Texas Beer Nerd

The name Yakima Glory refers to valley in Washington state where choice hops are cultivated. The hops for this beer were harvested in late Summer and, according to the bottle, this was the perfect time to ensure optimum flavor and aroma. I can’t argue with that because Yakima Glory, from Pennsylvania’s Victory Brewing Co., is the epitome of a hop-forward beer. Aside from the requisite intense bitterness that all hopheads, including myself, love, the actual flavor of the hops is an explosion of pine blanketed by citrus, an almost lime-like tinge at that. While Yakima Glory certainly tastes like an IPA and has enough hoppiness for one I’m not so sure it technically is in the traditional sense. The relatively high (8.7% ABV) alcohol content might suggest an Imperial India Pale Ale but the body is quite dark and even a little heavy. Biscuity malt flavors linger around the edges of the hops. These do help temper the alcohol a bit. If anything, it could be classified as a Black IPA, a style that’s becoming popular with Pacific Northwest brewers. I’m a big fan of pretty much everything I’ve tried from Victory and this is a great addition to their line-up. 

Southern Star Brewing Co., from Conroe, TX, is one of many new craft brewers in the state’s fast-growing industry. If they keep making beers as great as Buried Hatchet Stout than I predict success for them. First of all, it has the thick, creamy quality that all great stouts have as well as the toast-like flavor from roasted malts. Buried Hatchet also incorporates characteristics seem in a lot of American craft porters. Smokiness is one, and thankfully it’s just a hint to make the beer unique. Drinking this beer is not like chewing campfire ash. The second is slightly bitter dark chocolate with a bit of a sweet edge as well. This stout also has an overall dry finish which compliments the flavors well. Buried Hatchet is a fantastic stout, one of the best new stouts I’ve tried in a long time in fact, and it comes in a can to boot. Buried Hatchet is an appropriate name too I think because I couldn’t imagine two people staying mad at each other if they cracked open a couple of these. 

If there is such a thing as a light IPA, then Trestles, from San Clemente, California’s Left Coast Brewery, is a prime example. Now by light I do not mean light in flavor, hoppiness or even alcohol content (6.8 % ABV is pretty standard for an IPA). It simply has a lighter body than a standard IPA which imparts a refreshing, summery quality to the beer. At 92 IBU, the hoppiness is nice and bitter like in any good India Pale Ale. This beer has a big citrus taste, which also adds to it’s beach-worthiness, mirroring the bottle art. Left Coast used light malt in Trestles, which contributes greatly to the clean, crisp nature of the drinkability. While the mouthfeel is somewhat reminiscent of a Mexican lager with lime the taste is pure hoppy, citrusy IPA. This is no watery, bland light beer masquerading as an IPA.  

Many porters and stouts have a naturally coffee-like hint to their flavor but this can’t really compare to those that use actual coffee as an ingredient in the brewing process. Harpoon’s El Triunfo is one of the most coffee-laden coffee porters I’ve had this far. It pours a deep, dark color like black coffee and gives off a strong aroma of roasted coffee beans with an edge of dark chocolate. The flavor also bursts with coffee of the black variety. No cream or sugar here. It has a nice bitter, almost astringent quality that perfectly compliments the smooth, almost stout-like bready maltiness of the porter beer itself. The coffee used to make this beer is fair trade, sourced by Equal Exchange and comes, using sustainable farming, from the El Triunfo biosphere in Mexico, a large protected area of mountainous cloud forests and lowland rainforests. So this is no lowest common denominator factory farmed coffee in this porter. The fact that Harpoon took the time to get some of the most interesting and somewhat exclusive coffees to make this beer definitely shows in the taste. The biosphere and the conservation efforts that go on there get some publicity among beer drinkers and the beer drinkers get a great brew in return. I’d say that’s a win-win situation.  

Schmaltz Brewing Co., to celebrate their 16th anniversary, has introduced the newest in the He’Brew kosher beer line, Jewbilation Sweet 16 Anniversary Ale. The number 16 is key here. The beer is made with 16 different malts, 16 different hops and has 16 percent ABV. To tell you the truth, when I saw this beer on the shelf I was both intrigued and afraid. I’ve never really been a fan of beer that gets much above 10 percent ABV because it starts to resemble something that, to me, is not really beer. When I want beer I want beer. When I want liquor or wine, I want liquor or wine. The line between all these should never be blurry. But the fact that Schmaltz had the balls to actually concoct a beer with 16 malts and 16 hops made me have to try it. Sure, it’s gimmicky but I do expect craft brewers to go all out for one-off anniversary beers. While Jewbilation Sweet 16 could be much worse, it’s not exactly going on my favorites list either. There’s a distinct alcohol presence on the aroma as well as a general sweetness. The beer pours a deep brown-black stout-like color with a coffee-colored porter-ish looking head. The looks are really the only thing this beer has in common with those two common dark beer styles. The initial sip is slightly toasty, malty and sweet with an alcohol-fueled burn to it. The sip finishes with a little bit of hop bitterness and an overt liquor-like dryness. To describe any more flavor complexity than that is hard because the alcohol content is too high. This discourages a lingering sip or gulp to get a good feel for the beer. 16th birthday aside, there’s really no point to putting 16 hops and 16 malts in a beer, especially when coupling that with such a high alcohol content. I can’t taste all the individual hops and malts. In fact, I can only taste basically one type of malt and barely any hops at all. The syrupy sweetness and the booziness overwhelm what is actually not that bad of a flavor. But these two things also make this beer hard to drink. As I write this, I doubt I’ll be able to finish the whole thing. I applaud Schmaltz for actually trying such a crazy idea, because if there’s something the craft beer world does not need it’s creative stagnation, but He’Brew Jewbilation Sweet 16 Anniversary Ale just doesn’t work. 

Tiger Beer, made by Singapore-based (but Heineken-owned) Asia Pacific Breweries, is Singapore’s oldest beer brand. It’s been around since 1932. Like a seemingly large percentage of Asian beer, it is a pale lager, which is not usually my cup of tea. But I am an Asiaphile every time I see one of these type of beers I have to try it. Interestingly enough though is that I actually do like Tiger. It’s one of the better Asian pale lagers out there. A lot of them are too watery. Tiger actually has some flavor to it and remarkably little skunkiness. Like you’d expect, the beer pours a clear yellow with a thin, fizzy head. Upon taking a sip, the first flavor that hit me was a champagne grape-like one. Fresh grains soon followed that. Complexity of flavor like this is not something I usually expect from this kind of beer. One thing I have noticed though, about this an other Asian beers (or non-U.S. beers in general for that matter), is that many that you buy in stores here are made specifically for export or aren’t even brewed in their home country at all. This makes me wonder if there are any noticeable differences if you get one in their native lands. This is one of the reasons I’d like to take a beer tour of the world, maybe even write a book about it. But getting back to Tiger Beer, would I drink this all the time? Probably not. But if I’m in the mood for Asian beer I’d certainly put Tiger near the top of my list. 

DuganA IPA, from Avery out of Boulder, Colorado, is an IPA lover’s IPA. You can easily check off everything that makes a great IPA great with this beer. Upon taking my first sip, my initial thought was that the flavor was going to be too fruity, beyond the natural citrus-like characteristics of hops. But the flavor appears to become more balanced as I drink. The citrus hoppiness here is overtly grapefruit with some spikes of pine for contrast. And, like one would hope, it has substantial hop bitterness at 93 IBUs. Having an alcohol content of 8.5 percent ABV, DuganA, which actually takes it’s name from the Hindi word for “twofold”, “twice”, “double”, etc., is technically a double/Imperial IPA but it doesn’t exactly taste like one. This distinction between a “regular” IPA and the supposedly amped up version is nebulous though. DuganA is not too boozy and the hoppiness is at a level I’ve had with beers that are classified as just standard India Pale Ales. I will say though that this beer is fairly heavy-bodied for an IPA. It does have a somewhat creamy head and a slight haziness to it’s deep gold color. While I do applaud experimentation when done right there’s something to be said for not fucking with the formula when said formula is so fantastic. With Dugana IPA, Avery has managed to create a beer that stays true to what makes American IPAs wonderful while also not being derivative or stale. 

Okay, I admit it, I bought this beer because, A) It was pretty cheap and my bank account has been assaulted by the hordes of Christmas shopping and B) the bottle has a picture of an English Bulldog on it and I’m partial to smoosh-faced dogs. Old Growler is a porter made by England’s Nethergate Brewery on the Suffolk/Essex border. Doesn’t the brewer’s name sound like a Dickensian asylum or debtor’s prison? Anyway, this beer is based on a recipe from 1750…and it kind of shows. Old Growler is black in color like a porter should be and does have a malty character like a porter should have but other qualities that my favorite porters possess aren’t part of this beer. The malt is creamy and smooth, much like a Guinness is, but the lighter body, as this is a porter and not a stout, makes Old Growler much like a watered down Guinness. The malt is also less about grain flavors and more about caramel sweet flavors. Too sweet in fact and there’s no trace of hops. There’s also none of the coffee and dark chocolate tinges I’ve come to associate with great porters. Granted, this is an old English-style porter, not an American craft-brewed one. Taking that into account, I wouldn’t call this a bad beer just not exactly my cup of tea. I was hoping to have a more positive review for the 100th post here on Texas Beer Nerd but them’s the breaks. 

Merry Beermas! Sailing Santa is a mix of Houston, Texas based Saint Arnold’s Christmas Ale and Elissa IPA. I have not tried their Christmas Ale but I have tried their Elissa IPA. It’s good but their Endeavour IPA is much better. But I digress. My first thought upon taking a sip of Sailing Santa is that it tastes like a diluted IPA which, in a way, it is. The hoppiness is verging on pale ale level but not to whatI expect from an IPA. The citrus or pine flavors most associated with hops aren’t very present so the hoppiness takes on a bit of a soapy quality. I like hop bitterness but when there isn’t the hop flavor to go with it it’s like a canoe with only one paddle. There’s a bit of a nutty brown ale like flavor too with some overt grain edging it. The beer’s color is even similar to a brown ale. Nothing about this beer exactly screams Christmas either, except for a slight caramel malt character that’s reminiscent of Shiner Bock somewhat. Also, the bottle says this is supposed to be a spiced beer. I can’t taste any spice. Probably the only thing that’s as disappointing as a spiced beer that doesn’t taste like beer is a spiced beer with no spice flavor at all. Though, as I said before, I haven’t tried the Christmas Ale, it appears that mixing it with the Elissa IPA cancels out the best parts of both and leaves a beer that while certainly drinkable, is just not very interesting. For a limited seasonal release I expect something unique and Sailing Santa ain’t it. 

Merry Beermas! Merry Mischief is one of the latest offerings from Sam Adams’ small batch series. I haven’t been super impressed with these so far because for supposedly experimental beers, they’re a little tame. But Merry Mischief is exactly what it’s advertised as. I recently bought some Guinness gingerbread and this beer tastes almost exactly like that. I’m usually not a fan of spiced beers because most brewers, in their quest to be as experimental as possible, overdo it and the beer ends up not tasting so beer-like. Not so here. This has flavors of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves but when drinking the beer I taste the perfect balance of sweet and spice that is gingerbread and not like I’ve dumped a spice rack into my gullet. The one problem this beer does have though is that the stout flavors are a bit more muted than I would like. While it certainly feels like a great stout, thick and creamy, the bready malty flavor is a bit buried. It shows up to give a low energy “hi” at the end of the sip though, as does a slight bit of hops and alcohol. At 9 percent ABV I would expect at least a little bit of booziness after all. In this case it creates a nice warming effect. Thankfully it’s not too up-front like some high alcohol beers are. Overall, this is an enjoyable beer. It has a unique, balanced flavor that, frankly, tastes like Christmas, which is what a holiday beer should be.