REVIEW: Stone/ 10 Barrel/ Blue Jacket Suede

Here in Lexington it seems we've skipped fall and gone straight from summer to winter. One day temperatures in the 70s and shorts, seemingly the next it's damn near freezing and I'm looking for my boots. Normally I would find such an abrupt change unwelcome. But when I've got big malty beers waiting in the fridge a good cold snap is just what the doctor ordered. Today's beer is another one of Stone's many collaborations. This time it's an imperial porter brewed with avocado honey, jasmine and calendula flowers and is brewed with help from Washington D.C.'s Blue Jacket Brewery and from Bend, Oregon, 10 Barrel Brewing. To the beer!

REVIEW: The Bruery Autumn Maple

Alright, back to the fall seasonals after a brief respite. It's a bit different though. Instead of being brewed with pumpkins, The Bruery's Autumn Maple is brewed with yams. Throw those yams (17 pounds per barrel!) into the brew kettle along with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, vanilla, molasses, and maple syrup and then fermented with a Belgian yeast and you've got a recipe to make me sit up and take notice. To the beer!

REVIEW: Anderson Valley Fall Hornn'

The first pumpkin ale of the year! A truly momentous occasion. Some people don't love the pumpkin beers. Loyal readers will know that I am not one of those people. Today we've got a brand new fall seasonal from Anderson Valley, Fall Hornin'. A 6% ABV 20 IBU beer brewed with pumpkin and spices. Let's get to it. To the beer!

Fall Hornin' is appropriately autumnal in color. It pours a quite clear deep chestnut ruby hue topped by a layer of off-white head. Quite pretty.  

Spicy notes of cinnamon, ginger, allspice and a bit of nutmeg are contrasted by a sweet graham cracker maltiness. Sweet, spicy, very inviting. 

Fall Hornin' is medium bodied with a wonderful creaminess. The flavors mimic the nose fairly closely. Robust graham crackers sweetness is joined by notes of cinnamon and nutmeg. Sweet touches of vanilla come in before an earthy, spicy, balancing bitterness on the finish. 

This is one hell of a good pumpkin ale. Hearty, drinkable, spicy, and just all around excellent. This is one to keep your refrigerator stocked with all through the fall months. 

HD

REVIEW: Anchor Bigleaf Maple Red

The MLB post season is just around the corner, football is in full swing and this weekend there was a veritable chill in the air. That can only mean one thing, it's time for some fall seasonals. We begin this year's batch with a new one from Anchor. Bigleaf Maple Red a 6% ABV ale brewed with caramel and pale malts, Nelson Sauvin, Citra, and Cascade hops, and a little bit of maple syrup. To the beer!

REVIEW: Stone R&R Coconut IPA

Two wild brand new IPAs from Stone in as many posts? I must be doing something right. Today's beer, much like the last Stone collaboration beer I had (the fabulous and bizarre Dayman Coffee IPA), is borne of homebrewers. A couple of dudes, Robert Masterson and Ryan Reschan, won Stone's recent American Homebrewers Association contest and won the right to have their beer brewed at Stone with a little help from Paul Sangster and Guy Shobe of Rip Current Brewing. That's a pretty rad prize if I do say so myself. So a big west coast IPA brewed with an irresponsible amount of hops and hearty additions of toasted coconut? Sounds awesome. To the beer!

REVIEW: Stone 17th Anniversary Götterdämmerung IPA

I've been excited to try this beer ever since it was announced. You guys all know I'm a bit of a hop head. I love them all, east coast, west coast, English style, Belgian style, dry hopped, wet hopped, black IPAs, white IPAs, wheat IPAs, double IPAs, triple IPAs, barrel aged IPAs, even coffee IPAs, but never in my entire life have I had a German style IPA. As we all know the IPA originates out of English brewing tradition. It has become widely accepted by American brewers and has become one of the most popular beer styles in the world. But leave it to those devious bastards at Stone to take the IPA in a direction heretofore unknown to me. A beer brewed entirely with German pilsner malt and a host of German hops that checks in at 9.5% ABV and a beastly 102 IBUs. I can't wait. To the beer!

REVIEW: Ballast Point Tongue Buckler

Ballast Point and red ales, two things that I have really been digging lately. Where those two meet is this 10% ABV beast, Tongue Buckler. And that poor bastard on the label without a tongue! This is the last beer sitting in between us and the Canadian Craft beer. Let's get to it. To the beer!

REVIEW: Stone RuinTen

So, I've got a couple more north east beers from Trey to get to, but I accidentally left those notes in Lexington, I'm a mess, I know. But I've got plenty of beers to talk about so we're all good. The beer we're looking at today is a new Imperial IPA from Stone, Ruinten. Well, I guess it's not really a new beer at all. This beer was initially released last summer as Ruination Tenth Anniversary IPA. It was so well recieved that the're bringing it back now as simply, RuinTen. I'm pretty pumped because I missed out on the Ruination Tenth Anniversary IPA the first time around. I took a look at the original Ruination last summer and liked it quite a bit. Stone bills that one as, "A liquid poem to the glory of the hop." Ruinten however, they call "A stage dive into a mosh pit of hops" I think I like where this is headed. To the beer!

REVIEW: Anderson Valley Belk's ESB

I've had this beer in the fridge for a couple of weeks. I knew I would get to it sooner or later but the decision was made for me when I snagged that awesome glass you see up there. I'm a fan of Anderson Valley and I always dig an ESB. Let's dispense with the pleasantries and just get right down to it. To the beer!

REVIEW: Lagunitas Lucky 13

I'm very excited. I've finally got my grubby little paws on a bottle of Lagunitas. For reasons beyond me Lagunitas is distributed everywhere in Ohio except for the greater Cincinnati area. I believe you can get it in Dayton even, but not Cincinnati. I've been frustrated for years by the tales of how good their beer is. In my recent trip to Columbus I made it a mission to come back with at least one Lagunitas brew. I was successful. I have here a bomber of Lucky 13, which is described on the bottle as a mondo large red ale. Sounds pretty awesome. OK, today is the day I find out if all of the Lagunitas hype is warranted. To the beer!

REVIEW: Stone Espresso Imperial Russian Stout

I hinted the other day that If you knew how Stone handled their odd year limited releases that you might have an idea of what I was going to be taking a look at today. Well, here it is Stone's Imperial Russian Stout again! But this time brewed with copious amounts of espresso. On odd years. Stone tweaks the recipe for their IRS and their Old Guardian Barleywine. For example, this year's Old Guardian was made with smoked malt and oak aged, and in 2011 we had the Belgo Anise IRS (which I remember being pretty tasty!). It's very cool to see Stone really experiment and tweak these recipies. I'm a sucker for a big stout, any beer from stone, and a beer brewed with coffee. If ever a beer was a no brainer, it's this one. To the beer!

REVIEW: Stone Imperial Russian Stout

I missed out on this one last year. Not that I didn't see it around at liquor stores and bottle shops, but for whatever reason, I wasn't feeling in the mood for a giant imperial stout when this hit stores last spring. Stone's IRS comes out every April, which is usually a time when I'm starting to think about pale ales, saison's, and such. Not big hearty stouts. Perhaps this is sort of the same thing I noticed when I talked about Great Divide's Wolfgang. A big hearty doppelbock that came out in June. Sort of counter-programming to all of the lighter spring-summer seasonals on the shelves. But anyway, what we have here, is a 10.6% 60 IBU beast of an imperial stout. Let's get into it. To the beer!

REVIEW: Stone/ Aleman/ Two Brothers Dayman

I enjoy It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. It's never really been appointment viewing for me, but I enjoy it whenever I watch it. That's a long way of saying that I quite enjoy the name of this beer. I remember hearing about this beer quite a while ago when I watched this video from the Iron Brew Homebrew competition back in December. Well, I didn't have that video in my mind when I bought this bottle, but once I read the back of the label which talked about the origins of the beer I remembered back. So anyway, the guys at Aleman won the Iron Brew competition with their coffee IPA. Which combines two of my all time favorite beverages and sounds just bizarre enough to work. I'm very excited to try this one out. Let's not waste any more time. To the beer!

REVIEW: Dogfish Head/ Sierra Nevada Rhizing Bines

Today's beer is a collaboration between two giants of the craft beer world. From the west coast, Sierra Nevada, and the east, Dogfish Head. It's a collaboration in style, technique and ingredients. Rhizing Bines has been brewed with Carolina red fife wheat, Sierra Nevada's estate grown caramel malt as well as Bravo hops and a new experimental hop known only as Hop 664. It was brewed using Dogfish's continual hopping process used in the 60, 90, and 120 Minute IPAs and dry hopped using Sierra Nevada's torpedo system. Checks in at 8% ABV and 70 IBUs. To the beer!

REVIEW: 21st Amendment Lower De Boom

Barleywine week continues. It got off to a great start with Great Divide's Old Ruffian on Monday and today, we move on to a brewery that has been really impressing me over the last few months, 21st Amendment. Recently I have enjoyed the hell out of their Sneak Attack Saison and their Marooned on Hog Island oyster stout was absolutely terrific. Today I'm taking a look at their newest, Lower De Boom, a 92 IBU, 11.5% ABV beast. This is one big beer in one little can. That's probably a good thing though. Speaking of the can, I dig the minimalist style on this one. 21st Amendment has really endeared themselves to me with their detailed, quirky can art, but the simplicity of this one, the gold brick look, makes it stand out quite a bit. Enough about the can, let's get to what's inside it. To the beer!

REVIEW: Stony Lukcy Basartd

So, many of you have probably had Stone's Arrogant Bastard. I cooked with it once. And you've probably had the Oaked Arrogant Bastard. I paired that one with food. There's even a chance that you've had the Double Bastard. All three of those beers are pretty tremendous. Today's beer is all of those beers at once, and something completely different at the same time. Lukcy Basartd is a blend of all three and A beer that I've been looking to try for some time now. I was able to snag a bottle at Dutch's and now I get to share my thoughts on it with you fine, respectable folks. To the beer!

REVIEW: Ballast Point Victory at Sea

Well, the saison on monday was a lovely change of pace. But today we're back to the big, roasty, hearty beers. Today I'm taking a look at Ballast Point's Victory at Sea, a 10% ABV coffee vanilla imperial porter. That sounds right up my alley. Plus, I really enjoyed the Calico Amber that I had from Ballast Point back in the summer. If you missed that one you can check it out here. To the beer!

REVIEW: 21st Amendment Sneak Attack

So I've been looking at a lot of big hearty stouts lately. It's sort of the time though. It's awfully cold and big malty beers like that are prefect for cold windy nights like that. I love a good stout, that much should be apparent. But at a certain point, one stout after another can get a bit tiring. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks that way because 21st Amendment has just released, in the dead of winter, Sneak Attack. A belgian style saison brewed with cardamom. Plenty of info about the creation of the beer, including the story behind the name and the can art, both of this are tremendous by the way, can be found here. Recommended reading. To the beer!

REVIEW: 21st Amendment Marooned on Hog Island

More stouts! This one, however, is a bit different. This new offering from 21st Amendment is an oyster stout. The oyster stout is a historic beer style and from my very limited research (thanks Wikipedia!) I've learned that in 18th century British pubs oysters were the predominant pub fare, and many brewers made stouts to compliment the oysters and the pairing was born. In the early 20th Century a few brewers in New Zealand and England actually brewed beers with oysters in them. In the years since Oyster Stouts seem to be few and far between. As the craft beer scene has exploded I am noticing more and more resurgences of this historic style. And after trying this beer I am certain that this is a very encouraging development. Marooned on Hog Island is brewed using oyster shells from the Hog Island Oyster Company, hence the name. Lots more interesting info here. To the beer!

REVIEW: Sierra Nevada Narwhal

My foray into big hearty beers continues. Today I'm checking out Sierra Nevada's newest beer, Narwhal, an imperial stout. What a great name for a beer, and what an even cooler label! Clocks in at 10.2% ABV and 60 IBU. To the beer!