April « 2009 « Brews and Blues

25Apr/090

Clipper City – Heavy Seas Peg Leg Imperial Stout

This is the first really warm day we have had this spring. I just finished mowing the yard and decided to sit down with a beer and cool off. It's 85 degrees outside and I worked up a little sweat in the yard. Oddly enough, I didn't decide to have a nice refreshing summertime beer. I wanted to try the Heavy Seas Peg Leg Imperial Stout by Clipper City Brewing Company.

From the website:

A dry imperial stout with rich black color and aromas of roasted coffee, molasses, dark chocolate, toffee and caramel. Rich, powerful, and lingering.

ABV: Approximately 8%

This is one of the richer imperial stouts I have tried lately, but I'm coming into a time of year where I won't drink a lot of stouts and porters. I still have a few left in my sampling stash, but I probably won't start buying these again until the fall. I love stouts and porters, but to me, these are cold weather drinks for the most part. I like lighter colored beers in the summer months that aren't so heavy in the glass. Some of these stouts and porters are like a meal in a glass :)

19Apr/090

Bell’s Kalamazoo Stout

Here's yet another sampling from Bell's Brewery, Inc. in Comstock, Michigan. This robust stout, as you can see in my photo, has a very rich and chocolate colored head, and it's also brewed with Brewer's Licorice, which gives it a very unique flavor. The licorice hints in this beer leave an interesting after taste that puts this beer into the list of excellent choices for an after dinner or dessert beer along with many others in the style. This stout rings in at 6.0% ABV, so it isn't overpowering.

Filed under: American Stout, Beer Reviews No Comments

18Apr/091

Hickory Hops 2009

Once a year, on Union Square in Downtown Hickory, North Carolina, the Hickory Hops Brew Festival brings several thousand people in from Hickory and the surrounding areas for an afternoon of pure good times. With the bands "WSNB" and "Baby Black" pumping the music from the stage all afternoon, beer fans strolled the premises sampling beer from 40 different regional breweries. When you arrive at this festival, you get a glass like the one shown above with your admission. The glass holds about 6 ounces or so, and you just carry it around with you for all the samples of beer from the various breweries that you can handle.

Several of the breweries had displays set up like this one to show visitors what actually goes into making beer. On this table, there are two different types of hop leaves and three different grains that are used by this brewery in their ales. The grains are crushed and then soaked in hot water, which activates enzymes within them that convert the starches to sugars. The sugars that come out in the water are what gets fermented into beer by the yeast that gets added. The purpose of hops in beer are to provide bitterness (or to balance the sweetness of the sugars) and to give those wonderful aromas you smell when you crack open a good beer.

The pretzel necklaces are something that I ALWAYS forget to make for myself before I attend this event. I always remember as soon as I get there, but I forget to do it every time. As many of these events as I have attended, It seems like I would remember. Someone needs to remind me to do this before next year's event. It's not a good idea to drink a lot of beer (or any alcohol for that matter) without eating a little to go along with it.

I met people from all over the place today. When I first started making photos, I bet I talked to 20 people before I found one from Hickory. I know I talked to people from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, so people really did come from all over the place to attend this event.

Bobby Bush, a.k.a. Suds Brewer, took the stage during the afternoon to announce the winners of the beer competition. Unfortunately, I did not write down the winners, but the third place prize went to Liberty Steakhouse & Brewery (High Point, NC) for their dry-hopped Kellerbier. The other unfortunate item about the winners of this competition is that the third place winner was the only winning brew that was available for tasting at today's event.

I'll tell you a secret about Bobby... Before I met Bobby back in about 1992, I was a BudMillerCoors beer drinker. I also enjoyed fine imports such as Heineken and Fosters. I didn't know good beer from bad beer and I had never tried many micro/craft brews or home brewed beer before. Bobby introduced me to a lot of excellent microbrews and invited me to his home on many occasions to watch and assist him with his own home brewing. After working with Bobby on home brewing two or three times, I was hooked. I gathered the equipment I needed to do it myself and never looked back. People like Bobby are great for the craft beer industry. He teaches people how to enjoy real beer and helps them find beers that they really like.

Yours truly was captured by local beer fan and photographer Tom Devlin at today's festival. I was sampling my last beer of the day, which was Pisgah Brewing's Belgian Trippel...

I didn't get to try as many beers as I had hoped for today, but I did manage to taste 16 beers. They are as follows:

Foothills Brewing - Torch Pilsner
Highland Brewing Co. - Cattail Peak Organic Wheat
Lone Rider Brewing - Shotgun Betty Hefeweizen
RJ Rockers Brewing Co. - Bald Eagle Brown
Big Boss Brewing Co. - Angry Angel Kolsch
Kona Brewing Co. - Longboard Island Lager
Moon River Brewing Co. - Savannah Fest Bier
Natty Green's Brewing Co. - Old Town Brown
Foothills Brewing - People's Porter
Heinzelmannchen Brewery - Big Amber Gnome Ale
Liberty Steakhouse & Brewery - Kellerbier
Gordon Biersch - Marzen
Clipper City Brewing - Holy Sheet Uber Abbey Ale
Mash House Chop House & Brewery - Ravishing Red
New South Brewing - ESB
Pisgah Brewing Co. - Belgian Trippel

I had to take it rather easy today because I did not have a ride home and I was technically working, so I had to behave.

If life treats me well and lets me find a job after I graduate in May, I hope to attend the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colorado either in 2010 or 2011...

Filed under: Events 1 Comment

16Apr/090

Carolina Beer Company – Cottonwood Low Down Brown

After a really long day, I came home and decided to try another new brew from my "not tried" stash. I didn't want anything too hardcore because it has been such a long day, so I pulled out the Cottonwood Low Down Brown from Carolina Beer Company. I popped the top and poured it in the glass for a quick inspection. The beer does have a nice brown tone, but the head was very reminiscent of the recent Samurai Ale from Great Divide's collection. It was more of a soda head that quickly subsided and faded to nothing within just a few minutes. Luckily, this beer stands heads and shoulders above the mighty Samurai in flavor and texture. This brew has a nice malty body and a slight hint of chocolate that makes it hang tough with the rest of the beers in the Brown Ale family. With the exception of the poor head, this is as good as any Brown Ale I have tried.

When I pulled this one from the fridge, I restocked the spot with another selection from Bell's, so I hope to have that one featured shortly...

Filed under: Beer Reviews, English Brown Ale No Comments

12Apr/090

Sierra Nevada Summerfest Lager

When I was at the World Market last week, I noticed this beer sitting on the shelf so I decided to give it a try. The 2009 Summerfest Lager is a seasonal brew from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, California. There isn't much information on the label to tell you what to expect when you pop the cap. Most of the beers I have tasted in the past that identify themselves with summer usually have a little bit of a lemon flavor and aroma, but that's not the case with this beer. This beer is based on the pilsner style that carries a rather refreshing and crisp kick with a nice hop presence that doesn't go overboard into the realm of bitterness. This beer did not form a great head and it dissipated rather quickly as well with no traces of lacing left behind on the glass. This beer rings in at 5.0% ABV and an IBU rating of 32.

Filed under: Beer Reviews, Czech Pilsener, Seasonal No Comments

11Apr/093

Great Divide Samurai Ale

This is my second sampling of the four different Great Divide Brewing Company beers I purchased in an assorted 12-pack. The head on this beer was rather explosive when I poured it, and it's not a thick and creamy head at all. It's more of a soft drink type head that subsides rather quickly. From the bottle:

Brewed with rice and barley malts, Samurai is an easy drinking, unfiltered ale that changes the status quo for unfiltered beers. The addition of rice gives Samurai a crisp, refreshing and clean taste. This is definitely not your everyday unfiltered beer.

Hmmm... Maybe it's not an everyday unfiltered beer. At best, I would call it an every other day unfiltered beer. This brew did not impress me very much. I could probably be beaten in public for saying this, but rice is what makes Budweiser what it is :)

This beer is for the SBB crowd (something besides Budweiser). It's mildly different and those who drink fancy imports like Heineken and Foster's can have this beer and not feel left out when everyone else is drinking home brew and great micro/craft beers.