172a. Stoudts Fat Dog Imperial Oatmeal Stout

So since the holiday season is upon us, I’ve bolted for the relative warmth of the Pacific Northwest, abandoning Elli to the cold of Dayton. This also means that we’re gonna have a little over a week of separate beer drinking. Elli’s choice to celebrate our separation was to pull out the Stoudts. This is our fifth Stoudts beer (well, not for me)—previously we’ve had Oktoberfest, American Pale Ale, Scarlet Lady ESB, and Heifer-in-Wheat.

Fat Dog is, according to the bottle, a bottle conditioned Imperial Oatmeal Stout. The nose is a combination of dark roasted and caramel aromas with toffee and vanilla rounding it out. Pouring a deep, dark brown, Fat Dog is clear despite the bottle conditioning with a creamy tan head. The beer starts creamy and sweet, then moves into roasted and chocolate flavors; there are no coffee or burnt malt flavors apparent, leaving the beer very smooth. Fat Dog is fairly dry overall; while there is some sweetness in the front, it finishes dry and bitter with a touch of hoppiness and spiciness at the end. Silky smooth, rich mouthfeel with a medium to heavy body and good carbonation that lingers and laces the glass heavily. As the beer warms, more alcohol is evident is the flavor and mouthfeel, as well as some nuttiness. Elli is not certain about this being bottle-conditioned (although the website says so as well)—besides being very clear, there was no yeast at the bottom of the bottle. Overall, Fat Dog is a smooth, rounded,and delicious beer—with the nutty and roasted flavors, it’s a very well-balanced and drinkable big beer.

From the Stoudts website: “This unique ale merges the smooth and complex richness of an Oatmeal Stout with the assertive hoppiness of Imperial Stout. Fat Dog has an inviting silky-black color, a prominent roasted malt character, and a chocolatey, coffee-like finish. For a special treat we aged a small batch of this beer in bourbon barrels and corked finished in our old style 750ml. bottle and kegged a small quantity as well. It was pretty sweet while it lasted, we just might have to do it again.”

ABV: 9.0%
IBU: 55

(12/19/2009)

171. Stille Nacht 2008

Our first beer from Brouwerij De Dolle Brouwers in Esen, Belgium. Shaine from South Park Tavern gave us this; we’ve been waiting to try it, and decided that now is the time.

Stille Nacht pours a hazy toffee color with a mousse-y ivory head; the nose is equal parts spicy, estery, and fruity with a bit of residual sweetness. Opening with a sweet, spicy, and estery front, Stille Nacht moves into dark fruit flavors with some oxidized hints that blend nicely with the fruit. There is also some alcohol flavor in the middle that continues into the end, which finishes dry as well as slightly tart & spicy. The body is medium to heavy with bright, lively carbonation that helps round the beer at the end. There is also some alcohol warmth and heat, and a slight viscosity on the palate. A good beer, and very Belgian—it’s got all the good stuff you’d want in a Belgian beer, and then some. We look forward to trying this again.

From the De Dolle website: “Stille Nacht (Silent Night) is a prestige beer from De Dolle Brouwers, brewed for Christmas. It has the highest density of any Belgian beer (27°Pl). It has been boiling for many hours, brewed with pale malt with white candy sugar in the kettle. The Nugget hops give an extra bitterness to balance the extreme sweetness due to the density. The taste triangle is completed with some acidity of the fermentation. It is a very interesting beer to age. We have samples of every bottling we have done so far and aging hasn’t decreased the quality of this beer. Keep some samples at 10°C and mark the year on the cap with an alcohol marker. Cheers!! ”

ABV: 12.0%
OG: 27° P

(12/18/2009)

170. Ninkasi Believer Double Red Ale

Ninkasi Brewing Company is in Eugene, OR, my ol’ college stomping grounds. However, they didn’t begin brewing until 2006, well after I had graduated and moved on to graduate school. Actually, by the time they got going, I was done with grad school and had a job. So maybe there was a slight gap.

Believer Double Red is a hazy dark copper, like a burnt sienna, or some similar member of the Crayola family. The tan head leaves some lacing behind, and the nose is a mixture of sweet malt and some hops. The front is a dry roasty malt, which moves into some bitterness with chocolate hints, and ends bitter with some spiciness, with the bitterness lingering. Believer Double Red has a medium body, but is a bit thin, with medium carbonation and a slight amount of tongue curling/astringency. Overall, the roasted, chocolate, and hoppy flavors don’t work together very effectively in this beer—the malt and hop balance are not really there via the lack of malt complexity and the flavor in the body. Additionally, the creaminess of the roasted flavors jars the palate when combined with the alkaline/chalky chocolate flavors present in the beer. An O.K. beer, but not that exciting—nothing to write home about, although here I sit typing away like the several types of fool that I am.

From the Ninkasi website: “A rich deep red with roasted malt and caramel notes, balanced by plentiful hops. Brewed for the believers of Ninkasi, delicious and satisfying, a wonderful representation of what the Northwest beer scene is all about.”

ABV: 6.9%
IBU: 60

(12/17/2009)

169. Tröegs JavaHead Stout

This is our second beer from Tröegs Brewing Company; our last one was their Nugget Nectar (number 22, which was forever ago), which has pretty much already come and gone for this year already. One tap or in the bottle—good drinking. But let’s focus on the here and now, because it is pretty damn good, too.

Described as a stout with coffee beans on the label, JavaHead pours a deep rich brown with some red highlights and a robust brown head that does leave some lacing behind. The nose runs the gamut from floral hops to roasty coffee to dry biscuit malt, with a dash of sugar sweetness and creamy cocoa aromas thrown in for good measure. Javahead begins with dry malt sweetness as well as creamy cocoa and light burnt malt flavors in the front; it then shifts to roasted malt flavors mixed with bitterness and light spicy and fruity hop flavor, before moving into chocolate and coffee flavors and ending dry with lingering bitterness, although some of the burnt notes and cocoa comes back as well. Medium to heavy bodied with a creamy, thick mouthfeel; there is also a decent carbonation bite to balance out a well rounded profile. JavaHead is complex and pleasant, and pretty smooth for the wide range of flavors it has; there is minimla harshness, and a nuanced and interesting set of flavors that took us a whole to pull apart & sort out the flavors across the palate. Definitely worth buying a couple extra bottles of this one—it will be interesting to see if it ages well. It will lose some of the hoppiness, but not much else, and the other flavors might marry together better. Well built and designed; for a 7.5% ABV beer, pretty light and dry, and definitely good drinking.

From the bottle: “JavaHead Stout passes through a blend of coffee beans and whole flower hops—akin to a French press—releasing cocoa, citrus, and java flavors.”

From the Tröegs website: “JavaHead Stout contains a blend of locally roasted espresso and Kenyan coffee beans by St. Thomas Roasters in Linglestown, PA. JavaHead’s recipe is based off of our original oatmeal stout. After the boil, the hot wort passes through our hopback vessel on it's way to fermentation. Packed full of whole leaf hops and a bed of ground coffee beans, the hopback vessel is similar to using a huge French press, intensifying the coffee nose and releasing subtle hints of coffee flavor. The result is a lush oatmeal mouthfeel balanced with cocoa, roast and subtle coffee flavors.”

ABV: 7.5%
IBU: 60
Malts: Pilsner, Crystal, Chocolate, & Roast
JuJu: Oats & Blend of Coffee Beans
Hops: Cluster, Chinook, & Cascade

(12/16/2009)

168. Avery duganA IPA

This is our second beer from Avery Brewing Company, which is in Boulder, CO. Our last beer was their 16th Anniversary Ale, which was delicious.

duganA has a hoppy piney malty caramelly nose; it does develop some grassy aromas as it warms. Colorwise, duganA is a clear copper with a white head that laces the glass a bit. The bready malt and caramel front gives way to a big hop bitterness in the middle, with spicy & resin hops flavors leading the way into a sweet and bitter finish, both of which linger on the palate. duganA has a medium to heavy body; there is some warmth and stickiness in the mouthfeel, as well as a little tongue curling from the heavy hop load. The warmth seems to be a combination of hops and alcohol—there is a warming astringent characteristic in the beer, as well as a good dose of heat felt in the chest after swallowing the beer. A good beer, but nothing particularly stands out. For Elli, there is way too much malt going on. As she observes, “I understand the hoppy impulse, but why ruin it? The big sugary malt load makes me not want to drink it.” I’m less cynical about the lack of balance—my criticism would be that this is too much of a DIPA and not enough of an IPA. The bigger sweetness to carry the increased hop load also reciprocally limits the effectiveness and potential subtlety of the larger hop load.

From the bottle: “Lupulin Rapture Incarnate! As fervent devotees of hops, we found ourselves on a quest to create a transcendental IPA capable of quenching our voracious lupulin desires. Our mantra became ‘unity of bitterness, hop flavor, and aroma.’ Enlightened, duganA IPA was born. A brutally bitter, dank, piney and resinous ale designed for those seeking a divine hop experience.”

From the Avery website: “Limited release. Inaugural batch was released in early October '09. Brewed whenever we have a little extra tank space and a desire for dank hops!”

ABV: 8.5%
OG: 1.076
IBU: 93
Hops: Chinook, Centennial & Columbus
Malts: 2-row, Dark aromatic, & Caramel

(12/15/2009)

167. Grand Teton Bitch Creek ESB

Bitch Creek ESB is our first beer from Grand Teton Brewing Company in Victor, ID.

Bitch Creek pours a murky, rusty bucket brown; it may be a bit dark and murky for an ESB, but who are we to judge? The light brown head is pretty minimal, and the nose is a bready and sweet malt that smells like you’d expect it to be chewy. It opens with a sweet biscuity malt front—a baked good of some sort—before moving into roasted and chocolate flavors in the middle and ending sweet with some dry malt notes—both of which linger. There is no fruitiness or discernable hop presence. Bitch Creek has a medium body with a medium carbonation bite. Overall, the lack of a discernable hop presence is a problem, as is the darker malt profile, especially in the middle with the roasted and chocolate flavors. Hops would help the beer end better; there would be less lingering sweetness, and the middle would have some bitter bite. Ultimately, this tastes more like a brown ale (specifically a British-style brown ale) than an ESB. It seems like they pretty much missed the mark here; unless we got some random skanky bottle, Bitch Creek ESB seems to be trading on their “edgy” name to attract the tourist dollars. Seriously, an ESB with no hop presence?

From the Grand Teton website: “Bitch Creek perfectly balances big malt sweetness and robust hop flavor for a full bodied, satisfying mahogany ale. Like the stream for which it is named, our Bitch Creek ESB is full of character...not for the timid.”

Does that full bodied creek take a vacation during the summer? Because the hops in our bottle were incognito...

ABV: 6.5%
IBU: 54
OG: 1.062
Malts: Idaho 2-Row Pale, German Melanoidin, CaraAmber, CaraAroma & CaraMunich
Hops: Galena, Chinook, Centennial, & dry hopped with Centennial

(12/14/2009)

166. Rogue Chipotle Ale

Once this Rogue train a-here starts rollin’, ain’t no tellin’ when it’s gonna stop. This is our fifth beer from Rogue. Our previous roll call includes: First Growth Wet Hop Ale, Juniper Pale Ale, Maierfest and Capt’n Sig’s Northwestern Ale.

Chipotle Ale has a malty and bready nose with a little smokiness; the reddish copper color and tan creamy head create a nice visual combination, and there is a decent amount of lacing on the glass. Flavors start with a sweet bready malt, moving into a smoky bitter middle—we’re guessing the smokiness is from the chipotles—with a little vegetal flavor, and finishing with a deep smokiness and slight heat bite and burn from the peppers. Chipotle Ale has a medium to light body with a moderate carbonation bite and some lingering low level burn on the palate. The smokiness of the chipotles makes this reminiscent of a rauchbier, which is a very nice touch to build and balance out the spice and heat of the peppers. The malt profile is quite enjoyable: sweet, smoky, and well balanced. The vegetal touch in the middle is a slight downside, but overall Chipotle Ale is an excellent and well crafted beer.

From the Rogue website: “Roasted chipotle peppers produce an eye opening chile flavor in this deep golden ale with a malty, smoky aroma and smooth, crisp flavor. Dedicated to Spanish author Juan de la Cueva, who, in 1575, wrote of a Mexican dish that combined seedless chipotles with beer: Chipotle Ale is based on Rogue’s American Amber Ale, but delicately spiced with smoked chipotle chile peppers. Blend it with Rogue Chocolate Stout and create a Mole black and tan!”

OG: 12° P
IBU: 35
Malts: Harrington, Klages, & Maier Munich
Hops: Cascade & Willamette
Specialty: Chipotle Peppers

(12/13/2009)