Lagunitas Wilco Tango Foxtrot

Rating: neutral



"A malty, robust, jobless recovery ale."
"We're not quite in the black, or in the red... does that mean we're in the brown?"

Not usually a fan of IPAs, bought this for the novelty. Similar to Lagunitas' other ales, very hoppy and bitter.

Origin: USA (California)

Sless' Oatmeal Stout

Rating: positive




This claims to be a gold medal winner and voted best stout in the world. It's good, but nowhere near THAT good. Not as many rich coffee/chocolate tastes as I like in an oatmeal stout. If my memory serves me correctly, Goose Island is better, and what I think was either Shanandoah or maybe blue ridge was my all-time pick for this category. Still, solid stout. Only real complaint is that it's not as great as it boasts.

Origin: USA (California)

North Coast Blue Star Wheat Beer

Rating: positive


This has to be one of the most neutral/generic tasting beers I've ever had. Nothing jumped out at me: no one flavor or characteristic caught my attention, which is extremely rare. Most beers have a salient feature like bitterness, smokiness, sweetness, "breadiness", etc. But it's not a bad thing here. It's extremely drinkable and went great with food, not covering up the taste of what I was eating. Pale and cloudy color, looks nice.

Origin: USA (California)

Rogue Mocha Porter

Rating: positive


I wouldn't have known this was mocha from taste or smell, but if they say so I'll take their word for it. No noticeable coffee or chocolate. As a porter though, this is good stuff. Dark, bitter, flavorful.

Origin: USA (Oregon)

Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel Dernier Volonte

Rating: positive


Belgian-style blond ale. Taste reminded me of apricots. Light colored and cloudy. Heavy, meal-like, filling.

Origin: Canada (Quebec)

Konings hoeven quadrupel

Rating: positive



Possibly the best Belgian-style ale I've ever had. Sour, but not overly so. Unidentifiably spicy, maybe has herbs or something in it? Very drinkable for something so heavy. Light brown and slightly cloudy, irresistible beer smell. Kind of on the pricey side, around ten bucks a bottle, but worth it.

Origin: Netherlands

Uerige Doppelsticke

Rating: positive




8.5% altbier. Very sweet, almost no carbonation whatsoever. Pitch black in the glass. Tastes almost like a desert wine. Picture port with wheat rather than grape flavor, if you can. The thickness and sweetness definitely cover up the high alcohol content, because it doesn't taste anything like 8.5%. Pretty good, but nowhere near my favorite.

Origin: Germany (Nordrhein-Westfalen)

Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier

Rating: neutral



This tastes very smoky, but it ends up tasting (to me) like barbecue sauce because of it. Seriously. It's very different from any beer I've ever had before, and it went well with the greasy pizza I was eating, but I'm not sure it'd ever be my go-to choice. Other notable qualities: not very carbonated, not strongly hopped. It says it's a marzen, but if I had to identify it without a label, I'd think this is a cousin of the schwarzbier/dunkel lager were it not for the smoke taste.

Origin: Germany (Hamburg)
Yes, Hamburg is one of the founding German states, not just a city.

Bosteels Tripel Karmeliet

Rating: neutral



This is a Belgian style but made with oats, wheat and barley. Too sweet for me. Interesting combination of flavors, worth a try for the novelty.

Origin: Belgium

Legend Brown Ale

Rating: positive



Awesome. This is up there with the Rogue brown ale. Smooth, baked-bread like flavor and smell. Tan color. Really good stuff.

Origin: USA (Virginia)

Old Dominion Baltic Porter

Rating: positive

Wow. Unexpectedly flavorful, maybe a smoky taste? Burnt? Whatever it is, it's a really strong flavor. Usual good porter characteristics are there as well: very dark, not too carbonated, not over-hopped. A little bit of a sour aftertaste, vaguely similar to a Belgian ale. One of the better porters I've had recently.

Origin: USA (Virginia)

Brooklyn Brewery Dark Chocolate Stout

Rating: neutral

Pitch black, even when held to the light. It's bubbly and fairly hoppy, carbonated (not nitrogen like the Youngs double chocolate stout). Wouldn't have known it was chocolate anything if the label hadn't said so.

Not crazy about it, more forgettable than anything.

Origin: USA (New York)

Bell's Best Brown Ale

Rating: positive

Dark brown in the glass, reddish color when held up to the light. Smells nice.

It's not particularly bubbly, virtually no head, which is good for a brown ale in my opinion. But in spite of this, it has a little of a bite to it that I normally associate with carbonic acid in highly carbonated beer. It's probably a combination of a little more acidic and a little more hoppy than I was expecting. The initial flavor isn't as good as Rogue's hazelnut brown, but the aftertaste has a very nice baked-bread kind of flavor, which redeems it.

Origin: USA (Michigan)

Monchshof Schwarzbier

Rating: positive

I tried this initially because BevMo had a big display of 5L mini kegs for $16 each. Very surprised at how good this was, price not even being a factor. When ice cold, it has slightly more of an aftertaste than the Reutberger or Kostritzer, but as it warms up it takes on very rich flavors. Pumpernickel or rye bread came to mind. Tastes best at almost room temperature. The next keg of this I bought, I never refrigerated; the beer was delicious from the start, and even skeptics of drinking warm beer admitted it was tasty. This is not just drinkable, it's great. At $16 per 5 liter, it also gets a higher alculator score than most expensive Schwarzbiers, which is just icing on the cake.

Origin: Germany (Bavaria)

Maredsous 8 Brune

Rating: positive

Belgian-style abbey ale. Very sourdough-tasting, even as Belgians go. Dark brown in the glass, cloudy and opaque even when held up to the light. One of the thickest, foamiest heads I've ever seen in a beer, filling most of my glass despite a careful pour and not dying down even after a minute or two of sitting. Letting the bottle sit and lose carbonation for a moment after opening helped, the next glass was more beer than foam. 8% abv, strong and filling. On the expensive side.

Origin: Belgium

Maredsous 10 Triple Belgian Abbey Ale

Forgotten what it's like.

Hennepin Farmhouse Saison Ale

Forgotten what this tastes like...

St. Feuillien Brune

I've forgotten what this tastes like, I'll have to try it again.

Weihenstephaner Original Premium

Rating: positive

Excellent lager. Golden color, highly carbonated, light and refreshing taste. 5.1% alcohol is a little on the strong side for a summer/barbecue beer, but it's head and shoulders above the typical American macrobrews that try to reproduce exactly this style of beer.

These German lagers are, to me, what things like Budweiser and Miller should have ended up like if they had cared. There's nothing strong nor offensive, in fact what sets them apart is the distinct lack gross metallic flavors and subsequent horrid aftertaste. If Inbev (owners of bud brand) mass-marketed something this good at the same price as Bud, people would be insane not to switch.

Origin: Germany (Bavaria)

Augistinerbrau Munchen Edelstoff exportbier

Rating: positive

A slightly heavier, more alcoholic (5.6%) version of the "vollbier" from the same brewery. Similar characteristics, being light in color and highly carbonated. It has a little stronger flavor.

Name means, roughly, "*good stuff". Though my friend claimed this too was generally unavailable outside Munich, the "exportbier" label suggests that it is shipped outside of Germany, but maybe just not in large quantities. I certainly can't find it in California.

Origin: Germany (Bavaria)

*
Google Translate says of the word "edel":
adjective:
noble
precious
fine
gallant
thoroughbred
gentle
aristocratic
regal
generous

adverb:
nobly
gallantly
generously

Augistinerbrau Munchen Lagerbier Hell (helles vollbier)

Rating: positive

Good example of a light-colored German lager. It's very pale yellow in color, highly carbonated, light flavor. Surprisingly high (to me) alcohol content for this kind of beer at 5.2%.

Name means "pale lager beer (pale full beer)". I'm not sure what the significance of the full part is. Apparently generally unavailable anywhere outside of Munich, this was brought over in a suitcase by a German friend.

Origin: Germany (Bavaria)

Ayinger Altbairisch Dunkel

Rating: positive

"Authentic Bavarian Dark Lager"
This is good, but unimpressive compared to Reutberger and Kostritzer. Worth trying.

Origin: Germany (Bavaria)

Weihenstephaner Korbinian Doppelbock

Rating: positive

"Dunkles starkbier", dark strong beer, the label states. No joke. This is black in the glass, feels heavy to drink and at 7.4% ABV is about twice as strong as a watery American macrobrew. Not my favorite, but pretty damn good. This is also about $3 a bottle where I live, just over half the price of Reutberger or Kostritzer.

Weihenstephaner is the brand of what is now the state beer college of Bavaria, and claims to be the world's oldest brewery (seit 1040). They know what they're doing.

Origin: Germany (Bavaria)

Reutberger Kloster-Beer Export Dunkel

Rating: positive

Maybe my favorite dunkel lager, even slightly better than the Kostritzer. Black, crisp, highly carbonated. Great for washing down greasy food.

Origin: Germany (Bavaria)

Kostritzer Schwarzbier

Rating: positive

Excellent example of the style. Pitch black in the glass, but light and bubbly taste like a lager. Crisp and refreshing, slightly more flavorful than typical pale pilsners and lagers (as most dunkels I've tried have been). It's available on tap at at least one German restaurant in San Francisco, Suppenkuch, and in bottles at another in Sunnyvale, Hardy's Bavaria. Goes very well with German food.

The brewery provides their own style of beer glass for it, which is tall, thin, painted with the coat of arms. I'm usually not a sucker for presentation, but drinking this beer out of the brewery-sanctioned glass is kind of cool.

Origin: Germany (Thuringia)

Allagash Dubbel Reserve

Rating: positive

Dark brown in color, lots of foamy head, typical Belgian hint of sourness, but nowhere near as sour as some (such as the Saison Dupont). Smooth and enjoyable.

Origin: USA (Maine)

Samuel Smith Imperial Stout

Rating: neutral

Dark and bubbly. Main complaints are bitterness and oily mouth feel.

Origin: England

Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout

Rating: neutral

Imperial stouts are not a style I typically enjoy, so this review is probably biased. Too bitter, somehow oily in texture. Dark and highly carbonated. 9% ABV, but if you just want to get buzzed there are far cheaper and more enjoyable ways of doing it. It's still drinkable, but barely.

Origin: USA (California)

St. Peters Cream Stout

Rating: neutral

I'm not sure what I thought a cream stout was going to be, maybe Irish dry stouts have shaped my opinion too heavily. I did not enjoy this. It's dark in the glass, fairly carbonated, and disappointingly has none of the coffee, chocolate, vanilla, carmel, or other mild flavors I was hoping for, and that many other stouts have. This was not as good as, say, Guinness extra stout, while being roughly the same style in my opinion.

Origin: England

Allagash Curieux

Rating: positive

I first heard of Allagash when their brewmaster flew to Mountain View explicitly to give a talk on brewing Belgian ales to gmail SRE and friends here at Google, the result of them having met by chance somewhere... I got only a taste of each kind, but was impressed with the work that goes into their aged beers.

The Curieux is aged in used Jim Beam bourbon barrels, and it picks up vanilla and other pleasant flavors from the oak. It's so thick it's almost soupy, it's 11% alcohol by volume, and it's got a strong smell that indeed reminds me of bourbon whiskey. Each bottle comes with pedigree information, etc Definitely not to be consumed hastily, this is a sipping beer.

Origin: USA (Maine)

Trader Joe's 2008 Vintage Ale

Rating: positive

This is a Belgian-style dubbel, made for them by Unibroue in Quebec. Rich brown color, cloudy, lots of foamy head. Nice scent and complex aftertaste, all good. I actually like this much better than any of the beers Unibroue markets here themselves. Pleasantly surprised by how inexpensive this is compared to most corked-bottle Belgians.

Origin: Canada (Quebec)

Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar

Rating: positive

Possibly the best brown ale I've ever had, better than Samuel Smiths, even. Light brown in the glass, smooth texture and flavor. Definitely will buy again.

Origin: USA (Oregon)

Saison Dupont

Rating: positive

Cloudy, sourdough-like taste, pale golden color. Heavy and filling, but far from heavy as far as Belgians go. All the other Belgians I've tried are Flemish (Dutch), but this is from a brewery in the francophone part of the country. Claims to be a farmhouse style ale. Bought several times, would recommend.

Origin: Belgium

Ommegang chocolate indulgence

Rating: negative

This claimed to be a belgian-style chocolate stout. I was curious but dubious, as this describes two very different styles of beer. The result was severe disappointment. It's neither a good belgian, nor a good stout, nor even a good beer on its own merit. I actually considered not finishing my glass.

Like the Youngs, this uses both chocolate malt AND actual chocolate. It's a waste of both.

Origin: USA (new york)

Young's double chocolate stout

Rating: positive

Excellent dry stout, nitrogen widget in the can actually makes this one better in the can than the bottle. Like other nitrogen dry stouts (guinness, murphys) it has the cascading foam effect when poured in a glass. Feel is extremely smooth and thick, taste is slightly sweet and smoky with an actually noticeable aftertaste of chocolate. Possibly my favorite beer.

Drinking it cold doesn't just lessen the intensity of the flavor like with most beers. It actually changes it to taste less like beer and more like chocolate. Try it at several temperatures to find the perfect one.

Origin: England

Samuel Smith nut brown ale

Rating: positive

Smooth, again not too bubbly, dark brown in the glass. Always a favorite.

Origin: England

Samuel Smith the celebrated oatmeal stout

Rating: positive

It's a dark, smooth -tasting oatmeal stout. One of the better examples of the style. Not too bubbly, not overly sweet. I enjoy it most served cool but not ice cold, to better appreciate the flavor.

Origin: England