Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale

Brewery: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
Style: Barleywine
ABV: 9.6%
Country: USA, California

This is actually my first barleywine and I'm rather surprised it has taken me this long to pick one up to try. Typically, barleywines are among the most potent of the styles. ABVs start at 8% and only go up. These beers are usually dark, full of complex flavors, and bitter. Sierra Nevada is a brewer I've had enjoyed in the past, so I figured this would be a good barleywine to start with.

Pour showed a color that was rich and reddish brown. It had a small, off-white head that reduced quickly but left a thick layer of lacing that hung around until the very end. A flavorful aroma was dominated by pine and citrus. First thing I noticed when sipping was the thick body. It was nearly syrup like in its thickness but felt silky smooth and creamy. Hops certianly dominated the flavor with a sticky pine flavor along with grapefruit citrus. Behind the hops were some hints of the malts, a bit of sweetness and toasted flavors. A massive wave of bitterness popped and lingered for a long time after the sips were finished. Some alcohol was noticeable in the finish which lent a nice warming spiciness that hung around while holding hands with the bitterness.

Overall, this beer drank like a slightly less hoppy Imperial IPA with a beefed up body. In other words, this was tasty. This would also be a good beer to cellar for a year or two to see how the alcohol flavors change and mellow. I'll probably end up buying a few more to do just that. A-

Pilsner Urquell

Brewery: Pilsner Urquell
Style: Pilsner
ABV: 4.4%
Country: Czech Republic

Pilsner Urquell comes from the Plzen region of the Czech Republic. Astute readers with futures as police detectives will notice that Pilsner is awfully similar to Plzen. The reason for this would be the fact that the Plzen region gave birth to the Pilsner style of beer. One of the main reasons for this was that the soft water present in the region gave the beer a unique character at the time. The style goes back to 1842 and Pilsner Urquell claims to be the standard bearer of the original. As most lagers produced and consumed are of the light pilsner style, this is a bit of a big deal in the beer family tree.

Pored a bright straw yellow and perfectly clear. Standard sized head was bright white and settled out rather quickly. Aroma was plenty grassy and earthy. The aroma is often described as "skunky" though for this beer, it is a desired characteristic. A "skunked" beer is on that has been damaged from UV rays. In this case, the "skunky" flavor comes from the yeast and hops. First flavors of the sip match the aroma perfectly with both grassy and earthy. The mouth feel was fantastic with a nice heft to it that was crisp and bubbly. Finish had a light bitterness along with some biscuity malts. Overall I really enjoyed this one. Clean and simple, this is easy to drink but still has enough malt and hop presence to not be dull. B

Dogfish Head Saison du Buff

Brewery: Dogfish Head Brewery
Style: Saison
ABV: 6.8%
Country: USA, Delaware

Saison du Buff is a collaborative brew among three brewers that have all been featured on this blog: Dogfish Head, Stone, and Victory. Each brewery has their own version of this beer that has their own unique twist to the concept. Saison is also known as a farmhouse ale which was originally brewed by farmers in Belgium to help them through the harvest season. This particular version, according to the bottle, is brewed with parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

The pour on this was fantastic. Huge amount of bright white bubbles came billowing out and hung around as a fluffy head the entire time. The color was a bright, pale gold that was hazy. Quite inviting. I had to do a lot of waiting for the head to settle before I could dive into this one. Smell was sweet and earthy, I managed to pick out the thyme and rosemary that the bottle proclaimed. Taste was quite sweet up front that quickly transitioned into an herbal and earthy flavor. This transitioned into a finish that was quite dry. No bitterness was really found, but the earthiness continued into the finish. I couldn't distinctly pick out the herbs mentioned on the bottle in the taste as I could in the aroma. Plenty of carbonation was present which isn't surprising given the massive head that was present. Overall, while I thought this was a good beer, I didn't think there was anything too special that would make me want to have this again. My guess is that this has to do more with the style of beer than the beer itself. C+

Photos courtesy of ShutterMug

Chimay Grande Reserve

Brewery: Bieres de Chimay
Style: Belgian Strong Dark Ale
ABV: 9.0%
Country: Belgium

This looks to be the first authentic Trappist ale to be reviewed on this blog. I had thought I had talked in depth about Trappist ales before, but couldn't find any posts mentioning them. Essentially a Trappist ale is a style of ale brewed in a monastery by monks. Trappist monks are also known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance , a Roman-Catholic order. Essentially these monks produce goods to be sold to support their monastery.

Of the 171 Trappist monasteries in the world, seven produce beer as their offering. Six are in Belgium and one is in the Netherlands. These beers are the only ones allowed to carry the "Authentic Trappist Product" logo on the bottle. The beer making monasteries are: Chimay, Rochefort, Orval, Westmalle, Westvleteren, Archel, and Koningshoeven. These beers are some of the most highly renowned beers in the world. I've had Westmalle. I have three different Rocheforts cellared. Westvleteren is rated by both beeradvocate and ratebeer as the top beer in the world. That being said, I had high expectations for the Chimay Grande Reserve.

Pour was a dark cloudy brown with a thick, bubbly, tan foam. I couldn't pick up too much aroma surprisingly. What I found was some sweetness present with a bit of chocolate near the end.

The first taste was syrupy sweet, lots of raisins present. There was a pleasing clove spiciness that showed up as well. No bitterness to speak of. The moth was nice and velvety and not too carbonated. Went down quite well and the alcohol is totally masked.

While this was a good beer, I feel that it was a bit over-hyped. Frankly I was expecting more from it. I'd drink it again for sure, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it. B

First attempt at home brewing

So it has finally come to this. No more taking the easy way out by sipping on brews where all the hard work was already done. It was time to step up to the big leagues and brew my own beer. I had received the Ale Pail brew kit for Christmas and was biding my time while the last components I need to start a batch showed up. On Friday, my 20 Qt stock pot showed up from Amazon and I knew it would be a good night to start.

For my first batch I went with a pale ale recipe from the How To Brew book with a few modifications to make it my own. For my malts, I'm using are a couple of cans of Munton's Light Malt Extract, Briess Caramel Malt, and Fawcett Pale Chocolate malt. My hops will be Northern Brewer hops for bittering, Cascade hops for bittering and finishing, and Glacier hops for finishing. Yeast is a liquid strain of American Ale yeast.

The first step of this process was to heat up some water to steep my specialty malts in. So I added one gallon of water to my 5 gallon pot, placed it on my old electric range and waited. And waited. And waited a bit more. It took the better part of an hour and the thermometer was only registering 140, I'd need to get this up to at least 150 (preferably up to 160) in order get the mash to start releasing the sugars which will be turned into sweet, nourishing alcohol by the yeast later on.

My problem here was that my range is flat and my pot was so large that it didn't sit flush with the element so there is a layer of air that made this grossly inefficient. Luckily, I remembered that my propane grill outside has a side element that would be perfect for this. So-what that it was the middle of a winter night and it was well below freezing with snow on the way? I had beer to brew damn-it! So I fired up the grill and transferred my pot. In no time flat I hit my temperature and I was ready to steep. Thank you clean, efficient, beautiful propane. Hank Hill would be proud.

I steeped for thirty minutes and had a nice looking wort going. I'm hoping that the caramel and chocolate malt will impart some nice sweetness and roasted notes to the final product. Next step was to add the main malts and start the hop boil.

This was the first time I had seen a liquid malt extract before, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The best way to put it is that it makes molasses look watery by comparison. Took awhile to scoop this mess out and into the pot. Once I got it out, I brought my water level up to three gallons and cranked up the heat. Even using propane, I figured it'd take a while to bring this to a boil. About twenty minutes in I started to worry. The grill had been running on one tank all summer long and had gotten plenty of use. Lifting the tank, it didn't quite feel empty, but it was no where near full. If I ran out of gas halfway through, I'd be toast. The electric range would never heat this enough and everything I'd done to this point would be a waste. My paranoia got the best of me so I did what any sane and rational person would do in this situation. Jumped in the car in shorts and moccasins and sped off the Home Depot which was closing in 10 minutes. I left instructions with my brother-in-law AJ to start the hops if the pot started boiling before I returned.

Luckily we live close to the Depot and had green lights all the way (read: I sped like a maniac through a string of yellow lights while screaming "I NEED PROPANE!!!"). I made it with five minutes to spare, got my tank and headed home. I made it home with no problem and found the kettle boiling nicely with the first hops already added and a timer counting down to the next addition.

Hops were added at the 60, 30, and 15 minute marks. Bittering hops are added early, flavoring hops are added half way through, and finishing hops are added at the end. The reason for this is that hops contain alpha acid humulone resins and volatile oils that impart the characteristic flavor and aroma. As the hops boil, the alpha acids isomerize and impart their bitter flavor. On the other hand, the boiling breaks down the oils which takes away their aroma and flavor. For that reason you add your aroma and flavoring hops later in the boil to keep these aromas present and hopefully create a yummy beer.

Once the boil finished, I added another can of the Muntons and turned off the gas. I waited about ten minutes while the remaining heat pasteurized the malt. I now had what is called a wort, essentially young, not yet fermented beer. Next I needed to cool the wort quickly and induce the "cold break." The cold break is when the rapid change in temperature causes residual proteins to coagulate and settle to the bottom of the kettle. While not critical, this makes the beer clearer later on prevents chill haze from occurring.

AJ and I had a tub filled with ice and water and we plunged the pot right in. It took maybe twenty minutes for the temperature to drop from 220 to 80 degrees. We saw the cold break, which looks sort of gross, and pulled the pot out. I poured the contents into my fermenting tub and added water to bring the total volume to five gallons. I pitched the yeast and sealed the lid. Last thing left was to add the airlock. This allows for any CO2 to bubble out while the wort ferments while keeping air and bacteria out. CO2 is later created by adding more sugar and allowing fermentation to occur in the bottle.

While pushing the air lock into the lid gasket, I got a little too excited and managed to push the gasket straight through and into the wort! AJ and I exchanged glances like a pair of deer stuck in head lights. There was a ton of foam in the tub so hopefully the gasket would be resting peacefully on top. No such luck, we could see a spot in the foam where it had fallen straight through. We sanitized a spoon and went hunting for the missing gasket. Still no luck. We sealed the tub back up and place the air lock in the now gasket-less hole. Luckily it seemed air tight enough. Pushing the lid down caused the water to rise in the air lock meaning air wasn't escaping around the sides. The gasket itself was sterilized so it shouldn't hurt the beer.

Currently I'm playing the waiting game. The yeast should start fermentation in the next couple of hours and in about two weeks this should be ready to bottle. Hopefully this will become a delicious batch of beer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Fraoch Heather Ale

Brewery: Williams Brothers Brewing Company
Style: Scottish Gruit
ABV: 5%
Country: Scotland

The bottle for this one caught my eye. It had ancient looking Scottish runes and sigils all over the label. Looked like something William Wallace would drink. Claimed to be brewed since 2000 b.c. from an ancient recipe, I was sold.

Turns out that this style is called a Gruit. My good friend Jimmy Wales tells me that Gruit is a herb mixture used to flavor and bitter beer. The Fraoch variety of gruit uses heather flowers, sweet gale, and ginger. Gruit was used until the 11th century when hops started to be used as the main bitterer/flavorer/preserver of beer.

Poured a delicious looking bright amber color with a decent, white head. Aroma was light and sweet. Taste was similar to the smell, light and flowery. Malts were sweet and filled with a touch of herbs. Carbonation was also light which allowed for more of the buttery smooth body to show through. Finish had some grains making an appearance with a hint of spiciness. Nice and dry finish. No bitterness at all seeing as this style predated the use of hops. Unique and quite different than what I've been drinking recently. A good choice if you're looking for something new. This would be a good beer for a hot summer day. I was hoping for a bit more though. Still enjoyable, B

Stiegl Goldbrau Lager

Brewer: Stieglbrauerei zu Salzburg
Style: Pale Lager
ABV: 4.9%
Country: Austria

According to the bottle, the Stiegl brewery dates back to 1492. "Brewed from malt, hops, yeast, mountain spring water according to the 'Purity Law of 1516'" This law limited the ingredients to only barley, water, and hops. Yeast, though a critical component of brewing beer, was not on this list simply because at the time its presence in the fermentation process was unknown. The yeasts that fermented beers would have been naturally occurring in the area. The other method for obtaining the unknown yeast would have been to use sediment from the previous batch of beer. The goal of the original purity laws was to keep cereal grains other than barley cheap for human consumption. The fear was that demand for wheat, rye, oats, etc in beer would drive up prices for people needing to eat said grain or bakers using the grain.

Poured a light, golden-brown. Clarity was very good, I could see straight through the glass. A thin white head dissipated leaving no lace.

The smell was sweet and grainy. Plenty of maltiness with a bit of honey in the mix.

Fruity sweet malts were present up front, taste of apples. Sweetness was not overpowering and very delicious. Body was light with plenty of carbonation. The finish was full with the taste of the grains and almost no bitterness. This was incredibly refreshing and well balanced, no single flavor or taste dominated over the others. It would be easy to drink a lot of these in a row. This would certainly make a good session beer. B+

Snake Dog IPA

Brewer: Flying Dog
Style: India Pale Ale
ABV: 7.1%
Country: USA, Maryland

Beer 101: The India Pale Ale gets its name not because it was brewed in India, but because it was a pale ale that was brewed for British soldiers stationed in India during the 18th century. To survive the long sea voyage, the pale ale was loaded up with more hops (which are a natural preservative) and fermented to have a higher alcohol content (another wonderful, natural preservative). The result is a big, bold, brew with a long shelf life. An IPA will have lots of floral hop aromas and a big bitter finish (60+ IBUs). The next step in the food chain is the Imperial/Double IPA which has even more malt, more hops, and more alcohol than a standard IPA. Imperial IPAs will have IBUs over 70 and an ABVs well over 7%. This style has been recently popular among American microbreweries and is easy to find, a hophead's dream come true.


Poured a rich golden bronze. Had a thick, off-white head that left plenty of lingering lace.

The aroma was what you'd expect for an IPA. Plenty of sweet citrus notes with a bit of pine. It tasted just like it smelled which is a good thing. Big flavor with plenty of hops but no surprises. A nice bitter finish does a good job of evening out the sweet malts.

So far this is one of the better of the Flying Dog ales. This also serves as a good measuring stick to compare other IPAs to. Not boring but nothing unique. A solid B