Beer Review: Alchemy Hour by Great Lakes Brewing Company

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Beer Name: Alchemy Hour
Brewery: Great Lakes Brewing Company
Beer Style: Double India Pale Ale
ABV: 9.4%
Size: 12 oz. bottle
Beer Advocate: 96
RateBeer: 99 overall… a 97 in Double IPAs

I was wandering through the local “go-to” bottle shop, browsing the usual suspects and learning about some new ones (sliding both into an abandoned, cardboard 6-pack carrier) when I had grown bored and decided to stroll my way to their deli. Along the way, I came across an aisle display that was a beer and wine smorgasbord, which had a few, unopened cases of this brightly colored (teal and orange) box I had never seen before. The box read “Great Lakes Brewing Co. Alchemy Hour Double IPA.” The box immediately hooked me; a brand new, double IPA from an Ohio brewery? “Yeah, I am buying this,” I thought. Immediately after, it hit me, “I will be the first person to purchase this beer from The Anderson’s Store.” I took the 4 pack of Alchemy Hour, along with my 6 pack of random IPAs and stouts, and bolted to the checkout register.

I poured Alchemy Hour into a tulip glass where it was a mostly clear, honey gold/amber color. I poured carefully and was given about 3/4 a finger of off-white colored head. The head stays around a good while and the lacing is also persistent, leaving noticeable streaks of white down your glass with every sip.

Immediately after the pour you’re hit with an overwhelming amount of sweet, tropical/citrus fruit smells (if I had to put my finger on it, I would say pineapple, tangerine and mango) with maybe a little bit of honey to ease the sour and then you are given a little pinch of earthy/grassy hop aroma that reminds you “this is a Double IPA, not a CAPRI SUN.” The sweet scent of fruit followed by the slight bitterness is really quite a nice, balanced aroma.

The taste of this beer gives you a little bit of a surprise; the citrus fruit and honey are very prominent but the earthy and floral hops seem to take the reins of this beer… and for me, that curveball was enjoyable. The immediate and giant bomb of fruit and honey with a little bit of earthy bite in the aroma seemed to be a precursor for the same in taste, but that’s just not the case. Earthy, floral and a slight bit of piney hops really dominate the back end of this beer. The little bit of alcohol you can taste (I was surprised with how little alcohol you could taste in this with it being almost 10% and all) at the finish of your sip would be hidden with more hops on the front end and more fruit on the back. However, Alchemy Hour is not nearly as sticky as I imagined it to be. In fact, I was a bit taken back by it’s mouthfeel. It has a pretty decent amount of carbonation but had an almost creamy quality to it.

Overall, this is the best product that Great Lakes Brewing Company has put out (or at least that I’ve had). I enjoy GLBC’s other India Pale Ales (Commodore Perry and Lake Erie Monster) but I really think this one blows those 2 out of the water and is pretty darn close to being an elite DIPA.

Ratings
Sessionabliltiy: 4-pack. The aroma alone is enough to keep coming back for one, after another, after another. But then, when your palate is expecting sweet fruit and is then hit by hops you wonder, “how’d they do that!?” and you find yourself falling further down Alchemy Hour’s rabbit hole.
Overall: 5-pack. Like I said before, I really enjoy this beer and I think that GLBC is on the cusp of having one of the best Double IPAs around.
Best Consumed: I am really hoping for an exceptionally warm day in the next few weeks to enjoy this beer with a giant, juicy, still dripping pink, lean, grass fed beef burger… or maybe even a steak burrito… or even better, steak and chicken kebabs!

Saison du BUFF! All THREE!

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Beer Name: Saison du BUFF
Brewery: Dogfish Head / Stone / Victory
Beer Style: Saison
ABV: 6.8% / 7.7% / 6.8%
Size: 12 oz. bottle
Beer Advocate: 87 / 87 / 86
RateBeer: 95 / 97 / 93

The dedicated, loyal reader of the works of this beer blogger surely has noted my affection for the collaborative experiments of many craft brewers. If you are one of these intelligent folk, it must come as little shock that when three of the bigger boys in Craft came together and agreed on an idea for a beer that they would then take back to their respective kettles to brew independently, that it might peak my curiosity; well if you thought that, then bully for you. The first time they released these beers I was never able to snag all three at the same time (one would always come up missing before the third one made it home), so when I saw them all in one place, at one time, I snatched them up so I could sit and compare. The following is my thoughts, enjoy:

DSC_0221If you look at the picture to the left, you might be able to tell that all three of these beers look nearly identical. The Dogfish Head is a bit more cloudy, but since it is bottle conditioned that might just be a little sediment that sneaked its way into the glass. Stone’s might be the lightest in color, but it would take a very detailed and thorough packet of color swatches to be sure. All of the glasses are full of an ale that is golden in color and topped with a half-finger of head after pouring. From the looks of them, they seem to remain nicely carbonated after they settle.

On smelling, Victory’s contained sweet with notes of fresh herbs, mostly sage, and maybe some some fresh-cut grass. While the Dogfish was a little less sweet and there was a barely noticeable increased sage presence on the nose. Also, as might be expected, the Stone offering had the most hop-forward smell – more cut grass and less sweetness, but there was still a lot of sage smell fighting its way through as well. If the nose does in-fact “know,” then my initial reaction would be that I think I would like the Stone the most, as a noted hop addict.

DSC_0222And now for the best part … the drinking. The Victory beer starts off sweet, but the sage still there; it has that dry barnyard finish that you get in so many saisons. The Victory is also the most smooth making it what I would consider the most easily drinkable of the three. Dogfish’s is much more heavy on the herbs, especially the sage (tons of sage, but not too much); there may be a touch more of an alcohol taste and less of the sweet. Unfortunately, the increased sage masks the barnyard flavor I got off the Victory, which would be great here. Finally on to the Stone. As the nose alluded to, there is much more of a grassy/citrus hop flavor on this one. The hops add a nice complexity to the finish of this beer; it finishes more like a low-hopped APA than what I usually expect from a traditional saison. The stone doesn’t have as much sage or earthy flavor as the other two do – this may be due to the increased hop flavors – but you still know it is a saison. All three are nearly identical on mouth feel having nice carbonation level light on the surfaces of the mouth.

Final notes: I loved doing this tasting, and I would do it again no question. What made it so great was that while each beer was very similar, they all were complex enough to be very different at the same time. It also was cool to me that they all remained true to what you would expect from each brewer. The Stone was the most hop forward, the Dogfish Head was the weirdest and most non-normal-beer-ingredient forward, and the Victory was the most accessible, drinkable of the group. Really a great concept that was executed wonderfully.

Ratings:
Sessionability: 3-pack / 4-pack / 5-pack. (Dogfish/Stone/Victory) The large amount of sage in the Dogfish prevents this from being more drinkable, but both the Stone and the Victory are very drinkable. The Victory is the smoothest so I rated it a bit higher than the Stone.
Overall: 4 pack / 5-pack /4 pack (Dogfish/Stone/Victory). The more pronounced hops flavor and aroma made the Stone my favorite (the nose does know after all), but they all were very good in different ways.
Would Best Be Consumed: If you are lucky like me and can drink all three at the same time do it; it was fun. But if you can’t, try it with some soft cheese; I think you’ll like it.

Video Review: Bell’s Black Note Stout

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Beer Name: Black Note Stout 2012
Brewery: Bell’s
Beer Style: Burbon Barrel Aged Stout
ABV: 11.8%
Size: 12 oz. bottle
Beer Advocate: 100 (CURRENTLY #25 overall)
RateBeer: 100 (currently #8 overall)

Bub and I take on another big boy beer. I was very excited to try this, even though I would have liked to put some age on it, I was too amped and had to try it. Also, props to World of Beer for selling me one even if they stole our logo. :-P

Beer Review: Bumble Berry Honey Blueberry Ale by Fat Head’s

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* Note this post is not by MattOhioBeer It is the first submission by the newest member of our team Sam or SJLOhioBeer if you’re nasty. 

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Beer Name: Bumble Berry Honey Blueberry Ale
Brewery: Fat Head’s
Beer Style: Fruit Beer
ABV: 5.3%
Size: 12 oz. Bottle
Beer Advocate: 84
RateBeer: 68 (overall) 92 (in fruit/vegetable beers)

A few weeks ago I was enjoying an evening out with BubOhioBeer at The Daily Growler in Columbus when I discovered this tasty, little delight. Actually, this beer is kind of the entire (well maybe just the initial) reason I became an active member of this blog… but that’s another story for another time. The Daily Growler’s twitter feed (@MyDailyGrowler) indicated that they had this beer on one of their 60 taps. I read a little about it and decided “hey, that might be worth trying” …so I did. After a couple different servings of this beer (not all that one night with Bub, but over the course of the few weeks since) and many different mixed feelings about it, including initial delight followed by disgust about half way through the first pint, I’ve really grown to enjoy this beer.

I poured this fruit ale into a British (hence the HARP print) pint glass. The appearance is a light, hazed gold (almost like honey) with very little eggshell colored head that dissipates very quickly and you’re left with a thin cap without any lacing on the glass. After pouring, I thought “this really has a lot of carbonation, much more than I remember it having” but that too quickly dissipated and was left with the moderately carbonated (at best) fruit ale I had come to admire.

The smell of blueberries and simple sugar syrup seems to just erupt out of the glass. Behind the blueberry and syrup smell you get subtle hints of graham cracker or a really rich, sugary bread with a little bit of citrus. It truly smells like blueberry pancake or muffin mix. The taste is almost identical to the smell with the addition of pale and sweet malts… but even those are very subtle. The blueberry flavor is the first thing that hits you, and combined with the syrupy, sugary sweetness of the honey in the beer, may be overwhelming and a bit of a turnoff for some folks. This fades quickly and you’re left with that blueberry pancake flavor I’ve been ranting about for a paragraph.

Overall, I think this beer is better than Beer Advocate and RateBeer give it credit for… BUT the 92 it gets in fruit/vegetable beers by RateBeer is well deserved. It packs a lot of flavor into one beverage but those flavors don’t work against one another and the beer isn’t overly complex. It’s a good break from heavier beers (I do love me a double IPA) and a fantastic beer for people who really can’t get into darker or heavier beers. If Willy Wonka were to ditch the candy factory and start up a brewery, I imagine this would be one of the first things he concocted… bottled, blueberry pancakes.

Ratings
Sessionability: 5-pack. Had I written this review in late June at the beach or poolside, I’d have given it a 6-pack. Very intriguing and sweet taste accompanied by low ABV make this a very refreshing, warm weather beer that I think you’d sweat out before it made you intoxicated.
Overall: 3-pack. I hinted that I’m a fan of heavier beers and that’s really the only thing holding this back. This beer accomplishes exactly what Fat Head’s had in mind and will probably become the new favorite of those who try it and are on board the Leinenkugel Summer Shandy express.
Best Consumed: Warm weather at the beach or at a poolside BBQ. Grilled chicken salad and some lightly seasoned fries would complement this nicely. With a dessert, this would be fantastic with oatmeal cookies… or this could even be your dessert.

Video Review: Heady Topper

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Beer Name: Heady Topper
Brewery: The Alchemist
Beer Style: Double IPA
ABV: 8%
Size: 16 oz. can
Beer Advocate: 100 (CURRENTLY #1 overall)
RateBeer: 100 (currently #5 DIPA)

 
It’s been a while people and for that we apologize it won’t (ok… I hope it won’t) happen again. Between the holidays, NFL playoff games, kid, a gluten scare, work, school, vertigo, and life in general, we have been absent; but unlike your deadbeat dad we came back with that milk and those Marlboro Red Tops, or in our case, a brand new beer review. And we went BIG! Watch Below!

Event: Columbus Winter Beerfest

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Hey drinkers in the Columbus area, it’s that time of year again, time to put your beer drinking pants on and head down to the 3rd annual Columbus Winter BeerFest this Friday and Saturday (Jan 11&12) at the Columbus Convention Center. 300+ beers to try from local and global breweries. We covered the Summer Beerfest and had a blast, check out our event review for Drinkup Columbus here and our review of the beers here. If you think you might be interested in attending (and you should be) head on over to their website for ticket information.

Beer Review: Oude Tart – The Bruery

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Beer Name: Oude Tart
Brewery: The Bruery
Beer Style: Flanders Red Ale
ABV: 7.5%
Size: 25.4 oz. bottle (It cost me $18.99)
Beer Advocate: 94
RateBeer: 99

Sours, sours, and more sours! While I still love most types of beers, currently sours are the style that I get most excited about when I find unique ones, and The Bruery is a great source for unique beers. I have enjoyed most everything I have had from them; I have had (and reviewed) one of their other sours before and loved it so when I saw Oude Tart, even for $18.99, I had to have it.

Oude Tart pours to a deep auburn when looking straight at it in the glass, but looks deep red when it is tilted. There was no head to be seen – and I do mean none. With your nose over the glass there can be no doubt that this beer will be sour, as it is very lactic. Hints of pepper, cherry, and tart cherry can be found in the nose.

My thoughts as I proceeded with the tasting. It went pretty much like this:

Lifts glass to nose.

“This thing smells like it is going to be super sour. Brace yourself.”

Braces self and puts lips on glass.

“I know this isn’t on my tongue yet, but do I already taste it?”

Liquid touches tongue.

“Holy shit! Holy shit! That is FUCKING SOUR! Is my face going to be stuck making this purse for ever?

I want to swish it around my mouth but can there even be any sour receptors left in my mouth that it haven’t destroyed yet?

I am afraid to swallow.”

Swallows.

“Oh god, are there taste buds in my stomach, because they are telling me that what ever I just sent down there is sour as hell.”

Mouth begins watering. 

End scene.

This baby is SOUR, but once your mouth gets used to living in a war zone, you can start to pick up some other flavors through the sour; mostly sour cherry and Sweet-Tarts, but nice lemon and pepper notes can be found as well. The beer is also not flat like the lack of head might make you think; it has a nice well rounded mouth feel.

While this beer was brutally sour, it also was very tasty and I am glad I bought it.

Ratings:
Sessionability: 1-pack. No chance I could drink more than one of these in a sitting and not have a hole in my stomach as wide as Lake Erie.
Overall: 5-pack. I wish I had a bottle to age for a bit to see where it got to after a couple of years. I will need to spend some time leveling-up on my sour stats before I attempt this again I think.
Would Best Be Consumed: In a haz-mat suit.

Beer Review: Raspberry Russian Imperial Stout ’12 – Widmer Brothers

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Beer Name: Raspberry Russian Imperial Stout ’12
Brewery: Widmer Brothers
Beer Style: Title says it all
ABV: 9.3%
IBU: 70
Size: 22 oz. bottle (It cost me $12.99)
Beer Advocate: 79
RateBeer: 92

One of my favorite things about craft beers, is that it is sometimes you get your hands on a beer that has never been made before and one that might not be made again. Drinking it becomes an experience simply about having a new experience. Like skydiving, bungee jumping, or college experimentation (fill in your own blank), you may or may not love the experience, but you at least get the good feeling that comes with expanding your horizons. I picked up one of these first-time beers, Widmer Brothers’ Raspberry Russian Imperial Stout ’12, and even though I was a bit hesitant, I pushed myself out the open door and plummeted into a new experience.

This beer is a Russian imperial stout that is “fruited” during fermentation with raspberries. The beer poured very dark, almost black with a half a finger of milk chocolate colored head and small bubbles that left thin lacing on the glass. It smelled like a Russian imperial – the roasty chocolate and coffee take the lead, but there might be a hint of the raspberry floating around. If you did not tell me there were raspberries in the beer, I don’t think I would have had any idea going off of the aroma alone. The raspberry tastes come though a bit more than the smell, but the dark chocolate flavor is the power player here. Notes of coffee and some caramel sweetness can also be found. It finishes dry with a lingering raspberry flavor.

Overall, this was an interesting one, not quite everything I had hoped for but better than I initially expected. All-in-all it was worth a try, but I don’t think, if given other unknown options, I would buy it again. Full disclosure: My wife enjoyed this much more than I did, but she is a huge fan of dark chocolate and raspberry together.

Ratings:
Sessionability: 1-pack. Interesting, but after I split the bottle with my wife I had had enough.
Overall: 4-pack. There is nothing wrong with this beer; it is interesting and complex, but when matched up with other imperial stouts it is not the cream of the crop.
Would Best Be Consumed: We enjoyed this with some sweet Belgian waffles with warm Nutella, and I would recommend it.

Lips of Faith: Peach Porch Lounger

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Beer Name: Lips of Faith: Peach Porch Lounger
Brewery: New Belgium out of Fort Collins, CO
Beer Style: Saison/Fruit/Brett Beer
ABV: 9.4%
Size: Bomber
Beer Advocate: 79
RateBeer: 85

 

Millions of peach beers, peach beers for me. Okay, if you are new reader, let me apologize for going back-to-back with the peach reviews. Those not familiar with me probably think I heart both Bartles and his cohort Jaymes. I don’t. Once again let me justify reviewing another “fruit” beer: I will try anything in the Lips of Faith series. I know it sounds like a Judith Light Lifetime original movie, but it’s slightly cooler than that. It is a series of beers that New Belgium does annually in one-off batches. For those not familiar with New Belgium, check them out. They run a state-of-the-art brewery that is both green and amazing.

The beer pours quite easily with little to no head. As the beer exits the bottle, go ahead and stick your nose in there to smell the peaches, earth notes, and booze. Tiny carbonation helps to deliver what would be a fantastic stand-alone saison. The grass notes work really well with the brett yeast to provide a fresh farmhouse taste. Following the great saison flavor is a bit of peach and booze taste. The peach is very well balanced with citrus and biscuit malt so that it is never too sweet, sour, or dull.

If you read my review of Brainless on Peaches you know that I thought very highly of it and considered it the best fruit beer I had ever tried. This trumps that. This is a perfectly balanced beer and if you can find it (it’s not distributed in Ohio), snag it. Don’t let the BA and RB scores scare you away; real men can admit they like their palate peachy sometimes.

Ratings:
Sessionability: 4-pack. One bomber will suffice because it is a high ABV, but you will want to keep drinking it.
Overall: 6-pack. This trumps previous peach reviews, and both ladies and gents will dig it. PDA!
Would Best Be Consumed: On a porch would be best, but also maybe with a Judith Light movie…no.

Beer Review: Koppi by Mikkeller

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Beer Name: Koppi
Brewery: Mikkeller
Beer Style: Coffee IPA
ABV: 6.9%
Size: 25.4 oz. bottle
Beer Advocate: 84
RateBeer: 95

Things I like: hops and coffee. But the real question here is whether they go together like chocolate and peanut butter, or more like salmon and gummi bears – which I am sure would be disgusting when combined. So I when saw a bottle of Koppi at Whole Foods, I had to answer this question that had been plaguing me for what felt like seconds.

Koppi pours a hazy dark straw color, with an initial half-inch of off-white head. The beer retained a thin layer of head throughout the consumption of the three glasses it took me to polish off the bottle; this layer provided some very nice lacing as the the glass was slowly emptied. Once my nose was over the glass, I could pick up a very nice sweet malt smell as well as lots of hop aroma – grapefruit, apricot, and pine. There was also something else floating in the background that I could not place. I attributed it to the coffee, but I think that might have been through the power of suggestion more than what my olfactory bulbs actually picked up. One of the reasons I try not to read the bottle or other reviews until I try the beer is because your brain will use this information to sway your perceptions, but when they put it on the front of the bottle there is not much you can do.

It tastes like an hoppy IPA with a hint of coffee on the back end. The beer taste to start is sweet and then floods of citrus – mostly grapefruit – and pine take over, and then it finishes with a nice coffee aftertaste. This coffee aftertaste is more like what you get when you eat coffee ice cream or coffee flavored things more than that of what you might find at the end of a cup of Folgers or espresso. It’s very interesting; the battle between hop bitterness and coffee bitterness is like twins fighting for their mother’s attention – in your mouth. The beer is very pleasant to drink as it feels light, with just the right level of carbonation.

Coffee + Hops = UMMMMM.

Ratings:
Sessionability: 5-pack (out of 6). If you like IPAs then you could drink this all day. I had the bomber to myself and would have gladly drank a second.
Overall:5-pack. One of my favorite beers from Mikkeller, maybe not as good as either of the Beer Geeks, but it is very good.
Would Best Be Consumed: On a day like we had all week in Central Ohio this week: 75 and sunny, beautiful beer drinking weather.