Month: June 2012

Bottle image courtesy growler-station.com

Profiled by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

Nice pillow head that hangs on. SRM 30+. Head hangs on and on and rises very higher on every pour. Deep dark garnet clarity highlights: very nice.

Citrus nose: a bit orange-y. Nice hop balance in nose. Sweet malt background, but not as dark roasted as one would expect.

Nice full roasted body with a tad sweet malt: again… not quite as roasted as one would expect. Seems full body with nice malt complexity, but actually medium body. Complexity of malt lingers in mouthfeel with a nice deep malt sense, somewhat roasted.

Taste is a bit malt sweet with a firm medium dark malt sense and nice hop pop. Malt is velvety, both in mouthfeel and taste. All the malt blends into a smooth, palate caressing, quaff.

More of an APA Baltic, balance-wise. This is almost an ale, rather than lager… but acidic/sulfur lager yeast sense there: mostly swallowed by the well blended grain complexity. Blended so well hard to distinguish malts. As it warms it softens and malt comes out: yet lager yeast does too. It’s appropriate for the style, though curious why it swims up so vigorously out of the obvious malt complexity and the hop pop as it warms.

I’m not a fan of lager yeast, but do recommend. “Like” is not the issue here anyway. But even if you agree with me regarding lager yeast-sense, there’s enough here to keep pretty much any craft beer fan happy.

Kudos: liquid masterpiece.

Written by Todd Haefer for The (Appleton, Wis.) Post-Crescent. Image courtesy colnect.com

Gaffel Kolsch is another of a number of fantastic European beers that receive short shrift from many liquor stores and taverns, which instead offer inferior mass-produced ones that are not much better than their American counterparts.

A dirty secret of Germany and the neighboring countries that follow its lead is that, despite current laws based on the traditional Reinheitsgebot that state only water, barley, hops and yeast can be used in a beer (some exceptions, such as for wheat), it usually only applies to beer sold in the country it’s made in.

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HERE

Profiled by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

Whoa? “IPA?” “Black IPA?” More like nut brown color wise. SRM 20 or higher. Much higher. Foam pillow head with slight rock. A lot of cling. Long lasting. Clarity with dark ruby highlights.

A lot of caramel, carmelized malt, sense to the nose. Again: “Black IPA?” Where the hell are hops in nose? More like a brown ale.

Taste really is nut brown-ish. Did they bottle the wrong damn beer in here? Caramelized malt and a bit sour. Is this an old bottle? Mouthfeel: malt, a bit roasted. Hops? Huh?

Mouthfeel is pure malt, about right for a Northern Brown, though not quite as bitter. Shouldn’t it be… more… bitter than a N. Brown? Medium body. “Sour,” yes, but could be aged. Yet hops should not have gone completely bye bye. They pretty much did.

If you find a stray bottle and you hunger for a very slightly soured nut brown, by all means. Otherwise look for a real IPA. “Black IPA?” Eh, more nut brown.