REVIEW 109: HOPDEVIL

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA

BREWERY:  Victory Brewing Company

STYLE:  IPA

ABV:  6.7%

PURCHASE:  12-oz. bottle, $4.75 (two purchased for $9.50)

SERVING:  Said bottle, poured into chilled pint glass. Both a standard and slow pour produced a dense head of about two and a half inches. Great retention.

APPEARANCE:  Beautiful rusted amber color with a slightly cream-tinted head. Relatively transparent. Not much visible bubbling, but outstanding lacing.

BOUQUET:  Tempered hops and citrus rounded out by malt. Highly grapefruit-like.

PALATE:  Medium to slightly heavy body with carbonation that is expertly held back. Starts with a soft hop note that seems to bloom in your mouth, taste-wise; peaks at mid-palate, then pulls back at the finish to allow for a nice influx of malt and citrus. Aftertaste is grapefruity and yeasty. Has just the right amount of bitterness and bite to it, remaining exceptionally smooth on the whole. This is an IPA, but the hops are curtailed to a point where this borders upon Boston Lager territory. Always a good decision from the brewmeister. (See what I did there? Give it a minute.)

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  Long one of my go-tos, and one of the flagship offerings from Victory--if not the flagship offering from them. Never fails to show why.




GRADE:  A

REVIEW 108: CORONA LIGHT

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  Mexico

BREWERY:  Grupo Modelo S.A. de C.V.

STYLE:  Light Lager

ABV:  4.1%

PURCHASE:  Draft (pint), $5.50

SERVING:  Chilled pint glass. Half-inch head from the tap that dwindled down to nothing inside of 20 seconds.

APPEARANCE:  Adjunct straw with a thin white head--what's left of it. Not much bubbling action for a light beer, especially for one from this continent. Lacing? Ha. Ha HA ha!

BOUQUET:  Delightful aroma of water and the interior of the keg from whence it was drafted.

PALATE:  Somewhat heavy body for a light beer. The carbonation starts off subtle enough, but it doesn't take long for it to go its own way, way out yonder, where no carbonation has gone before. Drinkable enough, but it seems to wear its mediocrity like a badge of honor at every turn. Fairly even palate of generic grain, yeast, and seltzer, with an ever so slight accent of hops at the finish--possibly this beer's saving grace--along with a fusel alcohol presence like you would find in a "40" of malt liquor from a bottle shop in Kensington. Aftertaste continues the fusel-hop-seltzer blend but is also a tad skunky.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  To think there was a time when I actually thought this was better than regular Corona.

I consider this Mexico's answer to Miller Lite. In other words, it's better than Ultra.




GRADE:  D-

REVIEW 107: GRIMBERGEN DUBBEL

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  Belgium

BREWERY:  Brouwerij Alken-Maes

STYLE:  Dubbel

ABV:  6.5%

PURCHASE:  Draft (10-oz.), $6.50

SERVING:  Chalice. Almost no head from the tap on the first serving; Round 2 yielded about half an inch. Just-okay retention.

APPEARANCE:  Reddish-walnut color that is mostly opaque and somewhat translucent. Cream-beige head. Faint, uneven lacing around the glass. No real visible bubbling action.

BOUQUET:  Malty, but fresh apple skins are actually more pronounced. Dark fruits, caramel, and bakery-type essences (e.g. nutmeg, cinnamon, brown sugar) round things out.

PALATE:  Moderate carbonation in a slightly heavy body. Malt and pitted fruit notes characterize the front end, becoming roastier toward the finish. Back end features more fig and dark fruit, finishing with subtle jabs of caramel, hop bitterness and yeast. Rich and sweet, but tempered, aftertaste that hosts a lingering caramel-apple note.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  Sometimes it seems the Belgian abbeys can do no wrong when it comes to dubbels. 

I will say that this doesn't quite have the expertly rounded depth of world-class trappist dubbels like St. Bernardus and Westmalle. But it's close. And with that, my little droogs, Crockett's search for a mediocre--or even a merely average--abbey dubbel remains fruitless.




GRADE:  A-

Bonus points if you see the connection.

REVIEW 106: SORACHI ACE

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA

BREWERY:  Brooklyn Brewery

STYLE:   Saison

ABV:  7.2%

PURCHASE:  Draft (13-oz.), $6.00

SERVING:  Tulip glass. Almost an inch-high head from the tap on the first beer; roughly an inch and a half on Rounds 2 and 3. Nice fluffy head with great retention.

APPEARANCE:  Effervescent and translucent golden-orange body with a meringue-like white head. Inconsistent, blotchy lacing around the glass. Bubbling not particularly visible.

BOUQUET:  Almost dead-even hop-malt balance. Big on citrus; very lemony. Also features seeming hints of white grape--it's slightly vinous aromatically. Rounded out by traces of pineapple and various subtle spices.

PALATE:  Moderate body that starts feeling comparatively light, but seems to weigh on you toward the end. Prominent carbonation that can snowball if held too long; otherwise benign, however. The through-line here is citrus, notably lemon zest. Hoppy accents are evident throughout--these are the almighty Sorachi hops for which this beer is named. Yeasty finish. A bit peppery from mid-palate onward. There's some other spice note or two or three that are hard to put a finger on: Caraway? Dill? Allspice? But that's okay; mystery is sometimes a pleasantly good thing. Aftertaste features a welome bitterness, rife with still-present spice, lemon, and hops.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  The hops in this one are called "Sorachi," named after the region of the same name in Hakkaido, Japan. According to Brooklyn Brewery's own website, they were originally developed in the late 1970s, but were too ill-received to warrant further promotion. So, they lay dormant in laboratories--that is, until a family on a farm in the Pacific Northwest decided to cultivate it. 

Today, it is the feature attraction in a fairly distinguishable saison. Spicier than many, if not most, this reviewer has had. More lemony than many, if not most, this reviewer has had. Hoppier than many, if not most, this reviewer has had. Better than many, if not most, this reviewer has had.



GRADE:  B+

REVIEW 105: ALLAGASH WHITE

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA

BREWERY:  Allagash Brewing Company

STYLE:  Witbier

ABV:  5.1%

PURCHASE:  Draft (pint), $5.75

SERVING:  Allagash branded chalice. Standard 3/4" head from the tap, closer to 1/2" on the second beer. Good retention.

APPEARANCE:  Very foggy yellowish-gold body with a sudsy, somewhat dense white head. Very little bubbling. Splotchy lacing around the glass.

BOUQUET:  Wheaty--duh, it's a witbier. Prominent citrus notes as well, complemented by subtle hints of coriander and clove.

PALATE:  Very easy-to-drink texture with average carbonation--seemingly a bit too much for a witbier. That said, it has an initially light feeling to it. The citrus starts early and crescendos, but remains mild and tempered. If we were in algebra class, we could graph its parabolic curve on an x-y coordinate plane. Mid-palate, coriander becomes a player. The finish is dry and yeasty, but this quality soon subsides and allows citrus to once again reign supreme for the aftertaste. The wheat is there the whole time, but is second fiddle.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  The Allstroms gave this a perfect score. I think that's a bit over the top. In this reviewer's mind, this is no Hall of Famer.

But it's certainly an All-Star. 




GRADE:  A-

REVIEW 104: INNIS & GUNN BOURBON AGED DARK ALE

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  Scotland

BREWERY:  Innis & Gunn

STYLE:  Scotch Ale

ABV:  7.4%

PURCHASE:  N/A (gift)

SERVING:  22.3-oz. bottle, poured into Chimay branded chalice. A normal pour produced maybe, maybe a quarter-inch head. On Round 2 I poured twice as fast, and barely got half an inch. Retention on this beer is an absolute joke.

APPEARANCE:  Dark, opaque, root beer brown body, with tan suds (where visible). Steady, albeit minor, bubbling action. No lacing whatsoever.

BOUQUET:  Predominantly woody--oaky, to be more specific. That's okay; I'd rather sniff wood than metal (at least in a beer). Malty as well. The barley notes are rather obvious. No real hop presence in the aroma; no real anything-else factor either.

PALATE:  Well, it looks like a cross between root beer and black coffee, but thankfully does not taste like it--although it does feature a cola-like carbonation. Texture is moderate but leans heavy--these scotch ales are also known as "Wee Heavies" in case you didn't know. Taste-wise, this is malty with barely a trace of hops. A little lacking up front, but gets progressively richer from mid-palate to finish to a caramelized aftertaste, which is a tad spicy--surprisingly so--but also roasty and even a little smoky. Rounding things out at the end was a tinge of orange, liqueur-like in nature. Think Grand Marnier. The box claims this is "matured in bourbon oak." I, however, detected more of an orange liqueur--a la Grand Marnier--presence than a bourbon presence. Maybe I'm wrong.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  This is a sneaky beer. Comes off as smooth and easy at first, but can knock you out if you're not careful. Like a good liqueur, such as Grand Marnier. It is, after all, more than 7%.

This is also a fairly simple and straightforward brew. Not much complexity. No gimmicks. Hey, nothing wrong with that. Some of the best things in life--at least on the surface--are fairly simple in nature:  Air, water, sunlight, sleep, etc. And, I suppose . . . Grand Marnier.

This is a new beer in the Innis & Gunn lineup, released just last year. It needs tweaking. But it's off to a promising start. 




GRADE:  B

REVIEW 103: YOUNG'S DOUBLE CHOCOLATE STOUT

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  England

BREWERY:  Wells & Young's Ltd.

STYLE:  Chocolate Stout

ABV:  5.2%

PURCHASE:  Four-pack of 11.2-oz. bottles, $11.99

SERVING:  11.2-oz. bottle, poured into Guinness branded imperial pint glass. A normal pour produced a normal head of roughly an inch and a half. A slower pour resulted in about the same. Retention was nothing of note. A fast pour, however, yielded a head that took up about half the glass and stuck around for a bit.

APPEARANCE:  Cola-brown body with a rocky cream-beige head. Very faint bubbling if you look close enough. Lacing is of the thin, somewhat splotchy variety, and only after the session progresses into the second serving.

BOUQUET:  As advertised: Dark chocolate and chocolate malt--and by extension, barley--are the biggies here. Chocolate, of course, is not of the confectionery sort; we're talking roasty, bitter chocolate here. The overall aroma is a bit buttery, too.

PALATE:  Achieves a good balance of rich, smooth, and roasty. Almost Guinness-like in its ease of consumption, particularly for a stout. Straightforward dark chocolate flavor complemented by roasted malt and, at least seemingly, a wisp of black coffee at the back. Light-medium body with low carbonation. Inviting, but not as full-flavored as it seems it could be.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  Say "chocolate malt," and most people think of a milkshake. For a craft beer enthusiast, though, it conjures up images of carefully harvested chocolate-malted barley, soon to be utilized for the purpose of brewing a rich, delectable, chocolate stout. 

Long a staple of this chocolate stout style, Young's remains a favorite for much of the craft beer community. In my view, however, it has been bested by too many competitors, namely Rogue. 

That's more of a check than a knock.

GRADE:  B

What chocolate malt actually looks like . . . before it becomes
 a beer . . . or a milkshake!

REVIEW 102: LONGBOARD ISLAND LAGER

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA

BREWERY:  Kona Brewing Company

STYLE:  Pale Lager

ABV:  4.6%

PURCHASE:  Six-pack of 12-oz. bottles, $12.99

SERVING:  12-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. Heady for a pale lager; a normal pour's head took up almost half the glass. A slow pour contained it to a more conventional inch and change. Decent retention.

APPEARANCE:  Light golden-brass body with the expected bright white head of a pale lager, only denser than most others. Transparent but a bit hazy at the outset. Faint bubbling action, but superb lacing.

BOUQUET:  Fairly clean and kind of generic, but what's there is amicable. "Slight" in many ways: Slightly husky, slightly malty, a bit lemony--I think--and very slightly hoppy. It's just indistinguishable. 

PALATE:  Almost like a light beer with more complexity. And because the taste is much, much better than your average light lager, it makes "drinkability" that much easier. If I had to describe this with one pithy phrase, it would be "soft yet crisp." This seems to "cushion" itself against your palate upon entry--maybe it's the Hawaiian water? Any carbonation seems to vanish; even if held, it never comes close to overwhelming. A subtle and relatively unexciting hop-malt balance is evident in the early going. After mid-palate is when things really unfold here: There's a lemony accent toward the finish--my nose was right--that only resonates in the aftertaste, which also sees a yeasty crescendo. As far as aftertastes go, this one is addictive. 

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  One of the flagship beers from Kona, the Longboard is an American pale lager, as opposed to an adjunct lager: No cheap additives here, boys and girls. Pale lagers such as this one are often referred to as "all-malt" for this reason. (The expression, "all-malt," refers simply to the malt proportion of the beer being all malt and no adjuncts; malt doesn't make up the whole beer, obviously. There are still hops, yeast, citrus, and/or whatever else.) And you know what? This is a very, very underrated brew.

Versatility is this beer's strong suit: It can serve admirably in any "beer situation," be it dinner, after-work get-togethers, cutting the grass, or anything else. It will refresh you and quench your thirst without drying out your mouth and throat. That's what a "summer" beer should be. Fuck Corona!

I also like that as a brewery, Kona maintains a highly eco-friendly reputation. (They're big on solar power.) But most of all--aside of course from the beer itself--I like the Hawaiian pride all over the bottle. It actually reads, "Liquid Aloha!" 

You know who else loved to say, "Aloha?" 




GRADE:  A-

REVIEW 101: LAGUNITAS IPA

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA

BREWERY:  Lagunitas Brewing Company

STYLE:  IPA

ABV:  6.2%

PURCHASE:  Six-pack of 12-oz. bottles, $12.99

SERVING:  12-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. Heady. Even a slow pour got two full inches. A standard one got two and a half. Very good retention.

APPEARANCE:  Caramel-copper tinted body. Transparent but slightly hazy, at least initially. Light bubbling. Off-white, fluffy head. Excellent lacing.

BOUQUET:  Fresh but somewhat underwhelming aroma, balanced quite evenly between floral hops, malted barley, and citrus notes. Pleasing but not particularly assertive. I suppose that could be taken as a positive in some ways.

PALATE:  Entry is soft but followed by a quick ascent of hop bitterness, which plateaus just as quickly and never gets out of control. Carbonation is moderate unless held too long. Malt factor creeps in at the back. Aftertaste remains mainly hoppy but is well complemented by notes of lightly burnt grains and grapefruity citrus. Very smooth and fluid overall.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  Established in 1993, Lagunitas was one of the fastest growing craft breweries in the country during the '00s. Now, it's the craft brewery that's no longer really a craft brewery. Why, you may ask? Because Heineken bought a 50% stake on September 8, 2015. According to the Brewers Association, any stake of at least 25% not held by the craft brewery itself, or any comparable entity, renders it no longer a craft brewery.

Hey, every startup wants to expand at some point. No shame in that. But how was the beer? Well, it's not the most complex beer you will drink, but so what? There's beauty in simplicity. 




GRADE:  B+

REVIEW 100: BUD LIGHT

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA

BREWERY:  Anheuser-Busch

STYLE:  Light Lager

ABV:  4.2%

PURCHASE:  Case of 24 12-oz. bottles, $20.99

SERVING:  12-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. Fluffy two-inch head from a normal pour; a hair under an inch with a slow one. Retention is by no means remarkable but better than you'd expect.

APPEARANCE:  Very pale straw color with a standard white head. Active bubbling. Lacing is MIA. Take away the head and the bubbles, and this could pass for a urine sample.

BOUQUET:  Clean as a whistle. Although to be fair, I haven't smelled a whistle in quite some time.

PALATE:  Has the carbonation of watered-down club soda. EXTREMELY "drinkable"--no wonder so many meatheads and sorostitutes get drunk off this. Light beer can be sneaky like that. As far as taste goes, well, it works. There's not much to say. Generic grains seem to "characterize" the somewhat sweet mouthfeel. Hops are barely noticeable, and only if you have an educated palate. Seltzery and slightly yeasty aftertaste. Hardly tastes like beer, but I give it credit for being agreeable. The best part of my experience tonight was . . . the label! "Always brewed using the choicest hops, best barley, and rice." (Italics are mine.) At least A-B is honest about the adjuncts!

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  In my opinion, the best of the Big Three light beers, by a thread. What an honor.





GRADE:  D