If you are interested, you can check out the guest review I did on the Midwest Microbrews website here http://www.midwestmicrobrews.com/reviews.html . This was the second guest review done the site and I chose to do Sprecher’s Russian Imperial stout. Also, Mario Rubio did a review of Goose Island’s Matilida, which can also be found on the same page.
Here is part 2 of the Brewing Software Segment. Here I will take a look at two programs I am unfamiliar with, Strangebrew and ProMash. The truest test will be to see what I can do without having to read the instructions, but if things prove too confusing, I am not above looking at the directions. But for me, I think brewing software should be easy enough that a novice can use it right off the install (which I feel was a downfall of beer tools). I feel I am a bit computer savoy as well as know my way around a mash, so I should be able to do it if it’s not that complex. After all, I was creating recipes in Beersmith right after I bought it, without instructions, after about my third or fourth beer. For both of these products I am using the free evaluation license.
Lets Start with Promash, where you can save 3 recipes and do 9 brew sessions with the evaluation license.
ProMash
Like all the other software packages, there are many features you can use to customize your water, mash schedules, equipment, formulas, ingredients, and so on. However this program is lacking a scale feature which I thought for sure it would have. I come from the understanding that ProMash was originally a pro brewer software package that was adopted by homebrewers, so I thought for sure the ability to scale would be here. I was picturing a pro brewer working on a small test batch then scaling it up their much larger system. But this one has no scale feature or a convert extract to all grain and vice versa. The user interface is easy to understand, however it does have quite an outdated look to it, like the old programs from the Windows 95 era. Another thing I did not like is there is no support for other formats, which seems to be lacking in all the software. This is a point I forgot to touch on in part one, so let me do so here.
One thing that Beersmith and Beer Tools Pro have up on ProMash is that both can export or import recipes in BeerXML format. This enables sharing of recipes between these programs, even if the default extensions (.bsm for beersmith or .btp for beer tools) are not compatible. ProMash, at least in the evaluation copy, does not support BeerXML.
OK, let’s continue and enter our Stout Recipe. I quickly entered this just to see how it works. I did not tweak the system to my specs, because I will not be using this program. But I did breeze through the options and it seems pretty straight forward.
ProMash Recipe
It was easy enough to enter a recipe. The only thing I did not like was in order to create a new item, like the cacao nibs, you have to do so in the main screen and cannot do it in recipe mode. You can do this in both Beersmith and Beer Tools Pro.
Mash Options
Above you see the mash options. This was also pretty straight forward. I just entered a quick mash to put some features in. You can set up a quick mash like I did here, or set up a more complex mash or step mash. One thing I don’t like, and this is minor and probably just because I am spoiled. But you cannot see the dough in temp in this mash. To do so you have to go into the brew session, click the mash tab, then click the “show dough in temperature” tab. All this info is more easily accessible in the other two programs.
The Session
Above is the brew session tab. Anything you want to know or tweak about your recipe on brew day can be done here. Next to edit ingredients is the mash schedule tab I was talking about above.
Water Adjustments
In the session tab, you can view and tweak your water volumes needed for your particular system. I didn’t really do anything here, but I played with a few numbers. Pretty much the same functionality as the other programs.
Last I just want to show the edit ingredients tab. The default ingredients did show the age of the software though. There was no Whirlfloc, no 5.2 stabilizer, Star San, or anything else. The list of spices and additives was very very small. So you will have to do a lot of adding if you brew with spices and such. I also noticed the yeast and grain selections were also quite dated. So you will be using this feature a lot if you buy the program.
Add or Edit Ingredients.
So in the end, I feel that ProMash is a nice program, just very outdated. I didn’t get into the guts of the program, which is what the die hards really like. This is the water adjustments and other modifications you can do, but you can also do those in both Beersmith and Beer Tools as well. If it were to suggest someone buy a program today, ProMash would not be high on my list simply because for the same cost (actually $5 less for Beersmith) you get the same thing, with an easier interface and more up to the date ingredients and features. Beer Tools comes in a close second, just because it is not as user-friendly as Beersmith. But we have one more program to look at….Strangebrew.
Strangebrew
Off the bat I’m a bit disappointed. The program supports BeerXML, but will not open Beersmith or Beer Tools Pro versions of the program. So that was a bummer. Maybe it was a glitch though, because it says you can import and export to XML.
Error
OK, so that aside, this is a 30 day trial of the software. Upfront this is very easy to use. As you see below, I entered the recipe no problem, had no issues with ingredients or extras. However, if you do need/want to add some, in the “edit” tab at the top there is an option for “databases” and you can edit or add ingredients there easy enough. It is a simple looking program, but looks like it has all the features you need.
Recipe Entered....easy enough
Now below is the mash tab. I played around with this just to see how it works and it is very simple. It would be nice to have a mash tab, or mash button, but to get there you have to go to “view” up at the top, then select “mash manager”. From there though, you can create your mash schedule and sparges. Like all the others, it calculates the water volumes and temperatures based on how you have your system set up. What I do like is the easy “No Sparge, Fly Sparge, Two Batch Sparge, and Three Batch Sparge” options. This is very easy for the beginner to use. Chances are you would be doing the batch sparge, but with the brew in a bag method being all the rage these days, the no sparge option is very nice.
Mash creation, showing the sparge method drop down list.
So we have done all this………what about scaling or converting all grain to extract and vice versa? TaDa!!!!!!!
Scale is supported in Strangebrew, just like beersmith!
I found this option under the file tab, with the option “Resize Recipe”. Very nice. So Beersmith is not alone here anymore.
So in conclusion of this segment, I want to say if I were to rate these programs for overall beginner usability, I would rate them as follows.
The reason I rate promash so low is because of how dated the program seems to be, at least in the evaluation portion. I do want you keep in mind that this was a simple top down view of these programs using an easy all grain recipe. I didn’t get into doing water adjustments, step or decoction mashing, and so on. For extract brewing, all these programs are going work just fine. It will be your first venturing into all grain that may prove if the program will make the recipe formulation difficult or a breeze for your first recipes. If you want to know the costs of the programs, here is a run down as of today 3/22/10
Aside from getting a pot and doing a full boil, one piece of brewing equipment I highly suggest spending some money on is some brewing software. On average the cost is $20 and you will have it forever, and it makes planning your brew sessions and recipes so much easier, and for me more fun. There are a few mainstream programs out there such as Beersmith, Promash, Beer Tools Pro, and Strangebrew. If you are looking for free alternative, there are also some good brewing spreadsheets floating around on the Internet, Beer Tools has some free tools you can use to create basic recipes (look along the left hand side of the page), then you always have the Beer Recipator to use for free. However the spreadsheets can be a bit cumbersome to use and maintain, especially if you are not familiar with using spreadsheets, and the free tools really limit your ingredient list.
All of these tools above will help you create, tweak, and store recipes. Some even allow you scale recipes, like if you have a friend who brews 10 gallon batches and you do 5, or you have a pro brewing friend who gives you one of his recipes for a 30 barrel system and you need a homebrew scale. I own and have used Beer Tools Pro, and I use Beersmith for almost all my recipes. I really like how user-friendly Beersmith is. For the purpose of this post, I am going to take shots of all the software, just to help show all of you sitting on the fence, just how this software can make your life so much easier. All of these major software brands do have free trial offers to test drive them for yourself. In part 1 of this topic, I will take a look at Beersmith and Beer Tools Pro.
Beersmith
In this picture you can see the opening screen and options for Beersmith.
In the above picture, this is the default screen you come to when opening Beersmith. Here is where you can format a recipe, select if it is extract, partial mash, or all grain. You can see, if you look at this picture for a while, there are options for converting recipes (for example if you have a friend who sends you a recipe for all grain, but you are an extract brewer, you can convert his recipe to an extract recipe and vice versa), scaling a recipe (which can be either scaling it up or down), an inventory feature where you can enter what ingredients you have at hand, and many other tweaks you can make. Under the file tab, there are options for importing recipes you may receive from a friend or off of websites who may use the Beersmith format, and there are many options for tweaking water, measurements, what equipment you have, and brewing processes. But what I like is there are default features you can use right from installation without tweaking it to your system right away.
In the next few pictures, I will show you what a basic all grain recipe will look like in Beersmith, then last convert that recipe to extract, and scale that recipe up to 10 gallons.
Below, you can see what the software shows you when you have a recipe entered. I used one of my favorite homebrew recipes, a chocolate stout of mine called Vader’s Fist. You can see that it gives you estimated starting gravity, finishing gravity, color, and IBU’s. It gives you the range for the style you picked. And once you brew it and take measurements you can add in what the actual gravity’s were and it gives you the ABV. What you can’t see, is further below you have fermentation and bottling/kegging options.
Recipe in Beersmtih
In the following picture, this is just showing the preset mashing and sparging options. All you have to do is pick one. If you want to tweak them you can edit and save the changes you make to these options. Of course, if you are doing extract you don’t have to worry about this.
Beersmith Mashing Options
Next if you noticed in the upper right side, there is a button that says “Preview Brewsheet”. You can hit this button, then have the option to print out a handy brewing schedule for your recipe. It will look something like this.
Brewsheet
Now lets hit that Convert button and convert this recipe to extract. One thing I want to note is you want to create a copy in your recipe list of the original recipe, because once you convert it, you sort of lose the original recipe. Unless I am missing something, this could cause problems. I simply make a copy of the recipe (copy and paste in the recipe list) then covert the copy.
The convert option in Beersmith
As you can see, if your all grain set up used a keggle but you want to do a partial boil for the extract, you can do this. You just select the equipment you have for extract. You can then select the type of malt extract you want to use for your base (Dry or liquid, extra light, light, amber, dark, ect). Finally either check or leave it blank the option for auto converting grains that must be mashed. This does cause an issue when converting because some grains need to be mashed. If you must, you can substitute some grains that don’t need to be mashed, but the end result may not be exactly the same as the all grain version.
Last, here is the scale option.
Scale the recipe up
This is pretty simple also. Select the new batch size you want, select the efficiency, and also if you want to fix the amount based on your equipment. Most of the time you want to do this unless you have many different sized pots or mash tuns.
Well, that is the basic overview of Beersmith. Lets take a quick look at Beer Tools Pro. This one will be a bit quicker for two reasons. First, I am still learning this one because I think it has a bit longer learning curve than Beersmith. And second, I don’t see scale or convert options to show you. I will use the same recipe as I did in Beersmith for this example.
Beer Tools Pro
As you can see the user interface is a lot better looking that Beersmith. I really like the slide scales and the color of the beer picture. Once you enter the recipe from the ingredients categories on the left, and drag and drop them from the pane at the top (above the pint glass), most of your recipe control will take place in the “Display” tab to the bottom right below the pint glass. Here you can enter your equipment, mash schedule, other adjustments, ingredients, and so on. Also, you can see various aspects of your beer and brewing schedule under the tabs labeled: style, analysis, schedule, summary, carbonation, and notes.
Let’s take a look at how you would enter your mash schedule.
Mash Schedule
Here is how you do your schedule in Beer Tools Pro. Under the display tab you can select “Schedule”. Then in the blank area, right click and select an option, such as “New Mash In” , “New Infusion”, “New Rest” , or “New Sparge” (there are more options but these are the most used by me). Then enter the information as you need to. This is very easy if you have your equipment entered in and calibrated, which can be a pain, but I will not cover that. You can do that with the instructions if you purchase the program. Once things are in, all you should have to do it enter your target temperature and the program will update the other fields for you. You do this for all the infusions or sparges you are going to do. For example a single infusion with a batch sparge will look like this.
Single Infusion with Batch Sparge
And the last thing for this basic overview is the option to print this off.You can select what aspects of the recipe to print off.
Beer Tools Pro Print Option, no brewsheet?
There is no handy brewsheet that I can see. However, the print off you do get will do the trick. I do like the “check it off” style of Beersmith, but Beer Tools Pro has a great look to it that makes up for some shortcomings like no conversion tool. No scaling tool either. But the tweaking options here are almost endless. Also, I could be wrong. Just because I don’t see the option does not mean it is not there. If you want to learn more about Beer Tools Pro, they have an online Wiki for Beer Tools Pro you can read that will probably give you more insight and in depth instruction than I am giving here. This is just a top down look at the software.
Dundee Honey Brown Lager
Today’s review is on Dundee Ales and Lagers, Honey Brown Lager. There is no BJCP style category for a lager like this, so this one would fall under category 23, the specialty category. This beer is not a vienna lager, but may be close so I will use that as a base style. I will not really deduct any points for it not hitting the vienna style lager since the brewer does claim it to be so, but for an example of what you may compare it to if you wanted to enter a beer like this in competition, you could enter it in category 23 as a vienna style lager with honey. One thing to keep in mind that even though the name states it is a honey brown, don’t confuse this beer with a brown ale style beer. I am not sure why it is called “brown” because the beer is not really a brown color, but rather a light amber. Still for most lagers (Schwartzbier excluded) this is a darker shade than some will be used to. With that, lets get started with the review.
The aroma is clean, with some nice toasty and sweet malt character. Some very light honey and the faintest hint of spicy hops. That is pretty much it for the aroma. Most lagers are clean and void of any fruity ar other secondary aromas. So that is to be expected of a lager like this. (8 points)
The color is a light amber and quite clear. The head poured very nicely, but dissipates quite quickly. A more persistent head would be a plus, still a nice looking beer. (2 points)
The flavor is OK. There is a decent soft toasted malt profile. There is a sweetness to the beer that lasts long into the finish letting taste the malt for quite some time. The honey in the aroma was not very strong, but here in the flavor the honey comes through quite a bit more. Although hops should not play a big role in a beer like this, a little more spicy hop character would benefit the beer in my opinion. Some people may find the lingering sweetness to be off-putting, but I kind of enjoy it. It is a bit honey early on, but turns a touch malty later. This beer is easily quaffable, but drying the beer out a bit would make it even more so. (14 points)
The mouthfeel is very thin, almost watery. This was the only part of the beer I really didn’t like. I also drank this beer with my dad, who also made the comment about how thin the beer was, so I know I was not alone here. No astringency or other poor mouthfeel qualities, just too watery. (3 points)
Overall, this is a very nice lager. I do think this beer can be a bit misunderstood which is why some may seem to score it low or bash it from time to time. Those who are apt to buy a beer with the name “Honey Brown” are probably expecting a beer to be like Newcastle at the very least. However, this is a lager, and not an ale. You should expect the flavors and aromas to be a bit softer and more refined from the cool fermentation and aging process. Do not expect this to be a full flavored brew, the flavors can be complex and rich, but will be very soft. A bit more mouthfeel and a touch more hops would be good in my opinion. But when it comes to drinkability, this beer has that down. (6 points)
Overall I score this beer a 32, which would translate to about a B- in my book. If this were not a lager, and supposed to be a brown ale, I would score it much lower. Still, the brown in the name is deceiving. When you see it and taste it, it appears to me to be closer to amber lager, a weaker Vienna Lager possibly.
Turns out I had this beer quite a while back. I found an old bottle in my bottle collection. The new bottle design is on the left and old on the right. Which do you prefer?
New Glarus Unplugged: Cherry Stout
Today I have the return of Cherry Stout from New Glarus and their Unplugged Series. This beer was first brewed back in 2003 (at least that is when it won its first award) and has won 4 awards since 2003. I missed this one when it came out the first time so I don’t have a point of reference on what the first one was like, but New Glarus is a highly consistent brewery, so I am confident that the beer we have here is pretty much the same as the first run. This beer is billed as a Cherry Stout so if you recall from previous posts, we will judge this beer as a fruit beer with the base style of an unknown stout style, so lets just assume for the sake of argument that it is a dry stout embedded in there. The reason is because I am assuming the fruit will add some sweetness to begin with and using a sweet or oatmeal stout as the base could make the beer appear to be overly sweet and cloying. But again, this is just my assumption. Just remember, a proper fruit beer should be a harmonious balance of the featured fruit with the underlying beer style, but this statement in and of itself is subjective as to what a harmonious balance is.
Off the bat, the aroma is thick with cherry’s. What I do like is it is obvious that this real cherry, unlike another cherry beer I reviewed earlier on. What seems to be missing to me is any real solid hint at a stout, of any kind. I do get some very mild roasted grain, but you really have to pay attention to find it. There is some mild oaky character that comes across as almost brown sugar-like. I really had to think about what was causing that aroma, and it hit me that it is some oak with vanilla melded with the malt. At least that is my impression. As good and honest as the aroma is, I just don’t see enough stout in it to score it high. This is one of those cases where the numbers will not reflect that this beer is better than the score represents. If you have ever had Belgian Red, this beer smells very close to that as well. (6 points)
The color is a deep garnet, and the stream when I poured it was a stream of a muddy red color. In the glass it sits very dark brown with garnet highlights. The head was very nicely formed and 10 minutes in still has a very thin layer. (3 points)
The flavor at first is similar to cherry cola. Not Cherry Coke, but if you have ever been to an old-time restaurant or soda shop that adds real cherry juice and cherries to cola. The beer is sweet up front, and finishes out a bit tart. The only solid hint of stout I get is in the finish where there is a prominent flavor of roasted grain working against the tartness from the cherry. The wood in here is very mild and for me comes across late in the finish. As the beer warms it starts to show a bit more chocolate in with that cherry. I am really liking the flavor a lot more than I thought I would. Usually when it comes to fruit beers, I like to have the fruit act as a highlight to enhance the beer, this one showcases the fruit just like their other fruit beers do. Still, a stout is a bold and assertive beer and if billed as such should make more of an appearance. As much as I’m digging the flavor, I just can’t see any solid stout showing. (10 points)
The mouthfeel is a bit more full than I would expect, but still does a nice job of not coming up too full. The stout portion of the beer should lend to a bit more of medium to fuller mouthfeel, so the beer hits the mark here. (5 points)
Overall, I can drink this beer all night long, but the point of fact is that this beer would be better billed as a different beer for the base style. There just is not enough stout in it from my perspective to call it a cherry stout. I don’t really know what to call it, but to me it comes across more as cherry brown than cherry stout. But then again, Cherry Brown does not have the great ring that cherry stout does. I really like the real cherry aroma and flavor, and the tartness and overall flavor is very appealing, so I can see why it won some awards, including a few Gold Medals at the GABF. The only reason I can’t personally score it high is because of the stout tag. This beer gets a solid recommendation to drink it and enjoy it, but for the sake of judging it as I would in competition, I can give it an overall of 6 points (6 points)
The number score I would give this beer is 30, which is good and would probably be a C or C+. Again, I can’t stress enough that its not because this beer is bad, or that the pros who judge at the GABF have it wrong (From what I gather the judging at the GABF is run a bit differently than than in homebrew competitions), this is just one of those things where from my judging standpoint, I like to see a bit more of the base style come through. If this beer was called something other than stout, it would probably get much higher from me. As you can tell it does pain me to give what I think is such a low score to such a well brewed and easy drinking beer, not to mention that I am a huge fan of New Glarus. But you do have to call it like you see it as you interpret the style guidelines.
Some of my homegrown Hops
Well it’s that time of year again, time to decide if you are going to plant hops and what to get. Although I do grow my own hops, I am not a hop growing expert by any means. I do grow one plant at this time since I killed off my other two. Since I have a small yard, I thought it would be a good idea to plant hops in large planters, since this does seem to work for some. I found that it worked for two years only, then my plants died off. I was able to save one Glacier plant when I was digging up what I thought was dead roots, and found one viable plant left. I quickly planted it in the ground and it grew that year about 10 feet. The following year, it grew very nicely. Now, I am going to strictly plant in the soil, no more pots. Before you ask, yes I did bring the plants into the garage for the winter, but even that seemed to be too cold for them.
What I want to do for this post is provide you a one stop shop for your hop needs. Even though I am not an expert, I can direct you to the experts and online shops to purchase the rhizomes you may be looking for. Every store seems to have different varieties, so you should be able to find what you are looking for quite easily….aside from propriority plants like Simcoe and Amarillo. Those are not available to anyone other than the current farms who bred them.
Hop Information
Hop Rhizomes
Now if you cannot find the hops you are looking for in this list of retailers, there is a good chance they are not available to the public. Some hops, like my favorite, Amarillo were bred and grown by one grower who has exclusive rights to grow that variety. Off hand I am not sure if they have a patent on the plant variety, or just refuse to let anyone get a hold of a rhizome, but either way it is near impossible to get some of these highly sought after varieties.
New Glarus Cabin Fever Honey Bock, a shade shorter than a Helles/Mai Bock
Dang. I went to take a photo of the first beer I’m drinking tonight and the batteries are dead on the camera. My wife’s camera…..same thing. So I had to resort to using my camera phone, so excuse the quality of the pic. But here is the new one from New Glarus, Cabin Fever Honey Bock. I am a bit confused on what this style is, since it really is not a traditional bock, and not really a traditional Helles Bock, it sort of lays where a beer would be right before the Helles Bock, if such a style formally existed. There is no claim to style, other than calling it a Wisconsin Pale Honey Bock. So, for this beer I am throwing out the score sheet (I will not be using category 23 for this beer, since I don’t think it really has a base style either, technically if you were entering it in competition you could claim Helles Bock as the base style, and list the changes but everything about this beer from the hop strength, ABV, malts used, addition of honey….still strip it from being a Helles base style in my eyes.) and judge this beer for what it is and very loosely base my judgement on the overall parameters of what a bock is.
1) It’s a lager.
2)Tends to focus on malt, usually Vienna or Munich malts are used.
3) They tend to be higher in alcohol than most other lagers, but in this case even the strength is toned down.
4) Should have a complex malty profile.
In the aroma of this beer there is a crisp biscuit malt flavor along with a soft touch of caramel, however it could be the play of honey along with the malt. There is a bit of hop aroma, but not much. Overall, the aroma is fairly light with a focus on a bit of sweet malt.
It pours a crystal clear gold, a shade darker than a good Pilsner. It poured a nice head, but that disappeared quickly.
The flavor is nice, some great lighter malt flavors. There is a some faint toast, some good biscuity malt, and a hint of honey. The hop bitterness is just enough to balance the malt, but there is a touch too much sweetness for my taste. However the beer does finish fairly well. Flavors are clean and as I would expect from a beer that appears to be an attempt at a Bock, a step below a Helles.
Mouthfeel is medium with a good amount of carbonation to help crisp up that sweetness.
Overall, I think they hit what they were attempting to do, which is make a beer a shade shy of a Helles Bock, with some honey added. This beer is well made and a far cry from the Extreme beer craze that we are in the middle of now in the craft beer world. Is it an A+ in my book, no. But it is a nice beer fitting for springtime. I do feel that a touch more hops would have helped even out the beer a bit more in my opinion though.
In the end, I were to grade this, I would shoot it a B. It may not be my favorite beer from New Glarus, but I do think they hit the mark with what they were attempting to do. So even though in my opinion the beer is average, I do give it bonus points for achievement.
Boaks Monster Mash Russian Imperial Stout
Today I have Monster Mash from Boaks Brewery. Monster Mash is a great name for a Russian Imperial Stout, which is what this beer is. What I find interesting about Russian Imperial Stouts, is that a new comer thinks its a monster Guinness and nothing more (and unless you are a beer geek, and if you are reading this blog you probably are, these same people already think Guinness Stout is high in alcohol). But in reality, I find most Imperial stouts to be fairly sweet, which I like. I prefer sweet stouts to dry stouts any day. I find it very rare to have a dried out Imperial Stout. If you brew, you already know why, but the short and simple of it is that these big beers tend to have a bit more unfermentable sugar and the yeast tends to poop out before fully fermenting the sugars out, giving you a slightly sweeter beer. Granted there are a few more variables to it than that, but that’s the quick over simplified explanation. The overall impression you are looking for in a Russian Imperial Stout is “An intensely flavored, big, dark ale. Roasty, fruity, and bittersweet, with a noticeable alcohol presence. Dark fruit flavors meld with roasty, burnt, or almost tar-like sensations. Like a black barleywine with every dimension of flavor coming into play” Also, you need to consider where the beer was made. American style Imperial Stouts also tend to be more hoppy.
I find the aroma a bit thin, with some mild coffee, deep roast, and a touch of chocolate. There is a spicy hop presence, or a combined hop and alcohol aroma that lends to the appearance of spiciness. In the end I don’t find the aroma to be big, bold, and complex. With some warming and strong swirling I was able to push out some raisin tones, but that was about it. The aroma is good, just not powerful enough. (6 points)
This beer just looks mean. Dark mahogany with some garnet highlights. Opaque except for along the edges, and a very small short lasting head. (2 points)
The flavor is very interesting. When it was cooler, the hop bitterness rang supreme and I found it quite off-putting. There was some stronger coffee and roasted grain in the flavor. The roast almost appeared to add too much of an acidic quality to the beer. However, as I allowed it to warm the beer became much better. The richness of the grains filled out a bit more, there was still some coffee, but the sweetness rounded it out to more of a very dark bittersweet chocolate. The hop bitterness is still there, but does not jump out as much. It does linger long into the finish, but blends in well with the dark chocolate tones. Towards the end the fruity notes of raisin blends with the alcohol giving you a mild boozy feel, almost feels like some forbidden Christmas desert I have never had. So in the end is it the best tasting Imperial Stout I had? No, but its not the worst either. (13 points)
The mouthfeel is almost perfect. It is creamy, sweet, smooth, and rich. The beer is not cloyingly sweet, so it leaves you ready to drink more. Some mild roasted grain astringency, but that is expected. Carbonation is just right for this style. (5 points)
Overall the beer is quite good, it’s just not awesome. The aroma is nice but I didn’t think it does the beer justice for how big the beer is. The flavor at first was off-putting, but that was partially my fault for serving it too cold. Still, I have to call it like I got it, which will be how most people will get their first few sips. Right out of the fridge. But I promise you, if you let it warm the beer will improve. So don’t pour and drink, give it a few minutes. first. (7 points)
Overall I gave the beer a 33, which is a pretty good beer. Really, anything in the 30′s or above is a respectable score. A 33 in my book is in the B- to C+ range. I would drink this beer again, and that is what really matters.
Captian's Reserve Imperial IPA
Today I have something else I got from Simply Beer in a trade, Captain Lawrence Brewing Company’s Captain’s Reserve Imperial IPA. This is an Imperial IPA, and as usual we will taking a look at this bad boy according to the BJCP style guidelines. According to the guidelines, the overall impression of this beer should be “An intensely hoppy, very strong pale ale without the big maltiness and/or deeper malt flavors of an American barleywine. Strongly hopped, but clean, lacking harshness, and a tribute to historical IPAs. Drinkability is an important characteristic; this should not be a heavy, sipping beer. It should also not have much residual sweetness or a heavy character grain profile.” But there is more to it than simply that, so lets take a look at this one.
The aroma is a bit bready and slightly caramel-like when it comes to the malt. However, it is obviously the hops that take center stage here, as it should be. The aroma is very traditional, with some mild red grapefruit like aroma as well as a touch of pine. The overall hop aroma is a bit on the light side for an Imperial IPA. The alcohol in the beer lends a spicy note hidden in there as well. Although not as big as I would like, the aroma is very traditional and has a malt profile I find interesting. (8 points)
The color is just stunning. The beer is clear and bright golden. The moussey head is thick and frothy and lasts an incredible amount of time for a big beer. (3 points)
The flavor is very complex actually, much more so than the aroma suggests. Up front I get a resinous pine hop flavor combined with some mild caramel and bready malt flavor. In the middle, the resinous pine is cut by what to me seems to be the alcohol, and it finishes with a soft malt character coupled with a ruby red grapefruit flavor lasting into the finish. The resinous flavor lingers as well, but is well cut by the other flavors. The flavors of this beer roll around your mouth, and nothing about it is unpleasant. The bitterness is quite subdued, with most of it taking place right up front, and some softer bitterness lingering into the finish. I really don’t have anything bad to say about the flavor of this beer. However, again like the aroma, it just does not seem to be big enough, as good as it is, it just doesn’t scream Imperial to me. (17 points)
The mouthfeel is medium and quite smooth. The carbonation does not seem to be high and everything to me seems to be in order here. (5 points)
Overall this beer is easily drinkable for an Imperial IPA, which is exactly what the guidelines state. However, the beer still needs to exhibit the stronger flavors and aromas associated with the Imperial style. I felt that this beer was awesome, but slightly lacking that last element of in your face Imperial power. Would I risk changing anything? Absolutely not. It was simply an observation, but I like this beer just the way it is. (8 points)
Overall I score this beer a 41 out of 50 points. This beer scores a solid A in my opinion and should be sought out by any hop heads who can get their hands on it.
