Beer of the Week: Big Al’s Brewing Fresh Hop Harvest Ale

By Iron Chef Leftovers

When it comes to fresh hop beers, most of the local Washington breweries tend to go with an IPA or a Pale Ale style to showcase the hops. On occasion, you get a brewery that tries to do something different. Seattle based Big Al’s Brewing did that with the release of their Fresh Hopped Harvest Ale. I couldn’t find a description of the beer online so all I can tell you is that I had it in a 22 oz. bottle which was purchased at a local bottle shop for about $5.

The beer is a reddish-amber color. The nose is dominated by lots of malt and grain, with hints of citrus and hops in the background. The initial taste brings roasted malt on the front of the palate, so roasted that it is almost chocolate like, followed by a slightly grassy hop flavor. As the beer warms, it becomes slightly more bitter, the malt becomes more restrained, and the green hops become more citrus like, but are still a secondary player to the malt in this beer.

Personally I felt like this beer lacked balance between the malt and hops. The hops flavor, which is what I am really looking for in a fresh hop beer, seemed to be lost at times and just overpowered with what is a really malty beer. I appreciated the effort that Big Al’s put into this beer to make something different, but I think it needs some additional work. I would probably buy this beer again next year to see if it has gotten any better, but I don’t think I would run out and buy more than one either.

A disappointed Big Al’s reaps 2 combines out of 5 for their Harvest Ale.

Beer of the Week: Elysian Brewing Split Shot Espresso Milk Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Living in Seattle, which does have a slight (and justified) reputation for being an over-caffinated city, you would expect that you would see more coffee based beers, but you don’t. For the 2012 Seattle Beer Week, Elysian Brewing was selected to come up with the beer for the event and they produced Split Shot Stout – marrying the city’s love of coffee with its love of beer. I generally will try anything new that Elysian puts out and I really think that their dark beers tend to be their best work. I have tried Split Shot both on tap and in 22 oz. bottles, and the review is for the bottle release. The beer runs around $6 at your local bottle shop (although it is often on sale at mega marts with a better beer selection).

From the Elysian Press Release on the beer:

In Seattle, beer and coffee grew up together. They’re like siblings, jealously balancing the day between go-go and go-slow, dividing the hip and tattoo’d into brewers and roasters, barkeeps and baristas. Split Shot Coffee Milk Stout combines the talents of Elysian Brewing and Lighthouse Roasters, and commemorates not only Seattle Beer Week as its official beer for 2012, but the fact that it took a lot of talk and lot of Lighthouse coffee to get Elysian off the ground back in 1996. Split Shot has a radically complicated malt bill, with C-15 and C-45 dextrine malts, Franco-Belges kiln coffee malt, Black, Roasted and Chocolate malts and flaked oats. It’s bittered with Magnum and slightly sweetened with milk sugar. OG 16 (1.065); alcohol 7.25% by volume., Split Shot is the official beer for 2012 Seattle Beer Week. Available in select Seattle area restaurants, bars and stores, on draft and in 22-oz. bottles.

Split Shot pours with a tan head and a pitch black body. There is absolutely no question what this beer is from the smell – coffee and lots of roasted malt dominate and that is from a foot away from the beer. Up close, this beer smells like a coffee shop roasting its beans – heavy espresso with hints of smoke and grains, taking me back to my bachelor days when I lived near Lighthouse coffee and would smell them roasting beans in the afternoon. The beer has a creamy mouth feel, like taking a sip of espresso with a good crema. Lingering coffee dominates the palate, with a slight bitterness and just a hint of malt and milk sweetness on the back end – this beer could easily be confused for an iced espresso. The coffee is strong but not completely overpowering, but I would still not recommend this beer unless you really liked coffee. As the beer warms, the coffee becomes more restrained and notes of chocolate, sugar, barley and grain start to appear. I would recommend serving this beer between 40 and 45 degrees if you like slightly bitter coffee and 45 to 50 degrees if you want to taste the full range of flavors that this beer has to offer.

If you like coffee and beer, get your over-caffeinated self to a bottle shop and pick this one up, you won’t regret it.

Elysian Split Shot Stout shakes itself down to the local coffee shop with a delicious 4 grande, non-fat mocha with whips out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Hale’s Ales Cascade Mist Wet Hop

One of the great things about where I live is that I have 5 (and soon to be 7) breweries within walking distance of my house. It makes for a regular rotation for me to stop in to each of these places and try the new and exciting stuff that they have on tap, and, in the case of Hale’s Ales, try the beers that they don’t bottle. A recent trip to Hale’s yielded such a treasure – the very last of their fresh hop beer. I unfortunately can’t find any stats on the beer (I did find a single reference to it being 5.5% ABV), so you are just stuck with my description.

The beer is very pale yellow in color with a snow white head. I took one look at it and thought to myself that this was going to be a major letdown. It wasn’t helped when I took a whiff of the beer – faint notes of grain with very mild hops, if you did not know what you ordered, you would possible be thinking pilsner. It is a good thing that I did not judge a book by its cover. The first sip delivered a very crisp and refreshing beer with lots of hops flavor up from with notes of orange and lemon lingering for a short time before giving way to citrus peel, grain and hop resin. A slight bitterness hides in the finish on this beer, but it is not particularly pronounced and it provides a nice counterbalance to the citrus notes. It is also just enough to remind you that this is a fresh hop beer but not off-putting to the point where a non-IPA drinker would hate it. There is great balance between the citrus and grain and it is a nice change of pace from the fresh hop IPA’s that tend to dominate the market in Seattle. When this beer makes a comeback, you should belly yourself up to the bar at Hale’s and knock back a few of them.

Hale’s Cascade Mist was an unexpected surprise when I went in the brewery and it made for a very happy Iron Chef when I left.

Hale’s Cascade Mist Wet Hop wafts in with a cloaking 4 cloudy days out of 5.

I’m Sailing Away…

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I happened to catch this in passing:

PALE ALE SAILS AWAY: Full Sail Brewing has discontinued its mainstay pale ale, Scoop has learned. The Hood River-based brewery needed to free up brewing capacity for seasonal beers, and found its pale was going stale. “We’re in the business of freshness and looking at trends,” says head brewmaster Jamie Emmerson. “It’s not that the pale had volume problems, but it was the softest of our regular beers. Other people just keep those around forever. But, for us, focus matters. It’s not like we don’t have other recipes lying around.” Most of the six-packs are gone, with the final kegs soon to run out. Instead, look for six-packs of previously pub-only Full Sail brews like Nut Brown Ale and Wassail.

While I am sad to see what I consider an iconic beer go (it was the first type of Full Sail I ever tasted), it is a style with a ton of competition, so replacing it with their seasonal stuff makes much more sense. Besides, as Oregon pale ales go, my preference is Deschutes over Full Sail anyway.

The Rabbit is Correct

By Iron Chef Leftovers

On several fronts actually. From Pearls Before Swine on 11/21:

Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Brews Imperial Rye IPA

By Blaidd Drwg

A while back, I wrote a post on food memories. Smells and tastes can invoke a powerful emotion and sometimes they can come from an unexpected place. A recent trip to visit my friends at Reuben’s Brews was such an experience. With their extensive and ever changing tap list and usually stellar beers, I am always torn between trying their new stuff and old favorites. A recent trip to the brewery saw the Imperial Rye IPA on their board; a rye based imperial IPA clocking in at 8.4% alcohol and 90+ IBU. This beer is not really for the faint of heart – it is a big, bold hop monster.

The beer pours amber, almost rosy in color. There is lots of citrus on the nose (predominately grapefruit) and rye – you take one whiff of this beer and you have no doubt that this is going to be a big IPA. The beer has a smooth, almost creamy feel on the palate with a slightly sweet hit giving way to a light bitterness with tons of grapefruit. For a beer with that high an IBU, the hops bitterness is incredibly well balanced with the rest of the beer. The Imperial Rye then gets really interesting – the grapefruit gives way to a dramatic rye finish with such a rye hit that it brought back memories of my grandmother making me fresh rye toast from the Jewish bakery in my home town. My only complaint, and this is because of the memories this beer invokes, is that the beer goes from sweet to bitter to citrus to rye too quickly – I really want that rye to linger on the palate for a long time. The reality is that this beer does have a fairly long finish and it is very pleasant and not overpowered with the high alcohol content it possesses. The bitterness does become more pronounced as it warms and I think this beer would be a good candidate for a cask treatment (Note to Adam: Big Hint!)

I did try this beer a second time without my notes from the first tasting handy and compared the two – they were both virtually identical with what I initially wrote. I loved this beer. As Rye IPA’s go, I probably rank this one as my 3rd favorite behind Anacortes and Laughing Dog, but this one has the childhood memory associated with it, so it really does make ranking it a lot harder.

I would have given this beer an easy 4 out of 5 if it weren’t for the memories, but since I do consider emotion as well as price when I come up with my ratings, Reuben’s Imperial Rye IPA invokes a perfect 5 Judicke’s Bakeries (that is where my grandmother usually got the rye bread from – it is still there and has been in operation since 1924) out of 5. Thanks for the trip down memory lane as well as the fantastic beer!

Beer of the Week: Deschutes Brewing Chasin’ Freshies

By Iron Chef Leftovers

If there is one thing that you can count on from Deschutes Brewing out of Bend, Oregon is consistency; there beers are easily a great “fall back” if you’re looking to have a couple and don’t want to break the bank doing it. You can never go wrong cracking open a Black Butte, Mirror Pond, Inversion or Red Chair. They also produce a special series of beers; usually hop monsters, in their limited Bond Street series, which usually border on spectacular. This year, they produced a fresh hop beer, Chasin’ Freshies as part of the series. The beer was available in 22 oz. bottles and ran about $6 at your local bottle shop.

From their website:

Alc. 7.4% | IBUs 60
22 oz serving

Like fresh powder, it’s a seize-the-moment thing. At harvest, we rush Goschie Farms’ Cascade hops fresh from vine to kettle. Not any Cascades, mind you, but an heirloom strain, from a single field, restored from the original rhizome. Hope you’re as hopped up as we are.

Malt: Pilsner Malt, Flaked Oats
Hops: Bravo, Fresh Heirloom Cascades

The beer pours a very pale yellow in color, almost surprisingly so – I looks like it could pass itself off as a saison. Any confusion over what you are drinking is eliminated when you smell the beer – the nose is dominated by floral and grassy hops and something that I couldn’t quite idenitfy, which might have been the oats included in the brew process. The initial taste is more malt forward than I was expecting, but it is a brief hit of malt and is followed by a huge punch of citrus with hints of resin and grass in a long and pleasant finish. The beer is not overly bitter and the hops are the star of the show, but still show great balance between the malt, bitterness, alcohol and citrus. Despite its light color, the beer drinks like a much bigger beer and does a fantastic job of displaying exactly what I want in a fresh hop beer and showcasing its pedigree.
This is definitely not a beer that you would want to drink if you did not like hops, but if you do, you should be chasing this one down during its limited run next winter.

Chasin’ Freshies gets run down with a high-speed 5 Smokey and the Bandits out of 5.

Stupid Sexy Flanders

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Today is a 2 for 1 beer post day! Aren’t you all excited.

Anyway, if you are going to Belgianfest (and if you are not, why are you not going to Belgianfest – there are tickets still available) at the Bell Harbor Center on February 2nd, you will get the experience of tasting a beer named for one of my all-time favorite Simpson’s lines and it is made by none other than the fine folks at American Brewing.

The description:

A Brown Ale fermented with our Sour Yeast on locally grown raspberries and aged to perfection in red wine barrels. 8% ABV

I am still surprised no one has used this name, considering Flanders is a style of beer as well as a mustachioed neighborino of Homer J. Simpson.

The full list of beers is here.

Where it comes from:

Beer of the Week: Boulevard Brewing Chocolate Ale (Batch #8)

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Boulevard Brewing out of Kansas City makes some of the more interesting beers out there in their Smokestack Series of beers, especially if you are talking about anything Belgian Style. Their spring seasonal beer in that series is a Chocolate Ale. Being a fan of chocolate beers, I had to give that one a shot. I originally was lucky enough to head into Chuck’s Hop Shop when they had it on tap and liked it so much that I purchased a bottle that day to bring home. The review is for the bottle, a 750 ml one, that cost about $10, and is batch #8 of the Chocolate Ale.

From the Boulevard website:

In developing this beer, Elbow and Boulevard brewmaster Steven Pauwels sought to harmonize the interplay of chocolate and malt, with each supporting and enhancing, but not overwhelming, the other. Just the right chocolate was essential. Elbow recommended a rare variety from the Dominican Republic, prized for its robust flavor and aroma, and a personal favorite. More than a mere flavoring, the chocolate — in the form of nibs, or crushed, roasted beans – was incorporated into the brewing process itself.
Color (EBC) 41
Bitterness (IBUs) 24
Original Gravity (Plato) 20
Terminal Gravity (Plato) 4
Alcohol (ABV) 9.1%
CO2 – Bottles
CO2 – Kegs

The beer pours hazy orange with a cream white head. Slight hints of hops and malt are hidden behind roasted chocolate and cocoa on the nose. Taking the first sip of this beer is like biting into a good dark chocolate bar. There are notes of roast on the front followed by a slightly fruity background and finishing with intense chocolate fades slowly and pleasantly into the night. The beer has a crispness to it and there are slight notes of sugar and malt, but the chocolate is really the star. Unlike most chocolate beers, which are more like drinking a chocolate drink (hot cocoa for example), this beer retains a great deal of the fruity characteristics of the chocolate itself and is more like a liquid chocolate bar. It is well balanced and definitely something that you should try if you are looking for something that has more complexity than just chocolate flavoring in it.

Boulevard produced an outstanding beer here and it will be interesting to see if the next go around keeps with the same recipe or they try something different.

Boulevard Chocolate Ale (batch #8) cruises in with a sweet 4 cacao pods out of 5.

The Beer That Launched a Thousand Breweries

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Not quite Helen of Troy, but pretty damn close.

The title is not really an exaggeration or inaccurate.

Have you ever heard of New Albion Brewing? Chances are you have not, considering the company has been out of business for the last 30 years. New Albion is generally considered to be the first micro-brewery in the U.S. and it, along with Anchor Brewing in San Francisco, are the two breweries that really got the entire craft brewing industry going.
Why is this important? Well, thanks to Jim Koch at Sam Adams, he worked with Jim McAuliffe, founder of New Albion to try to recreate New Albion’s original pale ale recipe. The beer is being released and should be in stores soon.

So next time you are in your local bottle shop, pick up a New Albion Pale Ale and taste the beer that made it possible for you to be drinking just about all of the beers you are currently drinking on a regular basis (and the one that made it possible for me to review something other than Bud, Coors or Miller).