B's and Beers

For the game tonight vs the Leafs, I invited my buddy over to crack into a few of the brews, have some wings and watch the B's mop the ice!

Quiet Saturday

Had all my fun Friday night..time to spend a quiet Saturday night in, with some beer of course!  So I invited a fellow beer geek over and we got down on some of these brews!!

Beer and Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Hope you all had a great day with whomever you spent it with and took the time  to reflect and appreciate it all.  What better way to cap off a day of all that and gluttonous eating and drinking...than with another beer!

Harpoon 100 Barrel Series - #34 Oak Aged Dunkel.  5.7% ABV and 30 IBUs... not far out of season either!  They incorporated a secondary fermentation while using oak 'spirals' to impart character, wicked.  Much darker than the other dunkels I've had with faint caramel/toffee malt notes, a little vanilla and oak with some subtle grassy hop aromas.  Full-flavored, but rather light taste with just the right amount of carbonation. The taste followed the nose with the sweetish nutty, caramel, toasted bread malts upfront with some faint spices following up...transitioning to a bit of hops with the earthy oak notes combining with vanilla and a bit of a bourbon-esque bite to the middle/finish.  Nowhere near as intense as bourbon barrel aged in terms of flavor,  very faint actually, but just enough to provide a subtle aspect to this beer.  A really smooth, easy drinking beer with a great malt profile and a nice spectrum of different flavors popping in and out..  definitely aged itself well!  Cheers!

Tuesday!!!!

Hey there, kiddos!  Happy Tuesday!  Crazy wild Sons of Anarchy episode tonight and some brews to go along!  That's it.....  on to the beers!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday Night Football - Harvest BSA

So the Pats kicked some serious ass, huh?!  As with any good MNF game, you need some good beer to go along.  I had a couple of stock beers (aka ones I've reviewed before, or simple standard beers) but also cracked into my Notch Session - BSA Harvest.

An awesome local beer at 4.4% ABV and 22 IBUs...  BSA stands for Brewer's Supporting Agriculture, which allows Mass. Brewers to buy into stocks of barley at the beginning of the season and Notch was apparently one of the first to do so.  This is using 100% Western MA barley and brewed in the Belgian Farmhouse-style Saison fashion.  Notch has great stuff clocking in at under 5.0%.. all super drinkable and huge on flavor, surprisingly, and this is no exception.  Unbelievable huge head..the initial pour overtook the glass immediately!  Slightly sweet, light toasted malts on the nose, but some dry-ish spicy hops with earthy notes, fruity esters and a bit of lemon peel.  Again..for such a low ABV, Notch kills it with flavor.  Pale malts reminiscent of an English Ale and dry wheat mix with grassy, citrus hops with coriander and a faint pepper spice.  The Belgian inspired fruit here is unbelievable..  crisp apple, pear with the traditional banana and clove.    A crisp finish with a lingering sweetness and perfect bubbly carbonation...  seriously Notch, 4.4%?  You're full of it.. this is straight dope

Beer Summit Harvest Fest and post-fest beers!

Last night I got the invite from the Backlash crew to help pour and schmooze with the crowds at the Beer Summit Harvest Fest @ the Park Plaza Castle!  Fuck yeah!  Crazy crowds, sloppy people and tons of free beer...great Saturday night.  If you don't already know about them, check out Backlash Beer Co.  Well-crafted, small batch brews with a shit ton of flavor.. sick bottles too!

As with any good beer fest, there were more beers afterwards as well!  On to the after party with a couple friends I ran into at the fest...

More Pumpkins!!

Still goin with the pumpkins!  Don't hate...  I love pumpkin beers, get over it!

Autumnal Ales

Random Thursday back from vacation and its only like 50 degrees here finally... finally seems like fall!  Finally time for some autumn ales (I'm not behind or lazy... I was just waiting for the appropriate weather)  Most people  are used to the usual Pumpkins and Oktoberfest, but just like the aptly-named Summer ales, there are the autumnal brethren!

 

(post) Pre-vacation Pumpkins!

yep..more beers before vacation!  I only had to be up to pack the last minute things and get to the airport for 11am..so why not have a few big boy bottles before I leave!?  Only I pulled a rookie mistake and I didn't keep the pics!  So sadly it'll be stock photography again...  I found a bottle of Shipyard Pugsley's Signature Series - Smashed Pumpkin 2010 vintage... inadvertently cellared for a year!  HOORAY!

Pre-vacation Oktoberfests

So I'm leaving for a hop-head's haven (So-Cal) on Wed and should probably finish up my Oktoberfest beers before I do..right?  I mean..it's well into November now..'bout time, kid.

Sunday Night Pumpkins

A Sunday off.. more pumpkin beers than I can count on two hands..  yep, drinkin' time!  Had a few selections while watchin the Pats game (don't wanna talk about it), but on the plus side, the new Walking Dead and Hell on Wheels were pretty damn good along with the beers!

Otter Creek - Wolaver's Organic Pumpkin Ale.  Same as last year, but they dropped the "Will Stevens" from the name and changed the label..  optimistic for a slight change in recipe too?  Let's see.   Already a bit more amber than last year's pour and far less carbonated.  A bit more spice and malt to the nose than last year as well.  So far so good!  Again, despite being touted as brewed with 100% organic Vermont pumpkins, this is still a very spice-forward brew.  A bit more evened out with a more pronounced malt profile helps a bit, as does a slight hop finish.  A better brew this year, for sure, but not amazingly standout...but don't think they were going for such.  A solid pumpkin offering.

Rock Art Brewery - EXTREME Pumpkin Imperial Spruce Stout.  Yep.. I said SPRUCE.  With pumpkin.  In a stout.  YES, please!  "This ain't for no mama's boy or daddy's girl"  How could anyone turn this up??  8.0% ABV and 50 IBUs, this is one killer dark brown pour with a huge mocha head.  A sort of subdued nose for an Imperial Stout, but definite coffee and chocolate notes, a little malt sweetness that may be from the pumpkin in fact.  A little bit of hops poke through towards the back end, evidence of the 50 IBUs.  And the taste..now this was a unique pumpkin brew!  There's equal parts pumpkin, nutmeg/clove spice, dark malts and a sharp, earthy bitterness towards the end.  For sure that's the spruce.  It adds a dimension to this brew that I've never tasted and certainly only works with the imperial..but damn does it work well!  I've had a better pumpkin stout, but not as unique a one..  go find this!!

I'll finish off the night with a brand new entry to the pumpkin category this year..  Harpoon -  UFO Pumpkin. 5.9% ABV and 20 IBUs.  Harpoon Brewery and their UFO lineup have always been rather solid, large-scale   beers, so I had to try this.  Lightly spiced, less so than the category mainstay Pumpkinhead, with nice hints of toasty, biscuit-like malts and a faint pumpkin.  A super crisp bubbly pour, but in a good way.  Not as watery or spice-foward as the Pumpkinhead with enough malt backbone mimicking pie crust to have it hold its own against the top-tier craft pumpkins.  Hints of vanilla come through here and there along with a mild piney hops through and through.  Finishes a bit dry and crisp, very refreshing..begs for another taste.  With the overabundance of pumpkins in the last few years, many places pump them out just to say they have one.  I assume Harpoon wanted a piece of the [pumpkin] pie as well, but they pushed to make a rather good pumpkin beer while maintain its true Harpoon/UFO identity.

Pumpkins 2011 - Round 1!

Yep, Halloween passed.  Same as last post, get over it.  Pumpkin beers are amazing any time of the year.  (and I have far too many!!)  So might as well crack into the stash and get all sorts of freaky pumpkiny!  I'm only gonna go over beers I didn't review last year to keep in interesting, but that's not to say I didn't grab some of my favorites from last year and other classics.  First up this year....

German Oktoberfests

Yeah, I know... Oktoberfest is at the BEGINNING of October.  Get over it, I'm busy.

If you're reading this, I hope to God you know what Oktoberfest is..but simply put: yearly outdoor beer festival in Munich, Germany and is considered the world's largest fair.  It lasts just over 2 weeks and started almost 200 years ago as a celebration of the royal wedding of the soon-to-be King of Germany.  Only beer brewed within the limits of Munich is allowed to be served, but that doesn't stop outside breweries making their own versions and also from being able to procure the stuff that's available at the official Oktoberfest.

First up in my little collection of 3 German Oktoberfests...