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funkybottoms posted:tried it tonight, couldn't stand it. poured a full pint of head that took over ten minutes to settle to about 1.5 inches of liquid and it tasted pretty drat sour. really it reminded me of infected Rabid Duck, gotta wonder if there was a problem and/or improper handling. I had a similar experience. I thought it could have been great if there were less ashy burnt character and more sweetness/body. The super dry ashy character did not go well with the tart wine barrel character.
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Dec 14, 2012 03:28
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Honestly The Bruery has been doing some pretty awesome stuff lately. My list of awesome Bruery beers I've had in the last year 1: Tart of Darkness (just had a 2012 last night, wow) 2: Filmishmish 3: Oui Oui 4: Smoking Wood Bourbon 5: Sans Pagaie I've heard White Chocolate is crazy good but I haven't opened it up yet, nor White Oak which I also hear is tasty. I thoroughly enjoyed a bottle of 4 Calling Birds I opened up over Christmas vacation. Honestly I really like the kind of stuff The Bruery is putting out and can't think of many other breweries that are doing as high quality, expressive and well integrated interesting beers the same kind of way they are.
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Jan 4, 2013 19:00
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bartolimu posted:White Chocolate tastes like a waffle cone. White Oak is one of my favorite non-sours from them this year, it's well put together and a fantastic beer. I'm not a huge fan of Oui Oui but everything else on your list I agree was great. Oude Tart was also better this year than last. It seems to me The Bruery has done the increasing-production thing better than any brewery in recent memory; their quality has been constantly high and the variety is only increasing. I'll be sitting on White Chocolate for a few years I guess. How does White Oak compare to Smoking Wood? I also havent tried 5 golden rings, oude tart 2012 or fruet yet, though my experience has shown that the Anno beers (papier, etc) need at least a year of in bottle aging before they are ready to go, so I guess its time to open a Cuir.
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Jan 4, 2013 21:32
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danbanana posted:Split a bottle of Coton at Aces and Ales in Vegas a few months ago with two friends and we had trouble finishing it. Found it sticky sweet. It's the only one of those I've had but I am sitting on a bottle of Fruet which I figure I'll sit on for... a while. The Anno beers are big complex sweetish beers, its kind of the point. They are too hot for the better part of a year and then after that you split it at least 4 ways at a tasting party and its great, definitely not something you can drink a ton of. I had a Coton in Oct 2011 that I split 4 or 5 ways and we all thought it was excellent. Fruet is probably going to be a bit different since its now 100% bourbon barrel aged, not something they were regularly pulling off before. I wonder how much of their solera project they had to "reset" or change up for this. rage-saq fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Jan 4, 2013 |
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Jan 4, 2013 21:41
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air- posted:Have you or rage-saq tried Fruet? I'm really curious if that's worth the $35 price of admission. I have had both Papier and Coton at different ages and Cuir when it was young, my experience with them is very similar. At bottling the beers are fairly hot and a little bit of a mess, and need to sit and think about what they've done for a while. Papier was a little bit together at bottling but Coton and Cuir were definitely not. After about a year the heat dies down a lot and the flavor complexity starts to get "in focus" and these beers are pretty good, but not something you are going to be able to down a lot of. I've only had a Papier that was 2 years old and it was really, really good. The next tasting I'm able to get some buddies around for I'm going to open up a Coton that is now 2 years and see how its doing. I haven't opened up any bottles that were older than 2 years but I can imagine they are doing really well, and if I had more than 1 bottle of Papier left I'd consider opening it up sometime soon. I like this beer a lot but $35 is getting a bit steep and if it weren't for my reserve society discount I probably would have only bought 1 bottle. rage-saq fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Jan 4, 2013 |
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Jan 4, 2013 22:14
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bartolimu posted:Cracked my 4 Calling Birds for a family Christmas thing. It's like a big dark fruitcake, all spices and dark fruits and heat. I like it more than I expected to. Shared some with my Father in law whom I visited in Idaho for Christmas and I totally loved it. You getting any of the Barrel Aged version? I can see it being possibly incredibly awesome.
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Jan 6, 2013 07:25
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So a buddy of mine told me to pick up this new beer he was distributing, claiming it was pretty unlike anything I had ever had before and pretty good. He was right, the surprising part is that its from Germany. Its from Freigeist and its called AbraxXxas, which is an "imperial" (6%) version of Abraxas. Its a Smoked Lichtenheiner Weisse and I know I've never even heard of it before. Their website claims its got a lot of lactic acid but that isn't really true, its only very very mildly tart, and also mildly smoked. The most prominent character is wheat and maybe a touch of coriander? If you were to tell me that a smoked, lightly tart, wheaty pale ale with a little coriander was a German beer that was also pretty good I wouldn't have believed you. A wholly unique beer experience doesn't come around a lot these days but I think I'll call this one.
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Jan 8, 2013 07:37
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Had a beer tasting with some buddies this weekend and we popped open some good stuff. This one has been in the fridge for a while so I decided it was time. Fairly restrainted bourbon barrel character, more oak than bourbon, pretty interesting. For a BA Barleywine though I think it might be too dry, a little higher sweetness balances the wood tannins better and lets the flavors meld together a bit more. Not talking tons sweeter, but just a tad wouldn't have hurt this beer.  Taking my comment from the previous beer, the Bruery White Oak pulls it off pretty well. Just a touch sweeter really brings out the vanillin, coconut and oak character, though this beer is a Wheat Wine so the "punchy" wheat character keeps it from feeling too sweet. Fairly interesting take on a wheatwine.  Took me a long time to trade for this and had to pass on a few bouts of temptation until I had a good tasting to enjoy it at. About 2 years out this beer is pretty interesting, though it may be a little less than the sum of its parts right now. Lots of Surly Darkness on the nose, which is awesome because that beer smells awesome, some kind of crazy mashup of Dark Lord and Black Albert in the body and then hints of Beer Geek Brunch Weasel in the finish. Ultimately this beer is quite a bit dryer than Dark Lord so it drinks fairly differently. Pretty good stuff.  I brought a 2011 Eclipse Elijah Craig 12 year and someone else brought a 2011 of the Elijah Craig 20 year, and both were excellent. I've never had the Eclipse before and it was a little different than what I was expecting. Overall its a pretty fantastic beer and a fantastic concept, the bottle price at retail ($30) is too high for me to justify buying it again. At 9.5% its big but not a monster, overall body is fairly balanced, not too astringency, good balance of IBUs and sweetness without being cloying. Good for displaying barrel character. The EC12 barrel was great and really well balanced, while the EC20 was big and bourbony but still delicious. A blend of the two ended up being one of the best things of the night.
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Jan 21, 2013 23:19
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Somehow my fav bottle shop in town got a case of black note and I happened to coincidentally be there upon arrival so I snagged 2 bottles. How is the 2012? Does it need any more aging?
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Jan 26, 2013 18:57
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Captain Shortbus posted:great CA sours that are reasonably priced and obtainable RR is the best one that fits the same price category. Lost Abbey and The Bruery are other great CA breweries that make excellent sours, though they are more expensive. However, The Bruery only does everything in 750ml, so at $15-18 you get a better value than a lot of Lost Abbey 375mls that are like $12. However, sours by both of these brewers are hard to find outside of their brewery.
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Jan 30, 2013 19:35
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For best year round IPAs I have to go with Sculpin Alesmith IPA Odell IPA SN Torpedo in 16oz cans Lagunitas Sucks Green Flash West Coast IPA
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Feb 1, 2013 08:11
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Herr Tog posted:Hey guys. I like beer too. Anyone got a good recommendation for a morning beer or is that not a thing anymore? Is this like morning beer as in alcoholism?
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Feb 13, 2013 21:10
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RobBorer posted:I just opened my 2012 Sucaba a week ago and it was fantastic. I had a 2011 Abacus about 2 weeks ago and it was really just unbelievable. Insanely smooth, little alcohol heat and tons of sweet brown sugar, vanilla, coconut and oak with slight notes of sherry starting to appear from aging. This beer is great fresh and it just ages so incredibly while.
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Feb 14, 2013 17:21
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Did a great beer tasting at a friends over the weekend and many great beers, and a few weird ones, were had. Toppling Goliath, a 7% "IPA" beer aged in Templeton Rye barrels. IPA is a really loose definition, but an English IPA is probably the closest definition you'll get to the base beer. This light (both abv and color/character) of a beer in a barrel usually doesn't work, but they put together a pretty interesting package with a restrained hand in the barrel aging. Lots of wood tannins, spicy rye and light vanilla on something slightly dry but with a little bit of sweetness and herbal hop character. Interesting combination that stands out as being fairly unique, though not in the realm of mind blowing. Great label!  Cigar City / Mikkeller Swinging Harry Tropical Quad featuring papaya, mango, simcoe and citra hops and aged in grand marnier barrels with brett C. This sounds like a totally insane beer that is all over the place but in reality the fruit and crazy hops and weird barrel end up being really subtle and complimentary. A touch of tropical character here, a hint of orange there, but mostly all delicious brown sugar quad. The base quad style is a little on the less dark and rich side of say Gulden Draak which was somehow the right place for all the other fruit and hops to come in, all in all it was actually really enjoyable. The old school Pitfall! video game inspired label is sweet.  I picked this up in 2009 at Holiday Wine Cellar before heading over to the Stone Bistro for Sour Fest. I figured at 8% this wasn't going to age well much longer so what the hell. Somehwat dry big-ish American porter with some subtle dark chocolate notes and a nice balance of wood and vanilla. Pretty solid.  Coffee, Fig, Coconut Oatmeal Stout. While this sounds like it should be divine I didn't dig it for two reasons. One is that this is one of those stouts that is super dry and super super ashy, with very little sweetness or malt character to balance. The other is that it smells and tastes like burnt coffee. I couldn't get any fig, coconut or oatmeal character and didn't get very far before giving up on this incredibly astringent ashy beer.  I dug out my Cigar City Humidor Imperial Stout, which I believe was the 2009 bottling. I've been looking forward to drinking this beer as a bottle of 2009 Marshall Zhukov was the best Imperial Stouts I've ever had and I was not disappointed. Outstanding port/sherry aged character, hefty malt sweetness, dark chocolate truffles, fig and date and a big rich mouthfeel are very uniquely complimented by the cedar aging time. The cedar is at once both sharp and slightly savory, keeping the sweetness in check and spinning a fantastic beer in a really unique direction. Just really blown away by how awesome this beer is, and I have to say it ties with my previous 2009 Marshall Zhukov experience as Best Imperial Stout.  This Cantillon Mamouche is a really, really odd beer. Its like someone made a salad and crammed it into a Cantillon sour, lots of vegetal and pickled asparagus like character dominates a pretty sour gueze base, with a touch of dandelions in the finish. I dug on it for a little bit but ultimately couldn't finish my sample.  We opened this beer after arguing a little bit about what makes an Old Ale different than a barleywine or a stout. This beer is pretty close but still falls a little closer to a barleywine. Great sweet fig character, a touch of dark malt on top of lots of vanilla and wood. Sweet but just shy of being too cloying. Pretty fantastic.  The big daddy of the Bourbon County Stout varients. Aged in Pappy 23 barrels for 2 years this Bourbon County Stout variant is really a notch or two better than your standard BCS. Outstanding bourbon, vanilla and wood character on top of sublime dark chocolate truffles and roast. Not much more to say other than yes, this beer is THAT good.  The final beer of the tasting worked well as a palate cleanser. I have a bottle of this, and the special version with peaches on the way and I am pretty excited to be landing some. A very solid amber gueze-style sour with a really delicious rye kick. Dry, sour and then a rye pepper spice with a little soft oak in the background. Really unique and delicious, wish I hadn't missed out on it last year.
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Mar 4, 2013 07:46
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XxGirlKisserxX posted:That one was bottled in December 2011. Any CCB beer with the die-cut cigar band label was bottled no earlier than around May of '11. Ah, well, make more of this! (or trade a bottle or two with me) This beer is really really incredible.
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Mar 5, 2013 01:59
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Angry Grimace posted:Why don't they just make PTY twice a year instead of once? BECAUSE THEN ITS NOT AS RARE!
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Mar 11, 2013 20:53
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I regret not saving the label or even getting a picture of this beer, but its the worst beer I've ever had. http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/romulan-ale/3372/ Made in El Salvador, a long rear end time ago, its some kind of bad pale lager with some nasty sweetener and blue color added. Its also in a clear bottle. And was found at a pawn shop.
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Mar 24, 2013 07:55
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Midorka posted:Thanks, I think I'll go around 4pm next Tuesday then. Red Poppy is flanders sour. Its an english brown ale thats soured with cherries, its really quite good, comparable to Supplication but not quite as sour iirc.
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Mar 25, 2013 16:45
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FreelanceSocialist posted:The only iffy beer that I have had from them was the Hail Ale. Or Hale Ale. Or whatever it was called. The chamomile one. That just didn't mesh well. I'd love to score a sixer of Moondog or Nosferatu, but I'm now living way outside their distribution area. I'm going to go out there and say the Smuttynose Baltic Porter is one of the most underrated beers out there. This beer is a fantastic display of subtlety, big and flavorful without being too big and trying to punch you in the face, complex without being schizophrenic, good both fresh and with really amazing with some age. Just a really nice balance of smooth malt and chocolate characters with very little roast. Also, whats the difference between a baltic porter and the other porter styles? Most of the other porter styles are lower in alcohol and various degrees of being dryer and a little roastier. A baltic porter has a fair amount of body and malty sweetness from a 50% or higher munich malt base, low roast character but lots of chocolate. It is also generally a hybrid "steam" yeast (ferments at ale and lager temps like Anchor Steam) or exclusively lager fermented and lager conditioned, lending to a pretty smooth overall character. There aren't a ton of commercially available styles that you can get in the states but I don't think I'm far off in saying that the Smuttynose Baltic Porter is probably one of the best examples out there.
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Apr 6, 2013 04:26
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ChickenArise posted:
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Apr 11, 2013 22:39
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 This was a really good loving beer. Somebody told me it was a lot like 14, but only if you compared it to 15. I've had 12-16 and I think I'd rate it #2 behind #13. I initially smelled and tasted Velvet Merkin which unsurprisingly leads the blend. Still fairly hot, but the oat from Velvet Merkin/Parabola along with the nice dark chocolate notes they have makes this a really tasty beer. These characters keep the beer tilting towards the smooth and drinkable side, abv/wood content considered. Its not quite as drinkable(while young) as the 15 but definitely more drinkable than the 14 which is still over-oak-tannin-ed. The tequila barrel aged "PNC" adds an interesting note in the finish that while I enjoyed it, I would honestly leave out if I were to blend it again. I wish brandy barrels werent so rare for brewers to get, I think that Velvet Merkin aged in brandy barrels would be unbelievably awesome and would lead this beer into totally amazing dimensions.
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Apr 22, 2013 09:32
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 Decided to crack open a Brux as I last cracked a Brux not long after it was released and thought it was ok but kind of boring and definitely not ready yet. Now it is nicely funky, with the developed brett B character found in Orval, GI Matilda and Boulevard Saison Brett. Its a little lighter in body and malt sweetness than Matilda, less hoppy than Orval but not quite as light and dry as Saison Brett. Drank pretty great, kind of sad I only have one left.
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Apr 25, 2013 08:28
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Captain Shortbus posted:Am I mistaken or were there reports of a later release? I wonder if they have the same age on them. They've only done one release so far and it was about a year ago iirc. Pretty good beer just released too young before the brett is able to do its thing (like Orval). Should be brewed and released more regularly like Rayon Vert, Matilda, etc.
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Apr 25, 2013 18:21
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MalleusDei posted:How hard do I need to try to get to St. Sixtus, if I'm in Bruges? I wasn't planning on renting a car, but... Rent a car because you won't find it in stores, you might find it for sale bootleg-ish at some bars but pay an exorbitant price. There are so many many many awesome places to drive around Brugge and its so beautiful of a drive its totally worth it.
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May 21, 2013 06:40
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Rayon Vert is a tremendously awesome beer. Bottle bombs aside (QC problem not design problem) if anyone thinks the carbonation level is silly go open up an Orval and compare. That level of carbonation is actually part of its flavor profile and it would suffer if it were only carbonated to your standard 2.4vol/co2 that most American beer is bottled/canned at.
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May 28, 2013 17:53
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Glottis posted:Something tells me you haven't gotten the REALLY carbonated ones. Last two times I've gotten a 4-pack (so, 2/3 ever) it's been so carbonated even when fridge cold that the seemingly tiniest pour fills my entire glass with foam. I've poured Orval many times and it's never like that. Granted, I love Rayon Vert, but it's such a pain in the rear end to pour when it's like that since it takes an eon to get a glass without wasting half of it. Almost all of the many bottles I've gotten are like that. Get yourself a Duvel large chalice, its like 24oz to the brim and pour slowly and you'll get a bottle of Rayon Vert poured in 2 pourings. Properly aged orval (at least 8 months per the brewers) pours pretty similarly, along with a lot of saisons.
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May 29, 2013 18:08
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Last night I said what the hell, I've got a few hours to myself to drink a beer and chill out so lets go big. The Bruery Cuir, 2011 Anno beer The first thing I notice on pouring this beer is how light amber/red colored it is in small amounts, though once it fills the glass it looks quite dark. Nice carbonation level, it really lets the aroma take off. The aroma is predominately dark caramel/toffee and tart apple, brandy, creme brulee, and a touch of tobacco. The flavor follows very closely, the tartness that stuck out a lot when the beer was brand new has integrated with the rest of the flavors quite nicely. Its overall character is reminiscent of cognac, with some dark toffee and tobacco giving additional complexity. The creme brulee notes peek out again in the finish with a bit of brandy. I don't remember how much of Cuir was bourbon barrel aged but the typical flavors you would expect from such a process are fairly absent. In typical Bruery style, this beer is relatively dry and lighter on the palate than its ABV would imply, its very rich but not super thick and sticky so it doesn't fatigue the palate. The amount of the Bruery-house-special candi syrup along with the long fermentation time from the solera process no doubt has a large effect on this. The long fermentation time and bottle age have turned this into a very smooth 14.5% ABV. I've had much lower ABV beers that had much harsher alcohols, there are no fusels, nail polish, etc to speak of. The beer does taste well aged but there are still no signs of this beer getting old, so it is probably good to age for many more years. I've not had any of my Fruet or Bois yet, but it is interesting to see how different Cuir is from what I remember of Coton and Papier. I'm not sure where the solera process for this beer is going to take it, along with the changing of the barrel composition, but I have to admit its a success and it makes me glad to buy and age these beers.
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Jun 13, 2013 18:45
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 08:23 |
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crazyfish posted:Is this the 100% BA version or the partially BA version? Because the partial-BA version I had at a recent tasting was anything (to me) but dry. This is the "normal" Cuir version which was blended with some from barrels. The 100% BA version was iirc 100% from bourbon barrels. Its dry for the ABV, meaning its attenuation is relatively high. Its still a big rear end loving beer.
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Jun 13, 2013 19:09
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