lumensoutdoors.org - Page 8
-
100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #36 - May 14, 2009
This thick, black ale is supposed to be fermented with ripe elderberries and therefore have some of the flavor of them. However, neither Sarah nor I could get any elderberry flavor from this beer. The reason for this is that one of the primary malts in the beer is roasted barley, which produces a very roasted, nutty, burnt flavor in the beer. This is normal for a stout or even a lot of porters. However, the strong flavor of that malt does make it hard to tell what else could be going on.
-
100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #35 - May 13, 2009
Okocim
Either I should stop trying Pilsners since they all taste very similar to me, or I should try a whole lot more since I am starting to pick up some subtle flavor differences. This Polish Pilsner pours the same translucent straw color with loads of carbonation and head that you expect from a Pilsner. It tastes like a traditional Pilsner up front, but there’s a marked sweetness in the aftertaste that’s not really very welcome. It’s not nearly as clean tasting a Pilsner as a lot of the Czech ones I’ve tried. That seems to be a characteristic of the style - you should taste it while you’re drinking it, but it gets out of the way quickly and leaves you wanting more.
-
100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #34 - May 12, 2009
Now this was a fantastic beer. It bills itself as an American Style ESB which had me a little nervous, since American Style is code for excessively hopped. Of course being an ESB, the balance was tilted towards hops. But it was not at all the bomb that some of these other beers I’ve tried have been. I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself here.
It pours a great amber color with a small sized white head. The head doesn’t last too long, either. Right away you smell the hops and baking bread. It’s a very pleasant aroma that really entices you to take a drink. The flavor is dominated by the taste of nuts, bread, and bitterness. While it’s rather full bodied, it’s not over done. Everything about this beer is well-balanced and well-made. It’s probably one of the best I’ve had in this experiment so far, and I’d like to go back for a whole six pack of them.
-
100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #33 - May 11, 2009
Julius Echter Hefe-Weiss-Dunkel
The style of tonight’s beer requires a bit of explanation first. Most people know hefeweizens as very light colored, lightly flavored beers. They’re usually straw or almost white in color, depending on which region you get it from. However there’s another kind of wheat beer called the dunkelweizen, meaning dark wheat. These are much darker and more flavorful. There are some truly outstanding ones out there if you know what to look for. Even though I’ve only made one batch of my dunkelweizen (for the BBBQ several years back), I’d say it was one of my favorites.
-
100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #32 - May 10, 2009
All the way from the country of Hawaii comes this Kona beer. Kona has been making inroads in Massachusetts and New Hampshire lately. There was even a rep in the beer store offering taste samples when Lon and I went to pick up this and the UFO White on Saturday. David tells me this is because it’s also being brewed and bottled here on the continent. It’s still a little strange to see Hawaiian beer on the shelves in sunny New England.
-
100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #31 - May 9, 2009
The easy part of this project is drinking beer every day. The hard part is writing about it. I’m not really much of a writer, which is why these updates come in sporadic batches. I have to work up the interest in writing, then crank them all out in a hurry before the mood passes. Entries for the previous two days will be along shortly.
-
100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #29 - May 7, 2009
I’m going to cheat a little bit on this new beer thing, but just this once. I’ve had Duvel before. It was at David’s house when we all got together to watch the 2004 presidential debates. While I got the impression that I did not like it at the time, I didn’t give it a proper review and I’ve been trying to block the whole experience out of my head. So since I got a free one tonight at my usual bar, I decided I could cheat and do a proper review of it. I hope everyone will let me get away with it. I also hope I can get away with not drinking it out of a tulip glass. I’m kind of slumming it with this beer snob thing tonight.
-
100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #28 - May 6, 2009
This is the last of my crazy mixed six pack from deepest, darkest Cleveland. Too bad. I guess after this I’ll have to make some trips to the homebrew store or the store down by work. Anyway.
-
100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #27 - May 5, 2009
Today was the one year anniversary of us moving into our new building at work. Coincidentally, it was also Cinco de Mayo, the traditional American holiday of dressing up in silly hats, smacking pinatas, and switching out our crappy American beer for crappy Mexican beer. As such, we had a party after work with buckets and buckets of crappy Mexican beer. I was hoping for some Negra Modelo, being a fan of that beer, but it was not to be. So seeing an opportunity to grab something new, I pulled out a bottle of Dos Equis Ambar. That’s right, Ambar.
-
100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #26 - May 4, 2009
Hey look, a continental European light lager! As you might have guessed, it’s transparent, straw colored, highly carbonated, moderately hopped, and just a little bit sweet. It’s also fairly crisp and refreshing. How surprising. Unlike other light lagers I’ve had, this one comes from France. I have little to say about it, though. It’s good but it’s not really a standout. If you’re ever in France and need a decent standby beer because you’re sick of wine, this would be a good one to get. But, I wouldn’t really have a reason to pick it out over another import in your local beer store.