[MrWookie]

Alright. It's Saturday night. Time for some beer reviews. All of these beers were on tap at my favorite local bar. I don't have any pictures, but I do have some words.

First up, I tried a pint of Sam Adams Summer Ale. I didn't have my hopes up for this beer, but I wanted to try it. The beer seemed to be about the color of a hefeweizen. It didn't have too much head, though. The flavor was definitely of a wheat beer, but it didn't get much deeper than that. There were some hints of citrus and some of the other flavors that make the German hefes the outstanding beers they are, but it couldn't really stack up. That said, I think this is better than the Pyramid Hefeweizen, and it's pretty inexpensive. If you're looking for a fairly simple, inexpensive beer to enjoy on a hot afternoon, this is a decent pick. I give it [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].

The second pint I had was the Cascazilla from the Ithaca brewery, presumably named for its Cascade hops. I'd tried this beer before, but I hadn't had it in a while. I guess you'd classify this beer as something like an ESB. It's brown in color, and strongly hopped. The hop flavor is excellent. It has the familiar citrus and flowers I very much enjoy in this style of beer. The thing I found odd about it was that it wasn't all that bitter. It had a lot of the best part of the hop flavor without the bitterness. I hadn't remembered this about the beer, but it was very pleasant to drink. It had good flavor without being as dry as an IPA or as overpowering as something like the DFH 90. This would be a great beer for someone who's curious about all the fuss over IPAs, but who is put off by the bitterness. The only problem with this beer is that it might be hard to find outside of NY. If you can get it, though, pick it up. I 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].

My second and third pints were chosen deliberately to be in the same style of beer. The third was the Victory Hop Devil. It was a little darker red in color compared to the Ithaca, and it had a slightly larger and thicker head. However, it's flavor wasn't quite as good. It lacked the flowers, it didn't have as much citrus, but it did have all the bitterness I was expecting. It just wasn't as good as Ithaca's offering. It had the parts of this style of beer that aren't all that great, and it was a little lacking in the flavors I enjoyed most. It wasn't a bad beer per se, but it looked bad next to the Ithaca. I give it [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].

My final beer was a beer I picked just because I knew I'd love it. I picked the Ommegang Rare Vos, a Belgian-style golden ale from the American-Belgian brewery this thread has come to love. It came in a bottle, and I poured it into a pint glass. Really, this is one of my favorite styles of beer, and this is a fine example of it. It's fairly sweet, it has great flavors of cloves, citrus, and a little extra, and it has a great feel with the carbonation. A somewhat more widely available beer in this style is Leffe, a Belgian import, and this is strictly better. I give it a full [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. I'm somewhat tempted to tack on an extra half a [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] for it, but it seems a little weird giving that high a rating to a beer that's not all that expensive and is not from a premium brew process (anything imperial, a barley wine, etc.). Either way, this is an outstanding beer, and I highly recommend it to any fan of Belgian beers, or perhaps hefeweizen fans looking to change things up a bit.