Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine

I love me some Barley Wines, but this one's getting no love from me. The aroma is nice. It's very malty, reminiscent of buttery pie crust. The body is syrupy, and nearly cloying. The flavor isn't terribly complex for a barley wine and is too sugary. The packaging and marketing is slick though. There's practically a novel printed on the back label but it's not worth reading. All I see is hype.

Blue Point Hoptical Illusion IPA

Blue Point Hoptical Illusion comes from Long Island. Malt strikes first in the rich, inviting aroma. This ale smells like Cake and Biscuits. The aroma isn't terribly hoppy. The flavor is bright and hoppy, but lacks a bitter bite. There is also a strong English Breakfast tea character to the flavor. It drinks best on the colder side. Hoptical Illusion sticks with the British style of IPA, but at least it doesn't emulate the French.

Charity

When you have bad facial hair, people have no qualms about suggesting more egregious styles to sport. People casually toss around words like Pork Chops, Fu Manchu, Handlebars and other suggestions I've never heard of like Dirty Sanchez. I might rock a Giambi, but I'm not dumb enough to twist it into a Rollie Fingers simply because someone suggests it. I would gladly grow dreadlocks and a Hasidic Beard topped with a Sam Elliot if I could manage it.


What most folks don't know about is the mustachioed one's connection to charity. The dudes over at Monday Night Brewery are attempting to cure ulcers through alternative methods. You can find the details of our involvement here, and details the overall cause here.

Smuttynose IPA

When I first got into IPAs, I was drawn to unbalanced, hoppy ales. I have since come to appreciate malt-hop balance in my IPAs. Some breweries, notably Dogfish Head, changed course to strive for more balance in their ales. Smuttynose was not as hoppy as I remembered in aroma and flavor, but it is very well balanced. 

Smuttynose has a strong malt backbone. It's balance is evident in the nose which smelled of earth, spice, and orange rind. The flavor followed through on the aroma's foundation and, like an orange rind, was slightly sweet followed by a bitter resin flavor. Smuttynose has always been very bitter, and that hasn't changed. The bitterness is the only unmuted aspect of the flavor, which is otherwise balanced and subtle.

 

Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA

I've drank this beer on many occasions and was never very enamored with it. 90 Minute is a 9% Imperial IPA with a flavor driven by malt. It's a big beer dripping with malt complexity. It's continuously hopped for 90 minutes while it's brewed, but it doesn't come off insanely hoppy in actuality. The hops are masked by a "ridiculous amount" of English Two Row barley. As a result, 90 Minute's flavor gravitates toward an English IPA with a jacked up abv. The nose smelled of spiced bread that reminded me of Christmas. The body has a thick, chewy texture. There is a sweetish, Toffee character in the flavor and the finish has a deep bitter quality that is coffee like. 

Like I said earlier, I was never big on this beer, but that was before I tried it with food. I drank one with steak and now I see what all the hype is about. It's amazing with steak, which complimented and rounded the deep malt complexity. 

Porkslap Pale Ale

As part of the 2008 Boston Beer Tour I picked up Porkslap Pale Ale. Dale's Pale Ale has proven that good beer can come in a can, so I took a flier on the Porkslap. With fliers, sometimes you come up empty. It wasn't until I sat down to drink it that I noticed the label said "All Malt." In the store, I was so taken with the jumping pigs that I overlooked this important tidbit.  Judging from the taste, there were no hops whatsoever in Porkslap. I would bet MD 20/20 has more hops. Hopless, Porkslap is like a girl with a nice body but a horrendous, ugly face. It left me longing for more and wondering what could have been. It's technically not even a Pale Ale, Malt Beverage would be more accurate. This beer is all gimmick. Don't be fooled by those cut little piggies on the can, Porkslap Pale Ale is terrible.   

Stone Vertical Epic 2007

The idea behind the Stone Vertical Epic series is totally ridiculous. The challenge is to save one VE each of the first twelve years of the new millennium, then have a vertical tasting sometime after December 12, 2012. The 2007 is number five in the series. Stone must have either been fearful of a millennium disaster or cooked this idea up after January 1, 2001 because there wasn't a VE release in 2001. There will be eleven total VEs. I don't think there are a lot of beer drinkers out there with the patience to sit on a beer for eleven years. That's an absurdly long time. Even if you have the patience to wait that long, a tasting of eleven beers is too many beers for one tasting unless you invite 30 friends and everyone gets less than a sip. With fewer people, your pallet would get dulled and drunken halfway through the tasting, thus all the patient waiting would be for naught. Eleven high alcohol beers is too much for one tasting, and it's even a waste considering several will be aged over five years. An eleven year-old brew should warrant more respect from the drinkers. However, I wouldn't turn down an invitation to a Vertical Epic tasting. It would be a lot of fun in a decadent, wasteful way. 

I couldn't wait that long to try mine, and it drank just fine. Stone's Vertical Epic 2007 is a Belgium style ale inspired by Saisons and Golden Triples. It's brewed with four malts, two hop varieties, and spices (ginger, cardamon, plus grapefruit, lemon and orange peels). I didn't pick any of those spices out of the aroma or flavor, but there is a mild citrus undertone to the flavor. The aroma was mellow and smelled like a Triple should, though it was not as sweet most Triples. The 2007 Vertical Epic is a unique beer with several characteristics more common in wine than beer. Tiny, champagne-like bubbles continuously floated up from the bottom of the glass. It was acidic, and finished very dry. After the dry finish a late, mellow tart kicked in, making my salivary glands fire off. I had never experienced that in a beer - once I thought the flavor was complete, the tart surprised me out of nowhere.  

Pizza Port Brewing Company

I snagged a couple of Pizza Port Brews this weekend and blew my palate out on one of them. Hop-15 was the one that didn't kill my taste buds. It's a double IPA with apricot coloring and an inviting, well balanced aroma. The aroma is bright, and consists of baked dough and grapefruit. No single aspect of this ale is overwhelming or unbalanced, it is liquid luxury. The flavor is dominated by a grapefruit character with the sweet yet bitter contrast that comes from fresh squeezed grapefruit juice.

Yesterday, I found a Pizza Port Second Anniversary Ale in Boston. I ventured to Boston with the hope of meeting my first legally married lesbian couple. While I was there, I grabbed some beers.  The Second Anniversary Ale is close to Hop-15 in aroma and grapefruit character with one large difference: after each sip, the muscles in the back of my jaw seized up from the insane bitterness. My reaction was borderline painful, and the dose of hops completely ruined my palate over the last 24 hours. At this point, an IPA might as well be a glass of sparkling water as far as I'm concerned. The Pizza Port beers I tried were Amazing. They were mad hoppy and will definitely sate a hop fix.

Stone Coast Batch 420 IPA

"We tried 419 batches before this one." 

                                               - Batch 420 bottle 

Sure, you did. It took 419 tries to get it just right? More likely, what we have here is a clever duping of the Federal Government's label watchdogs at the TTB - Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. The TTB, among other duties, regulates the names and labels of alcohol and tobacco products. One of the most famous examples of such foolery is Dogfish Head's Golden Showers Imperial Pilsner. The TTB forced DFH to change the name of their Prescription Pills Imperial Pilsner because the Bureau claimed it glorified prescription pill popping. In response, DFH submitted Golden Showers as a name for its Imperial Pilsner and the TTB approved it. Apparently, most of the old guys and gals filed away at the TTB are not into that sort of thing. Those among them that were hip to it must have been too embarrassed to tell their colleagues how and why they became familiar with such activities. The TTB caught wind of their gaff only after the name and label were approved. So, Golden Showers became a one and done, never to be seen again (on a beer label, at least). Stone Coast may have pulled a quick one, but they're not the quickest. However, they seem to have done a cunning job fooling those proven hipsters at the TTB. 

Stone Coast has crafted a lovely beer in Batch 420. The beer wasn't what I expected at all. I expected something more herbaceous aroma, for lack of a better phrase. The aroma was subtle and smelled like fresh sliced green apples. It poured a large, pillowy head kept afloat by lively carbonation. There's a slow, creeping bitterness to the finish, but the flavor is the most interesting aspect of this ale. Batch 420's sweet taste evokes memories of childhood with a flavor of apples candied by a light caramel or toffee glaze. If you hated the circus, this beer is not for you. 

Wachusett Green Monsta

Green Monsta: There are a of couple hints in the name that tell me this beer comes from Boston. Thanks to Jimmy Fallon, everyone knows Bostonians have a distinct accent, but what surprised me about the name is it's apparent they also spell the way they talk. Green Monsta is billed as "A Big Pale Ale," but nothing is bigger than Big Papi hanging with two chickas and a random guy hovering near his crotch. Thank God Big Papi isn't a Pale Ale. 

Green Monsta comes as advertised. It's light of body as a Pale Ale should be, but generously hopped like an IPA.  The concept is similar to Dale's Pale Ale, but Dale's is more IPA than PA. Green Monsta falls short of Dale's in terms of hop-malt balance, but I can't knock it. Green Monsta is a good hoppy chill out ale. Its Pale Ale body leaves room for another, while the hops impart a nice flavor. Green Monsta has a lemon aroma tempered by a touch of malt. The flavor is driven by hops with a general citrus fruitiness. 

Cape Cod Beer Tour

For being located in the liberal, progressive, and "not at all" racist Northeast, the beer scene in Cape Cod is pretty weak. You can find a liquor store here or there has one kind of Dogfish Head and some local micro offerings, but for the most part it's the Majors and Sierra Nevada that reign. It's comforting in that it reminds me of the beer scene at home (minus the bag boy barraging you with "Do you know what they call sex in Alabama?" jokes). But you know there's more to life than Sierra Nevada out there. 

I found one exception to the boring beer stores on the Cape: Kappy's Fine Wine & Liquor of Falmouth, MA. It's like Total Wine in store size and selection but with the cozy, run-down flavor of a local store. The beer isle is massive and it almost made me pass out. There are a range of brews from Dogfish Head, Smuttynose, Left Hand, Middle Ages, Boulder, Clipper City, Otter Creek, Wachusetts, along with a bunch of other New England micros that I've neither heard of nor would waste my time on. Going to Kappy's is a bit like finding a fountain of beer in the desert. I picked up Sam Adam's Triple Bock, Stone's Vertical Epic '07, a Dizzy Fizzle (DFH) Palo Santo Marron (a 12% brown ale aged in Palo Santo wood), Legacy's Hoptimus Prime, Stone Coast Batch 420 IPA, Middle Ages ImPaled Ale, and an Avery Marahaja for old times sake. Unfortunately, I have to drink all this in the like three days before I head back to Abitaland, so my posts may get a little fuzzy. Here goes the beer tour.

Cape Cod Beer IPA

I just had a bitter experience. After all the big beers I've put away in my time, I never thought I'd be punished by hop bitterness again. But, as my Dad likes to say, "You never know what you're gonna get." Today, I had a pint of Hyannis' Cape Cod Beer IPA, and it crippled my taste buds with bitter blasts. For pure bitter flavor, this beer out betters any other I've had. 

The pint began with a cloying bitter flavor that completely overwhelmed every other nuance of the ale. The bitterness is why my eyes look crazy in the picture, they are puckering. About a third of the way through the pint my taste buds recovered from their paralysis, my mustache hairs uncurled, and other flavors began to show themselves. This IPA is well hopped with what I think are Cascade hops. They really shine through in the aroma. It has a nice sweet malt flavor, along with more robust malt flavors of caramel that occasionally shine through. It ends with the aforementioned bitter kick. Cape Cod IPA is clean and drank like a good session beer (not too thick or heavy). It is reminiscent of Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale, except the hop and malt action are amped way up.     

In other news, we here at BK Beertasters are anticipating the triumphant comeback post of the B himself.