What Beers Did You Drink Today? Or Yesterday? (Part 3)

[Hassouni]

TJ's Unibroue-brewed Strong Golden Ale. Sort of in the DT rather than Duvel vein. Actually, probably not so different than La Fin du Monde (Haven't had it in a while). VERY solid for $6/750mL

[FrogPrincesse]

Was that the Providential? If so, I like it too.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Draft Magazine has an interesting article on Stone's 18th Anniversary IPA (Will Stone’s new IPA kill IPAs as we know them?). Definitely a departure from their usual hop-bombs.

 

I didn't mean to be disparaging.  I really like it.  I couldn't finish the bottle in one sitting but that was not the fault of Stone.  If my purveyor would stock normal size bottles I would drink a lot more Stone.

[Hassouni]

Was that the Providential? If so, I like it too.

 

Yup!

[FrogPrincesse]

A couple of local BABF winners last night.

 

Societe's The Pupil (Bronze - International Style Pale Ale)

Full flavor, quite bitter with a lot of stone fruit and citrus. Good balance.

 

 

 

Ballast Point's Grunion (Gold - American-Style Pale Ale)

Mosaic and Calypso hops.

Tropical fruit aroma. Good amount of malt, nice bitterness, dry finish.

 

 

 

 

 

[FrogPrincesse]

As a side note, I started using Untappd to collect my beer notes and photos in one spot. It's very handy.

 

[ChrisTaylor]

New, new, new. White Rabbit's Belgian-style Pale Ale. Malty. Light carbonation. Slightly watery but with a bold-enough flavour to make up for it. Not likely, sorry to say, to knock their standard White/Dark Ales off the top of the White Rabbit pile any time soon. That pile, granted, is made up ONLY of the standard White/Dark. That slightly metallic quality I associate with Belgian beers. Good enough, but glad I didn't buy a case of the stuff.

[FrogPrincesse]

Before I start to tackle the backlog, here is a 2013 bottle of AleSmith Speedway (Imperial) Stout, an old favorite (yes, it's really that dark). It's super balanced, rich, creamy, a bit smoky. There are coffee notes but they are subtle enough that this beer is great with food, for example last night's beef stew. Really outstanding.

 

 

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Cool. Thanks for the correction!

 

Today the same dear son delivered the carton of Saison du BUFF.  It is taking up room in the refrigerator, and I may have to do something about that.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

For dinner tonight I had intended to have a bottle of Saison du BUFF.  But I had a second mai tai.  So sue me.

[ChrisTaylor]

A local that I stumbled upon for the first time today: The Duck's Australian Pale Ale. For foreigners, this is a nod to the Australian expression 'the duck's nuts'. The expression is applied to something that is very good.

 

For example: The Duck's Australian Pale Ale is not the duck's nuts. It's not bad but it's just another fruity, hoppy 'summer' ale. Bit of yeastiness to it. Matilda Bay can turn out some pleasant beers. This is one of their least compelling.

[ChrisTaylor]

Tried a couple of darker beers recently. The one I'm working away at as I type this is Asahi's entry into the fray: Dry Black. It is black yet the flavour profile is basically a much maltier Asahi Super Dry. Despite the colour you don't get clobbered with the usual chocolate/coffee/dark flavours. It's alright.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Saison du BUFF, instead of the second mai tai.  This time for real.

[o'rly]

Abita Christmas Ale, My wife said she remembers it tasting good, I said otherwise.  Takes one sip and spits it out.  Ya, 5 left anyone wanna drop by and pick them up? Accumulation by Newb Belgium was great this year, thanks to them.  Just finished a Rodenbach vintage oak aged 11' aged till now, tasted great! I would highly recommend the 12' and aging it 1 extra year or if you can find an 11'.  

[ChrisTaylor]

I had a few people visit on New Year's Eve. One of these people kindly left a six-pack of this stuff. 

 

 

Matso's brew the kind of beer that, frankly, doesn't sound appealing to me. Flavoured with fruits and spices and so forth. Not the sort of thing I usually like. But, hey, it's summer and it's hot and there's beer in the fridge that's maybe more approachable than the line-up of beastly IPAs I recently purchased. So, er, yeah. Here we go. It smells sweet. Fruity. Like, er, lychees (and that whole family--rambutans, longans). To my mind this is not encouraging but, hey, at least I know when Matso's say they've made a lychee beer they weren't fucking around. Anyway, on the palate, it's like a really, really, really light ale with a mild hoppiness and a whole lot of lychee. A flavour, too, that reminds me of musk stick lollies. It's not bad--much better than I expected--but it's clearly one of those things where a little bit is a lot.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Saison du Buff with dinner.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Something new for me tonight:  Stone Delicious IPA.  I don't know enough about brewing to understand the implications of low gluten, but I like Delicious better than ordinary Stone IPA, which I find to be bitter without the backbone of the better Stone IPA expressions.

 

So there is no misunderstanding, I still like ordinary Stone IPA even though it does not match the better ones.

[radtek]

I'm drinking a North Coast Brewing Brother Thelonious. Belgian style abbey ale weighing in at 9.4% which is a little too strong for my tastes. I'm getting an annoying bubblegum in the ashtray finish from it. 

[cdh]

I'd heard about Fegley's Brewworks's Hopsolutely  as a Pliny-style superhopped IPA... Not really a fan of the tongue-numbing styles, but had to give it a try.  It's a citrus-y hop monster... if that's your thing, enjoy it.

[lindag]

My current favorite is Pyramid's Hefeweizen.  Good anytime.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Last night I tried Stone Arrogant Bastard for the fist time.  I quite enjoyed it.  I'm not sure why they market it as something difficult to get down, as it is not as bitter, to my taste, as some of the other Stone expressions.

[FrogPrincesse]

Last night I tried Stone Arrogant Bastard for the fist time.  I quite enjoyed it.  I'm not sure why they market it as something difficult to get down, as it is not as bitter, to my taste, as some of the other Stone expressions.

Well, you have to put things in context. Arrogant Bastard was launched in 1997 and at the time there was not anything anywhere close to this level of arrogance.

 

On a related note, Stone is relaunching their Ruination IPA. The 2.0 version is supposed to be bigger and bolder, using new varieties of hops and hopping techniques that were not available when it was first launched.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Ruination is a favorite of mine but I don't see it often.  Will look forward to 2.0!

[rlibkind]

Grolsch, with a very very rare burger made from fresh chuck ground immediately before putting burgers on the Weber.

[FrogPrincesse]

Ruination is a favorite of mine but I don't see it often.  Will look forward to 2.0!

 

I tried it a few days ago and it's great! Hops in all its fabulous forms - pine/resin, citrus (lemon, orange), stone fruit, tropical fruit (mango, passion fruit).