Beer Name: Bourbon County Brand Stout 2012
Brewery: Goose Island
Beer Style: Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout
ABV: 15.0%
Size: 12 oz. bottle
Beer Advocate: 100 (Currently #8 overall)
RateBeer: 100 (currently #20 overall)
Bub and I take on a 15% beer you can’t buy in Ohio but you probably have heard of. I’ve had this beer before but it is always a treat and thanks to one of our readers Joel for hooking us up with it.
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!
Beer Name: Trappistes Rochefort 10
Brewery: Abbaye St-Remy
Beer Style: Belgian Quad
ABV: 11.3%
Size: 11.2 oz. bottle
Beer Advocate: 99 (98 Bros) (25th highest rated beer)
RateBeer: 100 (2nd highest Quad) (8th highest of all beer)
A few weeks ago I bought this Trappiste Rochfort 10 at my local beer store, and was waiting for a special occasion to drink one of the highest rated beers in the world. Well after three long weeks nothing monumental happened; and now I am headed out of town for the extended weekend, and I might have someone staying in my house watching my dogs and I would be heart broken if it got drank in some late night beer/football haze. So bottoms up on a Wednesday.
First thing I noticed on this beer strangely was the cap. I don’t know why it stood out to me but it did, classic lines, nice balance, and it looks like it could have been from any decade since the Depression. So after popping that beautiful lid, it was time to see if taste was also beholden to no time. The beer pours to a dark brown-leather color with hints of red depending on what light is hitting it. It poured with about a half finger of off-white head that disappeared quickly but left a ring of bubbles around the edge of the glass until the last swallow.
The nose holds a dried fruit basket of smells; raisins, dates, plumbs, and some cherries as well. There even also can be found a sugary sweetness to the nose that reminds me of toasting sugar. Initial sips are loaded with the dark fruits especially the raisins and dates, with a little alcoholic backbone. But the more I drink this beer and the more it warms up, the more complex this beer becomes. The cherry begins to pop, the sugar level feels like it changes (even though I know it doesn’t), and the there even can be found some very subtle bready flavors; all with that dry alcohol finish. I guess it should be no surprise that this beer is complex and big – most of the highest rated beers are- but it may be surprising that this beer at 11.3% ABV is very pleasant to drink, none of the flavors are over done and even though you can taste the alcohol its in no way brutal.
Ratings:
Sessionability: 2-pack. It is over 11% after all.
Overall: 6-pack. Are there beers I have enjoyed drinking more? Yes. Are the beers I would pick-up all things being equal before this? Yes. Is that list very short? Yes. Is this one of the best Belgian’s of any style that I have had? Yes. -the previous was my internal dialog about why or why not to give this a 6.
Would Best Be Consumed: Drink it by it self and follow with a cigar, you don’t need a special occasion to make a special night.
Brewery: Founder’s
Beer style: Porter ABV: 6.5% IBU: 45 Size: 12 oz. Bottle Beer Advocate Score: 94
I review the best porter I have ever had
Ratings:
Sessionability: 2- Pack
Overall: 6-Pack
Would Best Be Consumed: I don’t know that there is a time that isn’t appropriate to enjoy this beer. If you can get your hands on it drink up!
Brewery: Ballast Point
Beer style: IPA ABV: 7% IBU: 70 Size: 22 oz. Bottle Beer Advocate Score: 98 ( #49 on top 100)
I review Sculpin by Ballast Point
Ratings:
Sessionability: 5- Pack
Overall: 6-Pack
Would Best Be Consumed: I don’t know that there is a time that isn’t appropriate to enjoy this beer. If you can get your hands on it drink up!
Beer Name: Bohdi
Brewery: Columbus Brewing Co. (C-bus)
Beer style: Double IPA
ABV: 8.0%
IBU: N/A
Size: 64 oz ($19.50 including growler)
Beer Advocate Score: 96
Ratebeer: 96
DISCLAIMER: If public displays of affection make you a bit queasy, you are going to want to turn away because this is going to get gratuitous!
Early last month I saw this article from Alesheads which took raw ranking data from BeerAdvocate eliminated beers with 10 reviews or less and chose the best from each state. While it may not be the most scientific and all-encompassing way to reach conclusions, it does provide a great spark to get conversations rolling. Anyway this is what it said about Ohio:
Ohio – Columbus Brewing’s Bodhi DIPA: I was thinking Great Lakes would take the Ohio cup with something like their Blackout Stout, but nope…Columbus swooped in for the victory with their big, brash Bodhi. I haven’t had it, but it sounds like a tropical fruit-bowl of goodness.
After reading this I remember taking a break between sips while drinking with BubOhioBeer and saying something like, “I know that I have had Bodhi a while back and I remember liking it, but I don’t remember it blowing me away like some other Ohio beers have.” He agreed, and we proceeded to continue pickling our livers as we are known to do. But the article kept making questions ring out in my head. Could I have been wrong? Was I wasted when I had it? Or did I have a cold? Is it possible that on my search for great Ohio beers I somehow missed the best one in my own backyard? And it turns out that I AM AN IDIOT.
I don’t know exactly how to give this beer justice through a written review, so I will just try and write it as I experienced it. It was poured into a glass out of a tap (I also left with a growler that I drank later); it looked like a frothy tequila sunrise, bright yellow-orange at the top and transitioning to a reddish-orange at the bottom. As I sat for a second admiring the color at arms length, I noticed the slight smell of citrus. I pulled the beer to my nose. What started out as a cool island citrus breeze turned into an F5 tornado ripping through a Floridan orchard. This might be the single best smelling IPA I have ever had, with grapefruit, lemon, orange, tangerine, pineapple, and pine fighting for olfactory receptor real estate, like some fruit[ier] version of Tom Cruise in Far and Away.
So after my my nose was sufficiently colonized, I took a sip. Bodhi starts off with a nice malt sweetness that doesn’t last for long before the hop marches in, covering every inch of my mouth with the same hop flavors noted above, especially the grapefruit. As I swallowed, I felt the bitterness start to take hold and a grapefruit pith bitterness lingered for a bit. There are even some spice notes that can be found if you look for them. Bodhi has a very crisp and light mouthfeel as well.
As I have said before in my posts, one of the marks of a great IPA/DIPA – in my opinion – is that it almost forces you to come back for more; Bohdi might be the best example of this in any beer I have ever had. I drank two pints with dinner while in the pub, and then took a growler of it home (and to be honest, I considered buying two) which my wife and I finished with no problem at all two days later. I don’t know if I can say it’s the best beer I have ever had, as it is tough to rank IPAs with stouts or sours, but I can say it is on the short-list. I usually don’t like to admit when I am wrong but on this, I was very, very wrong; Bodhi is unequivocally a WOW beer.
Ratings
Sessionability: 6-pack. My wife and I polished off a growler on a Tuesday, and were disappointed we didn’t have any more to drink. The 8% isn’t enough to scare you off of this beer.
Overall: 6-pack. Like I said before, this is maybe the best beer I have had from Ohio. I have already given other Ohio brews the 6-pack, so it was kind of inevitable.
Would Best Be Consumed: Right in The-Heart-of-the-Heart-of-it-All: Columbus, Ohio.
Beer Name: Orchard White
Brewery: The Bruery
Beer Style: Belgian Witbier
ABV: 5.7%
Size: 750 ml bottle
Beer Advocate: 88 (The Bros 100)
RateBeer: 92
One of the things that I have been getting into as of late is beer and cheese pairings. And while I still enjoy beer as a standalone, it is a treat sometimes to make an effort to pair some food with a beer and see how they get along. If you haven’t had beer and good cheese together, you are really missing out. Beer, even more so than wine in my opinion, is an amazing partner for cheese. Its carbonation provides an amazing palate-cleansing quality between bites of cheese, and the sweet and bitter flavors of beer is accentuated by the smooth creaminess of cheese. I have only begun to scratch the surface of what makes a pairing work and what doesn’t, but I thought I might share one that I thought worked exceptionally well: The Bruery’s Orchard White with some Trugole Cheese.
First, lets talk about the beer. It pours to a clear straw color with champagne-like constant bubble action. The smell of the beer has a nice crisp malt sweetness, and a bit of that barnyard earthy smell that you find sometimes in witbiers. The first sip was sweet and tart upfront, but then it finished like a very dry sparkling white wine. It has a very light-thin mouthfeel and when it’s gone, it almost leaves the mouth with no lingering flavors. As it warmed up, I started to get a taste that reminded me of a grassy sauvignon blanc without the sweetness. I also noted that there was some flowery taste there – which I am going to call lavender because the bottle says lavender, but I couldn’t place it to be certain. As I drank, I kept coming back to the same thoughts: “This beer is ultra crisp and very dry.”
The Trugole cheese, which is a hard “Asiago-like” cheese, comes from cows that graze in on the grasses in the foothills of the Asiago region in the Italian Alps. According to the package, it is then worked by hand in the traditional way; this means rubbing with salt and water every day for sixty days. It has a nice smooth buttery taste, with a light tangy bitterness at the end.
I thought the beer and the cheese worked very well together. The buttery taste of the cheese was cut away from the tongue by the carbonation and the crisp dryness; this made every bite of the cheese like tasting the cheese again for the first time. The beer also brought out some more of the tangy bitterness at the finish of the cheese. The overall experience, switching from the buttery cheese to the crisp beer and back, provided an amazing yin-yang quality that really elevated my enjoyment level of both the cheese and the beer.
I would recommend picking up a witbeir and some Trugole, and seeing what you think. Worst thing that happens is you eat some good cheese and drink a good beer.
Ratings:
Sessionability: 5-pack, only 5.7% alcohol, I think I would love to drink this all day at a picnic on a cool summer day.
Overall: 6-pack. This beer was amazing and unlike so many other beers I have had, it was a real pleasure to drink.
Would Best Be Consumed: On cool summer evening with a small plate dinner including olives, cheeses, and maybe some ceviche.
Beer Name:Smoked Porter w/ vanilla bean
Brewery: Stone
Beer style:Porter
ABV:5.9% IBU: 53
Beer Advocate Score: 89
VS.
Beer Name: Smoked Porter w/ chipotle peppers
Brewery: Stone
Beer style:Porter
ABV:5.9% IBU: 53
Beer Advocate Score: 87
Ratings: Smoked Porter w/ Vanilla Bean
Sessionability: 4-pack. Overall: 6-pack
Ratings: Nitro Smoked Porter w/ Chipotle
Sessionability: 5-pack. Overall: 5-pack
Beer Name: More Brown than Black IPA
Breweries: The Alchemist/Ninkasi/Stone
Beer style: Black IPA
ABV: 7.4%
IBU: Unknown
Size: 12oz bottle
Beer Advocate Score: 91
Rate Beer Score: 98
Collaboration: n. A celebration of the community and culture of craft brewing.
The above definition may not be one that would be found on M-W.com but it’s the one on the neck of More Brown than Black IPA. All of this week we have been and will continue to talk about collaboration beers and the culture of craft brewing, but I can’t think of a story that more summarizes the helpful nature of the craft community than that of the More Brown than Black IPA. The story of this beerdates back to late August 2012, when Hurricane Irene was soaking the entire U.S. eastern seaboard. Hurricane Irene completely destroyed The Alchemist Brewpub and much of the area around it in Waterbury, Vermont. Upon hearing this, Ninkasi in Eugene, Oregon, and Stone of San Diego, California, decided to get together with The Alchemist to help the best way they knew how: by brewing beer. So with all of his equipment floating around in his basement brewery, John Kimmich of The Alchemist traveled to the west coast to brew a beer whose proceeds would go to help those impacted by Irene in his home town. To read a much more detailed account from The Weather Channel, click here.
The second best thing about this beer is that it is very, very good. The beer lives up to its name and pours a very dark brown color with about a finger of head. The nose finds a toasty malt sweetness with a beautiful bouquet of hop aromas, including pine, citrus, grass, and flowers. Upon sipping the tongue finds the perfect level of carbonation, giving this beer a very light feel. The taste starts off very sweet, but ends with end with a nice amount pithy hoppy bitterness that leaves you needing to take another sip. This need of another sip upon setting the glass down is one of the things I always seem to find in great IPAs.
This is a beer you probably won’t be able to find in the stores sadly, as it was released in December of 2011 and I haven’t heard of any plans to brew it again in the future. I normally wouldn’t review a beer you would have a very hard time finding,but I was saving one for a special occasion and the story was just too “craft beer” not to include in our collaboration week.
Ratings:
Sessionability: I give it a 5-pack. Even at 7%, this beer is so good and makes you feel so good that I would drink it until I passed out if I could.
Overall: I give it a 6-pack. I loved this beer the first time I had it on draft, I loved it the every time I have had it since, and I am sad I probably won’t ever have it again.
Would be best consumed: By itself while relishing every sip until the last drop of the last bottle is gone.
This past Saturday, BubOhioBeer and I (MattOhioBeer) took a trip to Lancaster, Ohio, to visit the newly opened tasting room at the Rockmill Brewery. Open from 12pm to 8pm Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the tasting room is located in a beautiful old farmhouse tucked away on a quiet country road.
We didn’t know what to expect as we walked in the door, but were pleasantly surprised when we walked in to what felt more like a home and less like a place of business, with a small bar and less than five total tables. We took our seats in a large room adorned with gorgeous artwork reminiscent of the Rockmill beer labels.
The view from our table, adjacent to the main bar room.
Neither Bub nor I had ever had any Rockmill beers before, so we both decided to go with the $10 flight of all five of the their beers. The hostess poured the first three beers in 4-ounce tasting glasses, provided us with some excellent fresh-made bread from “Matt the Baker” (who according to our hostess bakes out of his house in Bexley), and gave us each a glass of the very good Rockmill water; the last two beers were poured for us later. (At the end of this post, you will find more detailed descriptions and reviews of all of the beers.) As we tasted each of the beers, the server came by to give us a short description them.
We slowly sipped on our tasters while listening to a number of great indie rock songs, we snacked on the delicious breads, we pet the Cocker Spaniel who was looking from someone to give him some chunks of bread, we chatted with the brewer’s mother about bars in Colombian and local beer festivals, and most of all we relaxed and had a wonderful time. We felt like guests in their home and not patrons. In fact, when I asked why the tripel appeared cloudy; they explained that the cloudiness was just sediment stirred up from the bottom of the bottle. I mentioned that this was okay with me because it happens from time-to-time with bottle-conditioned beers, but they not only poured us two new tastes out of a freshly opened bottle, they also gave us the rest of the original bottle with the dregs to finish as well.
After our tasting, we grabbed two glasses of beer and John took us on a tour through the brewery, which is located in a small building across from the main house. One of the most surprising things about the brewery is just how impressive it is that they can produce so much great beer, enough to distribute throughout Ohio, with minimal equipment. If you have taken brewery tours at other breweries, you’ve no doubt noticed that even the smaller ones look like little factories; Rockmill’s brewery, however, looks more like what a very-very active home brewery might look like, including a single-bottle handbottling line. Regardless of the size of their operation, they make great beers and manage to be completely organic.
Explaining the Process
The house and brewery sit on a beautiful property with lots of open grass space surrounding a nice little pond. After the tour, we grabbed another glass of beer and took a walk around the property while we sipped on our beers. They will actually let you come and picnic on their property if you want.
Picnic Area
We both left the brewery feeling like we had just left a friend’s house – a friend who has very good taste in beer. Both of us plan on visiting in the future for sure, maybe next time with a picnic basket full of cheese and someone of the fairer sex.
Below are our quick reviews of all of their beers.
Witbeir
This is Belgian white ale brewed with cascade hops. This is a great summer beer, citrusy light and very refreshing – but it also has an earthy taste that balances the sweetness. The way it finished reminded me of a dry white wine. For being a style of beer that neither Bub nor I are huge fans of, this beer was delicious and we felt like we could drink this all day. Ignore the white wine and pick this up to pair with a light salad or white fish.
MattOhioBeer Ranking: 5-pack (out 6)
BubOhioBeer Ranking: 6-pack
Saison
This beer was not the highlight of the flight for us, but there was certainly nothing wrong with it. It just may have been unfortunately placed between the Wit and the Dubbel; this beer is still very good. Light and refreshing with some spice notes on the nose.
MattOhioBeer Ranking: 4-pack
BubOhioBeer Ranking: 5-pack
Dubbel
This beer is excellent. It has a very malty smell with a hint of sour cherry and a great smooth mouthfeel. The beer has a delicious caramel malt taste that finishes like bitter cherry. Even though this beer did not remind us of many of the dubbels we have previously had, it was very good. In fact, Bub called this the best dubbel he had ever had, and I had a hard time trying to argue (I even left the brewery with a bottle). Unlike some dubbels out there, this beer did not taste heavily of raisins or plums which made Bub very happy. It also finished with a bit more hops than most of the dubbels we have had.
MattOhioBeer Ranking: 6-pack
BubOhioBeer Ranking: 6-pack
The Tripels – Left Standard (cloudy), Right Cask
Tripel
This Tripel smelled amazing, like sweet malt with a hint of apricot. As I mentioned before, we got to taste this beer twice – once with a bit of sediment and once without. The beer tasted thick with the extra proteins from the yeast and some of the tastes were a little muddled; but with the top of the bottle it was very crisp and clean and the fruit notes came more to the forefront. If you buy this beer (and you should), be careful to store it standing up and pour it carefully – with as few tips as possible – as the sediment changes the flavor and overall experience of the beer.
MattOhioBeer Ranking: 5-pack (either way)
BubOhioBeer Ranking: 5-pack (4 with the sediment)
Cask-Aged Tripel
This is the same tripel above, but aged in once-used whiskey barrels from the local Columbus distillery Middle West Spirits. The most prevelant smell we both got off the top was whiskey, but even with the strong whiskey smell, this beer stands up well. The flavor doesn’t get pushed aside like in so many whiskey-aged beers. Neither Bub nor I had ever had a tripel aged in whiskey barrels before and were pleasently suprised by the complexity of this beer. It has a smooth mouthfeel that rolls off the tongue. It was very smooth and the whiskey-barrel aging added some very nice vanilla notes to what was already a very good beer. (For another opinion and some more infromation on this beer, See HaleOhioBeer’s review from earlier this year.)
MattOhioBeer Ranking: 6-pack
BubOhioBeer Ranking: 5-pack