Ruination IPA

Brewer: Stone Brewing Company
Style: Imperial IPA
ABV: 7.7%
Country: USA, California

Stone brewing company is known for their bold and powerful beers. Not for the faint of heart for sure. The Ruination IPA proudly proclaims itself to be "A liquid poem to the glory of the hop." In that sense this brew certainly does not disappoint. This beer is listed at 100+ I.B.U.s (International Bitterness Units, yes thats real) which puts it past the theoretical limit of the unit. If you don't like hops, prepare to be knocked on your ass.

It pours out a cloudy gold which leaves a thin head which vanishes rapidly. Looking in the glass, I could literally see tiny bits of bitterness floating around. A sweet aroma gave a hint of honey and grapefruit.

The first sip yielded a nice, medium body with a touch of sweet malts and grapefruit. This was nothing more but a tease before the beer bent my mouth over and had its way with me. A big wave of piny, bitter hops exploded and stuck around. The dry and bitter aftertaste lingers and lingers and lingers. Did I mention that this stuff was bitter.

My wife tried a sip and said that it was so bitter it made her dizzy. This is serious business. Don't plan on drinking any other beers after this one if you expect to taste something other than bitter hops.

This backs a punch and is a great beer: a solid A

Photos by: http://marleyphoto.oliad.com/

Great Divide Yeti Imperial Stout

Great Divide is a brewery in Denver Colorado that has been putting out some amazing stouts. I don't like to check online ratings of a beer before I post my review, but I looked up Great Divide on www.ratebeer.com and found them to have 3 different varieties of their imperial stout that all score the highest rating of 100.

This particular version comes in at 9.5% ABV and an amazing 75 IBU's (for a stout). It pours like motor oil, and instantly gives off a strong and delicious roasted coffee aroma when you start to pour. It has virtually no carbonation or head to speak of. Initially this beer tastes typical of a roasty stout, but has a toffee-like quality to it. It is a very heavy bodied stout. This beer shines in the aftertaste. After having this delicious nectar in your mouth for a few seconds and swallowing it, you get an amazingly complex taste in the aftertaste. I actually couldn't put my finger on it at first, until I read that this beer has 75 IBU (International Bittering Unit's), which is high for a stout. I also hadn't realized that it was 9.5% ABV until I was half way through with it and was wondering why my body was instinctively telling me to take it slow with this beer :)

I had this beer with a spicy chili... which probably wasn't the best pairing for such a heavy beer, but it was a great experience nonetheless. I'd give this a solid A rating.

-Bo

NoVA Homebrew Club & Delirium Noël

In renewing my interest in homebrewing, I decided to look up any local homebrewing clubs to see if I could find someone who was doing an all-grain batch so that I could learn from them.

To anyone not familiar with homebrewing beer, there are a few "methods" generally used to make some delicious brew. One way is called "Extract Brewing" where people use a can of malt extract and pour it directly into the boil kettle in order to have yummy fermentable sugars for the yeast to gobble up during the fermentation process. Another way, which commercial brewers use, is called "All-grain" brewing. As the name implies, you get all your fermentable sugars by steeping a pile of cracked grains in hot water for an amount of time, before transferring that goodness to a boil kettle.

Anyways, I managed to contact the Nothern Virginia Homebrew Club and asked its members if anyone was doing an all-grain brew anytime soon, and if I could observe/help them. Turns out that one of the founders, Mitch, was doing a brew and invited me out. It was a great experience. He ended up using his new 3-tier brewing "sculpture" to brew. It ended up being a fairly long day because of a combination of his recipe requiring long periods of time and a few errors on our part :)

A tradition of homebrewing for most people is to drink a homebrew during the brewing process. Since I didn't have any homebrew, I offered up to Mitch a bottle of what is one of my favorite beers: Delirium Noël.

Delirium Noël is a seasonal beer and is only out for a few weeks close to the winter holidays, so I suggest that you go out and snag one ASAP. It is a strong belgium ale that sits at 10% ABV. My picture doesn't do it justice, but it pours an amber color with an orange glow to it. The aroma on this beer is excellent, and smells like a combination of citrus notes and holiday spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. It has a very slightly roasty flavor characteristic, but mostly the taste that comes through is the sweetness of the malt. It has a pleasant citrusy/ale aftertaste and the alcohol in this beer is sure to warm your belly on a cold winter night.

I give this beer an A+ and will certainly be grabbing another bottle or two before the end of the month. Cheers!

-Bo

Shenandoah Brewing Company - Brew Your Own

Friday I got the chance to watch my friend and his Dad make their own beer at the Shenandoah Brewing Company in Alexandria, VA. It was a pretty cool experience.

When you first arrive, you sample a few different beer styles that they have on tap, to see if you'd like to brew any of those. They also have a large variety of recipes to choose from. My friends decided to brew a clone of Fat Tire IPA.

After choosing your recipe, and weighing all your ingredients, you head over to the beautiful copper-shrouded stainless steel kettles. They have about 8 of these on hand, and there were several groups of people in the space that were brewing along side us. After steeping a pile of grains for 15 minutes, we dumped in the liquid malt extracts and the first set of hops. After a schedule of dumping hops in for an hour, the delicious beer was pumped into a large plastic fermentation container, and we pitched some yeast in there.

Hopefully in 3-4 weeks we'll have some delicious brew.

During the whole process, I got to drink on of their beers on tap. Old Rag Mountain Ale is a dark scottish-style ale. It has a slightly malty aroma, very light body, and a slightly alcohol-like aftertaste that isn't necessarily pleasant. People at the pub were mentioning how it is their best beer on tap. I would probably drink more of this, being the only dark beer in the joint, but there certainly was not anything special about it.

I'd give it a C+.

-Bo

In Heat Wheat

Brewer: Flying Dog Brewery
Style: Hefeweizen
ABV: 4.7%
Country: USA, Maryland

I'm usually not a fan of wheat beers, but it had been a long time since I've had one I decided to give one a shot.

It poured a cloudy, bright-yellow with a good, finger-sized head and a lingering lace.

Wheat is dominant in the aroma with a hint of spiciness.

The wheat is also dominant in the taste with a little bit of sweet licorice in the mix. Nearly no bitterness to speak of in the clean finish. Body is on the lighter end of the spectrum with a good amount of carbonation.

This beer went down quickly, however, the taste fades quickly as well. Not much jumps out at me from this one making it pretty forgettable. C-

Burton Baton

Brewer: Dogfish Head Brewery
Style: Imperial IPA
ABV: 10%
Country: USA, Delaware

Looks like this will be the first (of many) Dogfish Head beers consumed for blogging purposes. I'm a big fan of plenty of the brews they put out as well as their willingness to try different things. I hope their new show on Discovery Channel brings them some recognition and popularity.

The Burton Baton claims to be "a two-thread blend of young & wood-aged Imperial i.p.a" I'm a fan of big IPAs and Dogfish can pull off some incredible IPAs, my favorite being the 90 Minute IPA.

I poured this into my loyal pint glass. The color was a bright and coppery amber. Very clear. A one finger head finished with a thin lace. This essentially looked like a glass of whiskey with a head on it.

The aroma, starts big and hoppy with plenty of citrus, mostly oranges and pineapples. Alcohol is certainly powerful and finishes things out. As I worked my way down the glass the scent of alcohol increased and dominated.

It had a big hop taste with plenty of bitterness. Sweet honey malts and pineapple hops, though, are quickly overpowered by the bitterness and the strong taste of alcohol. Oak wood flavors show up along with the alcohol continuing to reminded me of a glass of Jack Daniels. The aftertaste is long and warm. The Burton doesn't make any attempts to hide the large amount of alcohol within.

The idea of an IPA whiskey hybrid is certainly interesting but overall the wood and alcohol flavors are too overpowering. I prefer my IPAs to do a better job of concealing the alcohol though and in the end this was a bit too much. I wanted to like this one but I can't see myself trying this again.

Grade: C+

Photos by: http://marleyphoto.oliad.com/

Victory Prima Pils

Brewer: Victory Brewing Company
Style: German Pilsner
ABV: 5.3%
Country: USA, Pennsylvania


I grabbed this bottle at the always amazing Total Wine. Seriously, I'm like a kid in a candy store there. It takes me for ever to make up my mind among the awesome choices.

Anyhow, I poured this one into my ever handy pint glass. It pours a bright, sunny yellow. Head was about a finger thick that settled into a nice, lingering lace.

The aroma was mild and grainy with a hint of citrus.

Flavor is sweet and malty with a medium body. This wasn't overly carbonated allowing it to be easily swirled around the mouth. There are more bitter than floral hops but the citrus scent shines through along with a hint of spice near the end. Aftertaste is crisp with a dry and bitter finish that is well balanced with the sweet malts and more grain flavor. Overall this is a good, drinkable beer even though I usually prefer something with more flavor. There is certainly more bitterness than is usually found in a pilsner. I could certainly put a few of these back in one sitting.

I'll give this one a nice and solid B+