Beer Review - Hop Head Tours

Avery The Maharaja Imperial India Pale Ale

Well, imagine that here I am with a beer that is actually available in TX and can still be found fresh. This beer is priced quite well for what you get. 8 bucks and some change and you get one of the best Imperial IPA’s available in TX. Easily obtainable at any “better” beer store I would imagine as well. This beer is well known for its overabundance of hops and packs a mean punch while you drink it. A hefty 10.54% abv is tagged along with the 102 IBU’s of hop juice.

Avery brewing hails from Boulder, Co and is quite a well-known brewer for many good reasons. Too many to list right now though, you’ll just have to find out for yourself.

The beer pours a nice dark amber color and has a nice creamy head that dissipates fast into a ring of froth. The hops literally jump out of your glass and coat your nose with citrus, pot, and sticky, danky hops. Even though the high abv is there you wouldn’t even know if you smelled the beer casually.

Onto the good stuff now. The very nice thickness for an Imperial IPA and incredibly smooth on the palate. Once you swallow it’s everything you smelled but, in your mouth. Ridiculously hoppy with flavors of bright citrus and pot with very nice hop bitterness. No alcohol burn on the way down at all but, after a few sips, you sure can feel it. If this stuff was available year-round and fresh I’d definitely need a sponsor for all the beer I would be drinking.

Overall if you’re a hophead and you haven’t tried this beer, I’d suggest rethinking your title as a hophead. Great beer, great price, and an even better hop experience. Go buy it now while it’s still fresh, it’s been out for about 3-4 weeks now.

Stone IPA Review

I’ve been wanting to try Stone IPA from Stone Brewing Company in San Diego for nearly a year, and I finally found it about a week ago…I’m not disappointed! I bought it at the liquor store, but I’m sure you can find it in most stores that carry a lot of interesting beers.

It’s got kind of a neat label and an overly dramatic description on the back. The kind that goes on and on about the “Big-Hop Aroma” and how it moves you to “Rejoice Aloud”. It would be laughable, but the first thing you notice when you crack it open is that the hops actually reach out of the bottle, grab you by the throat, and punch you in the face! The (relatively) high alcohol content (6.9%) helps with that as well.

Unfortunately, I’m currently living in a hotel room, so I can’t show you a proper picture of the beer in a glass. You’ll have to make do with the one I grabbed off of Google.

It’s a not-quite opaque, orangey-yellow color…About par for most IPAs. Once you get it into a suitable glass, take a moment to shove your nose in. Many beers that are so hop-heavy sacrifice a bit on the ever-important flavor balance, but you’ll definitely catch several distinct fruity and floral aromas in this one. If you aren’t a fan of hoppy beers, you’ll make an ugly face at this point.

On to the part you actually care about…The taste! Like I said before, I’m impressed by the balance in this beer. It’s definitely on the hoppy, strong, bitter side of the beer world, but as long as you don’t hate these types of beers, you’ll like this one a lot.

The first thing you’ll notice as it hits your mouth is the hops. Once you let it sit for a moment and finally swallow, you’ll taste a fruity flavor that I can’t quite place. It seems to be an apricot/pear type of flavor, but I can’t say for sure. The typical flowery flavor that most hoppy beers have is also present. The alcohol is hidden well, but not perfectly…Especially after you finish your second or third one.

The only real negative I can come up with is that all of the flavors seem just a bit underpowered for what the beer is trying to do. Almost like they dialed the quantity down a bit so they could get the balance right. This isn’t necessarily bad though, it makes the beer that much easier to session (binge) with.

There are other IPAs and Pale Ales that do a better job of showing off one certain characteristic of hoppy beers, but this one puts them all together very well. I would recommend it to anyone, as long as they like hoppy beers (This isn’t the one to start with if you’ve never tried them). If you want to try it with a meal, I would recommend a somewhat spicy, lighter meat. It would probably overwhelm the flavors of a dark, heavy meal.

Belhaven Scottish Ale

This beer is from the Belhaven Brewery Company in Dunbar, Scotland. I got it at a beer/liquor store off-base, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.

It pours a thick, cloudy coppery-orange color with a creamy off-white head. The head fizzles out rather quickly, but it does leave a bit of residue on the glass. It smells very strongly of caramel, with malt bringing up a close second. There are hints of nut and fruit as well.

Like the smell, this beer tastes of caramel and malt…not much hops to be found, although there is a noticeable hint in the aftertaste. It also has a nutty, slightly fruity flavor that I would compare to Fat Tire if they weren’t so different in every other aspect. When it first hits your mouth, it feels thick, creamy, and heavy. You will wonder “Oh dear, what have I gotten in to?” but you’ll notice, as it sits in your mouth, that it isn’t quite as heavy as it seems. The darker flavors lighten up as you swallow and you are left puzzled by the complexity and balance of the many flavors you tasted, but couldn’t place, and you will immediately have another sip. By this point, my bottle is nearly empty for this exact reason.

I would heartily recommend this beer to anyone who likes real beer. It’s easy to drink, complex in flavor, and not too heavy on the alcohol. It is kind of thick so that it will fill you up…but not after one or two. It would be a great intro to the real beer world for a friend who sticks to Bud Light and Corona. If you have it with a meal, I would recommend meat on the lighter side, but not spicy. Maybe chicken or turkey with a red wine or tomato sauce. Beef or spicy sauces would probably not fit well.

New Belgium La Folie

Oh lord, another beer available in TX from me. At least it will not be available in this format long; soon it’ll come in it’s little “Lips of Faith” bombers and these 750’s that are hand-bottled will become a thing of the past. If the beer weren’t $20.56 with tax, I’d buy another to age, but alas, we can’t have all the good beer in our cellar eh? Well anyways onto what you came here for.

New Belgium is a very widely known brewery, and they come to us from Ft. Collins, CO. Within the past few months, TX has slowly been getting some of their brews other than Fat Tire. I know that’s crazy but, they brew more than just Fat Tire. Most of their offerings available here in TX are decent and satisfy the palate of people looking for something different but not too off into the deep end, which is all fine and dandy until you come across this jewel of a beer.

La Folie is a wood-aged beer that sits in french oak barrels anywhere between 1-3 years and gets a nice sour flavor that is incredible. Not only is this beer exclusive because it’s aged in French oak, but it’s also hand bottled, numbered and corked, which is a rare treat in the beer world if you ask me.

So here we go, off into the world of sour beers with a great example of the style. This bottle was bottled in January of this year, so it’s semi-fresh. Color is deep brown with an off white/cream head that fades to a ring in no time at all. The nose is tart cherries, sour apples, oak and barnyard (funk), along with a crapload of things I can’t even dwell into. I could sniff this beer for hours honestly, and the list would keep on going.

Wow, so incredibly smooth with a very tart cherry flavor backed with oak and barnyard. For those not familiar with the term barnyard, please check out this link. On its way down you can taste the sour cherries and apples until it hits your stomach, then you get the slight acidic burn from eating too many Sour Patch kids at one time. That feeling fades quite fast, and then you’re left with a gorgeously coated mouth of oak and cherry.

Oh, and as for the abv of this beer, don’t even worry about it. It only weighs in at 6% so finishing a whole 750ml of this is no massive chore unless you’re not into sour things.

So there you go folks, the first sour beer review on thebeerblog.net. As I get my hands on more sours I’ll be reviewing more for you guys but, until then, please search these beers out or request them at your local beer store or bar. TX needs more sour beers.

Real Ale Lost Gold IPA

So where have we been the past 2 years? I figure that we all got caught up in life and kind of put this on the backburner. Now don’t get confused, I’ve still been drinking new beers and reviewing them, just not long reviews like I do here at The Beer Blog. If you’re interested in my shorthand reviews head over to Ratebeer. Once we get back into the swing of things you’ll see more reviews that make you want to drink more beer. Well, onto the review, I apologize for the absence and plan on making it up to you guys.

Whew, 2 years without an entry is quite a long time, so I figured since I was coming back I’d start it off with a local TX beer, granted that it is a limited release. So let’s get onto the beer.

This beer comes from the Texas Hill Country in a town called Blanco. Now, in Blanco there is a river named the Blanco, which just happens to be the source of water for the brewery. They also named their GABF award winning beer after the river, Rio Blanco Pale Ale, if you haven’t had that yet, you’re missing out on a great beer. Lost Gold used to be only available on tap until this year. Over the past year or two Real Ale has been bottling their “tap only” beers and they’ve been very well received by the public. You’ll have to pick up some Devil’s Backbone which was just released this week. In the fall you can pick up their delicious Coffee Porter and find barrel aged versions on tap. Well let’s move onto the review.

The beer pours a gorgeous golden amber color with a cream colored head that lasts for a little while then dissipates into a small ring. The aromas really pull you into the beer with loads of citrus, followed by pine, chewy passion fruit (not real good with fruit aromas), and a faint stickiness that seems almost resinous from the hops.

On the palate you’ve got a beer with a great medium palate. It’s not real thick and it’s not thin by any means. Honestly, it’s quite perfect for an IPA. The hops definitely shine through with their citrus and fruity flavors, these are followed by a very resinous after flavor. There’s something a little different though, when you think IPA you think hop bomb, not this one. The malts are a big player in this beer. The malts are definitely bringing out a lot of the sweeter characteristics of this beer. They’re giving it an almost chewy feel honestly. As much as I love my huge IPA’s that kick you in the face with hops, this one is quite fitting for how I feel right now.

Well that about sums up my review for this beer, while I wrote this I managed to drink a bottle of it. Then it occurred to me that I had to actually finish the review and opened a second one. Thanks Real Ale for the great beer, and thanks for bottling it so I don’t have to pay 5 bucks for a pint of it.

Terrapin Wake-n-Bake Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

In this review we’ll be checking out the Terrapin Beer company’s Wake-n-Bake Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout, weighing in at 8.1% abv. Definitely not available in TX but, get into beer and start trading for some of this delicious delicacy.

Terrapin is from Athens, Georgia and has a pretty solid following in the craft beer world from what I understand. Every beer I’ve had from them (6 including this one) have been good and I’m fairly impressed with them. Now if they’d only start getting distributed in TX I’d probably feel a little better about them

Onto the beer though, it’s and Imperial stout so the color is perfect (black) and the head is very small surprisingly. I typically like a stout with a nice espresso head but the nose on this beer makes up for it. The aromas are clearly chocolate, coffee, and oatmeal with some notes of roasted malts drifting in the background somewhere.

The beer could be a little bit thicker for an Imperial stout but maybe it just needs some age on it. I believe my 4 pack was

bought in January so it hasn’t had much time at all. At first, the coffee hits your palate in full force and slowly gets bitter thanks to the chocolate after it works it’s way back. Once the beer hits the back of the mouth it’s almost completely nothing but sweet oatmeal with the roasted malts checking in in the aftertaste.

TX really needs more Impy stouts like this, I’m appreciative of the few that we do get through. Hope everyone gets a good idea about this beer and wants to get more involved in trying new beers when you’re out of state.