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Nikki’s, moving their tastings to Thursday nights, did a tasting of Southern Tier’s big beers.  We started off with Big Red, an Imperial Red Ale.  It was good, though not really my style.  Kind of mild on the flavors.  We moved on to Hoppe, an Imperial Extra Pale Ale (basically a mild Double IPA).  This had a nice clean crisp flavor to it with a nice malt/hops balance.  Next was my favorite of the night, Un-Earthly, a Double IPA with a lot of floral hops notes.  The hops flavor in this one was very different from anything I’d had before.  Definitely a really good Double IPA.  After that was my least favorite of the night, Jah-Va, an Imperial Coffee Stout.  I rarely find a beer that I dislike, but this was one of them.  It was very syrupy and had too much coffee bitterness to it (and I do like many coffee flavored beers).  It was a bit much for my taste.  The next one fixed that problem.  It was Choklat, and Imperial Chocolate Stout.  This one was excellent.  It was brewed with Belgian chocolate and has a lot of great flavor to it.  It would pair well with fresh Tollhouse cookies.  And last, but certainly not least, was the Imperial Barleywine, Backburner.  This was a nice mellow flavor and very mild for a Barleywine, though that could be because my taste buds were shot at that point after the IPA’s and the stouts.  I’ll have to revisit that one, though I did like it.

All in all, it was a good tasting.  I had never tried any Southern Tier beers before that.  It was nice to try something new and a great brewery from the Northeast as well (they’re from New York).  In addition to the Un-Earthly, the Choklat and Backburner were my next favorites (in that order).  Unfortunately, with the hops shortage, I’m not sure they’ll be able to keep making Un-Earthly.  I’ll have to get a bottle on my next beer run (surprise surprise, next Thursday when he does a Boulder Beer tasting).