Lagunitas - The Waldo's Special Ale

A while back I stopped at my local bottle shop that just happens to be a grocery store.  As I've mentioned in the past Pittsburgh has some funky liquor laws.  Thankfully Giant Eagle (our large local chain of grocery stores) has found a nifty little loophole.  They became bars.  Not entirely, but added a section where you can drink and eat inside the store and this allows them to sell six packs, singles, growlers, and twelve packs.  Thankfully Giant Eagle has a ton of buying power and has allowed lots of stuff to come into the area and has lowered prices city wide.  As you can imagine I'm quite pleased with this scenario.

Like I was saying I went by looking for my dear friend Flying Dog' The Truth.  No surprise they didn't have any.  Sadly a tough find.  The staff at these are pretty good.  they usually know their stuff. So I checked with them just incase they had some in the back of the cooler or something.  The guy suggested this to me instead.  Imperial IPA, high alcohol content, and Lagunitas has a good reputation , so I figured, why not.

I popped it in the freezer, got it nice and cold, and poured it out into a nice tulip glass I had.  Nice deep golden color with a small head on it.  Gave it a sniff, sweet and dark.  The flavor is heavy, and as the label says dank.  It's incredibly resiny, and very sweet.  It's tasty but not what I was looking for, not very well balanced and a bit overpowering, an odd thing for me to say as many of my favorite beers are incredibly overpowering, and unbalanced.  (See my review of Gonzo Imperial Porter)  I got about three quarters of the way through and lost interest.  I had another one a few days later with similar results.  Recently I had another and I was able to get through the full thing without pause.  Maybe I wasn't in the mood for something like this those other times, but this beer sure has it's place.

Chatoe Rogue: Single Malt

Chatoe Rogue is the name if Rogue brewing's new line of GYO certified first growth ales made with hops and badly grown on their own hop yard and barley bench out in Portland Oregon. This beer is made with Rogue's special Dare malt and Revolution hops. I like this idea, you grow the hops, you grow the barley, you control the yeast (Rogue has been cultivating their famous Pacman yeast for quite a while now) as well as every step in the brewing process. Every part of the process in under your control, if there is a delay there is no one to pass the buck to and you have the benefit of being able to ensure your product lives up to your standards from start to finish.

On to the beer itself. Single malt is a very simple beer one kind of malt one kind of hops. The flavor is light and crisp with plenty of citrus and and a tad grassy. This reminds me a bit of a saison or farmhouse in a way. I'd love to drink this on a nice hot day sitting on the porch after a hard day of work.

Big Hop Harvest

Ok I mentioned this semi retail event thing that happened a little while ago. While I had some of the Chicory Red the real star of this show was the Big Hop Harvest.

Big Hop Harvest is a limited edition brew much like the Chicory red, however unlike it this one comes around once a year. The reason this is a limited release is our friends at East End Brewery have a short window of time where they can drive up to New York to pick up a batch of fresh, undried, wet hops.

The brewmaster himself took the drive up to the farm and filled his wife's Scion xB with 385lbs of fresh wet hops and updated us all over Facebook with his progress on his 12 hour trip. That's dedication, or maybe just love of the craft. I know I would love the smell inside of that car, grassy and citrusy, just wonderful. Come to think of it he recently mentioned her car still smells like wet hops.

I sat at that keg and downed about half a dozen small glasses of this wondrous brew. The flavor is a nice APA blended with a red ale, nice and toasty carmel with this great citrus grassy hop note. This dink is so well balanced, and it just dances on your tounge like a party of angels throwing a rager. Ok that's a little extreme, but I have to say it is indeed something to look forward to next season.

East End Chicory Red

Today I worked a semi retail event for my employer. This isn't terribly exciting, however the fact his brother volunteers at East End Brewery therefore he has a contact there is.
Tonight on our beer menu we had their latest session beer.  East End's sessions are normally one shot brews that you have to snag before they are gone.or else you will always have to wonder what could have been.
East End's Chicory Red has a wonderful smoothness about it. The roasted malt flavor coats your tongue just long enough till the chicory flavor hits the back of your tongue and you get this slightly spicy aftertaste that warms you up a little, just in time for fall.
That is if fall wasn't such a muggy prospect in Pittsburgh right now.  I love to sing the prases of a finely crafted brew I do have to speak of it's, um well I guess seasonality is the best way to put it. Upon starting the process of crafting this beer the brewmeister had no way of knowing that the beginning of September would feel like the middle of summer. This is a shame, because in the right atmosphere this beer would be just as comforting as a nice recliner, a tailored jacket, or even a well loved blankie.
No I don't have an awesome blankie, but sometimes I wish I did.

Victory Wild Devil

It's not often that I get upset that I can't find a beer, generally I will just pick something else up since I like to try new beers all the time. This beer got to me though, I went searching far and wide in the city of Pittsburgh to find more. The inopportune holiday season pushed this fine product off the shelves and left me craving more. Feeling like a crack addict on hard times I actually wrote to Victory asking where my next fix was. I was quickly assured that demand was high and with the holidays many retailers had held back orders to fill their shelves with more seasonal fare.

So why does Wild Devil get me so flustered? What is it about a simple IPA that gets me all weak in the knees? One word "brettanomyces." I'm sure that has caused a few head scratches, but let me explain. Brettanomyces is a strain of yeast that is generally regarded as a plague to the brewing industry, causing off flavors that ruin the balance of a beer and show that the brewer was less then diligent in his sanitation regimen. In fact Brett is the reason for the name of this brew as Brett is a commonly occurring strain of wild yeast. Why do I love this yeast so much then? Well I think good ol' Brett has gotten a bad rap, Brett is also responsible for some of the flavors in lambics, Gueuze and Flanders ales and when a recipe is tailored to the, let's say unique, flavors Brett produces something wonderful occurs. Brett creates flavors that sound absolutely horrible when they are described like wet horse blanket, band-aid, and burnt plastic, but in actual practice they are quite delicious.

My first impression of this beer was, "Wow this is beautiful!" If you have read my other posts then you should know that I don't often describe the look of a beer, but this deserves a description. The color is somewhere between a gold and orange, a little light for my tastes but I was intrigued. The head was an off white, a stark contrast to the bright crisp white I am accustomed to. I generally don't care much about head retention or lacing but this beer is what changed that for me. As I drank the head barley dissipated at all and the lacing left behind was heavy to say the least, when I was done you could see the amount I drank with each sip, it was amazing. The smell and flavor are dominated mostly by the "funk" Brett produces, difficult to put into words but easy to put on the tongue. Next up was the hops, as Hop Devil's evil twin the hops take hold over much of the flavor as well, a nice citrusy bite with a little spicy burn as well. Biscuit and carmel malts dominate the hop profile balancing out this crazy concoction.

I applaud the brewmasters at Victory for making lemonade out of lemons here. They took what is widely considered a horrible plague and turned it into liquid gold.

Three Floyd's - Gumballhead

Last week I spent some time in Chicago on a business trip thanks to the little bit of free time I got and coworkers who share my love of beer I was able to try a few things I couldn't get here in PA.

The first one I want to talk about was a little something called Gumballhead, "Gumballhead you say?" Yes i say Gumball head, mainly cause I like to say Gumball head. Alright I admit it sometimes I do like to order beer based off of the name alone, I'll drink any beer once and I like to tell people I drank something I couldn't pronounce, had so many umlauts that it put metal bands to shame, or was just as strange and unique as Gumballhead. That being said I've had some disappointments in my time, and i have disproved my German friend's theory that more umlauts equals more better. Not this time though, I was not disappointed. though I have to say I was a little surprised.

I was at a little bar called Kasey's in printer's row with one of my coworkers having a few beers while watching one of the games of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I had just finished off a Hop Devil and just found the tap list. Scanning quickly I couldn't pull my eyes from that name for some reason, I knew I had to try it.

Fast forward to today I know know that Gumball head is made by three Floyds Brewing in Indiana (imagine that) and it's considered an American pale wheat ale. That right there is what surprised me.

This is the first wheat I've ever reviewed and for good reason. I don't drink many wheats. Don't get me wrong it's not like I hate wheats or anything it's just, I usually find something else i like better and would much rather go for something maltier or hoppy-er (honestly I'm not sure if either of those are real words or not but they work for me.)

Whell when it came to my table I was amazed to see this brew with a pale yellow hue and thick white head (ok not so surprised about the thick white head.) I looked through the glass or at least attempted to as it was quite hazy. I got a big ol' whiff off the top of it almost putting my nose into the foam, rather citrus-ey I must say. Finally I took a sip and it's got a bit of hops I taste nice and crisp something I wish I got from more wheats. Honestly this is what I want when I order a wheat a nice refreshing beverage. Extremely drinkable went down nice and easy. If I can find this in PA I'm defiantly keeping it around for an outdoor drinking experience.

Tom Seefurth's Mamma Mia Pizza Beer, yea that's right i said Pizza Beer

So this weekend I got to go to one of my favorite restaurants in the area, Bocktown. Now Bocktown doesn't have the largest selection of beers on tap or anything they have quite a nice cooler and good food to boot. I got myself a nice heaping pile of fries with "onion crisps" on top, one of my personal favorite beers, Tröegs' Trogenator Dopplebock, I got to try the Moylan's Kilt Lifter, and I even left with a Rogue's Chocolate Stout. However I am not going to talk about these beers, no not yet because they were overshadowed by another, Pizza Beer.

I can see the confused look on your face from here, it's probably better that you don't know how I can see it from here, but believe me i can. Pizza Beer, brewed with tomato, basil, and garlic for a most... unique beer experience.

Alright you got me I didn't say delicious or wonderful or any of those adjectives, it wasn't exactly the greatest beer I've ever tasted nor was it the worst. I do need to give them credit however they set forth to make a beer made with pizza ingredients and by god they did it and despite the madness that brought about this brew it's not too bad.

Now to the tasting, while I didn't have the privilege of drinking a whole bottle of this I did get a big enough taste to pull out the flavors. The first thing I tasted right away was basil then after that died down a little I got that nice garlic kick finally finishing off with the dueling flavors of tomato and well a beer that kind of reminded me of Miller Light. One of my comrades at the table (the one who ordered the fabled drink) described it saying that it was like someone through pizza lunchables in a blender along with a cheap beer, and I have to say I'd agree.

So now that I have tried pizza beer I can rest easy knowing that one of the strangest beers ever created has passed across my taste buds. I suppose I will have to review Dogfish Head's Midas Touch to compete with this one.

Magic Hat #9

Trifecta of party beers that is.

Magic Hat has really done something wonderful here, they have created a micro you can find damn near anywhere.  Their other offerings are not bad but the #9 is the shining light of their brewery.

I brought a case of this to a christmas party thrown at my friend's house while her parents were out of town.  It was quickly ripped into and the drunken debauchery began.  

Imagine if you will a nice light pale ale with just the slightest hint of dried apricots.  It's a simple explanation of the taste for a simple concept.  nice and dry this beer is drinkable all night long.  when you are looking for something to give that friend of yours who wants something just a little fruity.

Flying Dog Brewery's Old Scratch Amber Lager

Ah Old Scratch, as I mentioned in a previous post Penn Dark is a good party beer, as is this.  I brought a case of this over to my friend's first house party.  I got thrown alongside a case of Sam Adams honey porter.  By the end of the night 6 bottles were left and that's about it 3 of each.

Flying Dog Brewery founded in Maryland as a brewpub and another in Aspen a little later.  They soon opened a brewery in Denver and later another in Maryland as demand increased.  They are pretty well known for their love of Hunter S. Thompson so much so to hire Ralph Steadman to do all their artwork as well as dedicate a brew to Hunter himself, but now is not the time or place for that.

Old Scratch is a sassy brew with a nice bite to it (ya see what I did there ha ha ha sorry.)  in all seriousness it is rather sharp in it's initial flavor with some nice carmel backup and a fairly smooth finish nice and sweet.  It's very nice for those people who you are trying to get to shy away from Yeungling for something a bit better.

And now for the trifecta...

Penn Dark

Ah Penn Brewery a microbrewery close to my heart... literally I live like 15 min away.

It opened in 1986 so it's pretty save to call it an adolescent as far as breweries go.  They produce the quintessential American style Pilsner, you guessed it Penn Pilsner.  not much to be said about this establishment other then they have a pretty B.A. German restaurant on site and they host a wicked microbrewery festival.

First time i had this brew was believe it or not at my great aunt's funeral.  My uncle was head chef at the restaurant where the wake was so typical Irish we are there was an open bar (funny I went for a German beer though.)  Right after the wake my father, three of my uncles and I moseyed on over to the Penn Brewery for the previously mentioned micro brewery festival.  

On to the beer.

Well the name does not disappoint this beer is nice and dark, about a quarter inch of foam on top (I'm drinking from a basic pilsner glass) other then that almost no light to be seen through there.  It's got a nice carmel toffee (general burnt sugar but in a good way) flavor to it with just a taste of hops in the after taste.  Very drinkable but nothing terribly special.  Great if you are going to a party and want to bring something good without alienating the miller and coors fans too much.  Which brings me to my next review...