Triple C Brewing Pils of Funk Foeder Aged Pilsner

Posted on by Evan

So naturally, I bought it along with another beer. That will be a review later on in the week. When I got home, I found that it was only a pint (sixteen ounces). This pilsner comes from Charlotte’s Triple C Brewing and is foeder aged. Foeder is a Dutch word for a large wooden tank where beer is fermented. This beer pours a yellow color, with a half finger of white. The head is gone as soon as it meets the outside air. This beer’s aroma is slightly tart and a little fruity. It is bright, and the fruit aroma is lemony. This pilsner beer tastes yeasty, bright, floral, lemony tart, funky, and overall light. The mouthfeel is light but on the higher side of light. Then this beer comes to a tart and yeasty finish. Then you get a funky dry aftertaste. I was expecting this to be more flavorful than it was, and I’ve also had better-aged pilsners than this beer. I give Triple C Brewing Pils of Funk a B-. It wasn’t the worst beer. I believe there is a better version of this beer. I would recommend this beer, but I also wouldn’t get this as soon as possible. Please be kind, stay safe, and remember to enjoy responsibly! Cheers!

Rahr & Sons Brewing Company Drunken Santa Barrel-Age London Ale

Posted on by Evan

I hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday. I was recently in Dallas, Texas visiting my family there. My aunt bought Rahr & Sons Drunken Santa Barrel-Aged London Ale, 9.4%. This beer is classified as a winter warmer and comes in a box with two twelve-ounce cans from Fort Worth, Texas. This Christmas beer pours black with brown edges and a two-and-a-half finger beige head. The head is steady to fade and leaves little lacing. The aroma is cinnamon sweet, clove, light roasted notes, and malty. The taste is sweet cinnamon with light malt roast. It has a cola taste to it, which is like cinnamon cola. The mouthfeel is full but not too full. The is ale finishes with a cinnamon cola sweetness. The aftertaste is a very faint bitter note. Rahr & Sons Drunken Santa Barrel-Aged London Ale is a good beer, A+ here. Rahr & Sons are one of my favorite breweries. But unfortunately, it doesn’t get distributed anywhere close to the Carolinas. I wish it did, it would be awesome. They brew great beer. This ale is not overpowering on flavor. Some barrel-aged beers can be overpowering in some way or another. It almost had a light root beer quality to it. I highly recommended Rahr & Sons Drunken Santa Barrel-Aged London. You should act fast because it is only available during the holidays. Please be kind, be safe, and enjoy responsibly! Cheers!

Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout

Posted on by Evan

I saw this at my local grocery store, and I said to myself, you never see Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout 14.6% ABV at the grocery store. I have been hesitant to buy a bottle. It is because it is an expensive bottle. This beer was nineteen dollars at the grocery. Well, I gave in and bought it. This imperial stout is a blend of barrels from distilleries such as Heaven Hill, Wild Turkey, & Buffalo Trace. This stout aged for 8-14 months in freshly emptied barrels. You can then age it further in the bottle for up to five years. I didn’t do that. This stout pours a thick deep black color with a one and half beige head. The aroma is deep with vanilla, licorice, and boozy. The taste is strong, with licorice, vanilla, roasted notes, some coffee, and caramel. The mouthfeel is rich, and thick. This stout is a sipping beer. It has a slight bitter licorice finish and a bitter-sweet aftertaste that is boozy and warms your chest. I found Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout to be overwhelming and strong-tasting. It’s a C-. I felt the flavors did not come together as well as they should. I don’t think this stout is overrated. I like imperial stouts. It’s just this one was too much. It needs more sweetness and less boozy. A balance of the two flavor profiles would be good. Maybe this would be better if I let it age in the bottle for a while. Then it may mellow out some. Please be kind, be safe, and enjoy responsibly! Cheers!

New Holland Brewing Company Dragon’s Milk Bourbon Barrel-Aged Stout

Posted on by Evan

Thank you to Outsider Public Relations and New Holland Brewing Company. Here we have New Holland Brewing Company Dragon’s Milk Barrel-Aged Stout, 11% ABV. This stout, made in Holland, Michigan. This stout pours a deep dark black color with a three-and-a-half thick tan/khaki head. It’s very sticky and slow. The aroma is roast with sweet notes of boozy coffee and bitter notes. The taste is sweet, roasted with a boozy bourbon coffee taste that grows as you pass over your tongue. The is a slight milk flavor that is faint at best. Dragon’s Milk Stout finishes with a semi-sweet roasted milk flavor. The aftertaste is strong, boozy and a little be toasty. This stout is a big beer with lots of big flavors to it. It’s good, A- good. Not something you’d have more than one of or something you start off a drinking session with, it would be the last. But it is a solid barrel-aged stout. Are there better ones out there? Yes, but not many. I would put this in the top 10 stouts. Please be kind, be safe, and enjoy responsibly! Cheers! 

Founders Brewing Barrel Aged Más Agave

Posted on by Evan

I was down in South Carolina where they have an ACTUAL liquor store and I saw Founders Brewing Barrel-Aged Más Agave, 10% ABV. I picked up a four-pack of the lime variant. Más Agave is an imperial lime Gose beer aged in Tequila barrels. This beer pours a deep rich orange with a two-finger fast dissolving white head. It gives off sweet & tart aromas of lime citrus fruit with a strong alcoholic note. Taste is a bit similar to the way its aroma hits. You’ll find a bit of a tart & sweet lime with a boozy tequila barrel and hints of citrus lime. This beer doesn’t taste like it’s 10% but not far off. The mouthfeel is on the higher side of a medium feel. Más Agave finishes with a boozy citrus lime tartness and has a tart alcoholic limey aftertaste. This is much like a margarita but in beer from and only the second time I’ve had a beer like this, the first being Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Trip into the Woods Otra Vez. Which I think is better than Founders Brewing Barrel-Aged Más Agave, which I B. It has a good tart fruity flavor but the barrel brings out the boozy alcohol that doesn’t make you want to have more that one and a half of these. But I do recommend trying Founders Brewing Barrel-Aged Más Agave. Please stay safe and enjoy responsibly! Cheers!

Dssolver Brewing Eat The Rich Bourbon Barrel coffee Stout

Posted on by Evan

30F0ADE5-3D1D-42CF-ACC4-564E9740A1AD.jpeg

Dssolver Brewing Eat The Rich Bourbon Barrel Coffee Stout, 5.5% ABV is a collaboration between Dssolver Brewing and Hoof Hearted Coffee and is a bourbon barrel fermented after being brewed with Cacao nibs, vanilla, sea salt, hazelnut, & bourbon barrel-aged Hoof Hearted Coffee Beans. Eat The Rich pours a thick black color with a two-finger foamy/rocky brown creamy slow head with roasted and toasted coffee sweet vanilla cacao aromas that entice you to take a lush sip allowing toasted roast notes of a nice vanilla/chocolate coffee sweetness with a big of bourbon notes hitting your taste buds with a little nutty notes makes its way into the flavor mix that comes to a nice bourbon coffee finish and continues into the aftertaste with some light vanilla sweet notes with a fully sticky mouthfeel. Dssolver Brewing Eat The Rich Bourbon Barrel Coffee Stout does have a lot going on but it all comes together for a wonderful dark stout beer, getting an A. You can really taste all the individual flavor of this beer and that is not an easy task, I mean sometimes on flavor could overwhelm another flavor, but Dssolver Brewing Eat The Rich Bourbon Barrel Coffee Stout really lets all the tasty flavors shine though and that makes it a beer that is worth trying! Please stay safe at home and please enjoy responsibly! Cheers!      

Westbrook Brewing Co. Low and Slow Doppelbock

Posted on by Evan

Westbrook Brewing Co. Low and Slow Doppelbock, 8.2% ABV part of their Low and Slow series, it’s lagered in oak barrels, brewed with CTZ, Hallertau, Mittelfruh Hops, German Lager Yeast, Black, Caramuinch, Munich, and Pils malts. Then it’s lagered for four months in natural oak barrels. Doppelbock pours a deep mahogany brown and a two-finger beige head with sweet malty notes that a slightly alcoholic. Then you find yourself at a rich malty sweet taste with some boozy notes with a nice complexity that comes together with a sweet malty-rich finish and has a nice sweet slightly sticky aftertaste with a full mouthfeel. This beer would go great with grilled or barbecued meats but I find Westbrook Brewing Co. Low and Slow Doppelbock to be an interesting take on a Doppelbock with its the oak barrel lagering, and it’s a B+ beer. The oak barrel does add a nice complexity and gives the flavors a sharper taste on your tongue and really gives you a sense of the higher 8.2% ABV. I did enjoy this big beer and I recommend that you check it out! Cheers! Please enjoy responsibly!

Throwback Thursday: Allagash Brewing Curieux Ale Aged in Oak Bourbon Barrels

Posted on by Evan

Originally posted June 7th, 2014

One traditional method that brewers and breweries have been using for centuries is barrel aging. The Belgians are the best at this, but some of you many to agree but never mind that I am not here to be that argument up on the table. When you age a beer in a certain type of barrel the beer tend to pick up little flavors from the barrel, that barrel could be anything from a whiskey, bourbon, rum, white/red wine, oak, or some other type of wood. But there is no set amount of time in which a beer sits in that barrel. That is up the beer brewery and its brewers. Well that sounds all neat and fancy. Take that wine makers. Here is one example, Allagash Curieux, 11.0% Abv. Curieux is a Tripple ale that has been put into an oak bourbon barrel and aged for eight weeks in Allagash’s cold cellars.  Curieux was bottled on March 21st 2014 and there are only one thousand case bottled. This beer sounds a little rare. The aroma on Curieux is nice with touches of a peppery like spice and hints of coconut. Now the taste of Curieux is a bit like a white wine but with a hint of soft peppery like spice. The coconut from the aroma is there but much less present along with vanilla. There is the strong alcohol on the back of your tongue. But the alcohol isn’t huge, nor is it really in your face, its just sort of there and say hello as you take a sip. The mouth feel is close to the bottom end of medium. Curieux has a nice sweet and slightly spiced vanilla finish with a nice hint of the 11% abv. The after taste is an extension of Curieux’s finish with a touch more of smoothness. Over all I thought this beer was good so Allagash Curieux gets a B+. The only thing keeping it from an A is 11% abv. It really has a tiny amount of bitter flavors to it but nothing that would keep me from having Curieux again. I would recommend you try Allagash Curieux and see how you like it. Cheers! Please enjoy responsibly!

Westbrook Brewing Company Fruit/Wood/Time Passionfruit Rum Barrel Finish

Posted on by Evan

This Westbrook Brewing Company Fruit/Wood/Time Passionfruit Rum Barrel Finish, 6.6% ABV is part of the breweries Fruit/Wood/Time series, this particular beer is a blend of mix fermentation sour beer from two oak foudres. The blend is racked into six 400 liter Barbados rum puncheons and refermented with passionfruit for six months before bottling according to Westbrook. Passionfruit pours a bright yellow with a quickly fleeing thin one finger white head. The aroma is tropical fruity, tart/sour bright with some light alcoholic notes with a sour/tart tropical fruity flavor with some rum notes on the back of the mouth and finishes with a big mouth puckering sour note and a tropical fruit and rum aftertaste. Now I don’t think you need to have more than just one, a lot of sour flavor going on in this beer. I don’t dislike this beer but I wouldn’t say I love it, it’s interesting and different. With that said Westbrook Brewing Company Fruit/Wood/Time Passionfruit Rum Barrel Finish is a C. Towards the end of the bottle it slowly becomes too much flavor but okay. I think It needs more sweetness to balance it out. If you think this sounds interesting like I did then by all means go and try Westbrook Brewing Company Fruit/Wood/Time Passionfruit Rum Barrel Finish. Cheers! Please enjoy responsibly!

Anheuser-Busch Budweiser Reserve Copper Lager

Posted on by Evan

I received Anheuser-Busch Budweiser Reserve Copper Lager, 6.2% ABV for a Christmas gift. Budweiser Reserve Copper Lager is aged with Jim Beam oak staves, and Budweiser uses them in the brew kettle rather than transferring the beer to a Jim Beam Barrel, and uses Two-row barely before the addition of the oak. Budweiser Reserve Copper Lager pours a deep copper almost red color with a little one finger bubbly beige head, giving off big sweet sticky vanilla aromas with a very faint smokey note that leads in to a very sweet sticky taste of some vanilla with light caramel and very faint smoke flavors with a very faint light smokey sweet sticky finish and a sweet aftertaste with a lighter mouthfeel. I see what Budweiser’s going for with Budweiser Reserve Copper Lager, the other bourbon barrel aging of a beer is popular and they are trying to cash in on that wave of popularity but I think that the base beer gets a little bit lost and the outcome is an overly sweet beer that after two pints the flavor of Budweiser Reserve Copper Lager would become too much on your taste buds. I give this a D+. The flavors it did have were okay at best but overall it really didn’t taste like a bourbon barrel aged beer, more like an amber lager with a sweetness to it. I mean if you are an average beer drinker that wants to try a bourbon barrel beer but are a little intimidated by the bourbon barrel aged craft beers out there then Budweiser Reserve Copper Lager might be a good beer for you to start out with. I don’t see myself having this soon but I might have this in the future. Cheers! Please enjoy responsibly!