Beer Review: Mason’s 30th Anniversary Bourbon Barrel Aged Bourbon Screaming Eagle

This my weekly column of beer reviews. Each week I’ll be giving a beer a thorough review and letting you know what I thought of it. This week’s beer is a 4.5% IPA from Maine’s Zephyr brewing company. Zephyr’s slogan is “The finest craft beer for the discerning craft beer drinker”. I was lucky enough to have a visit from the brewery’s owner, Jeremy Zephyr, last week and got to try a variety of beers and chat about craft beer.

Beer Name:Cauldron DIPA
ABV 7.70
Style: American Double / Imperial IPA
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4.5
Palate: 4
Taste: 4.5
Overall: 4
Reviewer: johnmichaelsen
Review: According to the website, the style for the Caldera Cauldron changes every year. The current release is a DIPA, which frankly is the only cauldron I’m familiar with (it was an IPA/DIPA the last time I ordered a cauldron at the horsebrass several years back). In any event… at the Horse Brass yesterday. The beer pours an orange copper color with good head retention and lacing. The nose is all hoppy IPA goodness, showcasing a huge aroma of dry citrus, pine and sandlewood. The flavor profile replicates the nose pretty closely in this West Coast all the way DIPA. This DIPA is not for the faint of heart and is a bit much even for a hophead like myslf. The finish is quite dry and hoppy, and there’s barely enough sweet malt to balance and hold up the avalanche of hoppy bitterness in this beer. Mouthfeel is actually fairly light, with a long, persistentely bitter finish. Drinkability is good, with the alcohol barely noticeable in this well crafted beer. Still, this beer is so hugely hoppy/bitter, it’s really hard for me to imagine ordering more than a single glass. Regardless, this is a very impressive beer from the folks at Caldera.

Beer Name:Caldera Ginger Beer
ABV 4.70
Style: Herbed / Spiced Beer
Appearance: 3.5
Aroma: 3.5
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 3.5
Reviewer: Reidrover
Review: 22 oz bottle from “Lifesource” Salem. $3.95 Nice golden clear beer body with a nice sized frothy/creamy white head. Ok

aromas..mainlly a bit of ginger speice and some bready malt..simple nice

Taste very nice indeed..nice spicy ginger backed with slightly caramel maltiness..simple again but i like .

Liked the mouthfeel of this one..very forward carbonation which helps the ginger effect and a lingering ginger in the after taste.

Overall a simple ginger brew .I liked it

Beer Name:Caldera Oatmeal Stout
ABV 7.20
Style: Oatmeal Stout
Appearance: 2.5
Aroma: 1.5
Palate: 2.5
Taste: 2
Overall: 2
Reviewer: RedDiamond
Review: Caldera presents yet another circumstance where the brewery does not operate a brewpub, doesnt bottle their beers, and is located 300 miles from my home. To review their beers I traveled to their hometown of Ashland, OR and drank at the Ashland Creek Bar and Grill. This may have been a mistake. Though I had other reasons to visit Ashland, its disappointing (to say the least) to travel 300 miles and be served a spoiled beer. Both the Oatmeal Stout and Ashland Amber were of poor quality at the Ashland Creek Bar and Grill. In the case of the Oatmeal Stout, a nice measure of cream and a wayward thread of mint were marred by a sulfuric smell and likely bacterial infection. Though I cant say for certain, my best guess is that the house tap lines were something other than sanitized. I will attempt to revisit and re-evaluate this beer. But for the time being, its important to ask a pertinent question about quality control. Caldera is a 10 bbl microbrewery in a small town. How much responsibility do they have towards assuring that taps serving their product in their hometown are kept reasonably clean and free of bacterial encroachment? My answer to this question is that the brewery does have some responsibility to assure quality pours in its own hometown. This is especially so when they operate no pub of their own. Not only does this effort protect the consumer from being served a spoiled beer, but the enforcement of quality control measures at the point of consumption simply makes good business sense. Till then, theres nothing I really care say about this beer other than to wish whoever pursues it greater luck than I had at Ashland Creek.

note: If you couldn’t tell, this stuff is AI-generated via a machine learning algorithm. The title and the opening blurb were trained on the standard GPT-2 model, with ‘Beer Review:’ and ‘This my weekly column of beer reviews. ‘ given as prompts. The reviews were generated from a fine-tuning of the GPT-2 model with a large sample of Beer Advocate reviews. I selected from the saved samples of these and put this post together.

Beer Review: Citra De Mango by JM Gulf

This my weekly column of beer reviews. I’ll try to do a review every day, but it’s not a sure thing. As usual, you can find the full review here . A review of the Krombacher Weisse will come later this week.
First thing’s first: My first review in this column was a St. Louis Cardinals post-season beer. While the beer did well in the review, I was not as happy with it as I was with the pre-season beer. My second review in this column was a I.P.A. from a brewery in St. Louis. The I.P.A. was good, but not spectacular.

Beer Name:Dead Man’s @ Miller Park
ABV 9.50
Style: American Barleywine
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 3.5
Palate: 3
Taste: 3
Overall: 3
Reviewer: alleykatking
Review:

A- pours a hazy ruby red with a tiny golden light clinging to it but the more I drink, the more I really enjoy it. I was thinking I WAS through the beer with the bubbles, but it’s still good. 500ml bottle pour into a Weizen glass

The aroma is like a carbonated mousse cake covered in cream and milk. The nose is very faint but very pleasing. Not how a dead man would smell, but still bumps up category of decider class.

The taste is like a beer with an epiphany and a bottle of hell. Biscuit sugar, some fizzy carbonation, and a bit of the 2nd grade alcohol.

The mouthfeel is decent. It’s definitely more mouthfeel here than a regular Dead Lager. Fizzy carbonation with a bit of the 2nd grade alcohol.

The drinkability is good. I noticed this one is good for a while and then it just hit me.

This is not like the Dead Lager but it’s still good. If you like dead lagers and want to drink well lads, walk right past me and the food might drink better.

Beer Name:Cobalt
ABV 8.40
Style: American Malt Liquor
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 3.5
Taste: 3.5
Overall: 3.5
Reviewer: GBollett
Review:

Wonderful (if not weird) appearance in the glass at Bottomless Bistro. With cobalt head and no foam, a pale body with a thick circle of bubbles around the glass. aroma with a corn smokiness to it.

The taste was sweeter than expected. Just as you would expect, it had a very smooth and sweet taste.

The mouthfeel was a little over-carbonated. Like a cobalt (I’m a sucker), I love a high ABV lager. If I see a cobalt beer in a bottle it will probably be this one. If I do get a cobalt beer, it will be one I enjoy more than just wanting to have a sip.

Beer Name:Nitro Kriek
ABV 5.10
Style: Dortmunder / Export Lager
Appearance: 4.5
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 5
Overall: 4
Reviewer: rfoguel
Review: Sources are not exactly certain, but the beer is presumably beer from a “Nitro brewery”. The product on the label states that it is brewed by “Drink-in-Pours” (implied). This would seem to be a good way to describe their beer.

The beer pours a slightly murky brown with an off-white head. It has a bit of a strong smell. There are also some organic parts in the aroma.

There is a little bit of aroma in the taste as well. There is a slight fruitiness that is great.

There is a little bit of a fruitiness in the mouthfeel as well. You can smell the yeast in the beer.

The drinkability is good. It is a bit of a strong beer for a milder Kriek, but it is pretty good and drinkable through the first few ounces.

It is in between a pale and a barley beer. It looks good. This is a good Kriek, I could have a few more. It would be a good choice for the busy Kriek fan.

Beer Review: A Full Boosted Big Room Bomb!

This my weekly column of beer reviews. Each week I’ll have a review of a beer that I think is worthy of the word “barrel-aged.” I’ve been getting a lot of emails about this in the last few weeks and have decided to put up some of them here. If you have a good beer that you think I should review or a bad beer that I should not review, email me at jason@maltosefalcons.com and I’ll do my best to give you my honest opinion. I’ll also be picking a few of my favorites to post here every week.

Almond Joy Smokiness
ABV 6.50
Style: American Pale Ale (APA)
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 2
Palate: 3
Taste: 2
Overall: 3
Reviewer: sh2
Review: Found this one by chance in my trash bag. Poured into a pint glass. Smells like no hops. Pretend that it tastes like hops and a little bit like a honey ale. Taste is similar to the smell. Not great. It is a little bit bitter, but the hops are there. Didn’t like it.

Beer Name:Brew Kittens 2
ABV 4.90
Style: American Adjunct Lager
Appearance: 3
Aroma: 3.5
Palate: 3
Taste: 3
Overall: 3
Reviewer: Lostinit
Review: 12oz, Straw for Dogfood

A: Pours a hazy orange with a frothy white head. Aroma is a very typical of a Kitten IPA. Not the same hops as I had expected. Not too much head.

S: Hard to get out. Sweet malt aroma. Would have guessed a hop simply because the nose is so sweet.

T: Simulated Kitten IPA. Tons of sweetness. Hops then hit your tongue. Does not have the hop bitterness I expected.

M: The mouthfeel is light. The carbonation is extremely light.

D: I think this would not work well with salmon. I was expecting a more bitter and high carbonation palate though.

Beer Name:Malte Naar Ras
ABV 8.00
Style: Saison / Farmhouse Ale
Appearance: 4.5
Aroma: 3.5
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: QVegas
Review: 12oz bottle over a Seeliynkug, a very unique silver colored. Breast on the side of the glass against a picture of the Irish mutt blanches to Ivered which i cant understand. loads of dark tan head that feels nice and firm but isnt much to speak of outside the amber hue. Nice good crackling to there but cannt put much to it. lights of caramel, graham cracker and biscuit in the nose. Slight of lemon, coffee raisins and spices. Smells a little balanced and rich in what it’s got going on. It has a nice hop aftertaste and well done with a little dryness. Lets put this down. Not changed over time, but it definately shows how good the beer really is.

The Divided States of Pumpkin Spicelandia

We live in a time of fake news, alternative facts and a nation so bisected that as we hurtle helplessly through the autumn and a hostile election season, the only topic more divisive than “who do you want to be president?” is most likely “do you like pumpkin stuff?”

Maybe it started with the latte, who knows. But the seasonal pumpkin invasion soon infiltrated supermarket borders, claiming for its own once solidly chocolate dessert territories like cookies, ice cream and pudding. As tyrants are seldom content to stand pat, the great pumpkin oppressive would march on to claim key alcohol enclaves, with stalwarts schnapps, rum and vodka the next to fall.

Would beer be conquered by the pumpkin, as well? Or is pumpkin flavor actually invigorating our fatigued taste buds and should be treated as liberators instead of invaders?

~~~

BeerAdvocate.com lists almost 1,800 beers as “pumpkin”, with scores predictably ranging from a perfect five to a perfectly bare and uninhabited zero, a range frustratingly appropriate for pumpkin flavor. I don’t know that I would go so far as to equate pumpkin beer with prison wine, as my intrepid colleague did recently in this piece for Barley Prose, but I generally put up a spirited defense against the three-flank holiday pumpkin spice attack of nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger.

Biases are learned behaviors, and to tear them down, it often takes an experience that hits close to home to shake foundational beliefs and make you see something with new eyes and a different clarity.

Meet the Pumpkin Noir Spiced Ale by Marble Brewery in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The description on the can reads “Our lady of darkness always chooses the burnt slice of pumpkin pie. Heads have been known to roll around here until we achieve the perfect balance of carbonized fruit, delicate spice and velvet viscosity.”

A lot to chew on there.

The Pumpkin Noir is an annual seasonal and this year’s version checks in at 8% ABV on the nose, and pours a deep, spooky black with a creamy and frothy head. As we saw in the supermarket usurpation, pumpkin spices invade in the fall and with the dessert territories already conquered, it was wise to attack the cold-weather beers, typically dark and malty stouts and ales.

The aroma of the Pumpkin Noir is a strong amalgam of the pumpkin spices, but the taste is more subtle. It starts like a porter but with a nice spice on the tongue (from the ginger?). It’s a full beer, warm and comfortingly boozy, but not heavy-handed with unnecessary pumpkinry.

The verdict? This beer is damn good. It’s delicious.

So what’s the lesson here? That the pumpkin faction were right all along? Maybe not. Pumpkin for the sake of pumpkin, you know, pumpkin spice Pringles, chicken sausage and PSL pasta sauce (!?) is a marketing cash-grab directly targeting the nostalgic, autumn-loving Starbucks drinkers.

But a pumpkin-flavored beer made thoughtfully by a brewer whose creations you love and trust can maybe be a different story altogether. We can still hate with all our guts and vitriol one another’s stances on things as polarizing as pumpkin flavor, but maybe we should just shut up, try a pumpkin beer and remember the lesson Edwin Starr tried to impart on us: “War, what is it good for?”.

Beer Review: The 1.4 liter bottle of Yuengling Ice House

This my weekly column of beer reviews. I’ve reviewed about 60 beers this week, ranging from the beer you can get at your local liquor store to the beer you can’t get anywhere. I try to pick an IPA that you’ll be able to drink year-round and, more often than not, I’ve got a winner. If you enjoy the column and you have a beer that I didn’t, please consider sending it my way. That way, I can put it on the list. Also, if you don’t see your beer on this list, please contact me . I’m always looking for more to review, and it’s always nice to hear from a fellow beer enthusiast.

Beer Name:Smuttynose Smuttynose Smuttynose (Smuttynose Institute)
ABV 8.00
Style: Smuttynose (Smuttynose)
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: Carr
Review:

A- Nude, cloudy yellow print.irled a glass with a nice crust.

S- Sourdough bread, wheat, maple syrup.

T- Sourdough, wheat, maple syrup.

M- Fizzy.

D- Such a tasty beer.

Beer Name:Bitter N’ Dark
ABV 9.70
Style: Fruit / Vegetable Beer
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4.5
Palate: 4.5
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: Manyfoam
Review: Bitter N’ Dark (BND) poured a dark mahogany color. Aroma is dark, with a light aroma of strawberry and a hint of coffee. Taste is sour, dark malt flavor with cocoa nibs and a forlorn bitterness. Medium bodied, with a light, single finger, oily, spongy, finish. Overall this is a good beer, a little less than loose, but that has to be expected given the style and the style of the beer.

Beer Name:Shiner Motherteller
ABV 6.80
Style: American Amber / Red Ale
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 3.5
Palate: 3
Taste: 3.5
Overall: 4
Reviewer: Torrent0nboy
Review: arrived with an orangeish head which dissipated too fast for a beer this light in appearance. sharp aroma of oranges, grapes, earthiness. steeped in sweet orange, not a very distinct ‘fizzy’ taste which sounds more like an IPA. Its bright and sweet and seems more like it should be. A touch too sweet for the style. The bitterness abounds in the aftertaste. Bitterness is on the low end. Its color is a bright, refreshing shade but its not very bright. It’s good.

The Slop and Prison Wine and Pumpkin Beers

When I was in high school, obviously, alcohol was a bit harder for us to come by.

Obviously, we had our opportunities, when a friend’s older brother maybe was in town, or when we were clued in to some party in the woods somewhere where someone had procured a precious keg.

But, also, sometimes we took matters into our own hands.

I had a buddy Matt, who had a recipe on a yellowed sheet of loose leaf paper. The end product of that recipe was a concoction that was fondly referred to as “the Slop.” While I can’t recount the full ingredients list, it involved juice, and sugar, and yeast, and a cooler that was left alone in the forest somewhere to ferment for a bunch of weeks and do its thing. And we drank the Slop and it was good.

Well, let’s redefine the term “good.” It was alcohol and we made it and it was ours to drink. And perhaps that was what was truly good about it. Not the mouthfeel, or the hints or nuances. We’d mix it with iced tea, or apple juice, or something to make it taste less like embalming fluid mixed with gummy bears, and then voila! We was a drinkin’.

(What does this have to do with pumpkin beers and seasonal ales? Bear with me, faithful readers).

The Slop was, in a certain parlance, our high school forest equivalent of prison wine. Maybe a bit more elegant than a sock filled with yeast and orange slices hidden behind a toilet tank, but, yet, also maybe not so much.

To me, pumpkin beer is the craft equivalent of prison wine.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing but fond memories of my time slugging down the Slop in the wee hours of the night, in dark places with my friends. And to me, pumpkin beer is the beer that tastes most like it was cooked up by enterprising and thirsty young kids trying to turn no-beer-nights into a fall festival.

This week, I’m drinking the Brooklyn Brewery’s “Post Road” Pumpkin Ale.

Not brewed in the woods by delinquent teens, to my knowledge

From those fine folks, ITBMCBB*, comes a drink that “use[s] a touch of spices and pounds of real pumpkins to create a warm but surprisingly crisp spin on the traditional pumpkin ales made by American colonists.”

This is a fine fall beer, with the right amount of pumpkinery. And like so many other products offered by the Brooklyn Brewing Company, this beer hits all the points you’d expect it to. I got to meet some of these folks when they had a table set up at the Great New York State Fair and I gushed about my love for their Brown Ale, their Bel Air Sour, and their various IPAs. I’ve yet to have a beer that these folks put out there that I wouldn’t buy again.

But here’s the thing. I’ll also go about 10 months without drinking a pumpkin beer and I will miss it about as much as I miss the Slop. Nothing against these guys, or anyone who puts out a pumpkin beer. But sometimes prison wine is best left out in the woods in that cooler.

I’m going to blow the dust of the ol’ Proseinator and let it bring this review home.

“This beer tastes like what it would taste like if a

made love to a

in the middle of a

while listening to the Greatest Hits Album of the world’s greatest band, ever, that being of course

and then together raised a baby with their shared feelings of

and, finally, that baby cried

tears of

into a frosty pint glass.”

Beer Review: Kiwi Cream Ale I mixed the Kiwi Cream Ale with Sierra Nevada

This my weekly column of beer reviews. In each post I’ll be reviewing one (or more) of the beers from each brewery that I’ll be visiting in my upcoming trip. A quick look at the full list of breweries here. Also, I will be doing a preview of each of the beers on a different day in the future. That will be posted on the first day of each week’s column. I’ll link to the reviews here, but you can also use the Twitter hashtag for those events.
Beer Reviews
This week’s review is from Stone Brewing Co. of Escondido, CA. I went there for their Halloween release which was a 12.1% ABV Imperial Pumpkin Ale.

Beer Name:Pater Neill
ABV 12.00
Style: American Oatmeal Stout
Appearance: 3.5
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4.5
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: Domingo
Review: 12 oz. bottle poured into a pint glass

Appearance: Clear brown with reddish highlights and a half inch of foam. urban. Looks like a really well done swimsuit.

Smells like sweet caramel, toast, bread, and a little bit of sour.

Taste: Great taste! Thick, sweet caramel covered with good sourdough and bread. The sourness comes out very well in the middle of the taste and the end is very sweet and not like caramel. There is nice bitterness in there as well.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied. Quite smooth, caramel, wheat, and some alcohol warmth.

Drinkability: Heavy, but worth a try when you like the saison and expect some depth.

Beer Name:Lambicchio
ABV 5.00
Style: Lambic – Fruit
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 3.5
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: ajwolf
Review: 1. 125ml bottle.

A: Poured a 2 finger foam head. Head stayed around for twelve months.

S: Luscious aromas of spices, dry alcohol and bread.

T: Rich, sweet overtones. Shadow of a tar that you could taste.

M: Thick in the mouth.

Drinkability: I think this is a fairly good lambic. I would drink this on a reasonable night, but not in the smell or flavors where I’ve never noticed the spicing. This is a bit of a good beer. I would love to have some more in my fridge.

Beer Name:Octavia
ABV 12.00
Style: American Strong Bitter
Appearance: 3.5
Aroma: 4
Palate: 3.5
Taste: 3.5
Overall: 3.5
Reviewer: Lfanthalo
Review: Sold at Twin Lakes in addition to sampling at Jasmina in St. Louis.

Appearance: Pours a cloudy amber with a nice ring around its edges and a decent head that fades to nothing.

Smell: It’s got a nice aroma of dark fruits, caramel, molasses, and a reatpment of sour cherries.

Flavor: It’s got a nice sweet taste too with a fair amount of caramel sweetness to the finish, along with a hint of construction.

Mouthfeel: Light body with some spiciness to it.

Drinkability: It’s tasted alright, it’s nice and I’d recommend it to at least try it if you haven’t.

Beer Review: White Horse Steambrewery’s Ales

This my weekly column of beer reviews. You may have seen the little red flag above. That is the flag of an upcoming review. This week, I’m reviewing a beer that I’ve had several times, but never reviewed. The beer is My Favorite Thing From The Beer Store (MFTT). My Favorite Thing From The Beer Store is a 5.5% Belgian Strong Dark Ale brewed by Goose Island. It’s a very different beer than the beer I’ve reviewed previously, but a good one. I’ll do my best to give it the full review treatment.

Beer Name:Licorice Qwerty
ABV 16.00
Style: American Adjunct Lager
Appearance: 3.5
Aroma: 3
Palate: 3
Taste: 3.5
Overall: 3
Reviewer: WTHNICH?
Review: A- Dark red with a solid sized head.Nitrome

S- You can tell that this one was made for the style, but it’s fruity.

T- Full of pineapple, but the taste is much better. Take it easy for a style yo. And this is a good example of what the style should be. The ABV is very well hidden.

M&D- Good drinkability with the fruity aspect.

Beer Name:Goatsnurst
ABV 8.00
Style: Old Ale
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4.5
Palate: 4.5
Taste: 4.5
Overall: 4
Reviewer: Northcrown
Review: Blind Scottish spirit rois
Serving Size: 4 oz. cans alone
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: Ozy
Review: A: Clear yellow, with a decent head.

S: A lot of Clmo, Cloth, and Clove. Definitely a lot of clove.

T: Flavor is great. Sweet and very clmoid like, With some nice sweetness and different tastes of the Clover and the original Thames.

M: Very nice mouthfeel. It is very smooth. Overall, this is a very good Russian Imperial Stout and a very drinkable one at that. I could have it again.

Beer Name:Carb Bombs
ABV 5.80
Style: American Malt Liquor
Appearance: 4.5
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4.5
Reviewer: kmpitz1
Review: 10 oz bottle with the word “Carbonated” on it. The color is a nice yellow with a nice head. There is a slight head after every sip. The smell is a lot like a ketchup-laden light bread soda. They taste has a caramel sweetness up front. The mouthfeel is spot on. The drinkability is perfect. This is a one of the best brews I have had. I would classify this as a “little sweeter, a little lighter” but I don’t…

Beer Review: Hawaiian Breakfast Latte (aka “Ah-Mai-Nay”)

This my weekly column of beer reviews. I drink a lot of beer and try to keep up with the latest trends. If I have something you’d like to know about, please feel free to email me at bojangles@gmail.com or leave a comment below.

Beer Name:Kentucky Kentlenny Rye
ABV
Style: American Malt Liquor
Appearance: 2.5
Aroma: 3.0
Palate: 4
Taste: 3.5
Overall: 4
Reviewer: mynish
Review: I normally get a bit annoyed at beers that don’t have a lot of time to age. I bought it on sale coupon tickets and then picked it up, tried it at room temp and drank it up. Not a word of good quality. This beer had a really nice softness painted onto it however. I remember as a kid, drinking this before I was a teenager. It was a big hit. This was the moon oil. A: The head was small, with a little lacing. The smell was well done. It had a nice ryeess mixed squelch, with a nice combination of rotten coffee and a little bit of a spicy note. T: This one’s a bit sweet, some mild spice, a little bit of some more liquor like alcohol. The taste was a little too sweet, with alcohol making an appearance. M: This is very full, with a cool touch of just a tad of coldness adding a touch of sour on it. D: I like this one though it wasn’t too great. It’s a more interesting style of beer that I haven’t had before. It’s a good one.

Beer Name:Ritz (Frommist)
ABV 5.40
Style: American Adjunct Lager
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 2.5
Palate: 3.5
Taste: 3.5
Overall: 4
Reviewer: Paul665
Review: I had the pleasure of trying the “Triple” on a trip to Frederick, Maryland. I thought this would be a good way to warm up to a new beer.

A: Pours orange color. Minimal head and no lacing.

S: Water, lemon, and orange.

T: Water, lemon, orange, barley.

M: Water, barley.

D: Easy to drink, but nothing special. I am not a big fan.

Beer Name:J.W. Marriott Dunkelweizen
ABV 9.00
Style: Dunkelweizen
Appearance: 3
Aroma: 3.5
Palate: 3
Taste: 4.5
Overall: 4.5
Reviewer: JacobJ
Review:

Appearance – It is a cool looking Dunkelweizen, smooth and creamy with a hazy yellow tint to it. The head is thin, but gives a nice retention. Exceedingly smooth.

Smell – A great blend of oak and mild sweetness.

Taste – A strong forecast of Munich style dunkelweiss. Not as sweet as the I.B.M.M. with its strong caramel content. It has a very distinct maleness to it with a touch of the oblique implied character. Its smooth, classic and is a true Steinbier. Its not like a kwolle weisse or a weissebier. Its a German style dunkelweiss.

Mouthfeel – Medium, body.

Drinkability – I can see being a bit of a jerk here, because this is a weiss. With the clean refreshing feel and the aromatic nature of a Dunkelweizen, I can imagine the entitlement for a screwed up weiss. It’s a nice little beer, and a unique brew.

Beer Review: Artisanal Two-Stage IPA with Chai Tea and Ginger

This my weekly column of beer reviews. This week I’ve got the totally delicious Ghost Stalker. I’ll talk about the beer, but I’m going to also talk about what it means to me. The history, the story, the vision. The beer is a tale of a hellish time in my life that took a terrible turn. It’s a story about the power of a loving and resilient group of friends. It’s about how a brewery was born from a homebrewer’s need for a place to showcase his work. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s a story about how that brewery is still going strong.

Beer Name:Maryland Hathcock Brew
ABV 10.00
Style: English Bitter
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4.5
Palate: 4.5
Taste: 4.5
Overall: 4
Reviewer: lllm
Review: This is a unique brew. It is an English Bitter that is approached from the side of the road. You would think that this would be a pretty obvious beer because it is an English Bitter, but on the other hand it was a pretty interesting brew. This will compliment all kind of foods that are described as “English Bitter”. It has a nice complex flavor. There are some flavors of cherry and apple that are very tart and would suit any food. The crispness works very well with the drinkability. I will say that this is a keeper and when it is cold you will find yourself wanting more. Would be good on a warm night. Maryland Hathcock is an English Bitter.

Beer Name:Graf Dunkel
ABV 6.80
Style: Dunkel Lager
Appearance: 3.5
Aroma: 3
Palate: 3.5
Taste: 3.5
Overall: 3
Reviewer: udon
Review: 12 oz Brown bottle with clear neon unicorn logo on the bottle. Appearance: It’s a very nice looking Dunkel lager. The cloudy green color is pretty. The head was decent and hit the brewthroat. Smell: This was a bit of a letdown. When peeked at all the other dunkel beers I’d normally say “No problem.” But the smell was just too much. Taste and mouthfeel: This was a good Dunkel lager. The flavors mellowed as the beer warmed up. The mouthfeel was just a little too watery and left a little too much of a lemon bite to the beer. Drinkability and beer: This was a pretty good Dunkel lager. It is also one of my favorites in Germany. I wouldn’t drink this again.

Beer Name:Sultan Fahd – Mouthful
ABV 30
Style: American Amber / Red Ale
Appearance: 3.5
Aroma: 4
Palate: 3.5
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: bspencer
Review: 330mL bottle poured into a mocha cup. The initial smell was strong malty sweetness, with a slight bitterness.The taste was rich mocha, with a slight bitterness. The mouthfeel was rich mocha-covered sweetness. The drinkability had a citrusy quality to it. The drinkability was pretty good.