Brewery: Terrapin Beer Company
Where: Athens, GA
Beer: Terrapin Golden Ale
Style: American Blonde Ale
IBU: 21
ABV: 5.3%

Here's another excellent session beer for an all-afternoon binge on a hot summer day...  Terrapin Beer Company's Golden Ale is a light-bodied ale that is just running over with flavor and refreshing crispness that goes perfect with a sunny 90° afternoon in August.  This beer pours with a rich golden color and a thick foamy head that hangs around for a long time.  There is very little hop presence in the nose but its nearly perfectly balanced with the malt, letting the sweetness of the Munich and Vienna malts show through nicely.  I'm a big fan of this beer style, even though it's not really a favorite of most hardcore home brewers and micro/craft beer aficionados that I know.  It's a simple beer without a lot of frills, but they just taste great!

Brewery: Boston Beer Company
Where: Boston, MA
Beer: Samuel Adams Coastal Wheat
Style: American Pale Wheat Ale
IBU: N/A
ABV: 5.4%

In my humble opinion, wheat beers are some of the best thirst quenching brews for the hot summer months.  Their light body and sweet flavor with a minimal hop presence make a fantastic summertime beer choice.  The Coastal Wheat from the Samuel Adams Brewmaster's Collection is proving to be a formidable competitor in this style.  Most of the really good wheat beers that I have tasted are brewed with some sort of small spice element, whether it be coriander or a citrus addition.  A lot of them are slightly heavy on this aspect of the brew, but the Coastal Wheat has an infusion of lemon peel that creates a perfect balance within this beer.  Some may not like this comment, but this beer is going to rank somewhere near the level of the Bell's Oberon in my book.  If you are a fan of wheat beers, I suggest you try this one.  If you haven't tried Oberon, maybe you should pick up a sixer of that too and try them side by side. 

Brewery: Rogue Ales
Where: Newport, Oregon
Beer: Chatoe Rogue First Growth Wet Hop Ale
Style: American Pale Ale
IBU: 40
ABV: 6.4%

Here we have another installment from one of my favorite breweries.  The Chatoe Rogue First Growth Wet Hop Ale has been sitting on my shelf for a while now so I decided to chill it and pop the top this evening to see what's been going on in Oregon lately.  The First Growth Wet Hop Ale is an American pale ale with a fantastic hop flavor and aroma.  It has a rich golden orange appearance in the glass with a thick head.  The flavor is quite crisp and refreshing with a very nice hop presence.  The Munich malts used by Rogue in this beer give it a very nice malt presence when coupled with the two-row pale malt.  The hops used in this beer are first growth Independent and Revolution.  They come together for a great bitterness and piney flavor. 

Sometimes it sucks to live on the east coast.  There are some great beers made around here but the west coast is still the beer cultural center of the free world, in my humble opinion :)  Rogue has several beers in the Chatoe Rogue First Growth series, but this is the only one I could get my hands on...  Maybe I just need to travel more...

Brewery: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
Where: Chico, CA
Beer: Tumbler Autumn Brown Ale
Style: American Brown Ale
IBU: 37 IBU
ABV: 5.5%

I was in a local convenient store the other night and decided to have a look at their beer cooler.  I'm glad I did because I found a sixer of Sierra Nevada's Tumbler Autumn Brown Ale, which is one of their seasonals that I haven't tried yet.  As far as breweries go, Sierra Nevada seems to be consistently one of my favorite alongside Rogue Ales and a few others.  It's just one of those where I never taste a beer that I wouldn't want to have a second glass...  Consistently excellent at every turn. 

Sierra Nevada's Tumbler Autumn Brown Ale has a rich brown color with a thick head in the glass.  It has an immediate aroma of northwestern hops and a sweetness on the tongue created by the combination of two-row pale, crystal, chocolate, and smoked malts.  The sweetness lingers, which suits me just fine!  From the website:

As the nights grow cool, the leaves on the valley oaks begin to turn and fall.  In honor of this yearly dance, we bring you Tumbler Autumn Brown Ale and invite you to enjoy the show.  We use malt within days of roasting at the peak of its flavor to give Tumbler a gracefully smooth malt character.  So pour a glass, and grab a window seat to watch as the leaves come tumbling down.

Reading that makes me wish this summer heat around here would ease up just a bit... Fall is just around the corner.  As the weather cools, I'll be working on beers more like this one and the darker varities of stouts to keep things warm inside...

Give this one a try!

Brewery: Brooklyn Brewery
Where: Brooklyn, New York
Beer: Brooklyn Brown Ale
Style: American Brown Ale
IBU: N/A
ABV: 5.6%

Tonight's sampling is from The Brooklyn Brewery in Brooklyn, New York.  This is my first sampling from this brewery, and I decided to start with their Brooklyn Brown Ale.  This beer poured with the expected deep brownish bronze color and a nice foamy head.  This beer has a nice sweetness about it along with some interesting roasted flavors.  This taste comes from the British Two-row, Belgian aromatic, and American roasted malts that Brooklyn Brewery uses to make this brew.  The hop characteristcs are rather subdued as dictated by this style, but the combination of Willamette, Cascade, and American Fuggles that Brooklyn blends for this beer create a nice earthy flavor and aroma with some mild hints of the northwestern nose of cascade and willamette hops. 

As compared to others in the style, the Brooklyn Brown Ale doesn't really stand out of the crowd for me, but it is, none-the-less, a very good beer.  I recommend giving it a try!

Brewery: Anchor Brewing Company
Where: San Francisco, CA
Beer: Anchor Steam Beer
Style: California Common / Steam Beer
IBU: N/A
ABV: 4.9%

Today's tasting sample is another from Anchor Brewing in San Francisco.  Anchor Steam is a staple of their line-up and a definite favorite of fans.  This beer is a lager that is actually fermented at higher-than-average temperatures for a lager, and the brewing method of this style dates back into the late 1800's in California when refrigeration was not so common.  Anchor Steam was first brewed in 1896, so it has a healthy track record for sure.  This beer has a nice malt backbone with a noticeable hop presence on the tongue and the nose.  The rich golden color and the foamy head accompany the excellent flavor of this drink.  This choice is an excellent summertime quaff and with the temperature here in the mid 90's this afternoon, I'm certainly enjoying this one...

Brewery: Sierra Nevada
Where: Chico, California
Beer: Glissade Golden Bock
Style: Maibock / Helles Bock
IBU: 42
ABV: 6.4%

Welcome back.  I haven't written a beer review in quite a while, and I should be punished for it.  I have a huge stash of tasting samples that I really need to get rolling on again.  The beer has been stacking up way faster than I have been drinking it lately.  I have about two cases of individuals ready for tasting, so let's get rolling with another entry from those great folks out in Chico, California...

I'm never one to pass up a chance at any of Sierra Nevada's offerings.  I saw some of the Glissade Golden Bock in a local cooler so I grabbed a sixer and stuffed it in the cart.  This beer poured with a rich golden color and a thick foamy head.  The hop aroma of this beer was a bit subdued, but that is normal for this style.  It's classified by BeerAdvocate as a Maibock/Helles Bock and I'm not totally sure I agree with that classification.  The ingredients list provided by Sierra Nevada sorta fit that bill but it doesn't quite have the earthy taste of some of my favorite examples of this style.  Maybe I'm just spoiled on Rogue's Dead Guy Ale. 

I don't want to give the impression that I don't like the Glissade.  I do.  It's an excellent beer with a medium body and a smooth taste.  The hops that aren't as apparent in the aroma are definitely found in the flavor! 

Brewery: Olde Hickory Brewery
Where: Hickory, North Carolina
Beer: Piedmont Pilsner
Style: German Pilsner
IBU: 18.2
ABV: N/A (Estimated 4.5%)

Piedmont Pilsner one of my favorite beers from the Olde Hickory Brewery.  This beer pours with a nice foamy head and a beautiful light golden color, much like a blonde, if not even lighter than most.  It has a very clean and extremely crisp flavor from the German and Czech pilsner malts followed by a very minimal hop presence of Saaz and Hallertauer hops.  This beer also has a fair amount of carbonation that adds to its refreshing and light character.  This is definitely a good choice when you want a lighter fare on a nice summer day.  Unfortunately, it's 45°F outside here today, but I can enjoy this beer anyway :)

If I haven't mentioned it in the past, I'm extremely happy that Jason and Steve at OHB are offering up their brews in 22oz bombers these days.  I have quite a few more samples from the OHB on the shelf here that we'll be getting around to over time.  I still have over 35 beers in the tasting queue, so I have a lot of work to do. 

Until next time....

Brewery: Rogue Ales
Where: Newport, Oregon
Beer: St. Rogue Red Ale
Style: American Amber / Red Ale
IBU: 44 IBU
ABV: 5.1%

When I first started this blog and my beer tasting experiments, Amber Ales were one of my favorites.  I love the malty flavor of this style and I hadn't really experienced very many varieties of the style.  If I have learned anything about styles in the last year, it is simply that a style is nothing more than a general guideline for what a beer might be like.  It's also a set of rules to follow if you plan to make competition beer, but that's beside the point.  The taste and characteristics of American Amber / Red Ales has been quite diverse. 

Today's sample is St. Rogue Red Ale from Rogue.  As usual, I'm quite impressed with this beer.  St. Rogue is dry hopped, and this may be the first sampling I have had of a dry hopped red ale.  This beer is made up of a nice mix of 2-row and crystal malts followed by a nice helping of Chinook and Centennial hops to create great balance between the malt character and the citrus/floral characteristics of these hops. 

We're gonna chalk up another score for Rogue Ales with this beer.  I might just do a run on Rogues for the next few reviews as well.  I have at least five more sitting here that are dying to be opened...

Brewery: Bear Republic
Where: Healdsburg, California
Beer: Big Bear Black Stout
Style: Russian Imperial Stout
IBU: 68
ABV: 8.1%

It's been a while since I have had a good stout, so I decided to pick up a couple samples for my trials.  Yesterday, I was by Gail's Hops and Grapes and snagged this bomber of Bear Republic's Big Bear Black Stout.  This beer poured with the expected rich black color and was followed by a creamy tan-colored head that left beautiful lacing on the glass as I worked my way through this monster.  The initial aroma consisted of roasted coffee and some caramel notes with some very mild but subdued hop character.  This beer has a fantastically sweet malty character with very little presence of the 68 IBU provided by the hops in this recipe.  The hops only seem to be present in the mildly roasted and bitter after taste of this huge beer. 

My next homebrew is gonna be a beer of this style, but I'm shooting for the upper end of the alcohol scale.  I'm hoping to dial mine in around 11% and also push the IBU up to around 90.  It's gonna be the biggest beer I have brewed to date with a 21.5 lb grain bill and a pound of molasses to finish it off.  I hope to brew this upcoming beast before the weekend is over.  I'm not sure exactly which day I will get to brew yet.... we'll see...