I went for this one straightaway - it's Danish brewery Mikkeller's "Thai-Style Iced Tea", a 7.20% ABV ale brewed with lactose, tamarind, black tea, orange peel, and star anise.
You may recall three years ago, I reviewed an oatmeal stout by Mikkeller, a gypsy brewery known to make fun and off-the-wall beers, with names like "Peter, Pale, and Mary," "Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy", "Mastodon Mother Puncher", and "Sap Brah?" They also push the envelope with crazy experimental stuff, including a mind-blogging 1000 IBU beer. So I'm kinda excited to see what they've got in this bottle (birth date is 4/20/17.)
Damn, that black tea is really coming through on the aroma...strong bergamot. Although I was expecting a milkier texture, it's quite thin and presents some nice sweet spice flavors accompanied by a slight bitterness bite not from hops, but from the oils in the black tea. Quite nice, reminds me a lot of last year's Beer Camp box, the "Sweet Summer South" sweet tea-inspired beer.
I was also pleased to see an entry by Kiuchi Brewery out of Japan. Among other things, they make the "Hitachino Nest" which I briefly reviewed about two years ago. This is their "White IPA with Yuzu", a 7.0% ABV white IPA made with yuzu, an Asian fruit which you may have also encountered in Boston Brewing Co.'s "Sam Adams Tropic of Yuzu."
Wow, this is quite tangy, and in a very peculiar way. It's hard to describe. It has much more character than the "Hitachino Nest", albeit with a slightly bitter texture from the added hops. It retains some of the white ale flavors but you can definitely taste the hops in this one. I don't know enough about yuzu to be able to detect the flavor, but I'd be curious to try more.
Now here's an interesting entry - "Atlantic-Style Vintage Ale", an 8.50% ABV ale made by famous English brewery Fuller's.
Unexpectedly, it's very fruity, but not in a sugary way - more like a dank, fermented way. There's some yeast, but it mostly presents an aged, fermented fruit flavor that's actually quite reminiscent of a barleywine in terms of texture and of strength. According to brewer Dick Cantwell's seminal book Barleywine, the modern barleywine style is a throwback to heavy beers of old - "big beers" - that were commonly brewed in the 18th and 19th centuries. These beers, usually pushing 10.00% ABV, were malt-rich and very heavy and high gravity. And so it's no surprise that this vintage ale may have some of the same qualities as an old-timey, proto-barleywine. Fuller's have probably made ales a hundred and fifty years ago that tasted just like this. I should have asked Dick Cantwell when I saw him at the Craft Brewer's Conference what he thinks of Fuller's!
Here's something new; a beer by Garage Project, based in Wellington, New Zealand, which has been called "the hottest brewery you've never heard about" by Draftmag. They're a small brewery but up-and-coming, so I was pleased to try their "Campout Porter", a 7.70% ABV porter.
Drawing on this beer's Kiwi heritage, it's made with vanilla and manuka honey and also smoked over manuka wood. It pours lighter in color than expected; I was expecting black but it's a medium brown. There's some very pleasing smoky flavors mixed with a bit of sweet chocolate. It's quite smooth, not a lot of fizz, and reminds me a LOT of Fremont's "Bonfire", which definitely is a good thing. Soft, dark, and slightly sweet, this porter is something of which I'd love to grab a six-pack and head out to the campsite.
Those of you familiar with Belgian beers will be no stranger to Brouwerij Duvel Moorgat, better known as Duvel. This next beer is Duvel's 8.0% ABV "Hoppy Belgian-Style Golden", made with lemon peel. Duvel is known for their golden ales, so this makes sense.
Pours clear honey, with a bright and wheaty nose. Generates thick white foam, and frankly, looks like every other Duvel beer I have had.
Light and fizzy, it's Belgiany, thin and representative of many similar lagers. Although I am a fan of the genre, I don't find this to be particularly divergent from what one might usually find in a Duvel bottle available at retail establishments. Don't get me wrong - this was tasty - it just was not as "special" as I hoped and doesn't deviate much from the established style. I'm not detecting too much hops or anything, so who knows.
Finally we have 5.70% ABV "Dunkle Weisse" by Bavarian brewery Ayinger Brewery. Reddish-brown in the glass, it's light and slightly sugared - reminiscent of a deep apple cider. They use "Tradition" hops, but it's more for taste than it is for bitterness. If you like malty, bready beers, this is a must-have. While not terribly inventive, it's a very mellow and soft and perfect for some lightly-spiced bratwurst and a shadegrown cigar.
No comments:
Post a Comment