TLDR Beer Club

[Andy B]

Paulaner Oktoberfest is a Marzen and it's quite good, especially on draft. It's available year-round, but I'll usually only drink it during the fall.

Yes, Mannequin Pis is Belgian. I think it's tap-only.

[MrWookie]

Clearly we have not had enough beer drinking in this forum lately. I'm going to come back and post another review. Hopefully it'll inspire some of you other guys to do the same [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

Out at the bar tonight I got myself a bottle of Brooklyn Monster, their barley wine. This beer weighs in at 11% alcohol, and oddly enough, it ran me only $4 for 12 oz bottle at this bar. I'm not sure why it's so cheap, or if this is just a price discrepancy at this bar. I'll have to check it's price at BotW. Anyway. This beer pours with very little head, which is a surprise compared to other barley wines. It doesn't have much hop aroma, either, which is even more peculiar. Instead it just smells malty, and wrought with alcohol. Taking a sip, this beer is fairly sweet, quite malty, and just barely hopped. It's quite shallow in character compared to most barley wines, but it does go down much easier, lacking the bitter hoppiness. I can pretty easily taste the alcohol. This is a strong beer. If someone wants a barley wine, this is a pretty shoddy offering, as its lack of hops make it pretty far from most other beers of this style. However, this might be a great beer for someone looking to get drunk quickly without wanting to deal with bitterness. If this is in the $7-$8 per sixer price range as its price at the bar would indicate, this beer would be pretty unmatched as far as buzz for your buck. This beer tastes more like a brown ale that's been fermented for much longer than usual rather than a barley wine, and while that's disappointing, I do like brown ales. I'm going to give this beer [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], although I considered 1.5. Barley wine lovers and hop heads shouldn't bother, but alcoholics who like brown ales might give it a go if it's cheap.

[Skjonne]

[ QUOTE ]
...I'm not sure why it's so cheap...

[/ QUOTE ]

Because it tastes like [censored] perhaps? I really like the Brooklyn Brewery. They make a lot of good, even great beers. The Monster is by far their worst. It should've been killed at birth

[ QUOTE ]
....This beer pours with very little head, which is a surprise compared to other barley wines. It doesn't have much hop aroma, either, which is even more peculiar. Instead it just smells malty, and wrought with alcohol

[/ QUOTE ]

There's a generel consensus to divide BW's into two groups: American style BW's and English style BW's. Most BW's brewed in the US are (surprise, surprise) American style, but the Monster is clearly (a bad version of) English style.

The normal distinction between the two styles is precisely as you describe.

Americans: Alcohol and hops with hops being the dominant flavour
English: Malt and alcohol with the latter as the dominator

[MrWookie]

Well, I didn't think it tasted all that bad, it just wasn't what it could be. However, I find it pretty funny that you make an assertion in the form of:

There are two different kinds of _______, American style, and ________ style...

And then you finish it by saying the American style is better? Whoa! That's not something you hear every day [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. I do trust that there are better versions of the English style out there, though, but I can't say I'll be all that anxious to look them up.

I've still got a number of beers to review from my last shopping trip. I've gotta do a Belgian-style golden ale round up, and I've got a few stray beers from North Coast and Unibroue to do. After that, I'm not sure what I'm gong to do. I might pick up a batch of Maerzens or Bocks to try out something I'm not really familiar with. I've also been meaning to do a round up of fairly inexpensive brown ales to see if anything can knock Brooklyn Brown off its throne as my favorite every day staple beer. Anyone ny other ideas for styles of beer you'd like to hear about, or selected beers I should look up?

[Skjonne]

IIRC North Coast's Old Stock Ale as well as Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot are better examples of English style BW's

For superb examples of American style BW's, try the Old Ruffian from Great Divide or Hog Heaven from Avery

[MrWookie]

Oh, that's what the Old Stock is? I have had a couple of those, and have a few more in my fridge. It's one of the ones I've been meaning to review [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. Sierra Nevada, though, is an atomic hop bomb. It's even hoppier than the Old Ruffian or Hog Heaven.

[Skjonne]

I'll have to retaste the Biggie Footie then

[toddw8]

Bigfoot is most definitely an American style Barleywine. It's basically the gold standard for American Barleywines. Hops, Hops, Hops!

[MrWookie]

Honestly, I didn't like it all that much when I had it. It has hops, and nothing else. It's kind of like the Great Divide Double IPA, except hoppier still. There's not much else too it, and the hops are a little too much to take. I much prefer the Old Ruffian Barleywine that has a deeper character beyond just the hops, and is toned back just a notch.

[milesdyson]

bigfoot is awesome