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Beer Profile: Beechwood Brewing’s Melrose India Pale Ale

Beachwood

Profiled by Maria Devan for PGA

Pours a perfect amber gold with bright clarity. A steady stream of bubbles make their hurried way to the top to become part of the cottony cloud of foam that tops this beer. The body has a radiance. Striking appearance.

The nose is flawless with a tropical fruits, light pine and citrus. The hops are floral and there’s mango on the nose. Sweet simcoe and amarillo. Sunny tangerine. The malt is a sweet kiss of clover honey on the nose.

Taste is out of this world. The fruit and floral hops greet the palate first and give you all that mango but with a blast of grapefruit rind. Earthy and herbal. The hops are not too oily and the malt leaves the honey behind for a moment to show off some bread. The sweetness of the simcoe is brilliant in this and really makes the beer. It has a sturdy bitter. It’s strong and it starts out deceptively mild but by the time you get to the swallow you are tasting a full hop bitter without harshness. Enchanting! This finishes dry and with a touch of sweetness from honey returned to you as if it had been stolen momentarily. Pine lingers in the aftertaste as if you had forgotten that too and it’s back to remind you.

I LOVED this. This is one of the best, most enjoyable IPA’s I have had this year. Bracing, rousing, refreshing. Thank you Jay O’Rear.

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Welcome to the PGA beer rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “perfecto.”

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____________________________________Beer HERE

meMaria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY and is frequent reviewer of beer and a beer lover deluxe.

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Beer Profile: Cigar City Jai Alai IPA

Profiled by Maria Devan for PGA

jai
Beer-Profile1-258x300This poured a hazy burnt orange with lots of sediment. A fat creamy head of off white foam that would have taken longer to fall than it did to finish the beer. Left scads of lace to look at. Nose is bombastic citrus fruits! You could name them all. But mostly grapefruit with the peel and the pith. Nice and earthy. Tangerine, a sweet hop herbal and stone fruit softness. Faint spice and faint nuttiness if you let the beer sit in your glass long enough to notice. Not a lot of pine more like a bit of earth on the nose.

Taste is outrageous and sensual. There was no malt at all on the nose really but it’s the first thing to greet your palate. A light flaky biscuit and some sensual and smooth caramel. It’s a touch nutty but not heavy. Then all that fruit! Tangerine, stone fruit juiciness, the tart grapefruit leading that pack. The mouthfeel is light and creamy but it has a fullness you can’t ignore. It’s delightfully contradicting. The herbal is sweet not pungent and the pine is soft like a bit of earth. The citrus tartness is as tart as the hop bitter is bitter. Fantastic! Finishes with the lightest dusting of resin I have ever observed in and IPA. Just to coat your tastebuds and allow this beer to resonate sweetly in the back palate so that you want MORE!

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Welcome to the PGA beer rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “perfecto.”

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____________________________________Beer HERE

meMaria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY and is frequent reviewer of beer and a beer lover deluxe.

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Beer Profile: Ithaca Beer Fleur De Belgique

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Beer-Profile1-258x300Pours hazy banana yellow. Softy pastel and with a soft light in the body of the beer. Fat white head of tight creamy foam that lasted and left rings of lace.

Nose is bright with citrus. Lemon, lime and something sweet and juicy underneath. yeast is earthy and not too strong with any funk. A soft clove emerges as this warms as does a bit of light dry biscuit. There is an earthy pine on the nose but it is subtle.

Taste is delicate and a bit earthy but deeply sweet. It has a a nice juicy fruit quality that is comprised of citrus. Soft clove and an airy dry biscuit malt. It has a bit of crushed aspirin like bitterness to the middle and a hop bitter that lingers. Mouthfeel is juicy and just a hair more than light because of the malt sweetness. Pine remains soft and earthy and the clove is even softer and more subtle.

This is a graceful and very juicy IPA that does indeed deliver west coast drinkability with a Belgian style dryness. Congratulations Ithaca. If all the beers in this box are as good as this one, it could challenge Ommegang.

Serving type: bottle

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Welcome to the PGA beer rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “perfecto.”

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__________________________________________Beer HERE

meMaria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY and is frequent reviewer of beer and a beer lover deluxe.

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From the Bottle Collection: Whitstable Oyster Stout

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By Ken Carman

  Without intent, I have collected well over 1,000 beer bottles since the early 70s. When something finally had to be done about the cheap paneling in this old modular, I had a choice. Tear down the walls while, oh, so carefully, replacing the often rotted 1X3s. Or: cover them with… The Bottle Collection.


Rated 62 at Rate Beer and 42 for style.
83 at Beer Advocate.

  I really enjoy Oyster Stouts, and that seems counter intuitive. Really? Oysters in beer? I must admit, being a beer judge, that no longer seems as weird as it used to. You wouldn’t believe some of the weird beers I’ve judged.
 I also think it could be easy for this “adjunct” to take over the recipe, though not as easy as the smoked salmon beer a friend submitted (I found out later it was his) and I judged. As I wrote on the form, “I think the salmon swam away with the recipe.” Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection: Whitstable Oyster Stout”

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Getting To Know Oyster Stout, A Beer Made With Oysters

photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilconway/">neil conway</a> on Flickr

Chocolate in beer simply makes sense — especially in rich, heavy stouts and porters that already taste something like a liquid brownie. And cherries in a sour beer is a tart and summery idea — a perfect marriage. Even yerba mate, that bitter tea-like herb of Argentina, is a sensible fit in an IPA. But just what was the brewer was thinking who first put oysters into a vat of boiling brew?

Oyster stouts could easily play the part of just another wild concoction stewed up in the modern heights of craft brewing madness. However, they’ve actually got honest, time-tested roots going back more than a century to Victorian England, when many pub-goers ate oysters on the half shell while sipping their favorite beers. Often, these were stouts, whose bittersweet toasty flavors happened to complement the briny, juicy flesh of the mollusks quite well. For a time, in fact, “oyster stout” was simply a term that referred to a pub session at which oysters were slurped between sips of beer.

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