A New Year: Time for New Beer!

Fellow Beer-o-phites,
A new year is upon us and it is time to redouble our efforts to leave no beer untasted.

Personally I will be moving soon to a new house and plan on stocking it with all the necessary equipment to take the world by storm with my own hoppy creations.

I also promise some new reviews coming soon. As of late I have been pursuing one of my other hobbies that doesn't mix so well with beer, that would be firearms.
With some of my new reviews I will address what some of you have said is lacking in this blog: crappy beers of the South.

Until later, stay hoppy my friends.

Leinenkugel's - Sunset Wheat

Brewery: Leinenkugel's http://leinie.com/

Style: Wheat -  Sunset Wheat (nowhere does it claim to be a Hef.)

ABV: 4.8%

Container: German Beer Wear

Location Bought: Crestview Publix

Location/Situation Enjoyed Under: Monday Night, it's going to be a long week.

Appearance: God unfiltered Orange, Creamy light head, of mild build, rapidly abates. 

First Reaction: Nice.

Well they certainly were not lying on the coriander, its very much there and a large part of the beers experience, but it's not overpowering and it is mated very well with the excellent wheat that was obviously carefully selected for this beer. The beer starts out with a smidge of unfiltered yeast flavor quickly covered by the mix of wheat and a sweet malted coriander, the flavor then fades down slowly and quickly spikes back up at the end with the sweet orange flavor that makes me think of a doctored up Blue Moon. The beer leaves you with a nice sweet mild malt flavor lingering on your though. The brewery mentions hops in the description but I am hard pressed to find much in there, there is a little up front with the wheat and coriander, but it's almost background noise.

This is an excellent WHEAT BEER. I really appreciate that it doesn't claim to be a Hef, nor does it try to be one. It really is its won't creation and it works masterfully at it. His is a nice light beer that won't fill you up to fast and would go great on the back porch in the evening, with some cheese, salami, and crackers. I will say this beer deserves to be drank cold. The brewery says 40* and would concur it seems to be at its peak when cold. It kind of muddies up the flavors at it warms and you lose that wonderful crispness it has when cold.

Brewery's Description:

" Wheat Beer with natural coriander and other flavors.  If you have ever watched the sun set over a northwoods lake, you know the exact moment that we've captured in our Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat. Brewed with malted wheat, cluster hops and natural coriander, it's the perfect way to get away and enjoy the soothing flavor of the northwoods." 

The Good Company Ingredient?

So we all have our favorite beers for different occasions. There is a beer we love in the summer, a post workout beer, a beer-and-pizza beer, and the list goes on. But is it possible that having good friends around can make a subpar beer taste really good? Over this Thanksgiving holiday I defiantly drank my fair share of beer, good and bad, as well as other wonderful intoxicants. But what was different about this thanksgiving was the situation. If you know me well enough you know that it's been a while since I have been able to tip back a few with some on my best friends due to the game of geographical hide and seek our benevolent employer has played with us.  Thanks to some traveling on the part of three of them we managed to do that again for the first time in a while.  Now getting away from her background and back to the topic at hand.

One night we decided that we wanted to relive some of the 213 glory days and picked up some hop product in these nice little compact metal cylinders. Back in college during our beer or bust, yet busted wallet days, we drank a lot of what we decided was the best bang for our buck: Milwaukee's Best Ice. I mean when you're a broke college student how can you beat a 30 pack for 13 bucks, and it packs 5.9% ABV in there! Well unable to find our old standby we grabed a package of Milwaukee's Best PREMIUM. Which turns out after some research to just be Milwaukee's Best with a package and marketing makeover, but whatever. The point is that none of it made it to the pong table. We drank all of it and enjoyed it, and we were sober when we started. Now no one can say this is a good beer compared to what I usually drink so that's definitely not it. I full and well believe right now that the friends I was surrounded by made all the difference in how enjoyable those beers were. Now do I dare try drinking the Beast alone? We shall see.

Mountain Crest - Beer (If You Can Call It That) Guest Commentary

Well beer faithful we have our second guest commentary here. This comes to us courtesy of another Portland beer drinker picked up and dropped far from home. But instead of the south he is up in the "heartland" haha.

Lets all thank Amo for a little light satire.

_________________________________________________

Brewery: Mountain Crest Brewing Company

Style: “Classic” Lager

ABV: 5.5%

Container: 12 oz aluminum can

Location Bought: Kum-n-Go gas station outside main gate of Offutt AFB

Location/Situation Enjoyed Under: Quiet suburb in quieter Nebraska/basement with beer pong table

First Reaction: Oh my god, I’ve never drank piss before now…

I am a typical ex-college student and have had my fair share of drinking watered-down American-brand beer (insert brand advertised during football games and the word Light, Lite, or Ice after it).  But nothing, not even Milwaukie Best Ice prepared me for this.  But let me set the pretense of me buying it:

It was Friday afternoon and I stopped to get gas and decided it’d be a good idea to pick up some beer while I was at it.  Now, I live in Nebraska and was at a gas station, so my choices were all the normal domestic lagers or lagers light, when I saw Mountain Crest sitting there on the bottom shelf on sale between my favorite brands of 40s.  24 beers for $10.  So I did some quick math, said the name as I pictured someone would with a Scottish accent, and decided what the hell, they all taste the same anyway.  I should have known though when the cashier in her typical Nebraska Husker uniform gave me crazy eyes and questioned my beer taste.  Bitch, whatever, I live in Nebraska, I’m allowed to be ghetto.

So I shared my first taste with a trusty housemate I knew in college and damn.  The only way to describe it is it starting off tasting skunked with an oily residue and smelling like kimchi, and then ending with a lingering bad taste in your mouth resembling wax.  No taste throughout the whole process resembled even closely to hops, malt, or barley, or anything else typically found in beer.  Instead you just got skunked wax water with a tinge of vodka-ish alcohol taste.  Powering through it though, we decided the only way to drink these is by shot gunning them.  Even then the taste somehow stayed in your mouth and got worst with each beer.  Left now with 20 beers to somehow get through, the only resort was a high-stakes game of beerpong, where the punishment for lack of skill is like giving a rimjob to a hung-over hobo with beer shits.  The rest of this story is hazy but it came down to the last cups as almost always in beer pong with me humbly having to chug the last two.  Never has a Coors Light ever tasted more refreshing.

Brewery's Description: “Damn Good Beer” (I’m not making this up)

Sierra Nevada - "Tumbler" Autumn Brown Ale

Brewery: Sierra Nevada http://www.sierranevada.com/

Style:  "Tumbler"  Brown Ale/ Nut Brown

ABV: 5.5%

Container: .3 liters of Quality German Beerware

Location Bought: Eglin Class Six

Location/Situation Enjoyed Under: Friday Night, alone again, With Salmon Spread!

Appearance: Deep Brown with a reddish hue, mild off white head (really not much of one).

First Reaction: This is a great twist on the Autumn/Fall Ale

Nice, Dark color, medium mellow flavor and body with a great fresh malt taste weaved in throughout the whole thing. You get some hops coming through in the middle but they quickly fade out giving you just enough be good. In general this is just a good beer. There is nothing ground shaking about it, its just good. Mild mannered and really a good compliment to any afternoon snack or a lighter dinner. I liked mine a little bit more on the warm side as it brought out the malt more, when it was too cold it really just masked the nice flavors.

I finally found this beer, abet only 4 bottles of it at the Eglin class 6 in the make a six pack section. It was recommended to me by the birth givers and I'll say they are as good at picking brew as they are at raising three sons. I'm sad this is a seasonal and 2010 only ale, I would love to able to find it year after year.

It's nice to see someone take on the fall and autumn season with a different twist than the nearly overdone done Oktoberfest Märzen or  the spiced/pumpkin ale. To tell the truth this is actually a lot like the historical Märzen that one would have found in say the 1700's across Europe. Now one has to seek out a Dunkels Märzen to get a nice brown beer instead of an orangey thing. 

Breweries'  Description:

" Autumn Brown Ale. Tumbler fresh roasted malt used straight from the kiln to give it a graceful smooth malt character perfect for an Autumn afternoon. "

Stupid Real Life.

Friends, I have again been remiss in posting up new reviews. I have several in various stages of production and promise I'll provide you with some new bloviating and obviously biased commentary on our favorite suds soon. I have been unfortunately busy and distracted by real life things that are not allowing me to spend time being distracted by the better things in life like beer!

This is Failure. Hooray!

Well my friends I must admit I didn't search that hard but I am so far a failure at finding a fall/pumpkin spice ale.

But all is not a loss.

It will be a good night yet. :)