After raging on the road through a rain storm and other epic weather conditions, we finally landed on our friend’s couch around midnight, and immediately cracked open a couple things I brought up from NYC with me.  We decided to call it a night pretty quickly given the amount of beer we were planning on consuming the next day, but not before I was able to impress my friend with a year old bottle of Captain Lawrence Xtra Gold, which he had never been able to try, and a few other miscellaneous treats.  After a booze-free brunch the next morning, our beer day began at The Independent Pub in Union Square with a big round of Founder’s Red’s Rye P.A. I was supposed to write up a big batch of Founder’s a while ago and never got around to it, which is a shame, as they are one of my favorite Michigan breweries.  Founder’s produces a nice stable of both year round and seasonal beers, and besides the Centennial IPA, I’ve gone for their Red’s Rye Pale Ale more than any other.  Red’s pours a deep reddish brown color, clear as a beer could possibly be.  The nose is pure citrus/grapefruit/tropical fruit explosion from the insane amount of Amarillo hops used in the beer, without much malt or spice to be found, but only small hints of both.  The flavors this beer packs are more balanced but it’s still more or less a fantastic citrus bomb that stas crisp and smooth throughout.  Drinking it a bit warmer will make it seem more malty and balanced, but no matter the temperature, the bitterness is never harsh or overpowering.  A new fangled, more modern version of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is a good touchstone — more in your face, less concerned about mass market drinkability.  All in all, an awesome start to a great weekend of beer.

After the Independent we started to make our way over to the Cambridge Brewing Company, a rather storied institution whose beers I have tried only once, at a festival, far from their home base.  CBC has been around for 20 years, which is a hell of a lot considering there are hardly any functioning brew pubs that have been going continuously for that long.  What makes CBC special, besides their focus on beer’s relationship with food, is their obsession with producing a vast array of beer styles, not specializing or focusing too heavily in one area.  In one night of moderate drinking, my friends and I were able to taste a classic-styled Kolsch, a barrel aged Sour Kriek, and more.  Here’s a recap:

Regatta Golden: I’m starting to appreciate it more and more when I can go to a place like CBC which sells a lot of far-out beers and also try a more classic style, like this Kolsch styled German Ale.  Kolsch is like the Pilsner of the Ale world, if that makes any sense, and the Regatta Golden is a pretty damned good take on a difficult to pull off style.  There’s a common understanding amongst home brewers and even profressional brewers that sometimes the simplest beers are the hardest to brew.  Sure, you can easily pull off a super bitter IPA, a fruity Wheat Beer, or even a gigantic stout, but can you balance your Kolsch? Can you produce a flawless Pale Ale?  CBC clearly can, and the Regatta golden is as clear and crisp of a golden ale as I’ve ever had.  Very refreshing, balanced, and, damn, I gotta say it again, CRISP, there’s also a nice touch of bitterness, spiciness, and breadiness to keep everything together.  Awesome with food, before food, or after food — just awesome.

Jedi Mind Trick: The terrible name aside, the Jedi Mind Trick is actually a Belgian Styled IPA or an American Styled Tripel depending on who you ask or how many versions of this beer you’ve had before.  The combination of American Hops and Belgian Yeast is probably my favorite innovation in the past few years, and with excellent breweries like Stone, Green Flash, and other West Coast pioneers perfecting it, it’s always nice when an East Coast example steps up.  Since CBC doesn’t have the overwhelmingly insane track record for dealing with massive amounts of hops, I was surprised and delighted to be … so surprised and delighted with this beer.  It’s a difficult balance to pull off, that of balancing Yeast and Hops, and the JMT is a great example of a beer that can pull you in one direction one minute and then another the next without being overwhelming, inconsistent, or fatiguing on the palate.  There’s nice malt sweetness, Yeast spiciness, Hop bitterness, and a nice amount of Hop flavor as well that all swim together in your goblet to give you a great picture of the amazing conversation going on right now between Belgian and American brewers.  Fresh and delicious, JMT skirts enough lines without crossing too many boundaries and becoming muddled, to the point where I’ll even forgive them the name.

Arquebus: Arquebus is definitely the beer I heard the most about before ever trying any of CBC’s beers, and with good reason.  It’s billed as a “Summer Barleywine,” and the CBC website explains that it’s produced with a lot of local honey, enhanced with white wine grapes, and then aged in chardonnay barrels for 18 months.  The result is a massive 11% ABV beer that pours a beautiful deep golden color like an Itallian white desert wine.  There are oxidative, fruity, and phenolic notes when you sniff, and a whole kaleidoscope of flavors when you sip.  Arquebus is smooth and deep, not too overwhelming but hardly something you could drink a full pint of either.  Really one of those beers that needs to be experienced in person, it is by far one of the most wine like brews I’ve ever had, and one of my favorites of all time for that matter.  Just absolutely intense and if I had a stock of 33ml bottles of this, I’m not sure I’d ever leave the house.

Cerise Casee:  Anytime I see a “Barrel-fermented Sour Wild Ale” on any beer menu, I’m excited, but after seeing all that CBC had to offer, and reading about their process for producing this beer, I was out of my mind stoked and shocked at the same time.  I’m not sure why CBC doesn’t get more credit in beer circles for doing some truly unique things with Barrel-aged and Sour beers, but Will at Cambridge is easily on par with Vinne at Russian River and Ron at Jolly Pumpkin in terms of truly pushing the envelope.  Cerise Casee is produced using the “Solera” fermentation system, which, like the system used in Belgium to produce Gueuze, has young, middle-aged, and older Lambics mixed together to produce the final product. CBC takes this further with an insane sour mash, and barrels that go back 6 years, producing a concoction that is just not attainable had these techniques not been employed.   When you add fresh cherries into the mix, the resulrs are just spectacular.  There is an aged, sherry like quality that accompanies this beer, which serves very nicely in balancing the sour tartness natural to the fermentation style. There is also a noticable amount of flavor from the wood, and a good amount of aroma as well.  This is going to be a once in a lifetime style opportunity for most people who try this beer, and it should be savored.  Make the trip and find out how good it is and how shitty I actually am at describing beer.

After a ridiculous helping of beer and some pretty damned good presentations of local Sea Bass, we called it a night at CBC, hit a local loft to see some out of town friends play an excellent show, and called it a night.  The next morning we hit another brunch spot and then did some shopping before hitting the road.  We had been talking about hitting Publick House Provisions, the retail arm of the well-renowned pub and bar in Brookline called the Publick House.  After a nice coffee at a friend’s coffee shop, we wandered in to Boston’s Beer Mecca.  Provisions is a very clean, well stocked shop that focuses on Beer, Glassware, and Cheeses, which, aside from the glassware, of course had me thinking of Bierkraft.  I was mainly in the market for Pretty Things beers, of which I was able to score a few bottles, but was also pleasantly surprised to find a bottle of Cascade Kriek.  I wasn’t very impressed by the “display only” case of Westvleteren beers behind the counter, the somewhat asshole-ish attitude of the guy behind the counter, or the outrageous prices on glassware ($12 for B. United glasses? What the hell? Should have checked before I walked out), but hey, this is a beer store, not social hour, so what am I expecting? All in all I would be excited to have this place as my local shop as I’m sure Brookline heads are, and I walked out with a nice haul.

I was very impressed with the beer offerings Boston had, especially it’s focus on pairing awesome beer with awesome food.  The beer culture there is strong and I’ll be back soon to hit it again.  Thanks to KFW and Robyn for the hospitality!

Sierra Nevada Kellerweis – No big surprise that this beer is surfacing on this blog as I am a devoted Sierra Nevada acolyte and seek out all of their new releases as soon as I can.  Sierra’s newest entry into their expanding lineup of year round beers, Kellerweis is “one of the only American Hefeweizens made using the traditional Bavarian style of open fermentation.”  In addition to this process, a secret proprietary yeast strain is used, giving Kellerweis a crisp, delicious flavor that is unique to American brews.  It’s great to taste this beer at its peak of freshness.  It pours a hazy golden color when you swirl and pour in the yeast from the bottle, and reminds me a lot of the cloudy sunshine we’ve been having in Brooklyn lately.  The sixpack I scored at a local bodega didn’t last me too long, and was a great beer to have on a hot as hell brew day this past weekend.  Kellerweis has all of the fruity, spicy notes in aroma and flavor that you could ask for in a Hefeweizen, and is almost as crispy and delicious as the all time undisputed king of Wheat Beers from Schneider Weisse.  There’s of course an amped up amount of hop character in this beer, which is very welcome to my tastes.  This isn’t a mindblowing beer or anything and if you’ve ever had peak Weisse in Germany, you’re not going to find an exact reproduction here, but in terms of Sierra nailing a “Chico-ized” version of a classic beer style, it’s a knockout.  Awesome work guys.

Sierra Nevada Summerfest 09 Lager – Recently I ran into a certified hopophobic dark beer fanatic friend of mine (I know, somewhat contradictory) on the beach, and was very surprised to see him toting a six-pack of Summerfest.  Since I’ve never seen him enjoy anything by Sierra, I asked him what was up and he just shrugged his shoulders and said “Dude, it’s the summer.”  So I grabbed one of his bottles and checked out this year’s version of one of Sierra’s only Lagers.  Summerfest pours a brilliant golden color, with a thick crackling white head and a ton of hop aroma, backed by the sweet breadiness you would expect from a Pilsner style beer.  Not quite the extremely hoppy amped up Pale Lager that you might expect, Sierra shows some restraint hear and brings a lot of crisp fruitiness to the table with this beer.  It’s an excellent beer that gets fruitier as you let it warm up, but in terms of drinking it fresh and crisp, I like it pretty cold, like right out of the fridge.  This is a good opportunity to taste something brewed by Sierra that doesn’t use their signature yeast, and the lighter grain bill leaves a lot of the hop flavors exposed that the Pale Ale covers up.  A delicious, cheap alternative to horrible skunky Euro-Lagers — drink Chico!

Alesmith Summer Yulesmith – I was always kind of confused by Alesmith’s Yulesmith, until I read the bottle.  In the summer, Yulesmith is a big old IPA, bursting with fresh west coast hop flavor and backed by a nice assertivle malt backbone.  I loved the big gamut of hop flavors and aromas happening in this beer, and it reminded me how I need to seek out more of Alesmith’s regular IPA, which was one of my favorites when I tried it for the first time.  A little on the big and heavy side for a typical Summer Beer, Yulesmith works because of how incredibly bright it is — there’s plenty of sharp citrus and cool pine to keep you going.  Split the bomber with a buddy, though, and you’ll be glad you did.

Ithaca Flower Power – I come back to this beer again and again, whenever it’s fresh, and it definitely tops the list of my favorite East Coast IPAs, if you can call it that, and if there’s such a thing.  You know what I mean.  It pours a beautiful brilliant golden orange color with a tan, crackling head that releases a ton of hop aromas.  There’s a lot of up-front citrus and fresh hop aroma which is complemented by the perfect amount of caramel and a tiny bit of deep, toffee like flavor.  Flower Power finishes very dry and remains super drinkable at almost 8% ABV.  I’ve been sending these beers to the West Coast for a while in trade and they’ve been loving it out there — not enough to admit it rivals their hometown favorites, but what can you expect?

Samuel Adams Summer Ale – Faced with the task of choosing beers for a large group of people to drink with food, this is one of three six packs I ended up with.  The task at hand was a Maryland crab feast, and while we usually have Corona, which I fucking hate, I wanted something a little different, so I was happy to see this available at the liquor store next door to the crab joint.  Summer Ale is a Witbier brewed with lemon zest and grains of paradise.  It pours a very pale golden yellow color and crackles away with alternating lemony and hoppy aromas and flavors.  Somewhat thin and artificial tasting on its own, Summer Ale was actually very good with the spicy, sharp Old Bay on the crabs, and paired very nicely with the richness of the crab meat.  I was happy to drink a few of these with the crabs, potato salad, corn, and other summer treats, but I had to wait until I was several beers deep before I was close to hitting these up later on in the night.  Not a bad jam for Sam Adams at all, and again, surprisingly hoppy and somewhat uncharactaristically bitter for the style — I like.

The fact that Lagunitas has not gotten a lot more play on this blog is a testament to how dense the American Craft Beer scene is these days.  Lagunitas is one of the first craft breweries I got into after Sierra Nevada, and I enjoyed discovering that I indeed like to drink Pilsners, Copper Ales, and a variety of other flavors by making my way through their catalog.  Since being introduced to the brewery, I have had the opportunity to drink a lot of their seasonal offerings.  The latest release for summer, available in 12oz 6-packs, is somewhat misleadingly named “A Lil Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale.”  I half-expected a low ABV session beer until I remembered I was dealing with Lagunitas — so the result is a nearly 8% ABV Pale Ale/American Wheat Beer hybrid, intensely hoppy both in aroma and flavor, with a delicious smooth maltiness provided by the combination of wheat, base, and specialty malts.  With this awesome combination you get the great mouthfeel provided by the wheat, the aromatics provided by Ale Yeast and Hops, and the flavor provided by all of the above.  “A Lil Sumpin’ Sumpin’” turns out to be quite a beast of a beer if you knock a couple back — the alcohol is very well hidden, and this copper colored beer is a great choice for a warm, celebratory day.

Jolly Pumpkin is no stranger to the pages of this blog, and being that it’s essentially my favorite American Brewery, it’s always a pleasure to cover another of their brews in the ranks of the Brew Dog Blog.  Bam Noire is their “Black Saison,” a style that doesn’t really exist aside from a few examples.  The concept of Seasonal Saisons comes from the Fantome brewery in Belgium for the most part, and Jolly Pumpkin’s version, although a deep reddish black and adorned with Halloween motifs on the bottle, holds its own just fine in the heat of the summer.  Light, refreshing, dry, and perfectly fruity and tart, Bam Noir brings just about everything to the table in terms of being a fantastic A+ Summer drinker.  A lot of complexity in the nose and on the palette makes it more than a chugger, and takes it into the slow sipping realm, if you can make it last that long.

Chelsea Brewing Company disproves the notion that many people have that there are no Craft Beers produced on the sainted “Money Makin” island of Manhattan. While most of the brews they pump out are highly drinkable, delicious beers, none are particularly mindblowing, yet they exist as examples of good, fresh beers you can regularly get around bars and at the brew pub over on the west side.  Recently Bierkraft, a big seller of Chelsea beers, sourced a cask of one of Chelsea’s new offerings, the USA, which was dry hopped and being served in 64oz growlers.  Stinky brought one out to the barbecue and I was really glad he did.  It was a low ABV, not quite brilliantly clear golden Ale in the English style, and it had an enormous hop presence both in the nose and in the spicy, fruity flavors.  Low carbonation emphasizes the delicious maltiness of this beer also, altogether a hell of a summer drinker too and the growler disappeared quickly.

Hard to believe there’s still a Captain Lawrence beer that I haven’t written about, and one of their flagships, no less.  Freshchester Pale Ale is a very, very good East Coast style Pale Ale, from a dude who worked at Sierra Nevada and can brew any kind of beer well.  It has the perfect balance going on that is the SN trademark, and a delicious blend of hops (definitely some PNW hops in there) and malt (2-row and crystal) is extremely satisfying.  It starts bubbly and fresh with awesome hop aromas, and finishes nice and dry with a malty, rounded finish.  Not too bitter, not too sweet, just how I like it.

Port Brewing is probably no stranger to anyone who reads this blog (don’t laugh, we have a few readers, even some who aren’t related to me), and their Hot Rocks Lager is one of the more interesting sounding of their seasonal, somewhat experimental beers.  While most of the barrel-aged, soured, fruit adding beers are done over at Lost Abbey, there’s plenty of intriguing stuff coming out of Port to keep you busy for a while.  When a recent stroke of luck saw a friend on his way back to NYC from PA with a detour programmed in for grabbing beers, I asked him to grab whatever Port stuff was around, as I usually do, and I was rewarded handsomely with this 22oz bottle.  Hot Rocks Lager is a “Steinbier,” an obscure German Style beer where the wort is boiled by dropping super hot rocks into the kettle, causing a ton of caramelization along with the typical wort boiling.  Actually it seems that Steinbiers could take different forms, therefore making it more of a process than a style, but you get the point.  I’m not 100% sure how far Tomme and his collaborator went in creating this Steinbier, but I understand he presented on the subject at the National Homebrewer’s conference a few weeks back, so maybe an astute reader can comment.  Hot Rocks turns out to be a very satisfying Lager, true to the Lager style with its lack of yeast aromas, and big on the malty, chocolatey aroma ostensibly caused by the Steinbier process.  A smooth, very drinkable, ruby red lager with a crackling white head that hangs around, Hot Rocks is somewhere near a Bock in style, but not quite as fruity, if I’m keeping my styles straight.  It’s a delicious beer with an interesting story, though, and it doesn’t take much more than that to get me on board.

Ballast Point is one of the San Diego area breweries that us New Yorkers have been waiting to get our hands on for quite a while.  Despite the fact that their Yellowtail Kolsch is their flagship beer, they entered the NYC market with their Calico Amber and Big Eye IPA.  Both are available in 12oz bottles now, so in the name of research, I grabbed one of each.  Big Eye IPA is not quite the “classic” West Coast IPA you might expect upon picking it up, but it still proved to be quite delicious and very drinkable.  It pours a deep orange color with a huge white head, just like you want an IPA to look.  All of the right hop aromas are there, with a touch of caramel on top.  There’s no realy bracing bitterness here, and in fact, this is more of a balanced IPA from the West Coast than any I’ve had in quite some time.  In a lot of ways its closer to an East Coast style IPA, or maybe a West Coast style Pale Ale.  A nice thin-medium body keeps it drinkable as well, and the moderate ABV could make this a killer session beer.  I’d love to try this on tap, I think it would be very delicious.  Not a mindblower, but I’ll definitely return to it.  Likewise the Calico Amber is a very balanced, delicious, sessionable beer, although one with a lot more malt complexity and not as much hop aroma.  There are sweeter smells on display here, with some toastiness to boot, and overall the Calico could be a great choice for someone looking to check out some West Coast styled beers without having to split their tongues for an entire night.  I’m looking forward to getting my hands on some of Ballast Point’s bigger beers so I can see what they can do when they stretch their legs out a bit.

Contreras is one of the many obscure breweries brought in by the magnificent 12 percent importers, and their “Valeir” series of beers have been favorites of mine since they started coming in last year.  Their newest, the “Extra,” is another excellent example of the Belgian response to American innovation, in the form of the “Belgian IPA.”  If you’re not familiar with this style, I would almost describe it as a hoppier Saison with American Hops, and that’s exactly what you get here.  A very dry beer in the tradition of Belgian “digestability” with the added benefit of the delicious citrus and bubblegum flavors we’ve come to love from American IPAs.  Extra pours a beautiful golden orange with a classic Belgian styled rocky head which bursts massive aromas of hops and a slight bit of toasty malt.  No extra sweetness, no extra body, just beautiful refreshing beer flavors and aromas through and through.  The Belgian Yeast and American Hops compliment each other perfectly here, and unlike other Belgian hoppy beers in green bottles, there’s no oxidized skunk aromas or flavors.  Another winner!

Bonus points: does anyone out there know why Belgian IPAs tend to carry the “Extra” appellation? This has been bugging me for a while now.

Nogne 0 has gotten some nice attention lately here in New York City where their portfolio of available brews is increasing and more people are taking notice of their excellent takes on almost any style imaginable.  When I noticed that they threw their hat in the Saison ring and was simultaneously encouraged by Stinky to check it out, I knew it was probably going to be a winner.  Nogne’s Saison pours a deep Orange color, closer to red than blonde, which right away gives it a distincitive look.  A large amount of crackling off white head is evidence of a lot of carbonation, which continuously releases a lot of great aromas for a long while after the beer is poured.  There’s apparently no extra spicing in this beer, only the aromas and flavors lent by the Saison style yeast, and that’s quite an accompilshment because there’s a lot of complexity in both departments.  Even though this is an appropriately dry Saison, there is a decent amount of maltiness and body, and the herbal and citrus notes do a lot to compliment that and prevent it from overwhelming the beer.  One of the better Saisons to come from anywhere outside of Belgium, Nogne scores again with this very balanced, very delicious version that would go very well with almost any food imaginable — I’m thinking a nice Steak, but I’m usually thinking about Steak these days, so that doesn’t say that much.

At an event at Spuyten Duyvil a little while back, I had the opportunity to sample some of the beers of Brasserie De la Senne, a Belgian brewery in the Senne Valley, where certain Belgian beer styles are said to have originated.  The beers are difficult to find in the United States, and as it was a joint “event” with the greatest brewers in the world (Cantillon), I was more than pleasantly surprised to learn that Senne’s Saison is actually blended with some of Cantillon’s young Lambic beer.  This Saison pours a pale golden color with a slighter quantity of carbonation than the Nogne version, but still enough to keep the drinkability nice and high.  There is a tartness in both aroma and flavor here, in addition to an array of sweet, spicy, and citrus notes which all come together in one of the more complex variations on any style I’ve ever had.  Easier-going than a Lambic, more adventurous than the average Saison, Senne’s version hits so many notes that really all you can say is that once again, Life is Beautiful.  Also check out Senne’s website for some of the best beer label artwork ever.

21st Amendment’s beers have been on my radar for a while, and I’m happy to finally get a chance to really sit down and enjoy their two current offerings available here in cans, Hell or High Watermelon, which is a Wheat Beer made with fresh pressed fruit, and Brew Free or Die, a west coast style IPA.  Hell or High Watermelon doesn’t really sound like a beer I’d be into, and at first, honestly, it wasn’t a beer I enjoyed.  That only lasted about three sips, though, and as I proceeded, I became very convinced that I could quite happily consume a large quantity of this beer, and be very proud of the fact that I was drinking a watermelon beer.  I have been drinking these more out of the can then in the glass, but when I did pour it, I was surprised at just how pale it is.  It pours a light yellow color with a quick, fizzy head, and coms out with a big kicking aroma of watermelons.  The fruit flavor isn’t up front when you sip right away, but as you drink it, it comes out more and more.  If this beer warms up a bit too much, it gets a little off and cloying tasting, but honestly, there’s no real danger of that happening.  You will chug this beer, I promise.  Brew Free or Die is a very tasty, highly drinkable IPA that finishes nice and dry like a West Coast IPA should.  A little maltier than the typical offering, and almost bordering on the Pale Ale in terms of its lack of bracing bitterness, this is a very successful, deep, golden IPA with nice aromas of Pine and Citrus.  Very well balanced, not too sweet and not too bitter, another insanely drinkable win from 21st Amendment.  What will they do next?

Oskar Blues has already been well established as an excellent purveyor of canned goods, and should be considered one of the forefathers of TSOTC.  Their latest contribution, a very delicious canned Pilsner, pours a beautifully clear golden color, with a touch of sulphur and a good amount of hops on the nose.  A bit hoppier than most Pilsners, and hence a lot tastier to this here tongue, Mama’s Little Yella Pils is a fantastic Colorado take on an all-time beer classic. Very drinkable with no hot alcohols or yeast aromas, this Pilsner is pure drinkability, in the right kind of package for almost any situation.

With all of these offerings and a lot more coming down the pipeline, the bottle may very well be on its way out — so embrace the can, my friends, The Summer is upon us!

Maui Brewing Company has a nice reputation on the west coast for creating a nice variety of canned beer, the most famous of which is the Coconut Porter that I was lucky enough to get a 4 pack of.  Not having ever had any coconut beers, I didn’t know what to expect, and after reading about how the oils and proteins in coconut can be destructive to head retention and mouth feel, I was even more intrigued.  After killing two cans in about 30 minutes tonight, however, I’m ready to set all preconceived notions aside, and if you don’t hear from me for a few weeks, you might just assume I’m holing up in Maui swilling this stuff like it’s my job.

Coconut Porter pours a deep black with a large tan crackling head.  Immediately upon pouring the beer, chocolate, roast coffee, and coconut flavors pour out.  It’s interesting that this beer would be popular in someplace warm, but hey, craft beer drinkers are an adventurous bunch, and Coconut Porter finishes clean and dry enough to dismiss most people’s notions that “dark beer is heavy beer.”  The same elements that come through in the nose come through on the palate as well, a nice range of chocolates, bitter grains, and a light hint of coconut.  Perfect in body, sessionable in ABV at less than 6%, and therefore eminently drinkable, Coconut Porter combines the classic elements of a Porter with an ingenious use of indigenous ingredients that just makes me really fucking happy.  I’m glad I have two cans left, but I’m sure they won’t last long.  Thanks Aja and Bret!

The hops are there I suppose. They come across as primarily fruity and floral on the nose, a bit of apricot and apple. Where they are lacking, however, is in that sharper citrus/pine scent I want in a heavily late-hopped IPA, and their laid back fruitiness leaves them vulnerable to being overpowered by the malt, which is fairly sweet and toasty. The fact that the beige head was meager and disappeared too soon kept it from really opening up I think.

The problem here is really just that in attempting to eliminate the bitterness, they’ve gone too far and there just seems to be something basic missing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an extremely drinkable IPA, decent body and all, and I could happily session a few bombers on a hot summer day, but the heart and soul of those West Coast hop monsters we all know and love seems to have been neutered when a simple trim would’ve done nicely.

When I showed up I was pleasantly surprised to learn that minds behind 12 Percent Imports (who I raved about here) were behind bringing Hopfenstark into the city, and more than just a “tasting,” this was the celebration of the beer being available in NYC now — very cool.  We don’t get much great Canadian beer down here, and as I made my way through the list, I was pleasantly surprised by everything I tried.  Hopfenstark has a real knack with differentiating his beers from each other, and for not going too deeply into one “category” of beers to the point where other categories suffer.  Each beer had distinctions that led themselves to their styles — varying carbonation levels, varying means of fermentation and yeasts, lots of varying flavors.  I’ll give a brief rundown here of some of those selections, and will add, as usual — DRINK THIS BEER! It’s fantastic.

Blanche De L’Ermitage (5.0% ABV Witbier) – After completely overdoing the Witbier thing last year, and drinking an insane amount of Schneider-Weisse, it’s been kinda hard for me to drink Wheat Beers lately.  Hopfenstark’s Blanche De L’Ermitage, however, defied all of my expectations by providing a very unique and interesting drinking experience.  This is the beer that really had me praising the brewer’s tenacity and talent — this is a very rustic, not very integrated beer, but that doesn’t bother me at all.  It had all of the right peppery, spicey notes without overwhelming the banana (in fact it was barely present) and the spiciness and fullness of flavor kept it very drinkable, while finishing very dry and keeping you coming back for more.  Maybe the most “Saisonish” Witbier I’ve tried, with nice brisk carbonation, a tendency toward the browner side of the spectrum, and overwhelmingly exploding with flavor and aroma from spices.  Awesome.

Post Coloniale (6.0% ABV American IPA) – After seeing a big list of Saisons, I was excited to see styles like Porter and IPA represented as well.  The Post Coloniale is one of the “roughest,” most rustic IPAs I’ve ever had, and while I hate to keep harping on that term, there is a certain aggressive quality with these beers which tend toward representing all of the ideas the beer has to offer without much concern for balance or other typical designations of “quality” which I never really care about anyway.  An American IPA with a French Canadian via Belgium twist, the Post Coloniale is  a cloudy, intensely flavored beer with a very nice melange of hop aromas.  There’s not an overwhelming amount of bitterness present, whcih supports a nice malt backbone and is dried out by a low finishing gravity and a very nice piney, citrusy note at the end of the sip.  A little bit difficult to explain, but a very interesting brew, Post Coloniale is a glimpse into what other Saison Producing breweries might do if faced with the task of making an IPA, where the hops become as much of a spice as anything else.  Very nice.

Loulou Porter (5.0% ABV Porter) - A very delicious selection on cask, the Loulou had the perfect amount of carbonation, roastiness, and sweetness to make it one of the best new porters I’ve sampled in a very long time.  A nice Mapley nose is complemented with a similar initial flavor on the tongue, which dries out and makes this a very drinkable beer.  Not an overwhelming amount of chocolatey or bitter notes keeps the affair very smooth, and this dark, almost still beer could be a huge winner to replace any number of flavorless, bubbless beers anywhere in the United Kingdom, but I’d be happy to keep it all for my own.  By this point in the night, I’m very “warm.”  Let’s keep going.

Brewer Fred brought in a small quantity of a few bottles which he brought down for the events, and this included 3 Saisons, named with different numbers, for different reasons.  I’ll break down the two I tried:

Saison Station 7 (5.0% ABV Saison) – Thusly named because it is “made with 7 spices,” Saison Station 7 actually kind of refutes the points I made above about rustic, unbalanced beers and produces a mixture of spices, wild yeast, and malt that is one of the most complex and interesting Saisons I’ve had from outside of Belgium, or anywhere.  After pouring a ruddy orange color with a lot of bubbles, the nose has a good amount of spice and interesting yeast notes, and as you sip the beer, more spices poke out at you — is there Ginger? Coriander? Peppercorns? Some other traditional Witbier spicing? Or none of these? I’m not sure what the 7 spices are, but the soup is improved, as opposed to being too muddied up with all of that flavor.  A true Saison that is produced seasonally and just with whatever the brewer has around, Station  7 is an awesome selection.

Saison Station 55 (6.5% ABV Saison) – Station 55 gets its appelation from containing 55 IBUs, and this awesome, bitter Saison is one of my favorite selections of the whole night.  Similar in color and carbonation level to the 7. Station 55 marries the spicy yeast notes from the Saison yeast with the herbal, spicy, and citrusy flavors from the hops, creating an awesome marraige of classic Belgian and West Coast USA flavors, in a package with a hint of wild yeast, a hint of spice, and a hell of a lot of complex drinkability.  Another score.

I’m interested to see when this beer will be around NYC more regularly, and whether we’ll get bottles, kegs, or both.  I’m going to make it a point to try all of them — and I recommend you do the same.

Fermented with both regular top-fermenting Ale Yeast and Brett Yeast provides an opportunity to control the beer’s flavors, and It’s Alright is a successful, if not perfect attempt at an Infected Session beer, along the lines of Jolly Pumpkin’s low ABV selections.  It’s Alright pours a beautiful clear straw color and is crackly as soon as it hits the glass.  Their is a great, fruity, wild aroma immediately from the yeast that dominates the experience in a great way.  Like most beers dosed with Brettanomyces, which is capable of eating more of the remaining sugars in beer than normal brewer’s yeast (a property known as being ‘highly attenuative’), It’s Alright is very dry, and the body suffers a bit for this reason.  Just a touch more, or a bit of malt or caramel sweetness would really make this beer excellent.  This is more of a light Saison than a pale ale, but in any event, it’s an excellent, highly drinkable beer that I would drink a ton of if I were a millionaire.  Alas, as they say, It’s Alright.