Rivertown Brewery Co.'s Helles Lager

Hello Beer Lovers!

You've probably noted that I haven't had any new beer reviews the past couple months. Don't worry, it's not because I haven't had any delicious and interesting beers .. trust me, I've tried a lot of good stuff recently. I'll blame it on writer's block. For me, there's nothing better than a good food pairing to get me excited about blogging a new beer.

Today I'm reviewing a beer from Rivertown Brewing Co., a new microbrewery located here in Cincinnati. The beer is their Helles Lager, a German Bavarian style lager. The beer poured with a golden-straw color, and had a robust, fizzy head. The aroma was inviting, fresh and sweet. The first sip was very refreshing. Served at about 40F, this was a great contrast to the 90F out on the deck. Although not heavy on either hops or malt, it had great classic flavor. While some of the lager imports can taste skunked (Heiniken, St Pauli Girl, Beck's), this tasted extremely fresh, which isn't surprising given it is brewed in small batches just 15 miles away from here. I drank this beer with home-made pizza grilled out on my deck. Trader Joe's sells some great pizza dough that makes pizza easy (hint: be liberal with the olive oil). Grills are great for pizzas as they get much hotter than a convection resulting in a crispy crust. Overall, I give this crisp, refreshing, local beer a 9.0 score and my pizza a 10.0!.

More posts coming soon - My writers block is officially lifted!

Cheers,

Zack

New Holland Brewery Dragon's Milk

Hello Beer Lovers,

Tonight I'm reviewing a beer I tried at my favorite local watering hole: The Brazenhead Irish Pub. This giant, 3-story Irish pub is a 1/2 mile walk from my condo. The Brazenhead has treated me good the past 4 years. They have great free beer tastings on the second Tuesday of each month. They have a beer challenge that if you drink all 52 beers they serve (in less then a year) then you get a T-shirt! I accepted this challenge 3 years ago and have since been wearing my T-shirt proudly around Cincinnati. The Brazenhead will be one of my best memories of Cincinnati, and I look forward to taking my kids there sometime in the distant future.

While the Brazenhead has a decent tap selection (about 14 beers with 4 of them rotating regularly), their bottle selection always contains some unique treasures. Meghan and I ordered 2 beers, I got an Avery IPA from the tap and Meghan ordered a bottle of New Holland's Dragon Milk Stout. We each tasted both and decided we liked each others better! When I tasted the Dragon Milk, I instantly new I had to write a review on it.

The waitress brought out the beer in the bottle and gave us the honors of pouring. The beer was almost pitch black and generated a dense, dark head that had good retention. This beer produced a strong aroma of coffee and whisky, not surprising given that it was bourbon barrel aged. I can understand where New Holland came up with the name for this beer. This is perhaps the creamiest beer I've ever had. I kept thinking I was drinking an Irish Car Bomb (Guinness + Irish Whiskey + Bailey's). Melted milkshake also came to mind. While the dairy notes were in the foreground, I also picked up coffee, toffee, cocoa, apple, and toasted marsh mellows. I had this beer with Brazenhead's Black and Blue Burger, and didn't think it was a great combination. Next time I have the Dragon's Milk I'll enjoy it with a fruit and cheese platter. Overall I give this beer a 9.3 / 10 and highly recommend it.

Thanks for reading - Enjoy your week!

Zack

DogFish Head Burton Baton

Hello Beer Drinking Friends!

Tonight I'm reviewing a beer from my overall favorite brewery, Dogfish Head! For about the last five years, I've been enjoying their beers on a regular basis. They have such a great, unique approach to the beer business. They don't try to appeal to the typical beer drinker, rather they create extreme beers .. beers the test the definition of beer. They gather ingredients from all over the world and experiment with crazy brewing techniques. I can guarantee you this, the beers of this brewery will get a lot of blog entries from me!

Tonight I'm having Dogfish Head's Burton Baton. At $15 a four pack, this beer better be great. The bottle says it's a oak-aged imperial IPA with a 10% ABV. Let's see what I thought of it.

The beer poured nicely, with a decent sized head of foam. The color was a deep amber, slightly opaque. The beer had a big aroma. Besides the overwhelming hops profile, I noted burnt sugars and alcohol. I took a big first sip. It hit me hard. Hops, hops, and more hops hit my tongue, and a big wave of alcohol taste hit the back of my mouth, enough so to make my cheek quiver. Despite the big taste, the beer finished surprisingly smooth. Here is where I noted a complex mixture of malts and I picked up on the flavors of the oak barrel. As I drank more of the beer, I no longer got shocked by the 1-2 punch of the hops and alcohol, and I enjoyed the complex malt profile more and more. I enjoyed this beer with a jalapeno and onion turkey burger and thought it was a great pairing. I give this beer a 9.5 out of 10.

Cheers and drink on!

Zack

Mountain Sun Lost Virtue

Hello Beer Lovers,

Today I'm reviewing a beer that I had while on vacation in Colorado. Meghan and I recently took a ski trip out to Copper Mountain, and before we got to the resort, we stopped in Boulder for lunch. We went to the brewery Mountain Sun located downtown. This hole-in-the-wall brewery had great vibe about it, it was bustling with locals and had amazing hippy-inspired art on the wall. Our waitress was a beer-pro, eagerly impressing us with her knowledge about each of their craft brews. In fact, she insisted on bringing us any number of free samplers of their brews before we officially ordered. I took her up on that and got a sampler of their Lost Virtue, a Belgian-inspired strong ale that she described as delightfully complex. I loved it, so I ordered a full one, and decided this would be a perfect beer to review.

The beer was served in a 10 oz. snifter glass. It was very dark, almost coffee in color. The head was rich and foamy. The aroma was intense - when I stuck my nose down in the glass I picked up on hazelnuts, mocha, and alcohol. This beer had tremendous mouthfeel, I was expecting a sharp kick in the ass, but it was surprisingly smooth. It had an overpowering coffee and mocha theme, but it had significant sweetness that smoothed it out. As I drank more, the high alcohol taste became more apparent, but perhaps I just wasn't ready for it given that it was only 11:00 AM. Overall, I was impressed with this beer, and my avocado-heavy Monterrey burger was a perfect complement for it. I give the beer a 9.0 / 10. If any of you find yourselves in Boulder, I encourage you to check this place out.

Cheers,

Zack

Flying Dog Raging Bitch

Hello Friends,

It's been a few weeks since I last blogged beer ... but don't be worried, I've had several good beers in that span and plan to post a couple times this week. The beer I'm reviewing here is the Flying Dog Raging Bitch. My co-worker Shaun introduced this beer to me. He was so enthusiastic about this beer, he insisted on giving me a bottle if I promised to blog about it. How could I say no to that? I was excited to try this beer because it comes from one of my favorite breweries. Ever since I learned that Flying Dog won medium size brewery of the year at the Great American Beer Festival in 2009 I have tried several of their beers and have not been disappointed. The Raging Bitch is categorized as a Belgian-style IPA. I love Belgian beers and I love IPAs, but I didn't realize you could mix those styles. Flying Dog's website says that it's an American IPA that's augmented with a Belgian yeast. Interesting. Let's see what I thought about it...

I took the beer with me on a trip back home to my parents in Fenton, MI and divied it up into four sampling glasses; one for my dad, mom, Meghan, and myself. The beer poured a rich amber color with a nice, fluffy head. The hoppy aroma hit me immediately, but I also noted florals and sweetness. I took a big first sip. The citrus notes were powerful and made me think of grapefruit. At the same time, there were strong grassy, hoppy flavors. I also was able to pick up on the belgian yeast, which combined with the tartness and hoppiness really made this beer complex. This beer was 8.3% alcohol, and while I could pick up on the ethanol in the aftertaste, I would have pegged this beer at a lower %Alc.

Overall, this was an excellent beer that was right up my alley. I give it a 9.6 out of 10. Thanks Shaun!

Cheers,

Zack

Ithica Flower Power

Hello All,

Today a group of my GE buddies happy houred at a local place near our new office buildings in West Chester, Ohio. The place is called The Dinglehouse, and is a scotish brew pub. I really like this place. On the upside, all of the women wait staff wear kilts. On the downside, all of the male wait staff wear kilts too. They have a good selection of draft beers, around 20 or so, mostly craft brews and the classics from Great Britain.

My second beer of the evening was an Ithica Flower Power. The Ithica Beer Company is out of Ithica New York, and up to this point I haven't had much exposure to their beers. The Flower Power, as you have probably guessed, is hop heavy. Its classified as an American IPA and it carries a heafty punch at 7.5% alcohol.

The beer was brought out in a 20 ounce imperial pint glass. The head was big and white and contrasted significantly with the darker, caramel color of the beer. Despite being outside (yes, it was 66F and sunny on this March 10th Ohio day), and having a slightly congested nose, I could smell the hoppiness of this beer from over a foot away. I took a sip, and as expected, was pleased. If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a huge fan of IPAs and haven't found a bad one yet. I'm still trying to educate myself on hop varieties and their origins, but if I had to guess, these would be Cascadian hops. I didn't pick up many citrus notes from this beer, rather I almost tasted metallic notes, but maybe that was just the heavy % alcohol. Nonetheless, overall I was quite pleased and give this beer a 9.0. My friend Vidhu, who also had this beer at this happy hour, gave the beer a 8.82. Pictured in the photo are two other beer-loving friends, Jason and Trevor.

As always, thanks for reading, and have a great rest of your week! -Zack

St Peter's Cream Stout

Hello!

This evening I'm reviewing St. Peter's Cream Stout. Before last Thursday, I had never seen or heard of this beer or its brewery. One of my MBA buddies, Alex, gave this beer to me. His family owns a retail wine store, and they also stock a few good brews.

The beer comes in uniquely-shaped 1 Pint, 0.9 oz. green bottle with the St. Peter's Brewery logo embossed right into the glass. Impressive. For some reason, I felt rich and high class just being in the presence of this beer. The beer poured nicely and resulted in a rich, mahogany body and perfectly-sized camel-colored head. The looks of this beer continued to impress me and I kinda had the urge to go put on a dress shirt and blazer to match the aurora this beer was creating in my living room.

I took a sip of the beer and was instantly delighted. This beer was mildly carbonated, but the zip of sweetness tickled my taste buds. True to cream stout style, this beer had a silky, almost milky, mouthfeel. This stout had subtle chocolate, coffee bean, and burnt sugar notes combining to form an overall smokey malt flavor profile. Very smooth and pleasure to drink. From start to finish this beer made me feel good. I give this beer a 9.4 score. Thanks Alex for introducing me to this great beer!

Cheers, Zack.

Bodington's Pub Ale

Hello Beer Drinkers!

Tonight I'm reviewing Bodington's Pub Ale. The can says that the beer was established in 1778 - any beer that's been around that long has got to be good, right? I wanted to review this beer partly because I'm very impressed with the can technology. Guinness invented the technology as a means to make a canned beer more draft-like.

This is how it works: There is a tiny ping-pong ball inside the can, and this ball has a very small pin-size hole. A normal can of beer is pressurized with just CO2, however this Guinness technology also uses liquid nitrogen to increase the amount of pressure. When the can is sealed, beer and liquid nitrogen seep into the ping-pong ball and the can is equally pressurized, both inside and outside of the ping-pong ball. When a young chap opens the beer, there is an initial release of pressure from the majority of the can, but not enough pressure release to explode all over. However, what really makes this technology is what occurs in the following several seconds as you start to pour your beer. That tiny ping-pong ball is continually releasing its pressure and it takes a while because there is only that small pin-size hole. This continual release of pressure causes chain-reactions with the rest of the beer agitating the bubbles to be very small diameters. This is what creates the dense, creamy head we enjoy in our Guinness's, Belhaven's, Murphy's Stouts, and Boddingtons cans!

On to the actual review: I flipped up the tab of my Boddingtons and heard that delightful release of nitrogen. As I poured, it took a good 30 seconds for the head to settle into a rich, creamy top layer. This beer tastes great if you're in the mood for something you can sit back and drink a lot of. The beer has a slight sour taste, but it's subtle and well-balanced with the sweetness and maltiness this beer offers. This isn't a beer for us hop-heads, but is a nice change of pace if you want a full-flavored pale golden ale. While normally I'd consider fish and chips a good match for an English ale, I paired it with some home-made chicken fried rice, and it went great together. Overall, I give Boddington'a Pub Ale an 8.9 score.

Once again - Thanks for reading. Cheers, Zack.

Sam Adams Noble Pils

Hello Beer-Drinking, Beer-Loving Friends,

This week I'm reviewing the Sam Adams Noble Pils. This is a season beer that is released in late winter. The bottle says it is supposed to remind us that the warm days of spring are just a few weeks away. Hopefully that's true!

I don't really drink a lot of pilsners. I normally opt for the more robust ales, porters, and stouts, so light lagers and pilsners often get neglected when I order at bars or choose six-packs at the store. The only pilsner I drink on a regular basis would be Miller Lite when I'm beating my college buddies in beer pong. So, I don't have a great baseline to compare to. However, I'm not sure if there is a good baseline for this beer. The beer is described as a bright flavored and lively but with some great hops. They claim the beer is made from all 5 noble hops from the world's oldest growing regions. So a light, refreshing pilsner with a good dose of hops? Sounds enticing, let's see what I thought about it:

The beer poured with a rich, thick head - much like most other Sam Adams brews, and much unlike a Miller Lite. The beer was clear yellow and transparent, typical of pilsners. When I put my nose right up in it, I could smell hops, but it wasn't overwhelming like some of the IPAs I have reviewed already. I took a sip. And I took another sip. My overall impression was that there was just not a lot to this beer. It was refreshing (although I didn't need refreshing because it's still the dead of winter and 27F outside). It did have citrus notes to it. It did have some hoppy notes to it, more than Miller Lite, but much less than an IPA. I finished the beer rather quickly as there was nothing heavy about it to help slow me down. I think this beer would be much better served in the summer time, perhaps on a pontoon boat. Overall, I give this beer a 6.8 score.

Have a great week - Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Zack

Arcadia Cannon Ball

Hello Beer Loving Friends,

This weekend Meghan and I travelled up to Michigan to celebrate a few birthdays (hers and her Moms). On Friday, we stayed at my parents house where I had some of my Dad's great home brews. I'll be sure to review some of these in the future.

On Saturday night, we went to dinner at the Clarkston Union. This is a very unique restaurant and definite beer lovers mecca. The restaurant is a converted church, with the seating still the original pews and stained glass throughout. There were about 40 beers on tap (all good ones, i.e. no buds, no coors, no miller).

I chose a beer from Arcadia Brewery. While I've had a few beers from that brewery before, I had never had the Arcadia Cannon Ball. I wasn't sure what style this beer was when I ordered it, and thought it might be a good test of my beer identifying skills. The waitress brought the beer out and I was impressed the beer was almost fully to the rim, only about 1 millimeter for the head. The beer had a nice caramel color, mostly translucent. The aroma was crisp and hoppy - very inviting. The enjoyed the first sip, and that told me that this beer was either an IPA or an APA - my favorites. While the hops dominated, I tried to focus on some of the other aspects of the beer to educate my palate. I noted sweetness, perhaps citrus or apple. The beer wasn't particularly strong, probably only about 5% alcohol. I'd consider this beer in the same category as Sierra Nevada. This beer gets a score of 8.8 from me.

Thanks again for reading and contributing. Happy Valentines Day. Cheers, Zack.

Bell's Two Hearted Ale

Hello Friends -

For my first official blog entry, I wanted it to be on one of my favorite beers. Normally my fridge is stocked with a pretty decent variety. Meghan lets me keep a whole shelf full of beers, and I take full advantage. To the left is a quick peak on my current stock. This serves as a preview of what some of my next blog entries will analyze!

It was tough decision, as it always is, and I went with the Bell's Two Hearted Ale. I've probably had this beer about 20 or 30 times in my life. The beer poured well, with the head quickly developing, but also quickly subsiding. I was struck by its great, hoppy aroma I could smell from over a foot away. The taste was crisp, and refreshing, which is surprising given its a 7% alcohol beer. There was powerful citrus notes, but the hops were the overwhelming theme for this beer. I think Bell's Brewery classifies this as an IPA, but some might consider it a imperial IPA, because its notably stronger than my Sierra Nevada IPA benchmark. As I finish the beer, the hoppiness is subsiding, and some malt flavors start to take over. It's probably because my olifactory senses are tapped out from absorbing all those hop particles. Overall, this beer was delight to drink. I'm going to give it a 9.5 rating.

Thanks for reading - Cheers, Zack.

Welcome to my Blog

Hello friends!

Well, as you've noticed, I've decided to start a blog about Good Beer.

So why a blog? We all make New Year's resolutions. We rarely keep them. Mine this year was to educate my palate on the wonderful world of beer. I wanted to be able to dissect a beer by analyzing its color, aroma, head, mouthfeel, taste, and aftertaste. I wanted to become an expert on all beer styles - from IPAs (my current personal favorite) to Stouts to English Ales to the amazing stuff they create in Belgium. Well, it's February, and I haven't made much progress on my resolution. In fact, I just drank a new beer for me - Flying Dog's Classic IPA - and gave it no thought on how I felt about it. Sure, it tasted great (I haven't found a bad IPA yet), but how was it compared to DogFish head's 60 minute? or a Sierra Nevada? or to MoJo IPA? What were the subtle differences?

So, to help my goal of educating my palate, and to help spread the word about great beers, I introduce to you Zack's Thoughts On The Good Beers He Tries. We'll see how this blog evolves. I'm committing right now to blogging at least once a week. I encourage you all to post comments. My palate needs a lot educating, so if I say something totally bogus (such as "this Hopslam is very malty") please call me out on it. A good blog is only successful if readers contribute.

Thanks for reading - Cheers,

Zack