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.

Two excllent examples of this “wild” style have recently come out of New York State.  Captain Lawrence hit a homerun with its first entry into the Sour Beer canon with its much sought after Cuvee de Castelton, and Rosso E Morrone is a sort of “red wine” version of this style, aged in oak barrels and refermented with red grapes.  A very intriguing intermingling of the typical wine and beer flavors, Rosso E Morrone is easily in the running for most complex beer experience on planet earth, hitting the palate so many different ways that the small 375ml bottle is quite a journey to take.  Rosso comes in a wax capped small “split” style champagne bottle with a red wax dipped cap.  It pours a pretty hazy reddish brown with almost no head and a small amount of carbonation.The nose is very intense, a range of funky, fruity, and chemical/wood smells that keep changing as you sip.  Similarly, a treat of flavors await you as you sip, alternating between a decent malt presence, a nice tart fruitiness, and a crisp but round hint of bitterness.  An absolutely classic take on this “Belgian styled” beer which is really as much New York chutzpah as anything else — amazing.

Ithaca’s Brute has been an elusive brew to track down in the bottle — I tried it about a year ago in Cooperstown at the Ommegang festival, and rumors of the bottle being “brewery only” persisted until recently some bottles showed up at Bierkraft.  Score.  Brute pours a bright golden color with a nice big head that dissipates quickly, and a nice heavy amount of carbonation.  Brute is the “traditional” Champagne to Rosso’s sparkling Shiraz, dryer, a bit more biting, and hitting the brighter part of the fruit spectrum (white grapes, peaches) as opposed to the darker fruits that Rosso has to offer (plums, red grapes, etc.).  Brute is a touch more one-dimensional than Rosso, although it is still quite a complex sipper.  Brute has more of a hop presence both in the nose and on the palate, with an effervescent mouthfeel that keeps the heavy acidity from being overbearing.

As good as anything being produced by most American brewers who dare to step into the sour beer fray, these two New York State examples make me proud to be a resident and advocate for local beer — keep the explorations coming!

I almost missed Ithaca’s Brute, having forgotten about it and skipped it on my first circuit, but thankfully a friend reminded me and I ran back to get a taste. Get psyched for this one, people! The next bottling in Ithaca’s wholly amazing Excelsior series, Ithaca calls it an “American Golden Sour Ale,” and it marks an awesome entry into the expanding American market for sour beers. It pours cloudy and has a fully barnyardy and acetic funk to it with some mild fruit to back it up. It was one of the last beers I had after decimating my mouth with hops all day and it’s puckering sourness did a great job in helping to get that bitterness off my mind. This is a tight tight brew with everthing going right for it, and I am super psyched to be able to get a sour beer of this caliber out here on the east coast once they start bottling in August. It’s getting too expensive having Russian River bottles shipped from Cali in trade!

Lagunitas is a super-reliable purveyor of heavily hopped IPAs, DIPAs, red ales, and pretty much anything they can run across a hop-back. Their Hop Stoopid, which I had from the bottle while on the west coast in the spring, can be considered their ultimate paean to the hop flower. We try to keep drug references at bay here at the BDB, or at least keep them subtle, but the smell of this brew poured from the tap at the beer festival was straight-up dank weed. It was uncanny, and intoxicating, so much so that it was one of the few samples I felt compelled to try more than once all day. The flavor was heavy on the grapefruit, which is how I like my DIPAs, with the bitterness perfectly balanced by the malt and a finish that leans back towards tight and piney leaving you wanting another sip. I love, love, love this beer and love the freshness it had on draft, now if only I could find it on cask somewhere…

The final brew I want to bring to everyone’s attention is Bear Republic’s Crazy Ivan, a beer which makes no fucking sense, but tastes so fucking good. Bear Republic is another west coast brewer that is heavy-handed with the hops. Their Racer 5 is another of my favorite day-to-day IPAs and I am still waiting to get a taste of the legendary Racer X. This brew is a blend of their Racer 5 and Red Rocket worts fermented with Belgian yeast. I know, right? The smell has some nuttiness and banana to it, owing to the estery Belgian yeast used, with some hops detectable as well. The flavor is like an American-Hopped Belgian Ale, just so totally out there and different from anything I have ever tried that it really threw me for a loop. I’d highly recommend checking it out if you ever come across it.

And there you have it, notes from my first ever beer event! And lest I leave you wanting for more beers to seek out, here are some honorable mentions:

Avery 15 – Awesome in the bottle, was even better on draft here.
Sixpoint Hop Obama – Indefinable ale, Scottish yeast, Pacific NW hops, change you can believe in.
The Livery Carvacious – DIPA/Sour blend, actually everything from this Michigan brewpub was great, can’t wait to get out that way to check it out.

From a brewery that’s always been around on the periphery comes this fantastic IPA that is classic in every way, and really one of the most flavorful, drinkable, intense bottles that I’ve had continuous access to for as long as I’ve truly been digging beer on this level. We huffed the heavy hops, which felt like biting orange rinds. We basically just got low while this drinkable amber genius of a beer (with a lot of bitterness that just erases the alcohol) waxed our insides. So yes, we brought a sixer of this to my friend’s house and drank them all ourselves as quickly as we could, while we ate sausage and listened to the neighborhood. It was worth it. We almost convinced ourselves it was summer, if only for a few hours.