4 - Good (buy), Beer Reviews, Birra del Borgo, Farmhouse Saison, Italy

Birra del Borgo Duchessic

Friday, 24 June 2016 kitch Leave a comment

Brewery: Birra del Borgo
Country: Italy
ABV: 5.3%
Style: Belgian Saison
Other Notes: Duchessa spelt beer cut with 20% of one year old lambic from Brasserie Cantillon

Brewer Description: (from website) A sort of “collaboration brew” with the famous Belgian brewery Brasserie Cantillon: an interesting experiment about spontaneous fermentations. Our traditional Duchessa – spelt beer – has been cut with a 20% of one year old lambic from Brasserie Cantillon. The result is a unique beer that extraordinarily merges the lambic sharp and sour characteristics with the gentle notes of Duchessa. A real gem not to be missed, as the former version’s great success confirms. Try it with different kinds of cheese, especially with blue cheese.

My rating: 4
My beeradvocate.com rating: 4.44
My ratebeer.com rating: 4.3

Intro: A 330ml bottle with a nice unique bottle shape and a best before date of April 2017, poured into a Cantillon ballon glass.
Appearance: It poured a nice clear golden colour with a one finger white head that dissipated fairly quickly but leaves nice lacing.
Aroma: Tart, lemon peel and oak with a hint of apple and funkiness.
Taste: Tart and funky with fruity lemon and apple. Not overly sour, and in fact I got a lightly sweet apple cider finish.
Mouthfeel: Dry, light bodied with high spritzy carbonation.
Overall: This was nice and refreshing. I am lucky to have one more bottle, which is a good thing considering Birra del Borgo is now under AB InBev and seeing the lengths that Cantillon have gone to, it appears that, even if this beer is produced again, that it will NOT be with lambic from Cantillon. Therefore if you can still find this, it’s definitely worth a try, even possibly a last try!

4 - Good (buy), Beer Reviews, Bière de Champagne / Bière Brut, Denmark, Mikkeller ApS

Mikkeller Nelson Sauvignon Chardonnay BA

Wednesday, 22 June 2016 kitch Leave a comment

Brewery: Mikkeller ApS
Country: Denmark
ABV: 9%
Style: Bière de Champagne / Bière Brut
Other Notes: Fermented with champagne yeast, brettanomyces and enzymes. Brewed and bottled by Mikkeller at De Proef Brouwerij

Brewer Description: (from bottle) Belgian wild ale aged in Chardonnay barrels.

My rating: 4
My beeradvocate.com rating: 4.39
My ratebeer.com rating: 4.2

Intro: A corked and caged 750ml bottle with no best by or bottled on date (it might have been on the cap but rubbed off) and poured into a Lindemans flute glass.
Appearance: It poured a very nice clear deep copper colour with a one finger off white head that had decent retention and left nice lacing.
Aroma: Grape, white wine, oak and brett.
Taste: Similar to the aroma. Grape, white wine, oak, brett, apple cider and a hint of tropical stone fruit. Lightly sweet and sour on the finish.
Mouthfeel: Dry, medium bodied, moderate carbonation and sporadic light warming alcohol.
Overall: Very nice. A top Mikkeller beer and this is right on the fence of a buy beer and a must buy beer.

18th Street Brewery, 4 - Good (buy), Beer Reviews, German Berliner Weisse, USA

18th Street Sour Note Berliner Weisse

Tuesday, 21 June 2016 kitch Leave a comment

Brewery: 18th Street Brewery (The Sour Note Brewing)
Country: USA
ABV: 3.5% or 4.3% (I’ve seen both, but nothing definitive, not even on their own website)
Style: German Berliner Weisse
Other Notes: Unfiltered, sediment may occur, do not recommend cellaring of this beer

Brewer Description: (from bottle) Berliner Weisse is a top-fermented, bottle conditioned wheat beer made with both traditional warm-fermenting yeasts and lactobacillus culture. Regional to Berlin, this sharp, tart, fruity and refreshing ale dates back to the Middle Ages and has been called ‘The Workers’ Sparkling Wine.’

Delicate, yet aggressive, sour beer is the culmination of great patience, immaculate attention to craft, & an immense amount of labor. Just as many find great beauty in the acerbic, tart, & earthy overtones of a great sour, we also find the same beauty in our hometown of Gary, Indiana.

My rating: 4
My beeradvocate.com rating: 3.99
My ratebeer.com rating: 3.8

Intro: A 750ml bottle with no best by or bottled on date poured into a Cantillon ballon glass.
Appearance: It poured a clear golden yellow colour with an extremely thin white head that disappeared almost immediately with little lacing.
Aroma: Tart apple and lemon with a hint of grass and wheat.
Taste: Like the aroma, sour and tart lemon and apple with a hint of mango, grass and wheat.
Mouthfeel: Dry, light bodied with moderate carbonation.
Overall: Simple but extremely refreshing considering it’s 34 degrees outside. It’s printed on the bottle “we do not recommend cellaring of this beer”, and I did not intend to, but I estimate it’s maybe got a year on it, but in good conditions.

4 - Good (buy), American IPA, Beer Reviews, Denmark, Mikkeller ApS

Mikkeller Mastodon Mother Puncher

Monday, 20 June 2016 kitch Leave a comment

Brewery: Mikkeller ApS
Country: Denmark
ABV: 6.6%
Style: American IPA
Other Notes: Brewed and bottled by Mikkeller at De Proef Brouwerij

Brewer Description: (from bottle) Farmhouse IPA brewed with passion fruit.

My rating: 4
My beeradvocate.com rating: 4.01
My ratebeer.com rating: 3.9

Intro: A 330ml bottle with a best before date of 27th November 2016 and poured into a Spiegelau IPA glass.
Appearance: It poured a hazy dark golden orange colour with a two finger white head that had great retention and left nice lacing.
Aroma: Funky, sour tart fruit, orange, passion fruit, mango, pineapple and lemon.
Taste: Sour and tart, passion fruit, mango, orange, tangerine, grapefruit, funky brett notes, pepper spice and a bitter-ish finish.
Mouthfeel: Light to medium bodied with low to moderate carbonation.
Overall: I like the sourness and the fruit. It is very easy to drink and I recommend this to anyone who enjoys brett in their beers.

3 - Indifferent (might buy, probably drink), Beer Reviews, Porter - Imperial, Stone Brewing Co., USA

Stone 20th Anniversary Encore Series: 6th Anniversary Porter

Monday, 20 June 2016 kitch Leave a comment

Brewery: Stone Brewing Co.
Country: USA
ABV: 8%
Style: American Imperial Porter
Other Notes: 2016 release. Drink fresh or age at cellar temp

Brewer Description: (from bottle) Stone 20th Anniversary Encore Series. No single day can contain something as momentous as our 20th Anniversary here at Stone Brewing. So we’re celebrating this milestone throughout 2016 by bringing back some fan-favorite beers from our past, using their original recipes and bottle art (with either the classic or new back-label text, depending on which one you get), while looking forward to a future filled with continued creativity, passion and a helluva lot of fun. Join us!

Stone’s 6th Anniversary Porter
An ode to density, viscosity and the unbearable opaqueness of being…

Considering that we were barrelling down on a beeline path in what might have seemed to be a ruinous (get it?) direction with previous Anniversaries’ IPA offerings to the hop god-hops are not a real religion, but perhaps they should be? Already a large and ravenous throng is ready and willing to offer their palates up on the sacrificial altar unto the not-yet-deity-it might seem that we are grabbing the bottom of the steering wheel, thrusting our full body weight and then some downwards to increase the force to the brakes while downshifting and spinning the wheel in an attempt at a vulpine Starsky & Hutch-esque move (how’s that for a dated-not-pertaining-to-anything ‘70s reference there, Huggy Bear?) to reverse direction in a din of screeching tires and acrid rubber smoke (along with the obligatory camera shot of the lone-rolling hubcap), thus treating our brewery as if it were some sort of asphalt-faring drogher, to which I say a hearty “Nay!” to all that lurpy (which isn’t even a real word, but it sounds cool and seems to somehow be apropos in this context) puerile nonsense, for this is not what it seems by any stretch of the imagination, as it is instead simply a very sharp turn within the context of that which is the Stone Anniversary Ale, allowing us each to glow in our own individually pulchritudinous way as we pay homage with this sui generis “goosed up a notch or three” version of our much loved and equally misunderstood Stone Smoked Porter, which we think is truly the bee’s knees in brewer’s trousers. Capisce? Good. And don’t worry about them succubuses (succubusi?)… our gargoyle is watching.

Note: This logophobic nightmare of a label contains ludicrous amounts of rambling, nonsensical text due to Team Stone members submitting words such as “lurpy” and “Huggy Bear” for Greg to incorporate into the copy for the original release.

My rating: 3
My beeradvocate.com rating: 3.75
My ratebeer.com rating: 3.6

Intro: A 22 fl oz bomber bottled on 3rd April 2016 and poured into a Moonzen teku glass.
Appearance: It poured a clear dark brown colour with a one finger tanned head good retention and moderate lacing.
Aroma: Toasted malts, cherry and vanilla with a hint of smoke and chocolate.
Taste: Roasted malts and smoky char dominate with bittersweet chocolate in the background and a hint of vanilla.
Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with moderate carbonation.
Overall: A pretty good Imperial Porter that’s balanced and surprisingly easy to drink. Glad I got to try it.

words of another dreamy traveller