REVIEW 166: YUENGLING OKTOBERFEST

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA (Pottsville, PA!)

BREWERY:  Yuengling Brewery

STYLE:  Märzen/Oktoberfest

ABV:  5.45%

PURCHASE:  Six-pack of 12-oz. bottles, $9.99

SERVING:  12-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. A normal pour yielded a solid two-inch head. A slower pour yielded almost the same. Good retention.

APPEARANCE:  Transparent but a bit hazy. Color is a dark tan bordering upon light copper territory. Standard off-white tinted head, sudsy but somewhat dense. Thin but steady bubbling. Prominent, splotchy lacing. 

AROMA:  Toasted grains and subdued spice notes like allspice and cinnamon. A little malty. Effectively no hop presence.

TASTE:  Thin body and somewhat watery mouthfeel. Very, very easy to drink--I'll give it that. Standard carbonation. As far as the actual taste, well, it's a little slow to take hold. The early going is basically null and void; toasted grains enter the fray mid-palate. Faint traces of generic spices toward the end. Aftertaste also has a bit of appleskin character. Practically no hop presence. On the whole, this isn't much different from a regular Yuengling. 

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  I don't care how "storied" a brewery may be. Average is average. And Yuengling is usually just that . . . at best. They may as well be Leinenkugel's at this point. That's how unexciting their entire line of beers really is.

Bleh, bleh, and more bleh.

SPECIAL NOTE:  I reviewed this beer by request from a girl I know. I asked if I could use her photo at the end of the review, and she declined. You know, make her famous, at least among my two or three dozen regular readers? Oh well. It's possible that I will start having people "model" the beers I review. An idea has been spawned, my little droogs.




GRADE:   C-

Who asked Crockett to review this beer?

REVIEW 165: LEINENKUGEL'S OKTOBERFEST

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA (Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin)

BREWERY:  The Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company

STYLE:  Märzen/Oktoberfest

ABV:  5.1%

PURCHASE:  Draft (pint), $5.50

SERVING:  Pint glass. Not much head, maybe half an inch. Mediocre retention at best.

APPEARANCE:  Copper-mahogany tone and as transparent a beer that dark a color can possibly be. Off-white head, while it exists. Very little bubbling and no lacing whatsoever.

AROMA:  Bready with a whiff of appleskin. Perhaps a touch of some sort of spice. Toasty. Simple but decent.

TASTE:  Slightly filling with mellow carbonation. Soft mouthfeel. Hop factor is minimal, which is par for the course with Oktoberfests. Toasty, particularly toward the back. Malty and grainy finish that leads to a sweet aftertaste rife with appleskin notes and a slight accent of generic spice (seemingly a cross between cinnamon and allspice). Seems to hold back too much in every respect; could stand be more assertive. Goes down kind of like a bastardized Yuengling.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  "I like Leinenkugel's, even if they are a bit of a joke in the craft brewing community." From a Crockett confidante, on a private message board way back in 2009. Hey, I didn't say it; he did.

But I must say I agree with his general sentiment. In virtually every beer category, I have found the Leinie entry to serve as a pale imitation of the true greats. They do nothing wrong. They do nothing well. Bleh.




GRADE:   C-

HOCKEY SEASON = MORE BEER CONSUMPTION FOR CROCKETT

Greetings and salutations.

It has been almost two full months since my last review, as I have been busy with other commitments and needed to conserve finances. But tonight is the start of hockey season. That changes everything.

Beer is my beverage of choice while taking in a game. It follows, then, that with the upcoming slate of hockey games over the next several months, my review activity will return to (more or less) its former level of output.

GO FLYERS!

--Crock

REVIEW 164: ICELANDIC WHITE ALE

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  Iceland

BREWERY:  Einstök Ölgerð

STYLE:  Witbier

ABV:  5.2%

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

SERVING:  11.2-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. A pour of normal speed led to a head of three full inches; a slower one cut it in half. Good retention.

APPEARANCE:  Very pale, yellowish straw color. Hazy and cloudy, although it becomes clearer as you drink it. Spongy white head. Thin but steady bubbling. Very, very little lacing.

AROMA:  Prominent coriander notes, but orange zest seems to hog the spotlight here. Wheat, malt, and lemon essences are noticeable as well.

TASTE:  As with the aroma, zesty orange peel is the through-line, with an uptick of it in the aftertaste, which is quite lemony and yeasty overall. Mild at the onset, with a somewhat thin mouthfeel and middle-of-the-road carbonation. Wheat and coriander notes are makeable but very shy; they're almost bullied into submission by lemon and orange rind, and yeast. What's there is likeable but not ideally balanced. 

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  This is a witbier, but at best, it comes off like a compromised one. It's like Blue Moon and Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy mixed together. Nothing wrong with that; but it's a little misleading.

This is a brew with a decent enough taste and it's very easy to put away. But it's too heavy on the lemon and orange zest and doesn't have enough actual witbier character. It's what I call an "identity crisis" beer. I like it, but it's the worst of the three I've had so far from the Einstök brewery in Iceland. 




GRADE:   B-

REVIEW 163: ICELANDIC ARCTIC PALE ALE

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  Iceland

BREWERY:  Einstök Ölgerð

STYLE:  APA

ABV:  5.6%

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

SERVING:  11.2-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. A normal pour yielded a head of an inch and a half; a slower pour whittled it down to an even inch, more or less. Great head retention.

APPEARANCE:  Translucent body with a caramel tint that could also be described as light copper or amber. Slightly off-white head. Faint bubbling. Good and fairly consistent lacing around the inside of the glass.

AROMA:  Balanced yet subtle aroma. Mainly pressed grains and (seemingly) appleskin. Hoppy accents. Rounded out by a tinge of lemon, orange zest, and some other kind of spice, probably allspice or cinnamon. A bit roasty.

TASTE:  Well-attenuated body in terms of texture and taste. Carbonation, though, is a little sneaky; it's barely there, but can surprise you if you hold a sip too long. Entry is a little blah, but it rights itself by mid-palate, taking on an appleskin-malt profile. Finish is somewhat fusel-like, and not too dry. Aftertaste continues the apple-malt throughline while adding a dimension of spice--again, it's hard to pin down. Seems like allspice or orange zest, possibly a tease of cinnamon, maybe even clove. Not particularly hoppy, and this is supposedly an APA--an American pale ale. 

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  This isn't a bad little brewery, but they have some work to do.

This is a solid brew, but it's not perfect. They call it an APA because it's brewed with cascade hops, but it's brewed with a couple other varieties of hops as well. And they weren't that conspicuous. That could be a good or bad thing, of course. 

Per the label, this was "brewed 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle." The Arctic Circle passes through . . . Iceland--well, Icelandic waters, anyway. In other words, they're just saying it's brewed in Iceland. I love marketing people.




GRADE:   B

REVIEW 162: 21ST BIRTHDAY IPA

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA (Downingtown, PA!)

BREWERY:  Victory Brewing Company

STYLE:  IPA

ABV:  6.1%

PURCHASE:  Six-pack of 12-oz. bottles, $15.00

SERVING:  12-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. Heady as hell from the bottle. Initial head of over three full inches with a standard pour. A faster pour yielded a head that took up almost the entire glass. Even a slower pour resulted in more than two inches. Outstanding retention.

APPEARANCE:  Light gold color and foggy. Densely packed white head. Faint bubbling, overshadowed by the suspended particles; reminiscent of another Victory brew, Golden Monkey. Prominent but somewhat uneven lacing.

AROMA:  Oh you know, the usual hop-citrus, hybrid aroma of an IPA. This one was a bit floral as well.

TASTE:  That hop-citrus dichotomy starts and last right through the finish, taste-wise; straightforward mouthfeel. Fairly easygoing and even a bit light-feeling, particularly for a six-percenter. No crescendos. No emergences. No surprises. Most complex part of the experience lies in the aftertaste: Somewhat lemony, a little sweet (a la Sweet-n-Low), with a slight uptick in bitterness. Sneaky carbonation. Almost shandy-like in its overall palate.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  Another good-but-not-great offering from Victory, who in this reviewer's opinion, is really beginning to resemble Sam in that regard. And I'm always--ALWAYS--wary of the "anniversary" theme assigned to certain beers, as I am to any kind of "special edition." In my experience, none of them ever match the best and brightest of their respective breweries.

But it's still a Victory. (See what I did there? Give it a minute.) Victory's beers are kind of like Hitchcock films; most aren't masterpieces--even if that's what their creator is known for--but they're all at least markedly above average. You really can't go wrong. And I'm sorry for the cliché.




GRADE:  B

REVIEW 161: GOOSE IPA (REVISITED)

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA (Chicago)

BREWERY:  Goose Island Beer Company

STYLE:  IPA

ABV:  5.9%

PURCHASE:  Six-pack of 12-oz. bottles, $11.99

SERVING:  12-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. An almost three-inch head from both a normal and slower pour. Outstanding retention.

APPEARANCE:  Rocky white head atop a transparent, golden body. Visually, could almost pass for a pilsner or Helles. Conspicuous bubbling. Excellent lacing.

AROMA:  What we have here is an IPA that isn't all hops all the time! They're nicely held in check by floral and citrus notes--namely grapefruit--as well as malt. Bready for an IPA.

TASTE:  Hoppy onset--what else do you expect? Sweet overall mouthfeel. Malty undertones. As with the aroma, the hops are not overly aggressive; instead, they are rounded out by mostly citrus notes. Packs a grapefruit wallop at the back. Aftertaste seems, for the most part, evenly split 50/50 between hops and grapefruit, with some yeast and bitter orange sneaking in there at the very, very end.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  In my original review, I concluded that this is a beer that "flirted with greatness," or something to that effect. That was the draft version. 

It's a bit better in the bottle. 

Goose Island is one of those breweries that's never categorized in the top of the heap by the online beer snob community, perhaps rightly so. But I find them sorely underrated. They have their share of misfires, but their flagship IPA, while not quite elite, certainly hits the target. I'm bumping this one up a notch.



ORIGINAL GRADE:  B+

NEW GRADE:  A-

A Minor Change . . .

I have concluded that "bouquet" and "palate" are pretentious terms that make me sound like a friggin' snob. They will now be replaced, respectively, by "aroma" and "taste" in the template for each review.

"Bouquet" and "palate" are for wine drinkers. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

--Crock

I'm Sorry

So very sorry. But don't worry. 

Beer reviews resume later this week! WOO-HOO!

In the meantime . . . GO PREDS!!!

REVIEW 160: SAMUEL ADAMS FRESH AS HELLES

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA (Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)

BREWERY:  Boston Beer Company

STYLE:  Munich Helles Lager

ABV:  5.4%

PURCHASE:  Draft (pint), $5.50

SERVING:  Chilled pint glass. Not the "headiest" beer on tap; not even half an inch, which quickly left the building.

APPEARANCE:  Golden and transparent. Standard white/off-white crown. Faint bubbling. Lacing is scattered at it's most prominent, but mostly nonexistent. 

BOUQUET:  Orangey above all else. Malty as well. Not much of a hop note. Rounded out mainly by orange zest and coriander. Smells like a witbier crossed with an orange scone.

PALATE:  Again, it's citrusy--mainly in the form of orange--above all else. This isn't the norm for a helles, at least in my experience. Minimal hops. Malty through-line. Slightly heavy body on the whole, with the usual degree of carbonation. Slightly spicy finish--again, like a witbier, with orange zest and coriander most noticeable. A hint of pepper and of all things, honey--although this could be a placebo effect on my part. Aftertaste carries on these same traits, but becomes somewhat lemony at the very end.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  "Helles" is a German word. It means "bright." Visually, this was indeed that. 

Helles lagers were originally developed in Munich--hence the term, "Munich helles lager"--as a response to the increasing popularity of Czech- and Bohemian-style pilsners amongst German beer consumers. This is the trend we have to thank for brews like Höfbrau and Löwenbrau. 

Sam's version, however, could almost pass for Blue Moon. It's got more depth, though, so I can forgive the identity crisis.




GRADE:   B