VA

Descriptions:

Appearance: Pours a deep orange that slightly shifts to amber in the light. About a finger and a half of off-white (tannish) head. Good retention and cap, but very weak lacing. Sparse carbonation bubbles rise throughout this pretty beer. 

Smell: Smells spicy and you get that funky (in a good way) Belgian yeast smell. You get some banana in the smell as well, and a very faint floral and possibly citrus hop aroma. The Belgian yeast really dominates the nose, as it usually does - this one smells good but there's really nothing special here.

Taste: The taste gives you some almost piney (maybe floral) hops to go with the Belgian sweetness up front. The yeast and malt in the middle is good but it doesn't really balance the beer out. The worst part of this beer is after the hop finish you get this aftertaste that is like...aspirin...ugh, it really ruins what is otherwise a pretty good beer. You also get a slightly boozy flavor, but at 8.3% that's to be expected so I think it hides the ABV moderately well.

Mouthfeel: Creamy and full mouthfeel; drinks smoothly with a very slight astringency. The beer is almost syrupy in its feel and you don't really get much carbonation here either.

Overall Grade: B-

Comments: The aftertaste truly ruined a solid B+ effort from Flying Dog on this one. I was otherwise happy with the beer until that stabbed into my palate. Ugh. This beer is worth a shot if the aftertaste was a fluke, but after writing up my review I looked on beeradvocate.com and it seemed like others were getting it as well. I'd probably steer clear of this one unless you're really into Belgian IPAs.

Cheers,

Hurls

Delirium Tremens - Brouwerji Huyghe

I will go ahead and lead off this post that I love love LOVE getting recommendations from people - if you have beer that you enjoy, please give me a heads up by commenting on here, emailing, texting, facebook, etc. However, I am also very wary of things being pumped up too much and not being able to live up to expectations. So, when my best friend Pat F. gave me a heads up to this beer I was very grateful and went out to pick some up. I believe it only comes in this huge liter (I think?) bottle, so be wary. However, when I went to pick some up I asked the guy at the store what he thought of this and he told me that right now (not sure based on what ranking or system) it is considered to be the "Best Beer in the WORLD." Okay, so I am slightly skeptical, but very curious...here goes nothing on seeing if I agree with whomever made that assessment...

Vitals:

Name: Delirium Tremens

Style: Belgian Strong Pale Ale

IBU: ??

ABV: 8.5%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: Trixie's Liquor

Descriptions:

Appearance: So I don't normally comment on the bottles that the beer comes in, but this one is pretty interesting. It has pink elephants and dragons and crap all over it - it looks like whoever designed this was on drugs or something. Anywho...pours a golden yellow with a TON of head on the beer. I had to make 3-4 separate efforts to get the pour because of too much of the bone-white head. The head itself is very light, but had fantastic retention. There are tons of carbonation bubbles rocketing through this brew; the pour had an odd haziness to it, which made me a bit concerned that it might have an infection. Guess we'll find out...

Smell: You get a LOT in the smell of this beer: from fruity to floral, herbal to spiced. You get some cinnamon I think. I think you get some melon and banana, maybe apricot, and some wheat or yeast smell coming through. I suspect the spices to be cinnamon and coriander. I will be perfectly blunt: this smells like a great (and complex) tasting beer, and it was very difficult for me to identify a lot of these smells because there is so much going out. Having said that, all of the smells come together quite nicely.

Taste: You get a little hop bitterness coming through along with banana, coriander, and apricot. It's a pretty spicy beer and you get a quick taste of alcohol on the bite. Yeast and breadiness sort of dominates a little bit too much for me, but it's not a big detractor. You even seem to get a small taste of apple in the beer. I'm not going to lie, this is an extremely great, but complex taste to judge and I'm having a hard time with it. This was definitely my hardest beer I have reviewed to this point in terms of judging what I'm tasting; definitely not 100% confident in my notes on this.

Mouthfeel: Very light (unexpected) and carbonated (expected); great mouthfeel for the most part but leaves you a bit dried out. The best word for this beer is CRISP, and it's quite dangerous because it's so light that it's 8.5% ABV drinks basically like something that's a 5.5% ABV.

Overall Grade: A-

Comments: Great beer despite my judging difficulties...I do hate that you have to commit to a whole liter of the beer instead of individual 12oz bottles...you kinda have to commit to the whole liter in one sitting....wait...that's not a bad thing :-) Definitely try this out if you like a nice strong belgian ale. It's not overwhelmingly hoppy and the taste is just so unique and complex, you really should check it out!

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