Sometimes We Just Stay Home and Drink: #16 Black Hog Triple Nelson IPA, Oxford, Ct.

Date:  June  15, 2019  —

The Story—  We go on a beer hunting trip to new England two or three times a year.   One of the breweries we’ve learned to look for is Black Hog.   Like most breweries these days, they don’t hit it out of the park with every brew, but their best are unquestionably home runs.   They also sell at a fair price, making their beers one of the best values on the market.

It’s a family brewery, named for the Berkshire Porker roasted at family get togethers and located in a small business park south of I84 between Waterbury and Danbury.   There’s a twelve-tap tasting room, though with shorter hours than most, so check the website (click here) before you go.

The Beer– Fruity at the start, but quickly shows much more of  wonderful darkness.  Floral notes along with some spice.  Some tropical fruit and even some orange peel by the end, but nothing out of balance.   A trace of a papery taste, but there’s but there’s so much more to celebrate than criticize.

Value — Very good to excellent.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Sometimes we just stay home and drink beer — hundreds of them over the course of the year as we hunt for a new favorite.  The searching for the beer of the day never stops, so for a while, there will be fewer travel-oriented posts and just some to-the-point descriptions of beers we’ve enjoyed.

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

Sometimes We Just Stay Home and Drink #15:  Sierra Nevada Northern Hemisphere Harvest Wet Hop IPA 2018

Date:  June 14, 2019  —

The Story— Beer Geeks, at least beer geeks like us, collectively held our breaths as small “micro breweries” morphed into “small craft breweries” to “lets separate ‘craft’ from production capacity” regional and national breweries producing barrelage that some of the large regionals of the 1960s would envy.  Sierra Nevada cut its teeth in re-purposed dairy equipment; scale up was hard for them in the early years.   Who could predict whether they could keep the craft while ditching any pretense to small brewery status.

Some of the anxiety was founded.  They’ve done some beers that they would have rejected 25 years ago, but their mistakes don’t seem to be a product of batch size.  Some of the best beers they’ve done have come from kettles we used to think were too big to produce truly great beer.

From the start, this American iconic brewery thrived on experimentation with hops and was willing to make expensive choices in using fresh hops and wet hops to create their liquid gems.   Their headline hopliners still leave the pack behind.   This beer is last year’s version.  We include it here to remind you to look sharply in the early fall next year to grab the 2019 version as quick as you can.

The term “fresh hop” refers to beers than use newly harvested and dried (processed) hops.  “Wet hop” beers use hops that have not been processed — just harvested and rushed to the brewery within hours.   The trick of brewing a wet hop beer is to try to calculate the amount of moisture in the hop cones.  It’s not negligible and it adds to the brewing liquor.  If the brewer doesn’t decrease the amount of water in the brew, the water in the cones will literally water the beer down and diminish the flavor of the hops.

Wet hop beers only occasionally manifest big in-your-face hop character.  If you just want big hops, dried hops, hop extract, hop oils and, most recently, hop powder will get you there much more easily.  Wet hop beers show a deeper and more complex hop flavor, often without excessive bitterness.  They’ll back off from excessive fruits and allow more herbal and earthy notes to join the party.

IMPORTANT:  Drink these beers as fresh as possible, short of violating open container laws on your way home from the beer store.   Many of them actually hold up pretty well and months later offer a malty and softly hoppy taste that’s quite pleasant.   But that months later pleasure isn’t the same as the nearly unique complexity your brewer went so far out of her way to make your beer so interesting you might have one or two more than you intended.

The Beer– Soft even caramel malt is a clean base for a range of gentle and subtle American hop flavors.  Earthy, soft spice, hints of pesto and metal join some hints of the rose the brewers found in the beer.  It finishes with a longer bitter than you might expect.  Ellie found it so rich and complex, after a few sips she just looked over at me and said “these guys are pros”.

Value — Very good.  Not so much because it’s a low price but because it’s one of the best beers we taste…  year after year after year.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Sometimes we just stay home and drink beer — hundreds of them over the course of the year as we hunt for a new favorite.  The searching for the beer of the day never stops, so for a while, there will be fewer travel-oriented posts and just some to-the-point descriptions of beers we’ve enjoyed.

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

Sometimes We Just Stay Home and Drink #14 : Avery Rumpkin (very) Strong Pumpkin Ale

Date:  June 13, 2019  —

The Story— Adam Avery has brewed exceptional beers for many years and has earned his reputation as one of the country’s most creative and skilled brewers.  We’re not sure how much Adam does of the hands on brewing these days, but his company continues to turn out remarkable beers.

The downside is that the creators of expensive-to-make beers with good reputations don’t sell their high end beers cheap.  We’re guessing that the double digit cost of a small bottle of this beer represents a fair and not exorbitant return for the brewery, but we’re also guessing the price is one reason why you can still find them on shelves months after their release.    This barrel aged powerhouse checks in at 16.73% abv. and the price probably includes no more than a reasonable return.   The bottom line for most breweries that take this long and work this hard to produce a super premium pumpkin beer is indeed the bottom line — if you like them enough to pay enough money to make it worth their while, they’ll still make them and you can still drink them.

The Beer–  Very rich big caramel, butterscotch, candy and lots of rum and burned sugar. Rum and barrel favors grow with sustained chewy malt and evident coffee.  Herbal notes and pumpkin spices are on a merciful short leash, but Ellie, though she respected it, thought it was just too much.

Value — Fair.  But good if this is the beer of your dreams.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Sometimes we just stay home and drink beer — hundreds of them over the course of the year as we hunt for a new favorite.  The searching for the beer of the day never stops, so for a while, there will be fewer travel-oriented posts and just some to-the-point descriptions of beers we’ve enjoyed.

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

Sometimes We Just Stay Home and Drink: #13 Tröegs Dead Rekoning Porter, Hershey, Pennsylvania

Date:  June 12, 2019  –We apologize for the missing days.   50th college reunion and the end of school drill takes a toll.

The Story—  It’s our anniversary.   One of the first craft beers we enjoyed together — long before we started to take notes on the beers we discovered– was Anchor Porter.  Our last notes on that beer of epiphany were a couple of decades ago, so we’ll have to recheck our findings before we post them here.   But we thought a really nice porter might be a way to celebrate the fact that almost from the beginning of our 49 years together, beer was central, and porter was a style we both enjoyed.

This one’s from a brewery we’ve celebrated as often as any brewery we visit regularly.  Tröegs is a destination brewery in Hershey, Pa. that for us is a greater lure than the chocolate that pervades the town.   Unlike many of the Tröegs Scratch series beers we feature here, you should have a good chance of finding this one available.

The Beer– Husky dark malt with a rounder finish with some chocolate malt and some herbal and fruity notes late.  Toffee shows as it drinks.  Overall a good sipping beer– at 5.9, it’s a risky session choice, but the big flavors may slow you down enough to end the evening with no more booze in your belly than with a SIPA.

Value —  Good, maybe better.   Six bucks for a true pint– a global standard for good beer.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Sometimes we just stay home and drink beer — hundreds of them over the course of the year as we hunt for a new favorite.  The searching for the beer of the day never stops, so for a while, there will be fewer travel-oriented posts and just some to-the-point descriptions of beers we’ve enjoyed.

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

Sometimes We Just Stay Home and Drink: #12: Mast Landing Sacca Rappa India Pale Ale; Westbrook, Me.

Date:  June 9, 2019  —

The Story— One of the best beer stores in the country is Julio’s in Westboro, Mass., a short drive west from Boston.   They have hundreds of beers, which is impressive enough, but those hundred change with the seasons and the onslaught of new breweries.  The sell all beers by the can or bottle.   We drive from the DC area to the Boston area at least twice a year and return with many dozens of beers we have not tried.

One of the new breweries on our last trip north was Mast Landing in Westbrook, Maine not too far Northwest of Portland.  It’s a homebrewers turned-pro operation, but in our limited sample these guys brew like experienced pros.   .  The Northeast style is usually hazy and sometimes so “unbitter” that it’s gummy.  This sort of fits the style but there’s a balance that does not always make it into the can with this style.

The Beer– More fruit than bitter and as much chalk as fruit.  Big grapefruit throughout.  Herbal smooths somewhat as it drinks.  It’s Northeast, but nicely brewed – hats off to Mast Landing!

Value —  Good.  We’re looking forward to trying more of their beers — if we can just retire and travel from brewery to brewery.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Sometimes we just stay home and drink beer — hundreds of them over the course of the year as we hunt for a new favorite.  The searching for the beer of the day never stops, so for a while, there will be fewer travel-oriented posts and just some to-the-point descriptions of beers we’ve enjoyed.

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”