Monthly Archives: May 2012

Event Review: Elevator Tap Takeover

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This month’s tap takeover at World Of Beer in the Brewery District was Elevator. They had six of their standard offering beers: Xtra Lager, Dark Horse Lager, Mogabi Hoppy Wheat Ale, Bleeding Buckeye Red Ale, Bare Ass Pale Ale, and their Three Frogs IPA. They also brought along four seasonal/limited selection beers; these included their Hefeweizen, Import Bock, Baltic Porter, and an Aged Nut Brown Ale (the Angry Goat Barrel). These alone would have provided plenty of options, but they also brought along a firkin of what they called Citrus Wit “Super Shandy” to top it off.

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Naturally, the first beer I had when I showed up was the Citrus Wit because I am in love with firkins. It poured hazy orange, and smelled like an orange-peel mimosa almost. The orange peel transferred over to the taste in a big way – in fact, it might have been a bit much – but it didn’t kill the beer. It was much more orange than most of the lemon shandies I have had in the past, but this made it a very interesting drink.

Ratings: Sessionability: 4-pack (out of 6).    Overall: 4-pack.

After the firkin, I decided I should spent the rest of my time on the beers that I had not had before. Having had all of their year-round offerings and loving their Hefe on too many occasions, I next ordered the Angry Goat, and boy was I glad I did.  This thing was fantastic, I think I drank it in less than 15 minutes even though it’s a brown ale. This beer was aged in rye barrels, which made it perfectly balanced; not too much of that whiskey taste that can be found in a lot of beers that are aged in whisky barrels, it just added a little vanilia sweetness and mellowed the bitterness a bit. I was told that this beer can be found in bottles. I would highly recommend that you seek this one out because I don’t think it will be long for this world. I also had a chance to talk to one of the brewers at Elevator, and he said to keep an eye out for an IPA aged in those same barrels – and after this beer you better believe I will.

Ratings: Sessionability: 4-pack.    Overall: 5-pack.

Next up was the Baltic Porter, and as I have said in the past, Baltic/Russian stouts/porters are some of my favorite beers. This beer poured dark black with a tan head as beer in this style should. It smelled like roasted malts and you could definitely taste the sweetness of those toasted chocolate malts in this beer with a bitter back end. Overall, not one of my favorite porters but another solid beer from Elevator.

Ratings: Sessionability: 3-pack.    Overall: 4-pack.

I rounded out my night with the only other Elevator beer that was on tap that I had not had before, the Import Bock. Full disclosure, I am not that biggest fan of bock beers, so if you are you might like this beer much more than I did. That said, I did not hate it. It was a full-bodied dark bock beer with a nice amount of sweetness and maybe a little hop flavor as the beer leaves the mouth.

Ratings: Sessionability: 3-pack.    Overall: 3-pack.

Overall, the event was great, the beers they brought were very good, and I would highly recommend heading to a tap takeover for any brewery if you have the chance. Keep an eye on the Ohio-Beer team Twitter accounts, and we’ll try to let you know whenever one is coming up in the Columbus area!

 

Restaurant Review: Wurst und Bier

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After a long weekend of family visits, Crawl for Cancer, and preparing for our vacation to OBX next week, my family and I chose to take it easy Monday evening and skip the standard Memorial Day activities of grilling, swimming, and picnicking. We had planned to simply get some sushi and call it a night, and since we were in the Worthington area, we decided to stop at one of our favorite sushi places, Sushiko; however sitting in the same plaza as Sushiko, a new restaurant caught our eye – Wurst und Bier, located in the Campus View area off of 23 in Worthington.

The place was dead when we walked in; other than a family on their way out and one guy at the bar, we were the only people not participating in sports on their many TVs. An empty restaurant is usually a bad sign, but when they handed me the beer menu I was more than a little pleased; it’s the reason I chose to review this place for our beer blog. They had a few American crafts on tap (including a few from Ohio), as well as some in bottles; this selection alone would be better than the majority of sports bars, but the really special part of this list was the large number of imports they had either on draft or in bottles.  By my count, there were fifteen different German beers on tap and fourteen more in bottles, as well as a few others from other European nations. I had the Gaffel Kolsch and the Paulaner Hefe, while my wife had the Hofbraue Hefe. The kolsch was far from my favorite of the style, but hit the spot on a hot Columbus day. The two hefewiezens were pretty good – though they really just made me want the Elevator hefe. The beer selection is reason enough to stop in.

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As an appetizer we split a large pretzel which came with two mustards and “Obazada” – a cheese, butter, and onion spread my wife liked much better than me – but the pretzel and mustard were very good.

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Ever since seeing an episode of No Reservations where Anthony Bourdain visited Germany and ate currywurst, I have wanted to try it. Currywurst is basically a sausage which is served in a curry sauce. I chose the pork brat (but they did have some crazy options like rattlesnake and alligator sausages that I would like to try); it came with a choice of side, and I selected the vinegar-based potato salad. The currywurst was good; I thought that the sausage by itself would also be very good, but the curry sauce kicked it up a notch for me, but my wife thought it to be too much curry. The potato salad was good and obviously house-made, but it was not the German-style potato salad I had hoped for.

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My wife had the beef brat with grilled onions (the menu said caramelized onions, but they were not) and sauerkraut. We both thought that the brat had good bite and tasted good, and the fries were pretty good as well.

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Ratings:

Beer selection: 5-pack. It’s not World of Beer, but you might be hard pressed to find so many German imports on tap anywhere else in Columbus.

Food Overall: 4-pack. Nothing jumped out at either of us that made the food here exceptional, but as far as a brat and a beer go, they do them well. I might suggest this place as a great place to watch a game and snack while you do.

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Beer Review: Barbarossa – Christian Moerlein Brewing Co.

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Beer Name: Barbarossa 

Brewery: Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. (Cincinnati)
Beer style: Double Dark Lager
ABV: 5.0% (from BA)
IBU: Unknown
Size: 12 oz bottle
Beer Advocate Score: 86
Untappd Score: 3 caps

I consider myself, when compared to most Mormon children at least, to be relatively well-versed in U.S. craft breweries and the beers that they make; however, one of my very favorite things about craft beer is that all it takes is for one short walk down an aisle of any well-stocked beer store for me to stumble upon a beer, or in some cases a brewery, that I have not heard of. So I was more than pleasantly surprised while at The Andersons to find not just a brewery that I had not heard of, but one from Ohio to boot. This particular brewery is in Cincinnati: Christian Moerlein.

According to the bottle, the beer, Barbarossa, is named after this guy for his red hair/its color, and in fact this beer pours a see-through reddish-brown with a nice white head that left nice light laces on my glass as I tilted it from side to side.  There is little smell to this beer; if anything, you notice a little bit of both the sweet and the toasted malts. It’s delicate but nice. It tastes like a full-flavor lager, but it might be slightly more complex than your standard dark lager. Not much of an alcohol taste, which one might expect from a beer calling itself a double anything. There isn’t much of a hop taste, but the hops that are there do a very good job of leaving the mouth with just enough of a bitter flavor that makes you want to have another sip.

All that said, this is not an overly flavorful beer – unlike the beers I usually go in for – but it is not supposed to be either; it succeeds in its balance and light feel for a darker beer. I thought I wouldn’t care much for this beer after the first sip, as it is not in a style I usually seek out, but the more I drank it, the more I like it; if I had another one cold right now, I would absolutely have another to see if it kept getting better.

Ratings:

Sessionability: I give it a 6-pack. At 5% and as light and balanced as this beer is, I could probably sit down and watch a game with a six-pack.
Overall: I give it a 4-pack, and this was hard for me; if we gave out half points, this beer would get one.
Would be best consumed: Football Saturdays or Sundays in early October with maybe a mustard-loaded brat.

Beer News: The Boston Beer Company to Invest and Expand Cincinnati Brewery

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The maker of Sam Adams beer is expanding its operations in Cincinnati!

Jess Paar, a spokeswoman for the Boston Beer Co. announced  that they are adding new tanks for fermentation and aging to its Cincinnati based brewery “so that we can keep up with the brewing demands as we introduce new, innovative styles like our Barrel Room Collection and small batch beers.”

Additionally, they are reading property at Central and Findlay (just North of where the tanks are being installed) for future expansion.

Sam Adams currently employs about 100 people at it’s Cincinnati brewery, which is the companies primary brewery for most of their specialty and lower volume products.  Paar also noted that they are hiring in Cincinnati.  Details can be found on their website (http://www.samueladams.com/index.aspx)

Source:
BeerPulse on Twitter (http://www.samueladams.com/index.aspx)
and
Bizjournals.com (http://www.bizjournals.com/mobile/cincinnati/blog/2012/05/sam-adams-adding-huge-tanks-for.html)

This is particuaraly exciting news for me for a few reasons:
1. I love Ohio, and its great to see any jobs coming to our state.
2. I live near Cincinnati, and I know how much this area can use jobs like this.
3. Sam Adams is my favorite “big” brewery. They make a lot of beer that I really like, and despite their size, they’ve shown that they’re not afraid to experiment and expand their brand.

Now, if they’d just open a tasting room and/or allow tours, I’d be in heaven!

 

Beer Review: Lake Erie Monster – Great Lakes Brewing Co.

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Beer Name: Lake Erie Monster

Brewery: Great Lakes Brewing Co. (Cleveland)
Beer Style: Imperial IPA
ABV: 9.1%
IBU: ?
Size: 12oz bottle
Beer Advocate: 89
Untappd Score: 4 caps

Once a year the mythical Lake Erie Monster peeks its head above water just long enough to tease you and then slowly fades away, leaving you hanging a year for another peek at its hoppy glory. I’ve always been ambivalent when it comes to GLBC‘s beers because nothing of theirs really wows me, not even their famed Christmas Ale (there are at least two other Christmas ales from Ohio that I’d choose over it), but the Lake Erie Monster has slightly changed my mind. While I would never rush out to get this beer upon release (like folks do for the Christmas Ale), I certainly wouldn’t turn it down. I may have overhyped myself for this beer; last year I ordered a case for the bar, but it was gone before I had a chance to try one and I wasn’t able to find it in store, so for a full year I’ve been looking forward to finally giving it a shot.

The beer pours a clear, golden orange with about a quarter-inch of head that fades into a very small amount of foam that continues to set atop of the beer for the duration. The nose of the beer is very citrusy and slightly piney, but neither smell was overpowering for a imperial IPA. The taste is a lot of the same citrus hops up front that fade into a sweet malt flavor that is followed by a very subtle alcohol burn on the way down. There’s a very refreshing crispness to this beer, and it has just the right amount of carbonation to give it a very nice mouth feel.

Being a imperial IPA, I find this beer to be on the light end of the category; when I hear IPA and imperial in the same sentence I’m expecting a overly hoppy beer, and I feel like GLBC kinda dropped the ball on this – especially with the word monster in the beer’s name. Beside the ABV, if you were to tell me it was just a regular IPA I wouldn’t second-guess it (except for maybe the lingering of a slight hop taste on the tongue).

Ratings

Sessionablity: It’s sold in a four pack, of which I’ve put down two and half at this point and wouldn’t have trouble finishing it off. 4-pack.
Overall: LIke I said above, maybe I was expecting more for a imperial IPA that’s released once a year with the name Lake Erie Monster, but it’s far from a bad beer. 4-pack.
Would Be Best Consumed: With the crispness of the beer and not a overly hoppy flavor, I’d say anytime that you’re able to get it. I could definitely see myself drinking this on a nice day playing the links.

Beer Review: Barrel Aged B.O.R.I.S. – Hoppin’ Frog Brewery

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Beer Name: Barrel Aged Bodacious Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout (That’s a mouthful!)

Brewery: Hoppin’ Frog (Akron)
Beer Style: Oatmeal Imperial Russian Stout
ABV: 9.4%
IBU: 60
Size: 22oz Bomber
Beer Advocate: 94
Untappd: 4 Caps

This may be the first time I’ve been slightly disappointed in myself writing a review. I wanted to use this blog to not only to give you, the readers, a solid review of Ohio craft beer, but I also wanted to use this blog to try new beers from new breweries that I’ve yet to experience. So I’ll just admit that I’ve had this version of Hoppin’ Frog B.O.R.I.S. before. I won’t blame my beer shop’s lack of selection this week (I could have easily chosen a different Hoppin’ Frog offering), but I’ll blame it on the fact that this beer is delicious and to drink it again for a review is my honor.

B.O.R.I.S pours extremely dark and has a very thick look as it enters the glass, almost like chocolate syrup. The glass I used is 22oz and I’ll blame it on O.C.D., but it took me a while to pour the beer. (I like the bomber to be empty before I start to drink.) The head was dark tan, thick and took its good ol’ time to dissolve. The nose of the beer is very prominent with the smell of oak and whiskey, with it slightly giving way to notes of vanilla and roasted malt. The mouth feel of this beer is extremely smooth, as can be expected with a oatmeal stout, and the taste is outstanding. Up front you get a intense dark chocolate roasted malt taste that blends with a vanilla and toffee flavor that plays together well on the palate. The back end of the beer comes on strong with oak and whiskey flavor from the barrel, and at 9.4% there isn’t the whiskey/alcohol burn I was expecting.

I recently had a few Russian imperial stouts from bigger craft breweries, and I can say without hesitation I’d go with the Hoppin’ Frog hands down. I know that this version was barrel aged, but I don’t really care for whiskey that much and I’d still choose this over the others.

Ratings:

Sessionability: Even though this stout is coming in at 9.4%, I could have more than one of these in a sitting. But with a price tag at about $16 a bomber, I’d probably switch to a different Ohio brew after one. 2-pack.
Overall: This beer has a lot of different things going on (just look at its name), and I believe thats what makes it so special. 5-pack.
Would best be consumed: On a cold winter night, but since we aren’t in that season, a chilly summer night sitting around a bonfire with some friends and letting everyone sample what a great beer you have would do.

Beer Review: Brother Thelonious – North Coast Brewing Co.

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Brewery: North Coast Brewing Co.
Beer Style: Belgian Strong Dark Ale
ABV: 9.4%
IBU: 39
Size: 12oz Bottle
Beer Advocate: 85 (The Bros 70)
Untappd: 4 caps (My Score: 3)

In an earlier post I mentioned that I recently moved to Cincinnati, which means I know of two places that I can buy good beer: The Party Source (in Newport, Kentucky) and Jungle Jim’s.  While I love both stores, I welcome any feedback on other area beer stores (preferably in northern Cincinnati).  Tonight I picked up six new Ohio beers from Jungle Jim’s to review, but since they’re not cold and I still have about 20 beers in my fridge, I decided to grab one of the beers I got from The Party Source a couple weeks ago.

Knowing that I typically like Belgian strongs, Brother Thelonious was recommended to me by a friend as we were picking out random beers at The Party Source. North Coast partnered with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz in support of Jazz Education, and they make a donation to the Institute for every bottle that is sold.  So, as an added bonus, I can sleep knowing I helped support a good cause.

Brother Thelonious poured nicely into my (admittedly wrong type of) glass, without producing any real head (it was gone by the time I took the picture less than a minute later) and was a very deep red color.  It smells exactly like I would expect a Belgian strong to smell: kind of sweet, with a definite alcohol smell.  Unfortunately, it fell sort of flat on my palate.  I can sense that there are several flavors that I’m supposed to taste, but I honestly didn’t get much out of it.  Every flavor tried to hit at once, and pretty much simultaneously drowned each other out. To make matters worse, it left an unsavory bitter aftertaste in my mouth that didn’t go away very quickly.  I finished the glass over about 45 minutes, and didn’t notice much of a difference from start to finish – or as the beer warmed up.

I wasn’t expecting Chimay Blue, Gulden Draak, Three Philosophers, or even Hell Hath No Fury, but I had heard good things and read generally positive reviews about this beer elsewhere, so I was pretty disappointed.  While I don’t remember the exact cost, I know it was fairly expensive for a 12oz bottle, and I don’t know if I’d drink it again.  I’d love to hear from some of our readers about this one.  Maybe I got a bad bottle or something, and it’s hardly the worst beer I’ve ever had – but I certainly wouldn’t recommend this to anyone.

Ratings:

Sessionability: I give it a 2-pack. Unless you’re looking to puke, putting away more than 2 (maybe 3) Belgian strongs is a bad idea.
Overall: I give it a 3-pack. I was disappointed overall.  It isn’t anywhere near one of the worst beers I’ve had, but it was one of my least favorite Belgian strong.
Would be best consumed: Anytime that isn’t a hot summer night, preferably with a meal.

Beer Review: Buckeye Brewing – Zatek 2011-A

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Beer Name: Zatek 

Brewery: Buckeye Brewing (Cleveland)
Beer style: Foreign Extra Stout
ABV: 8.0%
IBU: Unknown
Size: 22 oz bottle
Beer Advocate Score: 86
Untappd Score: 4 caps

Ahhh, stouts. Not the beer most sane people would turn to after a long day in the sun doing yard work, but then again I have never been accused of being sane. I love stouts, the bigger the better, no matter the weather. When I was younger, but still over 21 of course, I would simply find myself craving a beer and just about anything would do. I’m sure it was the alcohol I wanted, and as long as the liquid sharing its container wasn’t appalling, it would do. Now that I am older [read: more mature], I find that when I am truly craving a beer, it is one of three beer tastes that I am truly craving: hops, banana notes, and dark roasted malts.  Regardless of the season, sometimes I just have to have a big, bold stout.

I was talking about how I needed to find some new Ohio beers to fill out my collection, and BubOhioBeer was nice enough, last time that I talked to him, to tell me that The Anderson’s off Sawmill in Columbus has a small section devoted to beers brewed in “The Heart of It All.”  We were in the area on Friday after visiting the zoo, so I stopped in. While there, I spotted the odd-looking beer pictured above. I went to their website for some intel, but their “Our Beers” section has not yet been created, so I have no idea what that thing on the bottle is supposed to be. I assume it’s a silver Eskimo or a fever dream of a glam Care Bear or something, but the label totally worked because I picked it up and took it to the register.

The beer pours dark-dark black, with a perfect stout head that never completely goes away - like a brown spiral galaxy slowly spinning in a moonless sky. The beer smells of toffee and caramel with maybe a hint of dark roast coffee. The sweetness on the nose is not as prevalent when tasting it, and although it starts off malty-sweet, that sweetness is quickly drowned out by a very heavy coffee taste. This coffee taste is very pleasant, especially if you enjoy European coffees or espressos. This beer almost has that straight shot-of-espresso bitterness at the end that sucks your mouth in; it works very well in this beer because the bitter makes you want to go back in for the upfront sweetness again, and the cycle repeats until the bomber is gone and you have a bit of a buzz.

Overall I am very impressed with this beer and this brewery. I would absolutely drink this again if I found it again, and greatly look forward to trying more of their beers in the future.

Ratings:

Sessionability: I give it a 2-pack. This beer is all the stout you are going to want without some palate cleanser in between.
Overall: I give it a 5-pack, one of the better stouts I have had. Between this and Siberian Night by Thirsty Dog, northeast Ohio makes some serious stouts.
Would be best consumed: Most sane people would prefer this on a cold, snowy Ohio evening, maybe with a raspberry clafouti.

Beer Review: Cask Aged Tripel – Rockmill Brewery

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 Beer Name: Cask Aged Tripel

Brewery: Rockmill Brewery (Lancaster)
Beer Style: Cask Aged Tripel
ABV: 10.5%
IBU: unknown
Size: 22oz Bomber
Beer Advocate: 88
Untappd: 4 caps

Strolling through the local beer section of the Anderson’s, I came across a brewery that I’ve been wanting to check out. As I picked up the Tripel 22oz bomber from Rockmill Brewery, the guy who orders all the beer for the Anderson’s informed me that they had a limited supply of the Casked Aged Tripel in stock. Naturally, I elected to go with the “limited” bottle, but I’ll admit it was a little intimidating coming in at $22 a bottle. Nonetheless I made the purchase and went on with the day looking forward cracking it open later that evening.

There are a couple reasons I was really looking forward to this beer other than never having anything from the brewery before. One being that Rockmill describes themselves as: “[A] small production organic brewery. Our beers are modeled after the brews of Wallonia, Belgium.” The other reason was that after reading the side of the bottle, I learned that they used OYO whiskey barrels to age this beer. OYO whiskey is made by a microdistillery here in Columbus, and it doesn’t get much more local than that! Another interesting selling point is that each bottle is labeled with batch number, barreled date, and bottling date.

The Tripel pours a dark, hazy orange followed by a quarter-inch of cloud-like foam (this is one of those beers that has heavy sediment in the bottle, so pour carefully). The nose of the beer is very sweet and fruity with a slight smell of the oak barrel at the end. The first flavor that hits the palate is a strong whiskey flavor, which then gives way, but not completely, to all the fruit that is picked up on the nose. Those fruity esters continue to stay on the tongue long after the beer is gone. About halfway through the beer, my chest had a weird whiskey/fruit burning sensation (the best way to describe it would be like when you do a frou-frou shot and you get that subtle alcoholic sweet burn down your throat). It’s not a bad thing, and it makes this tripel more unique than ones I’ve had in the past.

Ratings:

Sessionablity: With the price tag of $22 and combined with the ABV, I can only give this a 2-pack.
Overall: This tripel was great and really different and complex. There is a lot going on flavor-wise, and I enjoyed drinking every ounce of it. 5-pack.
Would be best consumed: Sitting at home relaxing with a nice array of some fancy cheese.

 

Beer Review: Blonde Bombshell – Indigo Imp

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Brewery: Indigo Imp (Cleveland, OH)
Beer style: Blonde
ABV: 6.2%
IBU: NA
Size: 12 oz bottle
Beer Advocate Score: 79
Untappd Score: 3 caps

It was a fantastic weekend in Columbus, with highlights including recording a podcast and opening day of the waterpark. Unfortunately, I have to face the harsh reality of Sunday. Sundays for me are basically a race to see if I can quell my hangover in time to get my homework done before my Sunday night shows come on. Last week I was late and had my DVR set wrong, which resulted in me having to watch Game of Thrones in standard definition like some kind of uncivilized miscreant. So this week I decided to have a beer while doing my homework to lube up my creative writing skills.

I decided to go with something light and refreshing because it was kind of hot in my apartment. Checking out the portion of my fridge that is reserved for Ohio beer, I was delighted to discover that I had an Indigo Imp Blonde Bombshell. Blonde ales are usually not my favorite style of beer, but knowing that Indigo Imp uses an open fermentation process, I thought this could be light and refreshing. The beer is an extremely difficult pour, and I had to let the giant head of foam die down each time. As it died down, it emitted a fizzing noise like a soda and smelled of Belgian yeast and fruit. When the beer finally got to the point where it was a drinkable, I discovered that it was worth the wait. When it hits your tongue, the initial taste is almost all Belgian yeast with just a slight fruitiness. The beer is perfectly carbonated and the tiny bubbles deliver a flavor that most blondes can only dream to achieve. The beer finishes with a heavy white grape juice note that is absolutely delicious. The white grape juice flavor hangs around for quite some time. Thanks to the light mouth feel, this beer would be easy for anyone to consume. Guys, this a beer that you should keep in your fridge for entertaining the ladies; they will enjoy it. Shoot, you might even get a high five or something out of it.

Ratings:

Sessionability: I give it a 6-pack.
Overall: I give it a 5-pack (5 out of 6).
Would be best consumed: Any time, but a stellar patio/grill-out beer