Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout

This is easily one of my favorite seasonal beers. Dark like filthy motor oil, with a deeply tan head to it, and almost imposing at a first taste, this once a year visitor clocks in at an impressive 10.6% ABV, which I think is up .1% from last year. This also puts it cleanly in the "imperial stout" category, although the label won't tell you that unless you give this beer a closer look. This is also one of the strongest beers I have ever seen available this cheaply - I got my last six pack for a little under nine dollars. The first taste is very bitter and acrid, and more flavors emerge after that first sip. There's a lot going on here, somewhat like the complicated taste of a good barleywine. There's also a notable but not overpowering hop aroma. This drinks like a dessert, and a few of them will hit you pretty hard. I should really remember to cellar some of this for next year.

bad idea beer?

Today I am going to brew a Yerba Mate IPA. I'll post later and let you all know how it went.

Q: Why would someone with a sub-poverty line income spend almost $12 on a six pack of beer?

A: You haven’t had anything that victory brewing company has made, have you?

The Victory Storm King Imperial Stout pours out dark as way past due for a change motor oil, with a creamy, slightly fizzy head to it the color of very old athletic socks. That being said, it’s actually pretty appealing looking. The aroma almost smells chewy in a way that doesn’t actually smell like cookies but makes me think of them nonetheless. It’s very inviting. This is very pleasantly bitter and solid, and almost a little sweet. That being said, it’s still a little bit smooth, although people more used to dry stouts like Murphys or Beamish or in a worst cause scenario, Guinness, may think it has a little it of a bite to it. That being said, this is on the mellow end of imperial stouts, especially for a beer that’s 9.1% alcohol by volume. The high abv makes the hefty price per twelve pack seem a little less over the top, both in terms of the amount of ingredients you need to toss in to make it that strong, and also in the “Well, I could have gotten two six packs of PBR for this much money, but this is almost as much alcohol”sense. If this wasn’t so damn expensive, I’d drink it all the time, and I’d rank it pretty high on my list of favorite stouts. Actually, I can’t think of an imperial stout that I like more than this off the top of my head.

Otter Creek Copper Ale

Another of my “beer I bought because it seemed like the most interesting option I hadn’t already had from a limited selection at the liquor store next to where I happened to be” reviews. In other words, neither this nor the Sam Adams Mix Pack would have been my first choice at a good liquor store, but hey, you’re not always at a good liquor store and sometimes a limited selection makes you try things you might not otherwise. That and Otter Creek’s porter is pretty great. The label says “Copper Ale”, but if you just handed me the pint glass, I’d call it a brown, with maybe a hint more ruddiness and darkness than is typical for the style. Smells like a brown ale, tastes like a brown ale, drinks like a brown ale. The hop aroma is pleasant but faint, and almost a little fruity. This tastes a tiny bit sharp and metallic, but not in a bad way. I’d gladly take this over the Sam Adams brown that I reviewed in my last post, though. Also, boo to Otter Creek for using screwtop bottles – commercial craft brewers should have more respect for their homebrewing roots and use bottles that can be recycled at home. This is a nice beer, but I just don’t have all that much to say about it. It’s not like I won’t finish the six pack. I just don’t know if I’d buy it again anytime soon.

Sam Adams Brewmaster's Collection Mix Pack

Brewmaster's Collection Samuel Adams Mix Pack

Oh, Sam Adams, where to start? Part of me is happy to see locals doing well in craft brewing. The rest of me just wishes they'd do a better job making beer. Then again, maybe I'm not the target demographic for this. Sam Adams seems to brew a lot of beer that seems tailored to be a little bit like craft beer, but not to the extent that it will be uncomfortable to palates more used to big corporate beer. They do, however, make the occasional beer that I really like, so I thought I'd give this six pack a chance. The mix pack is a mixed bag.

Starting off, we have the Honey Porter. Stouts and Porters (the difference, historically speaking, is splitting hairs) are my favorite beer style, so I may as well start here. The best way to start with any beer is pouring it into a glass, and you should smell it before you drink it. There's not much hop aroma, which is appropriate to the style. The taste is strongly malty, and the beer tastes heavy without really being satisfying. It almost seems like they went really heavy on one of the specialty malts in a way that feels really out of balance. It's sharp and bitter and not particularly smooth. A much better bet for porter are the fine offerings from Left Hand or Otter Creek.

The Black Lager is a lot better. Not amazing, but much better. Beers made with dark malts and lager yeast aren't particularly common. At first smell, this has more hop aroma than the porter, but it's nice and subtle. The first sip has a very nice stout-like smoothness, but the lager yeast makes it into a different beast. It's also pleasantly bitter, and almost a little sour. This is very thick and bitter for a lager, and if someone just gave me a pint glass and didn't tell me what it was I'd probably never guess about the yeast. The grain bill feels a little out of whack in the same way as the porter, but not as strongly.

The Brown Ale is the best of the bunch. This is a very nice take on a traditional British style of beer, made slightly more assertive in a very American craft brew fashion, without losing the nice subtlety and balance of a proper brown ale. The hops come across a little stronger than in most British imports, but it doesn't jump down your throat like a lot of American beers. The label says they're using Spalt and Golding hops, neither of which are all that aggressive. Visually, this is the lightest of the bunch, but still a few shades darker, than, say, a Newcastle. The grain bill still tastes a little bitter and sour, but not much as the either two. I could do without the sourness. I might actually order this one at a bar.

I find it kind of frustrating that Sam Adams is so much more available than so many other, better beers, and that they present themselves as if they were craft brewers. The beer I get from them at any liquor store in Boston doesn't seem any fresher than beer from much further away, either. I wish they weren't so ubiquitous, and that some of that bar tap space could go to actual craft beers. On the other hand, they make everyone who works for them brew at least once batch of beer a year, no matter what they do for the company, and I kind of respect that.

In other beer news, ethanol production is going to make malt prices increase sharply in the future. More on that as I read enough about it to write a coherent post.