Review: Little Sumpin' Sumpin'

A co-worker gave me a bottle of this beer from Lagunitas Monday night. She bought it on sale at Whole Foods in downtown Sarasota. And it was cold, so I just had to drink it after the shift.

Lagunitas, from Petaluma, Calif., generally makes beers with pronounced hop flavors. They're the perfect example of a West Coast brewer. Their beers are also known for the crazy notes printed on them and on the six-pack holders. As a copy editor, the notes can drive me crazy since they read like stream-of-consciousness drivel. Anyway, I'm not going to fault a brewery for that. The real issue is that they brew some mean beers.

Lagunitas describes Little Sumpin' Sumpin' as "way smooth and silky with a nice wheaty-esque-ish-ness." I see.

My notes:

It's a bright gold in color with a sticky head.

It has a great hoppy aroma. Huge citrus and sweet notes bombard my nose.

The taste is all about the hops. Herbal, grassy and citrus flavors all mix with a good bitterness, but not in a hit-you-over-the-head way. Thryn said this reminds her of a lighter Hopslam, and I agree. I can't detect the wheat malt in this.

The body is light, slick and oily.

I like this beer. It's a good hoppy beer that could lead people down the dark path toward my favorite style -- Double IPA.

The king of pale ales

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was on sale today at my Publix, so I bought two six-packs. Drinking one got me to thinking about American pale ales, which are usually hoppier versions of British pale ales. They combine a nice malt flavor with a good amount of hop flavors and bitterness.

Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale is the standard by which all other pale ales are judged. They essentially created the style years ago with their flagship beer.

Some of my notes -- from 2004!

Pours a nice amber/copper color with a beautiful head that reduces to just a layer of foam. There's a bit of hop aroma, along with some malt smells and some weird things I can't identify.

The taste is good and well-balanced between sweet and bitter. Not being an IPA, it isn't bitter.

The body is good, too. Not too heavy but far from light.

This beer is available just about everywhere and you can't go wrong with it. It's a good beer for both beer geeks and newbies, and can be a great gateway to hoppier brews.

Review: LongShot Traditional Bock

Traditional Bock is the second-best of the three LongShot beers from Samuel Adams this year. You may not agree if you don't like super-hoppy beers like their Double IPA, which I love.

LongShot brews, as I wrote about in a previous post, are the winners of SA's homebrew contest.

A bock is a dark lager. Lager beers are brewed with yeast that ferments at the bottom of the vessel (ale yeast ferments at the top) and at cold temperatures. Lagers are also conditioned, which means they are aged for weeks at cold temperatures after they have fermented. The flavors of a lager are cleaner and somewhat lighter than ales.

You can't hide brewing mistakes (fermented too hot, mashed grains wrong) in a lager like you can in an ale, which is one reason I never made a lager back when I homebrewed.

This beer shows that Americans can make German beers just as well as Germans.

My notes:

A deep amber in color with a thick, off-white head.

It has a good, sweet malty aroma.

The taste is quite good. Clean, sweet malt flavors -- caramel, syrup, even fruit -- are perfectly balanced with a hint of bitterness.

Its body is smooth and hefty.

This is a great everyday brew and another LongShot beer that should be added to Sam Adams' regular roster.

Cigar City releases barrel-aged Bolita today

Just a reminder that Cigar City Brewing Co. will be having a special release of their Bourbon Barrel Aged Bolita today from 6 to 10 p.m. They are selling 170 bottles ($20 each, limit 3) of this brown ale that they aged for five months in a Maker's Mark bourbon barrel.

They will also have some surprise beers available on tap, as well as food.

More info is on Cigar City's blog.

Review: Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

Brewers put all sorts of interesting things in beer. Would you believe coffee? It can work really well in beer, especially in stouts and porters, which used roasted and blackened malt, which has some natural coffee-like flavors.

The best such beer I've had is Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout from Terrapin in Athens, Ga. It's also known as Wake-n-Bake. They use a special blend of coffee from Athens coffee company Jittery Joe's. This beer also uses oatmeal (as do some other stouts), which gives beer a velvety texture.

I recently learned from BeerAdvocate magazine that there is almost no caffeine in coffee beers. There's just not that much coffee in them. So that's good for those who avoid the stimulant.

Part of my review notes from when I had it on tap at the Cock & Bull in January for the first time:

The smell is great. Big coffee and chocolate notes.

The taste: Wow. This totally lives up to the hype. It's creamy and sweet, but not cloying. The coffee flavors are big, but there are no tannin notes of bad coffee. I just realized that this is a stronger stout. Its strength is very well-hidden. There are no notes of alcohol or solvent flavors.

It has a super-creamy body.

This is one fantastic beer. Terrapin only brews this in the winter, but I was able to get a 2008 four-pack ($12!) from Whole Foods last week. At 8 percent alcohol, this beer can age well, so there wasn't any worry of it being past its prime. And it was just as good as it was in January at the pub.

Read more reviews of it at BeerAdvocate.

Cigar City special event

Cigar City Brewing Co. will be having a special release of their Bourbon Barrel Aged Bolita on Friday, June 26, from 6 to 10 p.m. They are selling 170 bottles ($20 each, limit 3) of this brown ale that they aged for five months in a Maker's Mark bourbon barrel. Sounds extreme, indeed.

They plan to hand out placeholder tickets at 6. The sale itself starts at 8. They said they're using tickets because they weren't sure what the demand would be like.

They will also have some surprise beers available on tap, as well as food.

More info is on Cigar City's blog.

Tea and beer

I was just drinking some iced Tazo Spicy Ginger tea and it reminded me that herbs can be used in beer with just as much success.

I wish I could get some Chamomile Ale from Rogue (a great brewery on the Oregon coast) right now. It's great. The chamomile really works in beer and gives it a tea-like quality. Many of Rogue's beers make it here to Florida, but Chamomile Ale isn't one of them.

Here's part of my review from September 2003:

It's a golden ale with a light white head. It has an herbal aroma, obviously from the chamomile. I wonder if there are any hops in this at all? I could see just brewing it with chamomile for the same bittering purpose.

This is a very different ale, especially considering it's from Rogue. It has a very tea-like flavor, unlike any beer I've had before. Quite an herbal spice taste and finish! Anyone who enjoys tea should try this ale. It could be a great crossover beer.

It's not as powerful as other Rogues. More of a beer for session drinking.

Come on Rogue, bring that beer to the Southeast!

Review: 110K+OT (2009)

This is my first beer from Cigar City Brewing Co. It has a strange name, 110K+OT. They plan to change it each year: same name, different beer. This time it's a modified Imperial Russian Stout (they're calling it an India Russian Imperial Stout because they've used a lot of hops), a strong stout that was originally brewed in England and shipped to the Russian court.

On to the review:

Pours super black with a head like chocolate milk.

It has a roasted, smoky aroma with big chocolate notes and a hint of hops.

The taste is all about roasted malt flavors. It's smoky and coffee-like with bits of burnt toast thrown in. I'm not getting the extra hops, but that's probably because I've blown my palate on double IPAs. The very high alcohol level is almost totally hidden.

The body is thick and creamy, almost like a milkshake. This is one of the thickest beers I've had.

For an extreme beer, this is under control. It's much more drinkable than, say, Brooklyn's Black OPS. Nonetheless, I'm only drinking half of the bottle tonight. I'm not risking another hangover.

I must say that I'm just a tiny bit let down by this beer after reading all the raves about Cigar City on BeerAdvocate. I must have had my hopes set too high, though, because there's nothing wrong with this beer. Must be like what happened to a lot of people with the "Star Wars" prequels.

Cigar City and Anderson Valley at Whole Foods

To follow up on my previous post, I went to the Whole Foods in Sarasota today and they also had Cigar City's 110K+OT in stock. $13 for a 750 mL bottle.

They also had four beers from Anderson Valley Brewing Co., a great California brewery. They've been making beer for years but are a new arrival in Sarasota. Whole Foods had Hop Ottin' IPA, Summer Solstice Cerveza Crema, Brother David's Abbey Double and Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout. The IPA and stout are very good; I haven't tried the others.

I was also very happy to see that Whole Foods still had some of Terrapin's excellent Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout in stock. A four-pack of 12-ounce bottles are $12. Here are some of my notes on it:

It's a lovely black with a nice deep brown head. The smell is great. Big coffee and chocolate notes.

The taste: Wow. This totally lives up to the hype. It's creamy and sweet, but not cloying. The coffee flavors are big, but there are no tannin notes of bad coffee. I just realized that this is a stronger stout. Its strength is very well-hidden. There are no notes of alcohol or solvent flavors.

Overall this is a fantastic stout and one of the best I've ever had. Seek it out: You won't be disappointed.

The beer scene in Florida continues to improve.

Cigar City beers at Total Wine

Fellow BeerAdvocate member JAA posted on the site that Total Wine & More on University Parkway in southern Manatee County has 750 mL bottles of Cigar City's 110K+OT on the shelf for about $12 each.

Cigar City changes this beer each year. This year, according to their blog, they have called the beer IRIS:

"which stands for India Russian Imperial Stout. Yes, that's right, we are just making styles up! I.R.I.S. is heavily hopped to begin with, but gets a further dry hop treatment with Mt. Rainier hops, which adds a nice licorice note. It is also aged on toasted Spanish Cedar, but at lower levels than what we normally use. We'll also be bourbon barrel-aging I.R.I.S."

From other BA reviews, it seems like a monster of a stout at 11.5 percent. Sounds like something to drink with friends. The last big bottle of stout I drank, Brooklyn's Black Ops, put me in the hurt locker.

Senate may triple taxes on beer

The Brewers Association (not surprisingly) is calling on beer fans to contact their senators and tell them they oppose tripling the excise tax on 4.5 percent alcohol beers and raising the tax rate even higher on higher alcohol beers.

The association says these tax increases will hurt the smaller breweries, which they call Main Street businesses, the most. "Federal, state and local taxes represent over 40% of the retail price for beer while the same taxes equal nearly 24% of the price for all other purchases," according to the association.

Higher taxes "will worsen the economic recession – resulting in less competitive products, reduced sales and revenues, lost jobs and, for some small brewers, business closures," the association writes.

More information -- including which senators to contact -- is at the association's Web site.

Cigar City tasting room is open

According to their blog, Cigar City Brewing's tasting room is now open for business. Cigar City, Tampa's only microbrewery, has been making beer for a few months but had delays in getting their brewery tasting room ready. I haven't had any of their beers yet, but have heard very good things.

It is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. They're at 3924 W. Spruce St. Suite A, Tampa, FL 33612. The phone number is (813) 348-6363, Ext. 206.

You can buy growlers at the tasting room.

What's a growler?

It's a glass jug that a brewery fills with beer from the tap. In Florida they must be 32 ounces or less or 128 ounces or more. Traditional growlers in other states are 64 ounces, which are illegal in Florida. Growlers are pretty rare here.

A growler is great for parties. The downside is each time you open it you lose carbonation. They're good for a day or two before going flat.

Back from vacation

I just got back from a great vacation in Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park and Salt Lake City, Utah.

So it's back to hot and humid Florida after freezing (in a good way) out West.

I had some good and not-so-good craft beer while there. I'll post more about that later. But here's the quick info: There's craft beer in the parks, and it's pretty good. I went to a good brewpub and a so-so one. I'll tell more about them soon.

Review: Andygator

Abita Brewing Co. calls this beer a Helles Doppelbock, which is a twist on a traditional Doppelbock, a strong German lager. Helles means bright, and while regular Doppelbocks are dark, this is a bright gold in color.

German Doppelbocks have names that usually end with -ator, like Salvator, Celebrator, Optimator, etc. So Abita makes a good joke by using an alligator on the label and in the name.

And before I forget, I wanted to address a beer myth that I've heard. Some people think bock and doppelbock beers come from the "bottom of the barrel." This isn't true. All beer within a keg is the same -- the top is no different from the bottom. In fact, a keg's nozzle draws beer from the bottom. How else would it come out of a keg? These aren't "bad" beers or beers of inferior quality.

On to the review.

This is golden in color, when regular doppelbocks are darker. It has a nice, sticky white head.

It smells malty with vegetable and sweet grape notes.

The taste has familiar doppelbock qualities: It's sweet, with almost grape-like fruit flavors. This is a dry beer with a noticeable alcohol flavor (this beer is 8 percent alcohol) and warmth.

The body is light, but not watery.

This is an enjoyable beer. I've never had one like it, so I cannot really compare it to anything but regular doppelbocks, which are still rather different.

There's nothing wrong with this beer, but I prefer a traditional doppelbock like Samuel Adams Double Bock, Spaten Optimator and Paulaner Salvator.

Read my review at BeerAdvocate.