Beer Diary #23 - Mike | Three Free from Magic Hat, a Tribute to David Beckham

It's a Wednesday night. I start vacation tomorrow. I have beer in the fridge that was gifted to me by Magic Hat (I've been mailed some wacky stuff lately, but gifted beer is a rarer occurrence than you might think). Why not beer diary? Here it goes.


Howl Black Lager - Pilsner lager nose, hint of chocolate malt, dry chocolate. flavor follows through on nose, sweet pilsner elements, a tiny hint of chocolate malt, finishes chewy, tasty. This is a pretty nice Schwartzbier which I liked quite a bit, and it's well worth a purchase at the local grocery store.



Ravell (Porter brewed with Vanilla) - I can't think of a vanilla porter I like - usually the vanilla tastes off, or the beer doesn't mesh together all that well, or... I'd say that Ravell has less nose than Howl, and also less flavor. The flavors that do come through are light across the board, with a hint of cinamon or perhaps even a slight note of burnt plastic in the finish. That sounds worse than it is - basically this is a beer. And that's about all.



Encore (American Wheat IPA) - What's a wheat IPA? Maybe a Gumballhead sort of thing? I do get hops out of the nose here, and taking a drink reveals a sweet cereal-like beer (I can't put my finger on what cereal, but think of the oversweet marshmallow packed cereals made for kids), that finishes with a flourish of massive bitter hop flavor. Interesting, sure. Would I have a second bottle? Unlikely. But if unbalanced hop overload is your thing, maybe this is a beer for you.

About that Beckham thing. Seems he's sticking around MLS. Good. (He also wears number 23).

Beer Diary #18 - Loose Ends Edition

So I was looking through my notebook and found a bunch of random notes - the kind of notes perfect for the beer diary format. I highly recommend the keeping of beer notes, as it gives an air of professionalism to the act of working your way toward drunkenness. At least that's my excuse.

And here we go.

18 October 09
Location: The Heorot, Muncie, IN


New Belgium Hoptober - I'd imagine if you look around you can still find this one here and there - it's one of the first New Belgium beers to expand past the initial New Belgium offerings from back in April. Although I'm not a Fat Tire fan, I am a fan of a lot of New Belgium's beers, and seeing one on tap at the Heorot seemed like good enough reason to take notes.


Hoptober as served in a Bell's Glass
Hoptober is a clear golden colored beer, with heavy lacing, and a lightly fruity (maybe strawberry and orange?) hoppy nose. There's a lightly hopped flavor on front and a slightly chewy and malty back to finish the beer out. It's a nice grocery store kind of pale ale - not too offensive, but not exactly great, either.

12 November 09
Location: Brugge Brasserie


Brugge Hibernal Black - It seems odd that as I write this more than a month later, we still haven't roundtabled Brugge's Hibernal Black, especially considering the scores we gave the regular Black way back when. For those of you familiar with the regular Black, Hibernal Black is Black on steroids - an Imperial version of the beer many of us love. There's no hiding from this beer - it's a giant winter Belgian monster - the ass-kicking Arenberg Forest (which, I know, is actually in France) of Brugge beers.

I like cycling references.

16 December 09
Location: Home


Magic Hat Odd Notion Winter 09 - Here's a beer that looks like a ginger ale when poured in the glass - a dark transparent brownish gold color with little head. The nose is fermented apple, and maybe a hint of sourdough bread. The front is bitter like vinegar, and the finish is bready and lingering sour apple - there's not any sort of sweetness, just old apple cider flavor. Despite being only 4.5% ABV, the beer is heavy in mouthfeel.

I'm not sure I like this - it's sort of a sour beer with training wheels - but Gina finished her half in no time.


Magic Hat Howl Winter Seasonal - Another sort of training wheels beer, this one takes on the smoke beer category. A deep dark brown color and a healthy head show up in the glass, and a nose of pretzels, roasted malt, and maybe a hint of root beer await. The beer starts and finishes smokey, but it's not that overpowering smoke that you'd get out of something like a Schlenkerla. If you've ever wanted to try a smoke beer, or found that you didn't it when you did try, you might give this one a shot. It's got that light lager mouthfeel and only gets better the warmer it gets.

The Magic Hat beers in this diary were provided to me for sampling by the Magic Hat Brewery, South Burlington, VT. I received the beer under no obligation to review it.

Beer Diary #16 - Mike - Cleaning Out The Fridge Edition

Here I am again with an entire bottom fridge shelf filled with beer. I'm not even sure how this all happened - we had a six of Schlafly Coffee Stout, and then we picked up a mix six at Kroger, and then all of a sudden they had babies and suddenly there's no room for food. Don't let this happen to you - keep your beers seperated in your cheese and produce drawers. Or keep them wrapped. Or.. something.

Of course you could just drink them.

19 August 09
Location: Jason's Front Porch
Irvington


Magic Hat Roxy Rolles Autumn Seasonal - Magic Hat and I have worked out a deal - they send beer, I drink it. The bottle for Roxy Rolles calls it an amber, so imagine my surprise when the giant hoppy nose came out of the glass. This is a strawberry-colored beer, continuing Magic Hat's tradition of making beers in weird colors. That hoppy nose was extremely promising, but the front is light and leads to a citrusy/malty balance. The beer follows up hoppy, bitter, and a hint flowery, with a mouth drying finish. There's also a slighty ashy thing in the finish. Lingering over the beer brings out more elements in the nose: celery and tomato?

We thought it could easily be called a pale ale, so why does the bottle say amber?

21 August 09
Location: Home
Southside Indianapolis


Magic Hat Odd Notion Fall 09 - A deep dark brown color leads to a promising chocolatly nose. The front is light on flavor, but then strong flavors of dark chocolate and tobacco come to play. The beer has a medium mouthfeel, a lingering smoky chocolate flavor, and at 6.2% ABV it's like a lighter yet full flavored imperial stout kind of flavor. As the beer warms, more tobacco flavors come out, then elements of apple. I preferred it colder. The warmer it gets, the more I pick up a cigar-like flavor. As a former smoker, that's a flavor I'm not very fond of.


Dark Horse Perkulator - I bought this bottle quite some time ago - actually it was a few days after our beer breakfast at Brugge. I'm not sure if this is old on new bottle art (or old or older beer) - and I've always felt that Dark Horse's art was more miss than hit. But this bottle, with a two-headed goat bat man is AOK with me.

The color of this beer is somewhere between stout and amber, almost sweet tea colored. The nose is old coffee, the front is tight and bitter and then BOOM! It's bitter old coffee. There's also some fishy in flavor going on here.

As the beer warms, there's a sweetness that comes out. I don't know what's going on here. This beer is weird.