Review: B.O.R.I.S. The Crusher Oatmeal-Imperial Stout

This is the third of three Hoppin' Frog beers* I bought recently, seeing as they are new in Florida.

As I've written before, imperial stouts were originally brewed in England and shipped to the Russian court. They are a lot stronger than regular stouts. Hard drinkers, those Russians. B.O.R.I.S.** is 9.4 percent alcohol and won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2008.

Pours all black with a chocolate-brown head that almost instantly reduces to just a ring in my glass. It has a light aroma of roasted malt and alcohol. The taste is creamy and chocolaty, with big alcohol flavors that are overpowering the malt. A very nice body, no doubt thanks to the oatmeal and high alcohol.

This is a decent imperial stout, but there are better -- and cheaper -- ones out there. Check out North Coast's Old Rasputin and Brooklyn's Black Chocolate Stout (that's only a winter release, though) for excellent examples.

After trying all three Hoppin' Frog beers, my opinion is their beers are very overpriced at $9 to $12 a bottle. This 22-ounce bottle was $10 at Total Wine & More.

*Check out my reviews of Mean Manalishi Double IPA and Hoppin' To Heaven IPA.

**Hoppin' Frog says B.O.R.I.S. stands for Bodacious Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout.

Review: Bolita Brown

When I see Cigar City beers in stock at a store, I pick one up: They bottle in very limited amounts and when something's gone, it's gone.

I picked up a 750 mL bottle of Bolita Brown, one of Cigar City's seasonal beers, for $10 at my go-to beer store, Total Wine & More. I find myself going there a lot more than to Whole Foods, even though that store is right near where I work. For one, Total Wine's prices are usually better than Whole Foods and they have a larger selection, though Whole Foods frequently has beers Total Wine doesn't.

According to the label, the name of this beer was decided by a contest and refers to the old Ybor City lottery game called bolita, or little ball. The illegal game was often fixed, they say.

Back to the beer. From my notes:

Almost black, this beer lets just a bit of deep ruby light through. It has a nice light brown head. A big aroma of roasted malt: coffee, toffee, caramel and chocolate. The taste is super creamy, like a nutty, roasted malt-coffee shake, but not as sweet as that sounds. It's just really good. The high alcohol level is almost totally hidden. A wonderful body: glassy and slick.

The second Cigar City beer I've had. This one is excellent. I enjoyed it a bit more than their 110K+OT. I'm looking forward to drinking my bottle of Improvicasion, which Cigar City calls an oatmeal rye India-style brown ale.

Review: Mean Manalishi Double IPA

Mean Manalishi Double IPA from Hoppin' Frog Brewery in Akron, Ohio, is one of the most expensive I've had: $12 for a 22-ounce bottle at Total Wine & More.

The Double IPA is my favorite style of beer. They are very hoppy, very bitter and usually pretty strong. Mean Manalishi is 8.2 percent alcohol.

From my notes:

It's ruby in color with a sticky off-white head. Big aroma of hops: citrusy. A big citrus hop flavor with an equally big bitter bite. I'm also noticing big alcohol notes. Oily and slick body.

This beer was not the hops assault I was expecting, considering Hoppin' Frog says it's 168 IBUs.*

It's a fine Double IPA, but at this price there are better, cheaper alternatives. One that springs to mind is Lagunitas Hop Stoopid, which is less than half the price for a 22-ounce bottle.

*IBU stands for International Bitterness Unit. The higher the number, the bitterer the beer. Hops make beer bitter. For reference, Budweiser has about 8.5 IBUs, according to that dubious source, Wikipedia. I've read that the human palate can't detect anything beyond 90 IBUs, so this beer is probably overkill.

Review: Cali-Belgique

I was happily surprised to see a note on BeerAdvocate that Cali-Belgique from Stone was in stock. I heard from friends that this beer started out as a one-off, but was so popular that Stone is brewing it year-round. A 22-ounce bottle was $6 at Total Wine & More on Aug. 20, but I heard it was part of a special order, so don't be surprised if they are out of it.

Stone calls this a Belgian IPA, which, according to BeerAdvocate, is a style Belgian brewers started making after having hoppy American beers. The key to these beers is Belgian yeast, which adds its special spicy, earthy -- even funky -- notes to beer. So now Stone makes a Californian (Cali) version of a Belgian (Belgique*) beer that was inspired by hoppy American beers like Stone's regular lineup. You can call this the circle of life.

From my notes:

What a beautiful beer. It's bright gold in color with a large sticky white head. The aroma spicy and lightly hoppy. It has a similar taste of spice and general Belgian beer flavors. Mild levels of hops for a Stone beer, which takes little getting used to. But after wrapping my mind around it I like it. There is still a good hop presence, but it a non-Stone way.

Overall this is a very good beer and a neat departure for Stone from their normal hoppy brews. This is a beer to seek out.

*Note: You may see this beer labeled Cali-Belgique or Cali-Belgie. Why? As usual, Stone writes a lot of notes on the back of the bottle. They explain that they don't want to alienate Belgians, some of whom speak French, some of whom speak Flemish. So about 50 percent of the bottles are Cali-Belgique and 50 percent are Cali-Belgie.

Review: Sparkling Ale

When I saw this bottle of Bell's Sparkling Ale on the shelf, I thought it was a low-alcohol beer like Cooper's Sparkling Ale. But at $2.50 per 12-ounce bottle, I realized it must be something different. Reading the label set me straight. This is a Belgian Tripel, a strong golden ale usually brewed with coriander and dried orange peel. Bell's is almost 9 percent alcohol. They say this is their take on a glass of "bubbly."

From my notes:

It pours a nice golden color with a big head that quickly reduces to a ring of foam in my glass. It has a fruity and lightly spicy aroma. Nice. The flavor is lightly spicy and rather sweet, with light malt notes and a light flavor of alcohol. The body is nicely fizzy.

Overall this is a pretty good Tripel.

But if you want to try a great Tripel, check out Abbey Triple from Sprecher in Milwaukee. I bought a bottle at Total Wine & More in March. Great stuff.

Review: 13th Anniversary Ale

Stone makes some mean beers. They're not for the craft beer newbie.

As I've written about before, I'm very excited to have Stone's 13th Anniversary Ale after reading their comments that it's the hoppiest beer they've ever made. That's like Barrett Rifles saying they've made their biggest gun yet.*

From my notes:

It's very, very deep red with a big foamy light brown head. The aroma is hoppy, of course, and even spicy. A depth of hops, if that's such a thing. The strength of the beer must be controlling some of the hops, because this isn't slamming me with hop aromas. The taste is barleywine-like. Big, warming malt flavors (toffee, caramel, biscuit) combine with huge hop flavors (spice, citrus, floral) to make a really big, hoppy beer. A smooth and creamy, even oily, body. Slick.

You might as well call this a barleywine, and this is a good one. Seek it out.

I bought two 22-ounce bottles ($7 each) at Total Wine & More on University Parkway. I'd be surprised if it's still in stock, though, because I hear they only had one case of 12 bottles.

*I see that Stone uses 4.5 pounds of hops per barrel with this beer. Samuel Adams used 6 pounds of hops per barrel for their LongShot Double IPA. Take that, Stone! And for those keeping score at home, a beer barrel holds 31 gallons.

Review: Hoppin' To Heaven IPA

Hoppin' Frog Brewery from Akron, Ohio, is another new arrival in Florida. It seems we're getting a lot of new beers these days! As our former president said, "Bring 'em on!"

I bought one of each of their three beers that were available at Total Wine & More off University Parkway. These beers had better be good, because they are expensive. From $9 to $12 per 22-ounce bottle, to be exact.

Tonight I decided to drink their Hoppin' To Heaven IPA. My notes:

Pours a lovely deep copper in color with a sticky head that quickly turns into a thin layer of foam. Very strong citrus and earthy hop aroma. The taste is -- no surprise -- very hoppy. Big hop flavors mix with a honey sweetness and earthiness and finish with big bitterness. The flavors are so big I'd almost describe this as a Double IPA. A slick and oily body, thanks to the hops. Overall this is a very nice hoppy IPA. An Ohio beer that reminds me of California.

This is an excellent beer. Though at $9 per bottle, this isn't one I'll be buying often.

Beer haul: Cigar City, Stone, Hoppin' Frog and Bell's

After being alerted on BeerAdvocate that Stone's 13th Anniversary ale was in stock at Total Wine & More, I had to get some. (Remember, Stone calls this the "hoppiest beer we've ever brewed.") Sure enough, a phone call confirmed that they had 22-ounce bottles in stock for $7 each. So I headed over on today.

Not only did they have the anniversary ale, they also had Stone's Cali-Belgique ($6), their take on a Belgian IPA.

I also picked up a new Cigar City beer: Bolita Brown ($10 for a 750 mL), their double English brown ale that's 9 percent alcohol. Cigar City beers sell fast, so get them while you can at your favorite beer store.

I also bought three bottles of Hoppin Frog, an Ohio brewery that's a new arrival here. Pricey stuff for 22-ounce bottles: I hope they're good. The three: B.O.R.I.S. the Crusher Oatmeal Imperial Stout ($10), Hoppin' to Heaven IPA ($9) and Mean Manalishi Double IPA ($12!).

Finally I bought a 12-ounce bottle of Bell's Sparkling Ale, a Belgian triple that they compare to champagne. And no, we're not talking about Miller High Life.

All these are new beers for me. Exciting stuff.

Review: Theobroma

Dogfish Head likes to brew "high concept" beers. Like Pangaea, which uses ingredients from all the continents, including water from Antarctic icebergs.

Here's their description of Theobroma:

This beer is based on chemical analysis of pottery fragments found in Honduras which revealed the earliest known alcoholic chocolate drink used by early civilizations to toast special occasions. The discovery of this beverage pushed back the earliest use of cocoa for human consumption more than 500 years to 1200 BC. As per the analysis, Dogfish Head’s Theobroma (translated into 'food of the gods') is brewed with Aztec cocoa powder and cocoa nibs (from our friends at Askinosie Chocolate), honey, chilies, and annatto (fragrant tree seeds).

I love beers like this and have always been impressed with Dogfish Head. So I had to pick up a 750 mL bottle when I saw it at Total Wine & More. It was $14, expensive.

So I opened it tonight. I'll spare you my detailed review, which you can read here.

After drinking about eight ounces, I was getting a bad feeling in my stomach and did something I've never done before: I poured the rest of the glass down the drain.

I hate to give a bad review to a beer from such a great brewery, but this beer was bad. The flavor is mainly of bad chiles and a bit of cocoa.

I'm thinking of trying to get a refund from Total Wine. But I think the beer was exactly as Dogfish Head intended it and not spoiled. Should I just chalk it up to experience?

Review: Z Lager

Fort Collins is a new arrival in Florida. Total Wine & More stocks several of their beers. I had to pick up the smoked one, Z Lager.

Smoked beers are a fairly old style, since historically all grain was malted over wood fires, imparting a smoky flavor to the grain. The first time I had a smoked beer (Rogue's Chipotle Ale) I thought it was the worst beer I'd ever had. But the smoky flavor grew on me and now I love the style. The level of smoke flavor varies from brewery to brewery.

My notes:

This pours a nice copper/mahogany in color with an off-white head that reduces to a thin layer of foam.

Its aroma is lightly smoky.

The taste is also lightly smoky, with a nice malt flavor. It's balanced and not a big smoky mess.

Smooth and creamy body.

Overall this is a nice smoked beer that's subtle enough to be a beer to drink regularly and introduce people to the style.

Review: Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale

Fresh hop beers are relatively new. Instead of using dried hops, brewers use hops right off the vine, which gives the beer a more resiny and floral hop aroma and taste. You have to be quick, though, because hops degrade rapidly in a few days if they aren't dried. I've seen more western brewers do fresh hop beers, I'm guessing because American hops are grown in the west, particularly Washington. Rogue has brewed a fresh hop beer, Hop Heaven, where the hops were picked only hours before being thrown in the brewing kettle.

Fresh hops are only available in the fall. But Sierra Nevada decided to do a fresh hop beer in the spring/summer. To do that, they went to the southern hemisphere. They use fresh hops from New Zealand in this beer. Hence the name: Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale.

I don't consider this a true fresh hop beer because Sierra Nevada dries the New Zealand hops before shipping them to their California brewery. On the 24-ounce bottle's label, they said the hops were picked, dried, shipped and used in a little over a week's time. But still, the hops are dried and aren't truly fresh.

This is the second year Sierra Nevada has brewed this beer.

From my notes on the 2008 brew:

An almost-glowing copper in color with a large foamy head that is rock-solid.

The aroma is all about the hops: It smells of citrus, and, well, hops.

The taste is nice and bitter and hoppy, with just enough malt flavor to provide a slight amount of balance. If you aren't a hophead, though, this might be a bitter bomb.

The body is fine -- possibly even a little light.

Overall, this is a fine fresh hop ale. Probably for hopheads only, though.

I think the 2009 "vintage" isn't quite as bitter as the 2008 brew. It has a real depth of hop flavors and bitterness, but it isn't shockingly bitter. But then, my taste buds may have been further ruined by a year's worth of drinking primarily hoppy, bitter beer.

It's still a lovely hoppy beer. And the 24-ounce bottle looks like a bottle of malt liquor, albeit one that costs $5.49 at Total Wine & More.

Review: Hop Ottin' IPA

It's been years since I had Anderson Valley brews. I visited their brewery in Boonville, Calif., in 2003 during a beer pilgrimage. It's a couple of hours north of San Francisco. And yes, there's not much there. A lovely rural area. They are a recent arrival in Florida, which is great.

Anderson Valley's beers have an illustration of a bear with antlers on them. The label says "The legendary Boonville beer." Bear + deer = beer. Too cute.

California breweries love hops. Not just to make beers bitter, but to give them lots of hop flavors. Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery in NYC, even suggests calling Double/Imperial IPAs "San Diego Pale Ale," after the city that really developed the style.

I bought Anderson Valley's Hop Ottin' IPA during a recent trip to Total Wine & More.

My notes:

A deep copper in color with a big foamy head. Nice.

The smell is all hops. Big citrus and floral aromas.

The taste is wonderfully bitter and hoppy. There's a bit of malt balance, but only a token amount. But as I've written before, who cares? Hops, hops and hops. A real depth of hops, likely from several varieties.

A slick and oily body.

Overall this is a great American IPA. It's very much an example of California's love of hops. A must-have, even at a bit more than $10 a six-pack.

Review: Leviathan (Imperial IPA)

I picked this up at Total Wine & More the other day: $3 a bottle. It's great to see more Harpoon brews in Florida. I thought we were fated to only get their hefeweizen and IPA.

Leviathan is a rotating release from Harpoon. Each iteration is a different extreme beer. They have also brewed a Baltic porter, strong pilsner and quadruple. This is the first Leviathan I've had.

My notes:

Pours a nice golden/copper in color with a big foamy off-white head.

Big citrus hop aroma.

The taste is sweet, bitter and hoppy. Surprise! This is a sweeter double IPA than most others. It is also more balanced: Instead of being a huge hop bomb, it's a large hop bomb. The sweet, almost sugary, flavors offset the bitterness.

The body is light but slick from the alcohol.

This is a fine beer, but at 10 percent, I'd only have one.

Review: Hop Stoopid

My co-worker Kat told me I needed to try this double IPA from Lagunitas since she knows how much I love Bell's Hopslam, which currently tied with Rogue's Imperial India Pale Ale as my No. 1 rated beer.

So when I was at Total Wine & More this week I picked up a 22-ounce bottle for $4.49, which is a great price. I am a sucker for hoppy beers.

I love this beer's name. The label description, which is weird but not the usual Lagunitas claptrap that makes absolutely no sense, seems to indicate that they used hop extracts.

My notes:

Pours a lovely copper in color with a big foamy off-white head.

The smell is all about the hops. Huge citrus notes. The only beer that smells hoppier is Bell's Hopslam, which smells just like Hop Stoopid, only stronger!

The taste is like the smell: Bitter and hoppy. Big, big citrus flavors mix with vegetable hop flavors. Little malt flavor. No balance. No problem.

The body is light, but not watery.

This is a great double IPA. A must-have for hopheads. Kat described it well: Hopslam light. And that's not derogatory.

Review: LongShot Cranberry Wit

This is the third of three beers in Samuel Adams' LongShot six-packs this year. As I've written before, LongShot beers are the winners of Sam Adams' annual homebrew competition.

I've been slacking on this review. I'm so late, it's probably not in stores anymore. I didn't see any at Total Wine & More on University Parkway the other day.

A witbier, or wheat beer, is similar to a German hefeweizen. Both beers are brewed with malted wheat, in addition to the regular malted barley. Witbiers are a Belgian style that also use spices like coriander and orange peel. German beers cannot use spice because of their famous purity law, the Reinheitsgebot, which prohibits the use of anything in beer other than water, malted grain, yeast and hops. I totally respect the German law, because it means you won't have junk like rice or corn put in your beer without your knowledge, but it prevents German brewers from making some really interesting beers with fruit, spices, honey, etc.

Wheat beers are almost always unfiltered and therefore cloudy. Yeast and other perfectly safe sediment will settle at the bottom of the bottle. You are supposed to pour two-thirds of the beer into a glass, then swirl the remaining beer in the bottle to stir up the compacted sediment, and finally pour that into the glass. Without the sediment, the typical wheat beer flavors are greatly subdued.

What are wheat beer flavors? Banana and clove, primarily. And these flavors don't come from bananas or cloves. Instead, they are esters (flavors) imparted by the yeast.

A lot of wheat beers in restaurants and bars are served with lemon or orange wedges. I avoid garnishes because the citric acid can kill the beer's head and garnishes mask the beer's flavor. Whether to garnish or not is a hot topic among beer geeks.

My tasting notes:

A cloudy straw-colored beer with a big, white foamy head. Lovely.

It has a spicy aroma of cranberries and earthy yeast.

The taste is lightly spicy and sweet from fruit flavors, yet it has the classic witbier esters of clove and banana. I also notice the grains of paradise that appear in other SA beers. It's very easy to drink.

This is my least favorite of the three LongShot beers this year. But that sounds a lot worse than it is. This is still a very good beer. It's light and fruity and refreshing. It's good for all the hot days here in Florida.

Like its two brethren, this beer should be added to Samuel Adams' regular lineup.

New beers at Total Wine

I wrote earlier about Anderson Valley beers coming to the Sarasota Whole Foods. Today I went to Total Wine & More near Interstate 75 and they also are carrying the brewery's beers. I bought a six-pack of Hop Ottin' IPA.

There were some other news beers there, too: Stone Imperial Russian Stout, Sierra Nevada Kellerweis, Lagunitas Hop Stoopid and Harpoon Leviathan.

I've had the Stone beer before and it's good. The Harpoon, Lagunitas and Sierra Nevada brews are new to me. I bought some and will review them soon.

One of my favorite beers, Bison Organic IPA, was back on the shelf. (All links take you to BeerAdvocate's pages for each beer.)

It's easy to spend way too much money on beer these days.

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.

Stone 13th Anniversary Ale is coming to Florida

Hopheads, take note:

I spoke today with Scott Sheridan, Stone's Southeast regional brewery representative, and he said Stone 13th Anniversary Ale (see my previous post), which they call their hoppiest beer yet, will "most certainly" be coming to Sarasota-Manatee and the greater Tampa Bay area.

Whole Foods and Total Wine & More are two of the local stores that will have it, possibly by June 29, he said.

I asked if the beer would also be available in kegs. He said there would be a few kegs in the region, about six or seven, at select bars. He mentioned Mellow Mushroom, Brass Tap and Oldsmar Tap House as likely places.