Sam Adams Rebel IPA. At Mellow Mushroom RVA

So last night I had the pleasure of trying Boston Beer Company's newest offering. Sam Adams Rebel IPA! 

This was at a pre launch event here in Richmond at our new Mellow Mushroom. This was a co-event with a local graffiti artists book release. 

The event was killer and was really well attended. So many Richmond beer folks came out to sample the new beer! This was also my fist time at the new Mellow Mushroom which is located in the old Plan 9 record store spot. In fact at one point I realized that I was standing right where I used to sell promo CDs from my job at Tower to get extra beer money! Full circle I suppose! The Mellow folks did an amazing job with the space and I can't wait to go back!!

The beer; 

First of all I do not and will not buy in to the whole Sam Adams hate train! They make great consistent craft beer and have been pioneers since before a lot of folks who don't like them stopped drinking formula. They just happen to be huge.... But that just means they get to spread more beer love around! :)

So I remember hearing a while back that Jim Koch vowed to never make an American IPA... So when I heard this was happening I was a bit surprised. Though I have since heard he just stated he wouldn't be forced into the category until he was ready....clearly he was ready! Rebel is an American IPA with a fairly low abv (not low enough to be granted the session branding) and a great appearance! The beer smells great. Nice hop nose and a great identifiable malt backbone.

So the mouthfeel on Rebel was also pretty impressive. Nice full mouth feel, not dry not too sticky. Right in the center and perfect! 

This beer tastes like American hops! That's Sam for finally using some great American varieties! Ya know, it wasn't super overpowering with pine or citrus or ammonia or weed (which are the four tastes and smells I get out of different American hop varieties) it's impecibly balanced. But still has a great hop punch for those looking for a weekend six pack! The malt backbone is prevalent and only adds to the balance of this beer. 

The label design which is a break from the standard Sam label is also very fresh and in my opinion a great move!

In close I'd like to say thanks to Mellow for hosting this and thanks to Jim Koch for green lighting this great new brand!

Cheers!

Jay

Shiner Holiday Cheer

Few of you may know that I lived in Austin Texas for just shy of a decade. When I moved there from Richmond virginia in 2003 it was all imports, Lone Star, Tecate and Shiner! There were 2 amazing spots to get craft beer, The Draught House and Lovejoys. Both of whom had at least 4 house made beers on at all times! My how times have changed....for the better!

The record store I worked at the entire time I lived there used to always have Shiner Bock kegs for their in store performances.... I never was too keen on "Texas music" but who was I to turn down free beer!! Needless to say, having met my wife there and having my amazing kid there coupled with 8 interesting years in Texas I always have a soft spot for Shiner beers!

Holiday Cheer; this is Shiners Holiday release, clearly. A Dortmunder style lager brewed with Texas peaches and pecans (puh-cahns if you're a Texan and pee-cans if you're a outsider like me). 

The beer pours a deep dark amber and had a decent but quick fading head. The smell is all peaches. But not over sweet artificial peaches... Kinda smells like what I imagine a farmer picking a peach harvest might smell! The taste is subtle on the peach, again it's there but not overly sweet, and some very nutty charichteristics from the pecans. I'd say the the beer ends on the palate with the perfect marriage of the peaches and pecans and leaves a nice wet mouth feel.  

Shiner really does know how to capture Texas in a bottle. Either that or I'm just being too nostalgic. Either way though, Holiday Cheer is sure to be a staple in my fridge this season!

Damn near 4 out of 5

As always friends, cheers!!

Jay

Boulevard "Reverb"

Hello friends!! First of all, it's great to see you after more than six months! Wow, a lot has changed for me but this is a beer blog and not a Jay Blog... So on to the beer shall we!!

Pilsner, a style that to the palate is so incredibly simple and void of anything characteristic.... Yet brewers must get it right which I'm assuming is an arduous task. Throw on top of that the "Imperial" moniker and you have yourself a bit of a conundrum... How does the brewer pack imperial flavor into the pilsner style without just creating some kind of light bodied malt liquor?

Reverb does this almost without question! Smell is big biscuit and slightly phenolic and on the palate it's all malt with a full, thick and wet mouth feel! This beer ends as it begins... An amazing pilsner stepped up like 11 notches... 11 for the musical reference on the label!! 

As a former record store geek I greatly appreciate the rock and roll "Spinal Tap" reference!

I shall digress now.... Boulevard are making some of the best, most consistent portfolios of craft beer today. The recent merger between Boulevard and Duvel Moortgat has caused some all Americans to throw their hands up and write off Boulevard forever... To those folks I say, please reconsider!! I'm not sure you're aware of how much amazing beer you're going to miss!! :)

As always, thanks for reading and three cheers to the brewers who are making all these great brews!

Jay Metzler  

Jolly Pumpkin "La Parcela"

Well, this is definitely NOT your typical American pumpkin ale! And that's a breath of fresh air.

La Parcela's label states that this is an "ale brewed and flavored with pumpkin, cacao, and spices - aged in oak". I kind of worry about those folks who are not familiar with Jolly Pumpkin and pick this bottle up in the fall looking for a pumpkin pie flavored beer. I know JP and I know how much they love the funk so I was excited to try their spin on the pumpkin ale!

La Parcela pours from the bottle with a light orange hue and rests in the glass a golden orange almost mixed with a tinge of faint ruby. There's barely any head retention to speak of but what's there is off white to cream colored. There's significant lacing on the glass.

Smells right on par with what I'm used to from Jolly Pumpkin. I get astringent funk, exactly what I'm looking for from a JP beer! If I wasn't experiencing some Virginia springtime allergies, the faint pumpkin smell and almost non present roast cacao odors I'm getting would be bigger and fuller. I'm ok with it though, the smell of a beer is important as we all know but I'm most interested in the flavor!

This pumpkin ale is delicious. Perfect pumpkin taste with none of the cloying pie spices and a hint of cacao all balanced perfectly with the quintessential Jolly Pumpkin sour spin we all love. Sour in the front with the pumpkin and cacao bringing the middle to a perfect balance and ending with a bit of a....zing.... Spectacular!

Mouth feel is nice and easy with just enough body to compliment all the intricacies that come with a wild fermented pumpkin ale.

Overall all I can say is I love this beer and I still wish I didn't have to cross state lines to get Jolly Pumpkin stuff... But you know what? I will without hesitation!

4 out of 5. Great beer!

Cheers!

Stone/Aleman/Two Brothers "Dayman Coffee IPA"

Coffee IPA????

So apparently Mikkeller had a beer a while back that was a coffee IPA but I personally never got to try that one so I have absolutely nothing to compare the Stone/Aleman/Two Brothers "Dayman" to. So I will judge this one with the fact in mind that I've never had a beer like this before.

Dayman pours from the bottle with a nice lightened amber hue and leaves only about a quarter inch of off white head that subsides into simply some bubbles layering the top of the liquid. The beer sits in the glass with a deep crystal clear amber color. It's a pretty beer.

The nose is all coffee and hops. It smells kind of like coffee grounds do after the morning joe has already been brewed... Mixed with resiny, piney hops. While I realize the idea of spent coffee grounds may not be a smell that you associate as being good... I find the nose on this beer to be quite delightful and insanely interesting!

What is this thing going to taste like? Well it tastes like a coffee IPA... What I mean to say is that it tastes like no other beer I've tasted. The coffee is really very forward on the pallet much like Epic Brewing's Big Bad Baptist. BBB though is a stout and you can imagine those flavors blending perfectly before even opening the bottle... On this one it's big coffee and big hops... It's almost like tasting your garden that you've fertilized with coffee grounds. That sounds bad but I honestly don't mean for it to... It's delicious!! There's really no detectable malt backbone to me cause the other two flavors are punching my taste buds in the face so much... What a crazy and rebellious tasting beer. No aftertaste and finishes nice and wet.

The mouthfeel is full and rich. A little sticky but not too much... It works perfectly with the flavor of Dayman.

Overall I was pretty floored by this beer! It definitely had the potential to be a mess but then why would Stone have made it... Many people I assume won't like this beer and I wouldn't fault them... It's a really crazy brew... I however want more! I think it's amazing and extremely daring. It stretches everything you consider about beer styles. It marries 2 flavors that shouldn't work....but at the end of the glass, for me, it really really works!

Giving this one a full 5 of 5! It's just so different and challenging that no other score from me would give it justice. I hope one of the three collaborators makes this beer again!

Cheers!

KBS : Not a tasting review (yet).

Richmond, Virginia was recently the scene of yet another fiendish feeding frenzy over an extremely limited, highly thought of beer. Founders "Kentucky Breakfast Stout". KBS is also a beer that allocated which means a store gets what it gets typically based on an establishments sales on a given brewery's core brands. Such is the way of wholesalers to try to be fair. Some may not like this model but I find it to be reasonable. But this entry is not necessarily about allocations, at least not in reference to wholesalers.

Richmond is the home of a handful of independently owned bottle shops and grocers/markets that carry great selections of craft beer. Richmond is also home to a few national chains that focus on craft beer as well. Lastly Richmond has a great selection of craft friendly restaurants as well. So lets say (and I'm being generous) that the greater Richmond area received 50 cases of KBS....that's roughly 1200 bottles.... And there's likely less than 5 sixtels of draft floating around.... That seems like plenty but not when you consider the following....

There's a local beer group (forum) on Facebook in Richmond which has approximately 1450 members.... Take out those folks who don't actually live in Richmond, then add in the folks who live in Richmond but aren't members of that Facebook group....I'm keeping the number at 1450. If everyone of those 1450 beer lovers wanted some KBS then that would be about 0.86 bottles per person. That's if all establishments selling it were selling partial bottles.

In Richmond we had everything from tickets being handed out to be able to purchase 2 bottles, shops selling singles only as well as shops selling the entire 4 pack. Some restaurants were also selling bottles to go. There is no right way to go about the sale of a beer like this so every retailer does what he or she feels the most comfortable with and what works for their individual practice. There's never enough to go around and people inevitably get frustrated and even mad, throwing about bad statements about stores and distributors....it's a nightmare. But is it worth it? The beer is phenomenal and I am personally happy to deal with the few hours of headache to hopefully get a bottle...

There is also this to consider. The craft beer community grows exponentially every single day! Countless numbers leaving Bud and Miller et al for better quality and flavor. I'm all for it! The craft consumer grows much faster than the craft brewer so there is inevitably less of each beer every year. Sure Founders has increased production, but they've also expanded to 3 new huge territories this year as well as added countless fans and followers. And let's face it, that cave can only be so big!

There are always going to be folks new to craft who have the capacity to get to the bottle before some who have been following for years. Fine by me! The 20 something college kid who just had his first 60 minute IPA last night may very well be the future brewmaster of my favorite brewery some day!! Patrick Rue and the Floyd's, Greg Koch and Sam Calagione, Firestone and Walker and countless others all had their first craft beer at some point.

This is just my observation and opinion. I'm not right. I'm not wrong. I'm just a lover of great beer with a slightly higher tolerance to deal with releases like this.

Cheers!

Lighthouse Beer and Wine. Wrightsville Beach, NC

So whenever I go out of town, especially out of state I really like to find the craft beer stores so I can feed my hobby (obsession) of trying new and interesting beers!

So I was on a little mini vacation in Ocean Isle, NC and while the local grocery store had a fairly decent albeit very small selection the area I was seemed like a craft beer wasteland... But me being bound and determined as I am I searched and found out about Lighthouse Beer and Wine in Wrightsville Beach about an hour away!

The store was itty bitty tiny but was packed to the gills with an amazing selection! It's always my first priority when shopping in NC to see if the shop has Jolly Pumpkin and then move on to the other stuff... They had lots of Jolly Pumpkin including the Maui collab which I haven't run across before, they had one bottle on the shelf and now it's in my cellar!

As soon as I walked in a was greeted without pretense and both guys were extremely helpful! Had a mini conversation about Shelton bros and kept shopping! Picked up some JP stuff and a couple singles from Natty Greene and Mother Earth both of which I'm stoked to try! Also got a six pack of Sweet Water Happy Ending which I've had but not in the 12 oz format.

It appears that I lucked out too cause they had just gotten their allocation of KBS and while not on the shelf one of the guys asked if I'd be interested in a bottle! I was :)

Great little shop and highly recommended if you're out that way and looking for great beer!

Cheers!!

Hardywood Park Craft Brewery "Hoplar"

Here we have Hardywood Park's "Hoplar"... Which is an imperial IPA of 8.5% ABV and aged on Treecycled Virginia Tulip Poplar wood. Hoplar is a collaboration beer with Richmond based Citiwood.

A little on Citiwood.... So I used to work in a print shop that did all the laser engraving for Ed from Citiwoods "Treecycled" plaques etc. First off Ed is a super guy. Basically what Citiwood does is that Ed goes around the city collecting naturally felled trees a la lightning/wind/age and so on. He then Treecycles them in to some pretty amazing stuff! An extraordinary woodworker that guy!! www.wetreecycle.com Check it out!

What is this a woodworking blog???

I've had every Hardywood beer that has been bottled since they opened save the extremely rare Quadrawine. And while I have really enjoyed them all Hoplar has been my favorite. Naturally I'm stoked its back out and am excited to tell you about the 2013 vintage.

Pours the color of harvest ready wheat with a 3/4 inch head that is beautiful.

Smells of pine and slight citrus and hints of wood.

Hoplar starts with delicious slightly caramel malt notes but its quick. Then you get the big dose of pine from the hops! A small amount of citrusy hop comes through but I get mostly pine. Which as far as I'm concerned is a great thing! Then there's the wood. Not wood like a big barrel aged beer but just a really lovely earthy wood profile that accompanies the hops fantastically and makes it different and adventurous!!! The beer goes down and ends where it begins with that delicious malt and a slight pine aftertaste.

The mouthfeel is on the thin side of sticky which is perfect for this beer I think.

This is still my favorite Hardywood beer to date! Their portfolio is amazing and who knows what's in the future but three cheers for Hoplar!!

4.3 of 5

Cheers friends!

Schlafly "Tasmanian Style IPA"

You ever had a beer from a brewery that doesn't get enough credit? I have.... I've been drinking Schlafly brews ever since I moved back to VA from Texas when I bought and fell in love with their Pumpkin ale.... It's in my top 3 for the style!

But this post is about Schlafly's Tasmanian IPA. An Imperial Pale Ale hopped with Australian sourced hops only. 7.2% ABV.

The beer pours bright pale straw that is tinged gold in good light. About half an inch head that went away pretty quick... But the foam is leaving its mark on my glass. This stuff smells great for being almost 4 months old (yes I like my IPAs super fresh). BIG grapefruit, luscious and full.

This beer tastes amazing! The flavor goes right in to that mega grapefruit kick from the hops.... Just slightly bitter but mostly just big citrus! Yum!! Then you get the malt skeleton of the thing and it just keeps staying great.

The body on this beer is pretty thick and syrupy, which I'm calling a good thing! It coats your palette and doesn't let you forget that your drinking a really well made beer!!

I'm going to come right out and say this but this beer, while not the same, is definitely living in the same house with Heady.....

I think this beer is gone for the season but their American Style IPA is out now and is also great... But that's another review!

4.3 (only cause its not super fresh) out of 5!

Cheers!

Title of blog

"So put your wine into glasses, and your cider in pewter cans, but John Barleycorn in Thee Old Brown Jug, he proved the strongest man"

Great little article on Hunahpu's day!

Wish I could have been there... But this great beer writer was!

http://americancraftbeer.com/item/hunahpu-s-day-a-craft-beer-pilgrimage-ends-at-cigar-city.html

Perennial Artisan Ales "Vermilion Winter Ale"

Personally, I'm incredibly excited about Perennial's arrival in Richmond! This was the second beer I tried from these guys out of St Louis Missouri.

There's a bit of a buzz surrounding this brewery and after enjoying 2 of their offerings it's apparently a much deserved buzz!

"Vermilion" is an English Barleywine of a hefty 10.5 % ABV. English Barleywines are some of my favorite beers. Unlike their American counterparts, English versions of these decadent beers generally have no hop profile to be found. Just big chewy , toasty, caramel indulgence.

While Perennial is quite an American brewery their take on this classic English style did not disappoint! In fact, had someone handed me a glass and told me to guess I'd have guessed it was imported! The high ABV was completely masked by huge notes of sweet caramel. As with keeping in line with the style I got almost no hop presence in the nose or taste. The body on this beer was fantastic as well! Big mouth filling richness! Color was deep chocolate brown. An insanely great beer!

I enjoyed this traditional English Barleywine with some spicy general tso's chicken (my wife was craving Chinese take out) and while I had been a little worried about the pairing it worked quite splendidly.

4.5 out of 5

I will definitely seek this beer out again. And I'm jazzed to try more from Perennial Artisan Ales!

intro to my new beer blog.

Setting this up really fast before heading out to work.... This is where I will be posting pictures, commentary, reviews, questions et al about my personal experiences with the world of beer from now on. It will be fun with no pretense! If you have ever found yourself reading any of my many FaceBook posts about beer please join and follow this blog. Ill try and make a real entry tonight but for now, welcome!

Cheers!
Jay