A Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale

Lagunitas - A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale – Petaluma, California

“Life is Uncertain. Don’t Sip.” Is written on the label for this beer; along with a scantily clothed woman of some sort and the cap has…a dog on it? I’m all confused about the message this beer is trying to get across. Scantily clothed women like dogs? Anyways, it is a very golden brew, with a LOT of hops. I tend to shy away from really hoppy beers normally, but there is something different about this one that makes it very drinkable for me. It has a really strong taste at first as it rumbles around your mouth, overwhelming the taste buds a bit, but the after taste is very light. This is a great summer beer for that reason, and I would definitely buy it again or order it at a bar if I saw it! As a wise man once said, “This is a serious beer.”

Full Sail Amber

Full Sail Amber - Hood River, Oregon

This is an interesting beer because it is “independent employee – owned” with a robust staff of only 47 people. (I learned all of this from the bottle – go labels!) Basically this is like my dream come true career, to be a part of some sort of Oregon/West Coast based brewing company that brews good beers (as opposed to crappy ones?). And this is what Full Sail Amber is – a darn tasty beer. Like I have said before, I’m a fan of Ambers, and this one is pretty much the epitome of a solid Amber Ale. It’s not offensive in taste at all, and goes down very smoothly. I salute you, 47 employees of Full Sail Brewing! Not only did you create a delicious beer, but you did it in an awesome part of the country AND you still own and control all of your own shit! God bless America.

ps - I realize Milwaukee, Wisconsin is not a place on the West Coast, and Old Milwaukee's Best should not be talked about in a post about West Coast beers or breweries. But it's the crappiest crap I've ever had. So I had to phinagel a diss in.

Hacker–Pschorr Munich Gold

Hacker–Pschorr Munich Gold – Munich, Germany

Ah, yes, the crisp refreshing taste of a German lager. The master German brewers have successfully created a beer that has the perfect beer color, and perfect beer flavor; although there really is nothing special about this one! I can think of many uses for it – it would make a great summertime beach beer, tasting especially good on a hot day when you have worked up a particularly beady mustache sweat. Heck, if it was Spring Break and the time was right I would just shower this beer all over me when I got home from a day at the beach (making sure to drink some as I did it). Refreshing no? No, maybe not to you, but to me a beer shower would be quite a life accomplishment. Why didn’t I think of this when I was in college? Dang.

Wild Raspberry Ale

Wild Raspberry Ale (Great Divide Brewing) – Denver, Colorado

Skepticism. I am overly skeptical about any beer that is “berry” flavored. Or fruit flavored. Berries and fruitiness are just not what I want in a typical beer I suppose. I usually avoid them, but this time I was forced to buy one because Jessica Corey Berry Johnson Dupont made me. I figured – what the heck - we are splitting this, I’ll only have to drink half. One thing that I failed to realize though is that unlike many fruity or berry flavored beers this beer is an Ale, NOT a wheat beer. I think this is ultimately what made the difference upon taking my first sip. It was not gross! Yes, it tasted like raspberry, BUT it did not have that gross wheaty taste after it! (FYI - Not a fan of wheat beers if you didn't pick up on that yet) So maybe I just need to scour the shelves of Total Wine for more fun, fruity ALES – and open up my girly beer repertoire a little more so I don’t end up being the girl ordering a Yeungling while the two guys I’m with order Blue Moon’s…

BBC Saison (Farmhouse Ale)

BBC Saison (Farmhouse Ale) - Louisville, Kentucky

BBC Saison (Farmhouse Ale) – Louisville, Kentucky – This is a beer I was apprehensive about when I first picked it up based off of its name. Saison. What the hell does that mean? Images of a Paris street corner flash through my mind - bright colors and clothing, aristocratic people sitting in the sun using 19th century white umbrellas to shade their fair European skin from the midday heat; this isn’t the typical image I get in my head when I prepare myself to drink a beer. Good thing I looked a little harder and realized I missed the second part of the title – Farmhouse Ale. Images of hay, pigs, cow manure, and red barns invade my Paris street corner, equalizing the image into a…drinkable beer? Surprise this beer actually tastes pretty good! It’s a little hoppy but not overwhelmingly so, and leaves a floral sort of after taste. So maybe that’s what you get when you cross Paris with a Kentucky farm…SAISON.

PS - I have since looked up what a "Saison" is. Wikipedia is good for so many things! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saison --- I'm pumped there was this whole other type of beer out there that I have never heard of. Who knows what else I will discover on my journey through the Hidden Brewery.

Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale - Guest Blog!!!

My currently unemployed roommates decided to write a Guest BerLog ('Beer Blog', like what I did there?) for me today! Look at them being productive, good on them. So this is what they had to say...

So, Donesha and I were sitting on our couch enjoying unemployment when we decided it was time to guest beer blog!! It just so happened that we had two bottles of Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale in our easily accessible beer fridge. Score! Anything with pumpkin automatically peaks our interest, so at 4pm (happy hour somewhere right?) we were ready to taste test. After discussing the ale for about 30 seconds we soon realized that Donesha's decades of spicy food consumption has created a vast difference in our taste bud sensitivity. And so you lucky folks will get two different reviews. You can choose which one to trust more (I'm just gonna throw out there that I am German and therefore beer is in my blood. Just sayin...)

Sarah - Overall, I enjoyed this ale. It wasn't amazing, but for just a regular go-to beer I liked it. It has a mild flavor, but I do note hints of pumpkin, cinnamon, and cloves. It's kind of like watered down pumpkin pie (which I know doesn't sound great but it works ok here). So, while I wouldn't tell you that you must absolutely run out and buy this beer, if someone were to offer it to you, I'd say take it.

Donesha - As aforementioned by my roommate, unemployment has opened many opportunities to drink at all times of day. While my roommate has brought to your attention that we have very different pallets, I would like to remind anyone reading this that I have been raised on a traditional, patriotic American diet, full of rich flavorful foods with influences from down South soul-food cooking with spicy-as-hell Carribean and Creole influences. Sounds tastey, right? This is in complete contrast to the other reviewer that indulges in traditional foods that are so bland that any slight hint of spice will pique interest from severly flavor deprived taste buds. Don't be fooled by the appearance of authentic German cuisine, there is no salt ANYWHERE. Now to the beer. It's okay. I am assuming that the slight aftertaste of sweetness is supposed to be pumpkin and/or cinnamon. Could be better. I sense no cloves anywhere, which should be extremely obvious considering the obscenely strong flavor of the spice, unless I am astill traumatized from a bad Christmas Ham experience which has put me in a permanent rage against cloves. As for the beer flavor, it tasted like an everyday beer. Easy to drink. Nothing special. Nothing to search for, and nothing to purchase unless your other roommate has left two in the easily accessible beer fridge and is not here to tell you 'no'.

Note from Christy - Buffalo Bill's is from Hayward, CA in case you like to keep track of that kind of stuff. And please feel free to contribute a Guest BerLog whenever you feel so inspired! You could become famous once my Blog gets extremely popular and they make a movie based off it staring Meryl Streep!

Boont Amber Ale

Boont Amber Ale – Boonville, California

Beer number one of twelve new brews that were purchased at Total Wine! [Possibly the best store to ever exist. Find one near you right now.] I have to admit the label of this beer is what drew me towards it, but once I realized it was an Amber Ale I was extra excited. Amber Ales have become my favorite type of beer recently. The Legendary Boonville Beer has a giant bear in the middle of the label making it easy for one to mispronounce this delicious brew as a Boonville Bear. Who drinks a bear? Beer. Crap.

Speaking of bears who else thinks Shark Week should be replaced by Bear Week on the Discovery Channel?? I'm tired of Shark Week, and I really don't think I'm learning anything new from it these days. They just repeat their shows every year with a different narrator/host! Pretty sure I know everything about how the Great White hunts off the coast of South Africa, and I don't want to relearn about it next summer. I thought I was a genius when I thought of this, but it turns out it was not an original idea. Thanks to the internet there is no such thing as an original idea anymore. Check this out, it's hilarious and I agree with every point. Bears are so cool!

Now to the actual beer, please excuse my rant, it happens. It smelled very strongly of malt, dark caramelly malt. The taste is, not surprisingly, very caramel/malt focused, making it a very, very tasty beer. Meaning lots of flavor. In the future I would not pair this brew with any sort of food, as I did this time (pairing it with my chicken wrap dinner…) This is definitely one that needs to be ordered in a bar, and consumed at a leisurely pace out of a pint glass surrounded by friends.