TLDR Beer Club

[MrWookie]

I'm going to do a couple (few?) beer reviews tonight. The first is from Middle Ages - The Duke. BotW called this a porter, but the side of the bottle says it's something like a Scotch ale and a porter blend, so maybe something like a hopped Scotch ale? I don't know what to make of it. I paid $1.85 for a 12 oz bottle.

I was going to post pics, but I get lazy when the beer sucks. It pours on the lighter side of porters, but not as bad as the Yuengling. It doesn't have much of an aroma, maybe malts with a little woodiness. It doesn't taste like much. The malt is kinda empty, and the hops are boring. It tastes more like a poor porter than anything resembling a Scotch ale. At least it's better than the Yuengling, and it's cheap, but this is not a highlight of the Middle Ages brewery. [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].

[JPinAZ]

Wookie,
I haven't had the Old Chubb, but Dale's Pale Ale is very good. A great beer to take camping or to the park or anywhere else bottles aren't allowed.

And now, after many information & recommendation posts in this thread, my first review. Be gentle as I've never really done a review like this before. (Well, I have helped judge the AZ state fair homebrew contest, but I had a couple experienced judges to help me out.)

The beer: Pizza Port Double Overhead Abbey Ale
Brewed by Pizza Port Solana Beach way back in 2004. I purchased this 750ml bottle (#231) around Christmas time 2004. ABV 6.5%

Some background unrelated to beer: I had a friend who travelled to Thailand in Jan 2005 to help with the tsunami relief. Since he's a big fan of Belgians, I had decided to save this bottle to share when he returned after a year or so. When he did return, he relocated to Seattle. It's been sitting in the back of the beer fridge since then.

The beer pours a deep orange color (almost red) with some head. The head doesn't last long and there is some lacing. Not a lot of aroma, some sweetness and fruity esthers. The body is very crisp & clean, similar to biting into a good granny smith apple. There is only a slight hint of apple flavor though. As with the aroma, there's some sweetness & fruity yeast flavor. No spicyness that you can find is some Belgians. Overall, this is a very well balanced beer. Nothing one ingredient really stands out above the others and they compliment each other perfectly. But still, it seems like this could have been a better beer. All in all, I'll give it 3.75[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].

Endnote: I did a search for this on Beer Advocate and evidently this was a one off beer. [cry] Maybe I'll try shooting an email off to the brewer Tomme Arthur for a homebrew recipe. I wish I would have bought more. Sorry for the wordy review, but I'm writing this as I finish off the bottle so I'm nice & relaxed. My next review (whenever I get around to drinking it as it's another 750ml 7% beer) will be Russian River's Damnation golden ale.

[MrWookie]

For my second review, I cracked open a bottle of Chimay red. I paid $5.29 for a 11.2 oz bottle of 7% beer. This one is apparently in the trappist style.



The beer pours a nice reddish brown with a good head, too. There was a little yeast and sediment in the bottom that I swirled into the glass.



The beer smells mostly of cherries and the malt, and that's what dominates the flavor. The cherry flavor isn't like cough syrup. It's more like sour cherries. This beer is pretty sweet and mildly sour. Unfortunately, other than the sweetness, there isn't a whole lot in the finish that lingers. This is a good beer, but for this price, I expect to be blown away. I was with the Chimay blue, but I'm not with the red. I'll give this beer [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and a half [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. This is a good beer, but there's no way it's worth this premium price. There are better trappists out there.

[MrWookie]

Well, I decided to round out the Tour de Chimay with a bottle of the Chimay White. This is their Tripel. I again paid $5.29, but this one weighs in at 8%.



This beer is a little lighter in color than the La Fin Du Monde, and it doesn't have as much head. There was quite a bit of sediment in the bottom of this beer.



The beer smells of peach, caramel, and a little apple and pear. The spice scent isn't as pronounced. The beer tastes sweet, a little sour, and the fruit comes through mildly. There's a little of the yeasty malt flavor that's common to all tripels, but it's not as strong as in the LFDM. There isn't much spice, either. Again, I'd say that this is a good, but underwhelming and overpriced beer. I'm going to give it [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. If I saw someone in Beers of the World considering buying this, I'd definitely steer them away. Unibroue's La Fin Du Monde is better, and it's cheaper.

[MrWookie]

JP,

Well, it looks like I have an undue association between cans and crappy beer. Actually, I think that association is typically sound, but I should be willing to make exceptions. I will definitely pick up one or both of these the next time I'm out shopping. That might be a while, though, since I still have about 2.5 cases waiting to be consumed and reviewed [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img].

As for your review, that's certainly the sort of review that will cut it in this thread. I'm sad I won't be able to try that beer, but I look forward to reading more from you. If you (or anyone following this thread, really) don't think your review will be up to snuff, well, you're probably wrong. If you're still worried, though, one thing to try that I love is a head-to-head comparison of similar beers. Even if you don't think your palette is sophisticated enough to distinguish various flavors or that you can come up with the right language or the like, you can at least tell me which beer you liked better, and that's always good.

[kidcolin]

Tonight's review features Anderson Valley's Brother David's Double Abbey Style Ale. I picked it up at my local grocer, I think for $5.



It's the one on the left.



I poured the beer into a wine glass, because I felt like it. The deer poured a dark mahogany.. almost opaque in the wine glass.

The nose smelt of sweet fruitiness along with some malt. I had a hard time distinguishing the fruit... Anderson's site (www.avbc.com) states apricots, raisins, and figs.. I certainly agree with the apricots.

The taste, however, was slightly different animal. This is the first beer I've had where the nose and taste were quite different. The flavor was rich with malt and had a smoky, roasted undertone. Wow! The fruitiness did come in some, but it was just a compliment to the malts. It finished nice and dry. Very tasty.

I was very impressed with this beer and it's inspired me to look for some more Belgian Doubles (dubbel, I think). I'll definitely be picking up the Triple by this brewery, too. Sometime in the spring I think I'm going to head up north and see if I can go on a brew tour of this place. I've yet to have a beer there I didn't enjoy, ranging from this Belgian offering, to IPAs, Ambers, and Stouts.

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

[MrWookie]

I've got a few quick reviews tonight, no pics.

First up is Brooklyn's Lager. The Brooklyn Lager beer tap has been a fixture at my favorite bar for the longest time now, but I've never bothered with it since I figured it was just another boring American pale lager. Well, tonight we had a casual dinner seminar talk, and you can either get a Coke which is provided by the department, or a beer for a $1 "donation." It was Brooklyn Lager or Pislner Urquell tonight, and the heard good things in here about the Brooklyn made me curious. I don't have any info about how it pours because I was drinking from the bottle. The taste, though, is much better than I expected. It tastes like an IPA, really. The hops are surprisingly bold, with a good mix of floral, citrus, and bitter flavors. The bitterness isn't as overpowering as some IPAs, though. The malt is more like an IPA or an APA than a crappy lager. When I checked the bottle, I was surprised to see that this beer was 5.2% ABV. And this is cheap beer! I don't know how much BotW charges for it exactly, but it's not more than the Brooklyn Brown, which is $1.85/12 oz. You should be able to find this for $6-7 for a sixer in the grocery store. I'm going to give it [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. Well done again, Brooklyn.

The next series of beers are somewhat thematic from my Super Bowl party. I've been meaning to review them, but I've been putting it off. They weren't all that great, so my enthusiasm was low.

First up are two Belgian ales from River Horse Brewing, which is in NJ and which I got for Colts fans (horse-themed beer is hard to find, and I can't get anything from IL or IN proper). I paid $16.99 for a 12 pack containing 6 each of their Tripel and their Belgian Winter Ale. Both beers are quite strong, 10% ABV and 8% ABV, respectively, and they're both pretty similar in their mediocrity, too. They both contain the ideas of good beer, but the flavor falls short. The tripel has some of the fruitiness of the good tripels, but the malt and spice are lacking, and none of the flavors really linger. The winter ale, which is a darker ale and a little less sweet, also misses the mark. There are some hints of hops and spice, but the malt is kinda empty compared to the high standard of Belgian beer. On the plus side, this 12 pack will get you a fair bit drunker than a case of any BMC lite, and it tastes much better. I award each beer [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and a half [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].

For my Bear beer, I settled on Black Bear Porter, from the Stone Coast brewery. There's not a whole lot to say about this one other than the fact that it's a pretty ho-hum porter with the flavors you expect, but nothing that's all that rich. I again award it [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and a half [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].

[RunDownHouse]

[ QUOTE ]
It had sort of buttery white wine feel to it, with some caramel, spice, and the sour apples making themselves known.

[/ QUOTE ]
Just a note, an actual buttery taste in your beer is considered a fault in every BJCP category, I'm pretty sure, and is usually caused by too much DMS in the beer. That's a problem much, much more common to homebrewers than commercial outfits.

Also, a taste described as wet cardboard is usually attributed to oxidization, just fyi.

[JPinAZ]

[ QUOTE ]

Just a note, an actual buttery taste in your beer is considered a fault in every BJCP category, I'm pretty sure, and is usually caused by too much DMS in the beer.

[/ QUOTE ]

Butter or butterscotch flavor is actually caused by too much diacetyl. DMS (dimethyl sulfides) will give a cooked corn flavor. For a good example of DMS, drink a Rolling Rock.

[MaxxDaddy]

Yeah I've heard of that before. To be honest, I'm not really sure if it was much of a buttery taste, rather than just a similar feel to white wine. It could just be the batch that's off, or inaccurate taste buds on my part.