Cleaning out the fridge

Here are twelve new beers that I have drank over the past few months, ranging from those last few smooth drinking summer beers to fall seasonals. There are a few high end, big bottles that I would recommend here as well...

Andrew's English Pale Ale
Bottle -- McKean & Charles, Waldoboro, ME
grassy hops on nose... up-front bitterness... fairly smooth. closer to an ipa than a pale ale if you ask me. i preferred andrew's st. nick's porter, but their pale ale is quite quaffable.
Score: 6

Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA
Bottle -- Supreme Liquors, Quincy
warning: 21% alcohol by volume! foggy ruby in glass... aroma is off-the-charts sweet and alcoholic... taste is again very sweet, with fruity hops, and a staggering amount of alcohol... oily mouthfeel. obviously an extreme beer, but better than expected. probably not worth the $10 you have to shell out for it though...
Score: 5

Dogfish Head Punkin' Ale
Bottle -- Luke's Liquors, Rockland
a pumpkin ale. good aroma, pumpkin and spice... flavor is well-balanced -- not too much pumpkin... very solid. a surprisingly typical pumpkin beer; dogfish head is usually a little more adventurous than this. one of the best pumpkin ales i have had though.
Score: 7

North Coast Pranqster
Bottle -- Luke's, Rockland
a belgian strong pale ale that is golden, slightly orange. yeast and fruit on nose: white grape and orange. taste is lots of yeast, mild spice and hops... sour. not my favorite, but nicely brewed.
Score: 7

Rock Art Magnumus Ete Tomahawkus ESB^2
750 ml -- Luke's, Rockland
from rock art's "extreme series." i guess it is the high abv (8%) that makes this an extreme beer... a cloudy copper beer with lots of fresh, sweet hops on nose. bitterness up front, but surprisingly soft on pallet.
Score: 8

Smuttynose Wheat Wine Ale
750 ml -- Cork's, Mansfield
from smutty's big beer series. my first wheat wine -- you don't see many of these around. lots of lacing on snifter glass... smells of sweetness and alcohol... taste of alcohol, dark fruit. seems like more wine (as in barleywine) than wheat here.
Score: 6

Southern Tier Big Red
750 ml -- Cork's, Mansfield
an imperial red. fruity boquet, hops, a little alcohol. bitter, fruity, sweet. smooth, slightly sticky. a good beer, but hard to see how this is a descendent of a red in any shape or form. i gotta say, the allure of southern tier is kind of fading away for me...
Score: 7

Stoudts Fat Dog
Bottle -- Luke's, Rockland
an imperial oatmeal stout. dark brown pour that coats glass thoroughly... smell is of alcohol and even soy sauce... alcohol comes out again in flavor, equal in strength to the coffee present... surprisingly light in body. this is my fourth beer from this good pennsylvania brewer.
Score: 8

Sunday River Black Bear Porter
Bottle -- Florian's Market, Auburn, ME
everyone knows about the skiing at sunday river, but not everyone knows you can get a freshly brewed pint as well. cola smell of many porters -- just as i feared. watery too, i could tell just from the pour. sharp bitter coffee taste. very average.
Score: 6

Thomas Hooker Blonde Ale
Bottle -- McKean & Charles, Waldoboro, ME
this was sold to me as a "good lawn mower beer." i think that is a good description since some hot summer days you just need a light, thirst quenching beer. aroma is very fresh, of sweet hay and hops. flavor has mild bitterness, but is above all else, drinkable. recommended.
Score: 7

Victory 12
750 ml -- Gordon's, Waltham
a quadrupel courtesy of dan. smells just like apple juice. flavor is more of funky yeast and alcohol. softens as it warms, but not my favorite.
Score: 4

Take a pass:
Wachusett Octoberfest Ale
Bottle -- Bolton Road House Bar & Grill
thought i would switch it up from my typical pick of the best beer of the bunch. here is the one i would skip. a really weak example of an octoberfest. much closer to a scotch ale. a very bland, mindless beer. Score: 3

Cooking with Beer: Beer Brats

Surprise, surprise, when it is my turn to cook, I am starting to experiment with using beer as an ingredient. Beer can be used in cooking most any kind of food: stews, vegetables, breads, sauces, desserts, and, most often, meat. It is most useful in the last case since beer helps to sanitize, tenderize, and flavor meat. I will be sure to report back on the successes as I play around with cooking with beer. My first attempt this past weekend was a definite victory: bratwurst cooked in porter.

(I adapted this recipe from one I found off of a decent list of beer recipies at About.com.)


Beer Brats

Ingredients:
1/2 bottle of porter
5 bratwurst sausages
1 large sweet onion
2 tsp butter and/or olive oil

Preparation:
Brown bratwurst in butter until golden brown. Chop onion into rings and saute in remaining butter and olive oil. Once onions are limp and golden add the brats and the beer. Cook at medium heat for about 15 minutes, or until liquid is reduced to syrup. To keep the sausage juicy, I continually spooned the porter over the brats as they were cooking. Serve on bun or as side along with carmelized onions and remaining sauce.

The beer:
I used my homebrewed Promised Land Porter to cook the brats in. I would recommend a dark beer (porter, bock...) but I have seen brats cooked with just about every mass-brewed lager. Really, any beer will give the brats more flavor than cooking them in water. Dark, malty beers with high alcohol are really ideal, while hoppy beers are more difficult to cook with. My porter worked well to flavor the brats, and the remaining sauce and carmelized onions were especially tasty. Enjoy!

Watch City Seasonals

The activity of the weekend was trying tapas for the first time at Solea Restaurant and Tapas Bar in Waltham. It was quite fun, and definitely recommended. Most shockingly, it was even the highlight of the night over one of my favorite local breweries: Watch City. While the brewery had a new range of seasonals as always, each beer fell a little flat...

Watch City Biking Bob's Bohemian Pilsner

Sample -- Watch City Brewery, Waltham

dark color for a pilsner for sure. aroma is of sweet, candied apples. flavor is mostly sweet grains with some light grassy hops. i found nothing really appealing about this beer but it is worth noting that my friend dan had this rated significantly higher.

Score: 4

Watch City Bombed Blondeshelle Belgian Strong Ale

Sample -- Watch City

note: sold to me as a belgian strong ale, recorded on beer advocate as a tripel... appearance is a hazy orange and aroma is floral hops and again candy-sweet malts. yeast and skunky wheat form backbone of flavor, but powerful alcohol overwhelms both. 10% plus was too much for this brew...
Score: 5

Watch City Pie Eyed Pumpkin Ale

Sample -- Watch City

if you like heavily spiced pumpkin ales, this is a pretty good standard for the style. cinnamon, nutmeg, even ginger (i think) make their presence known in both aroma and taste. pumpkin is pushed to back of taste but is there. drinkable, as most pumpkin ales are.

Score: 6

Prolific Beer Blogger Now Based in Brockton

I was a little surprised to find my name in my local paper, The Brockton Enterprise, a couple of weeks ago. They ran a little blurb about my blog (without ever asking me...) under the title "Prolific Beer Blogger Now Based in Brockton." How did they even find my blog do you ask? Why that would be this (much better written) article that a student up at the University of Maine Orono wrote about my blog. Zach did a pretty good job of hitting the high points of our conversation, and while I don't quite carry a notebook of the beers I have drank, I think he did a good job of capturing how out of control this hobby has gotten... I mean, 500 beers?! Anyhoo, here is Zach's article.

Beer Police gets a sidekick
By Zach Dionne
10/23/08

Cracking a fresh Pumpkinhead and striking the keys on the newest edition of this column, I can say I'm having a good time - with the column, not just the beer. This one's especially exciting as it's not limited to the questionable opinions of my not-quite-veteran palate. This edition focuses on Josh Smith, originally of Mt. Vernon, Maine. He runs a blog at joshsbeerblog.blogspot.com and recently championed more than 500 beers rated and described.

Josh keeps track of every beer he samples in a notebook. He devotes "the bulk" of his purchases to tasting new items. Nearly limitless styles and different brewers keep him interested. "You could drink beer for the rest of your life and not try everything that's out there, you know?"

Yes, I know, but Josh Smith is a hell of a lot closer than me.

He segued into microbrews with Samuel Adams. "Those are pretty drinkable," he said. He now prefers Portland's Shipyard to Boston's Sam Adams. Geary's and Allagash are his choice Maine breweries.

"Geary's has been a longtime favorite. Very balanced, very flavorful - two things I really look for in a beer," Josh said.

Although Josh now lives in Brockton, Mass., he considers Maine home and still cherishes the state's quality brews. "I'm always defending Maine beers down here. They think I kind of boost the scores for Maine beers. It's not just the beer; it's the experience. It's fun sampling local beers."

Bar Harbor Brewing Co.'s Cadillac Mountain Stout, the highest rated beer in Maine, is an esteemed favorite of Josh's. "I like a lot of the dark beers. I think that's something Maine does really well. Maine really has a very good reputation among the beer community."

Josh began brewing his own beer recently and feels the experience gives him new insight into tasting and appreciating other brewers' work. For mainstays, he leans to Cape Ann Fisherman's Brew or Geary's Pale Ale. I put him in the tough hypothetical situation of only having $5 and needing some beer. His answer: "If I'm not going to put the money into a microbrew beer, I'll honestly buy PBR. I find it very easy going down."

Score! The Beer Police and veteran Josh Smith are on the same level in one regard.

We are not on the same tier of succinct tasting vocabulary, however. It takes practice.

"They used some words like 'bready malts' or 'piney hops,' and it's like, really? I don't see that," Josh said of his early days rating and describing beer for pleasure. "At first, I thought people were just kind of full of it." Josh is now fine-tuned to appreciate the subtleties and intrinsic shortcomings of the best and worst brews, the "deeper levels of complexity," in his words.

After the inspirational, craving-inducing interview, I made haste to Burby & Bates to compare taste with him. Consider our takes on the Bar Harbor Cadillac Mountain Stout:

Josh's blog: "Perfect black pour, with tan head of tight bubbles and decent retention. There is a lot going on in this aroma: chocolate malt, free coffee and figs. Taste is of semi-sweet chocolate and roasted coffee … Slightly astringent and gently hopped. Silky smooth mouthfeel and fairly heavy."

My notebook: "Creamy, great consistency, terrific taste." Hmm.

"I think a lot of people would look at this and think, 'oh, he's a beer snob.' I'm amazed at how much there is out there. You might not like beer, but there's probably a style you'd think, 'hey, that's pretty good,'" he said.

Josh uses the blog to keep track of what he's tried and to express his personal beer tastes; he doesn't purport to be an authoritative source on the absolute merit of individual beers. When I questioned his rating of Sea Dog's blueberry ale (a sad 3 out of 10), a wildly popular Maine brew, he responded: "My fiancee loves that Blue Paw, and I couldn't be happier. Hey, she's drinking beer."

A Week of Beers, From A to P

Alesmith Old Numbskull

750 ml -- Cork's, Mansfield

the celebratory drink on election night as a tribute to... you guessed it, our outgoing president. a pretty standard barleywine if you ask me: nice looking, big aroma, very alcoholic flavor, and thick/syrupy mouthfeel. i have enjoyed the alesmith brews i have tried, but at $13 a bottle i am going to have to deduct a point here.

Score: 7

Leinenkugels Oktoberfest

Bottle -- Weymouth

ah, the brewers of fruit loops, so we meet again! this is as bland as the other one is obnoxious. sweet crystal malts and very watery. never would have guessed this is an oktoberfest.

Score: 4

Mayflower Thanksgiving Ale

Tap -- Union Brewhouse, Weymouth

i had never heard of this until i found it on tap at union brewhouse in weymouth. very muddled taste with unknown unpleasantness hidden towards the back... think oak, smoke, vanilla, and whiskey. yeah, it didn't really go together. i like the concept of a beer tailored for thanksgiving, but not the final product.

Score: 3

North Coast ACME California IPA

Tap -- Union Brewhouse, Weymouth

kind of a high abv for an ipa at 7+% but i didn't really pick it up in the flavor. hops in this ipa are definitely citrusy in nature. very refreshing and smooth. i still haven't met a beer from north coast that i haven't liked...

Score: 8

Peak Organic Espresso Amber Ale

Tap -- Union Brewhouse, Wemouth

espresso in an amber ale? another awesome idea. huge smell of espresso and flavor is overwhelmed by coffee beans as well. however, the flavor is so intense that this beer doesn't have the drinkability i might have hoped for in an amber ale. i'd like to play around with this concept as a homebrew further

down the line...

Score: 8