I decided to try Flying Dog’s new seasonal, Garde Dog, tonight. It’s a Bière de Garde, if you couldn’t tell from the name.
It pours a crystal clear pale yellow/amber color with a very thin head that quickly dissipates. It smells of malty sweetness with a slight hint of spice. The taste was lacking. It was sweet and light in flavor with lots of malt and a little spiciness. The beer is very light bodied and goes down like water.
Now, some of that might sound good, but for a Bière de Garde, it lacked body, it lacked flavor, and it lacked yeast. If someone handed me a glass of this, I would’ve thought it was Budweiser, or another macro lager. I was not at all impressed and will not be buying this in the future. That being said, it was drinkable and good for a hot day, but not if you’re looking for a Bière de Garde. In my opinion, it’s not worth trying if you’ve never had a Bière de Garde. It is not a good representation of the style as it lacked any earthiness.
Sierra Nevada decided to brew a fresh hop beer in the spring. In order to do that, they had to find a place that grew hops in the spring. This brought them to New Zealand, where they got the hops and immediately dried and shipped them to their brewery in California. Their Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale is like no beer I’ve had before. It has a very different hop profile than most similar beers.
The beer pours a nice amber color with a small off-white head. It smells of floral hops with a hint of pine and an ever so slight malty sweetness. The beer tastes immediately of hops. It’s an earthy, floral, aromatic type flavor, which is not something I’ve ever had before (no surprise considering I’ve never had a beer made with hops from New Zealand). There’s some piney notes in there along with a little malt flavor to give it the perfect amount of balance. It’s a bit oily in the mouth, but that was expected from the fresh hops. The beer is a bit hoppy for an American Pale Ale (the classification on BA), but it’s still a great beer. I highly recommend this for someone looking for something a bit different… so long as you like hops. It’s available in 24 oz. bottles.
George posted this on his site, but I felt it deserved another mention. It’s too funny to pass up. This is how I feel at work about 78% of the time…
Julian’s in Providence is now on Beer Advocate after being submitted about 2 months ago. If you’re a fan of Julian’s and beer, get over there and write a review. They had Stone Imperial Russian Stout on tap tonight… Holy crap! It’s amazing (much better than the bottle).
I’m giving a little heads up to anyone in the RI/MA area about this. Julio’s Liquors in Westboro, MA will be holding their annual Spring Beerfest this Sunday, June 1 from 1:00-4:00pm. I have heard nothing but great things about Julio’s. I’ll be at the beerfest and I’ll definitely report back on Sunday night. If you can make it, head over. Look for me and say “Hi”. I’m the guy that looks like my BeerAdvocate avatar.
Tonight I had the Schneider-Brooklyner Hopfen-Weisse from the Schneider Brewery in Germany. This beer was made in collaboration with Garrett Oliver of the Brooklyn Brewery. Two versions were made. This one, the German version, and an American version (called Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse). I tasted the American one at Nikki’s a couple weeks ago (and have a bottle sitting here waiting to do a side-by-side with the German version).
I wanted to try the German one so that was tonight’s beer. It came in a 500 ml bottle, perfect to fit in my 500 ml weissbier glass. The beer pours a hazy pale amber color with a thick white head. It smelled of piney hops and a slight breadiness. The beer was dry hopped with Hallertau hops from Germany, which have a nice piney aroma and flavor. Up front was those hops flavors and as the beer warmed, I got a more yeasty, bready, malty flavor. It balanced out really nicely. This was a very good beer and something that I hope Brooklyn and Schneider make a regular occurrence. Even at 8.2% ABV, I could barely notice it. It was a nice easy drinking beer and great for a beautiful sunny and warm day like today.
If you like wheat beers (and even if you don’t), this is a must try (as is the American version). Pick it up while it’s still available.
On Saturday, my brother arranged a bachelor party for me. It involved kayaking and then dinner and beer. We went to the Mews Tavern in Wakefield, which boasts 69 beers on tap (in fact, I don’t think they have any bottles, or at least no craft beer in botles. While there, I had 2 beers. The first was Arrogant Bastard. I had never had it on tap, and while I enjoy it in the bottle, I don’t think it’s anything spectacular. It’s a very different beer on tap, meaning it’s a whole lot better. I think it’s the hops. For some reason, it tastes a lot hoppier on draft than from the bottle.
The second beer I got was Magic Hat’s Sprint 08 Odd Notion. I don’t have a very good relationship with Magic Hat. I have never had a beer from them I really enjoyed. That is, of course, until Saturday. I had heard their Odd Notions were good. So I figured I’d try it. This one was an Irish Red Ale. The beer was a ruby brown color. I didn’t know what it was at first, the beer menu called it an “Irish Ale”. It smelled of roasted and caramel malts. The beer was light and easy drinking. The flavor, however, was that of a much bigger beer. It tasted of chocolate malts, roasted malts, and caramel malts. There was virtually no hop flavor to it at all, yet it wasn’t super sweet. I could have easily drunk this beer all night. It changed my mind about Magic Hat, and I now look forward to visiting their brewery when we head to Vermont for our honeymoon.
One of my former student employees told me his band, Capitol Hill (you didn’t think I was talking politics, did you?), was going to be playing at The Living Room last night. I decided to check it out since I had been meaning to see them a few times. They’re a hip hop act with a live band. There are 2 vocalists/rappers (they’re the ones who used to work for me) and a 4 piece band (drum, sax, guitar, bass). I was impressed. They played a mix of originals and covers, and some of the covers were just samples from songs. They played 5 or 6 songs during their short 45 minute set, but they had the small crowd, which was mainly there to see the second band, on their feet and groovin’.
Shoeless Jeff and Scott Free, the 2 rappers, are actually making an album of educational songs for children. You can check that project out at The Smart Songs. The album should be released in July and will be sold through Highlights magazine.
Following their set at The Living Room, we headed to Tazza Caffe to check out The Press Project, a similar hip hop/soul/funk/R&B group from Boston. I was pretty impressed with them. They had Tazza movin’ and groovin’. Their songs were a little smoother and more groove oriented than Capitol Hill. Opening for them was Iveoka, who has a beautiful voice, singing soul and R&B. They’re playing next Friday at the Milky Way in Jamaica Plain.
The other night I decided to try the whole bottle of Rogue’s St. Rogue Red Ale. I had tried a taste of this at a beer tasting event earlier in the month. The beer poured a deep red amber color with a small white head. It smelled of aromatic hops and malt. The taste was nicely balanced with the hops up front and the sweeter malts in the back. I really enjoyed this one. It was a nice easy drinking beer. It was full bodied and very enjoyable.
Last night I tried Dogfish Head’s Immort Ale. I had heard it’s a good addition to my “cellar” and now I believe it. The beer pours a reddish brown color with a small head. It smells of malt and hint of vanilla. The taste is all over the place. It’s hot from the alcohol, a little too hot for my tastes. It’s got some maple and vanilla flavor and it’s sticky and malty. There’s a touch of hops. It’s drinkable, but only mildly. I’m going to buy more at some point and age it. It should age well and balance out the flavors and lose some of the heat.
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