Recently in Stout Category

Apparently weasel poo is not involved with this beer at all. Not that it normally would be a key ingredient, but the last beer I had in Mikkeller's Beer Geek series of imperial stouts did have that improbable ingredient... and it was spectacular. This time around, in place of poo, we've got hops. Unfortunately, I think my bottle had been sitting around for quite while when I bought it, and thus I suspect the hop profile was somewhat diminished:

Mikkeller Beer Hop Breakfast - Pours a thick black in color with a couple fingers of light brown head. Smells of light roast, caramel and chocolate, with some piney hops apparent (but not quite as prominently as I was expecting). The roastiness comes out much more in the flavor, along with some coffee and bitter dark chocolate in the finish (the additional hops may also have been a contributor to the bitter finish). Not quite as much hop flavor as I was expecting, but it's clearly more of a hoppy beer than the Brunch Weasel. Mouthfeel is definitely less full than the Brunch Weasel, thinner, but not watery or anything, with a dry finish. Overall, it's a nice beer, but I wish I had a fresher bottle. I'll give it a provisional B, but it could go either way.

Beer Nerd Details: 7.5% ABV bottled (500 ml). Drank out of a tulip glass on 8/31/12.

Mikkeller remains one of my favorite breweries, so I'm sure you'll see some more of their stuff popping up here soon. I think I have a red wine barrel aged stout from them somewhere in my cellar, which I'll probably bring out to play when it gets a little colder out...

Continuing a look at the tiny new breweries in my area, I stopped by Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company this past weekend. Another homebrewer turned pro story here, Neshaminy Creek opened doors in early June (coinciding with Philly Beer Week, which seems to be the trend for these local breweries) and has slowly been making a name for themselves.

They've got a couple standards in their lineup, including the County Line IPA, which is nice, lightly hoppy with a bigger malt character than expected (this winds up being a good thing in a market full of "hop it til it's nasty" beers). I also sampled their Croydon Cream Ale, a nice, light lawnmower beer. Not really my style, but it was tasty and much better than typical light lager fare. Their Tribute Tripel just might be my favorite of their brews, a great take on the style. Filled with fruity esters, sweetness, and plenty of spice from the yeast (clove), it comes off as being well balanced, but still big and delicious, just like a Tripel should be (in the B+ to A- range of my ratings, I think). According to their tank board (pictured above), they've got some sort of Hefeweizen coming too.

But the beer that everyone's talking about is Leon... also known as the 'Smore beer. Yep, it's an imperial stout brewed with baker's chocolate, marshmallow fluff, and crumbled graham crackers. They've made a couple of test batches of the stuff, but it turns out that what I got was the first full batch (and probably the last we'll see of it this year - big beers like this tend to use up an inordinate amount of resources for small breweries). Knowing I wanted a closer look at this one, I got a growler of it and have been sipping my way through it for most of the weekend. At 11.6% ABV, it's big and burly, but the alcohol is pretty well hidden. Ah well, there goes my glycemic index. Let's take a closer look:

Neshaminy Creek Leon - Pours a deep, dark black color with a finger of dense tan head. Nice retention too, plenty of lacing as I drink. Smells strongly of chalky roasted malts, maybe some coffee character, but also a sorta light sweetness in the nose as well. Taste is again dominated by those roasted malts, coffee flavors, and maybe just a hint of dark chocolate. Nowhere near as sweet as I'd expect, but it's not super bitter either. As it warms (or perhaps as my palate adjusts to the roastiness), the coffee goes away and chocolate emerges more. I have to admit, I don't get any real 'smore flavor here, but that don't mean it's not good. I know it's obnoxious to tell a brewer stuff like this, but for a smore beer, I'd love to get more in the way of caramelized sugar flavors and less in the way of roastiness. Mouthfeel is heavy, but smooth, with plenty of tight carbonation. It's a sipper to be sure, but the booze isn't as pronounced as I'd expect in a 11.6% ABV beer. Very well hidden. Overall, a solid imperial stout. Not quite the beer I was looking for, but I'm sure it will make stout fanatics happy... B

Beer Nerd Details: 11.6% ABV from growler. Drank out of a snifter on 8/25/12. Beer was apparently kegged on 8/24/12, so it's about as fresh as possible.

I'm curious to see how Leon evolves over time. According to the brewer, this one came in a little lighter than their test batches, and they've also reserved a bunch to age in Bourbon barrels. This excites me to no end, as bourbon barrel aging tends to temper the big roast and coffee flavors in a beer like this while adding a touch of sweetness and complexity from the oak. This sounds quite exciting. Otherwise, I'm going to be on the lookout for their Tribute Tripel, which I think was my favorite of their beers. While I was there, I heard talk of wild yeast and other barrel aging stuff, which sounds exciting. They're mostly only on tap right now, but I believe they do some limited bottling of their brews too. Definitely a brewery to keep an eye on...

Also known as: that beer made with weasel poop coffee. Yes, this beer is made with civet coffee, one of the world's most expensive varieties. Apparently, coffee berries are fed to weasel-like civets and are thus passed through their digestive tract. The idea here is that the coffee beans are exposed to various enzymes in the process, helping break them down. But not too much, as the beans retain their coffee-like properties, just with a different, supposedly less bitter character. There's apparently a lot of controversy surrounding the coffee due to the novelty factor and also the ease with which "fake" civet beans are put on the market. Oh, and the fact that people are drinking coffee made from poo. Ok, fine, the coffee is apparently washed and roasted, but still. Weasel poo.

And of course, leave it to Mikkeller to make an exceptional beer with this stuff. He's got a whole series of Beer Geek stouts, mostly brewed with various coffees. Not being a big coffee person (poo or no poo), the beer never really made it past my radar, but I eventually broke down and got a couple bottles from the series to see what all the fuss is about. Well, I'm glad I got over my hesitation, because this stuff is great:

Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel - Pours a very dark brown color with a finger of light brown head. Smells fantastic, very rich dark malt aromas, caramel, booze, maybe a little roast (but not much). Taste also features those rich dark malt flavors, much more coffee and roast character than the nose would indicate (but not overpowering or anything), plenty of caramel and chocolate, and maybe a hint of booze. The finish has some balancing bitterness, some of which is coming from that coffee (rather than all hops - though if wikipedia is to be believed, the bitterness is less pronounced than regular coffee). Mouthfeel is thick and chewy, full bodied, low but appropriate carbonation and just a little stickiness in the finish. Alcohol is very well hidden here. Towards the end of the bottle, the yeast got a little clumpy, which wasn't great, but only really impacted a small portion of the bottle. Overall, this is expertly crafted stuff and while I don't normally go in for coffee in my beer, this one is fantastic. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 10.9% ABV bottled (500 ml). Drank out of a snifter on 7/20/12.

Up next on the wallet-lightening train of Mikkeller beers is Beer Hop Breakfast - basically a similar beer, sans poo, plus tons of hops. All aboard!

I've already mentioned my Pavlovian response to fancy packaging (boxed bottles, fancy labels, wax dipped caps, etc...), but I also have to admit that there's something to the minimalism of Maine Beer Company's label designs. Simple fonts, straightforward description of the beer, maybe a little representative pictogram, but their labels are clearly dominated by whitespace. Sometimes straightforward trumps fancy, and you have to admit, Maine's simple bottles do stand out on a shelf.

I suppose it also helps that those crazy neo-hippies from Maine have brewed some pretty fantastic beer. In this case, we've got a "stout aged on natural vanilla beans" which sounds rather good, but it didn't quite work out as well as I'd hoped:

Maine Beer Co. Mean Old Tom - Pours a very dark brown, almost black color with a finger of tan head. Smells of deep, dark malts, maybe a little roast coffee. The taste also features that deep, dark malt character with less roast and maybe some notes of chocolate making an appearance. Not really getting any vanilla in the nose or taste. Mouthfeel starts off medium but sorta thins out as I reach the finish. It's certainly not light bodied, but it's on the lighter side of medium. Overall, it's fine, and I'm enjoying it, but it's not something that's really pushing my buttons... It reminds me a bit of my homebrewed stout, though this is certainly better than that... B-

Beer Nerd Details: 6.5% ABV bottled (500 ml). Drank out of a tulip glass on 6/15/12. Bottle sez 050312 (presumably bottling date) and 6 (batch number?).

Despite being a little disappointed by this one, I'm still looking forward to trying... pretty much anything else that Maine has available. I've got a bottle of MO in the fridge as I write, and it probably won't last the weekend. At the rate I'm getting through reviews, you'll probably read about it in a month...

It's not exactly a secret that I love me some bourbon barrel aged beers, so it will come as no surprise that I really enjoyed this offering from Michigan's New Holland Brewery. Maybe I've got a problem, but there's just something magical that happens when you put beer into a bourbon barrel for aging. I just love the added richness of flavor, complexity, and thick, chewy mouthfeel that comes with the territory.

Dragon's Milk is aged in old Heaven Hill Bourbon Barrels for at least 90 days. As previously discussed, this is partially due to the fact that the legal definition of Bourbon says that the whiskey must be aged on new oak, leading to a big secondary market of used oak barrels that brewers can latch onto. But apparently New Holland can only use those secondary Bourbon barrels once to age beer. "Second-use barrels don't give the beer the same character," says New Holland's Brett VanderKamp.

But this is where things get really intriguing. New Holland also runs a small, artisanal spirits business, and they've started to use their old Dragon's Milk barrels to age their whiskey... Consider my mind blown. What a great idea. When I was in line for Dark Wednesday, some beer nerds and I discussed the possibilities of this very thing (aging whiskey in beer barrels). I didn't think it would happen so soon, but it's a welcome development. This is apparently still in the prototyping phase, though both Jim and Don from the Beer and Whisky Brothers managed to get a hold of some of the stuff. The verdict: everyone seems to love it. It seems something magical happens when you put whiskey in a beer barrel for aging. I absolutely need to get my hands on some of this stuff.

In the meantime, I'll have to make do with some regular old Bourbon barrel aged beer:

New Holland Dragon's Milk - Pours a very dark brown color, almost black, with a small amount of tan head. Smells fantastic. Lots of roasted malt, caramel, milk chocolate, vanilla, bourbon, and oak in the nose. Taste starts off very sweet, rich flavors of caramel, milk chocolate, vanilla, light bourbon and oak. Just a hint of roasted malts. Mouthfeel is full bodied and chewy, perfectly balanced richness and carbonation. Goes down surprisingly easy, maybe a bit of alcohol warming when you drink quickly, but it still doesn't feel as strong as it is... Overall, fantastic beer! A-

Beer Nerd Details: 10% ABV bottled (12 oz). Drank out of a snifter on 6/1/12.

I have no idea if and when this beer barrel bourbon will be available, but if I get a chance to try some, I'll be sure to let you know. In any case, my consumption of barrel aged beers will probably continue to be unhealthily high. Summer seems a little less barrel-agey, but don't worry, I'm sure I'll be hitting up plenty of interesting stuff in the coming weeks.

Full Pint brewing, out of Pittsburgh, PA (or close enough), is only a couple years old at this point, but they seem to be making a name for themselves, at least here in the semi-local market. I'm sure starting a brewery incurs a massive cost at the start, but it looks like these fellas scavenged one John Harvard's abandoned brewpubs for their brewing system. Harvard's is apparently still around, but they appear to have retreated from the PA market. I've had many a Harvard's beer back in my fledgling beer nerd days (back towards the hazy college years), and have never been particularly impressed, so I'm guessing Full Pint is putting this equipment to much better use these days than it ever got when it was new... There should be a name for this type of brewery that's resurrected old brewing equipment. Zombie brewery, perhaps? (Apparently Full Pint is working on a new year-round dark beer called Night of the Living Stout, which is quite appropriate!)

Alright, let's see here, ah, Rye Rebellion is an "imperial stout brewed with four different types of rye and aged in rye whiskey barrels". You had me at "imperial" (then you really had me at "whisky"):

Full Pint Rye Rebellion - Pours a deep black color with minimal head and no real lacing. Smells strongly of roasted malts, with some of that sweet rye/bourbon character tickling at my nose... Starts off with a rich caramel chocolate malt character, followed by a bit of that roasted malt (maybe a little coffee) and finally, the rye/bourbon comes out to play towards the finish. The roasted coffee flavor seems to linger a bit in the aftertaste. But it's all pretty well balanced, actually, and there's a difference between this and a lot of other bourbon barrel stouts (perhaps because of the rye). Mouthfeel is full bodied, chewy and heavy, but still very smooth, with relatively low carbonation (but enough to make it drinkable). Very little booze character here, I'd have a hard time placing the ABV as high as it is... Overall, it's quite a nice beer, distinct from a lot of its competition and really hitting the spot right now. A-

Beer Nerd Details: It turns out, they did this part for me. From the bottle:

Drank out of a snifter on 5/18/12.

Quite a first impression! I'll now have to seek out some of their other brews (Chinookie IPA seems to be a popular one, and I will of course be on the look out for that Night of the Living Stout)...

It's pretty common for a brewery to have a series of sinister beer names, and Fegley's Brew Works have a few in their lineup, including this one, called Insidious. Apparently, this bourbon barrel aged version was inspired by Silence of the Lambs' Buffalo Bill, quoted as saying "It puts the potion in the barrel" (with the unspoken implication that if it doesn't, it'll get the hose again). Was it worth kidnapping the regular old Insidious and holding it hostage in bourbon barrels for a year or so? Let's find out, shall we:

Fegley's Brew Works Insidious Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout - Pours a very dark brown color, almost black, with a finger of tan head. Smells of roasted malt, with a hint of sweetness, presumably from the bourbon. The taste starts roasty, followed by some nice caramel and vanilla oak notes in the middle, finishing with a small but distinct kick of sweet bourbon, leaving an aftertaste of bourbon mixed with roasted malt. Mouthfeel is rich, thick, and chewy. Plenty of carbonation, but well matched and smooth. Goes down surprisingly easy. Overall, this is a fantastic beer. Not a huge amount of bourbon, but enough to know it's there, very well balanced. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 9% ABV bottled (12 oz.) Drank out of a snifter on 5/5/12.

I'm trying to think if I've ever had a bad beer from these guys... and I don't think I have. Indeed, they even have a few monsters in their lineup, like Hop'solutely (which I would love to try fresh) and the regular Insidious.

So this isn't going to make sense to most of you, but today is Founder's Day! My place of employment is 26 years old today, so to celebrate, I'll write about a different kind of Founders... Ok, so I drank it about a month ago, but it still works, right?

Founders Imperial Stout - Pours a deep black color with a finger of quite darkish brown color head. Smells strongly of roasted malts and dark crystal malts, some coffee with perhaps a hint of dark chocolate peeking through. Taste starts very sweet, with a bit of chocolate followed by those roasted malts emerging quickly into the middle, flavors of roast coffee asserting strongly in the middle and finish. The rich chocolate falvor becomes more prominent as the beer warms, which was much appreciated. Mouthfeel is full bodied, thick, and chewy, but still a joy to drink. Overall, a very nice imperial stout that emphasizes some flavors that are not quite my preference, but it's still impeccable and extremely well crafted. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 10.5% ABV bottled (12 oz). Drank out of a snifter on 5/11/12.

Founders is one of the best breweries in the country, so I will continue to explore their catalog whenever possible. I think I even have a few more reviews in the pipeline...