Theakston Old Peculier - Thursday, June 2nd

Beer in the UK has funny names.

I'm not talking like "Deranged Psycho Axe Murder Stout" but far more classier names.

Like Fursty Ferret.

Or Bishop's Finger.

How about a pint of Finchcock's Original?

Or Riggwelter Yorkshire Ale?

Here in Scotland, you can slake your thirst with some Ptarmigan, some Red MacGregor or a nice pint of Thrappledouser.

One could arguably say that these names aren't really weird or strange. They're more like "British weird" which is best described as "eccentric with a monocle and a refined taste for claret." Or, you could say...Peculier.

When a beer calls itself OLD Pecurlier, it better be pretty peculiar. Below is a bottle of the 5.6% Old Peculier, brewed by Theakston.

It wasn't very good, for the record.

Honestly, as peculiar names go...Old Peculier is a rather tame cop-out, don't you think? As you may note, it also says "The Legend". That's a healthy cup of competition for quaffing. Not just peculiar in a land of peculiar names but a legend on top of that?

There's a pint of the cola black mistress. Look at how she shines in the light:

I'll give it this, it's a beautiful beer. But how does it fare up?

Nose: Fairly estery. Some overripe banana. Molasses. It actually kinda smells a particularly potent/sour ester I synthesized in Organic Chem once. An oblique reference but it's definitely got a lightly sour and pungent smell to it. Other than that, pretty lightly staffed in the Smells Department.

Taste: Very biscuity. The first sip is viscous and sweet like a digestif biscuit. This fades to chicory coffee. Stone fruits in there as well: dried cherries, maybe fresh plum. They obviously use a lot of bittering hops in this bad boy. The finish is almost mouthpuckering. I'm hazarding a guess at Fuggles. It has no hop depth aside from just an amazingly astringent and bitter finish.

The more I drink through this pint, the more it grows on me. When I first started drinking it I wasn't a huge fan. The hop profile felt one dimensional, even for British beer who don't go all hop-crazy like us Yanks. But as I drink it, I'm warming up to it. Its simplicity, at first, belies the changing flavors that bubble up from below. It's fruity, malty, and dextrin-ous at the beginning but the hop profile cuts straight through it, leaving a pleasant bitterness in the back of the throat and a taste like Roman Nougat at the tip of the tongue. Would I actively seek it out? Maybe. I'd be interested to see what this Legend can do on tap but I'd have to be in the mood for it. This is not a "pint with friends" beer. This is a "pint with a book and pipe" beer. It's easy to drink for it's ABV but more than one, I think, would be pretty cloying.

An In With Bacchus Guide: Collegiate Brewing

Many of you labor under the grandiose delusion that I don't do a whole lot here. I don't know how you got this fanciful idea into your heads but there are those that stick to the idealization that all I do is drink, wallow in my own filth, and occasionally stop drinking long enough to hand in something resembling work...only to commence filling my gaping maw with aqua vitae and brewskies. This is not true. Well...semi-not true. Hangovers suck and I prefer not to get them so it is occasionally warranted to just continue drinking. To me, it is easier to keep the ball rolling than to stop it and then try to kick it. It's all about the momentum. Looks better, I tell you.

In order to quell the vicious rumors that my liver has sought political asylum in Sweden, I figured it would be appropriate to document one of the exciting days of my life. I will spare you the hours of lecture that would be incredibly interesting if the room wasn't stifling hot. I will also forsake you the pleasure of describing how the department thought it would be a good idea to do tasting panel right before we had a lab working with fire and razor blades. Today...we brew.

You have two classes for Wort Boiling, Fermenting and Maturation. One involves an intro distilling where we take a fermented wort and process it through our two glass stills. The other is brewing the beer (that will later be used in the tasting panels). Both are all-day affairs where we get up at 8am and work until 4pm with the occasional break in between. So, here we go. An In With Bacchus Guide to My Life.

We start out here, at the front door of the brewery. It is festively decorated with the "International Brewing and Distilling Science Brewery", like everything inside is dipped in gold and run by butlers. It's not. It's run by grad students who need a degree.

We then enter the brewery.  It is shiny and pretty, like a penny in the sun. Oh look, our sign!

Aww, hello department of ICBD. I love you, even though you take all my money.

Hello cereal cooker!

Hello mash tun/wort kettle/whirlpool filter!

Hello lauter tun!

What's that, fermentation tanks? You're woefully empty? Be patient, my sweet. Tender loving beer is on the way.

Here at the ICBD, we take drinking seriously. We are professionals. We evaluate for taste, color...and a bunch of other stuff too. See? We even have our own tap.

And look at our bottle collection.

Oddly enough, it doesn't scream "frat house". More "my brain is suicidal and my liver is a masochist". Same thing, right?

Ok, ok, let's get down to business. To defeat...the Huns. And by Huns, I mean sobriety. We start out by forming up our mash bill. Our first beer is a "premium" lager. First we need some corn grit (8 kg).

And then some crystal malt (.577 kg).

And then we take our big ole bag of lager malt (24.4 kg) to...the mill room!

This is our 2 roll mill. Technically, it's meant for agricultural (read: cow food) use but we fudge it a bit. Our efficiency isn't so hot but what the hell, it's cheap and it didn't have to be custom made. We mix the crystal and pale malt together in the hopper and turn the sucker on. It's pretty loud and it gives off a lot of dust that leaves us all coughing. We get a pretty coarse grist out of it, due to the fact that there's only 2 rollers, but it's adequate for us. Technically, anything we make here we can't drink. It has to be dumped down the drain. But we can do quality assurance tests. To, y'know, make sure it's tasty. We then take the two bags of grist and put them into our mashing unit.

The mashing unit above consists of a variety of things. The big blue section is a hopper with a screw in it. The corn grit is loaded into the hopper on top. The corn grit then falls into the grooves of the screw which is turned by a motor in the back. This pushes the grist forward at an even rate into a cylindrical cone where it is mixed with hot liquor. Like this!

Wait, hot liquor? No, not scalding hot Jamesons. Much to my utter confusion (and slight disappointment after all the signs) liquor is water in the industrial brewing world. This delicious porridge like substance is then pushed into the cereal tank by the pump on the bottom and this hosing attached to it.

You can actually see it speed by in the clear section of hosing that they installed. We then cook the cereal for some time to break down the starches in it (we rise by 2 degrees C per minute until 85 where we hold for 5 minutes, then boil to ensure starch breakdown). We then change the hose location (everything is pushed through hoses or piping) and fill the hopper with our malt grist. The same thing happens as with the corn and we then pump this into our mash tun/kettle. This gets a delightful 48C rest to activate the enzymes (I won't bore you with this part). After, we then add the cooked cereals (coooorn) to the mash tun. We do it this way that way the extreme heat of the cooked cereals (which was boiled) doesn't kill off the enzymes we need to break down the starches in the malt. Then we  rest at 65C to deactivate the previous enzymes and engage new ones. We let it sit for 45 minutes while we go get lunch.

We come back to this.

Ewwie? Ewwie! No, sir or madame, delicious. This is the sugary sweet mash. It's been percolating for 45 minutes, stewing in its own juices (enzymes) to form a deliciously sweet liquid. It's almost like a thin porridge. Very tasty. Then we increase the temp from 67 to 71 and perform...

The iodine test. Iodine reacts with starch (which is not what we want) but not with sugar (which is what we want). So, a heavy starch solution (top left) turns squid ink black but the all sugar solutions (bottom right) are squeaky clean! This means that we've gotten all of the fermentable sugar we can out of it so we can filter out all the chunks. How do we do this?

The lauter tun. Basically it's a huge tube with a false bottom. The bottom plate is perforated so that the little tidbits of malt don't fall through. I'm sure you're asking "but there will be pieces smaller than that!". It's true...but here's the cool part about malt. It forms its own filter. We broke down the endosperm, the sugars that the plant would use to sustain itself after germination but before it has grown chloroplasts (component of chlorophyll for photosynthesis). We let the barley seed think that it's going to get to grow so that it germinates and begins breaking down all of the starches to long chain sugars it an use to fuel itself. But then we bake the shit out of it and kill it. This means that it broke down all of the sugars for us but it can't use them ('cause it's dead). The enzymes needed to do this are still in the grain so when we heat it up, these enzymes reactivate and break the sugar down even further. What's left is the hull/husk and variety of other shit that doesn't get broken down. These beautiful little bits end up forming a cake at the bottom of the lauter tun that filters the smaller particles.Here's the lauter tun filling with the chunky mash.

You can see those little particles swirling around. Those will be the filter later. In the meantime, we decided to multitask and do some quality assurance. This is a stout that we weren't sure would pass the muster.

It was good but I heard a funny tale. I heard that beers occasionally will get better the closer to the bottom of the glass you get. Something about the "awesome" having a higher density than the beer so it all sinks. Gonna have to pour another glass just to test this theory.

I think this hypothesis is correct. However, being a true scientist, a sample size of two just isn't enough. Three should do it.

Perfect. Hypothesis = delicious.

After quality control, the lautering had finished. We'd lautered first (by recycling the original wort back into the tank until it ran clear through the tubing at the bottom) and then sparged (after we drained the wort into the kettle we then started to spray hot water/liquor over the grains to get every sugary bit). Here's a good picture of the separation of the soon-to-be wort and the grain cake at the bottom.

See? Forms its own filter.

So, we've got our wort (clarified mash). Now we boil the shit out of it. It's just a hop, skip, and a jump to the finish, now. Emphasis on hop. HAHA, I MADE A FUNNY. We use two types of hop on this one: Zeus and Tettnanger.

The Zeus were our bittering hops, which are boiled for the entire duration to give the beer it's bitter flavor.

The Tettnanger were the aroma hops: added in the last few minutes of boil to provide aroma to the beer.

We boil and boil for an hour while we all go take a break in the form of a cuppa and a read of the newspaper. When we come back we finish up things. We first clean the lauter tun by removing the bottom and watching as all that crazy grain leavings fall to the floor. Here's the cake at the bottom:

And here's the cake on the floor:

The hot, hoppy wort is sent across the room (via pipes) to the plate chiller.

The hot liquid enters from one way and cold water enters from the opposite, cooling the liquid down before it enters the fermenter. We also add oxygen to it to promote yeast growth, even though you don't want oxygen after you ferment. Finally, it gets sent to the fermenter and we pitch the yeast (a Tennents lager yeast).

So, that's the day in a nutshell. For those of you who still say that I don't do a damn thing in this degree, you're wrong. So wrong it hurts me!

I take pictures.

Guest Post : Black Horse Pub and Brewery

Well, well, well. It looks like my camera guy is finally making the moves to steal my job. Last night the crafty bastard emailed me a write-up to a brewpub he found on his sojourn back to New York from New Orleans. By car. Since he was crazy enough to drive that far and still write this up, I guess I'm obligated to post it. So here's a review of the Black Horse Pub and Brewery and the beers contained within its hallowed, beer-soaked halls:

Driving back to NY from the IPCPR in New Orleans, I made a pitstop at a local pub/brewery in Clarksville, TN - just outside of the better-known Fort Campbell, home of the 101st Airborne. I hddn't had a real meal all day, so when I came across Blackhorse Pub & Brewery, conveniently located in Clarksville's downtown, I figured I'd hold down a bar stool for a little while. Conveniently, they offered a sampler flight for their full line of beers, brewed right there in the building.

Belgian white -- Slightly creamier than expected, very smooth. Definitely a step up from Blue Moon.

Raspberry -- I'm generally not a fan of flavored/fruity beers, but it was pretty refreshing on a day that had a 118 heat index when I left Memphis...

Blackhorse Ale -- Good pepper notes here, but otherwise not a whole lot going on. Not the beer I would hang my hat (and name) on if I were them.

Vanilla Ale -- Like medicinal candy. Maybe it would be good if paired with the right dessert, but I couldn't bring myself to finish this.

McGee Pale Ale -- Nice and malty. Not as much kick as I look for in a pale ale, but definitely a solid choice. I would happily have a pint of this on a hot night.

Barnstormer Red Ale - After stouts, I'm partial to red ales, and this didn't disappoint. Rich but highly quaffable. The Barnstormer got drained in one pull; probably should've taken it slower (especially on an empty stomach) so that I would have more to say...I guess I'll just have to come back to Tennessee to try this again.

Coalminer Stout Ale -- I had been looking forward to this since the beginning of the flight. Notes of coffee here - very fullbodied, creamy, and a great head on the pint that they poured. Everything a stout should be.

Normally I would've gone for a pint each of the red and the stout, you know, to put them through their paces. Sadly, given the late hour, I had to settle for just the Coalminer. Best part - only $3.25 a pint.

The burger that went along with this was damn good too...gave me enough fuel to drive the rest of the way to bourbon country.

Well there you have it. There's the first In With Bacchus guest post by Pat Kelly, freelance correspondent. And cameraman. That's right, bub. You're second fiddle here. And I'm on to you...

Magic Hat Howl - Saturday, Jan. 30th

Been awhile since I've done an alcohol review. I'm slacking! I've had this in the fridge for awhile and I decided to pop it. I've always been a big fan of Magic Hat beers. They're easily accessible, highly quaffable, and they tend to push the boundaries of most micro macros, or large scale craft brews. One of my favorite beers by them was the Fat Angel who was ungracefully retired a few years ago. Not only was it a delicious APA (American Pale Ale) but the label glowed under blacklights to boot. Perfect for a freshman dorm room. As an engineer, multitask objects are always of high preference. Like buying a bottle of Willy Nelson's bourbon . Not only is it bourbon to quaff but it has a guitar pick on it! Woohoo! Yeah. Here's the review:



Pours a deep brown, almost black with a finger of off-white head. Beer is very opaque. Almost looks like cola. Moderate lacing down the glass as I drained it.

Smell is pretty non-complex. Some dark roast malt and malty sweetness. Little bit of brininess. Dark cherry/plum. Espresso. Hops are floral, not citrus and also fairly light.

Taste is actually respectable. A dark lager; it has a coffee thing going for it. Quick blast of honey and flowery hops that recedes into a sugary malt finish. Honey and orange(?) predominant. Reminds me of a traditional Italian espresso. Brewed strong and acidic with a twist of citrus peel in it.

This...is pretty good. Not quite stout-y but more full bodied than a standard lager. Imagine mixing a pils with a stout but not as crude as that. Ooo, and it's only 4.6% ABV. Definitely a sessionable beer if it wasn't a Winter Seasonal. Ah well. It's not complex but it's a casual sipper for a winter's night when something more robust is in order.

Berkshire Brewing Company HolidAle - The Christmas Quaff

Ah, quite a prosperous and merry Christmas has passed once again. Santa deposited a heavy treasure trove at the In With Bacchus abode this holiday. I managed to walk away with a variety of goodies to keep me entertained: an Ithaca Arms 20 gauge shotgun, an Orvis beginners fly fishing setup, a knitting kit, a "grow your own herb" kit, and a variety of pirate beer glasses and Zippos. It was also excellent to hang out with the family and dogs and eat some food that isn't served to me with a frown by an ice cream scoop. By the way, spiral ham is awesome.

I decided to cap the evening off with an excellent bottle of barleywine that I picked up in my travels to Massachusetts. As referenced in an earlier blog post, the pilgrimage to Stockbridge/Great Barrington took place on the 23 and I picked up some sweet brewskies from a local package store there. Package store is a great name for a liquor store. It makes you sound more like a functioning adult. "I gotta go to the liquor store" makes you sound like an alcoholic. "I gotta go to the package store" makes you sound like you're going to UPS. Distinctly more positive. Anyway, I picked up my traditional bottle of BBC Holidale Barleywine. Thar be notes:


Pours a nut brown/deep ruby with a finger of off-white head. Extremely heavy lacing down the glass that took about five minutes to wash off once I was done.

Smells of peaches, sweet malts, and (oddly enough) blue cotton candy. That's pretty much the best way to describe that smell. Definitely not a bad thing. I love that rotgut crap. Floral hop fragrance is there but clouded by the malts in the forefront.

Tastes sweet (ha-dur). Fresh baked rye bread, plum, molasses, fresh cream butter, raisins, brown sugar. Touch of bittering hops give it balance. Finish is long and crammed with dark fruits and molasses. Kinda like a fruit cake.

Oh, fruitcake. Right. Who here doesn't like fruitcake? Let's see some hands. Ok, you guys who don't like fruitcake. Fuck you. That's right, I said it. Fruitcake is delicious and, contrary to the Pee-Wee Herman Christmas Special, has more than just a construction purpose. Clapton dark rum soaked fruitcake is great. If you don't want 'em, email me. I'll eat 'em and give you a hearty pat on the back.

Rochester's Finest - Tap and Mallet

Today a few of my friends journeyed to the Tap and Mallet on Gregory Street. I would just like to say that this place is pretty goddamn awesome. We were hungry and thirsty so it seemed like a logical choice. I'd never been but it seemed like everyone else had. I knew, immediately, I would like it. The front door faces the bar, which had a godawful amount of taps on it. When we sat down, the waitress didn't bring the food menu first...she brought the beer menu first. An utter shitton of bottles and about 20-25 beers on tap (and CB UNFILTERED RYE ON CASK). I settled for a pint of Rogue Brutal Bitter. It was just what I needed. Pleasingly hoppy and voraciously bitter, it was a perfect compliment to the meal. The meal consisted of fried pickles (which were excellent but seared the inside of my mouth) and a Cuban sandwich (which was good but not pressed so the cheese is deliciously melty and the pickles are hot). The beer though...it was awesome. I finished the meal with a 8.5oz pour of the Stone/Brewdog Bashah, an excellent beer. It poured an inky black with a espresso-crema colored two finger head. Smelled of dark malt, fruity and flowery hops, and molasses. Taste was a delicious darkness; molasses, licorice, with a powerful hop bite underneath it all. While it was a tad expensive, thanks to the Bashah, the food is decently priced and the beer is fucking cheap as all get-out. If you're ever in the area, you should go there. Your taste buds will thank you.

Custom Brewcrafters Unfiltered Rye - Formal Review

Figured I'd throw a formal review of this on the website. You already know what I think about it if you read the last post, so I'll just give you the nitty gritty.



Pours a golden, straw color with two fingers of pearl white head that stick around. Heavy lacing down the glass. Delicious, light color that is quite translucent.

Smells of citrus. Lime specifically. The rye gives the nose a faint spiciness. Very clean pale malt smell, with a touch of roasted smell. Light floral hops.

Taste is spectacular. Like a delicious combo between a hefeweizen and a pilsner. Citrus and floral hops with a crisp malt sweetness, followed by a bready, yeasty aftertaste which closes with a one-two hop punch that gives it perfect balance in both hop profile and malt aspects. I've never had a rye before and I typically don't care for rye whiskey, but I could drink this all day, every day and never get tired of it. This is a fan-fucking-tastic beer. If you're in Buffalo, get it at the Buffalo Tap House. If you're in Rochester, go get a growler filled. If you're anywhere else, weep bitter tears of anguish and pain because this beer is awesome. Or...y'know, maybe we could do a trade or something.

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In other news, I'm diligently teaching myself Dreamweaver in a vain attempt of making my own website instead of trying to find someone to make it for me. I'd like to have the inwithbacchus.com website up by January 2010, so we'll see how that goes. Although, if I keep getting growlers filled, the likelihood that I get a damn thing done is really, really low. Also, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, snide remarks, or recommendations, feel free to email me at drinkreviews at gmail dot com. This means email me, please. I like emails. I CRAVE ATTENTION.

Custom Brewcrafters, again!

This time with more pictures! Managed to snag tickets to a brewery tour sponsored by the school, which was an awesome way to spend a Saturday. Arrived by big yellow bus at about 3pm, had to wait in line outside to get ID'd. When the dude checking IDs looked at me, he immediately blurted out: "HEY! I remember you! You've been here before!"

This was embarrassing. All of my friends thought it was hilarious. Screw them, honestly. Some friends! One of them even mentioned that, upon hearing that none of the shirts there fit me, that I should "sew two of them together". It was an awesome day for my self-esteem. But that's ok, because the beer was awesome. I'm pretty much going to let the pictures talk for me. I think that's the beauty of a camera.


The sight that greeted us when we walked in. Rows and rows of fucking taps. It was bliss.

Their giant grist mill holding tank, with the grist mill behind it. That angular piping on the side connects their fully functioning silo to the grist mill. That said silo holds a metric shit-ton of pale malt. JP is staring at me and it makes me uncomfortable.
Their fermentation tanks. And JP getting in the way, like he always does.

On the right is the mash tun with built in sparger, on the left is the boil kettle. On the far left, outside of the picture, is their gigantic water heater. I wanted to boil hot dogs in it.

Going down the line of their fermentation tanks. Note the kegs on the bottom left and my fat reflection in the right-hand tank.


The bubble-over bucket for the fermenters. It smelled pretty good, honestly. It was hard to get a picture because I had to lean over and stand above the diacetin earth filter for their beer.

Massive batch of kegs, with the bottling line in the back (on the left). Lots of kegs. They sell half barrel, quarter barrel, and 5g cylinders. I want a 5g cylinder of their Unfiltered Rye.

Your intrepid reviewer, on the left, with his growler of Unfiltered Rye. That rye is so good I want to wallow in it. On the right is JP, looking like he wants to kill someone with his growler of I forget what. Might have been the Hogans or the Duffs.

As for what I tasted, I tried the (I think) Piledriver IPA, which was a very nice IPA, borderline DIPA (double IPA). I tried the Duffs, which was not really rocking me, the Hogan's Park Ave Ale which was delicious because it definitely had a significant pinch of chocolate malt, two helpings of the unfiltered Rye, and an autumn ale whose name escapes me. Excellent $5 spent? That's a hell yes. That growler was pretty cheap too.

The Great Pumpkin's Arrival - Technically...November 1st

Oh Halloween, you crafty bastard. You always manage to sneak up on me and you tend to happen mere days before I have an extremely important test. You also herald in the month of November, the month of turkey and my birth so many, many years ago. But you do bring about such sweet tidings. The arrival of a bumper crop of fresh pumpkin pies, the prevalence of those fly-by-night haunted houses that set-up at farms and for-sale buildings, all sorts of lovely things. Most importantly, however, is the prevalence of...the pumpkin ale. There are many styles within the style of pumpkin ale. Some brewers just go with the "spice the shit out of it" format, while others go crazy with the Halloween flair. These brewers often make awesome product...which I have in front of me. Tonight is a review of two beers: Dogfish Head Punkin Ale and Southern Tier Pumking. First is the Dogfish Head.

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale:



Pours with one finger of white head onto a body of beer that looks distinctly like a pie in a glass. It is a rusty brown / dark orange color that is crystal clear. No, seriously, I can read the label through the pint. It is a nice color.

Smells of pie spice (nutmeg, cinnamon), brown sugar, sweet butter, pumpkin, and slightly earthy/root vegetable. Ok, I'll summarize that. It smells like a damn pumpkin pie and it makes me so hungry it is borderline unfair. I now need pie.

Taste like pie spice. Pumpkin is present but the earthiness isn't there. Slightly alcohol forward with a surprising lack of malt sweetness. A brown sugar FLAVOR is there, but it's not actually sweet. As a matter of fact, the hops that weren't there on the aroma pull through in the beer, giving it a cleansing bitter aftertaste.

Not bad, not bad. I was going into it expecting a malt forward beer and I was a little disappointed when it was actually more aggressively hopped than I expected. It IS brewed with real pumpkin, brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg which shined through in the nose and taste but the hops threw me for a loop. It is a bit overwhelming though. Definitely not a session-able beer. More of a "two and I'm done" kinda thing.

Southern Tier Pumking:



Pours a slightly hazy orange, almost like if you squeezed a pumpkin and got some sort of weird pumpkin juice. A one finger snow white head appears that doesn't stick around for very long. Yet again, it looks like a damn pie and I'm still hungry.

Smells like a graham cracker. Vanilla, light pumpkin, maybe cinnamon as well? Oh ye gods above, it smells like a pumpkin pie with a graham cracker crust. This is just not fucking fair. Not fair at all! Has almost a melon smell in there too.

Taste is oh god. Oh god its like drinking a pumpkin pie. Oh it's so good. Lots of vanilla, cinnamon, that graham cracker taste and pumpkin. Very nice malt sweetness with medium carbonation that peters off into a slight hop bite at the end. Oh man, I just want to wallow in this beer. Slight caramel flavor maybe? Or maybe a butterscotch flavor. I dunno, its an amazing fucking beer.

Sweet mother of mercy this beer is awesome. Definitely not a "hey, let's drink and watch the game" beer but more of an "well, I want pumpkin pie AND a beer" kind of beer. It's really, really good. Oh man, it is just what the doctor ordered. Buy it, drink it, think of pie. I am burping pie right now. I'm so happy. I am going to buy a bottle of this and cellar it. That's how good it is. Go. Buy. Quaff. Now. At 3am.

St. Martin Tripel - Tuesday, October 27 (by 7 minutes)

Last weekend was a hectic one. The parents came up and we had a jolly time doing what we do best: shopping and eating at restaurants. Unfortunately, it left me pretty tuckered out and didn't give me a lot of room to review beverages. So, its a bit late, but this is the last of the press pack sent by Abbey St. Martin. It's a big mamma jamma of a beer:



Pours a hazy, golden orange, like looking through a glass of orange juice on a sunny day. Has two fingers of pearl white head that sticks around for a long time. A nice looking beer, almost like an orange creamsicle in a glass. Nice orange and straw color.

Smells of light malt and citrus. Orange peel. Very low floral hoppiness deep in the background. Almost a white pepper and clove smell as well. Lemon as well. Very nice bouquet.

Taste is sweet and malty, almost like a thick slice of crispy bread slathered in clover honey. Very smooth. The alcohol comes through on this one but not in a bad way. It almost lends authority and cuts through the sweetness nicely. Warming. Citrus abounds as well. Lemon, orange, maybe more tangerine than orange. Very light hops on the finish that give it a light crisp edge. Pretty rockin' beer. Slight banana too, I think. As it warms, the alcohol becomes more pronounced but it really doesn't detract from the beer. It just becomes more apparent a) how strong it is and b) how hard it is to type this review.

This is probably my favorite of the bunch. It has the smoothness, lightness, and easy drinking qualities of the Blonde. It has the sweetness and complexity of the Brune, but its not overbearing and heavy. The clover honey-like quality is great. I'm putting this as a A- in my book. I recommend you go out and get some of this stuff. Go easy, though. It drinks smooth, sweet, and nice but its 9% ABV, so sip carefully. Definitely not a session beer, but a delicious beer none-the-less. Go buy it.

Note: Interesting to note, the notches on the bottle give a date of October 08. I don't know whether this is the "brewed on" date or the "drink by" date. I'm assuming brewed-on date as a Belgian with a ABV like this, in a dark bottle, is probably fine enough for aging so a "drink-by" date would be a pretty moot point. If it -does- have a year of aging on it, I'd be interested to try a fresh batch. I'd imagine it'd be slightly more hoppy due to the lupulin breakdown, but I'm thinking the banana-y ester would be more pronounced as they tend to break down over aging. Who knows.

To summarize, a pretty solid line of Belgians. The Blonde was ok, the Brune was better, and the Tripel was the best. Overall? I'd give them a B+, depending on the price of these beers. While I wasn't blown away by the Blonde (while it was a good beer), the Brune and Tripel make up for it. Would I buy most of this stuff again? Yep, especially that Tripel. I'd love to see this in a small sampler sixer for people to try. For a sixer like that, I'd plop $12-$14 no questions asked, going as much as, say, $18. It's a solid beer line from a likable company, so try getting it in your neighborhood ASAP. Contact your local distributor and try to get them in touch with C2 Imports if you like these reviews. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna drink the rest of this Tripel. Nom.

St. Martin Brune/Dubbel - Friday, October 23rd

Next up on the chopping block is the St. Martin Brune, courteously provided by Abbey St. Martin, Brunehaut Beer, and C2 Imports. Enough with the chitter-chatter, I want to drink this damn thing. Thar blow the notes:


Pours an opaque, dark brown, like a medium roasted coffee bean. Has a off-white head, about a finger and a half in the tulip, that dissipates quickly. It looks hearty, really. It definitely looks like its a beer you drink when you snuggle up to the fire with a book and a pipe on a cold winter's night.

Smell is roasted malts, black-strap molasses, and raisins/currents. Slight dark fruit, maybe ripe plums. Does have notes of floral, but not bitter, hops which surprised me. I didn't think it would pull through on such a dark beer. It reminds me of a good rum-raisin bread, or the brown bread you can buy from P&G in a can. That stuff is so awesome. It would probably go good with this beer, slathered with a touch of Irish butter....mmmm....

Beer, right.

Taste is quite delicious. Multiple layers of flavor. Molasses comes through, along with a light dark cherry taste. Tastes slightly like more earthy honey as well. Finishes with a clean taste for being a sweet beer and even has a bit of floral hoppiness to balance it on the tail end. This darker, more reserved flavor that I can't place comes out as it warms which gives it a beautiful evolution as well.

This is more like it. The Blonde was solid; an easy drinker but not a whole lot of "shazam" points but this is a damn good beer. While the Blonde was a Bish, I'd rate the Brune a B+, borderline A- if I had to. It drinks smooth as silk with deep, dark flavors and I legitimately can't believe that it is a 8% ABV. I could drink the shit out of these things, which could be a problem. I'll probably push to get this put into the Belgian section of the local. Would I buy this? That's a big 10-4, good buddy.

Side note: Its potent. I'm kinda getting wrecked off this thing. And I ate not too long ago. Thumbs way the hell up on this. Those Belgians know what they're doing.

Edit: Edited for clarification.

St. Martin Blonde - Thursday, October 22nd

So, I received my press kit (read: my sweet lineup of beers) from Brewery Brunehaut/St. Martin Beers, courtesy of their importer C2 Imports. Now that the technicalities are aside, let's get onto the reviewing. I actually went out and bought appropriate glassware for this beer. One thing to note is that it comes in a 33cl bottle, which is the most awesome bottle size in the world. It's like a classier version of a Red Stripe bottle. Anyway, review:


Pours a golden, hazy straw color with two fingeres of snow white head. Extremely opaque with a great golden color. The picture doesn't really do it justice as it appears more orange because of the flash, but it the color of a hazy summer sun.

Smells of fresh, clean malt and light fruit. Maybe pineapple? Slight banana smell, maybe because of the Belgian yeast. Slight lemon/citrus as well. No hops on the nose, not even a touch, which honestly doesn't surprise me. We'll see how it tastes.

Tastes pretty good. Nice and light, rather sweet but not overwhelming. Clean malts, light citrus, very pleasing but not really super striking in terms of taste. I was expecting it to pack a wallop being so light but 7% but it doesn't. As it warms, a taste of white grape comes out and a bit of floral hops pokes through but its barely there.

Not bad. A very "light" beer in terms of taste but its thirst-quenching and the 7% don't hurt either. They also sent me a sample of the dubbel and tripel, so I'll be reviewing them over the weekend. Would I buy this beer at a store? Yeah, I sure would, depending on price. I'd pay...maybe...$3 per bottle? It's a nice beer that drinks a way too easy for the ABV but the taste isn't something I'd reach for when I want something brooding or complex. So...yeah, dubbel and triple up next.

Edit: Does not go well with pistachio fudge. Blergh.

Harpoon Octoberfest - Monday October 5th

Next up is a Harpoon Octoberfest beer. Don't let the name fool you (like it fooled me), its actually an American Amber ale. Here be the notes, matey:

Pours a deep amber with a one finger head that lasts for pretty much ever. Translucent and colored like a good maple syrup. Little lacing.

Smells of milk chocolate, toasted malt, slight alcoholic nose, which is odd. Very little hop influence. Might be a hint of hoppy spice.

Taste is doughy and slightly stout-like. Very prominent roasted/toasted malt flavors which is odd for an octoberfest but not wholly unwelcome. Solid hop bite at the end that balances well with the overall push towards supreme maltiness.

Mouthfeel is medium carbonation that's sliiiightly watery.

Good beer, bad labeling. I wish it was called an "October Beer" or "Fall Beer" not "Octoberfest Beer". The name is misleading. It was significantly more hoppy than I was expecting and the malts were more subdued by the hops as well as roasted to a higher point, making it disconcerting. I was expecting wonderful malty-goodness and got a slightly hoppier, more robust beer. It's good but it makes me sad that it wasn't what I wanted it to be from the name. Ah well, y'know what they say about books and covers.

In other news, I'm contemplating picking up an actual website for this. There's so much that I want to cram onto this wee little page and I'm slowly realizing that there is not going to be any way in hell that I'll be able to put it all on here. Unless I want it to look like ass. Not sure if I want to immediately transition but if anyone has any good suggestions for hosting, let me know. I'm thinking of picking up the inwithbacchus.com name but hey, whatever.