(draft) During lunch in Cincinnatti today I looked over the sparse beer selection and chose to try Abita Amber since I'd never had it before. I chose poorly. Water with beer-flavoring added. The tap water taste overpowered the beer taste. Very unsatisfactory.
Ounces Consumed: 16(draft) A cloudy beer with a slightly pinkish tint. If it had any actual flavor I'd decribe it here, but alas, there was none. A waste of time.
Ounces Consumed: 5(draft) Was described as an ESB by the bartender. Instead a fairly decent brown ale, with the lack of flavor characteristic (to me at least) of Abita beers. Was good enough to drink, but not good enough to have another.
Ounces Consumed: 20(draft) Cloudy dark brown. Medium head. Delicious smoke aroma. Flavor was pretty good. Much more subdued than other Schlenkerla offerings. Maybe a little bacony, but this was surprisingly good. Yummy, in fact.
Ounces Consumed: 206(draft) I was not expecting to like this. I don't know why. A nice clear dark amber color. The aroma of a smoky campfire. The smoke flavor is fairly apparent, and it's just smoke - no bacon or grapes or anything else to taint the flavor. I liked this a lot.
Ounces Consumed: 372(bottle) Well, the smoke was indeed very powerful. It was also quite a different type of smoky flavor than the Cone Smoker, Rogue Smoke Ale, or any other Rauchbier I've tried. I got a definite grapey taste from the smoke. I don't know if I would call it a good taste, but it certainly did the job of concealing the alcohol behind it.
Ounces Consumed: 17(bottle) The first thing I noticed was the fantastic aroma. The second thing I noticed was the color. Very dark - almost like a porter. Not what I was expecting from a weizen. The entire beer, in fact, was not what I was expecting. Instead of toning down the smoke to keep a fair balance with the light-flavored wheat, they left the smoke intact. The result was a smoke beer, with no hint at all of its wheat heritage. This is not to say that I didn't like it, because I did. I just didn't like it as much as I expected to.
Ounces Consumed: 205My favorite session beer. Perfectly balanced sweetness, bitterness, and maltiness. Just the slightest kick of bitterness at the finish that makes me want another drink right away.
Ounces Consumed: 2162Just about as good as it gets. Dark and smoky. Not too bitter and not too sweet. This beer can be aged for years too, though I doubt that I'd ever have the discipline to do it. Absolutely yummy.
Ounces Consumed: 589(bottle) A decent head that faded very quickly. Aroma was mainly chocolate, with perhaps some cola as well. Flavor was a mix of coffee, chocolate, and cola, with maybe a touch of juniper. A decent and safe beer from one of my favorite breweries.
Ounces Consumed: 12(bottle) A nice copper color with a decent head. Starts out a little bitter but has a sweet finish and aftertaste. Works out to be very well-balanced. Another winner from Juneau.
Ounces Consumed: 24(draft) Yes, Virginia, there is indeed such a thing as too much malt. This beer just needed something to balance it out. I don't know what it needed. It had nothing but malt. Seven different kinds according to the web page.
Ounces Consumed: 5(bottle) Hazy brown. Minimal head. Aroma is complex and very strong, with malts and hops and nothing else. Flavor is mostly weird malts. Most quads feature dark fruit flavors, this is all malts. The two inches of sediment in the bottom of the bottle grossed me out. Overall, not bad, not great.
Ounces Consumed: 22(bottle) Beautiful dark amber color. Fantastic malty and spicy aroma. Fizzy mouthfeel. Flavor of wheat and yeast and apple peels. Fucking yummy.
Ounces Consumed: 50(draft) Clear brownish-amber. No head worth noting. A nice clean aroma of apple peels and, of all things, bananas. Flavor was mild and smooth. Finish had a mild but lingering alcohol bite. Pretty good.
Ounces Consumed: 12(draft) Clear dark copper in color. Good head. A delicious aroma of mals and oak and molasses. Syrupy mouthfeel. Flavor is mostly malt, with the slightest hints of dark fruits. Damn good.
Ounces Consumed: 20The citrusy smell and taste were just too much for me. It tasted like beer and orange juice mixed. Blech.
Ounces Consumed: 3I spent the entire pint trying to decide (a) if I liked it or not, and (b) what the heck I was drinking. Apparently Anchor changes the recipe for their Christmas Ale each year, and they keep that recipe pretty secret. If I had to guess I'd say the best way to describe this year's version would be "smoky nutmeg" but I could be way off base about the nutmeg part. There was definitely some smoky something in there. At the end I decided I did like it, but more than one in a given session would probably be too much.
Ounces Consumed: 80(draft) Much more malty than last year's version. Also a little bit of a chocolately feel to it. Not my favorite but still quite drinkable.
Ounces Consumed: 40(draft) Pretty damn good. Higly malty, with a touch of coffee. No chocolate or licorice at all, but still a good beer.
Ounces Consumed: 20(draft) Dark ruby in color, almost black. Nice head and very nice lacing. Fruity and spicy aroma. Fairly thin and highly-carbinated mouthfeel. Flavor of tingly dark cherries, a little sour even. Finish is tingly. Better than decent, barely good.
Ounces Consumed: 10(bottle) Didn't get much of a head with this one. Strong roasted malt aroma. Flavor was biased a little more towards coffee than chocolate, but malty sweetness was the primary flavor. Pretty good, but not great.
Ounces Consumed: 12(draft) One of my favorites. I seemed to enjoy this more and more each time I had it. Probably the best Scotch Ale I've had. The flavor is hard to describe. I think that this one of those beers that you have to drink to understand just how good it is.
Ounces Consumed: 100(draft) Roasty, malty, hoppy, weirdness. I'd like this more without the bitter finish.
Ounces Consumed: 46(draft) I had high hopes for this one. Blueberry flavor in a beer would definitely be something new and unusual for me. This actually ended up being my least favorite beer of the weekend. It tasted to me like an IPA. If there was any berry component to the flavor it was too subtle for me to detect it behind all the damn hops.
Ounces Consumed: 5(draft) A fairly mild porter that smelled and tasted of baker’s chocolate. No bitterness or coffee taste that I could detect, and I think that's a good thing.
Ounces Consumed: 20(draft) I was sure I was enjoying a nice spiced ale but I see in the commercial description that the flavor is all malts. Very good, though a little sneaky as the alcohol doesn't really register. Anyone attempting to sample a wide range of beers cannot pass this up.
Ounces Consumed: 50(draft) Cloudy light brown. No head. Aroma of roasted malt. Fucking good. Another winner from Avery.
Ounces Consumed: 4(bottle) Dark bronze. Nice firm head. I got a lot of dark fruity sweetness. I mean a lot. The very high (14.9%) ABV wasn't apparent except that I just knew that all that sweetness was covering up something dangerous. This is pretty much the opposite of a session beer. I liked it though.
Ounces Consumed: 22At 10% alcohol I knew this would be the only one of these I'd have. I liked the taste of this a lot. I detected a definite bourbon odor, and I asked if it was aged in an old bourbon barrel but the bartenders didn't think so. There wasn't really any bourbon to the taste so I may be insane.
Ounces Consumed: 30Recommended to me because of my recent infatuation with belgian ales, this definitely did not disappoint. A nice reddish color and a decent head with a fair amount of lacing. For me, as with all belgians, the overwhelming flavor is that of apples. I can drink this in complete comfort. It's just yummy. Not quite as complex as a tripel I had a few weeks ago, but with a better overall flavor.
Ounces Consumed: 432(draft) Very dark brown with a stupidly huge amount of foam. Aroma is malt and molasses. Flavor is more of the same. The alcohol is very well-hidden. A good beer, but not a great one. Needs more sizzle or something.
Ounces Consumed: 10(bottle) Given to me by a homebrewing friend. No description or name given, it was all up to me. Pours a nice amber/honey color with lots of foam. The aroma is very sweet - almost too sweet - and that sweetness is quite evident in the taste as well. A good brown ale, but perhaps a little too cloying for me to ever spend an evening drinking it. Much better, of course, than anything I've ever made.
Ounces Consumed: 12(bottle) Looked like grapefruit juice except for a huge white head. Citrusy aroma. Slight citrus flavor, but not so much that it became disgusting. Fizzy and other than that, a fairly mild flavor. Too many ingrediants in this beer, none stand out. It's a mish-mash.
Ounces Consumed: 25(draft) Lacing doesn't even begin to describe the foam that clung to my glass. A very nice stout - reminded me a lot of Murphy's. There was just a hint of chocolate, but nothing overpowering or pretentious at all. Yummy.
Ounces Consumed: 60(draft)Dark ruby-colored. Decent head. No aroma at all. The first sip was really digusting. It tasted like cherry cough syrup. The next several sip got gradually better, as other flavors became detectable. The end of the glass was halfway decent.
Ounces Consumed: 10(draft) A nicely balanced ale that's probably getting a bit of an undeserved backlash for being so prevalent. With that said, it is a little boring. I'd drink this to drink, not for the flavor, which is decent but average.
Ounces Consumed: 20(draft) Light copper. Good head, good lacing. Whoa. A strong malt and hop aroma, quite dry. Thin mouthfeel but still quite coating. Malt and hops predominate everything. Surprisingly bad.
Ounces Consumed: 16(bottle) I was quite impressed by this. An aroma that I can only describe as chocolately-grapey. A flavor that stayed with me from the time my lips touched it to the time I swallowed - in other words, consistently good. Quite yummy. I wish I'd had another one.
Ounces Consumed: 374(can) Nice and creamy, though that could have been because of the widget. Compared to Guinness, a little sweeter, with a a subtle chocolate flavor instead of coffee. I liked it, and would probably like it more if I can ever find it on tap.
Ounces Consumed: 16(can) Very creamy and smooth. This beer had a lot of stuff floating in it, and by the time I got to the last inch or so of the glass it was grossing me out so I stopped drinking it.
Ounces Consumed: 14(bottle) Nobody else has said it, so I will. This beer had a greenish tint to it. There, I've said it. Aside from the odd coloring, this was a pretty decent beer. The bar had it listed as a smoked beer, so I was a little disappointed to find an ESB instead, but it was quite decent. Actually reminded me more of a Alt than an ESB.
Ounces Consumed: 12(draft) Very I'd never have guessed that this was an IPA. The aroma was mostly of malt and dirt, but good. Flavor was a little peaty and a little smoky. I liked it a lot more than I expected to.
Ounces Consumed: 4(draft) This was decent, but there was just something strange about it. Some fruity characteristic that I couldn't identify. There was also a bitterness that came out of nowhere at the finish.
Ounces Consumed: 10(bottle) Very intense aroma as soon as the cap was removed. No head to speak of. After the first few sips that were nothing but alcohol burn, the rest of this went down quite nicely. Too much coffee and too little chocolate for it to ever be a real favorite. I got some cola from this too, especially in the aroma.
Ounces Consumed: 24(draft) Just a decent fairly generic brown ale. More sweet than most I suppose, and not malty-sweet but sugar-sweet. If that makes any sense.
Ounces Consumed: 60(draft) No aroma whatsoever. The first couple of sips reminded me more of cranberries than cherries. About halfway thourgh the glass I decided that it wasn't too bad and ordered another pint. A little sour, a little sweet. Really quite drinkable though.
Ounces Consumed: 100(draft) Black, with a decent brown head. A sugary sweet aroma. Flavor was fairly intense, with spices and a slight hint of coffee. Pretty damn good.
Ounces Consumed: 20(draft) Oh, Bell's Kalamazoo Stout, where have you been all my life? This is as close to the perfect stout as I've ever had. All of the flavor of an imperial, but without the high ABV and without the alcohol burn. My new favorite non-chocolate stout in the entire world. Yummy.
Ounces Consumed: 530(draft) Bright and fizzy. This would probably be good if it was a hot enough day. Like a million degrees or something.
Ounces Consumed: 5(draft) Not a thing wrong with this beer. That's the first thing I thought of. No aroma to speak of, a mild chocolate flavor that was quite yummy. No bitterness at all. An excellent session porter.
Ounces Consumed: 64(draft) Smells like old socks. Looks like a lager. Tastes fantastic. Reminds me of the winter ales from the established Belgian breweries. Apples and other, unidentifiable, fruits predominate. A very surprising beer from one of my favorite breweries. Yummy.
Ounces Consumed: 12(draft) I found this to be a basic stout with a slight chocolate flavor and a touch of rye bitterness at the finish. I liked it a lot, and I will probably go try to find it in bottles.
Ounces Consumed: 10(draft) A nice roasty chocolate flavor. The extra alcohol, as compared to similar stouts, seemed unnecessary to me, and annoyed me a little. A beer this good doesn't need the alcohol gimmick.
Ounces Consumed: 80(draft) This seems to be a favorite, but I just don't get it. The smell of old socks was just too much for me. I couldn't finish the glass.
Ounces Consumed: 8I didn't like this even a little bit. Bitter with strange, undefinable undertones. I barely finished the glass.
Ounces Consumed: 10(draft) This might have been sweet and syupy or it might have been all the blueberries floating up and down. I couldn't finish the glass. Those things hitting my lips were just too strange.
Ounces Consumed: 5(draft) A nice malty brown ale. Very pretty lacing. There was a bit of a coffee overtone that I could have done without. Quite good though.
Ounces Consumed: 12(draft) Pretty good. A slight coffee taste. A slightly bitter finish. More roasted malt flavor than I'm used to in this style, and I think that's what saved it for me.
Ounces Consumed: 12(draft) A very cloudy yellow beer. Strong banana aroma. Came with a citrus wedge that I seem to have removed before it ruined the flavor. Quite yummy.
Ounces Consumed: 24(draft) A light brown ale (think Newcastle) with a wedge of watermelon in it. Once I removed the offending fruit I couldn't detect anything noteworthy. Maybe a bit of a hoppy finish.
Ounces Consumed: 12(draft) Served in a glass that was way too cold. There were ice crystals in the beer. Once it had thawed out a little, this was a pretty good beer. Very much a German-style wheat, but with the tiniest little bite of hops in the finish. I liked it.
Ounces Consumed: 20(draft) Very nice. Chocolately and roasty and malty. If this was available near my home it would be one of my favorite beers.
Ounces Consumed: 20(draft) No head. No aroma, No flavor. A very dry and fizzy mouthfeel. Probably good for an upset stomach but little else.
Ounces Consumed: 5A commonly-available beer that I put off drinking simply because of its availability - reasoning that something so widely accepted must be bland and boring. I was quite wrong (see Newcastle for another example of my flawed logic). This is a very nice beer that went down very easily. I think I could drink it all night, and that's not something I could say about most Belgians.
Ounces Consumed: 555(bottle) Clear bronze. Good head and lacing. I got hints of several spices and unusual flavors, most notably of vanilla. Very easy to drink. Very good.
Ounces Consumed: 132(draft) That nice copper color was a welcome sight to an old altbier drinker. This beer has a pretty good balance - maybe a little on the bitter side. I also think it's changed a little for the worse since the brewery split apart several months ago.
update 080605: I've had this several times in both bottled and draft form. The bottled form tastes better to me. Go figure.
Ounces Consumed: 368This was my first taste of a barleywine, and I suppose it was okay. Just imagine regular wine without any grapey taste, and add a hint of hops. That's what this tasted like. It was okay, but I cannot imagine having more than one in an evening.
Ounces Consumed: 10(draft) This beer that I didn't care for a year ago has either been changed or (more likely) my own tastes have changed. I found this to be a very good porter, even with the slight bitterness to the finish.
Ounces Consumed: 288(draft) Dark amber in color. Good head and lacing. Smells like malts and dark fruits. Tastes like malts and overripe charries. Good though.
Ounces Consumed: 10
(draft) Clear dark bronze. Decent head. No detectable aroma. Flavor of dried cherries. The finish was quite drying as well. A good beer, but weird.
(draft) A very dark red. Bourbon aroma is very faint - almost not noticeable. The flavor is that of a very mild stout with only the slightest hint of bourbon showing up in the finish. Not too bad. Quite good actually.
Ounces Consumed: 478
(bottle) No foam at all. I mean none. I've seen tap water with a bigger head. Other than that, poured a slightly hazy orange. Taste was, as expected, fairly flat and generic. Yeasty and bland in flavor, this beer did grow on me as time went by. I'd love to try this in draft form someday. Maybe there'll be some fizz then.
(draft) Almost identical to Fat Tire ale. Malty and a little chocolately. In other words, very drinkable. More of a session beer than anything else. I recommend this highly.
Ounces Consumed: 70(draft) The first time I saw this, they were calling it "Smokey the Beer." What a stupid name. This beer tasted terrible for the first few ounces, then once my palate had been numbed enough, it tasted pretty damn good. A lot like their regular, nonsmoked porter. It's probably the same beer. Just a touch
of smoked malt, a little chocolate. I liked it.
(draft) Hazy yellow, with tons of foam. This beer is advertised as a spiced Belgian wheat. I didn't get any spices though. I got yeast and bananas and wheat, all more apparent in the aroma than in the flavor. It's a good and neutral example of the style to me. I liked it.
I'd heard some good things about this, but I can't for the life of me figure out why. This was water with a couple of drops of beer flavoring added. I only drank about an inch from the glass.
Ounces Consumed: 2(draft) I think there was something wrong with this beer. It actually tasted skunked. I hope it didn't taste this way on purpose.
Ounces Consumed: 4(draft) Black with a large tan head. Fantastic chocolate and malt aroma. The flavor is chocolately and roasty. Very roasty. I'm not even sure that's a word, but I'm using it anyway. Pretty damn good. The 10.6% ABV is very well hidden.
Ounces Consumed: 4(draft) Almost with a decent tan head. Aroma of malts, and not much else. Same for the flavor. No bitterness. I liked it.
Ounces Consumed: 80(bottle) Clear medium-dark amber. No head, some fizz. Aroma of malt and dried hops. Flavor of burnt malt and stale hops. Quite fucking disgusting. I only took a few sips before giving up. LIfe's too short to waste drinking beer like this.
Ounces Consumed: 4(bottle) Clear dark amber. Minimal head. Aroma of hops and malts. Flavor pretty good. Mostly malty sweetness with a touch of grass or something like that. A touch of hoppiness at the end that didn't gross me out.
Ounces Consumed: 10(draft) Black. Large brown head with great lacing. A nice chocolately flavor behind the bourbon, which shows up mainly in the lingering finish. Pretty damn yummy.
Ounces Consumed: 156(draft) Way too bitter for my tastes, but I suppose some people like the bitterness.
Ounces Consumed: 10Watery, but drinkable. The most (and perhaps only) enjoyable beer I've had at Brownings.
Ounces Consumed: 64(draft) Lord, why hast thou foresaken me? I thought this was crap. I only drank about two sips and then I threw the rest away.
Ounces Consumed: 2(bottle) Don't know what vintage this was. Incredibly sour taste. Like sucking on lemon rinds. Not musty or funky at all. Drinkable, but not noteworthy.
Ounces Consumed: 10(bottle, 2002 vintage) Like a regular, somewhat mild, Belgian strained through dirty sweat socks. This is what I was expecting from a lambic festival! A little sour, a little drying, a lot tasty.
Ounces Consumed: 20(bottle) Funky and Musty. Very dry finish. Hard to pin down exactly what this tasted like. I liked it.
Ounces Consumed: 10(draft) I've rated this a little higher than most brown ales because there was something special about it. I don't know what, though. There was a slightly spicy aroma and flavor. Whatever it was, it was damn good.
Ounces Consumed: 24(draft) A nice beer. Not nearly as sweet as other tripels I've have. I got a subtle undertone that reminded me of smoke. There was very little head, though this may have been caused by the filthy glass. I liked it a lot, but there are a zillion better Belgians out there.
Ounces Consumed: 16(bottle) Dark amber. Decent head with lots of fizz. The cork nearly took my eye out when it popped. A nice sharp and fruity aroma. Maybe some floral scent in there too. Flavor more of the same, with maybe an added touch of cola. The sediment at the bottom of the bottle grossed me out.
Ounces Consumed: 20(draft 2002 vintage) A nice reddish-brown. Had a fruit component that wasn't the apples I'm used to from Belgians. I'm going to call the flavor a mix of cherries and beets. Not too bad, but not worth a second glass.
Ounces Consumed: 10(draft) Poured a lot darker than I expected. A pretty good beer. No spices or adjuncts that I could detect, so I'm not sure that I agree with the "Winter Beer" classification. Good though.
Ounces Consumed: 10(draft) Wow! Unexpectedly good. Extremely well-balanced and very refreshing. It also tasted like it had a higher ABV than it really does.
Ounces Consumed: 16(draft) Black with cream-colored head and incredible lacing. Flavor slanted a bit more towards coffee than chocolate. A decent beer.
Ounces Consumed: 16(draft) Dark clear copper. Good head. Smelled like a barleywine, and pretty much tasted like one too. That weird flavor of beets or prunes or whatever it is - I don't like it. This beer did grow on me a little as the glass got more empty, but I still can't really say that I liked it.
Ounces Consumed: 10(draft) Smelled better than it tasted, but it smelled fantastic. Nice and malty with some spice aroma that I couldn't identify. Taste was very similar to the Great Lakes Christmas Ale - if you like that, you'll like this.
UPDAYE 111805: Not similar at all to the Great Lakes brew. Still delicious though. Sweet and complex, I got a little bit of cola flavor that I hadn't noticed before. Too strong for more than one in a night, and that sucks.
Ounces Consumed: 80I thought this beer smelled and looked fantastic. I'm not really sure what I was expecting tastewise - I suppose a combination of a Belgian and a Brown. What I got was a strange-tasting beer that I can't really say I liked all that much. It just tasted like something was wrong with it, but I couldn't point to any one thing.
Ounces Consumed: 12(draft) Took a long time to pour, but worth the wait. Very smooth. Nice chocolate aroma and flavor that reminded me of Young's Double Chocolate Stout. This is a very good beer. Yummy.
Ounces Consumed: 200(draft) Another winner from this small brewpub. Quite malty and nutty, but enough hops to keep it nicely balanced.
Ounces Consumed: 10(draft) A stout, not just an ale, which was news to me. I didn't get much of an aroma from this, and the blueberry flavor was more subtle that I was expecting. The blueberries showed up mostly in the finish, which had absolutely no trace of bitterness. The undertones were mostly roasted malt, and the flavor slanted a tad more towards coffee than chocolate. A very good beer, worth the wait.
Ounces Consumed: 138(draft) Absolutely nothing special about this beer except that it's an Abbey Tripel, so it's special by default. Very good, but not great.
Ounces Consumed: 10(mixture) I mixed Bell's Cherry Ale and Young's Double Chocolate Stout in a 1-to-1 ratio. Just a fantastic combination. A nice deep red color. Chocolate flavor that's followed by a slightly sour finish. I'd definitely buy this if it was available commercially. Yummy.
Ounces Consumed: 20(mixture) I mixed 1/2 Bells Cherry Ale with 1/2 BBC Dark Star Porter, and ended up with something greater than the sum of its parts. The too bitter porter balanced very nicely with the too sweet/sour Bells, and it was just excellent. I, apparently, am a frickin' genius.
Ounces Consumed: 60(mixture) I mixed 1/2 NABC Tunnel Vision with 1/2 Rogue Smoke Ale. For whatever reason, I figured that the honey sweetness of the Tunnel Vision and the smoky bitterness of the Rogue Smoke would play off each other quite well. I was right. I would drink the stuff if it was available commercially.
Ounces Consumed: 20(mixture) I mixed Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier and Spezial Rauchbier on a 1:1 ratio. Amazing head, courtesy of the Weihenstephaner. Aroma of bananas and cloves, slightly subdued. Flavor of a German wheat beer. The smoke shows up in the finish. Yummy. I'm a freakin' genius.
Ounces Consumed: 20(mixture) I mixed Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier and Delirium Tremens in the 16.9:11.2 ratio dictated to me by the bottle sizes. Mixing what are perhaps the ultimate representations of German wheat and Belgian strong ales, I'm not quite sure what I was expecting to accomplish. One thing that I definitely wasn't expecting was to create a beer that would make me believe in God. Well, so much for expectations. Way beyond yummy.
Ounces Consumed: 28(bottle) Pouring this into a glass resulted in about a 5/1 head/beer ratio. I actually lost patience waiting for the head to dissipate and ended up disrupting it with my finger. Once I got to the actual beer I really enjoyed it. A little lighter in both flavor and ABV than other Belgians