Port Brewing Midnight Sessions Lager

Shout out goes to fellow hophead Master Ryan Splinter for providing me with this bomber bottle of lager. He bought a quatro mix case of bombers from Port Brewing at The Beer Yard in Wayne, PA (legit store). I traded a Moylan's Hopsickle for this bottle. Lets get this review going!

Appearance: Barely any head as I pour. It is dark as the Black Hole as I try look through the glass as if it was a telescope. However, when I was pouring it, it appeared watery and not as thick as a stout.

Smell: Wow! Powerful and heart warming burnt chocolate aromas serenade my nostrils. Malts galore (chocolate, smokey, caramelly) and I am liking it a lot, despite my passion for sleeping with hops everyday. Interesting wafts of cardamond, nutty flavored coffee and burnt fig. Can't get my nose to pick out one smell!

Taste: It is as if I am biting into a roasty espresso bean. I wonder if the coffee flavor is from some dank earthy hops, or if this beer is strictly malts?

Mouthfeel: Watery. If this was warmer, I would mistake it for a medium bodied coffee straight black, without leaving you with that nasty coffee breath (instead lovely beer breath :) ).

Drinkability: This was the second beer of my cycle for tonight (had IPA first). Despite the darkness, I would drink it early on in the cycle since it only hits your at 5.0% abv. And I would really like to drink another bomber in all honestly. This was extremely good. It is my first beer of this style so I will give it a 9/10. I need to learn more about the style of Schwarzbier's (style taken from the wonderful Beeradvocate). Cheers!!

Drinking My First Home Brewed...Brew

So the day has finally arrived. Time to see if my hard work (if you want to call it that) paid off by trying a bottle of the first batch I ever made. Remember, the ingredients were sub-par, it was my first time (tee-hee), yadda yadda yadda, and whatever other excuses I can add in here. This bottle was bottled and left for carbonating in the basement at room temperate, ~66 deg. Fahrenheit, for two weeks, then put in the fridge overnight. I'll review it like any other beer, but I'm not expecting much. So I present to you....

Mikey's Pale Ale

Appearance: A very light golden yellow (the pic makes it look amber, but believe me, its yellow), extremely crisp and clear, about half a finger of head that disappears pretty quickly, hell I'm glad/relieved there is any carbonation whatsoever.

Smell: A very light and slight floral hop smell eminates from the brew, with a tinge of either citrus or something sour, I'm a little worried about the sour part...

Taste: Actually, it's not too bad, by that I mean I'm not vomitting, a light citrus hop flavor with almost no malts to speak of, which isn't surprising since if you can remember, the ingredients were the pale ale malt extract and the Booster, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale it isn't, but it's not embarrassingly bad.

Mouthfeel: Watery, light, thin, slightly carbonated, barely any alcohol sensation, but it is alcoholic at least.

Drinkability: Light, watery, thin, barely any noticeable hops, a little sour...hmmm...I've made Coors Light! All joking aside, it is somewhat drinkable in that someone might want to drink more than one to be nice to me, but I don't know how many I could have. The only difference between this beer and the mass produced light beers is a tinge of bitterness, different hop flavors, and a little sourness which I will attribute to sanitization issues, yet the sourness isn't that extreme. Actually I would almost compare this to alcoholic apple juice, like a cider. All in all, considering I had absolutely horrible expectations when sampling the fermenter, I'm pleasantly surprised it turned out ok. It also gives me hope for the batch Jimmy and I brewed. I give this a 3/10, but I'm a little biased because it's my baby! I'll have to give it to the other hopheads to sample and see what they say. Happy home brewing!

Glass type: Sam Adams glass
Serving type: Bottle