Lost in the Beer Aisle

Some interesting beer news

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Lost

Today I’ll be away from the computer and probably won’t get a chance to do a beer review. Fear not! I have some interesting reading to keep you busy. Below are some links to interesting beer news I posted via my Twitter account yesterday. Enjoy!

The science behind your beer buzz

Dogfish Head will soon be launching a gluten free beer

Woman denied opportunity for homebrewing championship due to her gender

Flying Dog announces a new beer “Wildman” with an incredibly strange video

Boston Beer unveils a new spring seasonal! (Don’t panic, Noble Pils is now a year round beer)

Yuengling eclipses Boston Beer as America’s biggest brewery

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale Cans Come Off the Line!

-Lost

Posted in Miscellaneous | Leave a comment

Widmer Brothers Brrr Winter Warmer

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Silvio

Holy crap running a business is a lot of work. This was my first full week of work out on my own and it feels like I’ve been working all day, every day. I’m feeling a bit fried, so I decided to force myself to take a break for the NFL playoff games and of course, a few beers.

Earlier this week I picked up a six pack of Widmer Brothers Brrr Winter Seasonal, and I’ve been slowly working my way through them this week. I made sure to save a few for this week’s review because I seriously love this brew and wanted to extol its virtues to LIBA Nation.

/checks LIBA beer catalog, sees Brrr was reviewed in 2009, bangs head into wall/

/checks refrigerator for other beers, finds none/

Well, that complicates things a bit. Okay, seasonals can change from year to year, and I had a slightly different experience than Andy the Beerman did, so I’m gonna go ahead and write this up.

Brrr poured a crystal clear dark copper color, with barely any carbonation. The foam head was barely more than a light dusting of cream-colored froth, but it stuck around for several minutes. The aroma was full of big hops, but I thought it was dominated by piney notes rather than 2009’s citrus hops aroma.

The differences between 2009 and 2011’s versions got more distinct for me in the flavor. Brrr started out with a huge piney hop flavor that transitioned into sweet malts through the middle. The taste dropped off a bit toward the end of each sip, but finished off with a nice long bitter note.

Even though this beer is full of strong hops, it’s well-balanced by the malts and is crazy drinkable. The 7.2% ABV is a little strong so you might get touched up after a few, but I’d still heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a good hoppy winter warmer.

-Silvio

Posted in Guest Reviews, Silvio Saturday, Style: Winter | Leave a comment

Unita Tilted Smile

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Lost

Last night we had new found friends (guest blogger) Greg and his wife Heather over for dinner. It was a jolly time. Quite dandy. We didn’t do anything exciting – ate and then shot the shit for a few hours.

Now, I was drinking a fair amount, but from what I recall we talked about pets (and/or animals) for 90% of the time. All four of us are definitely suckers for furry things.

This morning I paid the price for drinking on a Thursday night. Explosive diarrhea. Yup. And enough gas to consider me a fire hazard.

Greg was kind enough to bring along some new beer for me to try. One of them was this Unita Tilted Smile. If you’ve never tried an imperial pilsner, I recommend you do. They are nothing like their yellow & fizzy imperial-less brother.

In contrast with a standard pilsner, The Tilted Smile is semi-sweet and really not that bitter at all. Greg pointed out that it had a creamy mouthfeel (true!) and added some banana flavor (also true!). The style of beer is unique and the beer itself is well done and unique.

Careful though…I found that mixing this 9% ABV beast with a half dozen other mixed beer results in assplosions.

Posted in My Reviews, Style: Imperial Pilsner | 7 Comments

Three Heads Bromigo

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Lost

It has been a busy-ass week and it’s hard to believe it is already Wednesday night. Monday was our only free night and we spent it relaxing and catching up on “Breaking Bad”. We’ve been watching the series for the last couple of weeks and we’re just about finished with season two. FANTASTIC show.

Tuesday nights we have a church event we attend, so last night was taken up with that. Tonight I’m cleaning house in preparation for friends coming over Thursday and Friday night. Saturday and Sunday are also completely booked with a couple of parties with friends including a Patriots viewing party (GO PATRIOTS!).

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though – rewind to tonight. I got most of the cleaning done and I’m damn thirsty. I’m cracking open this bottle of Three Heads Bromigo. The last Three Heads beer I tried was the Skunk, which was a great beer despite the fact that I didn’t think it matched my expectations of a black IPA.

I love the label on this Bromigo. Check out the sweet shot of Paul Bunyan and Babe (the blue ox) sharing a beer and pancakes. WHY CAN’T I HAVE AN AWESOME PANCAKE WIELDING BLUE OX SIDEKICK?!?!?!?

Fun trivia – The name “Bromigo” comes from merging the words Bro and Amigo.

The brew is unique. Three major flavors are in play here:

Smoke
Sugary maple sweetness
spicy hops

Honestly speaking, the beer would be boring if it wasn’t for the spicy hops; it adds a dimension to the beer that is tough to describe. The taste shifts between the three flavors in the order listed, each one lingering for a second before moving on to the next.

Major points for uniqueness, however the beer didn’t knock my socks off. Solid B+.

Posted in My Reviews, Style: American Red/Amber | 1 Comment

Smuttynose Ry(e)an Ale

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Lost

This past weekend we had our friends Adam and Elina over for dinner and drinks. Adam tweeted to me beforehand asking what beer he should bring. I immediately knew the answer! My local liquor store Julio’s has just announced the release of Ry(e)an Ale, a collaboration with Smuttynose Brewing. I asked Adam to see if Julio’s had any left. Lucky for us, they did!

The brew is a rye ale which is aged in bourbon barrels. It was nothing like any other rye ale I have had and frankly looked/smelled/tasted WAY more like a darker sweet beer (such as a scotch ale). Adam commented that it was “dangerously drinkable” given the 8% ABV. My wife said she would drink it at gun-point, which is a HUGE complement believe it or not.

As for flavors, it was a mix of caramel and bourbon. No bitter flavor whatsoever. Both Adam and I loved the beer!

Posted in My Reviews | 4 Comments

Throwback Brewery Tap Takeover – Portsmouth Gaslight Co.

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Lost

This past Saturday Melissa and I spent the day in Portsmouth, NH. Our day started off with breakfast at The Friendly Toast. I had this crazy breakfast concoction – cayenne toast, topped with vegetarian sausage, mashed sweet potato, scrambled tofu, and sour cream. It was spicy and delicious. Melissa enjoyed a vegan breakfast burrito. We left fat and happy.

Next up, we window-shopped. The weather was unseasonably warm for January (40+ degrees), which was pleasant. We finished up shopping around 2:00pm so we could meet up with Norm at the Portsmouth Brewery.

This was my first time to the brewery and I wasn’t let down. As we sat with Norm and chatted, I slugged down two pints of their milk stout. It was a TERRIFIC milk stout, mixing sugary sweetness with roasted malt bitterness.

After the brewery, we went next door to the Portsmouth Gaslight Company for the main event of the evening – a tap takeover by Throwback Brewing.

Throwback is a North Hampton, NH based brewery. The brewery was started in 2010 by Annette Lee and Nicole Carrier, making it one of only a handful of woman-owned breweries in North America! The brewery is small right now, only producing 3 barrels (~90 gallons) at a time.

The party was ROCKING over at Portsmouth Gaslight Co. We started with a modest crew – Me, the wife, Norm, his buddy Andy, and his wife Kathy. The party quickly turned into an impromptu tweet-up with the following people making appearances:

Brian (a.k.a @SeacoastBevLab)
Carla (a.k.a. @beerbabe)
Doreen (a.k.a @BeerZenGirl)
Aubrey (a.k.a. @starshaped)
Ted (a.k.a. @thesleepyvegan)
Matt (a.k.a. @k9radiotiki)

It was awesome meeting up with so many people, many of which I have never met before.

The Fat Alberta is an imperial stout. It’s not just ANY imperial stout though…it’s brewed with peanuts! I had my doubts that the beer would actually taste like peanut butter. Man was I wrong!

The Fat Alberta is a TERRIFIC brew – truly unique and delicious. I could smell the peanuts and distinctly taste them. The beer has a chocolatey taste to it as well; peanuts/chocolate are obviously a wonderful combination. The beer ran out within an hour of being tapped…sad, but an indicator of how good this stuff is.

To cap off the night, a few of us popped back into the Portsmouth Brewery for a late bite to eat and some more brews.

Overall it was a great trip to Portsmouth. Great weather, great company, and great beer!

Posted in Events, My Reviews, Style: Imperial Stout | 3 Comments

Cure Me I’m Irish Fundraiser

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Lost

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I know I did, albeit too short (as always). Tonight I’m skipping the beer review to bring you info about a beer-related fundraiser being coordinated by my friends Adam and Sarah of BrewEngland.com.

I received the below email and rather than regurgitate it in a different format, I’m passing it along verbatim. Please take a minute to read about this great event, and if you’re in the area, consider attending!

-Lost

Dear friends and fellow beer lovers!!

I write you today asking for your help. By now you’ve probably seen a few (read: many) Tweets, Facebook mentions, or blog entries about the 2012 “Cure Me I’m Irish” event coming up in March. If you haven’t, please allow me to take a moment to tell you about this awesome event.

Every March the Friends of Will Cancer Foundation hold an event to raise awareness and money for children with Relapsed Neuroblastoma, a very rare form of pediatric cancer. If found early enough patients diagnosed with the disease can be treated and if all goes well the cancer goes into remission. However, if it comes back there currently is no cure. Funds raised from the Cure Me I’m Irish event go towards helping families with children diagnosed with NB, as well as research to help find a cure.

You might be asking yourself what a guy with a beer blog has to do with this…well, my wife Sarah and I, as part of Brew England, have been tapped once again to help out with this annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration. Last year we set up a mini beer festival with New England breweries as part of the event. Mayflower, Cape Ann, Cody Brewing, Blue Hills Brewery, and Magic Hat all poured their beers for the 1,000 guest in attendance, and let me tell you it made for an incredible event.

This year’s event is shaping up to be even more amazing that last year’s. The 2012 event will take place on Saturday March 10, 2012 from 8pm – Midnight and is once again being held at Lombardo’s in Randolph, MA, which is right off the highway. Tickets are currently $75 each until February 20th, when they increase to $90. All tickets include heavy appetizers, open beer & wine at the bars, a live performance by Joshua Tree (a fairly popular Boston based U2 cover band), live auctions, raffles, etc, plus the exciting part below.

This year, we have the pleasure of once again putting on a beer festival, but have doubled the breweries to 10 – all but one again being from New England. All breweries will be bringing two or more beers to sample, and will be pouring from 8pm – 11pm. So far, we have confirmed Mayflower Brewing Co., Smuttynose Brewing Co., Cape Ann Brewing Co., Cody Brewing Co., and Baxter Brewing Co.

I am hoping that those with blogs can pass on this information, as well as post information on how you can get tickets. The link to the tickets page is www.curemeimirish.org and more information on the charity can be found at www.beatnb.org. Of course, you can always send them to www.brewengland.com for all information pertaining specifically to the beer festival.

Those of you without blogs, not to worry…but we do hope that everyone will post on your Facebook accounts as well as Twitter, and link Cure Me I’m Irish, and Brew England if you can so we can see and retweet/repost.

Thanks for taking the time to read this somewhat lengthy email. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to us via email, Facebook, or Twitter.

Cheers!

-Adam & Sarah

Posted in Events | Leave a comment

New Holland Mad Hatter IPA

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Silvio

This has been a good week, friends. I started my own company this week, started work for one client, and may secure two more next week. To celebrate, I decided to go for a long hike today with my dog at Great Falls, Virginia, and relax with a beer or three for the NFL Wild Card games.

I was all fired up to review the Sixpoint Bengali Tiger, a beer I recently had on tap and loved while out at dinner with wifey and found at my local store…until I realized Josh had reviewed it in October. Fail. So, I rooted around my fridge to see what else I could review and found a bottle of New Holland Brewery’s Mad Hatter IPA. This is the last brew remaining from my last big beer run a month ago so it’s time to clean house!

Problems immediately arose with this beer. When I cracked the top, fizz literally shot out of the bottle into the air and all over my counter. Boo. I let the bottle foam out in the sink and was able to salvage about two-thirds of a glass. I’m not sure it was worth the effort.

The pour was crazy foamy, with a solid four fingers of froth. It smelled kind of hoppy but very indistinct. The color was nice, a deep golden color, very cloudy with some suspended sediment in the glass.

Once I tasted the Mad Hatter, I started to think it may have gone bad in my fridge. There really wasn’t any real flavor to this beer. I got some hoppy notes, but it was just a fleeting taste at first before turning into a metallic-tasting middle and ending on a flat bitter note. The bottle touted the brew’s floral hops and sweet malts, but I didn’t get that at all.

The beer was worse than this guy's teeth

So it seems like this beer must have gone bad, right? There’s no way the foam explosion and overall lame taste are normal – what experiences has LIBA nation had? Let me know, because I’d love to hear what everyone thinks.

Posted in Style: American IPA | Tagged Floral hops, Hops, Mad Hatter, Malts | 1 Comment

Sierra Nevada Celebration 2011

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Lost

You know what’s fun? Blog SPAM! Today I’ve received a ridiculous flurry of the stuff. They come in the form of ridiculous comments by authors which are trying to promote their website. Here are just a FEW of what I’ve received in the last 24 hours:

I bow down humbly in the prescene of such greatness.

Absolutely first rate and cpoper-bottomed, gentlemen!

Now I know who the brainy one is, I’ll keep looknig for your posts.

This article is a home run, pure and smilpe!

Play inrfomtaive for me, Mr. internet writer.

Wow, your post makes mine look felebe. More power to you!

For the love of God, keep wrtiing these articles.

A really good awnser, full of rationality!

Ab fab my gloody man.

Freaking hilarious. What does that last one even mean?!?!

Moving on to tonight’s beer, I’m drinking the best beer – the free kind. Someone left this Sierra Nevada Celebration 2011 at my house recently.

This is an American IPA, and a terrific one in my opinion. The hops are fruity and slightly floral, and while the beer packs a pretty good hop-wallop, I don’t find it super-intense. I’m REALLY digging the bitterness, probably because it’s balanced a bit with malty sweetness.

If you’re not familiar with Sierra Nevada, they always make good beer…very few “fails” in their beer library. The Celebration is pretty damn tasty!

Posted in My Reviews, Style: American IPA | 3 Comments

Atlantic Brewing Coal Porter

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Lost

IBS. Irritable bowel syndrome. It sucks. I have it. I don’t talk about it much on the blog, but it’s a part of every single day for me. Some days are good days, and some days are bad days. Today was one of the bad days; I felt bad for the people that sit in nearby cubicles at work…

I’ve mostly learned how to craft my life around the disorder: I don’t eat before travel, I plan out frequent trips to “the facilities”, and I’m always armed with a handful of pills. Before I figured out how to deal with it life REALLY sucked. Suffice it to say I have dropped olde #2 on the side of more than one highway.

Don’t feel bad for giggling.

Silver lining time. #1: Besides this one thing, I have excellent health. Things could be MUCH worse. And #2: Beer doesn’t appear to impact the IBS whatsoever. And with that, it’s time to crack a beer!!!

Atlantic Coal Porter is in my glass. I believe this is my first time trying something from this Maine-based brewery. This beer is pretty damn tasty. It’s one of those super drinkable porters. It’s well balanced with some caramel (almost vanilla) sweetness which is followed up by mild roasted coffee and chocolate flavors.

It feels like 4% ABV, but actually clocks in at 6.5%! Makes no difference. *CHUG CHUG CHUG* This bad boy is gone in record time. A must-try beer for anyone who likes an easy drinking porter!

Posted in My Reviews, Style: Porter | 2 Comments