Tag: american

Pop Up Beer Tasting Notes

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I cracked open a couple of bottles of IPA tonight because I needed them. They were not exactly the freshest IPA’s in my collection. I will be honest, I was fully expecting to just dump these beers. This is something I wrote on facebook in my personal account:

My aged IPA experiment (ok, it was more that I forgot about the bottles) is surprisingly a success. A couple of nearly 2 year old IPA’s are surprisingly good – malty with just a touch of hops. The American Captian Munson (which is probably closer to 1 than 2), is really complex and delicious. The Seven Brides FrankenLou is nice but horribly overcarbonated. There might be hope for my DFH 120 minute IPA’s in the cellar yet!

The American Captain Munson is probably about 18 months old. It was malty with hints of hop character and as it warmed it had an amazing dried fruit (cherries, figs) finish that really made me wish I had another bottle. I like Captain Munson fresh, I really liked it aged (keep in mind the beer is being kept between 58 and 64 degrees in my basement) and think that I might actually try this again with this beer. I wish I had taken notes on this.

The Seven Brides is good, but the beer is horribly overcarbonated and I think it may have actually been infected with some Belgian yeast that went to happy town in the bottle. The beer is drinking nicely (it was bottled on 4/12/12 according to the bottle) but it has a bunch of Belgain fruity esters going on and actually is drinking like a slightly hoppy Belgian Brown. I actually have no point of comparison on this beer as it was one I bought in Portland a few years back without trying and never opened, but they are distributing now in Seattle, so I may have to pick one up.

As for the DFH reference – I have a few bottles of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA in the cellar, I believe vintage 2011 and 2012. I can never seem to find the sweet spot on this beer as it seems that when I open it, it is either too hot or has that cardboard flavor. I think I am going to take the oldest bottle and just let it go for 3 or 4 more years to see what happens with it.

Hope springs eternal.

Beer of the Week: Populuxe American Blonde

By Iron Chef Leftovers

imagesCAAR87MMPopuluxe in its short lifespan has produced several distinct versions of their blonde – the Euro Blond was followed by the British Blonde and those two have now been joined by the American Blonde (they also have a Belgian Blond which I haven’t yet reviewed). Their blondes are a great exercise in what a slight change to the beer recipe, for example, yeast, can do to the beer, producing a completely different character. Each beer has its own distinct character and, while they share the style name, it should not be assumed that these beers are similar to each other

The American Blonde pours golden yellow in color with just a hint of orange tinge. The beer is really light on the nose with just the smallest hint of yeast and grain. On the palate, it does a complete 180, starting out slowly and building from a pleasant grain to a slightly spicy and malty sweet middle before finally finishing with a tease of hop bitterness at the very end that lingers in a good way in the background with notes of pineapple, complimenting and playing hide and seek with the yeast and the malt. The beer is pleasant to drink with a nice clean and refreshing balance to appeal to lighter beer drinkers (it clocks in at 4.8% ABV) but has enough character and depth to please a hard core beer nerd.

Populuxe American Blonde sails its way across the pond a drops anchor with a solid 4 Mayflowers out of 5.