alexchafe

Duvel

Time to break out the old Delerium Tremens glass because this is a special one!  It’s the legendary, widely available (in beer friendly areas) Duvel.  This Belgian Strong Ale roles in at 8.1% ABV.  It gets this high alcohol content from triple fermentation, twice in the brewery and once in the bottle.  It’s ingredients are different, while it is an ale and uses a “special” ale yeast, they introduce pilsner malts, which are more common to a lager-syle of brewing.  The result is just great.

It pours from its heavy, funny shaped bottle with a TON of head.  Thick, foamy and pure white, it takes up about half of my glass and it doesn’t go away.  The body of the beer is a pure yellow and shows strong carbonation.

With big head comes big aroma.  At first this one hits your nose with sweet, sweet malts, backed by heavy spices.  After my first sip and I started to notice that the aroma had a whole lot of lemons hiding there in the back.

Then there’s the flavour.  Up front slaps you with sweetness.  It’s borderline sugary -  and not that dirty refined sugar.  The good stuff!  The taste then evolves with strong yeast resulting in a basement-like taste, that I’m crazy about.  The backend shows a bunch of bitter with a surprising amount of hops and is somewhat undefined compared to the rest of the taste profile.  After this one warms up the yeasty, “basement” tastes really takeover, which I could see as something that the brewers would want to hide.  Although I love it, the average palate might not be as - intrigued as I am.  This brew is medium bodied, having its high “champagne-like” carbonation bite at your cheeks and tongue.

Overall, the flavour blends beautifully.  The sweetness is balanced by the yeast which is enhanced by the hops.  A great accomplishment considering how widely distributed this beer is!

(ratebeer linkup here)

“Our flagship beer. A session India Pale Ale brewed with Warrior, Amarillo & ‘Mystery Hop X.’ A powerful East Coast I.P.A. with a lot of citrusy hop character. THE session beer for beer geeks like us! 6% abv 60 ibu Tasting Notes: Citrus, cedar, pine & candied-orange flavors, floral. Food Pairing recommendations: Spicy foods, pesto, grilled salmon, soy-based dishes, pizza.”

Here’s a beer i picked up last time I was in Toronto.  I really couldn’t help bringing back a couple bottles for my cellar!  It’s an absolutely delicious India Pale Ale that, due to its wide availablility and top-notch quality, make it one of the best session beers out there.

From a bottle this one poured up a nice orange-yellow with slow rising low carbonation below a generous white frothy head.  It’s a pretty one!

The aroma is very spicey, herby and  grassy, about what you’d expect from an IPA.  You can tell that there are loads of quality hops in here.  It’s flavour continues to deliver with more spices and herbs, within sweet lemon citrus, and a suprising grapefruit backend that mixed extremely well with the bitterness.  This back-end package is where I’ve really fallen in love with this beer.  There are also touches of caramel and honey in there.  It’s complex!  On the palate it’s very smooth, with slight fizz almost camouflaged by the bitter hops, biting at your tongue and cheeks.  It’s not overly hoppy, but it’s not for the faint of heart at around 60 IBU.

Overall I’m extremely happy with this beer, and am actually sadened that I can’t buy it locally (and that I’ve drank my last bottle).  My fridge would be full of this stuff!

(ratebeer linkup here)

Storm Brewing’s Coffee Porter

“A seasonal ale, brewed using imported black malt and dark roasted mountain grown Arabica coffee beans.  STORM Coffee Porter is a roasty, dark, top fermented brew with a subtle coffee aroma and a pleasantly mild palate.”

This one’s Storm Brewing’s seasonal brew, available as a Christmas treat in  St. John’s, Newfoundland.  If you’re looking for this you better watch the liquor stores closely in December  When Coffee Porter comes out it’s in limited quantity and sells out very quickly.  Storm brewing certainly has a serious following amongst the younger crowd in St. John’s.

I’m sampling this one from a 341 mL tall bottle, unlike the stubbies of the previous years.  It’s also available in 650 mL bottles and on tap at a few bars in St. John’s, such as The Duke and The Ship.  The bottle is well presented, clean with simple with a high quality sticker, and storm’s typical label.  It pours up a dark slightly transparent brown, with a light brown head, that dissipates incompletely and rather quickly, leaving some light lacing.  Carbonation is light, with tiny bubbles slowly rising to the top.

The aroma here is of fresh brewed coffee, with a notes of dark chocolate.  I also get a note of salted cracker that I don’t feel is very at home in the nose.

This storm brew has a flavour of coffee mixed with a roasted component, mixed with further subtle chocolates, as in the nose.  The back-end is slightly sour, lacking any pronounced hops, with only a touch of bitter.  The palate is on the light and watery side and is a bit of a disappointment.  As with all of Storm’s beers the flavours are organic and real.  I could pick out one of their beers from a mile away.  No cheap adjuncts here!

I think it’s a great beer to pair with sweets.  Candy, chocolate, cake and anything minty will go very nicely with this beer.  Makes sense to put it out over the holidays.

Overall, I’ll look forward to this every year, enjoying one with the multitude of cakes and candy I consume, or having a pint on tap with a crowd of friends at The Ship, over the holidays.

Storm Brewing’s website. (…I notice they’re big Rush fans!)

ratebeer linkup here

“This is it, the one that started it all. Crafted to perfection for over 200 years. Crack it open, and the first sip tastes as fresh as ever. The unmistakeable deep-dark colour. The crisp hint of roasted barley, the fresh breeze of hops. The refreshing bite. The bittersweet reward.”

Here’s one of my favorites and suprisingly its the cheapest 6-pack available at my local liquor store!  It’s the original Guinness Stout, aka Guinness Extra Stout, Guinness Draughts much older, and tastier, brother.  Of course I didn’t mind having to open up two of these bottles to get enough to fill up my guinness pint glass.  The things I do for you guys!

It’s worth noting that this beer is the North American version made from unfermented Guinness wort extract from Dublin mixed with local ingredients.  This particular beer is made by Labatt Brewing.

This stout comes from a nostalgic, but rather poorly put together bottle, you can tell it has been recycled a ton of times, and its label is coming off.  It pours up a beautiful black-brown, with a tan head, kind of like the foam on top of a fancy iced coffee.

Aroma is a touch on the weak side, but spending a few seconds with your nose on top or inside of the head will be worthwhile.  You’ll pickup smells of sweet malts, coffee, dark chocolate, and hazelnuts.

This is a complex one with lots of dark flavours.  Dark chocolate, dark coffee, some dark biscuits (they exist).  There’s a basementy almost leatherish component that blends in very nicely with an array of nuts, like a really good trail-mix, one that’s also alcoholic.  there’s a presistent cocoa sweetness that hits you right in the roof of your mouth, blending with the hops and forming a long lasting mouth feel.

The back-end really enhances this stouts chocolatey notes, which shine through the surprisingly bitter hops.

Enough analyzing.  I’m going to relax and enjoy the rest of this glass!

(ratebeer linkup here)

Samuel Adam’s Winter Lager

Winter Lager is a weizenbock, a dark bock brewed with generous quantities of malted wheat, a style that is usually enjoyed as a warming drink from late fall through to spring.

Another of the consistently solid brews from the Boston Brewing Company.  They label it as their seasonal for the winter, but I’ve noticed that you can get these “out of season” quite easily.

This Wheat Lager pours up into my dimpled mug with a thin head that dissipates, not completely, from its medium brown-amber body.  It’s a pretty one.

There are serious spices on the aroma, surrounded by sweet malts and honey.

Taste is initially wheaty and malty.  Within these malts are roasted nuts, wood, sweet honey, herbs, spices, and an almost vegetable note, which isn’t a bad thing.  Malt lovers will like this beer.  The backend features hops, that are slightly unmanaged throughout the long lasting flavour.  For such a widely available, and widely consumed, brew this one’s interesting.  A good introduction to the complexities of craft beer for the new beerian.

Tasting Notes: aroma of honey, spices and herbs. flavour shows more spices, herbs with some woody, roasted, cinnamon on the finish.

(ratebeer linkup here)

Coming this weekend, a full review of the happenings, good and bad, at Newfoundland Liquor Corporation’s Beerfest 2009.  Any of my Newfoundland peeps going?

Blue Moon

Brewed with white wheat and oats, Blue Moon features a crisp wheat finish and the perfect combination of orange peel and coriander.  Bring out Blue Moon’s natural spices by serving it in a Pilsner glass with an orange-slice garnish.

From what I hear, this stuff is about as popular as water in parts of the US, which makes sense as it’s brewed mostly by Molson in Toronto.  As you can see from the picture this one was tasted without the orange-slice.  I’m really not a fan of this trend of putting orange slices on, and into Witbiers.

Blue Moon pours up with a white head that quickly dissipates into an attractive cloudy body.

This Witbier gives a pretty weak aroma, highlights after just about sucking some liquid up your nose include bits of orange and a dash of spice.  The water analogy used earlier holds through on the taste and the palate.  Again spices and orange hints are noticeable.  As happens with beers taken over by Molson-Coors, this one shares a lot of the strange biscuity tastes common to Molson brews like (shutter) Coors Light.  Seems this one falls into the class of Rickard’s White and Samuel Adam’s Summer Ale.

Overall, this one’s lack luster, something I would grab in the summer faced with the options of other Molson beers.

(ratebeer linkup here)

Storm Brewing’s Raspberry Wheat

Brewed using only water, wheat and barely malts, hops and yeast; a touch of pure raspberry extract is added to give this crisp, refreshing wheat ale a big raspberry aroma and a clean, zesty flavour.

You won’t come across this one outside of Newfoundland, and will have a harder time getting it outside of St. John’s.  I’ve noticed at liquor stores this, and all of Storm’s beers, sell out quickly when they released, sometimes in less than a week.  This leads me to believe that Storm has a dedicated fan base.  A fan base that I’m a member of.

I’m sampling this fruit beer from a longneck, 341mL bottle.  It’s also available in 650mL bottles and, ending in 2008, stubbies. Raspberry Wheat pours up a yellow-copper, with a white foamy head that’s quick to disappear.  There’s also a crazy amount of carbonation present.

The aroma is dominated by raspberries (surprise!), it’s good but not particularly authentic.  There’s no freshness to the berries, it’s more like a raspberry granola bar than basket of the raspberries.  After spending a few minutes sniffing at this, i picked up some minor hints or cherry, within the background of biscuity malts.

The flavour shares every aspect of the taste, with a fine amount of hops on the finish.  It’s an interesting combination, that can be overlooked due to the beers fizzy, watered down palate.  It shares the same generally organic, natural taste profile common to all of Storm’s beers, that in itself should be a reason to go out and buy some.

Overall, this is an excellent brew for all the cooler drinkers out there who want something different, something more organic.  Also a wonderful introduction to beer in general.  The hardcore beerians, who I find generally give fruit beers a hard time, may be further turned off by the watery palate.

Learn more about Storm Brewing’s beers!

Tasting Notes: head disappears quickly, even with a lot of carbonation. aromas of raspberry, cherries, and biscuits. taste of fresh raspberry with bready malts and bitter hops.

(ratebeer linkup here)

Full reviews of many, many beers to come!  I’m going to stick to a regular schedule of posting my thoughts and photos here!