Sweaty Betty Blonde
Brewery: Boulder Brewing Company
Where: Boulder Colorado
Style: American Pale Wheat Ale
IBU: N/A
ABV: 5.9%
Here we are today on the complete opposite end of the beer spectrum from an Imperial Stout. Today's sample is a blonde ale (technically an American Pale Wheat Ale) from Boulder Brewing called "Sweaty Betty Blonde." As you know, I'm also a fan of blonde ales, especially for summertime enjoyment. This beer poured with a beautiful pale golden color and a short foamy head that subsided rather quickly. Since this is a wheat beer, it definitely had that wheat characteristic in the flavor with a minimal hop presence to keep this drink just on the sweeter side of balance. I couldn't find any detail on this beer from the brewer because their website refused to load for me at the time of this writing. At any rate, I'm rather impressed with this beer. It's got quite a crisp and light flavor that would be fantastic in quantities on a hot summer day. From the bottle:
Irresistible. Flirtatious. Aromatic. Soft. Supple. Unavoidable . Smooth. Exuberant. Glistening. Wild. Firm. Rare. Succulent. Luscious. Ripe. Natural. Glowing. Curvaceous. Magical. Wheat... and the 5th release of our Looking Glass Series of beers.
Betty's golden appearance reflects her smooth, light and friendly character. Add subtle wheat flavors, a natural unfiltered glow, and you've got a perfectly balanced blonde wheat beer with a wild side.
Sweaty Betty Blonde, the only wheat bold enough to take a trip through the Looking Glass. Don't let her be the one that gets away.
Cute :) My note of 5.9% alcohol came from a reference at beeradvocate.com. If this beer has that level of alcohol then it's one to enjoy in slight moderation. At any rate, this one is a keeper...
Storm King Imperial Stout
Brewery: Victory Brewing Company
Where: Downington, Pennsylvania
Style: Imperial Stout
IBU: N/A (My guess is 80)
ABV: 9.1%
Now we're talkin'... Imperial Stout. A beer not for the faint at heart but for one who truly admires complexity in a beer. It's also not a good beer for anyone who includes light beers as part of their diet. Where Bud Select 55, or whatever it's called, has only 55 calories per bottle, A good imperial stout might ring in at 450 calories per pint. It's a meal in a glass!
Anyway... Victory's Storm King is an excellent example of a good imperial stout. This beer pours black like used motor oil from the bowels of a '68 VW Beetle. The extra thick and creamy tan-colored head on this pour immediately releases a hop and roasted malt aroma that sets your salivary glands in motion before you even pick up the glass. The Victory website is rather cheap on information about this beer. It simply states that the brew was concocted of Imported 2-row malts and American whole-flower hops. C'mon guys... why can't you be like some of your fellow brewers and give it up a little more than that? I guess Johnny Budweiser would be impressed with the fact that you listed your ingredients this way, but a home brewer likes to have a little bit of inside info!
The flavor of this beer hits you quite prominently with the roasted malts as dictated by this style. I won't bore you with the detail of roasted barley, black malts, and chocolate malt possibilities in this brew, but I'm sure its a nice mix of those along with some crystal malts as well. This beer is very well crafted and deserving of anyone's tasting regimen for imperial stouts.
Just a short FYI on my imperial stouts in the future. I do have a bottle of the Olde Hickory Brewery's imperial stout from late 2009 that I have been sitting on letting it age nicely. In fact, I might be one of a very few people who have a bottle of this on hand. It will be coming around the tasting queue before too terribly long. I also have a bottle of Stone's 2010 spring limited release of their Russian Imperial Stout. Stay tuned...
Stone Levitation Ale
Brewery: Stone Brewing Company
Where: Escondido, California
Style: American Amber / Red Ale
IBU: 45 IBU
ABV: 4.4%
Here's a little jewel that I have been hoarding away for a while, so I decided to pop the top on this bottle of Stone's Levitation Ale this evening. I'm a pretty big fan of amber ales so hopefully this one won't let me down. Stone Brewing is not known for letting me down so I'll probably be easy on it even if I don't like it, which will be a fat chance.
This beer poured with the standard amber hue with a rich foamy head that stuck around for the entire glass. The malt complexity of this beer was nice and the hop presence was significant at 45 IBU. At 4.4% alcohol, most of my friends would scoff at this beer as unfavorable, but I was rather impressed with it. This beer would make an excellent cool weather drink... one that you can handle for the duration of the day.
As far as amber ales are concerned, this one will probably be in my top 5.
Weeping Willow Wit
Brewery: Mother Earth Brewing
Where: Kinston, North Carolina
Style: Witbier
IBU: N/A
ABV: 5.0%
I'm usually a fan of this style of beer in the warm summer months, but today I'm sampling Mother Earth Brewing's Weeping Willow Wit. Weeping Willow is an example of a Belgian Witbier (white beer). For those who may not be familiar with this style, here's beeradvocate.com's style description:
A Belgian Style ale that's very pale and cloudy in appearance due to it being unfiltered and the high level of wheat, and sometimes oats, that's used in the mash. Always spiced, generally with coriander, orange peel and other oddball spices or herbs in the back ground. The crispness and slight twang comes from the wheat and the lively level of carbonation. This is one style that many brewers in the US have taken a liking to and have done a very good job of staying to style. Sometimes served with a lemon, but if you truly want to enjoy the untainted subtleties of this style you'll ask for yours without one. Often referred to as "white beers" (witbieren) due to the cloudiness / yeast in suspension.
This beer fits the style very well, but the presence of spices is rather weak. My bottle appears to be 'defective' because the carbonation level is very low and the head retention was quite poor. The flavor, however, is good. This style of beer is a great choice for people who aren't used to drinking homebrew and microbrews because it has a flavor that stays on the sweeter malty side of the range rather than showing strong hop bitterness and aromas. My rating on this beer compared to others I have tried in the style is mid to lower range on the scale. It's not a bad beer at all but I did not find it to be exceptional in any way.
Rogue Yellow Snow IPA
Brewery: Rogue Ales
Where: Newport, OR
Style: American IPA
IBU: 70 IBU
ABV: 6.2%
Once again, we trek back into the world of one of my favorite American breweries, Rogue Ales. I simply don't know what it is about Rogue, but everything I have tried from these guys is simply excellent beer. Today's sampling is the Yellow Snow IPA.
This beer pours with the rich golden color that is characteristic of the IPA style along with a thick foamy head that slaps you in the face with the citrusy aroma of the Amarillo and Revolution hops that went into this brewing process. One of the differentiating characteristics of this beer seems to come from the grain bill. This beer is made from Cara Foam, Melanoiden, Rogue Micro Barley Farm Dare and Risk malts, the last two being unique to Rogue. The beer has a very nice medium body with a huge malt presence that is followed quickly by an extraordinary hop punch at 70 IBU. From the website:
Yellow Snow IPA was originally introduced for the 2000 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Yellow Snow is Rogue’s
tribute to winter sports everywhere—downhill skiing, snowboarding, cross
country, ice hockey, ice fishing, snowmobiling, and even curling.
It will be available November 1st in select states where mountains and snow can be found.
At 6.2% alcohol by volume coupled with the nice hop punch, you might consider this beer to be a great winter warmer... give it a shot!
Angry Angel Kolsch
Brewery: Big Boss Brewing Co.
Where: Raleigh, North Carolina
Style: Kolsch
IBU: 20 IBU
ABV: 4.5%
Well, that new year's resolution didn't last so long ;) Today, we get back to some real beer. Today's sampling is from Big Boss Brewing Company here in my home state of North Carolina. We are going to have a quick look at their Angry Angel Kolsch. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Kolsch beer style, here's the description from Beeradvocate.com:
First only brewed in Köln, Germany, now many American brewpubs and a
hand full of breweries have created their own version of this obscure
style. Light to medium in body with a very pale color, hop bitterness is
medium to slightly assertive. A somewhat vinous (grape-y from malts)
and dry flavor make up the rest.
This particular sample of Kolsch fits the description almost perfectly. I think the Angry Angel falls more to the lighter-bodied side of this style. It definitely exhibits the pale color but the hop presence is on the very low side of the style. There is not a significant bitterness, but the balance between the hop presence and light malt body is excellent. It lets the "grape-y" nature find its way through in the flavor very well. The dry flavor profile also allows this beer to fall nicely into that summer-time thirst quencher category very nicely. This is my first sampling from Big Boss Brewing but it won't be my last. Give these guys a try at your first opportunity!
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