Aging Victory Wild Devil

So tonight I decided to take something out of the cellar that I had been aging for awhile to see what would happen to it. The beer is called Victory Wild Devil and it is their year round Hop Devil with brettanomyces (brett) added to it. In case you don't know what brett is, it is a wild yeast strand that can make a beer very funky. It can be hard to control and many breweries don't want to mess around with this particular yeast strand. However, it seems as if a few more breweries these days are taking chances with the 'bug.'

I orginally had this on tap last summer when it was released and it was more of the ipa with a little funk. However, aging it for 10 months has taken a complete 180 on this beer. The brett kicked in nice and provided a nice Belgian flavored beer. Here is a review of the aged bottle:


Cork comes off with a loud pop and gushes out a bit.

Poured into New Belgium Globe glass.

Pours a massive amount of head. I poured it slowly and the head rose up very fast. Over four fingers of khaki head. Finally fades down and I can get at this one. Leaves some rings and splattered lace. Color is a orange hued burnt copper.

Aroma: Tons of funk. The brett seemed to have develop nicely, maybe overpowering the ipa components. Has the barnyard funk to it with some spices and cloves. It has some citrus flavors, but the hops aren't very present.

Taste: Tons of barnyard funk and brett. The hops bring some bite as well, but not as present as when the beer was fresh (pretty obvious). Has some hints of bananas and cloves with some grapefruit citrus. The hops are floral and they blend well with the funkiness in this beer. A decent amount of black crushed pepper.

Mouthfeel: Bitter, but funky with some crisp notes. Medium bodied with a higher amount of carbonation. End dry with an awkward aftertaste that I can't determine.

Overall, this was a fun beer to age. It really changed a lot and I enjoyed to see what a few months did to it. It was very funky and not to much of an IPA anymore. It is drinkable. The 750 shouldn't be too big of a problem.

Thanks for checking out my review. Try aging a few beers yourself. It can be fun to see what happens to them. If you need suggestions, feel free to comment here.

Cheers,
Ben

Updates with a Review

A few updates on the TH Big and Barrel Week. It appears that the kegs are being tapped at 12 and available in a growler and in a 10 oz pour. Also, it seems as if they have a decent amount of growlers available. I was expecting them to sell out right away, but I guess not. My guess is that the BA Czar Jack will be gone fast. I heard from a few buddies that the beers released today were great. I am looking forward to my trip down to the cities.

Now for the review. Today I am drinking Bristol's Old No. 23 Barley Wine. I got this from a buddy in Colorado. Thanks Andy!

2009 Vintage

Poured this one into my Old Guardian glass.

As I pour it, it seems as if it is flat, but after a few seconds the carbonation kicks in and a half finger of head of khaki head forms. It then settles pretty fast. Not a lot of lace left. Color is a dark copper brown with a slight ruby hue to it.

Aroma: Big and malty with a nice layer of hops as well. Lots of caramel and toffee flavors mixed with some pine hops. It also has some dark dried fruits in the background. Maybe some raisins and dried cherries. The aroma is very good, but not that big.

Taste: Again, big malt flavor. This is a pretty big beer. The toffee sticks out a lot more than the caramel here. Also the malt seems to have covered up more of the pine hops, but they are there to balance it out a bit. This beer packs a little heat to it. It is sweet with the cherries a little more present here. Also has some molasses and raisin flavors.

Mouthfeel: Sweet, creamy, and a little hot. Full bodied with a lower amount of carbonation. Ends a little dry and very sweet.

Overall, not a bad barleywine at all. I think this is a local and a solid local at that. I am very glad I got to try this one. I hadn't had a barleywine in awhile and Bigfoot hasn't shown up yet, so this will hold me over. It did remind me of Bigfoot with a year or two on it. Not as many hops as bigfoot fresh, but once the hops fade a bit, then these two are comparable.

Thanks for reading!
-Ben

Big and Barrel Week at Town Hall

Next week is a very special week at Town Hall. Town Hall is putting on a event called: Big and Barrel Week. They are releasing 7 beers over the course of 6 days. The beers will be available for growler fills, but very limited quantities. Here is the line up for the week.

Monday 2/22 –
*Big Ben Double IPA
*Jim Beam Barrel Aged Twisted Jim

Tuesday 2/23-
*Wine Barrel Aged Batch 1000 (Double IPA)

Wednesday 2/24-
*Wine Barrel Aged Scottish Wee Heavy

Thursday 2/25-
*Wine Barrel Aged Grand Cru

Friday 2/26-
*Port Barrel Aged Odin

Saturday 2/27-
*Jack Daniels barrel aged Czar Jack

I plan on making the trip down from Fargo on Thursday evening so I can hopefully try the Wine BA Grand Cru and then of course the Friday and Saturday beers.

This is going to be a busy week for Town Hall.

My EBF Story

So every year BeerAdocate holds an event called the Extreme Beer Festival. They have Night of the Barrels (100% Barrel Aged Beers all night), Session 1, and Session 2. I think they limit each session to 500 people. Basically, there are tons of great beers from many different breweries and you get to try a lot of things that normally wouldn't be available.

My buddy, Matt, from California was going to be going out there and had an extra ticket so I got this idea that maybe I should be going as well. I had less that 20 hours to get this trip worked out as my plane would have left Wednesday right after class (Matt was going to use his miles so my flight would be cheaper and this was the only option out of Fargo). I managed to get my work shift covered, my bags packed, and most important a place to crash on Wednesday and Thursday evening. It took a long time to get everything set in stone, but I was ready to go.

I got to sleep trying to calculate the numbers and just relax and think if this was a good idea or not. I woke up in the morning and realized that this was one of the dumbest ideas ever. The trip would have cost well over $500 and with Darklord Day and maybe a trip to Cali over summer, I really couldn't afford this.

Anyways, I guess the moral of the story is that you need to spend money on beer where it counts. Granted EBF would have been great, I am looking more forward to going to DLD with a bunch of buddies.

Thanks for reading, next time I will having something more relevant.

-Ben

Follow up on Bell's Batch 9000

So Bell's Batch 9000 has finally been released and Moorhead was lucky to get some in today so I will be cracking one up and throwing down a review! I originally posted about this beer, so if you need details on it, you can check that out as well.
Poured into Bell's Snifter glass.

Pours 1 fingers of creamy, yet a little fizzy, mocha tan head. Color pours a dark caramel brown, but settles black in the glass. Not as dark as I was expecting.

Aroma: Right away, I can already tell this is going to be a sweet beer. Lots of molasses and licorice as the bottle suggests. Some caramel, roasted malts, coffee, and chocolate also present. A little smokey as well, but very sweet.

Taste: This is a pretty interesting imperial stout. It is extremely sweet and syrupy. It reminds me a little of Darkness 2008. Tons of molasses and licorice with a big malt backbone. Some dark dried fruits like cherries and raisins add to the sweetness level. Big chocolate and coffee notes with some roasted malt. The aftertaste brings even more licorice.

Mouthfeel: Sweet, syrupy, creamy, and smooth. Full bodied with a medium amount of carbonation. Ends sweet and dry.

Overall, this beer is solid. I think aging it in the cellar might do some great things for the beer. It is really young right now and needs a little time to develop and round out. I do love the sweetness of this beer. I am glad I got to try it. Drinkable as well.

If you have a chance to try this one, it is worth the price. It will retail around $17 per 6er, but for over 3 bombers of an imperial stout, you can't go wrong.

Thanks for reading. I will get details about my failed attempt to going to Boston for the EBF.

Cheers,
Ben

Extreme Beer Fest?

I had a post idea for tonight, but then I started to plan a last minute trip to Boston for the Extreme Beer Fest. I may or may not make it there, but I will post the details once I figure out what is going on.

Cheers,
Ben

A Forgotten Style

A style that I have ignored a lot recently is the porter. The style of beer is great, but I think most people overlook it with the new craze on huge beers. People get very caught up in the huge imperial stouts that are barrel aged and the wild ales that are normally always limited in some way. I get caught up in those again, but in a recent trade, I received an extra and it was a porter. I was pretty excited to see a beer I hadn't had before and a style that I have kind of forgotten about. So this evening, I will be reviewing Mayflower Brewing Company's Porter.

I poured this one into my Sam Adam's Sensory glass.

It pours about 1/2 finger of khaki tan head, then fades to a ring around the edge of the glass. Leaves a very small amount of lace. Color is black, but when held up to the light it shows some ruby hued copper colors near the edge of the glass.

Aroma: The aroma begins very sweet. It has a milk chocolate and cocoa flavor up front along with a nice level of roasted malts. There are some light coffee flavors hidden in the back a bit with some grassy hops. This beer has a lot of malts up front, but is balanced out a bit by the hops.

Taste: The taste begins with a lot of malts, very roasted. The beer brings a lot of milk chocolate and coffee notes to the table and they complement the roasted malts nicely. There is also some sweet molasses. Again, the grassy hops are there, but nothing to big.

Mouthfeel: Smooth, creamy, and a tad bitter from the hops. This beer has a medium to full body with a medium amount of carbonation. This porter ends dry with malt flavors, typical for the style.

Overall, I really enjoyed this beer. It represents the style well and is drinkable. I am very glad I got to try this beer and I could easily drink another. Everything just seems to work well this beer. It is simple, but complex at the same time. Worth a try.

Sometimes a beer drinker forgets about the more standard styles, but it just makes them taste that much better once you crack one open. Glad I got this beer and remembered how much I enjoy some of the simpler beers out there.

Cheers and thanks for reading!
-Ben

Pliny the Younger hits Fargo!

So it has been a few days since I have posted. I have got caught up with a few things. Anyways, a buddy from Cali was so kind to send me a growler of Pliny the Younger. This is the beer that is at the top of its style: Double/Imperial IPA. The beer is released once a year at the brewery in growlers and then shows up on tap in very select areas and doesn't last too long. The beer sold out incredibly fast and a lot of people didn't even get growlers to take home with them. I split my growler with 3 other guys so we each got a little over a pint. Needless to say we all wanted more. Now for the review:

The 2 liter growler opens with a nice big pop.

Poured into my Bruery snifter.

Pours 1 finger of white head. Pretty decent retention. Leaves a lot of lace rings. Color is a clear golden bronze.

Aroma: Sweet floral hops, has some sugar flavors to it, it has a lot of pine notes which is really nice. Big grapefruit citrus with some other blended into it. The aroma is huge hops and a nice sweet malty profile.

Taste: It starts out with a massive amount of pine hops (some floral hop profile). It is sweet, but bitter. The malts are bready, but don't balance it out too much, which is good. The grapefruit citrus is dominate and really brings a lot to this beer. Maybe some orange citrus sticking out a bit.

Mouthfeel: Bitter, but nothing that overly done which is really nice. It is incredibly smooth. It has a much bigger body than any other ipa. Just massive and tasty. A nice amount of carbonation. Ends very very clean for the style.

Overall, this beer is very fine. Lots of massive flavor and pine flavor and incredibly drinkable. My part of this growler of this is going fast and is incredibly easy to drink. You really can't get a much better beer for this style. This beer deserves to be at the top of its class. Everyone loved the beer and was happy to try it.

Simply put, Younger is a beer that I wish I had all the time to drink. For the 11% abv, this beer is incredibly drinkable. If you ever have a chance to try this, don't pass it up. As always, the fresher the better when it comes to this style.

Thanks for reading!
-Ben

A random rant on Tickers

First off, what is a ticker? In the world of beer, a ticker is simply somebody who tries to drink as many different beers as possible and then mark it off a 'check list.' Nothing wrong with this. The problem becomes when the person goes and writes a two sentence (approximately) review on the beer and post it to a website where people review beer. Of course, everybody likes to try as many new beers as they can, but actually writing a review on them can get a little ridiculous when going to events or tastings.

In all honesty, writing a 2 sentence review helps nobody and doing it is pointless. The only thing it manages to do is keep track of the beers you have had. For the most part, my go to site (beeradvocate) doesn't have too many tickers. The top review on the site is however a ticker and the reviews are of course are terrible. I don't even bother wasting my time reading them because they lack quality and don't inform me about the beer.

Is this article going to stop people from ticking? No. Do I have a problem with tickers? No. Do I think posting low quality reviews that say nothing is pointless? Yes. I just wanted to get the message out there about tickers and how useless it can be. I enjoy writing reviews on beers and like to put a lot of thought into them so others can enjoy them and I can come back to them some day and see what I thought about a particular beer. How can somebody possibly do that with a mere few sentences?

Thanks for reading!
-Ben

Rogue let me down.

So a few buddies and I sampled Rogue's John John Ale the other night. This beer is their Dead Guy Ale aged in their empty Dead Guy Whiskey barrels. To me, the concept sounded great. Let's age one of our beers in one of our barrels. The end product, however, was not so great.

Poured this into my Bruery Snifter.

It pours a clear golden yellow. I smelled it and tasted it and it wasn't very flavorful. One of the guys at the store said to mix in the sediment on the bottom of the bottle to get some flavor into the beer so that is what I did.

The beige head that is poured is a very small layer. The color then turns out a little better with the sediment and becomes a golden sunset orange.

Aroma: Reminds me of a Belgian Pale Ale, which I find to be odd. Has some cloves with lots of malt. Very light whiskey flavor.

Taste: More whiskey here, but still pretty light. Can't taste a lot of the dead guy flavors in the beer. Again, I get cloves and malt. Nothing is too distinguishable for the flavor. Fairly light flavored.

Mouthfeel: Dry and smooth. Lighter bodied with a lower to medium level of carbonation. Ends fairly clean.

Overall, this beer was simply odd. It didn't have a lot going on. I didn't pick up too much of the base beer in the flavor. I really don't expect a lot of this to sell at the price of near $9 a bomber. This beer just didn't taste anything like I expected.

Mini BCS Vertical

Anybody watch the Superbowl? I cracked open a few beers with some buddies and watched the underdogs take it the colts. I was happy. Anyways, on to the beer.

The other night me and a few buddies decided to do a mini vertical of Goose Island Bourbon County Stout. For those of you who don't know what a vertical is, it is simple drinking multiple years of the same beer. For our BCS mini vertical, we had 2008 and 2009 bottles.

My original review of 2008 BCS can be found here. For this post, I will compare the two beers to show that aging a beer can make a big difference.

Appearance: Both beers were very similar in color, a dark black. Also they don't pour a lot of head.

Aroma: The aroma of the 08 seems to be mellowed out a little bit. The 09 has more alcohol/heat showing. The 09 also is sweeter on the nose while the 09 has a more developed flavor.

Taste: The 09 has a thinner body and more heat showing. The 08 has a nice developed bourbon flavor and is very roasted. The 09 lacks flavor that it could have (like the 08) and the 09 is more malty.

Mouthfeel: The 09 has a ton more carbonation and shows a lot of heat in the mouth. The 08 has a fuller bodied and is more creamy. The 09, however, is fairly smooth (besides the heat).

Overall, the 08 wins, but the 09 isn't bad by any means; it just needs more time to develop. Both beers are excellent, but it just goes to show that a year in the cellar can really make a beer more enjoyable.

I have gotten word from one of my friends in California that I will be getting a special treat pretty soon. I am expecting it to land Friday so check in Friday night for a new post.

Thanks for reading!

Dark Lord Day Primer

Today is February 4th... Do you know what that means? It means we are 79 days from Dark Lord Day (DLD). For those of you who don't know, DLD is when 3 Floyds releases there Russian Imperial Stout, Dark Lord. Dark Lord currently sits at #11 on BeerAdvocates top 100, but they also do some special Dark Lords (Vanilla Bean Aged and Oak Aged). Vanilla Bean Aged sits at #4 on the list and Oak Aged sits at #16. All three top rated beers are expected to be pouring that day. DLD is also the only day of the year that people can purchase DL in 750 mL wax dipped bottles.


DLD isn't just about the DL though. DLD is a huge festival in which many beer lovers from around the country (even people come from Canada) to share beer and hang out. A lot of people bring beer from their local breweries or bust out some gems from the cellar. People have the opportunity to try many beers they would have never been able to try otherwise.

This is just a little preview, but I will be posting more on the event as time gets closer. However, if you plan on going, I suggest booking a hotel soon.

Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour Ale

Got this beer here in Fargo at Happy Harry's Bottle Shop. This one is widely distributed and can be found at most beer stores. This beer was originally brewed for Monk's Café in Philadelphia, but recently they started bottling it. The style is an Flanders Oud Bruin, which is a traditional blend of young and old beers. On to the review.

Cork comes off with a nice pop.

Poured into bruery snifter.

Pours about 1/2 finger of light khaki head. Fades to a thin layer and leaves some splattered lace. Color is a dark ruby hued caramel brown.

Aroma: There is a nice amount of cherries up front, some sour notes that follow, but not overly sour. It seems to have a decent amount of fruit flavor to complement the cherry upfront, Granny smith apples come to mind. I get some oak as well. The aroma is pretty solid.

Taste: The cherries are again up front, but the taste is different compared to the aroma. It has some different fruit flavors here, sour grapes and raspberry, and more of a funky taste. The green apple flavor is here, but not as defined. I actually get a cider flavor out of this beer. The malts also stick out a lot more. The oak flavor is a lot less too.

Mouthfeel: Crisp, smooth, and a little sour. Medium bodied with a decent amount of carbonation. Ends a little dry and funky.

Overall, this is a pretty decent beer. My expectations were not that high for it, but it not only met them, but exceeded them. A very nice sipper. I am definitely savoring it. It isn't as sour as I would like, but I still think it is good. I would definitely give this one a try. It retails around $12 for 750 mL.

Featured Review

Tonight I will be reviewing Breckenridge Brewing Company's Lucky U IPA. I am calling this review a feature review, because it will be posted as a guest review on a fellow beer guy's blog, mdwalsh, The Beer Guy.

First, a little bit about the brew. I picked thin one up here in Fargo/Moorhead, so it should be pretty easy to obtain throughout Minnesota. I hadn't seen this beer or heard anything about it, so I picked up a single to give it a test run before I commit to a 6er. This IPA is made with 7 types of hops: Amarillo, Magnum, Perle, Cascade, Apollo, Fuggle, Goldings. Time to dive in.

I poured this into a standard pint glass, nothing to fancy tonight. It pours about a finger of khaki colored off white head. The head fades down to a thinner layer and as I drink, it leaves tremendous lacing on the glass. I enjoy it when a beer leaves lots of lacing, as it makes it look way more appealing. The color is a clear dark orange hued copper. It is a little darker than most IPAs.

Aroma: The aroma of this beer starts out a little muted, not much in the nose. I let it warm up a tad so I can get some more flavor out of it. Now that it is warmer, I get some floral hops with caramel malts balancing the aroma. Then, a nice citrus burst is evident. For an IPA, this beer is fairly balanced on the nose.

Taste: The floral hops jump right out at you quick, but it is immediately followed by caramel and bready malts. This isn't your typical 'in your face' IPA. This is a more balanced IPA. After the initial flavor, I get a lot of citrus blend going on, mainly some lemon and grapefruit flavors.

Mouthfeel: Bitter, but balanced. It is a little crisp, because it has a decent amount of carbonation. The body is medium sized. Lucky U ends with a sticky aftertaste, which is typical for an IPA.

Overall, if you are not into super hoppy beers yet, but you want to work your way into them, then this would be a good place to start. It has a decent amount of hops, but it is balanced out a lot with all of the malts. I personally like my IPAs to be hoppier and less malty, but the brewer's went a different route with this. I am glad I got to try this one, as it was a change from most mainstream IPAs.

Just a few things

Just wanted to post a few comments about my blog, considering it is only about a week old.

1) If you like my reviews, I have all (almost 700) of them posted on BeerAdvocate, so feel free to check them out.

2) If you have any suggestions on things you want me to write about please let me know.

3) I will try and put up a new post everyday, so be sure to check back.

4) Please share my link with your friends. It is good to spread the word about anything beer related.

5) I will plan on sharing stories about upcoming beer related events I go to (Dark Lord Day comes into mind for sure).

Thanks,
Ben