Beer

Magic Hat Odd Notion Summer

Frequently, Magic Hat puts some crazy miscellaneous beer into their mixed cases as a test. It's usually named something like "Batch 47" and if enough people like it, it ends up as a regular beer with a real name in the future. This time, it looks like they've been experimenting with three drastically different beers all under the name "Odd Notion".

The summer one pours a golden straw color with a pale, short lived head. The taste is very citrus spicy with plenty of funky Belgian yeast characteristics. What do you know, the website says it uses a Belgian yeast strain. I never could have guessed. There's a hint of wheat malts in amongst all the spice. Odd Notion Summer is not at all shy about its 5.9% alcohol content. It's a very smooth, easy to drink beer. I can see enjoying a couple in a session.

Overall, I am impressed. This is a solid Belgian pale ale from a brewery that I want to succeed but always end up feeling let down by. So many of their beers are unremarkable to me, but this is a real stand out. Too bad it's in the experimental slot in the summer mixed case. I think picking up the case is worth it just to try this beer. Hopefully it'll be moving into regular rotation.

Magic Hat Wacko

I bought a mixed case of Magic Hat beers, so expect a couple reviews of those in the days ahead. I started off with Wacko, which I knew nothing about in advance. Magic Hat isn't really known for telling you a lot about their beers on the bottle. You stand very little chance of knowing what style one of their beers might be. You'll be lucky if it's even got a style at all. They take a very lax attitude towards crazy things like style, which can be fine sometimes. On the other hand as David Shea mentioned weeks and weeks ago, they also tend to focus on the hype more than the beer sometimes. So with that said, here we go.

When you pour a beer into your glass, you have a certain expectation. If the bottle tells you it's a stout or a porter, you expect something brown or black. If it calls itself a hefeweizen, you expect something very lightly colored. If it's a red ale, you expect something on the red side. Having no style information on the bottle, I didn't know what to expect from Wacko. Even if I had known, I wouldn't have expected what I got. It pours a bright, BRIGHT, iridescent, unnatural red color with a pink head. It's seriously the most ridiculous beer color I have ever seen. It also set up the expectation from Sarah for cherry soda.

Luckily, it does not taste like cherry soda. It tastes malty without being overly sweet, a little bit spicy (salty, even?) when swished around, and more sweet in the finish. It's not a very heavy beer which is understandable since it's supposed to be a summer beer. The taste fades fairly quickly, leaving you wondering exactly what that bright red stuff in your glass is doing there. So to recap... style? I'd have to say it's just a spiced beer, probably based on some sort of simple pale ale. I would drink it again which is good because there's at least three more in the fridge, but I'm going to be wondering what's going on with it the entire time.

Rogue Santa's Private Reserve

Okay here's the thing. I'm out of things to say about pale ales, American style pale ales, imperial pale ales, imperial anything else, and double any of the above. As of this beer, I need to branch out very wildly and try some crazy new things. The next few days will probably not see this happen, but it's got to happen very soon. I'm tired of writing about all the same things.

Santa's Private Reserve is a fine beer - deep red in color, merengue-like head that I enjoy so much in a beer, aggressively hopped, and full bodied. What it is not is especially memorable, at least to me. It was good but it did not stand out from several other Rogue/Sierra Nevada/Whatever beers I've had. Maybe a second bottle would help me remember, but I doubt it. Anyone else got anything to say? Anything at all?

Okay I've got one more thing to say. I was expecting something Christmas-y out of this beer, given the name. The color was a great start, but it was also the end. I was expecting some sort of fruit like orange or cranberry, or perhaps some Wassail style spicing. Either of those things would have helped the beer match the name a little, but I found none of both. I don't remember when I bought this bottle. It's been in my beer rack for a long time. So it could very well not be a Christmas beer at all but just have an interesting name.

Ebulum Elderberry Black Ale

This thick, black ale is supposed to be fermented with ripe elderberries and therefore have some of the flavor of them. However, neither Sarah nor I could get any elderberry flavor from this beer. The reason for this is that one of the primary malts in the beer is roasted barley, which produces a very roasted, nutty, burnt flavor in the beer. This is normal for a stout or even a lot of porters. However, the strong flavor of that malt does make it hard to tell what else could be going on.

I mentioned it was a thicker beer, and sure enough the website mentions it uses oats. Oats contribute quite a bit to the body which is why they're used in things like oatmeal stout. In addition, the website says there's wheat involved, which helps out with the body a little bit too. I guess if I were to characterize this beer, I'd call it a robust porter. However I don't think I can find nearly enough of the berries in here to call it a spiced beer. That seems like more of a novelty to me. Maybe I just can't tell.

In summary: Tasted good, would drink again.

Okocim

Either I should stop trying Pilsners since they all taste very similar to me, or I should try a whole lot more since I am starting to pick up some subtle flavor differences. This Polish Pilsner pours the same translucent straw color with loads of carbonation and head that you expect from a Pilsner. It tastes like a traditional Pilsner up front, but there's a marked sweetness in the aftertaste that's not really very welcome. It's not nearly as clean tasting a Pilsner as a lot of the Czech ones I've tried. That seems to be a characteristic of the style - you should taste it while you're drinking it, but it gets out of the way quickly and leaves you wanting more.

I could not find a website for this beer either but that could be because I don't read Polish. If I were in Poland, I'd be able to get by drinking this beer. However, I don't think I would actively seek it out. There are much more clean finishing Pilsners out there and i think I like that more than what I got here.

Five weeks:

Styles:

• Belgian Pale: 4


• Pilsner: 4


• Wheat: 4


• IPA: 3


• Brown Ale: 2


• Crap Lager: 2


• Pale Ale: 2


• Porter: 2


• Spiced: 2


• Stout: 2


• Bitter: 1


• Bock: 1


• Dark Lager: 1


• Dunkelweizen: 1


• ESB: 1


• Flemish Red Ale: 1


• Oktoberfest: 1

Country:

• US: 19


• England: 4


• Belgium: 3


• Germany: 3


• Australia: 1


• France: 1


• Mexico: 1


• Phillipines: 1


• Poland: 1

Left Hand Sawtooth Ale

Now this was a fantastic beer. It bills itself as an American Style ESB which had me a little nervous, since American Style is code for excessively hopped. Of course being an ESB, the balance was tilted towards hops. But it was not at all the bomb that some of these other beers I've tried have been. I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself here.

It pours a great amber color with a small sized white head. The head doesn't last too long, either. Right away you smell the hops and baking bread. It's a very pleasant aroma that really entices you to take a drink. The flavor is dominated by the taste of nuts, bread, and bitterness. While it's rather full bodied, it's not over done. Everything about this beer is well-balanced and well-made. It's probably one of the best I've had in this experiment so far, and I'd like to go back for a whole six pack of them.

Julius Echter Hefe-Weiss-Dunkel

The style of tonight's beer requires a bit of explanation first. Most people know hefeweizens as very light colored, lightly flavored beers. They're usually straw or almost white in color, depending on which region you get it from. However there's another kind of wheat beer called the dunkelweizen, meaning dark wheat. These are much darker and more flavorful. There are some truly outstanding ones out there if you know what to look for. Even though I've only made one batch of my dunkelweizen (for the BBBQ several years back), I'd say it was one of my favorites.

Tonight's beer also doesn't appear to have a website, at least not that I could find with a quick bit of searching.

The Julius Echter dunkelweizen is a medium brown in color with a white head. That's a little unusual. I would have expected more of a tan or off-white head, but no matter. It fades quite slowly as you might expect from a hefeweizen. They're known for not wanting to stay in the glass. Approaching the beer, you get a hint of chocolate and toffee. The taste is much the same - chocolate and roasted malts and a little bit of nuttiness. It's a very smooth beer with almost no hops either in the aroma or flavor. It was a very good beer though I would have wanted it to be darker and a little more assertively flavored. I think I like the Ayinger
dunkelweizen more, but Julius Echter is a solid beer. I would drink it again.

Kona Fire Rock Pale Ale

All the way from the country of Hawaii comes this Kona beer. Kona has been making inroads in Massachusetts and New Hampshire lately. There was even a rep in the beer store offering taste samples when Lon and I went to pick up this and the UFO White on Saturday. David tells me this is because it's also being brewed and bottled here on the continent. It's still a little strange to see Hawaiian beer on the shelves in sunny New England.

Fire Rock gets its name from where the lava is cooling and it lives up to that name in the color. It's a bright red color, which is nice and quite like my own Red Menace Pale Ale. This color can be achieved from a very small addition of dark malt to an otherwise normal pale ale recipe. Otherwise, this beer is about what you would expect from a pale ale in the Sierra Nevada tradition of the style. It's more aggressively hopped and therefore more bitter and more hoppily aromatic. Nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's also a more full bodied pale ale so you're probably not going to sit down and drink four or five in a row. The more I think about it, the more this reminds me of my homebrew but in a commercial setting. I guess I must be on to something.

Harpoon UFO White

The easy part of this project is drinking beer every day. The hard part is writing about it. I'm not really much of a writer, which is why these updates come in sporadic batches. I have to work up the interest in writing, then crank them all out in a hurry before the mood passes. Entries for the previous two days will be along shortly.

I think I've only had regular UFO a handful of times since it's more of an American hefeweizen and that's not really my thing. I'm sure I've mentioned my dislike of American style hefeweizens six or eight times now. Still, it's a fairly highly regarded beer in this part of the world and they also make a raspberry flavored one that Sarah really likes. It's even less my thing than the regular. So seeing the six pack of UFO White in the store, I was curious what they could have done to it and if they'd made it more interesting.

It pours a straw color with a very large foamy head, typical of most anything in the wheat beer family. In fact I had to drink one little 12 ounce bottle in multiple passes so there'd be enough room in the little glass I was using. The taste is dominated by usual wheat flavors as well as an undercurrent of orange and other citrus. This beer does not need to be modified with the slice of lemon or orange or whatever other fruit people like to toss into their wheat beers. It's a refreshing, lightly flavored beer that's perfect for summer. Luckily it's trying to be summer here right now.

I guess the difference between this and the regular UFO is that the former is trying to be a Belgian witbier and the latter is trying to be an American hefeweizen. Yes, there are differences. The Belgians tend to have much more of an orange flavor and coriander aroma. Those Belgians sure do love their spices. By contrast, the Americans tend to have a much simpler flavor profile, letting the wheat do the talking. I think this is quite an improvement to regular UFO and I'd be happy to get it on tap if I'm out.

Duvel

I'm going to cheat a little bit on this new beer thing, but just this once. I've had Duvel before. It was at David's house when we all got together to watch the 2004 presidential debates. While I got the impression that I did not like it at the time, I didn't give it a proper review and I've been trying to block the whole experience out of my head. So since I got a free one tonight at my usual bar, I decided I could cheat and do a proper review of it. I hope everyone will let me get away with it. I also hope I can get away with not drinking it out of a tulip glass. I'm kind of slumming it with this beer snob thing tonight.

Anyway Duvel pours the completely translucent straw color we've all come to expect and is topped with a gigantic head. You could carve with the head on this beer. It's like merengue. That's pretty cool, I must admit. It's also highly carbonated which we've all also come to expect through the advertising. However, I must admit my 2004 feelings about this beer were confirmed. I still do not like it, though this time I can put it into words. I find it entirely too dry and bitter. I don't want it to be as sweet as something like Gulden Draak (which goes a little over the top, in my opinion) but Duvel just goes too far in the other direction. There's almost no sweetness at all. Being more on the bitter side just reinforces the dryness and left me wanting something more to drink after I was done. I'd say something more about the taste, but there's really not much here to taste. Sarah thought it had a rather unpleasant aftertaste, reminiscient of like what you might find in Corona. That's not exactly high praise.

So, having tried Duvel again in a more somber state of mind, I must agree with my past self. I don't think I will be giving it another try

Breckenridge Vanilla Porter

This is the last of my crazy mixed six pack from deepest, darkest Cleveland. Too bad. I guess after this I'll have to make some trips to the homebrew store or the store down by work. Anyway.

This beer pours a moderate brown color with the touch of red (hey, my tv has that!) and thin head typical of porters. It's no secret that the porter is one of my favorite styles to drink and to make. I've made several in the past and I think I've enjoyed every single one of them. So I'm always ready to give one a try.

The vanilla - provided by real vanilla beans, according to the quite descriptive website - was rather understated but definitely present in the aroma. Aside from that, it smelled just like a porter should. The taste was the interesting part. It tasted exactly like my chocolate stout from last year. This was a pleasant surprise, but made it a little weird to review. It was a very smooth, creamy beer with a touch of chocolate, more vanilla flavor, and a little bit of the roasted qualities I like in porters.

For a spiced beer, it was in no way overpowering. I found that the spice contributed quite nicely to the character of the beer, without overshadowing the quality of the underlying style. Well done, Breckenridge Brewery. According to their website, they also sell a bock and an oatmeal stout. I bet they're great. Sarah says it smelled like olives to her, but I did not get that at all.

And that makes it four weeks of new beers. What have I done?

Styles:

• Belgian Pale: 3


• IPA: 3


• Pilsner: 3


• Wheat: 3


• Brown Ale: 2


• Crap Lager: 2


• Porter: 2


• Spiced: 2


• Stout: 2


• Bitter: 1


• Bock: 1


• Dark Lager: 1


• Flemish Red Ale: 1


• Pale Ale: 1


• Oktoberfest: 1

Country:

• US: 16


• England: 4


• Belgium: 2


• Germany: 2


• Australia: 1


• France: 1


• Mexico: 1


• Phillipines: 1

Dos Equis Ambar

Today was the one year anniversary of us moving into our new building at work. Coincidentally, it was also Cinco de Mayo, the traditional American holiday of dressing up in silly hats, smacking pinatas, and switching out our crappy American beer for crappy Mexican beer. As such, we had a party after work with buckets and buckets of crappy Mexican beer. I was hoping for some Negra Modelo, being a fan of that beer, but it was not to be. So seeing an opportunity to grab something new, I pulled out a bottle of Dos Equis Ambar. That's right, Ambar.

Here's something the bottle told me that you may not know. "dos equis" means "two Xs", which is why the bottle has XX on it. It was quite a revelation to me.

Anyway there were no glasses to be had, nor would I have drank it from a glass if there were. Some things are just meant to be consumed right out of the packaging. This beer was truly nothing special. It started out with something that could loosely be called flavor, though not in the bad American beer corn sense of the word, before summarily fading into nothing. Total time from intake to flavor disappearing was about one second. After a few tries, I decided to cram a lime in the bottle.

I hate the lime in the bottle thing. I also hate the orange wedge in the hefeweizen thing. If you've got to add fruit to make your beer palatable, you're doing something wrong. Oh well, I did it anyway. It didn't really help matters. It went from crappy beer to crappy beer with lime. By the last couple drinks, it was mostly just lime flavored liquid. I think I'll pass on this beer in the future.

Kronenbourg 1664

Hey look, a continental European light lager! As you might have guessed, it's transparent, straw colored, highly carbonated, moderately hopped, and just a little bit sweet. It's also fairly crisp and refreshing. How surprising. Unlike other light lagers I've had, this one comes from France. I have little to say about it, though. It's good but it's not really a standout. If you're ever in France and need a decent standby beer because you're sick of wine, this would be a good one to get. But, I wouldn't really have a reason to pick it out over another import in your local beer store.

That sounds meaner than I meant it to. It's just that I had a lot of this style when I was in the Czech Republic and it got to me after a while. Kronenbourg is probably a little more interesting to me than Pilsner Urquell or Stella Artois because there's a touch of lingering sweetness in the aftertaste. It's definitely not a bad beer. This brewery also has a few more beers I'd like to try, like a Grand Cru and a white beer. If I can ever find a Tesco again, I might get to try them.

Bell's Two Hearted Ale

This is going to be a really lame review, but I found Bell's Two Hearted Ale to be a rather standard, well made IPA. I did not really notice anything outstanding about it. It was more of the floral style of IPA than the grassy kind, but that's about it. I think perhaps I should stop trying and reviewing IPAs unless I'm told they are really standouts since I never have much interesting to say about them. For the most part, they're just very interchangable beers for me.

Oh, I know how to draw this out a little bit. Sarah was back in Ohio for a week in April and brought me back a six pack of random beers I haven't had before. This one comes from a brewery in Michigan that's not distributed in NH, but is where she's from. So this was one of the random one she picked up for me. She also got me a case of miscellaneous Great Lakes beers. I've already had all them so I know they're fantastic.

Weihenstephaner Festbier

We go once again to Germany for tonight's beer, the land of the dreaded German Purity Law that is both a great source of pride and a straightjacket for commercial brewers. Luckily it is no longer in effect. This beer claims to be a Maerzen or Oktoberfest beer, but it is like none I have ever had.

It pours a straw color with a decent white head and a good amount of carbonation. I was a little too enthusiastic with my pour and ended up with the sediment from the bottle suspended in the glass. Right off, this strikes me as a very odd beer. Oktoberfests are usually a deep amber color, not straw. That's weird. The smell, taste, and texture only make this stranger. It's not nearly the malt showcase that an Oktoberfest is, nor is it as light of body. Instead it's a much creamier, hoppier (well okay, only mildly hoppy), and even has a little touch of citrus to it. It's actually a pretty good beer. It just doesn't make any sense from the style perspective.

So I just don't get it. This is supposed to be the oldest commercial brewery in the world. You'd think they would know how to make a German beer that fits into the style guidelines, especially when they mention the Rheinheitsgebot on the bottle. And German styles are usually pretty strict. Surely even by the loosest interpretations, this is no Oktoberfest. While I did like this beer, I think I would have preferred to get one matching the style even more. Oh well, I guess you can't always get what you want. Bottom line: this beer is worth a try and you may even like it. You will not, however, be getting what's promised on the label.

Anyone want to shed some light on what's going on here?