Recently in B+ Category

Brasserie Dunham is located southeast of Montreal, near the Vermont border. You know how dorks like me make the pilgrimage to Vermont to get good beer? Well, I have some Vermont friends who've raved about making the pilgrimage to Dunham. This certainly speaks volumes. As such, when I saw their beers showing up on shelves in the US, I pounced.

This beer is first in a series of blends (it's an assemblage or "assembly", eh). This entry is composed of a 50/50 blend of Propolis (a saison made with wheat, honey, and citrus peels) and an American-style pale ale; the blend is then spiked with Brett and aged in Zinfandel barrels. My kinda rustic, lets dive in:

Brasserie Dunham Assemblage Numero 1 - Not a gusher, but it started foaming a bit and would have overflowed if I wasn't careful. Pours a murky golden orange color with a finger or two of white, fluffy head, good retention, a bit of lacing. Smells great, earthy funk, Belgian yeast spice (cloves, coriander), a little vinous fruit. Taste is sweet and spicy, funky earthiness kicking in during the middle, finishing with a bit of a dry, bitter bite. Mouthfeel is highly carbonated and effervescent, medium bodied and dry. Overall, the pale ale adds perhaps a bit too much bitterness, but this is really quite nice nonetheless! B+ or A-

Beer Nerd Details: 5.5% ABV bottled (750 ml). Drank out of a charente glass on 12/10/16.

Definitely a brewery to watch out for, and I'm certain I'll be seeking out more of their stuff soon enough. It's been a while since a Canadian beer has made it to the blog. I'm glad these folks helped me remedy that, and let's hope I can keep it up...

I've generally enjoyed 2SP's offerings, but their limited bottlings have been a bit less consistent for me. This is partly due to style choices that just didn't quite align with my general preferences. Hardly a crime and it's been amply established that I'm the worst, so I've been lagging behind on their releases. Enter these two bottles, much more to my taste.

The first is an English Strong Ale aged in rum barrels for 12 months. This is the longest they've managed to barrel age a beer to date, and it sounds delicious. The second is a bourbon barrel aged imperial porter. Aged for 10 months in Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, and apparently a single barrel 1792 bourbon barrel that originated from local Kaedrin favorite Teresa's Cafe (I've never gotten the 1792, but I've had some of their other single barrel picks and they've been good!) These both sound delicious, lets dig in:

2SP Rummy Sticks (Rum Barrel Aged English Strong Ale) - Pours a very dark amber brown color with a quarter finger of fizzy head that quickly resolves to a ring around the edge which manages to stick around a bit longer. Smells of... banana? Definitely rum, oak, dark fruits, molasses, but yes, banana too, interesting. Taste is a little less complex than the nose would have you believe, but it hits similar notes, just not as hard. Sweet, dark fruit, rum, oak, molasses, and sure, banana, why not, maybe some noble hops going on too, not really bitter, but the finish balances out some of the upfront sweetness. A little more rummy booze shows up as it warms too. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, finely carbed, perhaps a bit too thin for a Rum barrel-aged approach, but it comports itself well. Overall, a definite improvement over recent bottles, but still not quite a home run... B+

Beer Nerd Details: 8% ABV bottled (750 ml). Drank out of a snifter on 11/19/16. Bottle No. 470. Batch Date: 8/8/15. Released: 11/4/16.

2SP Bourbon Barrel Aged S.I.P. (Stigz' Imperial Porter) (Teresa's 1792 Bourbon Barrel) - Pours a dark brown, almost black color with half a finger of off white head. Smells of roasted malt and fudge, a little oak and bourbon. Taste is sweet, hints of roast, bourbon, and oak, a little vanilla. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, well carbonated, pretty easy going for a bourbon barrel aged porter. Overall, it's pretty good, but not top tier. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 8.5% ABV bottled (750 ml). Drank out of a tulip glass on 11/19/16. Bottle No. 075. Batch Date: 10/14/15. Released: 9/30/16.

So these are definitely more to my taste than the past couple releases, but still haven't quite breached that top tier. That being said, these are certainly good enough to continue hunting down...

Good news for Fantôme dorks! It appears that Dany is looking to step up operations, maybe invest in a new brewing system, and start putting out creative new offerings on the regular. Dany being Dany, his wording struck a chord, and now there's a new facebook group called Serious Knowers (of all and nothing) and memes about Master Knowers and I didn't think it possible to love Fantôme any more. As per usual, I'm always on the lookout for more Fantôme, and I've recently come into a few new bottles of stuff. Most exciting. Someday I hope to be a Master Knower.

This beer is a collaboration with Arizona Wilderness, who recently visited Belgium and brought along some ingredients foraged from the Sonoran Desert to brew with Fantôme. Of course, Dany won't tell you what these ingredients are; will probably just respond with the typical "Secrets Secrets" answer. I guess we'll just have to go and drink the sucker and see if we recognize anything:

Fantôme Desert Ghost - Pours an orange hued gold color with half a finger of head that quickly fades to a cap, then sticks around for a while. Smells great, that pear-like earthy funk is back, some sweet floral aromas too. Taste is quite nice, sweet (perhaps some residual sugars hanging around), that fruity yeast feel, pears and the like, a little bit of earth, some spicy yeast too, with a tart bite towards the finish but not really sour. Fantôme's yeast is still distinct, but really doing well these days. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, a little low on the carbonation (could really use more), no real acidity. Overall, would like more carbonation, but otherwise fantastic. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 7% ABV bottled (750 ml corked and capped). Drank out of a tulip glass on 11/11/16.

Always an experience. I've got another interesting new Tome in the pipeline, and frankly the recent bottles of regular Fantôme and Dark White were fantastic. Really looking forward to wider availability of their stuff. You will most certainly be seeing more about Fantôme in the future of this blog...

Hardcore lambic nerdery incoming. Take cover! So there have been some attempts to classify the different styles of lambic. The most common is to separate Gueuze (blend of 1, 2, and 3 year old lambic), fruited lambic (exactly what it sounds like), and unblended lambic (lambic that is not part of a gueuze blend or fruited lambic, and is usually near still or flat).

As it turns out, the usage of "unblended" is mildly inaccurate, but persists due to its widespread usage in English-speaking publications (N.B. this includes writings from Michael Jackson and other highly respected authors, so this isn't meant as a slight). While "unblended" lambic does exist, it seems to be rare. Most beers categorized as such, like Cantillon's Grand Cru Bruocsella or De Cam's Oude Lambiek, are actually blends of various old lambics. Since they are all older lambics, they still don't qualify as gueuze (which is a blend of old and young) and they don't experience any refermentation in the bottle and thus lack carbonation. Locals in lambic regions tend to refer to these beers as simply young or old lambics (The terms "jonge" and "oude" in Dutch and "jeune" and "vieux" in French translate to "young" and "old" respectively).

I have, of course, been guilty of using "unblended" in the past. Frankly, it's never been my favorite approach to lambic. I tend to be sensitive to carbonation issues and thus haven't been in love with the few examples I managed to snag. That said, I'm told that this approach does allow you to get closer to a given brewery's "house character" than a gueuze, and with this Lambickx offering sourced from De Troch, I think I may be catching on to the style.

This is all well and good, but it would be nice to know the carbonation state before opening a bottle and just calling something "lambic" seems like too big of an umbrella term for that. Maybe instead of "Unblended" you could use "Still" or "Pure" or "Straight" (all of which I've seen used in differing capacities). I mean, I knew what I was in for when I popped the cork on this bottle, but from the label alone one could easily assume it would be carbonated (like most other lambic or beer). Regardless, as hinted at above, I ended up enjoying this much more than I would have thought. Then again, that very "pure" nature of this offering also leads to more variability, so maybe I just got a particularly good bottle. Or maybe Vanberg & DeWulf's barrel selection is just on point.

Lambickx De Troch 2012-2014 - Pours a honey gold color, no head, no carbonation. Smells great, light funkiness, tart fruit, sour twang. Tastes quite nice, sweet, nice tart fruit character, a little oak, moderate to low sourness, very well balanced. Mouthfeel is light to medium bodied, still (no real carbonation), moderate to low acidity, again very well balanced. Overall, this is much better than I was expecting. I've not been particularly enamored with unblended lambics in the past, but this is quite nice. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 5.75% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a flute glass on 11/6/16. Brew Year: 2012. Bottle Year: 2014. Number of Bottles: 2667. Source: De Troch. Barrel Type: 600 liter French Oak.

So I may have to snag some more Lambickx vintages and variants, maybe even age some further. Other Still Lambics might get on my radar as well. Funnily enough, while I have a category for Gueuze, I pretty much put everything else in a generic Lambic category. Now that I've got a couple of these Pure Lambics, I should probably

Defenestration is literally the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. Sounds cathartic, especially since the best known objects of such treatment are unwanted politicians. The label sez it perfectly, so I'll just let it speak for itself:

Some of the most famous and notorious defenestrations occurred in Prague in the 15th and 17th centuries. These defenestrations were done in an effort to remove government officials by throwing them out a third story window. The result was either sudden death or serious bodily injury. Either way, mission accomplished!

In the spirit of this 2016 election year, we hope you enjoy our hoppy Belgian-inspired blonde ale named for the act of removing politicians by throwing them out the window - literally!

The picture on the label is also quite apropos, though the 2016 election probably deserves a more gruesome visual. Lots of people are struggling right now and while it might be fun for defenestration to make a comeback, that's probably not the answer. Probably. In the meantime, maybe beer can provide some small measure of comfort:

Russian River Defenestration - Pours a straw yellow color with a finger of fluffy white head and good retention. Smells quite nice, musty Belgian yeast, a little bit of spice, and a slight aroma of citrus hops. Taste mostly hits those Belgian yeast notes, spicy phenols, light on the fruity esters. Mouthfeel is light bodied, highly carbonated, crisp, and effervescent, quite dry too, goes down very easy. Overall, this is a very nice, pretty straightforward Belgian pale ale, with just a hint of hops for added fun. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 6.5% ABV bottled (375 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a charente glass on 11/8/16. Bottled on: 091616.

Not Russian River's top tier, but a rock solid Belgian ale. Many thanks to fellow Beer Nerd Gary for securing the bottle and slinging it my way!

When I was a kid, I collected coins. And not just those goofy books with slots for each year's penny, I went all out, grading them (XF-45 bro), putting them in fancy individual casings, and so on. Yes, I was a nerd, I believe we've already established that, quit screaming "NERD!" at the top of your lungs. Anyway, Buffalo nickels (aka Indian Head nickels) were interesting because the ill-advised design lead to normal wear and tear basically erasing the year from the coin (since it was on a raised area of the engraving, it was the first to fade). Still, it was a nice design, as you might expect when Teddy Roosevelt's administration started on a mission to "beautify" the nation's coinage. All our coin designs these days are boring old presidents. Those older coins were great, with a million variations on lady liberty, Mercury wings, buffalo, Native Americans, shields, and so on. These days we're stuck with a cavalcade of presidents. Nice, I guess, but it could use some updating, no?

Anywho! This is a pair of barrel aged beers from New Jersey's Double Nickel brewing company, both Buffalo Nickel inspired. Or at least named after them. I mean, nickel is a toxic transition metal and thus not a great ingredient in beer. But I digress. Again. Anyway, a friend had brought both of these to a bottle share a while back, and I was pretty impressed, but then, it's tricky to really evaluate beer at a share. Too many flavors, tiny pours, and so on. So during a recent sojourn into the Garden State, I saw these and jumped on them. I mean, I quickly purchased them. I didn't literally jump on them. That would have hurt. As expected, slightly different perception when drinking by themselves, though I still really enjoyed them. One of the most interesting things about them is that they're relatively low alcohol for bourbon barrel aged beers. 8-8.5% is reasonably high, but compared to the normal 13+% we see, these are pretty svelte. Let's see how they hold up:

Double Nickel Marbled Buffalo - Pours a clear dark brown color, amber highlights, with a finger of light tan head. Smells great, toffee, rye spice, hints of bourbon, oak, and vanilla. Taste hits those spicy rye notes hard, a little rich caramel and toffee, bourbon, oak, and vanilla. Really impressed by the rye character here. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, medium bodied, moderate richness, goes down pretty easy. Overall, this is a fascinating beer, nice barrel character, but the lower ABV makes it more approachable than your typical take. The rye comes through really well. Unique and complex. Borderline high B+ or low A-

Beer Nerd Details: 8% ABV bottled (22 ounce bomber). Drank out of a snifter on 10/28/16. Bottle No. 142 of 1800.

Double Nickel Buffalo Nickel - Pours a very dark brown, almost black color, with half a finger of light brown head. Smells of caramel and vanilla, with hints of bourbon and oak, and maybe some faint roast. Taste is rich caramel and vanilla, with some roast and maybe even a little hop character floating around in the middle, finishing on a bourbon and oak note. Mouthfeel is slightly less carbonated, rich, full bodied, but still pretty approachable. Overall, nowhere near as unique, but a solid little BBA imperial stout, all the more impressive because of the lowish ABV. Quite nice. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 8.5% ABV bottled (22 ounce bomber). Drank out of a snifter on 10/28/16. Bottle No. 1516 of 1800.

These beers made a pretty great first impression on me, and being located in Pennsauken, New Jersey, they might be closer than a lot of great PA breweries I visit on the regular, so you'll probably see more from them here at some point...

Time to check in with our friends up north. Other Half opened in 2014, but only started canning in February of this year. They built their reputation almost entirely on word of mouth, and that word is "excellent", so can releases tend to be pretty crowded affairs. Such is the way of Northeast IPA brewers, I guess. Fortunately, cans have been finding their way into my possession often enough to know that their hype is at least partially deserved. Will I be driving up to Brooklyn and waiting in line anytime soon? Probably not. But I know some people who do, and for that, I am grateful. Here are the four latest brews I've had from these folks, two single hop beers, a duo, and one of their staple triple IPAs.

Other Half Double Dry Hopped Double Mosaic Dream - Similar to regular Double Mosaic Dream, but with moar dry-hopping - Pours a hazy yellow gold color with a finger of white head, decent retention, and a little lacing. Smells great, tropical fruit, citrus hops, a little dank pine. Taste follows the nose, huge amounts of tropical fruit and citrus, mangoes, pineapples, and whatnot, sweet up front with a well balanced bitter note in the finish. Mouthfeel is perfect, well carbonated, tight, medium bodied. Overall, delicious. Not sure how different it is from the non double dry hopped version, but it's still exceptional! A

Beer Nerd Details: 8.5% ABV canned (16 ounce pounder). Drank out of a tulip glass on 10/8/16. Canned 9/23/2016. Batch: Violently Hoppy.

Other Half Amarillo IPA - I love Amarillo, but have found it to be a poor choice as a bittering hop, so single-hop beers like this tend to suffer a bit because of that. - Pours a cloudy, dark yellow gold, almost brown, with a finger of white head. Smells very nice, sweet with lots of citrus hops. Taste starts off sweet with lots of citrus hop flavor, maybe a bit of pine, finishing with a sharp, astringent bitterness. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, well carbonated, crisp, and relatively dry. Overall this is rock solid stuff, one of the better Amarillo Single Hop beers around, but it still can't quite overcome Amarillo's sharp bittering character... B+

Beer Nerd Details: 7% ABV canned (16 ounce pounder). Drank out of a charente glass on 10/9/16. Canned: 9/23/16. Batch: Pretty Daddy.

Other Half All Green Everything - A triple IPA brewed with Motueka, Amarillo, Citra and Mosaic hops, this one certainly doesn't fall into the "Isn't this just a hoppy barleywine" trap that many TIPAs are susceptible to, even if it doesn't quite reach the top of that mountain. - Pours a mostly clear, dark, golden orange color with a finger of white head. Smells nice, sweet citrus and pine, with some floral, grassy notes too. Taste has a big malt backbone, hits a more dank piney aspect than the nose, but plenty of citrus, finishing with a well balanced and soft bitterness. Mouthfeel is medium to full bodied, well carbonated, but with a fair amount of boozy heat. A very good beer, but a little disappointing given its reputation. On the upper end of B+

Beer Nerd Details: 10.5% ABV canned (16 ounce pounder). Drank out of a teku glass on 10/9/16. Canned: 9/22/2016. Batch: Best Coast.

Other Half Simcoe + Wai-Iti - I think this might have been my first Wai-Iti hopped beer ever, though it turns out that two of those Veil beers I recently posted about also had them. It certainly has that New Zealand flare to it and works well enough for me, though I'd like to try more. This combo with Simcoe worked out quite nicely. - Pours a pale, almost clear yellow color with a finger of head and great retention. Smells great, sweet, candied citrus and pine hops, nice and dank, as Simcoe is wont to be. Taste has more Wai-Iti hop influence, much more tropical than your typical Simcoe, though you get a bit of that Simcoe dankness, and a good sweetness/bitterness balance. Mouthfeel is perfect, light to medium bodied, well carbonated, dangerously quaffable. Overall, this is awesome. A

Beer Nerd Details: 8.5% ABV canned (16 ounce pounder). Drank out of a tulip glass on 10/14/16. Canned: 9/22/2016. Batch: Yeast Coast.

Phew, I think that's enough IPA reviews for the time being (only 8 over the course of two posts!). No more Other Half in the immediate pipeline, but you will almost certainly be hearing about them again soon. Indeed, I hope to perhaps try something that's not an IPA at some point...

Richmond, Virginia's The Veil Brewing Co. opened it's doors around six months ago. Brewer Matt Tarpey spent some time at several Northeast breweries, including the likes of The Alchemist and Hill Farmstead, as well as completing an apprenticeship with Jean Van Roy at Cantillon in Belgium. That's a pretty impressive pedigree. Since they're just getting started, I imagine their spontaneous fermentation program will take some time to develop, but their IPA game is already turning heads amongst the beer dork community.

The name of the brewery comes from Tarpey's time in Belgium. He was discussing pellicles, the thin film that forms on top of the beer during spontaneous fermentation, and he noted that "Jean has a lot of friends in Italy that are natural winemakers and he told me that his friends in Italy call pellicles 'the veil.' That moment was very special and I just remembered it..."

I managed to get my grubby little biscuit snatchers on four different cans of relatively fresh stuff. No spontaneous fermentation here, but one great IPA, two interesting takes, and one that didn't work out. So a pretty decent batting average and a promising start. I'm really intrigued to see where these folks go next.

The Veil Crucial Crucial Aunt Aunt - Double Mango Double Dry Hopped Double IPA - Pours a cloudy, turbid yellow orange color (orange juice looking) with a finger of white, fluffy head, good retention, and some lacing. Smells of pure, unadulterated, juicy citrus hops. Taste starts off very sweet up front, hitting lots of those juicy citrus hops in the middle before heading to a balancing bitter hop town in the finish. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, fine, medium bodied, juicy up front but more dry in the finish. Overall, this is a rock solid Northeast IPA and it's delicious. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 8.4% ABV canned (16 ounce pounder). Drank out of a tulip glass on 10/7/16. Canned on 09/20/16.

The Veil Joooseee Boizzz - Triple IPA with Raspberries, a collaboration with Monkish (another brewery that I need to become more familiar with) - Pours a milky orange amber color with a couple fingers of off white, almost pink head. Smells of fruity, juicy hops, but also a sorta fruit roll ups or fruit by the foot aroma. Taste follows the nose, lots of citrus hops, ample malt backbone, and some more gummy fruity notes. Sometimes this came off as a sorta artificial feel, as befits fruit roll-ups, but it was still pretty darn tasty. Mouthfeel is full bodied and heavy, well carbed, but certainly a sipper. Overall it's an interesting and tasty beer, worth checking out. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 11% ABV canned (16 ounce pounder). Drank out of a tulip glass on 10/9/16. Canned on 09/20/16.

The Veil Boss Man - Sour Double IPA - Pours a golden orange color with a finger of white head that doesn't last too long. Smells of citrus and some sort of souring twang. Taste is quite sour right from the start, some resinous citrus hops, but mostly dominated by that sourness with a bitter hop note towards the finish. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, well carbonated, and quite acidic. Overall, the notion of sour IPAs always seems to disappoint me. It is well crafted, for sure, but not really my thing. B-

Beer Nerd Details: 8.7% ABV canned (16 ounce pounder). Drank out of a tulip glass on 10/14/16. Canned on 09/19/16.

The Veil That Part - Double IPA hopped exclusively with New Zealand Wai-iti hops - Pours a murky golden color with a couple fingers of fluffy head. Smells... odd, almost like bubble gum, but with some strange notes. Hop notes almost absent. Not bad, per say, but certainly not your traditional IPA. Taste is, ugh, not good. Something is wrong with this. Astringent, off flavors, weirdly spicy, and earthy (and not in a good, funky way). I'm guessing it's a yeast problem and I'm curious if it fared better when it was initially canned... but then, it's only been a little more than three weeks. Mouthfeel is again kinda weird, medium bodied, well carbed, but again with some sort of strange astringency. Overall, yeah, avoid this one. I may have gotten a bad can or something, but this is really awful. F

Beer Nerd Details: 8.5% ABV canned (16 ounce pounder). Drank out of a tulip glass on 10/14/16. Canned on 09/20/16.

Many thanks to fellow beer nerd Nick for making the trip down to Virginia and securing these cans for me. He's a great American, and I'll be discussing more of his generous acquisitions later this week as well.