GASP! Wine!

My, oh my!  Another post about wine!  These are few and far between..  I do have some nice (and fairly standard) wines,  and try some from time to time.. but if you know me, you've heard me say how much easier it is to try new beers than new wines despite me loving wine.  So when I get the chance to open a bottle, you better believe I'll talk about it!

Chateau Bel Air - Bordeaux Superior 2005 Vintage

82% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc and 7% Cabernet Sauvignon and a great value at Costco suprisingly!  Fairly nice nose, heavy on the dark fruits - blackberry, cherry, plum.. warming to some deep earthy notes and hints of vanilla.  Although big on the nose, this was a rather light bodied, dare I say watery, wine.  Decent acidity and tannins here, medium amount of the 'lip pucker.'  Again, dark fruits are very foward and the finish is just a touch dry.  I've been sitting on this for a few years now, would be tough to find again, but would be a steal if you could!  Great flavor and balance at an unbeatable price

Sunset in July

So it's a Friday night in July, you're in the Boston area and want good beers.  What do you do?  Go to Sunset of course!

(Don't even bother asking what Sunset is.. or which one.  If you need to ask, you don't deserve their selection)

Sauvingnon Blanc Saison

So hey..  heard of wine barrel-aged Saisons?  Neither have I.  But if you're from MA and have heard of Mystic Brewery, you might have seen these kicking around.  Yeah, pretty badass stuff and great takes on Saisons..  here's one:

Sauvignon Blanc-aged Saison.  Sounds like a fantastic fit!  7.0% ABV and listed at 28 IBUs.   Great pop to the cork-and-caged bottle and a massive pour.  Nice and unfiltered with a wickedly fluffy pure white head.  Funky yeast nose with subtle fruit notes..apricot, peach and apple.  Hints of florals and just a bit of crispy malts.  This is smooth, bubbly, funky and sweet all in one.  The tartness and sweet/fruity tones imparted by the white wine play a front role here and it's nice to not have any real oak notes from the barrels present.  Dry, malty backbone carries this through to a funky floral finish.  A great example of a saison in general and a great tweak to the standard style.

Brash Comes to MA

Got word of this brewery through Clown Shoes, they were doing a collabo with them.  Come to find out, they are who allowed this brewery to get going.  Brainchild of a Texas pub owner who needed to find a spot to brew due to beer laws, Brash found a home in MA.  This is their first official solo release.. enjoyed it at the release party at Deep Ellum...

The Bollocks!  An American Imperial IPA - 12.0% freaking ABV.  DAMN!  Sweet caramel malts, candied orange peel that fights with huge amounts of citrus, grapefruit and piney hops.  This smells simply amazing.  For 12.0% ABV, this goes down far far too easily.  I had to warn the other people around me that ordered it.  I needed water and food or I'd be on my ass in 5 minutes.  This is just damned good.  Thick and syrupy, but smooth and bright at the same time, rich caramel and toffee fade rather quickly into the hop profile of this beer, which soon takes over.  After the first few minutes, this beer becomes all hop.. and I mean all: piney, citrus, grapefruit, grassy..  just damned good.  There is zero sign of the alcohol, which is crazy scary and very very impressive.  This is a great beer through and through, even more so knowing its the first release.  I can't wait to see more of what Brash offers!

5 Beers of Winter.. In July

Yeah.. yeah.. WAY late on this one.  But I wanted to do all 5 in one sitting and I kept being too busy to do so..

Dark Horse from Michigan puts out 5 beers, 1 a month, from November until March, each getting bigger, bolder, boozier.. designed to get you through the long dark days of winter.. supposedly according to them!  So I figured it made more sense to have them all in a single night to really see how much bigger each successive one got.  *note.. I got pretty damn drunk in doing so, so these descriptions are short.. sorry!*

ONE - Oatmeal Stout.  Coming in at 8.0% ABV, this is big oatmeal stout to begin with..  There was no difference in any of the pours.. all pitch black, oily, thick and thick heads.  Nice creamy, sweet aroma..  burnt/roasted malts, black burnt coffee.  Big, heavy and malty.. pure dark chocolate, black burnt coffee, but a touch of the creamy sweetness from the oatmeal.. a surprising touch of bitterness on the finish.  A bit big for my  taste in an oatmeal, but damned good!

Too - Cream Stout.  Another big-ass 8.0% ABV stout..  shit, this is gonna be interesting.   Much bigger head, bit more tan.  Similar in aroma to the oatmeal stout, but with sweeter notes and a touch of vanilla.. more boozy in the nose than the oatmeal as well.  A bit less roasty/burnt that the oatmeal, but still wicked smooth, sweet and big.  The booze bite is highly prominent here but more malty than sweet in taste.  Rich espresso, milk chocolate, touches of roasted malts and the slightest bitterness.  Way bigger than any cream/milk stout I've ever had..  more akin to dipping a triple fudge brownie in espresso ice cream and taking a shot of vodka with is...  YUM!

Tres - Blueberry Stout.  Little bit lighter at 7.5% ABV.  I've had this one before.. but honestly, one of the most unique stout's I've ever had.  You can't place much in the nose besides mocha coffee malts and what may be blueberries.  The sweetest of the 3 so far.. very very creamy, iced coffee, chocolate malts.. and yep.. there they definitely are, the blueberries!  Not in the sense of blueberry muffins, but if you made chocolate blueberry pancakes and drenched them in a thick sweet maple syrup.  I can't say much else, but that the sweet, chocolate, roasty malts here work amazingly with the blueberries.  A definitely must try!

Fore - Smoked Stout.  Another one weighing in at 8.0% ABV.. shit, only been at this for just over 90 minutes...  Very chocolatey here, more so than the others and a nice smoke note.  Bits of hickory and BBQ's pork fat along with some plum and raisin sweetness.  Bold roasted flavors, woody, smoke and a bitter burnt coffee underlies it all.  This felt and tasted much more like a 12% imperial, but drank far too easy.

Finally after just under 2 hours - Plead the 5th - Imeperial Stout at 12.0% ABV.  Hot damn.   After pouring the others, thought it couldn't be possible for a beer to be blacker, but yet here one is!  Thick and oily, the aroma exudes chocolate malts, roasted malts and straight up moonshine with underlying anise and licorice.  Deceptively smooth except for the booze in this.  Incredibly warming..  purest dark chocolate, rich coffee, more of the licorice notes with some dried dark fruit, molasses and a caramel sweetness.  A little smokey and just the slightest bit of a hop bitterness before fading into a burningly alcoholic dry chocolate note.

This is huge, but a bit overwhelming.  Overall, a really cool series of beers.  Stouts are tough to create uniquely and unfortunately, these seem just a bit too similiar beer to beer.  Maybe the same night was a bad idea for these.. how I felt this morning lends itself to that!

The Mouflan Flies!

Another one from the cellar..  Holding onto this one for well over a year now...

Tröegs - Flying Mouflan.  A huge-ass barleywine at 9.3% ABV and 100+ IBUs.  They call this unique in that it's "2 different beers in one."  You can apparently get a huge, bold hoppy sonofabitch if drank right away.. and a mellowed our barleywine if aged..  hmm..  that happens with anything really hoppy, right?  But never heard of this in a bigger, darker beer... so let's cracking this flying bastard open..

Rich black/brown pour and a thick head..  A lot of the hop kick here that was mentioned still remains, nice and piney, a bit citrusy.. but a ton of malts here too, very sweet and rich.  Butterscotch, molasses.. some raisin and plum too.  The taste is big, bold, smooth and aggressive.  Definitely gave way to the malts over time, but the booze aged well as well.  I liken this to a creamier, lessened version of the Double Bastard by Stone.  The malts are huge and the booze kicks out your two front teeth... time to sing that stupid Christmas song!  Molasses, caramel, roasty malts, faint chocolate, candi sugar, sweet fruits..  only the slightest hint of hops at the end, a fleeting bitterness mixed with a tiny bit of spice.  Overly sweet, boozy finish.. a very bold barleywine-ish beer.  I say so because it was a mix of that, an American Strong and an Imperial IPA...  sip on this one and savor it.  Too complex to really nail down!

Abita 25th

Slowly getting through the cache I'm hoarding.. which will no doubt grow once I think I'm making a dent..  Tonight it's the 25th Anniversary offering from Abita.  

25th Anniversary Vanilla Double Dog.  a 7% ABV amped-up version of their TurboDog with a vanilla kick. Wicked dark pour with a fluffy, yet sticky head.. huge nose coming from this.  Roasty, chocolate, faint vanilla notes.. picture a vanilla brown ale with an attitude.  Smooth, but with a nice bite to it, this hits you with the malts from the get go.. brown ale theme here again, or the baby brother of a stout.  Roasted malts, rich chocolate, hearty bread.. it's all there, but in a nice balance.  Vanilla sweetness in the finish, but unfortunately it's that cheap-seeming artificial vanilla taste, and the faintest bit of a floral hoppy note.  Overall, pretty nice.  I would be lying if I said I was fully impressed..  to me, for a 25th anniversary brew, you go big and you go for the wow factor.  However nice this was, however balanced it seemed, it lacked that wow...

Homebrew Cider

Once again.. it's nice to know other homebrewers!  Out of the beers I was given a few months back, it's time to try some homebrewed cider!

For the life of me I cannot 
remember the difference between these.. I think it was just a difference of when they were brewed though.. hmm...  Either way, they were vastly different, as evident from the pictures.  The first one looked more like a Woodchuck Pear Cider..super pale, wicked faint nose.  Sadly this one came out like watered-down apple juice.  Wasn't terrible, but not great really either..  The 2nd one had a bit more traditional cider look and a bigger nose.  This one actually had faint spice in the nose and taste, fuller body.. would have maybe considered this to be a brewer's first test batch for a production cider maybe..  Could use a bit more body, alcohol bite and spice..


I hear cider is tough to pull off at home.. any thoughts??

5.31.12 - the Spruce

I'll be honest.. I'm posting this one 'post-humously'  I'm dating it on the day I drank this.. but I forgot I had it.. took the picture with my phone and completely slipped my mind!  Sorry for the dishonesty, guys!

Harpoon 100 Barrel Series - # 39 Vermont Spruce Tip.  An ale at 7.0% ABV and 38 IBUs brewed with spruce tips from the great state of Vermont (Should be a great, big DUH if you read the name of the beer.. just clarifying).  A very very nice pour that my lowly (not really.. 8mp) camera phone doesn't do justice.  Incredibly clear and deep color, nice thick head..  exemplary!  Nice nose on this fella too..  mild caramel malts, hint of vanilla sweetness and nice kicks of essentially forest..  woody, nutty, piney notes.  Smooth and a bit light in body, the malts hit first.  A bit sweet, a bit robust and nutty.. slight piney hop bite hits next, dry and sharp..  the spruce is mixed in here as well giving it a log-cabin inspired taste.  Very woodsy and full, yet nice and crisp..  Slightly boozy but in a good way.  Not much to the finish.. just dry and a touch of sweetness.  The spruce was present, but I feel like it could have been more dominant.  Maybe too little was used or it would be showcased better in a different style.  Much more present than in my most recent homebrew at least..  A slightly different take on the American IPA style..  but glad this isn't a 'permanent' offering by them.

5.29 - The Nectar

Just a random night, but this ain't your random beer.  This guy was selling outta stores left and right, often times on the same day as delivery.  No, not some super exclusive nano-brew, or even micro-brew.. no folks, this is from a big name brewer!

Troegs - Nugget Nectar.  a 7.5% ABV 93 IBU Imperial Amber.   Yes, you can call it a 'one-off' cause they brew it once a year.. but in HUGE quantities.  People just scoop it up though!  So if you didn't find it, or stock up, tough titties!  This gives you the quintessential amber pour (as one would expect) and a nice head.  The hop aroma just pours from this brew, full on pine and citrus with a decent amount of caramel malt to back it up.  Underlying lemon peel, melon, grapefruit.. to name a few.  Simple and complex at the same time.    Sorta sweet, full taste upfront that is merely fleeting.. a powerful kick of hops comes swooping in to dominate the taste, but not overpower it.  It's bitter and balanced with grapefruit, pine and citrus hops.. fairly sticky.  If not for the caramel/toffee and sweet biscuit-y malt backbone this could be mistaken for an IPA.  Lingering dry bitterness on the finish with just a touch of sweetness and almost no sign of the 7.5% ABV.  A huge beer that leaves nothing to be desired...kudos!