Beer of the Week

The beer: Banana Bread Winner

The brewery: Southern Pines Brewing Company, Southern Pines, North Carolina

Description (from Untappd): "No bananas were harmed making this beer, we just relied on the character of the hefeweizen yeast coupled with the rich bready, toasty malts to present elements of the familiar baked goodie!"

Would I buy it again? That's right, I found time during my vacation in North Carolina for a beer review. Unfortunately, it's just this one (I had a second beer at this place, but for the life of me I can't find any description anywhere). Anyway, the beer is quite good, I just wish I knew beforehand that it didn't have any banana in it. I was expecting a bit more fruit. Even so, if I ever visit Southern Pines again, I would buy this beer again.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Chestnut Praline

The brewery: Southern Tier Brewing Company, Lakewood, New York

Description (from the website): "As the holidays draw near and excitement grows for the first snowfall, gather together with Chestnut Praline Imperial Ale. With each sip, the warm butter flavor of toasted chestnuts glazed with sweet caramel will transform any wintry day into a cozy celebration of the season. From our Southern Tier family to yours, we wish you nothing but joy and sweetness this Holiday Season!"

Would I buy it again? I've reviewed quite a few of these heavy Southern Tier imperial ales in the past couple years; they seem to have found a niche in making varied and interesting imperial ales at a reasonable price. They mostly hit too, and this is no exception. It is buttery and nutty and excellent to drink, particularly as we head into the Christmas season. I would absolutely buy this again.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Frosted Sugar Cookie 

The brewery: Southern Tier Brewing Company, Lakewood, New York

Description (from the website): "Gather ‘round the fire with all of your closest friends and cozy up to this delicious spectacle of pure sweetness that is sure to sprinkle your wintry days with joy. You won’t believe it’s beer and not a tin full of iced confections. Our Frosted Sugar Cookie Ale is full of soft and airy vanilla and cake notes, iced to perfection. Happy Holidays from ours to yours."

Would I buy it again? This is one of those beers that it's tough not to like. It's got vanilla cake flavor with plenty of sugar on the initial taste. But while it's difficult to get a beer like this wrong, it's also tough to really stand out. It tastes good and sweet, and it's great for a cold winter day. But there's also nothing here you couldn't find in a hundred other dessert-y beers. I can't say I'd pick this one over any other similar beer. 

Beer of the Week

The beer: Black Chocolate Stout

The brewery: Brooklyn Brewery, Brooklyn, New York

Description (from the website): "Originally our Brewmaster Garrett Oliver’s resume beer, Black Chocolate Stout is now a wintertime favorite among beer fans worldwide. Rich roasted malts come together to create an unmistakable dark chocolate flavor perfect for special occasions and late nights by the fire."

Would I buy it again? Not to question their description, but as a beer fan who lives a lot closer to Brooklyn than the average person and as someone who's spent a fair amount of time actually in Brooklyn, I'm not sure how legitimate their claim of this being "a wintertime favorite" for beer fans worldwide. I've never heard of it before buying it this year. Which is a shame, because this is a very good beer. Rich, chocolately but not overly sweet, well balanced, it's an excellent winter beer. I would definitely buy this again.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Heady Topper

The brewery: The Alchemist Brewery, Stowe, Vermont

Description (from BeerAdvocate): "Heady Topper is an American double IPA. This beer is not intended to be the biggest or most bitter. It is meant to give you wave after wave of hoppy goodness on your palate. Tremendous amounts of American hops will creep up on you, and leave you with a dense hoppy finish in you mouth. So drinkable, it's scary. Sometimes I wish I could crawl right into the can.

Freshness and control have always been my main concern when it comes to our beer. We are committed to providing you with an unfiltered and unpasteurized hop experience. Why do I recommend that you drink it from the can? Quite simply, to ensure a delightful hop experience. The act of pouring it in a glass smells nice, but it releases the essential hop aromas that we have work so hard to retain.

If you MUST pour it into a glass, you may find that some of the hop resins have settled to the bottom -- leave them in the can while pouring. This beer is perishable, and at its best when it is young, fresh and hazy. Keep it cold, but not ice cold. Drink this beer immediately, we are always making more."

Would I buy it again? Alas, I had to commit a great beer crime to get this picture, but this is the second Heady Topper I've had; the first was drunk properly from the can. And my opinion on a beer that's was rated in 2018 as the fourth-best beer in the world and still carries a perfect score on BeerAdvocate? 

I mean, it's good – juicy, hoppy, and pretty easy to drink – but one of my favorites? No. I am not, and never will be, an IPA guy.

To be clear though, neither example I had were at their prime, having gone through what my friend described as "refrigerator aging." A polite term for "they've been sitting around longer than I'd care to admit." I mean, free beer is free beer, and you do not turn down a beer with its own Wikipedia page, no matter how old. However, what I did drink was good enough that I would definitely consider buying a fresh one. If it's this good so far past its prime, I can only imagine what its like fresh from the brewery.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Cookies 'N Cream Stout

The brewery: Stevens Point Brewery, Stevens Point, Wisconsin

Description (from the website): "Dunk the little cookies and watch bubbles come up. This sessionable dessert stout recalls everyone’s favorite sandwich cookie with a smooth, biscuity base of dark chocolate malt, softened with flavors of cream filling, speckled ice cream, and white chocolate."

Would I buy it again? I had never heard of Stevens Point Brewery before this, but apparently it's the fifth-oldest brewery in the country, dating back to 1857. It's also a top 20 craft brewery in terms of beer production. Presumably, their beers have just not been available in Maryland before now. Or I could just be blind. Anyway, this is definitely not the first Oreo-inspired beer I've had, and while it's not as good as the one Flying Dog made, it does have the advantage of being available. It could feature a bit more cookies and cream flavor, but it's solid enough, and with Flying Dog's version being discontinued, this is a decent substitute. I could definitely see myself buying this again.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Get Toasted

The brewery: Big Oyster Brewery, Lewes, Delaware

Description (from the website): "Introducing Get Toasted, a delicious s’mores porter. Sitting by the campfire with friends and family roasting some S’mores sounds like a perfect night. A well-balanced porter with just the right touch of chocolate, graham crackers, and marshmallow."

Would I buy it again? The s'mores porter record continues to be an incredibly mixed bag of very high highs and very low lows. This, unfortunately, is not a high. The first word that came to mind when I drank this was "chalky." That's not an adjective I ever want to associate with beer. Needless to say, I would not purchase this again.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Barrel Aged Imperial Amber Lager

The brewery: Great Lakes Brewing Company, Cleveland, Ohio

Description (from the website): "Join our 35th anniversary celebration with this limited edition Imperial Amber Lager inspired by one of our original 1988 recipes, aged in Bulleit™ bourbon barrels."

Would I buy it again? You don't usually see imperial lagers. Stouts, all the time, IPAs, not as common, but definitely out there. But an imperial version of a regular old amber lager? I couldn't resist trying it out. But does it work? Yes and no, I would say. You can definitely taste the bourbon in this, and I'm not going to deny this beer tastes good. It's not an easy drinker, but I enjoyed drinking it. However, I feel like something has been lost of the original lager, which I have had before. That doesn't stop this beer from being very good, and I would drink it again, but I'm not sure how well it works as a celebration of their regular amber lager.    

Beer of the Week

The beer: Rare Vos

The brewery: Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, New York

Description (from the website): "Our take on the smooth, easy drinking ambers poured in cafés across Belgium, Rare Vos (Strange Fox) takes its name from a tavern near Brussels known for cycling contests, pigeon races and outstanding ales. Pouring a brilliant copper with a creamy white head, this bright, beguiling beer is sensational to session, and pairs wonderfully with mussels, frites, and other pub fare. Because at the end of the day, it’s good to enjoy the end of the day."

Would I buy it again? I'm not sure about this one. It says easy-drinking, but honestly, it's somehow denser and thicker than you'd think. The taste is good, but it's more of a sipping beer than one you'd find refreshing. It wouldn't be bad on a colder day, but it's not a summer beer, and since that's when I'm drinking it, I'd have to give this a pass in the future.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Pineapple Coconut Stout

The brewery: Guinness Open Gate Brewery, Halethorpe, Maryland

Description (from Untappd): "Believe it or not, our stouts have been a big part of the beer culture all over the world for centuries - including in many tropical locales around the globe. With that in mind, our brewers sought to include the tropical flavors of pineapple and coconut in a traditional stout, adding pineapple puree post fermentation and then resting the finished beer on toasted coconut chips. Enjoy!"

Would I buy it again? I happened to be in the neighborhood of the Guinness brewery a while back and decided to stop by for a quick beer. I had a lot of options, but I absolutely made the right choice. This beer is delicious, with plenty of pineapple and coconut taste, but not so much to overpower the stout. Obviously, it's not as easy to drink as a lighter ale or lager, but the fruitiness still makes this a wonderful beer to drink over the summer. I'd love to get this again.

Three Cheers For The Craft Lager Boom

When it comes to craft beer, it's still an IPA world, and probably always will be. Microbreweries will probably always favor IPAs, with a minority going hard into sours, with a few heavy stouts mixed in. We're talking big, bold beers with equally bold flavors. Traditionally, there hasn't been a place for the relatively humble lager, but in the past couple of years, that is actually changing. Pretty much any brewery you go to nowadays has a lager on tap, if not multiple. And while I'm sure they're not best sellers, they are often cheaper than their IPA brethren (and always cheaper than a stout or sour). 

There will always be the kind of beer people who stick their noses up at a lager, preferring their IPAs and sours. But for many of us, sometimes all we want is a beer that tastes like beer, and the market (finally) seems to be realizing that. Maybe now we can see some lager experimentation; I know I would personally love to see more doppelbocks floating around. It's too fun a style to have so few examples out there. 

Beer of the Week

The beer: Mira Red Hazy IPA

Brewed by: Peabody Heights Brewery, Baltimore, Maryland

Description (from Untappd): "A Red Hazy IPA with toasty bread crust and biscuit malt flavors and a flash of bright citrus."

Would I buy it again?: I was fully prepared for a typical IPA, since they're all basically the same, but this was a pleasant surprise. Okay, it didn't depart too far from the IPA taste, but there really was a bready, malty feel to this beer, and I appreciated that. So yeah, I would buy it again.

Beer of the Week

The beer: General's Golden Ale

Brewed by: Antietam Brewery, Hagerstown, Maryland

Description (from the website): "Refreshing golden ale brewed with wheat & a blend of American & New Zealand hops. Classic light ale, broad appeal. So drink up!!!"

Would I buy it again?: I didn't know that this beer had wheat in it, which gives it a much stronger and juicier flavor than I was expecting. I'm glad for it too, because it makes it more interesting, and so I would get this one again. It distinguishes itself from the herd of summer beers.

Oldest Mass-Production Brewery Discovered in Egypt

People have been drinking beer for a long time, and where there's beer, there will naturally be breweries. They kind of go together. But the brewery that was just discovered in Abydos, Egypt, sets quite a record, since it's the oldest mass-production brewery ever discovered, capable of making 22,400 liters of beer at a time. Since we don't use the metric system in this country, a more comfortable measurement would be  just under 190 barrels of beer. That's honestly not too bad, considering this is ancient Egypt we're talking about here. For reference, the Guinness Open Gate Brewery in Baltimore – a brewery of decent size, but not a regional powerhouse like Flying Dog or Troegs – has a 10,000-liter production facility, though I'm sure they have a much more efficient process and could make more in a year. Ancient beer also wasn't the most high-quality stuff in the world. Still, it's an impressive accomplishment, and it would be really cool if some enterprising brewer with plenty of money could restore the ancient brewery. I think it would be quite a tourist spot.

Beer of the Week

The beer: High Barbary Amber Lager

Brewed by: Fair Winds Brewing Company, Lorton, Virginia

Description (from the website): "Base of German Vienna and a touch of Dark Munich malts. Sweet, toasted malt flavor and aroma. Tettnanger hops in the mid boil and a finishing addition of Saaz hops for a hint of spice to the clean finish."

Would I buy it again?: It's time once again to compare a beer with the titan of lagers: Yuengling. Is High Barbary better than a Yuengling? Yes. Is it so much better to justify the extra price? No. I wouldn't say no to it, but I just can't justify going out of my way for it.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Gingerbread Spiced Ale

Brewed by: Guinness Open Gate Brewery, Halethorpe, Maryland

Description (from the bottle): "Imperial brown ale brewed with allspice, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg, finished for 2 months in bourbon barrels for warmth and complexity."

Would I buy it again?: Well, this was a very limited release from late 2019 that I only got around to recently, so I couldn't, but if I could, I think I would. I'm not sure how much it tastes like gingerbread, but I like this beer. It's a very winter beer, it goes well with the season. Guinness makes good dark beer, so if they do decide to make this beer again, I would support that decision.

Beers of the Week

The beer: Over the Moon Milk Stout

Brewed by: Guinness Open Gate Brewery, Halethorpe, Maryland

Description (from the website): "After 200-plus years of making the world’s most popular dry stouts, we decided it was high time to brew a sweeter style. So, our American brewing team developed a milk stout, meaning a stout brewed with lactose (aka milk sugar), which imparts a sweet creaminess to the beer. Over several experimental rounds, we refined a recipe using a bevy of specialty malts (Carmel 120, BlackPrinz and our own Guinness Roasted Barley) along with Mount Hood hops. The result is a creamy, sweet stout with mocha-like notes and earthy, woody tones. We named it Over The Moon based on the whimsical image of an unhappy moon coveting a pint of stout resting upon a happy earth. The picture is the work of John Gilroy, the artist behind the classic Guinness campaigns of the 1930s and 50s."

Would I buy it again?: If there's one thing you can trust Guinness to do well, it's stouts. And just as you'd expect, their milk stout is absolutely delicious, and is something I've already bought multiple times. Dare I say it, but I think it's better than their standard stout they're so well known for. This is far more drinkable and tastes way better, in my own personal opinion.

Oldest Beer in the World Found

Sorry, Ancient Egypt, you've been outdone.

We've been making beer, wine, and various spirits for a long time. Thousands of years, in fact, or about as long as humanity has been planting crops. It was assumed that the discovery of fermentation was a byproduct of agriculture development and the baking of bread; it wasn't done purposefully, at least at first. However, a new discovery has thrown that theory into doubt.

Researchers were investigating a cave in Israel inhabited by a group of hunter-gatherers about 13,000 years ago, predating the Neolithic period, which started around 10,000 BC. They found traces of an alcoholic beverage based on wheat and barley within a collection of stone mortars carved into the floor of the cave. Using similar ingredients, the researchers recreated the drink, which was fermented and alcoholic, but was weaker than modern beer and had the consistency of gruel. Not particularly appetizing, but hey, these are some pretty primitive people we're talking about here.

What's most interesting is the appearance of intent. Not only does this find predate all previous discoveries of alcoholic beverages, the site seems to be a brewery of sorts. 13,000 years ago, we were purposefully making beer to drink. To put that into perspective, that's about 8,000 years before the previous first appearance of beer, about 5,000 years before the first appearance of wine, and 3,000 years before the first appearance of any sort of alcoholic beverage. It basically predates agriculture, which wouldn't become widespread for another thousand years. Remember, this was a nomadic tribe of hunter-gatherers, not farmers. And they were still purposefully making beer. Now that was a group of people with a proper set of priorities.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Hager-Weiss Hefeweizen

Brewed by: Antietam Brewery, Hagerstown, Maryland

Description (from the can): "Unfiltered and unfettered, this refreshing and complex wheat ale is brewed with 100% German ingredients which grace the palate with subtle hints of clove and bananas."

Would I buy it again?: Definitely. I had this particular beer on a unusually warm spring evening, and a wheat beer is perfect for warm, sunny days. Not to mention the proximity; it's always nice to support your local brewery.

A Trip to Troegs Brewery

Some of my friends and I recently went up to the Troegs brewery in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  We got a tour of the place, got to taste some very good and rare beers, and then went to the bar there for more beer.  I was surprised by the size of the place, the brewery was in a very large building, and the size of the operation inside was equally large.  This was only a microbrewery that produced about 60,000 cases a year, I can't imagine how big the operation is at a much bigger brewery.  Sure, they probably have multiple factories, but still, its a lot of beer.

One of the tanks where the beer-making process begins

The tour was very informative, and of course, there was plenty of beer.  Certainly one of the highlights was getting to try a beer before it was completely finished, or what they referred to as green beer.  It still tasted like beer, and it was beer, but at the same time it was completely different, and actually not too bad taste-wise.  There were a whole lot of fermenting chambers, and they were very big, and very expensive, apparently.  

A few of the fermenting tanks

Through a happy coincidence, we went on the brewery during Craft Beer Week.  None of knew that was a thing until our tour guide mentioned it.  What it meant was that we got to sample some very special beers.  Troegs makes their primary beers, but they also make what they call their Splinter series of beers.  We got to have two of those, Gold and Brown.  The Gold was particularly interesting, it tasted like apples and was more than a little reminiscent of white wine.  We had two other special kinds of beer, one of which is aged in old bourbon barrels, and that was very good too.  You could definitely taste the bourbon.  I enjoyed all the special beers, although I think there were quite a few of my friends who did not.  I got to have a bit extra because some people didn't finish, which I was perfectly okay with.

Barrels in the tasting room filled with beer.

This is where the Splinter beers are brewed.  It's a much smaller operation.

Next we moved to the bar, where I had a Sunshine Pils, their summer beer, and a Belgian Saison.  I preferred the Belgian over the Pils, the Pils had a wheaty aftertaste I didn't care for.  Of course, you can't go to a brewery like that and not bring back any beer.  Well, I don't, anyway.  So, I've got a 6-pack with 6 different beers just waiting to be drunk.  I've never had Troegs before this trip, so these will be all new experiences for me.  This is a lot of ado about beer, but hey, enjoying a good beer is one of life's great pleasures.
















My Other Blogs
Science Universe
Cool Golf News

My Twitter