A Rant about Microbrewery Marketing

In all my life, I've met few beers that really cut the mustard as far as good branding.  A few of us wax eloquent on how the macro-brewers each use their own brand of marketing to bring the horses to the well - Coors tries to get their beer as close to 0 Kelvin as possible while Miller tries to prove your masculinity better than your raised F-350 Crewcab Dually, meanwhile Budweiser is just trying to get you to have a good time while keeping your BAC at a constant 0.08 so you can ignore your total lack of self-worth.  Adorable.

The microbrews of course focus more on the craft than the packaging, but let's be frank - we aren't THAT impressed with their marketing - I've drank more IPAs with the word "hops" less-than-artfully weaved into the name of the beer than Dennis Miller has obscurely-sourced jokes.  But the last several beers I've drank don't even try.

The new rub in beer marketing is AREA CODE.  Yes, something that was built to help the phone operators in the 1940s and 1950s now consummates "branding"  - and why not?  I mean heck, the brilliance that is rap lyrics has been using this poetic device since the mid-90s. From your 512s to your 471s to your 805s, we've decided to just pick up a phonebook and name our beer.   I wonder which SD brewery gets to lay claim to 619, though...beer maid mud wrestling to choose the champ, anyone?

In the end, the beer proves itself despite its name, and really such a thing as nomenclature shouldn't bother me - but I feel like a preserved beverage such as beer, or wine, or whisky, should always keep such a thing in mind - that sometimes the beautifully wrapped present should have some soul in and of itself.  Can such a thing become its own demon?  Sure - take a look at a brewery like Dogfish Head, where the brewers are so enamored with their Ed Hardy tee-shirts, steampunk treehouses and Discovery TV shows that they lose sight of crafting an amazing beer.  Nevertheless, on Christmas morning, the package that is lusted after the most is often the most beautiful under the tree.  Just saying.

Hop Stoopid: Redux

After a long week at work I felt like it was time to get a meal rivaling that of a pregnant woman's cravings:  an IPA, some spicy tuna rolls and a bag of unreasonably expensive cheesy popcorn.  In doing so I revisited an oldie but a goodie, the Hop Stoopid by Lagunitas.


Now I have tried half a dozen Lagunitas brews in my day, and every time I go back to their well I am sadly to say somewhat disappointed at what I get.  Sure, Brown Shugga was a decent beer a year ago, but I had their Cappucino Stout a few weeks back and it was nothing to write home about at all, and their replacement for not being able to brew Brown Shugga this year was a lousy gimmick.  (I didn't buy it.)  Yet when it comes to Hop Stoopid, the beer never, ever, lets me down.  


It pours a beautiful golden hue with a solid frothy head that recedes back to lacey perfection - it smells like a bouquet of flowers, and it tastes sweet like honey with the floral intensity of what just has to be a blend of Simcoe and Cascade.  I've written all about this before, but ladies and gentlemen, this beer, as current, beats Pliny.  Pardon me as I wax hipster here, but something happened over the past few years where Pliny does not hit the mark like it has in the past.  Perhaps it's the old pessimist anthem of great expectations leading to great disappointment, but the beer has simply not brought it like it did the first time I tried it in the now defunct Vin De Pays.  Maybe it's having to meet greater demand or what, but it's not the beer above peer like it used to.  (Dang - beer above peer - i may have found my new award name for Beer of the Year.)


Brewers out there, here's what I want to taste when I crack a DIPA.  NOT MALT.  I want hops.  I want alcoholic fizzy hop water.  I want the Sistine Chapel ceiling painted in hops in my mouth.  Here's a classic IPA teaser of one my buddy sent me today (my real-time comments in brackets):  "Unlike most IPAs brewed on the West Coast - our IPA not only has a ton of hops (100 IBUs) {okay, good, go on} but is brewed with a strong malt backbone to help balance out the bitterness.  {AGH!}"  It really doesn't help that they have a bunch of Laguna Beach wannabes in brew-suits on the front page of their website.  (Yes, I'm judging this website - what of it?)  Too many imperial IPAs have I indulged in only to be assaulted by some weird malt flavor that totally ruins the beer because they got away from what a good IPA should focus on.  THE HOPS.  The HOPS are what made those ancient barrels of beer that made their way to India from England so delicious - not English two-row, not some weird specialty malt - HOPS.


The thing that is amazing about Hop Stoopid is its ability to impart some fantastic sweetness that does not overpower the hops but blends with it like a cappella latin yazz. It's just GOOD.  I think the last time I reviewed this beer was over 2 years ago and it's just as good if not better.  Consistent, delicious, amazing.  It's what you want in a beer.

Mongo IPA - Port Brewing Company

As we venture ever closer to that summer solstice,  my taste-buds begin to crave those hoppy brews so sticky and green with life and energy - much like how I feel on warm sunny days at the beach.  I picked up a couple of IPAs at my favorite brew store and cracked one tonight by one of my favorite breweries for the style, Port Brewing (maker of the infamous Hop 15).

Bomber poured into a Samuel Smith pint glass.  The head pours thick and foamy like meringue and sits so thick you could put a bottle cap on it, much like a thicker-body beer like a good carbonated stout.  The head retains for nearly 3 minutes until it finally recedes, leaving the ever-familiar lacey rings down the sides until it leaves a flan-shaped mound in midst of the glass, making you want to whistle the tune from Close Encounters. The beer itself is a hazy, ruddy orange that is fairly opaque.  If held to the light, you can see bits of yeast collected at the bottom (methinks this may have gotten turned over a time in shipping).

The nose of this beer is the thick grapefruity smell of Simcoe and Cascade that while a great and definitely noticeable scent, doesn't wow me or blow my socks off.  Nevertheless, what they used was a great blend.

The first thing you taste is the rich, green taste of hops on your tongue rolling from front to back, but the mouth-feel is more effervescent than one would expect from a very sticky IPA.   The beer has a fairly high ABV for an IPA (8.5%) and most of the higher ABV beers have a stickier fuller mouth-feel while this one does not.  I can't really decide if I like it or not, but it's probably the most "different" element of this particular brew.  As per the style, there's no malt to speak of in the least - just bitter.  In fact, that's all you taste.  I could see this beer not going over well with those who are not total hop-heads, but those of us who are will love this beer.

All in all, a really good beer that is really close to perfection.  If I were the brewer, I might have mellowed it out a bit or ease back on the bittering phase and moved those hops to a later part in the brewing process, either in the fermenter or hopback.  Definitely a good hearty IPA that will end up near the bottom end of my top 10 IPA list.

Steelhead IPA - Mad River Brewing Company

Beer #2 in my bi-weekly Naja's run - Poured into a pint glass off tap at Najas.  Lacey head that grips the side of the glass as you'd expect out of any standard IPA.  The beer itself is an amber opaque orange.  The nose is not nearly as hoppy as you would expect out of an IPA - it's present but not pronounced.  A slight sour edge exists as well.  The beer defeinitely has good hop presence in the flavor, and one can't help but wonder if it is due to a longer bittering cycle.  The aftertaste is truly a wonderful example of good lasting hoppy bitterness on the back of the palate.  The effervecence tickles every tastebud yet maintains a solid mouthfeel of a substantial beer - not massive but still solid.  All in all, I'd say this would make a good session IPA for experienced IPA drinkers and a good primer for those who want to get hop newbies into the beer.  This beer would be great on a hot summer barbecue with some barbecued chicken or something spicy.

Black Adder - Buckbean Brewing Company

It's been far too long but the sun is finally out and Southern California is acting like what we pay for in cost of living expenses - which means bi-weekly bike rides to Naja's is back!

Poured into a pint glass offtap at Najas.  The barkeep tells me this is a Black IPA but I smell no hops on the nose at all.  Creamy head retreats to a lace on top - so far I behaves like an IPA.  Dark chesnut brown opaque that is otherwise unremarkable.  I don't smell a thing that could be hops - some chocolate malt tones but that's about it.

The beer has vague hop taste that lightly rests on the middle of the tongue and then is enveloped by a not unpleasant but unremarkable bready mouthfeel.  What i enjoy about the black IPA style is its ability to e compass two of my favorite thigs about beer in one style - great mouthfeel and sticky hoppy bitter taste.  This does one of those averagely and the other horribly.  Some yeasty undercurrents but otherwise quite meh.  The Beer Genius's dad has a saying that encompasses this beer - "yep, it's a beer!" 

Life is too short to drink average beers, so I'd avoid this beer as it's not even worth trying to taste what a "bad beer" tastes like.  Just go ahead and avoid this beer.

Panzer Imperial Pilsner - Port Brewing

This beer would probably be at the head of any true fan of unique beer, if only for creating a brewing oxymoron - a style known for it's piquantless perfection that has been imperialized.  (Yes, i realize i just partook in the art of pseudowordism in order to feed my own pseudo-intellectual ego.  What of it!)  Alright, promptly dispensing with the douchery in order to get to the beer review.  Port Brewing makes one of my top 5 IPAs, so in this not-so-humble beer reviewer's opinion, they can do no wrong.  Unless of course this beer sucks.

Before launching into this I think I should momentarily explain the "imperial" tag , where it comes from, why you as a beer drinker should care, and why that makes this beer so unique.  (This paragraph is going to be paraphrased editorializing from second-hand knowledge from the Beer Genius as well as my own research, which is mostly anecdotal home-brew forums and Wikipedia.  So...there you go.)  The history of Imperial beers starts back in England when the royal family would have Russian royalty visit.  England is of course known for their beer, and so to create a beer that was truly worthy of the Russian court, they would double up the grain and hop bill in order to create a more substantial beer for the Russian court - hence, the style "Russian Imperial Stout."  Since then the "Imperial" tag has essentially been grafted to any brew that has had their respected ingredients doubled to provide a more intense version of the beer.Why does doubling the ingredients matter?  More hops = more bitterness = more joy for hopheads.  More malt = more food for yeast = more alcohol byproduct for you drunks...er, malt-heads.

Now why is making an imperial pilsner such an oxymoron?  Well, first you have to realize the most popular pilsners - that would be Coors, Bud and all the various macro-breweries of America - are notoriously light beers.  The style is known among brewers by the mantra "flawless and flavorless" - the amount of work for a brewer to churn out such a trite and characterless beer such as those brewed by American beers is truly a feat of brewing.  Odd that this is one of the most popular beers in the world.

Now that I've taken you kids to school, on with the review.  Poured into a Widmer pilsner glass (of course).  First thing is this beer heads up like a college freshman-pumped keg - beautiful two inches of foam which does not recede one bit.  Looks like whipped egg whites.  Eventually after thirty seconds the head dissolves, leaving a lacey residue down the sides of the glass.   The color is just gorgeous - a perfectly gradiented yellow to orange hue.    Slight bubbles come up from the bottom to show you the little yeasts working to make this beer awesome for your mouth.  Shall we deny them the pleasure any longer?  (Creepy!)

The nose smells just like a Sierra Nevada - light Cascade hops reaching out and tickling your nostrils with a solid citrusy aroma.  As my nose looks for malt I note the latent presence of Munich malts which, given the German origins of pilsners, should be of no surprise.  Onto the taste!

Well, it's certainly the best pilsner I've ever had.  Hops dominate the palate (unfortunately for the style), along with the light malts and the strong presence of alcohol creating a solid body to this beer.   The malt presence is there, but you'd only know it by the alcohol which is very prevalent.  I'm reaching for the Munich malt in this, but this is essentially a very boozey Sierra Nevada.

All in all,  I appreciate what Port seemed to look to do here - create a more intense boozey version of an American pilsner, but the result (flavorwise) was a pale ale and I'm afraid it's not going to win many style points among the more stodgy of brewers.  Nevertheless the beer is a really good beer and if you are an experienced beer-drinker, want a beer you can nurse the whole night and still tap a beer buzz, this is the beer for you, no question.

Baltic Thunder - Victory Brewing Co.

Appearance:  20 oz bomber poured into a Samuel Smith pint glass.  Murky, turbid molasses brown with a nice foamy head.  Head retention is very good as the head sits on top of the beer like freshly whipped cream.  As the head falls back it leaves a nice foamy lace.

Smell:  Smells like a stout with that sour barley-like scent - just hints of chocolate, barely noticeable.

Taste:  Tastes like a sweet stout - the sugary sweet flavor hits right in the center and back of the tongue.  Rather unremarkable to be honest but not bad.  Several sips in the 8.5% alcohol content is more noticeable, as are the flavors of the grain.  As the aftertaste sets in, the flavor of the grains becomes more evident.  The sweetness in the aftertaste helps balance.

Mouthfeel:  The beer really has a fascinating mouth feel - the carbonation hits your tongue as usual and then is quickly masked malty sweetness covers the tongue.

Drinkability:  Pretty smooth - the alcohol is not really that noticeable - until several sips in.  Then it's more evident.  One of these is okay, but I feel like two would be too much.

This isn't my favorite style to begin with, so bearing that in mind it's a decent brew, but still, not one I'm putting on the list to get again.

Hop in the Dark - Deschutes Brewery

I was talking to someone to my buddy Allan (who I will henceforth in this blog be referring to as the Beer Genius) about what's a good beer to taste for Halloween.  Since I think pumpkin beers are, for lack of a better word, dumb, I decided to go with Deschutes Brewery's Hop in the Dark as it has a certain Edgar Allan Poe quality about the title - and it has hops in it.  I like hops.

Poured into a Piraat tulip.  The first thing you notice is that this beer is DARK.  I know I've said the other ones are dark, but you cannot see through this one at all - it's pitch black.  The head rises up to a solid inch and then very slowly descends, but stays creamy through the whole descent, licking the edge of the glass.

This chameleon of a beer will fool you when you stick your nose into the glass.  The delicious aroma of hops, not dark malts, greets your nose with sweet citric tangy goodness of the Cascade hops used to make this brew.  This is a beer I could smell all day, and the surprise of the hops really adds to the overall character of this beer.

Time for a taste!  The flavor is very unique - the buttery Cascade hops are there for sure, dominating the palate, but somewhat subdued by the black malt that gives this beer its color and melded together to create a really unique flavor, one I wouldn't initially think could be pulled off, but Deschutes does an excellent job.  The mouthfeel created is lighter than you would think for the color of the beer, but it's a great balance to the flavor that keeps the beer from being overpowering.

All in all a fantastic beer - unique, full of flavor and balanced.   Great job, Deschutes!

bashah - Stone Brewing Co./Brewdog

Pulled at Najas into a tall pilsner? (I don't know what the glass is called) - dark opaque auburn.  Low creamy head that just sits atop of the beer.  This beer has fantastic head retention that sticks to the side of the glass like a stout.

Nose in and - yep, this is a Stone all right.  (Ever notice how every Stone smells exactly the same?  It's not a bad smell - smells like freshness, like it was just pulled fresh from their stainless steel tanks - it has that aluminum metallic smell.). At any rate, it's difficult to pick up much from the nose as a result - some malts perhaps.  It reminds me of backyard brewing though.  Random, I know.

On with the tasting - it tastes like a stout?  Not much to say about this one though nothing is really bad per se - dark barley, check, low hop bill, check...it may be that I was spoiled on the previous collaboration where they built the most uniquely flavored beer i've had to date, but the novelty of collaboration is lost when you create a fairly run of the mill stout that honestly tastes like something I brewed a couple years ago.  Again not a bad beer by any means and perhaps the freshest tasting stout I've had in a while, but I expected more from these two breweries.  Sometimes you get what you get.

Kasteel Donker - Brouwerij Van Honsebrouck N.V.

Pulled at Najas into a small tulip.  Decent balanced head subsiding to a lacey crown - I bet this sucker is sweet.  Color is an opaque brown with greenish tinge - it reminds me of a homebrew that has been overhopped.  I'm down.
The smell however is not hoppy at all - far, far from it. like the name shouldve told me, this is probably a doppelbock or a quadrupel or some form of Belgian.  It smells just like a Chimay blue.
One sip and you would think you just had drank diluted cherry cough drops - this beer is cloyingly sweet.  Its hard to make out anything but the overpowering alcohol right in the middle of your tongue like a pool of syrup.  Too sweet for me -like a cherry Alize with a hint of beer.  Some like that I'm sure...I'm not a fan.
It could just be the style I'm not a fan of as I've had quads or Belgians that haven't hit my palate the way my favorites in the style have but this beer is one I'm going to have to pace myself through.  I wouldn't do this one again.

Rugbrod - The Bruery

I had another beer from this brewery which i wasnt too fond of (I believe it was Black Orchard, which was cloyingly sweet and just too much sweet for a beer).  But my buddy Allan loves this brewery,  so I decided to give them another shot with the Rugbrod, a "Julebryg-style dark rye ale."  The Bruery describes their beer as "a deep auburn colored robust Danish-style ale with spicy rye and caramelly, bready malts."  With a name and description like that i am expecting something really interesting.

Poured into a Chimay goblet.  Lower than expected head but came up nicely after poured - just the right amount which evacuates back into a lacey crown.  This beer is completely black and when held up to the light just the slightest of blood red hue shines through.  This is a DARK beer.

The nose gives up the scent of that dark roasted malt you would expect from a beer this dark.  Sweet bready aromas come out.  This smells like a good stout.  On with the taste!

The first sense you get is the lighter body than you might think - I believe this could be a result of the rye malt used.  The bottle mentions the spiciness but it's nothing more than a hint that pops instantly on the beginning and on the back of the aftertaste.


All in all, a good but not great brew.  The name Indicates a more interesting beer than what Im drinking - about the only interesting thing abou this beer is the rye, and I'm not sure that the rye malt fits a darker style like what I think this beer is going for.  Still a good beer but not noteworthy.

Danny's Irish Style Red Ale - Moylan's Brewing Company

Whenever I think of red ales, I think of the time we went to Tom's house and brewed.   I was a brew-virgin and brewing a spiced stout (which turned out pretty doggone good) and my buddy Cody was trying his hand at a very hopped Red ale.  So Cody, this one's for you!

Poured into a Sam Adams glass.  Okay, maybe it's just this glass or something, because there was NO froth on the pour of this thing - barely a quarter of an inch of head which rapidly deflated to the lacy top I'm looking at right now.  Half of me blames the glass but the other half blames Beverage Warehouse for LEAVING LIVE ALES OUT ON THE FLOOR.  But I digress.  Beautiful red brown gold reminding me of Maine in october, sugar maples and oaks at the peak of color.   The opacity is really balanced, letting just enough light through to create a glow to it rather than being transparent.

Nose in and...Oh my.  The malt on this seeps into your every pore.  It smells like the homebrew shop for all the barley in this.  The glass warned of heavy barley, but I still wasn't prepared for the glorious scent of whole grains that this brew bestows.  I feel like I'm a horse with a feedbag on every time i put my nose into it.  This might be the best smelling malt beer I have ever smelled.

Time to see if the flavor matches - and does it ever!  Smooth yet not too syrupy mouthfeel as the barley essence coats my tongue.  What's amazing about this beer is how despite being all malt on the flavor, it is not overpowering.  The drinkability is interesting too - you never want to stop drinking more but you want to savor every drop and never see the bottom of your glass.  Everything about this beer (minus there being almost zero hop taste) is balanced like a high-performance vehicle.

The more I drink this the more i see this as a "thinking man's beer" - the kind of beer where you go out to the pub, grab a Danny's and ponder the life, universe and everything with a few of your mates.  (I wouldn't normally use non-local slang like "mates" and "blokes" because I find it douchey and reprehensible if you don't hail from said area(in which case it's acceptable), but the word-picture wasn't complete without it, and I'm not so selfish as to hold back from you when i have a mind-blowing word-picture, gosh darn it!)

I have tried to think back to all the Moylan's beers I've had and I can't say that I've ever been disappointed - which even the great Russian River Brewing Company, maker of my beloved Pliny, has failed to do for me.  Every beer has the highest of quality and it's clear that the head brewer is not afraid to take risks.  They hit the nail on the head again with this well crafted ale, and I am definitely making this my top beer when I want to go malt-crazy.

Juniper Pale Ale - Rogue Ales

Poured into a Sam Adams glass.  (Btw, beer drinkers - I bought two of these at my local beer shop and I have to say - there's more gimmick than glass here.  I prefer my Piraat tulip for nearly every brew I have regardless of style if I'm judging it harshly.  End of rant.)  Beautiful golden hue with just a hint of opacity and a thick frothy head.  When you pour this beer initially, it looks like it's going to be your typical headless pale, but it frothed right up nicely.  The first thing I notice is its bouquet of sweet orange, almost tangerine-like quality, which I'm guessing is the byproduct of the meshing of the juniper berries and hops (according to the bottle, they use Styrian Golding, Amarillo and some proprietary hops).  I have to be honest - It's not quite there for me, expecting something a bit more piney in character than what I received.  However one needs to remember this is a spiced beer, and not a true pale, in order to really understand what you're taking in.  No malts on the nose which isn't surprising since it's a pale.


The head quickly recedes as most pales end up doing, so it's time to dive in and see what this brew tastes like.  In the first split second I feel transported to an earthy pine forest, but then I am back again all too quickly and met with what is pretty much a standard-faire pale ale - a very good dry pale ale,  but again not exactly imparted with any uniqueness in the flavoring.  I would like to know if they put the juniper berries in a little earlier what the flavor difference would be, if any.   A little hint of fruity aftertaste at the end.


If you were to ask me in four words what this beer would be, I'd answer, "it's a pale ale?" Just like that, with the questioning intonation.  A fine beer, but nothing to really write home about.  It might make a good session beer, but if I'm going session pales there are probably a few others I'd go with ahead of this one,  either on flavor and price point.  Decent overall.

Drake's Denogginizer - Drake's Brewing

Poured into a Piraat tulip glass.  Popped the bottle cap and couldn't resist sucking in the vapors that escaped - pure Simcoe goodness.  Poured out a darker than expected brown, very similar in color to a Newcastle.  Virtually no head with slight laceyness.  The viscosity is noticeably thick for such a low malt beverage.  The Lacey head sticks to the side of the glass as it is drank.  Drunk?  Dranken?  Never was sure about that one.  Maybe this beer is catching up with me quickly!
The nose smells like a high alcohol IPA (9.75%!) would expect to - the Simcoe hop smell that I love is definitely present but much more subdued - I'd guess that the smell was a result of a lot of dry hopping and not so much late boil add or flameout.
The taste is out of the world - maybe it was the expectation that came with the malt presence on the nose or the high ABV expectation of yet another over-malted IPA, but this one met and exceeded expectations.  Sticky mouthfeel meets piney grapefruity goodness.  Aftertaste left with the perfect balance of sweet alcohol and earthy hop flavor.

All in all one of the finest specimens of an imperial IPA that I have found to date - definitely in my Top 5.  Nothing bad to say about this beer at all.  Well done, Drake's!

Dear Grand Teton Brewing Co....

I like being fair.

In fact, most of my favorite beers have the unfortunate opportunity of having multiple, multiple tastes ensuring that every beer out of their solid establishment is of excellent quality.  Nevertheless, most beers/breweries, if they give me a bad taste in my mouth (literally), they won't get a second shot.

This is one that got a second shot...a swing and a miss.

But I'm getting ahead of myself - I saw a new member trying to throw their hat in the ring on the ever-popular Imperial IPA style that, in this hophead's opinion, is getting too much play.  (Sidebar, breweries that are listening - that's an irrelevant malt flavor with a heavy hop aroma and flavor.  Most of you seem to think that Barleywine and Imperial IPAs are the same.  But I digress.)  That new player was Grand Teton Brewing out of Victor, Idaho with their Lost Continent IPA.

The beer had a way more than necessary malt character and again mixed the mark that so many other Imperial IPAs ahead of them have nailed.  The hop aroma was less than acceptable to boot, and there was this weird grassy aftertaste.  It seems that in order to get alcohol over 9% you have to pump up the malt to keep the yeast pumping up the alcohol, but in my opinion, it's not worth it.

So all in all, not a great beer and certainly not worth the price (I believe it was $3 a 12 oz).  Which is fine - I feel the same way about Dogfish Head's 90 Minute IPA, which is in its own rite a good beer, and a fantastic brewery (their Palo Santo is a fantastic brew).

But then I got to Sweetgrass APA.

Everything about this beer screams trying too hard.  Hop pictures all over the label?  Check.  Wheat pictures?  A little Michelob, but sure, check.  Original gravity?  That's cool - and irrelevant.  IBUs?  That's novel.  This is what really got me - 8.4 Lovibond?  1)  No one uses Lovibond anymore, it's SRM.  Next - who cares?  I can tell the color of the beer by pouring it.  You're selling to consumers, not brewers.

The beer pours just like Lost Continent.  It smells just like Lost Continent.  It tastes like a watered-down version of Lost Continent - complete with the weird grassy aftertaste.

In the immortal words of GWB, "Fool me once, shame on me - fool me twice - you can't get fooled again."  This brewery has gotten a rare second chance and has failed miserably.    I'd avoid this brewery if any other options.

Hefepoizen - Greg

Back from a two-week beach-bender in Maui and ready for a brew!  Let's start w/ a homebrew that I received from my buddy Greg:

Look:  Poured into my favorite tulip glass out of a 12 oz bottle - Not much head retention because, well, there's not much head.  (This is not too surprising per most of the homebrews I've had.)  Finally some of that carbonation yeast kicks up in a few seconds, releasing a low lacey head.  Color is a really beautiful hazy golden per the hefeweizen style.

Smell:  Smells like a hef too!  Lemony citrus and esters are apparent, and it has an almost light smell.  The fragrance makes it hard for me resist drinking it...so why wait?

Flavor:  I expected a sweeter flavor to match the esters I smelled, but the lemony citrus is what powers through, almost breaching the sour ale barrier.  I've sampled some of the best sour ales and am not a sour ale fan, but these I like.

Mouthfeel:  Really, really good.  The carbonation is not too much or too little, despite poor head retention.  Coats the mouth beautifully and the body is just right for the flavor.

Drinkability:  You could put back a few of these.  Smooth, light refreshing flavor, solid beers for a summer cookout or just a relaxing Friday night.  The Hefepoizen is not bad...not bad at all.  Good work, Greg!

An Andy Rooney Moment: Proper care of live Ales

Sit down with me if you will and imagine me as a bitter old octogenarian with eyebrows looking to jump through the TV screen and strangle you as I deliver one of my top beer pet peeves.

As readily apparent from my reviews, I fancy the hoppier side of ales - a good IPA or pale ale is truly a work of art, in my humble opinion - as I've grown in understanding the brewing process through education and hands-on experience with brewing my own beer, I have a greater appreciation for how much work and precision goes into these beers.

Now, some of the dynamics of the more extreme hoppy ales (like the Imperials) are that the yeast is kept live in bottle to deliver that fresh, crisp taste of fresh hops - this requires a low temp in order to keep that yeast cold enough to stay dormant and not continue to feed - adding some fun organic chemistry reactions that would bore the pants off most of you.

As a result of maintaining a fine product, brewers ask all their suppliers to refrigerate their wares upon receipt - some (like the fine folks at Russian River) REQUIRE all their suppliers to do so, others (like the fine folks at Moylan's) think it's obvious enough by the big red and white warning label saying "Live Beer - Keep Refrigerated" on the bottle.

So nothing pains my heart when I walk into a brewshop and see brews from the above referenced breweries or others that require refrigeration sitting on the rack, standing at room temperature.  I actually called one guy out at my local place, showing him the Moylan's "keep refrigerated" label he had out on a non-refrigerated rack.  His excuse was, "If I had my way, we'd have all these refrigerated!"  As I looked past him at the three empty coolers on the wall,  then back at him, then back at the coolers...Well, I don't want to take the chance at pissing this guy off, as he's my potential Pliny the Younger supplier so I'll leave it at that.

So to all those brew suppliers - those labels on those beers aren't just for show - sometimes, just sometimes, they contain pertinent information about their care.  I'm Andy Rooney.