Brewbase Reviews 2012.1
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Copyright 2011. TCR Press. All Rights Reserved. INTRODUCTION: This is a book about bottled beer, bottled only. ONLY! Your experience and mine with the draft versions of these beers should and will vary. We do make an exception for a couple of elite canned beers but not many. A quick word about brand names and nomenclature. I have endeavored when possible to list the beer under the brewery name first and then the trademark or market name second. If Smith Brewing Company makes Frisky Dog Ale then the brew will be listed as... Smith Frisky Dog Ale instead of Frisky Dog Ale If Smith Brewing has a subbrand or series called Motley but Motley is not a true brewery name, the product will be listed as Smith Motley Amber Ale instead of Motley Amber Ale The Brewbase Rating System is very simple. It's 5 bottles in the role of 5 stars. Basically, the 5 bottle beers are perfection, the pinnacle of the style or something worldclass in a class by itself. The 4.5 beers are very good or B+, very competant but lacking something. The 4.0 beers are decent if the price is right but one can always do much better. The 3.5 and 3.0 are pretty much good and average, respectively. The 2.5 and 2.0 are fair to poor, pretty much mass market pisswater, too weak or offensive or dilute be called beer, The very rare 1.5 and 1.0 are very poor and undrinkable. The BrewBase Fives are perfect 5 bottle-rated labels of extreme quality and merit. These are our standards, ancient to recent, and the supreme jewels in the suds world. There is a higher level of award we added in 2010 called the BrewBase Fives Legends. These are beers so exalted they have stood the scrutiny of time (sometimes centuries) or in a few cases really blew everything else off the modern map. They are absolute legendary creations so proven and found superior they are often THE STANDARD for their style. The best of the best of the best, sir! When the PC version of BrewBase was around, we decided to name beers of the year in various styles, sometimes a couple in each style if both had merit. These beers are not usually legends but new discoveries to us, surprising and amazing new revelations of brewing brilliance. Taking a page from many national organizations and clubs, we have decided to create an "Award of Merit" each year for exceptional brews of the very highest quality that are new to our files in the given year. Perhaps the best known "award of merit" in the world is the Oscar or Academy Award. What is or was the BrewBase? Back in 1987 a couple of us computer nerds and beer nuts decided to apply our horrid BASIC computer skills to our love of suds. We heard tell of wine databases one could search by style, region of origin, year, rating, etc. Some were cool and some were simple and dreadful. Once we got our 900-some reviews in a file form and bought a BASIC COMPILER, the Brewbase.exe program was available to search by any word, rating, country of origin, and beer style. We sold a few, very few, marketing fora beer database being considered insane in 1987. Then we went to the shareware market to drum up some business. We got some nice letters, some contributed reviews, but not enough orders to quit our days jobs. There was a small flow of decent beer money. Not enough. Just more than we had before. Bottles were bought and reviews added. When DOS and .exe files died on the shareware front Brewbase 3.1 went another way about then and turned into a text-based HTML website that was short-lived for we'd all moved on to demanding professions and by then we were just one of 39,342 beer review websites and not worth a bucket of week-old Bud Light vomit with bacon bits and corn. Two of the original three BrewBasers reunited a few years ago to compile our new reviews with those of old in a effort to write a beer review book or not. Larry B. Hatch and Mark Summers come to 2010 with a new web model with PDF and HMTL files and many more bottles under OVER our belts and hopefully more humor and intelligence to please you. We write all this for our laptops, phones. pads and other cool stuff. We've bought or not bought neer since 2009 based on what our phone told us about a name with a new label or not in our files to date. Click on the style links below to read each section or search for a specific brand, label, or keyword. Ale - Amber Ale - Barleywine and Wheatwine Ale - Barrel Aged and Oak-Mellowed Ale - Belgian Style - Brown, Amber, or Red Ale - Brown Ale - Christmas/Holiday/Winter Ale - Cream Ale - Extra Special Bitter (ESB) Ale - Fruit and Flavored Ale - Golden Ale - India Pale Ale (IPA) Ale - India Pale Ale (IPA) - Flavored or Fruited Ale - Pale Ale - Scottish Lager - Amber Lager - Dark (various styles) Lager - Fruited and Flavored Lager - Light Lager - Pilsener, Pilsner, Kolsch and other Golden style Lambic Oktoberfest/Fall/Autumn/Halloween/Pumpkin - Ale and Lager Porter - Regular Porter - Flavored Rauchbier/Smoked Beer - various styles Rye RICE, SORGHUM, MILLET, SPELT, BUCKWHEAT (SOBA), NO GRAIN, AND ALTERNATIVE GRAIN BEERS Stout Stout - Fruited and Flavored Wheat - Regular, Kristall, or Hefe-Weizen Wheat - Dark or Dunkel Wheat - Fruited and Flavored Wine x Beer Hybrids New classifications splits are in the works. A few suggestions are: ● Ale - Fresh hops or wet-hopped ● Lager - Kolsch ALE - AMBER Aass Amber RATING: 5.0 Norway From Drammen and Norway's oldest brewery (1834) comes this clear but dark amber in a wonderful shoulder-less bottle and 19th century style label. The taste is unique among those in this file. This all-natural beer is hard to describe but one finds the taste of golden hominy, hops, Pils, and herbs to be most apparent. It is very refined at all taste levels and with such sumptuous hoppy flavors it could become one's favorite of all ambers. I considered it the best new amber beer I tasted in 1992. Aass Jubilee RATING: 5.0 Norway This bottom-fermented and lagered ale takes 3 months to brew. The seasoning comes from Hallertau hops and the color proves light amber. The taste of hops and fruit are abundant like an good amber lager. Even though the cap has green and red colors it is NOTHING like their Christmas Winter Ale. As their regular Amber is not a lager it too is quite different. While perfect it is in a crowded field of amber fruity lagers - including several Americans. Abita Bock RATING: 4.0 Abita Springs, Louisiana From Abita Springs in Louisiana comes this bock that is not described anywhere on the packaging. Color is light amber and the carbonation is lasting. Flavor is modest but nicely sweet and malty. Like their Turbo Dog is needs a bit more flavor to really contend with the competition. It is LESS hoppy than Rolling Rock Bock and vastly superior to Shiner Bock. One almost gets a very slight mint flavor with it. While not worldclass it is satisfying and worth a try. Reviewers here noted "lovely semi-cloudy carmel color...nice sweet-fruit-malt blend" and "maybe not what German breweries send out as bock but still a rewarding drink with good balance...I'd prefer a bit more depth though". In 1995 three BrewBase users did give it a perfect 5 but most wanted more character. Abita Bock (c. 1995) RATING: 3.0 Abita Springs, Louisiana These green and yellow painted bottles set us back just $2.29 (1995) and yielded a pumpkin orange beer with a persistant head and spritely carbonation. Like many Abita products it is a reasonable flavor value for the money but you never quite get worldclass quality. While their recent Fall Fest and Christmas 1994 specials were 'very good' (4 bottle rating here) this bock is not as enjoyable. There was a muddled flavor with some malt notes but no clear and orderly palate. The finish could be bitter (even at icy cold temps) and that too harmed the tasting experience. One of us described this as a bit like an 'amber malt liquor' as far as malt depth and clean finish were con- cerned. We know they can turn up the malt flavor. And they really must. Abita Mardi Gras Bock RATING: 3.5 Abita Springs, Louisiana The bright orangish-gold (vaguely amber) pour has a very light, whitish head and limited carbonation. Noise is faint malt, pleasant so. I was surprised the the malt was so rich for sometime not nearly dark amber or brownish at all. The malt is warming, brothy, corn- flavored, bread-toastsy, somewhat faithful to the style but a notch or two weaker than what anyone is Germany would care to send over. There seems to be some confusion and visiting their website adds to it. Their "regular" Bock has a blue and blue-green label and is said on the web page to be "very popular..especially during our Mardi Gras season". It is apparently not this Mardi Gras Bock with comes with a foiled forest green label with a purple and gold foil on it; unless of course repackaging has been done for the local festival. My companion reviewers here notes the occasional off finish note but we did not find that in all glasses or bottles.