Brew Reviews

Newport Storm '05

Availability: Limited edition; probably long gone, since we're nearly into '07 already.

Price comparison: It was a gift from my brother. The company distributes other offerings throughout the New England area, and I know that its brewery in Rhode Island only dispenses beer in ½ gallon growlers at a cost of $10 for fresh brewed, but the Newport Storm is a high-alcohol limited edition and must retail for much more.

Alcohol percentage by volume: It was 11.7% when I got it, and I only managed to cellar it for a year before I couldn't stand any more suspense.

Cute bottle/label? Beautiful, slender cobalt glass 750-ml. bottle, corked like fine wine.

Appearance: Deep mahogany with pleasant carbonation, but no matter how patiently I poured, I couldn't get a head out of it. The most I could manage was a single layer of sparse bubbles in a thready island atop the chalice.

Scent: The first whiff reminded me of brownies — a dark-chocolate, baked aroma. Behind that was yeast, malt, and a cut-wood (as opposed to a growing tree) essence.

Flavor: Very like whiskey but with too much maltiness to not be immediately identified as beer with attitude. Undertones of raisins and black cherry, very warm and almost too sweet.

Impressions: A slight alcohol burn at the finish. I wish I'd gotten two bottles so I could see how much better it would have gotten with the benefit of even longer cellaring. A bit too strong for session, it would pair well with any strongly-flavored main course and probably should, because I think, especially after having aged an additional year after purchase, it probably packs more of a punch than its taste and feel imply.

Will I buy this beer again? About the worst thing I can say about this beer is that it's probably no longer available, and if someone's got some, it's either going to go at a pretty high price or require an awfully dear trade. Good as it was, I can't justify going into debt over it.

Rating:

3½ out of 5 cute beer glasses

Kasteel Bier Triple

Price comparison: About $10.00 USD per 750 ml.

Alcohol percentage by volume: 11%.

Cute bottle/label? 750 ml dark green glass champagne-style, corked, caged, and foiled. Ink-and-watercolor of a moat-surrounded building which I have yet to find identification for: I presume it's a monastic brewery, but I have no proof. The brewery's website appears to be nothing more than a holding spot for further programming that never took place.

Appearance: Bright gold, yielding a creamy white head and sheets of thin lace.

Scent: Butterscotch and white grapes, with a mild, nutty maltiness throughout.

Flavor: Warm, but not burningly alcoholic, with malt, cinnamon, and yeast prevalent, and a gentle citrus-vanilla finish.

Impressions: I wasn't expecting a beer this big to be so smoothly drinkable. I drank it rather faster than was probably good for me, but didn't care.

Will I buy this beer again? Yes, yes, absolutely. It's attractive and not too crass to serve with dinner (I felt it would go nicely with pasta dishes or lightly sauced poultry) and it's very affordable for its quality. Also, it's a live (still contains active yeast) ale, so it could certainly cellar well and possibly even increase in alcohol content over a period of time.

Rating:

4½ out of 5 cute beer glasses

Victory Old Horizontal

Availability: Fall seasonal. I got lucky.

Price comparison: About the same as everyday beer.

Alcohol percentage by volume: 11%

Cute bottle/label? Standard twelve-ounce brown glass; the label has a "man in the moon" crescent moon wearing a nightcap, lying on his "back" and snoring tiny Zs into the night sky.

Appearance: Deep tawny brown with sheets of spotty ivory lace left on the glass.

Scent: Sweet malt, black grapes, vanilla or caramel, and some light hops.

Flavor: Grapefruit, a bit of pepper, and hops, with a very easy malt finish.

Impressions: Far more dry than the aroma suggested, and absolutely less sweet than the average barleywine. The malt is balanced to the point where the alcohol is not terribly blatant, and it's eminently drinkable. I'm thinking this would go well anywhere that a fine burgundy would go.

I absolutely recommend this barleywine to anyone who claims that all barleywines are too sweet to be drinkable.

Will I buy this beer again? If it wouldn't already be after 8:00 pm by the time I got there, I'd already be on my way to the package store. I hope it isn't all gone by the time I get back over there, or I'll have to wait till fall rolls around again.

Rating:

4 out of 5 cute beer glasses

Thomas Hardy's Ale

Availability: 2003 vintage; numbered limited edition. Still a small amount of the 2003 available for purchase, but once that's gone, no more will be available for about another four to five years.

Price comparison: About six times the price of everyday beer.

Alcohol percentage by volume: 11.7% at bottling (in 2003), but probably stronger than that by now, and designed to grow stronger yet as time progresses.

Cute bottle/label? Tiny slender 8½ ounce brown glass with a foil neck wrap, plain black bottle cap, and serial number 007631 on the understated beige label. The high spot of this packaging is a small metal ornament with Thomas Hardy's silhouette on one side, and the words "Thomas Hardy's Ale, Brewed and Bottled by O'Hanlon's Brewing Company Ltd, Whimple, Devon, England" on the other. This ornament is suspended round the neck of the bottle with a small length of bright red string and is going to have a nice spot on my Christmas tree next year.

Appearance: A bright yet thick amber with no head and very light carbonation.

Scent: Fresh red bell pepper with hints of brandy and lemon custard. (Three scents you wouldn't expect to blend well together, yet they do, very much so.)

Flavor: Lovely dessert-wine sweetness, like cabernet, with some citrus peel and raisin characteristic as well. There's a lot going on, in terms of flavor, and it changes as the brew warms to room temperature: a little more caramel; a little more vanilla; fine brandy at the finish.

Impressions: This beer is huge. In a year or so it will be barleywine, if it isn't already. The hops are barely there but enough so for balance.

Will I buy this beer again? I have two set aside that I'm picking up at the end of the week. One for me, one for Laura. Mine's getting cellared.

This ale is not cost-effective for gulping down whilst eating peanuts and watching the game, but I highly recommend your getting some while you can. The brew is bottle-tempered and the bottle itself is designed such that you could open it twenty years from now and the beer inside should be magnificent. Call it an investment.

Rating:

5 out of 5 cute beer glasses — perfect score!

Dogfish Head Olde School Barleywine

DISCLAIMER .... DRUNK REVIEW.

Availability: Limited edition.

Price comparison: Just over twice the price of everyday beer.

Alcohol percentage by volume: 15%.

Cute bottle/label? Standard 12-ounce brown glass with the typical matte Dogfish Head label depicting a cowboy and a suggestion to wrap the bottle in a plastic bag and bury it in the yard for a year.

Appearance: Deep hazy bronze with small white head and thin lace.

Scent: Sweet spices, banana, and tangerine.

Flavor: Very malty and sweet (more like sugars than like fruits), but with a good backbone of hops and a boozy afterburn. Dries nicely at the finish.

Impressions: Another point on the label: it says to pour the contents of the bottle into two snifters. As I'm sure you can tell, I have been giggling about this since I polished off the bottle.

Will I buy this beer again? I actually bought two today, so I could try one and either cellar or share the other. I'm going to share the other, but I am going to buy yet another for cellaring.

Rating:

Bring on the shiny cuppage.

5 out of 5 GOLD CHALICES

Brooklyn Monster Ale

Availability: Limited edition (2003 vintage).

Price comparison: About $2 more per six-pack than everyday beer.

Alcohol percentage by volume: 11.8%.

Cute bottle/label? Standard shaped 12-ounce brown glass bottle; silver metallic label with the trademark white-on-green "B" (for Brooklyn) logo.

Appearance: Deep brown with a short-lived tan head. No lace.

Scent: Booze. Well, okay, some malt, but I had to work for it. Mostly booze.

Flavor: Sweet, brandylike flavor; closer to barleywine than to beer, really. No detectable hops bitterness. Kind of like straight rum at the finish.

Impressions: Not as elegant as L'Onze (Unibroue's Eleven) nor as good of a buzz as Dogfish Head's 120-Minute IPA, but certainly an acceptable flavor for a barleywine, and reasonably priced, especially when you consider that you don't need as much of this as you would of standard session beer. I'd recommend having it with a meal rather than with snacks to keep it from being overwhelming; the sweetness (nearly to the point of crassness) needs to be balanced a bit. Burgers, pizza, or possibly a dinner-sized salad with a strong vinaigrette is the sort of thing I mean.

Will I buy this beer again? If I can grab some more of this vintage, I will, and put aside at least one bottle for rereview next year. As far as drinking it now, maybe occasionally, when I want that kick without spending the extra fold.

Rating:

3 out of 5 cute beer glasses

Belzebuth

Price comparison: About 2½ times the price of everyday beer.

Alcohol percentage by volume: 13%

Cute bottle/label? Skinny little 8.4 ounce brown glass bottle with a gold foil wrap on the neck and a nearly-cartoonish depiction of the devil on the label.

Appearance: Beautifully clear orange with not much head but fairly decent carbonation and some floating lace.

Scent: The alcohol hit my nose first; heavily sweet scent of bananas and sugar and faint traces of malt followed.

Flavor: Very strong alcohol flavor; almost spicy. Some hoppiness once it warmed.

Impressions: This gave good buzz but frankly, I've had stronger beers, malt liquors, and barleywines that were far less in-your-face. This wasn't unpleasantly alcoholic, as such, except that I'm pretty sure it started life as a lager and mutated badly into something almost completely unlike beer in flavor. If I wanted Jim Beam I'd have bought some; I'd have gotten a bigger bottle for my money, too.

Will I buy this beer again? While I wonder vaguely whether it'd be worthwhile to try to let this age into something more mellow, I don't care enough about it to shell out extra money for such a teensy little bottle that didn't taste that good to me. I can get good buzzes elsewhere.

Rating:

2 out of 5 cute beer glasses

V-12

Availability: 2002 vintage; limited quantities still available for purchase.

Price comparison: About three times the price of everyday beer.

Alcohol percentage by volume: 12% at brewing (in 2002). Oh, yes. I have 12% Beer.

Cute bottle/label? 750 ml brown glass, corked and caged. The cork is marked with the year; the bottle is labeled in jewel-tones of red, orange, blue, and yellow.

Appearance: Dark copper brightening to a golden orange at the heart of the goblet. Quickly dissappating ivory head yielded attractive tendrils of lace.

Scent: Summer fruits (apples, pears, plums) with a nice allspice backdrop; pleasantly yeasty as it warmed.

Flavor: Pears, peaches, apricots; a bit of brandy; the overall flavor gently balanced with malt for a nice crisp finish. Sweeter than an everyday beer, but with enough hops to keep it from being cloying.

Impressions: Oh, my heavens, I never thought I'd taste a domestic beer this pretty. They refer to it as "Belgian-inspired" and, although I don't see that so much, the 12% ABV does make it a huge beer; really a bit much for session, especially since the alcohol is all but completely camouflaged, but it left me with a warm glow - the perfect antidote for the bitter cold outside.

Will I buy this beer again? V for Victory. I like the Golden Monkey. I like the Hopdevil. I love the V-12. I will buy another for immediate consumption and yet another to put away for safekeeping.

Rating:

5 out of 5 cute beer glasses — perfect score!

Samuel Adams Triple Bock

DISCLAIMER .... DRUNK AND ECSTATIC REVIEW.

Availability: Elusive at best. I was told, as late as yesterday afternoon, to kiss it off, since there is, presumably, no more available.

Price comparison: I've no idea. It was a gift.

Alcohol percentage by volume: I don't know what year this bottle is from. The stuff was 17½% when it was brewed.

Cute bottle/label? Cobalt blue glass, 8½ ounces. No label; gilt lettering applied directly to the bottle. And, a big plus: a cork that actually fits back into the open bottle.

Appearance: Thick, black, syrupy pour with no carbonation whatsoever.

Scent: I had heard that the older this triple bock gets, the more it smells like soy sauce, and I didn't believe it, but it's true. Well, actually, the impression I got was more that of teriyaki. Sweet, salty, some ginger. Weird. However, I tried it again, leaving it at room temperature for about ten minutes before pouring, and this time there was no scent of teriyaki whatsoever, only an interesting pop of brandy, coffee, and maple.

Flavor: Extremely sweet and thick. Not beerlike in any sense. It doesn't burn going down, but it warms when it lands. Oh, does it ever.

Impressions: This was a beer I've been curious about for quite a while. I had found out about it, completely by accident, and was intrigued by the concept of beer that had maple syrup in the mix and that was aged in barrels that had been salvaged from the Jack Daniels distillery. (The 17½% ABV caught my attention as well, I must admit.)

I want to weep with relief that this was so worth waiting for. It's never in a million years beer, I cannot stress that enough. This should be sampled for the experience more than for the flavor. If you want a nice refreshingly thirst-quenching beer, this ain't it, friend.

If you do manage to get your hands on some, hold onto it; it seems to age beautifully. Do not serve it ice cold; do not gulp it; do not drive drunk. I got the best flavor out of it by chilling it for two hours and letting it sit at room temperature for ten minutes, and I drank it out of an unchilled brandy snifter.

That having been said, the buzz and the bottle are what made this worth the wait for me.

Will I buy this beer again? I'll never find it again. But if I did, by some miracle, I would.

Rating:

5 out of 5 GOLD CHALICES

ADDENDUM -- THE DAY AFTER:

I need to stress, once again, not to buy this for the flavor. It really doesn't taste as good as the buzz. I still maintain that it was worth the chase, and I stick by my rating based on the alcohol, the fun of the hunt, the bottle, and the whole excitement factor, but on the "buy it again" question ... only as a collector's item, I think, unless I can find a younger vintage with a little more beerlikeness to it.

JW Lees Harvest Ale

Availability: 2000 vintage; limited edition.

Price comparison: About three times the price of everyday beer.

Alcohol percentage by volume: 11.5% at bottling. Nearly a 12 Percent Beer.

Cute bottle/label? Brown glass 275 ml bottle, label printed to resemble aged, stained parchment.

Appearance: Opaque reddish brown; not much head and no lacing.

Scent: Very sweet: malt, candy, raisins, and alcohol.

Flavor: The malt is stronger than the hops but not overpowering it. Very fruitlike and sweet, with an almost caramel finish.

Impressions: Easy does it; the label proclaims this to be an "old ale" but really it's a young barleywine. Also, I think it's stronger now than 11.5% ABV, though I've no proof other than its flavor and its kick, which reminded me of whiskey.

Will I buy this beer again? Yep. All reports say it ages well. I want to try some other vintages, if I can find them, and cellar some too. The teensy little bottles shouldn't take up too much space.

Rating:

4½ out of 5 cute beer glasses

Eku 28

DISCLAIMER .... DRUNK REVIEW.

Price comparison: A little over twice the price of everyday beer.

Alcohol percentage by volume: The label says 11%; the guy at the IHOD says it's been aged to the point where it's far beyond that and I believe him. He estimates it at a 25%. I personally couldn't pinpoint it that accurately even if I were sober. Which I am not.

Cute bottle/label? Slender, graceful 11.2 ounce brown glass bottle. Available in six-packs, but I didn't bother, just bought one bottle. It's enough.

Appearance: Bright clear orange; fizzy head that settled almost instantly into a thin ring of lace.

Scent: Ka-booze. Sugar, sweet fruits, malt, but the predominant aroma is that of unadulterated alcohol. In a good way.

Flavor: Very sweet and warming; a mixture of fruits and some toasted coconut, I guess. If I were at an official beer tasting, I'd get laughed out of the room, because the finish honest-to-God reminds me of honey-nut Cheerios.

Impressions: This was my first experience with an Eisbock, and I am indeed impressed. Whoa. This hit me harder than either of the Dogfish Head high-alcohol offerings. Do not, I repeat, do not gulp; for one thing, it burns a little going down if you don't sip it, and for another thing, you shouldn't need to. I drank this nicely out of a glass and still managed to get plastered.

Do this for yourself at least once in your life. Even if the IHOD kid is wrong about the final ABV, it's definitely more than 11% beer we're dealing with.

Will I buy this beer again? It's good. And even at twice the price of national-brand beer, it's more cost effective than scotch.

Rating:

5 out of 5 GOLD CHALICES

Trappistes Rochefort 10

Price comparison: About twice what I pay for everyday beer.

Alcohol percentage by volume: 11.3%

Cute bottle/label? Understated dark brown glass, about 11.2 ounces, neatly labeled in French with German subtitles. No flash, no kickass artwork.

Appearance: A syrupy dark brown with a nice soapy head.

Scent: Brown sugar and mulled wine.

Flavor: Smoother than expected for its higher than 11% alcohol content; malty and citrusy with hints of raisins and apricots, and a light pepper aftertaste. Delightfully cinnamon-graham-crackerlike at the finish.

Impressions: A lot of brewers would like to call their product "abbey ale" or Trappist ale, but, in actuality, there are only six official brewing monasteries in the world, all in Belgium, producing, between themselves, about twenty varieties. Rochefort is actually the name of the town in this case (the monastery itself is Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy). They began production in 1595.

I mention all of this history, partly because it's interesting, but mostly because it explains a lot. Like Chimay, Rochefort has earned its reputation through hard work, centuries of scientific study and perfectionism, and precise attention to detail. This is not an everyday beer; it's meant to be savored slowly and deliberately, and lends itself well to such enjoyment. Unlike other good-tasting high-alcohol brews, the Rochefort is low maintenance, balanced to be both warming and drinkable without deep concentration on the part of the consumer.

Will I buy this beer again? I will definitely purchase it again, but not on a regular gimme-a-shotta-whiskey-and-a Rochefort sort of basis. This stuff is champagne. As much as I would like to be spoiled enough to be drinking this on an everyday basis, I think it would stop being a treat if I were to buy it too frequently. I don't so much see pairing this with a meal (though it would go well with just about every food I could think of) as having it as a celebratory drink.

Rating:

5 out of 5 cute beer glasses — perfect score!

L'Onze (11)

Price comparison: A whopping 3½ times what I pay for everyday beer.

Alcohol percentage by volume: 11%. That's not a typo.

Cute bottle/label? This is Unibroue's eleven-year anniversary offering. A 750ml brown glass bottle (with the still-amusing-to-me cork). No label; instead, gilt lettering is applied directly to the bottle.

Appearance: I'd refer to this beer as honey-colored, but something about it makes me prefer the Anglicised spelling. Honey-coloured. Dense but short-lived foam and little to no lace.

Scent: Orange peel, pineapple and crushed mint leaves, maybe a dash of anisette or fennel.

Flavor: Very bright and sparkly tasting at first, like sauterne, but deepens upon further investigation and adds a bite of fresh ginger and nutmeg. There's also a caramel-apple undertone that does a sneaky little play on you, making you think you've had less alcohol than you actually did.

Impressions: I felt like this beer was a little bit sweet and needed to age more, so I'm going to buy another bottle or two and cellar it for next year or the year after. This particular bottle, which, to my embarrassed drunkenness, I have finished, I shall convert into a candlestick 'cos the gilding is just so quool.

Having emptied the bottle, I do venture to say that this is a refreshingly summery beer and yet would also qualify as a satisfying beer on a cool autumn evening in New England, like tonight. Nice by itself anytime you'd normally find yourself drinking cider, but I got very imaginative and decided it'd also be a nice accompaniment to a Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey dinner with trimmings. So probably I should grab another couple of bottles for the holidays.

Will I buy this beer again? What, did I not make enough excuses for buying more already? If not, let me tell you now, they've only bottled six thousand cases of the stuff and only exported twenty-five hundred to the States. Buy some while you can, because when it's gone, there'll be no more. And yes, it is worth the extra money.

Rating:

4½ out of 5 cute beer glasses

(I will probably need to rereview L'Onze next year when I have a more aged bottle on hand. I believe that's going to be the difference between the above score and a possible perfect score.)