Beer of the Year: Cheapseateats.com’s Best of 2013

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I really intended to post this on December 31^st, but I forgot to switch the date on the post, so it is a couple of days late.

Overall 2013 was a banner year for beer in Seattle, particularly Ballard with a significant number of new breweries opening and the existing breweries kicking it up a notch with the quality of their beers. It was a particularly banner year for beer reviews on this site also, with me posting just north of 100 beer reviews on the site (that is a ton of beer and that doesn’t even take into account the beer notes I have but have not posted yet). This has made determining my best beer of 2013 much more difficult than last year. Here are the rules for determining the winner:

The beer had to score 5 out of 5 on the Iron Chef Scale
I had to post a review of the beer sometime in 2013
Vintage beers are not eligible to win
If I named the beer, it wasn’t eligible to win (so, no, my beloved Ate2Four Porter is not the beer of the year)
Previous winners are not eligible win again, no matter how delicious they are (It means Reuben’s Pfeffer’s Pumpkin can’t win again)
The winner is picked by an esteemed panel of me, myself and I

This really was a challenge – I had about 15 beers that I scored 5 points so I took down my list from there to 4 contenders for the best. It was actually going to be 5, then I realized that the one that would have been in the 5^th spot has not yet had a review posted, so, it is an early contender for 2014 (and no, I won’t tell you what it is). The final 4 came down to hoppy vs. roasted, so let me show you how this played out:

Matchup 1: Battle Hops

Our contenders are Reuben’s Imperial Rye IPA and Populuxe Full Spectrum (previously Founders) Imperial IPA.

A good old Ballard brewery smack down and a competition between 2 breweries I love and what I think are the 2 best beers these breweries make. This was a hard choice. Full Spectrum is one of the best Imperials out on the market and I think it holds its own against beers like Pliny (yes, it is that good). The problem is, I think this about the Imperial Rye IPA (the cask version particularly):

I tasted this side by side with the regular version of the Imperial Rye, a beer I dearly love, and honestly, the cask version blew the doors off the regular version. After tasting the cask version, the regular, a fantastic beer in its own right, didn’t have the same level of intensity as its sibling. I am going to go on the record here as saying the cask version of the Imperial Rye IPA is one of the 10 best beers I have ever had and quite possibly in the top 5. Yes, it was that good. Next time it makes an appearance, you should be waiting in line for this beer when it gets tapped.

As good as Full Spectrum was, the Imperial Rye edges it out just slightly and moves onto the finals in a close match between 2 heavyweights.

Matchup 2: Battle Roast

Our contenders are Reuben’s Bourbon Imperial Russian Stout and Midnight Sun Moscow Russian Imperial Stout.

This could also have been called battle barrel as both beers spent some time in oak.

Again, a tough choice. Both were massive beers and both were spectacular. Both of these beers had tremendous balance and flavor, and it really came down to a number of small differences. I can sum it up about the winner in a post I made about the beer in its initial review:

If you like Russian Imperial Stouts, you need to try this beer. Really, it is that good, and possibly the best I have ever had.

That beer was the Midnight Sun Moscow, edging Reuben’s (and preventing an all-Reuben’s Final) by the tip of a Cossak’s bayonet.

That sets up the final between Anchorage and Seattle, with 2 heavy hitter ready to slug it out in the ring. They went 15 rounds, toe to toe, bringing us in with a split decision. I will turn it over to our ring announcer for the results:

The winner, by split decision, and 2013 Cheapseateats.com Beer of the Year…Reuben’s Imperial Rye IPA!

A Reuben’s beer takes the title for the second straight year! Another well earned (and hard fought) victory for Reuben’s and congratulations to Adam and Mike for making such fantastic beer. Can Reuben’s do it again in 2014? Only time will tell. I can say that they have some pretty stiff competition to go up against if they want to 3-peat.

Beer of the Week: NW Peaks Kaleetan-weizzen

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I tend to stay away from the lighter beers, just because they usually lack the depth of flavors that I am looking for when drinking a beer. There are some breweries that I would still try their lighter beers, just because of their track record with making beers that I enjoy. NW Peaks is one of them. So when they released Kaleetan as part of the August Mountainbeers lineup, I was actually looking forward to drinking it.

From the NW Peaks Website:

The name. The mountain. Kaleetan is a peak close to Snoqualmie pass. It is one of the more impressive peaks in the area and its name means arrow, while others have described it as “matterhorn” (both aptly describing it). It’s a great day climb and/or ski depending on the time of year and conditions. In the summer trails go from Denny Creek to Melakwa lake. Heading up to the summit gully and easy class 3 scrambling can take you to the exposed summit. In winter, source lake is the preferred starting point.

The beer. Kaleetan is an “American Wheat Beer.” It has a wheat base and we used hops that have lemon qualities for the flavor and aroma. We finished off the beer with some lemon zest, enhancing the lemon properties. The result was a light beer with a light/delicate lemon aroma. The aroma is followed by a bready flavor with light herbal notes (a secondary characteristic from the sorachi ace hops). Overall, Kaleetan is an easy drinking wheat ale with light lemon and herbal notes.

The beer pours pale yellow in color with a fizzy white head. The nose is dominated by strong notes of yeast and wheat with touches of lemon interspersed. On the first sip, light notes of grain appear on the front of the beer with a very mild hint of yeast, before moving into slightly dry/tart lemon notes, before finishing with a hint of refreshing bitterness and touches of lemon peel. The beer is light and refreshing but surprisingly complex and it vaguely reminded me of a pilsner and would be perfect on a hot day. I think the beer is complex enough to keep an advanced beer drinker happy and subtle enough to have mass appeal.

NW Peaks Kaleetan-weizzen climbs to the top and announces its presence with a strong 4 yodels out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Elysian Prairie Rose Wet Hopped IPA

By Iron Chef Leftovers

This was a very disappointing season for fresh hopped beers. Even ones that I have had in the past and loved seemed to be lacking something this year. One of the few exceptions to this was Elysian’s entry into the style, their Prairie Rose Wet Hopped IPA. Elysian described the beer as follows:

Named for the scented flowers of the Yakima Valley and the Texas Panhandle – Amarillo – Prairie Rose is a fresh hop IPA bittered with eponymous hop shooting stars – Galaxy and Comet – to a magnitude of 60 IBU’s and finished with 40 pounds worth of we Amarillo hops from Virgil Gamache Farms. 6.5% ABV.

The beer pours vaguely orange in color with citrus and citrus peel dominating the nose with background green hops and grain. A burst of citrus on the palate initially but quickly moving to slightly floral hop bitterness with a touch of resin. The beer then finishes with a mild burnt citrus peel that lingers pleasantly with just a hint of bitterness. Big bold hop character dominates without overpowering your palate, leaving a rich and complex flavor profile when you debate if a second pint is a good idea.

Elysian’s Prairie Rose Wet Hopped IPA saunters in riding high with a handsome 4 gauchos out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Populuxe American Blonde

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Populuxe 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.

Beer of the Week: 10 Barrel Swill Beer

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Sometimes with all of the new breweries and beers on the market, it is easy to lose track and miss out on a good brewery. Relative newcomer, 10 Barrel Brewing out of Bend, Oregon, is one of those that I can’t believe that this is the first review of one of their beers I am posting. They have a nice lineup of beers that are available in bottles at most good bottle shops in Seattle. I was lucky enough to take a crack at their Swill, a Grapefruit Radler, on tap at a visit to Chuck’s Hop Shop this summer. In case you are not familiar with what a radler is, the internet can help you. From the Germanbeerinstitue.com website:

What does a German drink, when he or she wants a low-alcohol beer, but does not want to resort to a “light” brew? Radlermass or Alsterwasser (its northern German name) to the rescue — a beverage that is a half-and-half mix of blond lager (usually Pils or Helles) and lemonade. This drink originated in Bavaria in the early 20th century, but it is now bottled and canned premixed and available in all of Germany. However, it generally does not make its way across the sea to North America.

I don’t know exactly how this was done by 10 Barrel, but I assume that the beer was brewed and some percentage of grapefruit juice was added to the beer to make it a radler.

The beer pours hazy yellow in color with a nice white head with notes of grapefruit and grain and hints of citrus peel on the nose. The first sip yields a slight sweetness before changing direction with a slight tartness before moving onto a significant grapefruit presence – making the beer feel more like a grapefruit cocktail than a beer, before finishing with bitter peel, grain and lemon in a short finish. The balance of this beer was way off and the flavors felt like they weren’t integrated and the beer became much sweeter as it warmed, throwing the balance further off. I found myself wanting more hops and less grapefruit to try to cut some of that sweetness. Unfortunately, this was pretty much everything I dislike about grapefruit beers.

10 Barrel Swill Beer fails to make it to the finish line with a less than stellar 2 flat tires out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Cask Imperial IPA

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Reuben’s has temporarily gotten away from its cask program, and that is not a good thing since their beers generally do well with a cask treatment, revealing an incredibly deeper flavor that you don’t get on their regular versions – it is not to put down the regular versions of the beer, but the cask seems to take the fantastic regular version to a completely new level. One of the last casks that they did was their Imperial IPA dry hopped with Citra and Amarillo. If there was ever a beer that was screaming for the cask treatment, it is this one.

The beer pours heavy orange-brown, almost the color of tea with an in your face citrus nose with notes of grain on the background and just hints of resin interspersed. The beer builds slowly at first with citrus peel and grapefruit gaining traction on the palate for quite a long while before transitioning into a somewhat tea –like profile with a slightly tannic finish that is enhanced with a mild bitterness that lingers for a few seconds before fading away. For a high alcohol cask beer, there is no alcohol burn and the beer is clean and smooth with great balance and layers of flavor that evolve as you get further into the pint. The beer goes down almost too smooth and, despite the significant hopping, isn’t a palate killer, giving you the chance to actually move on to a different beer, but honestly, if you are drinking this one, you probably aren’t going to consider anything other than ordering a second pint of the IIPA.

Reuben’s Cask Imperial IPA with Citra and Amarillo dances into the picture with a graceful 4 Texas two-steps out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Double Mountain Kolsch

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Double Mountain Brewing out of Hood River, Oregon has been around since 2007, but is a recent newcomer to the Seattle beer market. The have a small lineup of beer that are available year-round in bottles at your local bottle shop and can occasionally be found on tap at your local watering hold. Loyal reader Annie S. was kind enough to bring over a bottle of the kolsch a while back and share it with me.

From the Double Mountain Website:

In Cologne, many a brewery produces a light-bodied ale with a delicate fruitiness and rounded maltiness, attributable to the unique yeast strain commonly used. Our Kölsch is unfiltered and more generously hopped than its German cousin.
Brewed with Gambrinus Pilsner and Munich malt and
Perle hops. 5.2% ABV, 40 BU

The beer pours hazy yellow in color with strong notes of lemon and yeast, supported by touches of grain and malt. The beer starts out dry and crisp with traces of sweetness up front and a short grain finish in the back. Notes of lemon hide at various points in this beer, providing a nice contrast to the grain and adding a touch of hop character to the beer. This is a pretty easy drinking beer with no remarkable flavors, as it should be for the style, but just a touch more character than what you normally find in a kolsch.

Double Mountain Kolsch builds up a solid 3 cathedrals out of 5.

Beer of the Week: NW Peaks Easy Peak-an Nut Brown Ale

By Iron Chef Leftovers

The second of the seasonally themed Mountainbeers from NW Peaks is their dessert beer – a nut brown ale made with the inclusion of actual pecans, basically setting you up for the end of the meal.

From the NW Peaks Website:

The name. The mountain. Easy Peak is not so much a mountain, but the high point on Easy Ridge, the ridge located on the other side of the Chilliwack river from popular Copper ridge. While the payoff is stupendous one must ford the Chilliwack river and ascend 3,000 feet back up to the ridge. On the ridge, I don’t know if there is a more beautiful, easy-going, completely back country experience in the N Cascades, including the hike up to the high point.

The beer. Last year we did Spickard Spice for Thanksgiving dinner, this year we moved towards Thanksgiving dessert. We brewed a nut brown as the base – a medium bodied, malty brown with a nice nutty hop (and malt) character. Per our desire to make a Thanksgiving beer, we added some pecans and pie spices, but just enough to give it a perceivable note. The result was a nut brown that dominates the character with a nice pecan note and a barely perceptible spicy note. With a nice brown color, the beer even has the color of a typical pecan pie, so we’d like to believe that it’s just like pecan pie in a glass. Maybe not “exactly”, but it goes down “easy as pie.”

The beer pours amber brown in color with hints of spice and nuts on the nose. The beer starts out on the palate with a nice mild sweetness before building into a slightly spicy nutmeg middle and then moves into deeper brown sugar and pecan nuttiness before finishing with a long, pleasant roasted pecan flavor. The beer has a small amount of perceptible pie spices, but they are definitely background flavors and work wonderfully supporting the deep richness of the nut flavors. This beer is really as close to a liquid pecan pie with great flavors of roasted nuts and I would love to see how this beer did if it got a short aging in a whiskey barrel (hint…hint). One note to add – when we drank this beer, we inadvertently left a small amount in the growler and ended up trying it a room temperature. The spice become the dominant flavor in the beer at that point, so I would say if you enjoy the nut flavor more than the spice, drink it around 45-55 degrees. If you want more noticeable spice flavor, go 55+ with your temp.

NW Peaks Easy Peak-an Nut Brown goes crazy with a spectacular 4 Carya illinoinensis out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Elysian Oblivion IPA

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Thanks to the ever-changing tap list at Elysian, there is always a new beer to try, and I am especially happy when that new beer happens to be an IPA. This was a big beer, clocking in at 7% ABV and 70IBU, but considering that Elysian makes some of the more solid IPA’s around, I gave it a whirl.

The beer pours hazy golden orange in color and is brimming with hop character – I could smell this beer from over a foot away. Closer inspection yields light notes of grapefruit and citrus, light green hops and grain. The hop character dominates the front of the palate with significant orange peel with notes of grapefruit and a pleasant light bitterness than carries throughout the beer. These notes are then joined by moderate grain middle before finishing slightly sweet and grassy with those mild bitter notes. There is no obvious alcohol burn despite its ABV and the beer has a nice progression of flavors without being one note. Oblivion is more hop forward than most of the Elysian IPAs, but not so much that it will blow your palate.

Elysian’s Oblivion IPA races toward destruction with a brave 3 perils out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Populuxe Cask Beer Snob Brown

By Iron Chef Leftovers

If you are free on Thursday nights, you should head down to Populuxe Brewing for their cask night. Yes, you will see a number of pale ales and IPA’s on tap with a variety of different dry hops (and they are fantastic), but the guys at Populuxe aren’t afraid to give the cask treatment to their other style of beers. A few months back, the Beer Snob Brown was the candidate – not too many NW breweries do a brown and even fewer do it on cask (this one was done with Crystal hops), so this was definitely a must try beer.

The beer pours a nice solid brown in color with really nice chocolate on the nose and just a hint of citrus from the hops (think a chocolate bar with orange peel). The beer starts out with a pretty heavy dose of coffee and chocolate before yielding into the addition of hops – slightly floral and citrusy/orange. The beer then fades quickly in a burst of chocolate, coffee and malt before disappearing completely off the palate. Giving the Beer Snob Brown the cask treatment highlights the deeper roast flavors in the beer, almost turning it into a liquid chocolate confection without the sweetness. My only complaint about this beer is that the hop character starts to disappear the deeper you get into your pint and is overpowered by the darker flavors in the beer – it does not cause the beer to become unbalanced at all, but it does lose that layer of the flavor.

If Beer Snob Brown makes another appearance in the cask rotation, you should drop what you are doing and head down to Populuxe.

Populuxe Beer Snob Brown on cask thumbs its nose at you with a solid 3 silly English Kn-iggits out of 5.