Bar Beers

Due to the lack of a great phone camera and a resistance to bring my real camera to the bar each time for fear of looking like a creep, I have some great beers to talk about, with shitty pictures to accompany them!

Mass Brewer's Guild CASK NIGHT!  sponsored by NERAX, the New England Real Ale eXhibition - a part of CASC - Cask-conditioned Ale Support Campaign... promoting cask ales!    The simplest description is any beer conditioned/aged and typically undergoing a secondary fermentation in the cask which is also served straight from the cask without CO2 or a nitrogen-pour system.

Awesome event, basically 6 specially made cask-conditioned ales and a ton of specialty craft beers, mainly MA brewers.. all at Redbones BBQ in Somerville with free apps!! 

Wachusett Green Monsta IPA Cask

Mayflower Oaked IPA Cask
Jack's Abby Hoponius 'Ginger' Union Cask
Berkshire Lost Sailor IPA Cask
Watch City Jeezuz Botanical Belgian Ale

Element Altoberfest

and on tap:

BerkshireOktoberfest
Wormtown Foxy Brown Maple Ale
Notch Saison
Frosty Knuckle Sea Spray IPA
Element Red Giant
Harpoon
Cisco Grey Lady
Clown Shoes
Blue Hills Imperial Red IPA
Jack's Abby Smoke & Dagger Smoked Black Lager
Haverhill Leatherlips IPA
Sam Adams Maple Pecan Porter
Cape Ann 70 Schilling Scottish Ale 

 -  plus a few more!   Trust me..it was awesome!  Unfortunately, I came straight from work and missed the start and had to drive home after, so I could only stay for a few and only got to try one cask and one draught.   

I started with the Sam Adams Maple Pecan Porter, shown above, as it is part of their Beer Lover's Choice for the upcoming Winter 2011 variety pack.  Kinda wish I had waited, seeing as it was also available at the Mass Brewer's Fest 2 weeks later...but that's another post!  Dark room but a fairly dark pour as well..unknown ABV and IBUs.  A traditional porter nose..slight bitter chocolate, caramel, toasted malt - hinting at the pecan.  Again, fairly traditional taste wise, decent amount of sweetness with a nice toasted malty flavor, and only the faintest notes of maple and pecan.  A rather dry finish and almost no sign of the hops in the beer.  Not a bad 'pecan' porter..but for the name of Maple Pecan Porter, I would have expected a sweeter, nuttier brew with more complex malt flavors.

 

I then went for a cask ale, finally, and decided on the hometown stuff, Watch City Brewery Bejeezus Gruit.  What?  Exactly!  Apparently a gruit is a medieval style beer brewed without hops and instead using spices to balance out the malts...  hmmm, ok!  Being casked gave this beer a whole new dimension.  No idea on the ABV or IBUs...but a  fruity and heavily spicy nose with hints of rich, smokey wood.  The taste came off as more of the same, fairly smokey, herbed and with decent, yet heavy citrus fruits (think warm-ish OJ or grapefruit juice).  However, being casked, a bit heavier, warmer and brewed with herbs and spices...one flavor kept coming to mind and made this slightly uneasy to drink: spaghetti sauce.  YEP, I said it..  this was a marinara beer.  The herbs, especially when warm, gave it notes of parsely, oregano, thyme and the smokiness mimicked some sort of roasted meat.  I'm sure it's a delicious beer, but maybe the cask ale version isn't quite right.... 

About a week later I met up with a good friend and decided to hit up the Watch City Brewery itself to try and redeem it's value after that casked pasta beer!  (WCB could never fully be tarnished though, hometown beer will always have a place in my heart, and stomach)    We both had seen the Stephanie's Cherry Raspberry Wit on their website and we're quite intrigued.  Not being ashamed to say I like fruity beers, and the friend being of the non-strong-beer-liking nature, we both started off with one.  I was optimistic with Sam Cherry Wheat being my go-to fruit beer and not minding some of the raspberry ales out there...  this one fit the fruity bill with 4.1% ABV and 17 IBU's.. apparently 45 lbs of cherries and 22 of raspberries were used in the brewing!  The cherries definitely came through on the nose with a nice malty sweetness in the vein of the wit style, light crackers or a fresh Italian bread.  However, this was served a bit warm for a wheat ale and that maybe took away from the true nature of this beer.  The wheat tastes came through and the fruits were both there, but very muted, subtle...  A mildly sweet finish comparatively for a wheat/wit.  Maybe if this was a bit colder, it could have had a nice crisp bite offset by a the nice fruit flavors....  slightly disappointed.

Giving them one..more..shot.  Simple - Stout.  Nothing fancy, nothing added, just your basic stout.  5.9% ABV and 45 IBUs..  the deep black/brown pour characteristic of a stout and giant frothy head.  More than the usual chocolate and malts, this stout exudes coffee on the nose.  WOW!  And let me say, I'm as much of a fan of nitro pours as I am of a full-frontal lobotomy - I've never had one..but I'm assuming it's fucking miserable - BUT I loved this beer!  The nitro pour creaminess didn't bother me as this was one smooth and rather thin brew. Super heavily roasted malty and nutty... a cocoa powder flavor and mild molasses hid behind this.  The rest of the profile switched between a great strong, black coffee and a sweeter, heavily creamed iced coffee and finished with the sweeter coffee taste and a fainter, somewhat bitter malt bite to balance it out.  Hands down the best stout I've had up to now...A++