A Wine Drinker's Beerfest

I got a call from Dr. Tom requesting help drinking his first shipment from a beer of the month gift he got for Christmas. Obviously I cannot turn my back on a friend who needs help, so I picked up some beer and we had a mini beerfest. The other participant in the tasting, Abby (Mrs. Dr. Tom) is a big wine fan and not so much into beer. I wrote down some of her reactions so we could get the wine drinkers perspective on the beer.

On to the beer...

Saranac black and tan: The smell of this beer immediately reminded me of Guinness. With the beer of the month package, Tom got tasting notes on each of the beers. Normally I don't pick up on a lot of the flavors described, but Tom and I both immediately agreed on a strange one: apple peel.
Abby: " I am having trouble taking this seriously"

Choc Beer Miner Mishap: This is a black lager, a style that I rarely drink. Also I had never heard of the brewery before and I was quite impressed. It had a coffee and chocolate in the nose. The taste had the type of bitterness you expect from a pilsner and a smoke quality in the after taste.
Abby:"It smells burnt." "I just burped up the other beer, it tasted good." She preferred the black lager to the black and tan.

Choc Beer Basement Batch: This is choc beer's pale ale. Each of us had a different take on the nose.
Me: orange citrus, Tom: pine and citrus, Abby: lemon cleaner
The flavor is less intense than the aroma, but was pleasant and not very harsh or bitter. Tasted a little like grapefruit. Abby disagreed about the bitterness and kept sticking out her tongue trying to rid it of the bitterness or something.

Harpoon UFO Pale Ale: This is an unfiltered beer and it is crazy cloudy. It smelled kind of like honey and according to Tom, a little bit of cinnamon.
Abby:" It smells sweet." (I of course told her that sweet is not a smell, and we may have gotten into an argument...)

At this point we were playing a card game and didn't really review the next two beers, Saranac IPA and Sly Fox 113 IPA. Abby did describe the Sly Fox as smelling exactly like a Cannu Chenin Blanc (a wine). Crazy.

Winter Break Beerfest

My friends and I were able to gather some beer from all over the place over break, so we decided to have a world tour beerfest. We had beer from India, Costa Rica, Germany, Belgium and USA (I bet you can guess which ones we were most excited about). Here is a quick list of the beers we had:

Imperial (Costa Rica)
Kingfisher (India)
Gaffel Kolsch (Germany)
Landbier Reigel er Bier (Germany)
Rothaus Pils (Germany)
Becks Dark (Germany)
Hacker Pschor (Germany)
Anchor Steam (USA)
Bluegrass Brewing's Nut Brown (USA)
Lagunitas Pale Ale (USA)
Straffe Hendrick (Belgium)
Corsendonk Tripel (Belgium)
Grimbergen Blonde (Belgium)
Victory 12 (USA)
Abbey Affligen Noel (Belgium)

I doubt anyone wants to read reviews of all those beers (I also doubt I took good enough notes to supply reviews) so I will just give some thoughts/quotes from the evening.

Upon tasting the Imperial: "Booo!" -Greg

My favorite of the Germans was the hacker Pshor (a dark wisse beer). Nice apples and caramel/molasses. Greg reminds everyone that he doesn't like wheat beers.

The coolest beer of the night was the Bluegrass Brewing Nut Brown. I normally don't like browns but this one was really good. Smelled like cocoa and tasted like peanuts at first, then more chocolaty towards the end. I will seek out more brews from Bluegrass.
http://www.bbcbrew.com/

Crowd favorite: Abbey Affligen Noel. Again, another style that doesnt get me excited but the beer was good. Dubbed the "best brun in belgium" by greg. The spices jumped out when I opened the bottle but kind of dissapeared while drinking. I enjoyed the fact that the spices didnt overpower the beer, since beers like that just taste weird.

Overall, a great night of beer (with some monopoly there at the end). I highly recommend this style of beer tastings: just have people bring some random beer, drink and discuss (monopoly is optional).

Cheers!

Las Cervesas de Costa Rica

Just got back from a trip down to Costa Rica for my friend's wedding. I got to see some monkeys, I learned to surf and .... I drank BEER! I didn't know much about Costa Rican beer other than there is beer brewed in Costa Rica, and the most popular one is Imperial. As long as I knew there would be beer, I was happy.Beers that I tried:

• Imperial
• Bavaria Dark
• Bavaria Gold
• Pilsen
• Bavaria 1460
• Mystery beer at wedding (maybe a bavaria beer? Can anyone tell from the picture?)

Unless the beer at the wedding was Bavaria Light, this is the only one I know of that I did not drink.


My first beer was Imperial. It had been a long travel day, it was hot and humid and I needed a beer. Fortunately, Imperial did not disappoint in its refreshment. I expected the same stale flavors that you get with mass produced beer at home, but there were none. Unfortunately, there was not much else for me to get excited about with this beer. By the end of the beer, I had no real desire to have another one.

The next day, at the bar by the pool, I found some variety. There were the Bavaria beers (Dark, Light and Gold) as well as the Pilsen. They all tasted a little different but there were no flavors that really stood out. The Gold did have a nice sweetness to it (Carolyn said it tasted like honey) but by the time I finished, I didn't feel the need to order another one. The Dark was nice, Carolyn and Mom seemed to like this one the best. Nothing exciting about it, but I would drink it over a Yuengling if I had the choice. The pilsen just tasted bad, nothing more to say about it.

Overall, there was nothing exciting about the beer. However, most of it tasted fine and were decent go to beers for the trip. I stuck with the Imperial and the Bavaria Dark. Of course the other option is to just drink pina coladas made with the incredibly ripe pineapples they have down there. I mean, thats what I have been told...there is no evidence that I would partake in that non-beer beverage...