Daredevil Anniversary

The first of a few tap takeover / anniversary parties for Daredevil took place last week at 20 tap. Since the brewery is still being built they are doing what they did last year and hosting multiple parties celebrating 2 years here in Indiana. Hosting multiple parties allows their fans from all over Indiana to celebrate with them and try some great brews. This month of parting comes to a close with a beer dinner at Black Market. If you didn't go last year, you need to check it out. The food was just as awesome as the beers were.

Last year Daredevil released a few limited release beers that they called Rare Devil beers. These were their standard brews aged on different fruits and other tasty flavors. This year they've taken a little more classic approach and aged 2 of my favorite beers, JWP stout and Muse Belgian, in Rye whiskey barrels.




I talked with Shane from the Daredevil team at the release and he said that they chose rye barrels because they didn't want as much sweetness as the bourbon barrels are known for. It's also a great mix because the standard JWP stout has rye in the malt bill already. The spicy whiskey flavor blended great with both beers.




Here is a quick rundown of both beers:

Barrel Aged JWP was aged for 13 months. Normally JWP is a pretty hopped up American stout. The hops compliment the roastiness of the malts and the spicy rye flavor well. The barrel aged version has been aged long enough that a lot of the hop character had fallen off. I was worried this would make the beer unbalanced. It's hard to know what a barrel will do before you put the beer on, so it can be a bit of crapshoot. This gamble paid off. Although the hops were significantly lighter the barrel characteristics made up for it and balanced everything out nicely.  The roast of the malt was still right there but the barrel added a little bit of sweet vanilla and oak flavor that was balanced out with a bit of spicy rye whiskey. The rye accentuated the rye in the malt bill and made it significantly more forward. This beer packs a ton of flavor for a beer under 10% ABV. The balance is absolutely fantastic.

Barrel Aged Muse might have been the most impressive part of the evening. Muse is a great Belgian beer. It is a big golden beer with some delicious fruit flavors. Thick white head released all sorts of delicious fruity aromas. The head followed all the way to the bottom of the glass with stick lacing hugging the sides. It has great traditional flavor with a rich golden color. The barrel did a good job of balancing out the sweetness of the beer. It added a bit of vanilla and oak that came off like a coconut. The yeast flavors turned into an almost pineapple tropical fruit flavor that added a great direction to the standard Muse.

These two beers will be at all of the Daredevil parties except the Pizzology events. If you like the standard versions you need to make your way out to one of these tap takeovers. The BA versions won't disappoint.

If I haven't sold you on the Black Market event yet, there will be a couple Rare Devil beers that will only be at the dinner and maybe Winterfest if I don't drink them all.

Congratulations again to Daredevil on your anniversary. The beers were awesome, and I can't wait to see what you bring to town when the brewery is up for real. 

Scarlet Lane Brewing Launch and Dorian Review

Scarlet Lane Brewing  located in McCordsville is one of many breweries opening this Summer around Indiana. Deticated to brewing high quality, yet humble beer, SLB got a jump on things this past Wednesday and with their official launch party at Fire by the Monon (ahead of their brewery opening sometime soon). The event featured 3 of SLB's beers: Saison de Silas (Saison), Dorian (coconut stout), and making it's debut was Vivian (Red IPA). All 3 beers are solid and indicate a promising future for SLB; my personal favorite was Dorian, which you can read about in detail below.

The event itself was fantastic despite a couple soaking rain showers (ironic considering the event was rescheduled to avoid rain). The SLB crew was making the rounds and it's always exciting to talk to the people behind the beer. There was also free SLB glassware, snifters in fact, which is always an intelligent choice. Despite the rain, Fire by the Monon was packed with people enjoying all things SLB and overall it's a good sign of things to come. 

Dorian Review

As mentioned above, my favorite SLB beer was Dorian, so much so that I made a point to go to Tomlinson Taproom for a 32oz bullet fill of it. 

From the growler into a snifter, the beer pours a deep reddish brown with a very thin khaki colored head. The pour off draft that I got had a more appropriate 1-2 finger head, so this is a growler thing more than a beer thing. 

The beer gives off aromas of cola, roast grain, and light coconut; the latter gets stronger as the beer warms. The taste is similar, but the coconut picks up and a note of semi-sweet chocolate shows up; cola note is still present, but there isn't a real sharp roast grain note. The body is on the lighter side, with some prickly carbonation, but there's a sense of creaminess in the mouthfeel; the finish is really hear nor there. 

The best way to describe this beer is a mounds candy bar in liquid form. Usually "coconut beers" don't have enough coconut, but this does and it still strikes a nice balance with the malt character. A very approachable stout and the strong coconut note makes this an appropriate summer stout. SLB is a fan of stouts as am I and if they keep making them like this I'll be a big fan of SLB. 4.5/5

The Big Guy: Scarlet Lane have been great friends to the blog for most of this year, and my worst nightmare was that I would like them as people but hate their beers. Thank God that this beer is outstanding! I was lucky enough to try a sneak peak before they ramped everything up to production scale. I was nervous that the small scale beer would be better than the full scale version, but the full scale brew was even better than the home brew version. The beer is dark and roasty with a nice chocolate malty sweetness. The coconuts are perfectly balanced to give you great aroma and a really nice light flavor on the back end. I couldn't stop thinking about my favorite Girl Scout cookies, Samoas. The beer is basically a liquid dessert, without all the heaviness that you get form a typical dessert beer. You can have as many as you want without getting the gut rot that some sweeter beers give you if you drink too much. At their Launch Humdinger I tested that theory and had as many as I could drink. I also give it an enthusiastic 4.5. This could easily become a new local favorite.

Mimi's Tabernacle

We haven't highlighted Indiana City before on the blog, and that's probably our bad, but we really haven't heard much from the community about these guys.

As a sucker for anything barrel aged, when they released their Crimson Bombshell I had to go down and give it a try. It was pretty good, but it was a barrel aged imperial red. Reds aren't what I normally think of when I'm looking for a barrel aged beer. 

Crimson Bombshell was good, but Mimi's Tabernacle is great. It's a big 8% stout with oatmeal, maple syrup and Dutch chocolate. This is the perfect beer to put in a barrel. I had to have it.



Indiana City calls Mimi's Tabernacle is a "breakfast stout." We will not be doing a BREWniversity style guideline on this anytime soon, because it's really not an official style. When most people hear breakfast stout they think of the beer by Founders. In fact if you google "breakfast stout" it takes a page or so before you find anything that doesn't reference Founders. Since Mimi's Tabernacle is a stout brewed with a ton of breakfast ingredients, I get where they were going, but it did make me think they were trying to do some sort of Founders clone. The beer is probably somewhere between a sweet stout an oatmeal stout and an RIS.

First thing's first, this is not a Founders Breakfast Stout clone. This beer has a ton of unique flavors. The beer pours out a beautiful oily black color with a nice sized tan head that fell off pretty quickly into sticky lace. The aroma was mostly oak and chocolaty roast malts, as you might expect. What really impressed me was the flavor. The second thing you must consider is this is a sweet beer. If you like your stouts drier, go somewhere else. From the first sip you can tell Mimi's Tabernacle was brewed to have big sweet flavor. Up front you get big cocoa and coffee notes almost like a Starbucks mocha latte and then you get a really nice hit of the maple syrup flavor. The bourbon barrel aged flavor helps finish it all out with smooth vanilla and oak. It's sort of like an entire breakfast including the shot of bourbon... wait you don't drink a shot of bourbon with breakfast? My bad.

This is an excellent beer. I picked up an extra to let it sit for a little while to see how it ages. My only real criticism is from calling it a breakfast stout. I get that the name can be descriptive, but everyone I've mentioned it to has asked if it's basically a Founders clone. Its hard for a new brewery to get going, but playing off another beer doesn't help you out much around beer geeks.

I give this beer a hearty 4. Its perfect for this cold winter we've had.

Cooking Under the Influence: Ring of Dingle Cupcakes

This time of year there are a ton of recipes floating around the internet (which in this case is code for Pinterest) for Guinness cupcakes. I wanted to use something a little unique to Indiana, so I modified the recipe to use Sun King's Ring of Dingle. Part of the recipe is for Bailey's frosting. You're welcome in advance.

Cupcake Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup Ring of Dingle stout
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon table salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream


Frosting Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter
4 cups confectioners sugar
1 pinch table salt
3 tablespoons Irish cream
1 tablespoon milk

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease 24-30 cupcake liners, or fill with paper liners.

In a saucepan, heat the butter needed for the cupcakes, Ring of Dingle, cocoa and brown sugar, whisking often, until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Into a large mixing bowl, sift together salt, flour, white sugar, and baking soda. Add the cooled Ring of Dingle mixture and beat on medium for 1 minute. Add eggs and sour cream and beat on medium for 2 minutes or until smooth.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake cups. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then remove and transfer to a cooling rack until completely cooled.


While cupcakes are baking/cooling, cream butter for frosting in a large mixing bowl until very light and fluffy. Add salt, and slowly add confectioners sugar, slow speed will prevent the sugar from spraying all over your kitchen. Add a couple of spoonfuls at a time until it has all been absorbed into the butter. Add Irish cream and milk until spreadable consistency is achieved.

The original recipe as posted on food.com can be found here.

BREWniversity: Style Guidelines- Dry Irish Stout

The first style in our BREWniversity series is inspired by Monday's holiday. That's right, it's time for St. Patrick's Day again. No, we're not going to put green food coloring in a Miller Lite and call it a style. We'll get to Miller Lite, but not today. Instead, we're going to take a look at Dry Irish Stouts.

Appearance: Very dark, almost black in color. Thick head, creamy in texture and light tan to brown in color, which will last while drinking the beer. (Think of the mustache you get while drinking a Guinness.)

Aroma: Roasted malt and barley lend a coffee like character to the aroma. You may get a hint of cocoa, but that's not necessary. European hop aroma at very low levels, also ok if not perceived at all.

Flavor: Like the aroma, there will be very low to no European hop flavor. Light caramel flavor is common. The finish will be dry and roasty due to the roasted barley. The bitterness comes more from the roasted character than the hops used.

Mouthfeel: Body should be somewhere between medium-light and medium full- much lighter than the color and head would lead you to believe if you've never had it before. It should be very smooth, with low carbonation.

Examples: Guinness, Murphy's, Sun King Ring of Dingle, Brooklyn Dry Stout

In order to get a better idea for the style, and not be too biased in my representation, I looked at a few sets of guidelines. Links are below in case you're interested in delving in a bit more.

• BCJP Style Guidelines: http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.php
• Beer Advocate: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/style/162/
• Brewers Association: http://www.brewersassociation.org/pages/business-tools/publications/beer-style-guidelines
• GABF Style Guidelines: http://www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com/the-competition/beer-styles/

Cheers!

Ring of Dingle

The Ring of Kerry is a popular, circular tourist route in southwestern Ireland.  Just north of the Ring of Kerry is the Dingle Peninsula, containing the town of Dingle.  On that peninsula is the Slea Head Drive, a circular route starting and ending in Dingle, and therefore sometimes called the "Ring of Dingle"; a less tourist-clogged alternative to the Ring of Kerry.

Sun King's Ring of Dingle is an Irish Dry Stout with 4.8% ABV and 34 IBU.

I enjoyed Ring of Dingle served from a can (with the new, improved label!), and it was a very dark brown.  The thick, tan head had fairly good retention.  Roasted malt flavors are predominant, with some chocolate flavors and sweetness as well.  Ring of Dingle has a dry finish, as you would expect from the style.  The carbonation was fairly light, and it had a medium body.

I've always been somewhat partial to Irish Dry Stouts, so it will be no surprise that I enjoyed Ring of Dingle.  Overall, it was an enjoyable stout, and I grab at least one 4-pack every February.

The Big Guy: I love this dry crisp Irish stout. It pours out almost black with a really nice tan head that builds up well in the glass. It's got a great big roasty flavor packed into a nice low ABV beer. So often we sacrifice flavor for session-ability, not so with the Ring of Dingle. It is dark with hints of unsweetened chocolate and roasted malts. There is just a bit of sweetness to balance it all out and basically no hop flavor. It's a really impressive session beer and I give it a solid 4. My only complaint is that it comes out so early, you have to stock up to make sure you have some of this left over for St. Patrick's Day!

Happy Anniversary Fountain Square

It seems like it must be the popular thing to open a brewery in Indiana when it's freezing cold outside! We have been going to anniversary parties and grand openings non-stop, and with the number of great breweries popping up, it doesn't look like it'll be slowing down anytime soon.

This past Friday was the Fountain Square Brewery's second anniversary luau party. I was lucky enough to go to their anniversary party last year by accident with the Little Lady and El Duque. It was so much fun, I had to make sure I didn't miss it this year. The brewery was packed with barely any room to move without shoving someone, but the bartenders did a great job keeping lines moving and getting beer to all the excited patrons. There were two bands, the first one was called Embryonic Fluid and the second one was El Guapo. Surprisingly, I was a big fan of El Guapo. They were a metal surf rock band without a singer... and I promise it was pretty impressive.

The reason I keep coming to Fountain Square's parties is always the beer. This year did not disappoint. They had the following on tap:

-Smoked Porter
-Escape from Alcatraz Bock
-1221 Imperial Stout
-Bourbon Barrel Aged 1221 Imperial Stout
-Flahute Belgian Pale
-Soul Ride IPA
-Count Nibula Chocolate Milk Stout
-Coffee Hour Amber
-Dubbel Dog Dare Belgian Dubbel
-Barrel Aged Belgian Dubbel
-Bourbon Barrel Aged Shelby St. Strong Ale
-HOP YOUR FACE
-Mounds Porter

Last year my favorite beer from these guys was the 1221 Imperial Stout, made in honor of the end of the Mayan world. I liked it so much I had to buy the shirt. (and yes, again I am that guy that wears the brewery shirt to the brewery). This year I was thrilled to see a Barrel Aged version. Sadly, it didn't come out until the end of the night so I'm not comfortable giving it a full review. I can say that I absolutely loved it.

Honorable mentions this year were Bourbon Barrel Aged Shelby St. Strong Ale, and their Smoked Porter. The BBA Shelby St. was rich and complex with a ton of malty toffee goodness. The sweetness balanced out the high ABV and the barrel really mellowed the whole thing. I was also a fan of their smoked porter. At my last tasting it was called Up In Smoke, an obvious nod to Cheech and Chong, but they've since left it at Smoked Porter. Whatever they decide to call it, the beer was great. It has a mild smoked flavor with a great roasty malt bill. Its nice, because its easy drinking even with the smoked flavors. HOP YOUR FACE is always outstanding, and I hope that someday they start bottling it because it would make an amazing seasonal. I think its one of the best DIPAs in town. I was not expecting to like the Mounds Porter, because so far I've been underwhelmed with the amount of coconut flavor most brewers get into the beer. Fountain Square knocked it out of the park. The beer totally tastes like a mounds bar. It would have satisfied anyone's sweet tooth.

The party was awesome. We got a few more Barons there this year, and we really had a blast. Congratulations Fountain Square! Can't wait for next years party.

Cooking Under the Influence: Stout and Molasses Chipotle Chili

As the weather gets a little cooler, we get into my favorite time of year. I love the colors on the trees, cozy sweaters, and football- oh, how I love football. Along with all of that, I start to really use my slow cooker a lot, and there are few things I like more than working on perfecting my chili.

There are a ton of chili recipes out there, and more than a few of them involve beer. I found a recipe that I liked, and then changed a few ingredients around. This particular recipe is a little different than most of what's out there, but that's part of what made it fun to try.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion (Vidalia), diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 lbs ground turkey (I wound up using closer to 3, which worked out just fine)
1 can, 28 oz, crushed tomatoes
1 package, 10 oz, frozen corn
1 can, 15 oz, kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup dark beer (I used an imperial stout, I used the whole thing to compensate for the added turkey)
1/3 cup molasses
3 tablespoons chili powder
3 tablespoons chipotle-style hot sauce
1-2 tablespoons flour

Directions

1. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion; cook and stir 5 minutes. Add garlic; cook and stir one minute.
2. Add turkey to skillet; cook and stir until no longer pink. Drain fat.
3. Add remaining ingredients, stirring until mixed. Transfer to slow cooker. Cover; cook on low 8-10 hours.

In hindsight, I could have done a little less of the hot sauce, but that's just because I'm not a huge fan of very spicy food. The Big Guy liked it, though, and probably would have added more hot sauce from the beginning.

I served it with some shredded cheese and sour cream, but you can use your favorite chili fixins. That's right- fixins. I will say, this is not a light chili. It's really filling and has some big flavors. I'm glad that the recipe called for ground turkey because I almost think it'd be too much with ground beef. Having said that, I was a big fan of the chipotle flavors mixing with the molasses and the stout flavors.

If you're looking for a chili recipe with great flavors that's just a little different, this one won't disappoint!

Goose Island's Evolution of a Stout

You don't just start out with a great barrel aged stout. Truly great stouts have layers, like onions...and Shrek. They're recipes that are built on one component at a time. Goose Island's Bourbon County Brand Stout (BCBS) series is a shinning example of this.

The Barons just sat down at the Goose Island Migration party hosted by Twenty Tap. Goose Island brought four different stouts to the event, but after talking with their people we realized the stouts really weren't very different at all.

Goose Island brought Night Stalker, Big John, Coffee BCBS, and Cherry Rye BCBS.

To make these big impressively tasty stouts, the brewery has to start with a solid base. For Goose Island, Night Stalker is the base for these beers. Big John is just Night Stalker with cocoa nibs added to the recipe. Then we take Big John and Barrel age it to get normal Bourbon County Brand Stout. In 2012 they aged their BCBS with coffee as well creating the Coffee BCBS. They went one step further and aged the Rye Cherry BCBS in rye whiskey barrels on top of fresh Michigan cherries. You may notice that all these beers have different ABV, but that's because most barrel aged brews actually start to gain  more alcohol as the water content of the beer evaporates from the barrel. In the whiskey world they call the lose the "angels' share".

There is one more even bigger and badder stout and that's the Rare BCBS. This was a bad motha' in all the right ways. Its the same brew but it has an additional 2 years aging in Pappy Van Winkle bourbon barrels. If you've never had the pleasure of drinking Pappy Van Winkle, you are missing out. Its outstanding bourbon. Unfortunately we only got a couple ounces. It was an amazing beer, but I really didn't have enough to give it a huge review. If you ever see it... buy it and send it to me. Seriously.

Because these beers all start from the same place, it is next to impossible to tell them apart by sight (top right is the Coffee BCBS and the bottom left is the Rye Cherry BCBS). There was a bit of confusion around the table as we were all passing the beers around, but each one had its own unique aroma. Just by smell you could tell which one had coffee, which had cocoa and which had the cherries.

Of all of these wonderfully big boozy stouts my favorite was the Rye Cherry version. The Rye Cherry Bourbon County Brand Stout is a huge dark stout with great spicy rye whiskey character and some awesome bitter cherries. It comes in at 13.7% abv. It smelled like whiskey, chocolate and booze but most of all you smelt cherries. When it came to the table the head had dissipated a bit but it was oily black with just a slight ring of tan head running around the glass. My first sip was big rich almost decadent chocolate flavors mixed with very tart cherries and then melded together with the nice spicy oak flavor of a rye whiskey. Rye whiskey was a great choice because I feel like the the spiciness and the oak really helped to temper some of the overall sweetness of the beer. The cherries were probably my favorite addition because they were so tart and dark that they mixed perfectly with the dark fruit flavors from the original stout and gave the beer a bit of acidity to brighten it all up. Really I could have drank this all night. I would have been hammered drunk and probably had a belly ache for days but it would have been worth it. This beer was incredibly good and the only beer I had twice. Now I need to get a bomber to sit on and cellar, if you have one to spare let me know!

I give Rye Cherry BCBS a 5 (wish I could give it a six)

I give Nightstalker a 3.5

(Too sweet to be a 5 for El Duque)

I give Big John a solid 4

 I give Coffee BCBS a 5

Stone Farking Wheaton w00tstout

So this Brewer, geek culture icon, and an alternative news website creator meet at a party.  The resulting brewing masterpiece that is formed from "their powers combined" is affectionately called w00tstout.

Greg Koch, Wil Wheaton and Drew Curtis masterminded this Imperial Stout.  Brewed with rye, wheat, malt, pecans, then aged in Bourbon barrels for 3 months.  W00tstout clocks in at a hefty 13% ABV and 65 IBUs.

The Big Guy and I snagged a few bottles of w00tstout at our local Brew-Pub Union Brewing Company when it first hit shelves.  Cameron has recently started to bring in cases of rare bombers from national breweries as a nod to beer geeks and as a subtle "while your waiting let me get you a taste of what cask beer tastes like!"  It is a nice compliment to his fantastic line up of beers!  Attract the Beer Geeks with the rare beers, then get them hooked on cask beer...  SNEAKY but very effective!

Tasting Notes:  The nose has a subtle pecan with minimal head formation.  After the first sip your pallet will be graced with a... how would Mr. Torgue put it "A FLAVOR EXPLOSION!!!"  Roasty carmel, with notes of cocoa, vanilla, oak, and a grainy pecan husk that is both deceptively fizzy and sweet.  The motor oil appearance makes you think that it would be a medium to thick bodied stout, but after the first sip you find it pleasantly light to medium.  The dry finish is a combination of sweet and nutty.

I would suggest snagging a bottle to have now and another to cellar for six months to a year.  Really solid collaboration beer!  Good luck in finding two of the three bottle designs! From what I have seen at retailers, there were 1-2 comic strip/super hero bottles per case.  The rest were the entwining hops logo.

It would have been awesome to get a bottle signed by Wil when he was in town for GenCon, but it just wasn't in the cards (and by cards I mean any number of magic related card games that were played during GenCon).

DUG IT!

The Big Guy: I am all about this beer. It has tons of wacky flavors that I normally wouldn't think of putting together especially in a beer. I picked up three for myself. One for now and two to get some nice age on them. Cudos to Wil Wheaton and everyone else who was a part of this. I give it a 4.5

The Little Lady: When I checked this in to Untappd, I added the following comment: "I love everything that just happened here." Which is true. Imperial stout? Love it. Sweet pecan flavor? Love it. Bourbon barrel aging? Love, love, love it. I think the combination of flavors, which I of course read as the combination of influences of the makers, was fantastic. Really smooth, well balanced, and very drinkable. I gave it a 5- very rare for me. I have to be blown away to give that rating, and I was. Well done! 

Wil Wheaton Bottle Signing

The one, the only Wil Wheaton will be signing bottles of W00tstout and probably some other stuff if you bring it in downtown Indy during Gencon. Check him out at the Crown Liquor this Friday from 4 to 6.

Awesome craft beer + awesome geek icon = beer geek squared!

Follow Wil for more details on his twitter account.

Look for a review of the W00tstout coming soon!

New Galarus

I've been hearing some great things about New Galarus and when my friend's, uh, paramour, decided to visit him from Wisconsin, I was able to benefit from his boon and get my hands on New Galarus' Black Top and Coffee Stout, until I realized that maybe my introduction to a brewery shouldn't be done with two styles that give me angst headaches.

Coffee Stout: I remember when Coffee Stouts were scoffed at as being one of those beers whose ingredients (even though it makes sense that they should go together) seemed so anathema to the style of a classic old world brew.  As craft brewing slowly, ahem, percolated through bars and stores, the popularity of coffee as the American drink, as well as the wonderful palate synergy created with the coffee, hops, and malts, made a smooth, easily accessible beer.  Now it almost seems a given that when I order a flight, or look at a brewery's typical offerings, a coffee stout is going to be there. 

Enter New Galarus' attempt:

With popularity, comes volume.  When you increase the the volume of what you are offering, people tend to use the metaphor, "watered down."  With New Galarus' Coffee Stout, I mean it literally, so I will not even bother with giving you the anecdote of my tasting and will just issue these few points: 1.) With sooooo many good coffee stouts to make your genitals tingle and brain buzz (i.e. Founder's KBS, CBS, or regular old Breakfast Stout, or heck, even the local Broad Ripple Brewpub's Strange Broux Brew is jaw dropping) why would you need to produce a coffee stout, especially as lack luster as this one is?  2.) I understand that being approachable is part of a successful brewery, but a stout is already approachable.  If Guinness poured from a Leprechaun's teat, people would call him "Mommy" and like it.  Don't make it worse by offering a thin, stout background with an even watery coffee overtone.  What happens when you make weak coffee at work?  PEOPLE DIE.

I give the Coffee Stout a 2

Black Top:  I really would like to get off this soap box dripping with metaphor and angst, but... I just can't.  Black Top just had to be a Black IPA.  The most ill defined of all the "American" styles and by far the weirdest to be popular.  The citrus, pine, and floral notes you get from the hops in IPAs just don't play well with the dark malts used in these beers.  Also, what makes a "good Black IPA?"  Once, when asked by a friend to explain the difference between a Black IPA and a regular IPA and my response was, "Well, ya know, malts and like a dark malt backbone, but, uh, ya know, bright hops, and, uh, fuck it THIS ONE IS BROWN AND THAT ONE IS NOT."

So, in frustrated conclusion, I liked this brown colored IPA.  I give this hoppy chameleon a shifty-eyed 3.5

KBS 2013

I hope everyone was able to get a sip of one of these brews, because they came, they saw and the rocked. KBS is the limited release Kentucky Breakfast Stout by Founders. It is a big, bold, bourbon aged imperial stout that was only available for a week-ish (if that; many stores sold out in the first three or four hours after KBS was delivered). Most liquor stores were only allotted a case or two. The beer is sold in four packs, but because of its rarity a lot of stores would sell it individually. If you got one enjoy, because this is a rare treat.

I poured this great beer into a tulip glass and began to enjoy. The aroma had a heavy bourbon smell that was almost strong enough to start getting me drunk on the spot. There was some pretty tasty coffee and cocoa scents in there too. It pours dark brownish black and it has a slight brownish tan head. First impressions of this beer were very good. It seemed warm and inviting, and made me just want to dive right in.

There was a bittersweet flavor that had some pretty nice cocoa and coffee flavors that mingled together. Behind these front running flavors there was a sweet vanilla and bourbon barrel flavor. It was sort of like a boozed up coffee that you have after a meal. There was a very nice light hop bitterness that balanced it all out.

This beer was not an easy thing to find. I was out of town and thought that all hope was lost. I have an awesome friend who took it upon herself to go out and find a few of these for me. In the next week or so we will be featuring a post by her giving some beginner's directions for finding the hard to find limited release brews.

I give it a resounding 5. Totally worth whatever effort you have to go through.

El Duque:  KBS started the big love I have for bourbon barrel aged stouts.  There's a lot out there, and I'm not sad for the styles popularity, but KBS stands as King of the Oaken Hill.  I found there to be a little more bite to it this year than in previous brews, but give this a year to cellar, and we're gonna need more heads to do this justice.

It's good to be the king.  I give it a 50, i mean 5.