Saison

Hill Farmstead Arthur

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In the great fetch quest of life, breweries like Hill Farmstead are a boon to beer nerds because when all is said and done, you’ve got your hands on really good beer (unlike most fetch quests, which normally result in the equivalent of 20 cases of flat Bud Light). Fittingly, fetch quests are also sometimes referred to as FedEx quests, which, given the distribution reach of Hill Farmstead, is quite appropriate for most beer nerds. Fortunately for me, I’m within that narrow window of distribution, so periodically scanning the taplists and following twitter feeds of local bars sometimes pays off:

Hill Farmstead Arthur

Hill Farmstead Arthur – Pours a hazy yellow gold color with a finger of white head that leaves tons of lacing. Smells of typical peppery saison yeast with some fruity notes, maybe lemon… Taste starts sweet and spicy, nice herbal character, eventually giving way to that lemony character. Just the faintest hint of funky tartness in the finish. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, smooth, the spice is there, and a very slight acidity that hits in the relatively dry finish. Overall, fantastic saison. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 6% ABV on tap. Drank out of a goblet on 1/20/13.

One of these days, I’m gonna have to get me to Vermont and visit Hill Farmstead, Lawson’s, and Alchemist. That or start engaging in more FedEx quests.

Fantôme La Dalmatienne

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I wasn’t originally planning on drinking a bunch of smoked beers last week, but you never know what you’re going to get from Brasserie Fantôme, and when I cracked this one open and realized that it featured smoked malts, I figured I’d just go with it. What can I say, it was a smokey weekend.

Fantôme was never easy to find, but it’s even more difficult these days, so when I saw this La Dalmatienne, I pounced. Background information is sparse, but it appears to be one of Fantôme’s trademark funky, almost sour saisons, but with a touch of smoked malt, just to further confuse the saison style definition. There’s also another version La Dalmatienne that has a black label with white spots, but I’m reliably informed that the one I had was the better version. What dalmatians have to do with any of this is anyone’s guess (they ride on fire trucks, smoke comes from fire, ipso facto a smoked beer?), but let’s strap on our proton packs and hunt some ghosts anyway:

Fantome La Dalmatienne

Fantôme La Dalmatienne – Pours a bright, mostly clear golden yellow color with a couple fingers of white head. Smells funky with some more traditional saison spice lurking in the background, and a rather prominent (but not overpowering) smoky aroma. The taste is lemony sweet, a very light fruity tartness, some funk, and that smoke from the nose. That smoke is the odd man out, though not in an unpleasant way. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, crisp, and lightly acidic, making it a sorta bright brew. Overall, an interesting brew, that smoke could have been a disaster, but I think they pulled it off. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 8% ABV bottled (750 ml capped and corked). Drank out of a tulip glass on 1/19/13.

I need to find me a regular hookup on Fantôme beers. They were never plentiful around here, but they seem to have gone the way of the loon in recent times. Anywho, after I had this beer, I threw caution to the wind and embraced the smoked beer theme that had been developing, which lead to tomorrow night’s beer, a puntastic New Zealand entry that sounded like it would be a disaster, but was actually amazing.

Tired Hands MotherAnimal and another Speed Round

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I have a bit of a dilemma when it comes to Tired Hands. They’re awesome, and they’re close, and it’s a fun place to visit, so I go there pretty often. Now, I’ve enjoyed covering the rise of the brewery these past few months, and I’m sure I’ll be posting more about them, but the strange thing about all this is that for the most part, they don’t make the same beer twice. They’ve got two house beers, HopHands and FarmHands, both quite tasty and only 4.8% too, but other than that, everything else has been a one off. Now, someday, I hope they will repeat some of their more interesting brews. Stuff like Zombie or FlavorAroma or Westy13 (which may be coming to bottles someday). But for the most part, I’m writing about beers that will not only never see the light again, but will probably only have been available for 2-3 weeks.

Is that interesting to read about? Heck, tasting notes in and of themselves aren’t all that interesting. I mean, I’ve found them personally useful, but why subject the rest of the world to them? I do try to use these reviews as a jumping off point for other discussions, but I still resort to pretty straightforward posts from time to time. And in most cases, even the rare beers I get are things that are made on a yearly basis. What about these one-offs? I suppose when the beer is something strange or otherwise special, it could warrant a post, but I should probably ease back on these posts. Or not. I guess we’ll see what happens.

Tired Hands Mother Animal Drawing

Today’s focus, though, is Tired Hands’ first barleywine, which just happens to be “conditioned on locally roasted coffee and Madagascar vanilla beans”. Given the emergent theme of coffee beers this week, I figured it was worth pushing this one up the queue and talking about it today:

Tired Hands MotherAnimal

Tired Hands MotherAnimal – Pours a gorgeous ruby toned brown color with a couple fingers of khaki head. Not getting a lot out of the nose, but there’s a sorta mellow coffee and vanilla character going on. Taste is very sweet, but it has a really well balanced blend of caramel, coffee, and vanilla going on here. The coffee is actually quite nice, not roasty or bitter at all, and it doesn’t overpower the other flavors while still making itself known. The vanilla sweetness is probably more prominent, but it works well. Mouthfeel is a little light on carbonation, but that just makes it feel smooth and velvety, with just the faintest note of booze. Despite that, you really can’t tell that this beer is as strong as it is, so I’d say the booze is hidden pretty well. Overall, really nice brew. B+ Would like to try again, possible A- stuff here.

Beer Nerd Details: 11.5% ABV on tap. Drank out of 8 ounce glass on 1/23/13.

This one isn’t really turning a ton of heads in the RateBeer/BeerAdvocate set, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It’s got a really uncommon array of flavors going for it, stuff you don’t normally see in barleywines, which I appreciated. Alrighty then, here’s a few more quick hits from Tired Hands, compiled over the course of the past month or so. I’m going to refrain from posting my full tasting notes for these, because like I said before, that might be overkill for brews that will never see the light of day again (and some of which are already long gone).

Singel Hop Saison, Motueka – A unique hop character, really bright tropical fruit, non-tart lemon, light saison pepperyness, and it works. This has been a really interesting series of beers, and I’d put this one a step above the Nelson Sauvin, but not quite the heights of the Simcoe (or, for that matter, the next one, listed below). B+

Singel Hop Saison, Amarillo – The perfect balance of citrusy Amarillo hop aromas and flavor with the rustic saison qualities of bready spice. A little light on carbonation, but its just so damn quaffable, it’s taking me longer to write these lame notes than it is to drink! Delicious. Not sure if its just that Amarillo hops are awesome, or if Tired Hands is getting better, but who cares? This is the best Singel Hop Saison yet. A

Falco’s Nerd Flight – All hops, all the time. Bright grapefruit citrus character with floral and pine notes, a strong bitterness throughout, and a great, crisp, dry mouthfeel that makes this easily quaffable. A-

Domo – Barrel fermented black rye saison, aged in a wicked combo of Chaddsford red wine barrels and old Weyerbacher Insanity barrels. Huge sour cherry notes, light oak/vanilla, maybe a hint of chocolate. I was lucky enough to sample this a couple times, and it just got better. Tired Hands sour beers tend to be rather sharp and abrasive, but they grow on me, and this is no exception. A-

California Über Helles – Tired Hands has occasionally been putting out some lagers, but I gotta say, this thing drinks more like a really well balanced IPA. Brewed with Falconer’s Flight hops, this shares that hop character with Falco’s Nerd Flight, though the hops are toned down considerably here. Still, really bright and compulsively drinkable. A-

Nigel – Probably more IPA than Black, but it’s delicious nonetheless. Very light roast, but big hop character, citrus and pine, you know the drill. A-

Whatever, Nevermind – A strong saison, it’s got a really nice lemon zest, light tartness to go along with the more typical spicy, bready saison yeast character. It feels kinda like Fantôme light, more approachable, but perhaps not as complex. B+

Well, that’s a lot of B+ and A- ratings. Another reason to ease off ratings for a bit, I guess, as this is just getting ridiculous!

Broederlijke Liefde

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Philly Beer Week is generally an occasion for special releases, brewery openings, and collaborations. The Brotherly Suds team of Philly area brewers always puts something interesting together, but the past two years have also seen a Belgo-Philly connection. There’s a contest of sorts in which a lucky raffle winner picks a local brewer to go on a trip to Belgium and collaborate on an official Philly Beer Week brew. 2012’s entry was a collaboration between Iron Hill and Brasserie Dupont, and it was quite nice.

What we have here today is the 2011 Belgo-Philly collaboration between De Proef and Sly Fox, Broederlijke Liefde (which means Brotherly Love in Dutch). It’s a 37 IBU saison fermented with traditional yeast, then dosed with Brettanomyces for good measure. This bottle’s a year and a half old, so it may be showing its age, but Brett beers tend to evolve interestingly over time, so let’s see how this sucker is holding up:

De Proef and Sly Fox Broederlijke Liefde

De Proef and Sly Fox Broederlijke Liefde – Pours a cloudy bright golden orange color with a finger or two of fluffy white head, lots of lacing, great retention. Smells heavily of funk, earthy and fruity, maybe a little spice too. Taste is sweet and spicy, some bright fruit, relatively light on the funky Brett character, but it’s there and it works. Mouthfeel is well carbonated and spicy, drying out towards the finish. Easy to drink, slight warming from alcohol, but nothing unpleasant. Overall, this is a really solid funky beer. Perhaps not in the running for best evar, but it’s certainly worth a try if you can still find it. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 8% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a goblet on 1/5/13. IBU: 37. Hops: Target and Styrian Golding.

I wish I sprang for some of this stuff back in 2011, just to see what it was like fresh. In any case, this year’s collaboration was just announced, with Chris Wilson from Weyerbacher heading to Belgium to brew a beer at Brasserie de la Senne. No news yet as to what they’ll be brewing, but I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll be reading about it here sometime in the June timeframe.

Tired Hands HandFarm

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Tired Hands held a bottle release today, which, as far as I know, is their first official such event (I’ve heard tell of mythic one-off bottles, and even seen a few empties floating around as decorations, but I’m pretty sure this is the first real release). Approximately 500 bottles of wine barrel aged FarmHands (a saison, one of their two mainstay house beers) was available, and it sold out in less than an hour. Here at Kaedrin, we’re big fans of Tired Hands, so we made sure we were there. Not a particularly nice day to wait in line outside, but I’d guesstimate that around a hundred folks were in line ahead of me, and it looked like the supply was dwindling mightily by the time I got my share. As per usual, all the beer dorks on line were amiable folk, so it was a good enough time, and I’m glad that I didn’t arrive too late to get my greedy paws on some of this stuff.

Alrighty, that’s enough preamble, let’s get this party started:

Tired Hands HandFarm

Tired Hands HandFarm – Pours a bright but hazy straw yellow color with half a finger of white head. Smells funky, lots of vinous aromas from the wine barrel, some musty, spicy farmhouse yeast character too. Taste is sweet, again lots of vinous white wine flavor here, but the more traditional FarmHands flavors (musty yeast, some grainy malt complexity, a little spice) come through in the middle. A nice sharp sourness also hits pretty quickly, and a pleasant tartness continues through the finish. Not a ton of oak, but it’s there too, blended well with everything else. Mouthfeel is lightly but appropriately carbonated, a little pleasant acidity that delivers the sourness, but it’s crisp and bright, and it’s an easy drinker. It’s not super dry, but it makes overtures in that direction. Overall, this is a well crafted, balanced, complex beer and I’m happy I got my hands on some. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 5.2% ABV bottled (500 ml wax dipped). Drank out of a tulip glass on 1/13/12.

So this is some pretty great stuff. For any Tired Hands experts out there, I’d put this a peg above Mysterious Mood, another barrel aged saison they did this past summer (which, actually, has a pretty good reputation). I guess this means I’ll be hitting up Tired Hands bottle releases semi-regularly too. Fingers crossed for some Westy 13, which I really grew to love when it was on tap. I have, of course, got a bunch of other Tired Hands reviews in the pipeline somewhere, but I wanted to get this one out as soon as I drank it… I’ll save those other ones for another speed round or something. Great stuff, as always. Indeed, their Domo, a black rye saison aged in a blend of Weyerbacher Insanity barrels and Chaddsford red wine barrels, is another fantastic sour beer, lots of sour cherry goodness. Ok, I’ll stop now, as I could probably just ramble on and on about these guys. Here’s to hoping they can keep this momentum up…

Tired Hands Speed Round

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In case it hasn’t been clear from the frequent posts about Tired Hands, I’ve been spending a lot of time there. This was partly brought on by the fact that I’m redoing my kitchen and thus have had times when I had no way to cook anything, but it’s also probably due to the fact that Tired Hands is pretty fantastic. As a brewpub, they basically have a constantly rotating list of offerings (with only two consistently available). As such, I can’t really keep up with everything, even as often as I’m visiting, but that won’t stop me from trying. Here’s some thoughts on some recent visits. Many of these are 4 ounce pours, and I didn’t take detailed tasting notes for a bunch of them, so pedants might want to take this with a grain of salt. Let’s get to it, shall we?

  • Tired Hands Weedeater – This is a Double IPA made with Galaxy and Amarillo hops. Yum.

    Tired Hands Weedeater

    Big citrus and floral aromas and flavors from the hops, very well balanced, light carbonation and creamy texture with a nice, clean finish. Great stuff, though I feel like I’m grading on a curve at this point. I think I may prefer FlavorAroma to this, but that’s a tough bar to clear. A- (Beer Nerd Details: 9.3% ABV on tap. Drank out of 8 oz glass on 12/6/12.)

  • Tired Hands Westy13 – Described as a dark saison, this is a beer that’s really grown on me. I’ve had it 3 times now, each time a 4 ounce pour, but each time feeling like I could easily put down a couple 8 ounce glasses. Which, at 13% ABV, makes this a dangerously drinkable beer.

    Tired Hands Westy13

    Big, bold, rich malt flavors with that saison yeast contributing an uncommon fruitiness and peppery character that’s similar to, but distinct from most Belgian Strong Darks. Really nice caramelized dark fruit flavors too. The mouthfeel is rich and smooth, not as heavy as you’d expect, but not quite as dry as its namesake (tough to beat the mouthfeel on Westvleteren beers) Big, complex, delicious beer. The last keg kicked this week, but it will be coming in bottles soon enough. A- (Beer Nerd Details: 13% ABV on tap. Drank out of a 4 ounce glass on multiple occasions.)

  • Tired Hands Earthbound – A straightforward but very well done pale ale, nice citrus/pine hop character, went down real easy. I think this might have fared better if I hadn’t just had FlavorAroma, which was just superb. B+ (Beer Nerd Details: 6.5% ABV on tap. Drank out of a 4 ounce glass.)
  • Tired Hands Good Good Things – A rather weird combination: a sour IPA. Very juicy but also extremely acidic. It’s like the sourness and the hop character teamed up and just started blowing things up. It’s an interesting beer, but I think I can see why most sours aren’t hopped up wlike this. An interesting experiment, but I’m ultimately glad I only had 4 ounces of it. B (Beer Nerd Details: 6.2% ABV on tap. Drank out of a 4 ounce glass.)
  • Yes, Yes, Yes, Killing The Ego – Another uncommon take on a dark saison, this one incorporating maple syrup and cacao nibs. Alas, those components did not come on as strong in the finished product as I might have hoped. A fine beer, not quite what I’d expect from a saison, even a dark one, but it was certainly a pleasant drink. B (Beer Nerd Details: 5.8% ABV on tap. Drank out of a 4 ounce glass.)

So there you have it. Always something interesting going on at Tired Hands. Up next for me is their Singel Hop Saison, Motueka (another New Zealand varietal), which just went on tap this week. Some other upcoming stuff sounds interesting, including Falco’s Nerd Flight (IPA brewed with Galaxy, Amarillo, and Falconer’s Flight hops), MotherAnimal (a barleywine conditioned on coffee beans), and Good Yule (a strong “holiday saison”, whatever that means).

My Hands Are So Tired!

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Tired Hands Brewing Company continues to be the most interesting new local brewery around here, and it seems I’m not the only one on board. Apparently Tired Hands is in the frontrunner for RateBeer’s coveted New Brewer of the Year award. Despite only having launched a few short months ago, Tired Hands’ brews hold six of the top 10 spots on RateBeer’s charts. Score one for the home team, let’s have a look at some more of their beers:

Tired Hands Single Hop Saison Nelson Sauvin

Tired Hands Single Hop Saison (Nelson Sauvin) – The second in a series of beers showcasing different hop varietals and blurring the line between saisons and IPAs. Last time I was at Tired Hands, I was most pleased with the Simcoe version, and now I get to try the one made with New Zealand hops known as Nelson Sauvin. Pours a very light, cloudy straw yellow color with a finger or two of head… Smells utterly fantastic, bright citrusy fruit and some floral notes matched with a hint of bready, spicy yeast. Taste packs a whole lot of flavor, lots of that juicy citrus hop character and saison yeast spice come out to play, punctuated by a dry, earthy bitterness in the finish. The mouthfeel is a little low on the carbonation… It’s still really good, but I wish there was a little more here. Easy enough to drink, and certainly a solid offering, but I enjoyed the Simcoe slightly more… on the upper end of B+

Beer Nerd Details: 5% ABV on tap (8 oz). Drank out of a wine glass on 10/13/12.

Tired Hands Hop Hands

Hophands – This is one of their sorta flagship brews, a rather light pale ale that’s quite well balanced. Another straw yellow beer, slightly cloudy, finger of bubbly head. Smells of grassy, citrusy, piney hops, not quite as potent as the Nelson Sauvin Saison, but well balanced citrus and pine aromas with a bit of floral character. Taste is light and hop forward, again with the combo of citrus and pine and grassy hops, some low intensity bitterness in the finish. Mouthfeel is crisp and light, very easy drinking, downright quaffable stuff. Clocking in at 4.8% ABV, I could drink this all night. Overall, a really nice pale… that I should really try by itself some time. Provisional B+

Beer Nerd Details: 4.8% ABV on tap (4 oz). Drank out of a mini-pint glass thingy on 10/13/12.

Tired Hands/Stillwater ArtiSnale

Tired Hands/Stillwater ArtiSnale – A collaboration with Stillwater Artisanal and a most excellent local beer bar (if you read this blog, you’ve seen lots of pictures of beers from this place), Teresa’s Next Door (which is really just down the road a bit from Tired Hands). This is a big stout brewed with… snale shells? Ah, I see what they did with the name there. Kinda riffing on oyster stouts, I guess. Pours a very dark brown color with a finger of light brown head. Smells of roasted malt and coffee. Taste follows the nose, lots of roasty malt and coffee flavors, but the finish takes a light, sweet, pleasant turn that I can’t quite place. In RateBeer’s newsletter, they mention that there’s “a touch of salinity, likely from the usage of escargot shells” which is probably what I was detecting in the finish there. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, making this drink like a smaller beer, but that’s actually very nice. Not my favorite beer evar, but very well crafted stuff and apparently the snales actually added something to the proceedings. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 8% ABV on tap (4 oz). Drank out of a mini-pint glass thingy on 10/13/12.

I apparently just missed out on Vampire, their Halloween-themed IPA brewed with blood oranges that seemed to be turning heads. Ah well, the joys of the small local brewpub – no way I’ll be able to keep up with all their brews, but it’s probably worth trying!

Stillwater Brunello Barrel Aged Debauched

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When barrel-aged Stillwater brews started showing up around here, I was a little slow to catch on and thus missed out on some of this guy’s prized brews. Fortunately, I’ve been in the process of rectifying that, starting with this beer, a saison brewed with whole juniper bushes and a touch of smoked malt, fermented with Brettanomyces, and aged in Brunello (Italian red wine) barrels.

Now, in general, I tend to see red wine barrels used to age darker beers. Think Supplication, Consecration, Black Hole (in my cellar, will be cracking open this fall), or the recently announced Red Thunder. Brown ales, stouts, porters. And while I’m not a wine expert, this pairing makes a certain sort of sense. Red wine goes with dark beer, white wine goes with lighter colored beers. Maybe I’m just tragically ignorant in my assumptions here, but hey, I’m a big tent kinda guy, so let’s get this debauchery started:

Stillwater Brunello Barrel Aged Debauched

Stillwater Brunello Barrel Aged Debauched – Pours a clear yellowish color, maybe some light orange tints too, and a finger of white head. Smells funky, with a bit of sour twang, some vinous character, and maybe some yeasty spice. Taste is sweet, lots of tangy vinous notes, some funky Brett and spicy yeast coming out… Not really sour, but plenty of acidity and grape-like tartness… Mouthfeel is light and crisp, with a burst of carbonation that fades quickly into a more wine-like finish. I’m not entirely sure how much I love that finish, actually, though it’s certainly an uncommon mouthfeel. Interesting beer, really glad I tried it, but it’s not something that really blew me away. I’ll call it like I see it and give it a B, but it was interesting enough that I’d like to try it again sometime.

Beer Nerd Details: 6.7% ABV on tap. Drank out of a tulip glass on 10/7/12.

Despite not being blown away by this, I’m still looking forward to exploring more of the Stillwater catalog (of which I’ve only really scratched the surface), including a bottle of bourbon-barrel aged Folklore that I was able to snag recently. Quite excited about that one, actually, so expect a review in a few weeks or so.

Octobeerfest

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Tonight was beer club, a meeting of beer minded individuals from my work who get together once a month to share good beer, a good meal, and good company! We typically congregate at a local BYOB, and this time we hit up America’s Pie, probably the best pizza joint in West Chester. Lots of food and beer and mirth was had by all. Things started small but grew as the night progressed, so this picture doesn’t quite capture all the beers that arrived later:

beerclub1012.jpg

(Click for bigger image)

For the sake of posterity, some thoughts on each beer are below. As per usual, these beers were not consumed under ideal conditions, but hey, these were really fun conditions, which, come to think of it, are ideal enough for me. But you may want to take these notes with a giant rock of salt. Anywho, here’s the impressions I’m left with (in the order of drinking, not necessarily from the picture above):

  • Lakefront Pumpkin Lager – A strangely muted flavor profile that features all the typical pumpkin pie flavors nonetheless, this was actually a decent way to start off beer club. Very aromatic, light, spicy, straightforward beer. Not going to light the world on fire, but a worthy brew. B
  • Duvel – This is generally considered to be a classic beer, but I have to admit, I’ve always come away somewhat underwhelmed by Duvel. I feel like this bottle was much better than any of my previous tastings. Sweet, spicy Belgian yeast character in the nose and taste. Last time I had this, I was a little turned off by what I perceived to be tart, lemony notes, but that didn’t appear to be in tonight’s bottle at all. Strange. I still wouldn’t call this one of my favorites or anything, but I could bump it up to a B
  • Original Sin Hard Cider and Dana’s Homemade Applewine – I tend to call this event “beer club”, but lots of other alcoholic beverages make appearances. This usually amounts to wine, but some folks who don’t like beer will go for some cider too (especially this time of year, I guess). Me, I don’t really care for that sort of thing. I tried a couple offerings and thought, yep, that’s got apple flavor, and left it at that.
  • Cigar City Guava Grove – One of my contributions for the night, this is a big, delicious ball of spicy, fruity saison goodness. Great orangey color, spicy Belgian yeast character in the nose and taste, with a level of fruitiness, presumably coming from the guava. Generally considered to be the best beer of the night, I jokingly mentioned that I wished I kept it all for myself. But I kid. Anywho, exceptional beer. I really must figure out how to get my hands on some more Cigar City stuff. A-
  • War Horse India Pale Ale – Probably suffered a little in comparison to the Guava Grove, but yeah, it’s an IPA, focusing on the earthy, floral notes, with a strong malt backbone and a fair bitterness in the finish. I found it to be somewhat unremarkable, but it was generally enjoyed by the group (we are easily amused). B-
  • DuClaw Mad Bishop – Ah, it was about time someone broke out the other major seasonal style, the Oktoberfest. Not one of my favorite styles, but as these things go, I found myself enjoying this one quite a bit. It seemed a little sweeter than your typical, authentic examples of the style, but that’s not a horrible thing in my book. Very nice. B
  • Lindemans Framboise – Another offering that was popular with the cider/wine crowd, I found it a little on the cough syrupy side of things. Nice raspberry flavors and it’s pretty thick and sweet for such a tiny ABV beer, but I don’t know, maybe I’m spoiled by better lambics at this point. B-
  • Great Lakes Nosferatu – This is one of them Imperial Red Ale beers that goes heavy on the citrus and pine hops, certainly a welcome development at this point in the night. Even with my palate probably being in pretty bad shape, I found this to be quite good. And you’ve just gotta love the label/name of this beer too. I should pick up a bottle of the stuff and give it a fair shake, though I’ll still hand it a B+ rating, making it one of the better beers of the night.
  • Lagunitas New Dogtown Pale Ale – One of those late arrivals, this one actually held its own against some of the bigger beers I’d been drinking. Big citrus and pine character in the nose and taste, making it seem more like a straight up IPA than a lowly Pale Ale. Quite enjoyable and again, one of the better beers of the night. B+
  • St. Bernardus Tripel – Another beer I’ve actually reviewed before, though this time my feelings on the beer haven’t changed much. I didn’t have a lot of it tonight, but it’s pretty much exactly what I remember about it. Excellent Belgian Tripel, if not quite my favorite.
  • Yuengling Oktoberfest – At this point in the night, my palate is pretty well wrecked, but again, it seemed like a really solid, traditional take on the Oktoberfest style. Not exactly my thing, but I could probably put a few of these down in a session if duty called for such. Indeed, I might even prefer this to the ubiquitous Yuengling Lager… B
  • Lavery Stingy Jack Pumpkin Ale – My other contribution for the night, I think this one comported itself quite well. It’s got that big, chewy pumpkin pie thing going on here, but the balance of malt, pumpkin, and spice was pretty well honed here, as I really enjoyed it. Now, again, I was pretty well in the bag at this point, but the bomber I brought seemed to go pretty quickly, and folks seemed to enjoy it. I’ll give it a provisional B+

Phew, that ended up being quite a list of beers. Oddly, they were all pale colored – not a single stout to be had. The closest thing to a dark beer was Nosferatu, which probably couldn’t be counted as pale, but it’s no stout either. Not that I’m complaining. Indeed, I shall declare this gathering yet another success. I’m already thinking ahead to our next meeting…

Jolly Pumpkin Baudelaire iO Saison

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I’d eyed this saison brewed with rose hips, rose petals, and hibiscus, at the beer store this past summer, but I guess I didn’t look close enough, as the fact that it’s brewed by Jolly Pumpkin wasn’t readily apparent. Luckily for me, Jay had posted about this beer a while back and given it a glowing review, so the next time I saw it, I made sure to snatch it up. I’ve always enjoyed Jolly Pumpkin’s beers, but I have to admit, I’ve never really been blown away by them. Until now! But first, pedantry:

Apparently this is the first in “a liquid narrative” being told by Jolly Pumpkin founder Ron Jeffries and label artist Adam Forman. As such, this new series of beers (named in honor of French poet Charles Baudelaire) has a different sort of aesthetic when it comes to label design, hence my not recognizing it for what it was (in all honesty, I rather like the label design more than the traditional Jolly Pumpkin style). Forman was also working on a graphic novel as a companion to the beers, but that’s “on hold.” No biggie, though, cause this is some wonderful beer:

Jolly Pumpkin Baudelaire iO Saison

Jolly Pumpkin Baudelaire iO – Pours a cloudy, dark reddish orange color with a couple fingers of pillowy head. Smells strongly of biscuity, spicy Belgian yeast with a healthy dose of Brett funk that almost, but not quite, hits a sour note. The taste starts sweet, with that bready, spicy Belgian yeast character yielding to earthy, funky Brettanomyces in the middle and finish. Maybe a little bit of fruitiness to the taste too (perhaps some floral notes from the rose and hibiscus), not quite sour, but in that wild direction. The mouthfeel is highly carbonated, effervescent, full bodied, and very dry all throughout. Overall, we’ve got a well balanced, complex, funky beer here that I might have rated even higher had I not just had Logsdon’s wonderful Seizoen Bretta. Still, this is fantastic stuff. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 6.8% ABV bottled (750 ml capped). Drank out of a tulip glass on 9/28/12. Batch 1019. Bottled 02-23-2012.

Apparently this was made in pretty limited quantities, but they say they will probably be making it again, so if you like funky saisons, this is a must try for you. I’ll probably be seeking out some more Jolly Pumpkin in the meantime, and perhaps some additional entries in the Baudelaire series will make appearances. One can only hope…