Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Imperial Porter

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Hey, how about this – a new beer from Reuben’s and I am posting it when it is still available on tap. They decided to do an Imperial Porter which is exciting since I love porters and I don’t think I have ever tried and imperial version of one. This is a hefty beer, clocking in at 9.0% ABV and 53 IBU, so not for the faint of heart.

The beer pours jet black with a creamy brown head. Notes of dark chocolate and roasted malt dominate the nose with hints of caramel and sugar. The beer starts out with just a hint of sugar before moving into strong flavors of chocolate and roast with a pleasant bitterness and very light coffee and vanilla notes. The finish lingers like a nice cup of coffee. Deep and complex, the beer drinks like a stellar coffee with an incredible richness and just a hint of bitterness that compliments rather than detracts from the beer. The most amazing part is that the alcohol is not noticeable at all, making this beer just a bit too easy going down for my own good – it is definitely one that I could easily find myself ordering 2 or 3.

Reuben’s Imperial Porters meets me in the lobby and carries my luggage to my room with a perfect 5 luxury hotels out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Epic Ales Desert Rye Farmhouse Ale

By Iron Chef Leftovers

There are two breweries that drive me nuts because their names are almost identical. There is Epic Brewing out of Utah which makes some fantastic Belgian style beers and there is Epic Ales out of Seattle who tend to do some off the wall farmhouse style beers. I have seen more than one occasion where a tap last has listed the wrong brewery. In the case of the Desert Rye Farmhouse Ale, I originally just wrote Epic on my noted. In going back over them, I realized that I had no idea which Epic it was. After doing a bit of digging, I realized that it was the Seattle Epic that put out this beer. Given that it was a farmhouse beer with rye, I needed to give it a shot.

The beer pours cloudy with the color of peach/apricot jam and has an interesting nose – notes of grain and yeast dominate, supported by light notes of rye and hints of sugar. The beer is really complex on the palate, starting off with heavy rye notes before moving into a grassy farmhouse funk with lots of Belgian yeast and grain helped by very light citrus, finishing with light hops and more funk. The rye lingers thought the entire progression and is a bit harsh at the beginning, but it smooths out by the end of the sip and enhances the other flavors. The farmhouse component becomes more pronounced as the beer warms making for a very different beer by the end of the pint.

This is a beer that is really not for everyone, but is well balanced and complex to the point of being very different than most everything else out there.

Epic Ales Desert Rye Farmhouse Ale comes in out of the field with a heavy load of 4 hay bales out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Pumpkin Saison

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Reuben’s held out on me this year – they made a second pumpkin beer beyond their flagship pumpkin beer that they did not release until November. This beer was based on a saison, definitely a beer that you don’t see used very often in the pumpkin beer world. They had a very limited quantity of the Pumpkin Saison and it didn’t make it past the weekend that it went on tap, but you know that Iron Chef was there to try it and let you know what you missed.

The beer pours very dark reddish brown in color with notes of roasted pumpkin, pumpkin spice and saison funk on the nose. The beer starts out small with subtle grain notes and a distinctive saison background, then moving into a distinct pumpkin realm with light notes of roast and pumpkin seeds before hitting you with a burst of pumpkin pie spices – cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves are distinctly present. The beer finishes long with strong pumpkin pie character a pleasant dryness and just a hint of cinnamon heat. The pumpkin saison manages to bring more to spices to the party than the Pfeiffer’s Pumpkin Rye that Reuben’s also brews, giving a nice counterpunch to that beer. They also took great care in preserving the grassy notes of the saison and not completely overwhelming them with the spices, creating an interesting and balanced beer. I still would rather have the Pfeiffer’s Pumpkin, but this would be a welcome change of pace next pumpkin beer season.

Reuben’s Pumpkin Saison carves out a niche with a spooky 4 jack o’lanterns 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: 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: 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.

Beer of the Week: Anacortes Galaxy Pale

By Iron Chef Leftovers

The final beer in the DNA project is another pale ale, this time by Anacortes Brewing using Galaxy hops. Galaxy hops are described as “Australian high alpha dual purpose triploid cultivar with a marked and unique hop aroma, described as a combination of citrus and passionfruit. The initial aromas and flavors are quite intense, but these moderate as the beer matures.” The beer clocked in at 5.5% ABV.

The beer pours hazy yellow in color with strong notes of passion fruit and grain on the nose, reminding me a bit of Sam Adams Summer Ale without the lemon notes. Lots of citrus up front on the palate of this beer, dominated by lemon and passion fruit. The hops show well and linger for a long time before yielding to a slight malt sweetness as the beer fades on the palate with very little bitterness. Easy drinking, a beer that is perfect for the back deck on a warm summer day.

Anacortes Galaxy Pale jets in with a solid 4 Milky Ways out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Grapefruit IPA

By Iron Chef Leftovers

One of my favorite things about IPA’s is the grapefruit/citrus character that the hops bring to the party. I absolutely love the balance that it brings to the beer and delivers an extra layer of flavor. A few months back, Reuben’s did a grapefruit infused IPA. I was a bit skeptical about the beer since most of the other grapefruit based beers were a bit disappointing to say the least. Given Reuben’s track record with IPAs, I figured that this one was worth a shot. The beer was based on their Wheat IPA and then double dry hopped.

The beer pours hazy yellow in color with lots of wheat character on the nose supported by light hop and grapefruit notes. The beer drinks milder than you would expect, starting out very light up front with a grain forward flavor before moving into some pleasant bitterness with notes of light grapefruit that build into a stronger bitter citrus peel flavor. The beer finishes with a tinge of harsh, acidic bitterness on the first couple of sips before mellowing out the further into the beer you get. It isn’t overpoweringly bitter, and it is more acidic bitterness of grapefruit than hop bitterness and it takes a few sips for your palate to adjust to that before you don’t notice it, making the beer feel slightly out of balance at first, before it corrects itself. Despite that fact, this beer was probably the best grapefruit based beer I have had and shows much more depth than previous ones I have consumed.

Reuben’s Grapefruit IPA firmly plants itself with 3 citrus orchards out of 5.

Beers of the Week: Dick’s/Harmon Pineapple and Macadamia

By Iron chef Leftovers

Pineapple and Macadamia are two flavors that are more reminiscent of Hawaii than things you would find in beer, but that is what Dick’s and Harmon Brewing drew for the Iron Brewer competition. The challenge here is how do you get a fairly mild flavored nut to pair with a very sweet fruit and still find balance in the beer.

Dick’s – the beer pours hazy golden, almost orange in color with strong notes of pineapple and just a hint of nuts in the background on the nose – it reminded me of a pina colada. The beer does the complete opposite when you taste it – the nuts dominate almost right from the start. The pineapple starts to appear on the back end of the beer, but more as a background flavor to the grain rather than a dominant flavor. The beer finishes with light grain and hints of pineapple and sweetness. It had pretty good balance considering the ingredients and I would have thought nut brown ale if I had tasted it blind.

Dick’s Pineapple and Macadamia greets you with 3 leis out of 5.

Harmon – The beer is unexpectedly jet black in color, which seemed strange for the ingredients, with strong notes of molasses and chocolate with notes of nuts and pineapple in the background on the nose. The first sip of this beer tastes like a chocolate bar – toffee, chocolate, roasted grain, nuts, sugar and pineapple, and possible hints of coconut are all there in various degrees progressing through all of the flavors and producing a long, consistent finish. This is a bold and daring beer which is not short on flavor. It does an excellent job of showcasing the flavors of the ingredients and I would love to order this one again.

Harmon Pineapple and Macadamia says hello and goodbye with 4 alohas out of 5.

I thought that Harmon was the better beer and the crowd agreed with me on that, declaring it the winner.