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.

I shared the Hopslam with Stinky during a small tasting session we had while my wife was out of town.  He was just as excited as I was by this beer, never having tried it before, and neither of us were disappointed.  I didn’t know that the brew was made with honey, a very welcome addition to the beer which gave it a certain sense of balance which is often missing from these insanely Hoppy beers.  No, I’m not looking for a “well-balanced” beer in any traditional sense, but it’s nice to see this nod toward balancing sweetness with bitterness.  Hopslam has a really great heavy Hops aroma which manages to let some of the honey smells come through as well.  It pours a beautiful color, and really just gave us everything we were looking for.  Great carbonation, perfect amount of floral, citrus, and a bit of piney hop flavor.  Bell’s is a truly incredible brewery and I’m going to do my best to taste everything they make.  Hopslam retains a sense of restraint relative to the next beer I’m going to write about, which seems to be true for most of their beers.  They’re crafting exemplary brews for their style, which are typically very drinkable.  I could kill a few Hopslams and be stoked.  Nothing challenging there.

Hop 15 portrays fighter jets air-bombing Hop flowers into a pint glass, as a nice contrast to the Hopslam label which shows a poor schmuck getting decimated…by a giant Hop flower.  Hop 15 is an incredible West Coast DIPA on the order of the Green Flash Imperial IPA — over the top, intense, and unforgiving.  A little bit thin but still incredibly drinkable, Hop 15 stayed on my tongue for a full hour after I drank it.  This beer represents a great achievement — definitely the kind of beer that could inspire a European brewer to experiment with some of these “newfangled” American Hop Varietals.  Hop 15 is all about the Pine, and it really clobbers you.  Drink this beer first if you don’t want to taste anything else, or last if you want to pass out feeling like you were sucking on a pinecone.  This is just an incredibly drinkable beer for its ABV and hops intensity, and like the other Port beers I tried, it lived up to its expectations.  Very excited to get into more of their brews as well.