Witches' Brew Golden Ale

Let me be the last to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! I hope it was filled with plenty of pumpkin pies and pumpkin ales. We should all be thankful that we live in a time where we have so much variety in our choices of great beer...oh yea, and thankful for family, friends, loved ones, yadda yadda. Anyway, I heard good things about this Belgian beauty and want to give it a try.

Appearance: After popping the cork (I love uncorking beers, don't know why) it pours a clear crisp golden and orange color with plenty of suds rising to the top to form massive amounts of fluffy head thanks to the bottle conditioning (but does not stick around for long).

Smell: Smacked in the nose with citrus hops, orange, some spices, and almost a champagne style smell. There are some other fruits in there, maybe banana, and a bready yeast smell as well. Delightful.

Taste: Some great flavors in this one, bananas, oranges, lemons, and spices. Pineapples also come to mind as it warms up a bit as the spices also come more into play. There is the slightest bit of sweet candy malt in the background, but just enough to let the hops do their thing.

Mouthfeel: Light bodied, smooth, thin, a little watery for what I would expect from most tripels, sufficiently carbonated, a gentle warming alcoholic aftertaste, not as biting or harsh as you might expect.

Drinkability: This might be the easiest drinking tripel I've ever had. Everything about this beer is so pleasant that going through a 750mL bottle is no problem, though you might feel it later at 9.3% abv. The Belgian brewery this beer comes from is Brouwerij Van Steenberge. Obviously this is the first brew from them I've had, so if anyone has recommendations of their other beers, let me know. I highly recommend picking this one up if you see it, even if you're not a Belgian fan. 9/10

Glass type: Duvel tulip glass
Serving type: Bottle, 750 mL

Port Brewing Anniversary Ale

Time for another (quick) Port Brewing review...HUZZAH!

Appearance: Pours a cloudy golden amber color with a couple inches of head. Trails of carbonation rising to the top.

Smell: Strong floral hop scents with some fruit, oranges, lemon zest, and others. Almost no malt to speak of.

Taste: Huge fruit hop flavor, grapefruit maybe, with hints of spice and fruit zest. The bottle was right, a true hop monster, especially as the brew warms up.

Mouthfeel: Light bodied and a little oily coating on the palate from the hop oils, well carbonated, an alcoholic and hop bitter aftertaste.

Drinkability: The smell and taste are fantastic, but the alcoholic aftertaste makes more than one bomber a little hard to pull off. It's probably better that way since the abv is 10%. Definitely a beer that belongs towards the end of a night of drinking. This beer definitely grew on me as it got warmer...or as the alcohol got to my head. 9/10

Glass type: Dogfish Head bullet/pint glass
Serving type: Bottle, 22 oz.

Port Brewing High Tide Fresh Hop IPA

Fresh hops! Fresh hops everywhere! Fresh hop ales and IPAs are the new black for craft beers. Take any ordinary ale, fresh hop it, and BLAMMO...instant upgrade in bitterness, aromas, and oily texture. I'm not complaining; hell, almost every time I see fresh hop on the label, I pick it up and give it a try...just like this little fella which I got from Julio's Liquors in Westborough, MA.

Appearance: Perfect crisp golden color with 2+ fingers of fluffy lacy head. Slightly opaque, though I don't see any bits of sediment floating around.

Smell: A nice mixture of pine and floral/herbal hops, as well as some citrus/lemon scents as a complement. I was hoping for a little more pronounced hop aromas but that's ok. There are also hints of sweet malts that you can guess will be the backbone on the taste.

Taste: Yup, a light caramel malt background then a kick to the teeth with bitterness. Any of the hop flavors you would expect from the smell though is overpowered from raw hop bitterness, though. A slight let down for some, a big positive for hopheads.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied, good carbonation, and a little oily from the hop resins, just what you would expect. One of my favorite parts from fresh hop ales is the oily coat over the palate you get while drinking them.

Drinkability: One bomber for me tonight is no problem, and I wish I had bought a second. This beer could almost qualify as a session beer at 6.5% abv (especially for other hopheads who would welcome the bitterness with open tongues...err...arms...no tongues was right). The bottle date was 9/21/10, maybe drinking it two months from the bottle date affected the lack of (extreme) hop aromas, but it did not take away from the experience too negatively. 8.5/10

Glass type: Dogfish Head bullet/pint glass
Serving type: Bottle, 22 oz.

Great Divide Hibernation Ale (2007)

Remember this little number? Jimmy and I reviewed our second beer ever and wondered at the end how we "would love to see how aging would effect it." Well, 2.5 years later, we found out, and we couldn't be more pleased.

Appearance: Much darker than amber, almost brown, lots of yeast sediment and little head.

Smell: Chocolate, roasted nut, and raisin/currant aromas dominate, with all notions of hops scent away (see what I did there?)

Taste: Nice chocolate taste, extremely mellow, no bitterness, and gets much better as it warms up. Completely different from our original review, which had hops out the wazoo. This was one of the most noticeable effects of aging.

Mouthfeel: Still medium bodied, still perfectly carbonated, but an added dry finish and very little to not at all alcoholic aftertaste. Those last two observations would be the other effects of aging.

Drinkability: Jimmy: A strange cross between a porter, stout, and barleywine, would might be a little early in the day for it, but would be a great nightcap. Mike: Perfectly balanced, great brew anytime. 8.1% abv 9.25/10

Glass type: Dogfish Head bullet/pint glass
Serving type: Bottle, 12 oz.

The Bruery Mischief

My love for Belgian beers is runs pretty deep. I'm never afraid to try a new one and they never get old, because every brewery seems to have their own take on a style.

Appearance: Holy head hand grenade, Batman! Ton of typical fluffy lacy head tops a beautifully golden colored brew, crystal clear, and full of rising carbonation.

Smell: Citrus and flower hoppopotamus, spices, cloves, some other fruit in there that I can't discern, maybe pineapple? Nothing to speak of in the malt department.

Taste: Very dry, the citrus and floral hops are gone, some fruitiness, banana, finishes with a little pepper flavor. The banana and pepper are a nice subtle combo, but still bummed I wasn't smacked in the face with more intense hop flavor.

Mouthfeel: Crisp, light bodied, well carbonated, nonexistent alcoholic aftertaste.

Drinkability: Surprisingly easy to drink from a strong Belgian at 8.5% abv. Nothing of this beer really bogs you down, which can be dangerous. I wasn't particularly blown away by this brew, the smell got my hopes up but the taste was kind of a let down. Would I drink it again? Absolutely, but I won't go out of my way for it. Give it a try, maybe I'm missing something, in which case please tell me and I'll be happy to revisit it. 8/10

Glass type: Duvel tulip glass
Serving type: Bottle, 22.4 oz.

Stone 14th Anniversary Emperial IPA

I'm always excited when Stone releases a brew for their anniversary series. Throw in the fact that the style is an IPA with an aim at its English roots, I'm pretty pumped.

Appearance: Pours a beautiful golden color that's crisp and clear with a ton of head with great lacing. Very inviting, I hope the pic does it justice.

Smell: Great pine aroma with a hint of citrus, maybe lemon spice, but predominantly pine from the English hops (per the bottle: Target, East Kent Goldings, and Boadicea hops were used). Very faint hints of malt, but I could be imagining it. Definitely different than your typical IPA which usually blasts you with strong floral scents.

Taste: Heavy cream and dry malt is offset with pine hops and a pleasantly bitter aftertaste. Side note: I hope I'm not being sucked in by what I'm reading, but I can legitimately say it reminds me of some of the local brews I had at pubs while I was in England. The beverage can't be less than 50 deg. and it works perfectly for the style.

Mouthfeel: Light to medium bodied, bolstered by the breadiness the yeast seems to give it. Seems to be a little hop resin that feels like it coats the palate. Bitterness outweighs the alcohol in the aftertaste. Perfectly carbonated, present but not overpowering.

Drinkability: Easily enjoyable for one bomber bottle, and if I had a second on me I would drink that too. Be careful though, you'll be surprised to find out it punches at 8.9% abv. This is not your Grandpa's West Coast IPA, this is a well done English IPA that has subtlety, style, and class. Kudos to the fellas at Stone for putting so much effort into crafting this masterpiece. It's recommended to drink this beer fresh or age it for over a year, unfortunately I just bought it last week and it had a bottle date of June 2010. I knew I was taking a risk, but it was worth it. I'm going to buy a few next time and review them a year from now to see the differences, but I don't know how it can get any better. 9.5/10

Glass type: DFH bullet glass
Serving type: Bottle, 22 oz.

Smuttynose Gravitation

I've been looking forward to reviewing this Belgian beast ever since I picked it up at Julio's in Westborough, MA. Gravitation is part of Smuttynose Brewery's big beer series, which can be found here.

Appearance: The color is a very deep red, almost brown, that is opaque, cloudy, and very little in terms of carbonation rising. There is a thin layer of lacy head, but just enough to coat the surface. Looks pretty menacing, like Chimay Grande Reserve (blue).

Smell: Citrus, fruity, and sweet with some hints of caramel. There's some raisin, apricot, and something else I just can't put my finger on. The scent is pretty bold but inviting.

Taste: Caramel and toasted malts with a spicy finish. Very sweet, sort of like licorice, so much so that it overpowers almost any fruit or citrus flavors. You expect quads to be on the sweet side, but this seems a little much.

Mouthfeel: Pretty smooth, medium bodied, coats the palate and little carbonation. It does leave quite an alcoholic kick on the aftertaste that takes a few sips to get used to.

Drinkability: I definitely wouldn't drink more than a bomber in a night because of the sweetness and the whopping 12% abv. There is no exact bottling date shown, but there is a notch in the label saying this beer was bottle-conditioned in 2010, so it must be relatively fresh. I wonder how this beer would age to see if the sweetness would mellow out just a bit. There's nothing wrong with the beer, I just wasn't overly impressed. 7.5/10

Glass type: Duvel tulip glass
Serving type: Bottle, 22 oz.