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.

Double DeBockEl is one of the many “specialty” Sierra Nevada beers which I’ve had the good luck to try in the past couple months.  Besides obsessing about the quality of their beers, I’ve been trying to get deeper into German Lagers, so a Dopplebock from Chico seemed like a very safe bet.  I had no idea what to expect when I ordered a pint, but was immediately surprised by the light almost amber color of the ber.  I had known beers of the style to be a bit darker, but there was definitely a depth of color that kept the beer very attractive.

Overall the beer poured a lot like most Sierra Nevada Ales, and the awesome hop nose told me right away that this wasn’t going to be an ordinary Doppelbock.  I had no idea at the time of drinking it that this was a 9%+ ABV beer, as it was so amazingly crisp and drinkable.  The classic Sierra Nevada west coast hop nose gave way to a full, rich, malty range of flavors in the first sip.  I kept drinking and thinking about this beer, which upon closer inspection started malty and fruity but ended bitter and crisp, a perfect hybrid of a dark, rich Doppelbock and a crisp Sierra Nevada ale.  Man, I hope this gets bottled because I want a ton of them to have around!   Another incredible vision conjured by the mystics in Chico — what will they think of next?

This beer, available for the first time in bombers, is pretty much all over the place by this point.  I picked up a bottle of this before a radio show I do sometimes and it treated me quite nicely.  Pours a beautiful dark gold color with a huge head and a very refreshing amount of carbonation.  This is a balanced beer, not an over the top Hop Monster, and with a relatively low < 7%ABV, a very drinkable beer indeed.  There’s a lot of good malt, a lot of good hop spice, flavor, and aroma, and Sierra Nevada succeeds again in the realm of highly quaffable session beers which aren’t boring, bland, or shallow.  This is a truly great beer for Summertime when you want something a little on the darker side of a Pale Ale or Lager.  Enjoy it while it’s around.