Recently in Rye Category

Tonight was beer club, a meeting of beer minded individuals from my work who get together for a meal and lots-o-beer once a month. An interesting turnout this month, as a few stalwarts were absent, but new attendees picked up the slack. This time around, we visited a Mexican BYOB with quite the ostentatious decor:

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Phew, that place has some brightly colored furniture. But amazing salsa and good food too. For the sake of posterity, some thoughts on each beer we tried are below. As usual, conditions were not ideal, so you can and should be skeptical of my notes. In order of drinking (not in order of the picture above):

• Lagunitas Hairy Eyeball Ale - Wow, very rich malt flavors here, like a Scotch ale, but with something more. I got a distinct barrel aged character out of it, though this not one of those versions (apparently there are bourbon, port or brandy barrel aged versions, which I'd love to try). Fantastic beer, got the night going in style, though it may have set the bar unreasonably high for the following beers. I'd love to get me some more of this. A candidate for best of the night. A-
• Appalachian Jolly Scot Scottish Ale - A somewhat local PA beer, this is another malt-forward ale that, unfortunately, didn't stand up too well to the Hairy Eyeball. It was fine, to be sure, and I'd probably really enjoy one of these by itself, but it came off as being a biton the thin side after the rich flavors of the Hairy Eyeball. B
• Blue Moon Belgian White - I know, it's brewed by Coors, but hey, it actually worked really well at this point in the night. After two malt forward beers, it was a really refreshing change of pace, and I honestly have no problem with this beer anyway. Obviously not something I would ever go out of my way for, but a lot of places that only stock macros will have this on tap, and it's actually a nice beer. No, it won't melt your face, but it's a good gateway beer. Lots of wheat and citrus, it's refreshing and made for a nice palate cleanser tonight. B
• Tommyknocker Imperial Nut Brown Ale - Big brown ale brewed with Maple Syrup, you do get that character coming through pretty strongly here. A big, rich ale, no real hop presence, but lots of malts and that maple syrup adds a nice richness to the proceedings. Very well done, and another candidate for best of the night. A-
• Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye IPA - Well hopped (citrus and a little pine), plenty of balancing malts, and some of that distinctive rye character (though I never got the full-on rye bread character people seem to talk about). It didn't blow my mind, but a very solid beer that I could probably drink often. B+
• St. Bernardus Prior 8 - Not pictured (late arrival), but it's a classic. Already reviewed here.
• Southern Tier Creme Brulee (Imperial Milk Stout) - Another beer I reviewed a while back, this is one of the more interesting beers of the night. Massive aroma, intense flavors of chocolate, caramel, vanilla, maybe even some coffee. I could just sniff this stuff all night. Great stuff, maybe even a little better than I remember (though I think my chief complaint last time was that it's a bit too sweet to drink a whole bottle). A strange beer because I wouldn't call it one of my favorites, but it's so distinctive and interesting that I'd highly recommend it to just about anyone. A great dessert beer.
• Dominion Ale - Any beer that follows the intense flavors and aroma of Creme Brulee was probably doomed to failure, and this turned out to be a rather standard English Pale Ale, a style I'm coming to dislike quite a bit these days. I always feel like there are buttery off flavors in these beers, and this one is no exception. I even threw in a small slice of orange, which helped mellow it out a bit, but blegh. Not a fan of this beer. D
• Kaedrin Christmas Ale - My homebrewed winter warmer style beer (a kinda spiced red ale), this thing has to be my best beer yet. Very nice spicy aroma, picking up lots of that cinnamon and clove, tastes quite nice, almost creamy mouthfeel. I really hope this wasn't some sort of fluke. I should really do a recap of all my homebrews at some point on the blog, so no rating for now, but I would seriously put this up against any of the winter warmer style beers I've had over the past couple years.
• Boxcar Brewing A Long Winter's Night - This is probably as local as I can get. The (tiny) brewery was literally a few blocks away from where we were tonight (and this limited edition brew doesn't even warrant a page on BA, apparently). This winter ale was very interesting. I didn't get a lot of spice or anything out of it, but it was a very nice cloudy brown color with... it's hard to describe. Roasted chocolate? But not at all like a stout. More like a brown ale, but with no coffee and some chocolatey overtones (to be honest, it's very much like their regular brown ale, but perhaps less nutty). Very solid beer. B

All in all, a pretty great night! We didn't manage to get to all the beers in the picture, though I ended up taking a can of pale ale home with me, so perhaps a review of that in the coming weeks... That's all for now.

Get it? Julytful, like delightful! Eh, so yeah, good beer puns are sometimes hard to come by. Consider yourselves lucky, as a British attendee to this month's beer club contributed this one, which superceded my initial thought of Brewly Beer Club (which isn't the worst possible beer pun, but still pretty terrible). For the uninitiated, the beer club is basically just a bunch of folks from my work who get together once a month to enjoy a nice dinner together... along with lots of different beers and wines and other alcoholic wonders. A relatively small group of people this month, but lots of beer (thanks mostly to a club member who was just on vacation in Ohio recently, and thus was able to bring a bunch of beers we've never seen or heard of before!). Here's what we had:

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For reference, here are some brief thoughts on each. As usual, this isn't exactly ideal tasting conditions, so take them with a grain of salt, but still... From left to right in the picture:

• Troegs Dead Reckoning - Very nice porter. Roasty and smooth, but not overpowering. I'm not normally a huge fan of porters, but this one's pretty decent. Not something that's lighting the world on fire, but good in it's own way. Unfortunately, it was probably overshadowed by a couple of stouts we had later in the tasting... I'll give it a B
• Ohio Brewing Verich Gold - A kolsch style ale that's not particularly good. It reminded me of a typical Bud/Miller/Coors style beer, with a bit of a twang. It's a beer that might be ok on its own, but when drank side-by-side with a bunch of other good beers, it just pales in comparison. I suppose it just ain't my style of beer.. but then, it was also pretty much the unanimous worst beer of the night among beer club peeps. D
• Thirsty Dog 12 Dogs of Christmas Ale - Probably the worst time of the year to drink a winter warmer style beer, but I quite enjoyed this spicy beer. It's relatively dark, but not roasty. Very spicy with a full malt backbone. Some folks thought it was almost too spicy ,but I quite enjoyed this beer. B+
• Great Lakes Holy Moses White Ale - Seriously one of the best Belgian wit beers I've ever had, rivaling the likes of Victory's Whirlwind Wit and Ommegange's Witte. Very effervescent, almost lemony, but with lots of balancing spiciness of the light variety (coriander, orange peel, etc..) Right up there at the top of the list for wheat beers. B+
• Thirsty Dog Cerberus Belgian Tripel - Nice fancy foil packaging, with a beer to match. Extremely sweet and boozy, it's a bit hot for the style, but very good. There was a bit of a twang to it that I could place, but which differentiated it from other examples of the style. Quite good. B+
• Great Lakes Commodore Perry IPA - I've had this beer a few times before... and have never really enjoyed it. It's not particularly bad, but it's definitely a victim of circumstances, as I always find myself trying one when I've already had much better beers. By the time I got to this tonight, it just wasn't doing it for me. Again, not a bad IPA, but not particularly accomplished either. C+
• Hoppin' Frog B.O.R.I.S. The Crusher Oatmeal-Imperial Stout - We tried to drink the beers listed here from lightest to darkest, and this one ended up being the last beer of the night... and the best! Dark as night and seemingly thick, with a nice brownish head. Very sweet, chocolaty, and roasty, with a nice booziness apparent. A wonderful imperial stout. The name of the bear stands for "Bodacious Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout", and it's well worth the moniker. A-
• Hoppin' Frog Turbo Shandy - A shandy is normally a beer mixed with a citrus flavored soda like 7up or Sprite. Usually this is something that happens after the fact - a beer coctail, as it were. But some breweries release shandies right in the bottle... and in this case, the beer really does taste like a 7up/Sprite... Extremely sweet and crispt, maybe some lemony/lime feeling to it, and you can't really even detect the relatively strong 7% ABV. Would perhaps make a good lawnmower beer, but not particularly something I'm all that interested in... C+
• Rogue Shakespeare Stout - Another oatmeal stout, this one was second to last in the drinking order, and quite a solid example of the stile. Very chocolately, but with a surprising earthy feel to it. This is quite good, but not great. B+
• Red's Rye Pale Ale - I know next to nothing about Rye beer, but I have a few more of these in the fridge, so expect a full review in the nearish future. Initial impressions are quite positive.
• My Homebrewed Saison - This actually turned out far better than I was expecting. It seemed to be a general success with the folks of beer club, and it's the first beer I've made so far that I really enjoy drinking from start to finish. It's very light in its way, but it makes up for that with some Belgian yeast spiciness and a nice hoppy aproma/taste character (though it's not particularly bitter). My favorite batch so far. Makes me want to pour my last batch down the drain!

And that covers all the beer we had... Someone did bring a bottle of Australian wine, but they said they were a bit disappointed by it (no idea what it was called). Good times, as always, and I'm already looking forward to the next meetup.