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.