Newest reviews are always in red font but continue to be alphabetized by brand and label name

ALE - FRUITED AND FLAVORED

We now have a separate category for fruited and flavored IPA whether they are ADIPA, NEDIPA, or NEIPA in their based. Maybe one is based on Brit IPA.

I have decided to put the Pumpkin and spiced brews with Oktoberfest types as they are usually marketed around October/Halloween in the US and pretty serve as the same marketing theme. You will also get similar effects as these ales from fruit and flavored lagers.

Some with specific timing are spiced ales which are sold as Christmas ales aka Holiday or Winter Warmer ales are found under the Christmas/Winter/Holiday section. The Oktoberfest/Marzen/Halloween/Pumpkin/Fall ales are usually flavored up or made sweet and they too have their own substyle section.

The traditional Belgian ales often have citrus peels, coriander, and grains of paradise as the traditional dosing. Those are not considered "fruited and flavored" as they are normal (quite standard) for the Ale - Belgian classes.

We must be quick to assure that fruity ales are not the same as fruited and flavored ales for one might easily find convincing fruit flavors of lemon, grapefruit, orange, mangos, pineapple, and even cherries from both hop and yeast variations on their own. Those in this section might well have a fruity Citra hop or fruit-filled yeast in them but they must also have something else added besides hops, malt, yeast, and water.

There are also newish Herbed Ales of various bases, APA, Kolsch, and Wheat which are not spiced in the usual sense but favor one herbal leaf over another. These include Lavender, Rosemary, Thyme, Basil, and occasionally a blend of savory herbs. Gizmo's Lavender Kolsch Ale is one curious example and it actually works and is enjoyable! A note of caution for you homebrewers (and all others really), some herbs which are lovely in culinary preparations can be nasty to fully toxic when concentrated in other forms and formats. For example, bay leaves, while lovely to make a tomato sauce, can be very harshly irritating to slightly toxic in concentration to most humans. Some people are allergic to rosemary too. And if you do foraging for your herbal batch, be very sure every single stem and leaf is solidly identified before going in the container. One stray spray could put everyone in the ER if not the morgue.

21st Amendment Monk't Blood Belgian Style Dark Ale Brewed with Cinnamon, Vanilla, Oak Chips, and Dried Figs (Insurrection Series) RATING: 4.5 Abita Springs, Louisiana The 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution repealed the infamous 18th Amendment that prohibited sale of intoxicating liquors, aka "the end of Prohibition". Great name for a brewery too. This name is hard to get around, a Belgian dark aged not in barrels but with oak chips, vanilla and dried figs added to that. This 8.3% and 34 IBU creation pays homage to the ancient monks who lived only on beer (poor fellows!) which they brewed inhouse (or in-monastery) and amounting to "liquid bread". One can imagine the interest chants, prayers, songs, and God knows what afterhours. Nico Freccia and Shaun O'Sullivan traveled to Belgium to study and this is one of the results of their horrible, boring, laborous study (not). The malt bill is European Pilsner, Vienna, Caramunich, aromatic, Special B, flaked oats, and flaked wheat. Amarillo is the sole flavoring hop with Magnum and Centennial in the bitter role. Then the only stuff was added for special flavor. The pour is a fairly clear dark red, blood like in fact,but perhaps with a slight amber or orange tint off from true cherry or blood red. The head is creamy-tan, medium in size, diversely sized bubbles, rocky in several minutes. First sip is faintly tart, very fruity and ale-based and by middle passage it seems like an ordinary fruity-malty ale of fine quality. There are some oak type notes later on but as for the cinnamon we found little. There are dark, somber, even dank and dreary fruit notes of a genuine quality and that is surely the fig There are not many fig-altered ales and this shows how nicely it influences an already fruit ale. The fig gives complexity to a bright ale yeast and that is a very good thing. As for the vanilla, there is some in terms of general brightness to the recipe. My grandmother said "vanilla makes all desserts better" and she was quite right and this applies to sweetish beers too. It is pleasant and very educationl experience and our panel gave it one (just one) perfect score. There are occasional odd, hollow, vague, and less flavored notes to be had and those need to be cleaned up.

21st Amendment Sparkale Sparklng Rosè Ale Brewed with Apple, Cranberry, Peach, and Cherry RATING: 4.0 San Leandro, California The Rosè Ale dates (for us) to 2019 and it seems to be another attempt to lure wine drinkers with familiar terms such as brut and vintage. There have been pink or rosè beers for years because if you add enough real fruit to them (especially cranberry, pomegranate, and raspberry) they will be go from their yellow base to pink. They may even have light pink to creamy-pink foam heads too. The pour here is actually not pink, dark or otherwise, but a dark copper-red or almost a clear burnt orange, the head near white, low, lasting a bit. The nose is of mixed fruits, moderately rich. The lace lasts slonger than most ales but it's hardly a champagne competitor on that front! It contains sulfites which means some of the fruit was probably not from a fresh source. First sip is definately that of an ale and not a thin or weak "girly drink" are some had expected - even our girl on the panel! From mass market fruit spritzers and wine coolers it differs in having true ale yeast, light hops, and a true beer nature. The fruits are strong at times, ranging from bright to dark and somber, favoring cranberry and cherry there. It was "something of a strong wine cooler...nay real fruit malt beverage at times but got richer, better" wrote one panelists. Had this proven to be a faux ale you'd have not found it on this page. And occassionally we exclude such nonsense with not even enough space or time on the entire internet to call them out. Like alot of fruit mixed drinks, the apple gets overshadowed and is used many for a sweetish, mellowing base. They clearly were serious about fruit complexity because it would have been brighter, more smooth tropical if that were intended. We like it some, mostly 4.0 worth and one 4.5.

Abita Vanilla Double Dog XXV Anniversary RATING: 4.5 Abita Springs, Louisiana Given the $4.99 bomber price (quite low in 2012) and what we know of Abita from the past, this label did not really get our tastebuds and brains a whizin'. This 25th anniversary brew is based on their famous Turbodog but adding more generous amounts of pale, caramel, and chocolate malts. Willamette hops are then added in goodly quanities with whole bean vanilla. ABV is a nice 7% and the pour is dark reddish-brown with nice early lace. The head is dark cream. First notes are promising, decent vanilla but nothing to right home about. The malts are semi-choco rich which caramel spikes in later passages. The finish like some other Abitas trails off more than we would prefer. Still it does have a charm and is "something of a value" to quote one of our panalists who added snobishly "for those who need such things". By the way the bottle is cuter as twenty turbo dog pups and painted on for collectors. Really nice design with gold paisley pups singing a song. We found this malty brew a bit better less than super-cold and the flavors get more complex and enjoyable with a temp closer to room. Overall it is a fine value and probably the best thing Abita has made in years.

Allagash Fluxus (Ale Brewed with Yarrow) RATING: 4.0 Portland, Maine Yarrow? Is this a tribute to Peter, Paul, and Mary? I do love yarrow and think it's cool in cough drops and wine too. I almost did a Ph.D. on garden yarrows but found a better-paying-than-a-professor computer job more tempting. It's a good genus, flavorful at times, very ancient in uses, and colorful in flowers. Not sure I like the name of this name as it suggests Acid Reflux among other things. ABV is an even 10%. Allagash's motto is ALWAYS AN ADVENTURE. That is both good and scary in the beer world. For them, it's almost always a calling card towards excellence. This label in their Tribute Series means they give a buck a bottle towards good local organizations and that might be good or scary too. (I'm never too sure what philanthropist-brewers do with their money and what they are imposing with my coin towards puppies, children, fetuses, politicians, farms, schools, parks, and wetlands). Color is ultra-hazy in very rich gold, even having an orangish-golden sheen at time under full fluorescent light. Big head, good lace, ending soon enough for a corked product. As I suspected, one needs to drink nearly the entire bottle to get the BUDSAT (taste bud saturation) of the special ingredient. It adds some herbal charm to what is a slightly sweet hoppy product with a half token of maltiness.

Having grown lots of yarrow plants and crushed more than few to fit in an electron microcope, I have some idea where yarrow begins and hops ends. I think. Yarrow can be bitter but it's not usual floral so much as medicinal and earthy. I think the label shows Achillea millefolium, the common yarrow with it's fine ferny foliage. I don't think you'd guess it had yarrow unless told but you might expect a curious mix of hop varieties? Maybe. It is not a liquid cough-drop but it is a tad sweet in the finish. I would have left it more dry and bitter by one or two notches. A liquid herbal cough-drop loaded full of corn syrup is hardly a standout and a sweetish beer with such ingredients is apt to be misunderstood and underappreciated too. I would have turned up the yarrow and maybe added another nice herb or two from the North American flora to make this an even richer, complex, herbal brew. I appreciate the effort but it's a one-time purchase in this trim.

My first reaction to the name Fluxus is that it is something I coughed up last week at 3AM after downing a few too many 650 and 750ml micro-ales and assorted other things now in my recycle bin. There was a tin of Hormel Chili and box of bridge mix in there for good measure - or not. Fortunately, our Portland friends have presented a dictionary style def of fluxus on the label next to some golden sweet potato leaves. More about them leaves later. Fluxus - noun, Latin, 1. a flowing or flow. 2. continuous change, passage, or movement. That tells me maybe...dynamic, shifting flavor notes. Oh yes, it is brewed with sweet 'tators and black pepper in a 8.3% ABV recipe. OK....

The robust, corked bottle shows ample flaky yeast in the bottle unless they be givin' us some mini swee-tator chips down in thar. It pours a rich golden-amber, yeast flakes in tow, the head very tall, very open, and ivory. I think I get a pepper-bread malt nose but then again I knew which spice to expect. Seing as sweet potatoes are produced in my home state of NC more than in any US state (LA is #2) and certainly ME (and I've met a couple of dudes who came to Raleigh to get their Ph.D. in sweet potato genetics), Allagash may have scooped all our southern US microbreweries in using their yummy tuber before they thought of it. Did they succeed? Yes and no. I love the sweet, earthy and malty effect this recipe produces and the pepper is only faint but any tuber needs a bit of spicing to give it balance and punch. Fluxus is classicially a nice Belgoid ale, rich and moderate in alcohol, and made "own our" with a popular American crop - and I mean American in collective North and South American sense. The added species originated in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula or perhaps Venezuela about 2500BC. This is stuff of our history, our very old history. There is an abrupt, really lovely smoothness in the finish that a complex root like sweet potato can easily deliver with all it's diverse cocktail of good, tasty stuff. If sweet potato pies warm the heart, heal the soul, mend faster than a gallon of Rocky Road, and charm the tastebuds shouldn't a liquid form be made to do something of the same? Next time I want a truly Southern take on the tuber taken dark, sweeter, and drenched in buttery malts. Good first effort. Allagash Kur Kuma Ale with Fresh Turmeric RATING: 4.5 Portland, Maine "From Maine. With Love". This 5.3 percenter adds the famous Curcumin or Kurkuma spice to a saison-style ale. The pour remains a light, straw yellow in clarity with a short-lived, near white head. Yes, I had dumped a spice bottled teaspoon or turmeric into beer to get it down me for gout reasons. (By the way, spice bottle turmeric is not standardized nor potent like medical capsules). That stuff turned very orange in a hurry and cloudy as all spicy hell. This is not a health food beer either nor do they claim it as such. The turmeric is for flavor and I actually love the species for cooking and medical gout cure reasons. The base wit, saison ale, very Belgian in potency is clear and the turmeric is just for supportive flavor, adding nice depth and curiosity if not interest value. It's a great Alllgash Belgian with a little hint of more, not coloring it, or making it medical, nor transforming it too much. It is rich and better just the same and a good experience, very pleasant, especially if you love Turmeric for cooking and are used to it's beauty and simplicity. This amounts to citrus peel and coriander with added turmeric and any cook will tell you those three things are part of many good recipes. Brewers might well look to turmeric and other spice recipes for good things to add to coriander and citrus and cilantro and sage and so many other choices. Allagash/New Belgium Vrienden Ale Brewed with Hibiscus and Endive RATING: 4.5 Fort Collins, Colorado Following the Allagash Yarrow-themed brew, this "collabeeration" should not be so surprising but I almost fear for a future of ales all based on new, noval combinations of culinary ingredients. "Good barkeep...set us up with a round of Kiwi and Chive ales will ya!". I can see a bar brawl around 2030 started over the lack of cummin-bean sprout-stout in the cups of the NFL franchise the New Bangkok Pounders. God pity the day that happens some place on earth. I do know Hibiscus is a nice additive to herbal teas and there it has a role for both flavor and color. Endive? I'l wait to see on that one. The label is a curious painted thing half a scrapbook and half ransom note. It tells us in the variable fonts and colors that Lactobacillus and Brettanomyces are added for yet more flavor. "Bliss" is a repeated theme. The bright golden-amber brew has a near white head of short stature but some duration. It gives a very herbal-veggie beer set of notes on first sip, fading darker and obscurely malty. The flavors are all over the known universe and I suspect they wanted this one to be a beer-tasting parties nightmare or source of conversation early into the next morn. Lots of people, pretty much any of us, can make enigmatic, veggie beers that are at least drinkable. The question here is this: is this a recommendable one worthy of these two fine brew houses? Or is it a "one-off, experience it once but never buy again" sort of creature? I decided I need to analyze slowly and lovingly an entire bottle - one can never look an enigma or riddle in the face without slow sips down the tubes and over the buds - slow and steady, thinking and drawing on past experience. Repeat 30 times.

I found bright orange juice fruit notes at one point but that is hardly laudable in this context - just familiar. There were nice lambicoid characters as we expected from the micro-beasties in the broth. B+ there. Fruit esters and yeast are all over the place, kind of like a fruit punch that is made with the 47 fruit species you happened to find at the market that day but having no uniformed, cheap red punch theme. Vreinden is in one sense a wild, mixed, stew of brew, and "pot luck" for the copper pot, lots of good things, very few off ones, and yet the single theme is that there is no single theme. I would call it Diversity Soup but that probably violates some EEOC subparagraph. The "whole bottle" reaction is better than at a half glass point or half bottle point. There are glowing citrus and fruit neon signs bursting in the beer lobe of my brain (some of us have one by now), tempered by very subtle, dark malts, recessed hops that mingle with microbiology's best offering in the beer world, descending up and down a flashy herbal ladder where one samples many things, hundreds of chemicals I suspect, and nearly all of them interesting but like fireworks not easy to recall for long. The next explosion is the most important thing and it could be any thing; even a dive into an Olympic endive pool with fluorescent wavelets of asparagus and lemon. Anderson Valley Chai Solstice Ale RATING: 4.5 Boonville, California The ABV is 6.9%, the IBU 15, malts pale 2-row, Munich 20L, crystal (40L and 80L) blending with Magum and Liberty hops. The pour is a bright amber-red to dark copper under a full cream head of some duration but limited depth. Cardamom, star anise, vanilla, orange peel, ginger, and black pepper conspire for this zesty and sometimes hot approach. It is spicy at the expense of ale notes but judging the background it is decent enough to be a red ale family, giving enough sweetness to keep the spices from being overly bitter and intrusive at any time. Our panelists feel variously on highly spiced ale because they are centuries old in tradition but in modern times also mask and correct for a weak, thin ale. Given what background notes we have here in terms of hops and malt and this brewery's rep, this is not a chemical product at the expense of true brewing arts. It is the real thing with nice, roasty malts that increase as the sips increase. It is very pleasant and agreeable, judged with much sophistication without being too complex with layers of hops, spices, and malts that can and has been done.

Big Boss The BIG Operator Ale with Raspberries RATING: 3.5 Raleigh, North Carolina This very dark ale pours positively opaque brown yet I cannot quite consider it a fruit porter. The rich malts certainly has more of a stout-like comfort effect, being rich and smooth. There is berry-like flavor in the finish but you'd be stumped all day unless having seen the label first. Berry is there and too faint to be appreciate though most beer reviewers will despise the opposite extreme of "berries with ale". I'm really not sure what they were trying to accomplish here, so unclear is the fruit flavoring. One may easily mistake the slight tartness as the normal approach to brewing and nothing more. I'm nearly inclined to think my bottle was labeled in error; so doubtful is this additive and it's ultimate value in adding to the product.

Bilboquet L'Affriolante RATING: 4.5 Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada The pour is juice-like amber, the lace strong and lasting, the head cream and medium length. Honey and spices conspire to make this "beer on lees" that "sometimes teases you and sometimes charms you...One does not know how to approach it". Another ale becomes mysterious chick theme. That is getting a bit old wouldn't you say? 7% ABV combines with a rich, very fruitful sweetness that strongly suggests a medley of tropical fruits were used in the mix. It is almost like Hawaiin ale punch. Instead we think yeast, honey, and spices were used to construct them and with quite some skill at that. You'd really swear a pack of juices were added but the labeling suggests they refrained from that approach. As to the "slightly sweet" claim they have have that about two full hives short of reality. Our esteemed panel remarked that it "it's as sticky and fruity as a kindergarten class on their first field trip to an orchard...pleasant but too over-the-top for me" and "something of soda-beer but clearly not a wine cooler...spice and fruit are okay, a bit too much, and the honey is cloying at times". Over-the-top makes this lady not so mysterious and coy. Pardon me for saying that the melons and peaches seem real but are likely formed another way with tricks. She's more a carnival street corner gal with everything on display and taken to extremes for marketing purposes - honey and spice to the max - very much like the lady figured on the label in fact. Over the top - top to bottom - empty head to stiletto toe - round the world strong. Lots of bang for the buck ($8.59 per 500ml, July 2012) and you may or may not want to come back for more. That's your choice and what you can live with. Bison Organic Ginger Bread Ale Brewed with Spices RATING: 4.0 San Jose, California "Each sip is like biting the heads off gingerbread men". Is this a feminist and organic brew? Probably not as it's signed Don. Or could that be Donita? (Twilight Zone music.....). Cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg - and that's almost a punkin' spice formula - are employed here. The 7.5% ABV pours as dark as a rootbeer-toned porter under a finely textured, dark cream head of long duration. The nose is pumpkin spice or gingerbread - take ye the pick. The spice is there, somewhat well mixed but the notes come and go to different places as the bottle is completed. The color already lets us know it's a bit malty and they might well have called it a mass market Ginger Porter as anything else. Hops in the finish are not overt on the first few sips but with some saturation of the taste buds, we do appreciate that bitter pose. The spices are "overt...perhaps too much to the foreground and I got lost in them too many times to have alot of respect for the ale recipe" wrote one panelist; confirming my assignment of it as a "mass market" or populist sort of spiced up thing. We bit off heads and ale did not spurt out. It is a spice ale to be sure but delivers neither enough malt and hops depth to get us hooked and satisfied in those other areas of great import.

Bison Organic Honey Basil RATING: 4.0 Ukiah, California This amber ale is given a slight (and I mean appropriately faint) bit of sweetness from honey and a touch of spice from basil. If I had not known about the basil, I'd have guessed it some modern, very nippy forms of hops taken to a strong level. I am not yearning for a Oregano Hefe-weizen or craving a Thyme Porter anytime soon but there certainly is a whole cupboard full of good plants worth using in brews. Coriander and anise certainly have a long history of being brewed in kettles though the more savory, earthy herbs are yet to find much of a home. I would tend to think a combination of fruit and herbal flavors might be the best path, such as a lemon-thyme flavor using actual lemon thyme rather than a true citrus product. There are many flavors of basil too besides the stock, Italian basil flavor and those might be explored in some worthy combination. This is a nice product but neither stunning or extensively memorable.

Blue Point Colonial Ale Brewed with Molasses and Spruce Tips RATING: 3.5 Patchogue, Long Island, New York This label got some hype in the New York and US press for claiming to be a revived 250-year-old recipe for ale that was the sort of American founding father drank. George Washington was said to have toured Long Island at Hart's Tavern in particular in Patchoque. It is said to have been the great one's favorite recipe. Corn, wheat, and 2-row barley are used and of course we know that GW himself was for two year's the nation's largest maker of whiskey from similar things. Hops were scarce in those early times so spruce tips (not unlike a piney hop variety) and molasses (easy rich sugars and caramel flavor) were included. In Britain, those thing were very taboo but added just the same. In American is was more out of necessity. This recipe pours a rich brownish-red and is surprising at just 3.8% ABV. While a molasses-infused brew has always been close to my heart and buds, this one needs to be served up a bit warmer to bring out the malt and molasses flavors. It is less likable very cold. As much as this history lesson inspires, perhaps the old recipe just sucked for the hard times of the times - even if you were King...I mean President. This turns out to be more beer soda, that is molasses soda, than a rounded, pleasing ale. Perhaps it was true to type but other than the cultural experience (if valid) this is not a "have again" for any of us.

We do know Washington was fond of "small beer" (a weak porter or quickly made ale). He was also fond of Philadelphia style porters (ie. Robert Hare's Tavern) which we are reasonably sure were more substantial. Perhaps one of the reasons this weaker ale was preferred because it was served to servants and children at Mount Vernon. Persimmons were used in the Washington's beer kitchen too. In general from the records of The General, it appears his estate kept small beer, common porter, and "premium porter" on hand at most times. His "small beer" handwritten recipe is:

"To Make Small Beer

Take a large Siffer [Sifter] full of Bran Hops to your Taste. -- Boil these 3 hours then strain out 30 Gall[ons] into a cooler put in 3 Gall[ons] Molasses while the Beer is Scalding hot or rather draw the Melasses into the cooler & St[r]ain the Beer on it while boiling Hot. let this stand till it is little more than Blood warm then put in a quart of Yea[s]t if the Weather is very Cold cover it over with a Blank[et] & let it Work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask -- leave the bung open till it is almost don[e] Working -- Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed." Boulevard Chocolate Ale with Cacao Nibs and Vanilla Extract (2021 Limited Release) RATING: 4.5 Kansas City, MIssouri "Harmonize the interplay of chocolate and malt". This is a collab with Christopher Elbow, a local Missouri maker of high quality, premium craft chocolates. The nibs used here are Valrhona type of Dominican origin. The 2021 version comes after a 3-year hiatus. The 2019 version had pale, Caracrystal, and golden naked oats for malt, Topaz hops, and Scottish ale yeast, using 4 lbs per barrels of the nibs plus all natural chocolate and vanilla extracts. ABV is 8.7% with 11 IBU. The 2021 version per the website differs some using pale and Cara Wheat malts and Columbus and Cascade hops. The pour is a bright copper-amber, about medium in hue, the head light cream, low, lasting, and favoring the finer textures. First sip is initially very much like a slightly tart, amber ale, not overly malty but rich enough, and we found the chocolate to be very subtle. The the nibs add depth and charm and all that but don't expect this to be anything like a cacao-infused stout or something will real Belgian chocolate drizzled in. Not sure how the Elbow folks signed off on this really as the chocolate is not the star nor the support actor and is very much a dimished, background role. The chocolate adds complexity as we said but the fruity ale aspects with nice malts are what you will remember from this. I think it's very much mis-named and while a pleasant enough ale, it's frankly not a chocolate anything! Our policy is to grade a beer for "what it is" and "not what it's called", the score is much higher than some would give it. As a malty fruity-forward ale, this is a real charmer - not it's not chocolate anything. Do buy it for it's ale appeal and forget the nib part. Boulevard/Firestone Walker Tropical Pale Ale RATING: 4.5 Paso Robles, California The pale amber brew with many glints of gold has an enduring but short head of near white, ivory perhaps - but we hardly know what ivory looks like today except in a museum. This ale is brewed with add grapefruit and passion fruit. This 5.9 percenter is a collaboration with Firestone Walker but the website says they make it with Florida's Cigar City Brewing too. IBU is 45 with added grapefruit (peel?) and passion fruit. The Cigar City version says that one has papaya juice so there must be two different Tropical Pale Ales on offer? It is quite substantial in the way that does require real fruit additions and not the simulation of them via the hop vine and yeast strain. Our panel loved how the bitter hop finish followed so elegantly the sweet fruit of the early and middle notes and complimented it with such grace. And yes they do confess to unnamed "citrus hops" in the mix...."pack your bags and bring your taste buds". A delightful ale.

BrewDog Dogma RATING: 4.5 Frasersbrough, Scotland Let's say for the sake of argument I went insane some day, sold everything, and bet the retirement farm and Hot Wheels collection on an eccentric brewing venture. Okay, maybe not that odd a thought. If I said I was brewing a 7.8% ale flavored with kola nuts, poppy seeds, and guarana, my friends would be over shortly and have me try on a nice new white suit with the aid of the nice big men who are just here dear to help you. Hey! These sleeves have long white ribbons on the ends! This is not a suit!

BrewDog has gotten rabies (and is hereby in full froth) or maybe just a really neat creative bug and made an ale for the aforementioned odd ingredients and a bit of Scottish heather honey. "Innovative and enigmatic" as they call it is polite speak for people who are functional crazies and have a job and money to prove it. This "conspiracy of transcontinental ingredients" was arrived at while musing over some 17th century philosophical papers - in other words like most everything made by Pabst (LOL). Hops include Bramling Cross and Amarillo while the malts are Marris Otter Extra Pale, Caramelt, roasted barley, Dark Krystal, and Munich. "This beer is not cool. You may think it is, but that is just a beautiful lie fabricated by clowns and gypsies" says their website. New suits with ribbons await them.

The red on black label has a small book written on it - one I could not read with a box of reading glasses and six microscopes. The beer pours a rich amber, the head large, foam-laden, and antique ivory in color. Nose is herbal like no other ale I've sniffed, ever, anytime. First sip suggests a subtle ale, made with fine ingredients but very restrained in the style of many UK breweries who would rather kick their dogs their assault a customer's tastebuds with anything really strong. I do notice the honey and it is never overdone or far from an add-on; it's a very superb use of this ingredient. I cannot say much for the other ingredients except the entire package works and works very neatly. Call back the Loony Bin Brigade (as I imagine they must be named in Scotland) for those mad dogs have a few years of raising revenue for the Crown and delighting brew drinkers the world over. Splendid work and git oot yer face on this broth. Now go see to Black Donald for he's a' havin' a time with all 'da dang shellycoats bathin' themselves in the kettles.

Brewery Hill Raspberry Red RATING: 4.0 Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Many of the raspberry beers on the market are made with a wheat base. This and a few others are ale-based. Real juice and 'natural flavors' are what gives this one the flavor and a pale amber color with red tints. The head is very small but lasts a bit. They describe the flavor as 'delicate' and that is appropriate and fortunate. Naked Aspen and Oregon both over-indulged in those mysterious natural flavors. This brew is restrained and has better juice qual- ity too. Reviewers noted 'Ale and berry flavors are about equal though I still do not see the appeal in beer cooler theme' and 'highly drinkable...a respect- able outcome in a group of beers that so often go wrong'. The BERRY ALES from Rogue (Rogue-n-Berry) and Star are the most worthy comparisons to date. The Bruery 2 Turtle Doves (2009) RATING: 4.0 Placentia, California This second annual incarnation of the a dark flavored Belgian ale comes in thick 750 mils with a cap and not a cork. The opacity and head resemble a good stout. Nicely roasted malts are available in spades, augmented with cocoa nibs and toasted pecans. The ABV is whopping 12% and the total presentation is all the following things: potent, heavy, and for slow sipping only. It would blend well for it's almost a dark ale concentrate. No mild dove , weak, shy and faux-wounded here. In other words, it's a turtle dove bred to a rabid falcon assisted with 4-yard bionic wings and atomic malt arsenal of an F-22 Raptor. The fundamental medium here is of a ethanol-drenched, vaguely spices abbey-style brown and so it is not Belgianoid in name only. (perhaps for our next edition of Brewbase Reviews there will be a Belgianoid category for more and more things are coming up that way). I wanted to like this concoction but found it excessive maybe for it's own sake. I put it away for awhile and a second opinion. I sipped a bit more again and found it still overbearing. The merit of a beer is no more found in only it's simple boldness but in it's overall enjoyability and in the later aspect I found this a bit wanting. I liked it in such small doses I could not really bear to praise it. The Bruery 4 Calling Birds (2011) RATING: 4.0 Placentia, California The "Twelve Days of Christmas" series has reached this name - I guess we missed 3 French horns or whatever the hell it's supposed to be. 3 French hens? 3 French whores? If she's my true love I'd appreciate 3 French whores playing horns and carrying plates of roasted, plump, delicious, greasy French hens. This unfiltered, bottle-conditioned ale came to us as $11.99 (December 2011) in a thick brown bottle. 11% ABV with the intended flavors of gingerbread are good signs. The whole gingerbread thing makes this very much not a tripel, dark Belgianoid ale we figured up front. The pour is very dark, dank like a porter with a light brown head. Malt to be sure.

The nose is spice, not clearly ginger though. First sip shows the high ABV followed by moderately sweet notes of a quality malt and then quickly a reasonable, semi-gingery spice. It has an overall barleywine mouth feel and ditto that for it's intensity. For fun, we used a glass of this like "beer concentrate" with somes weak Pils and made a rather nice brown ale cut 50:50. It was in fact too thick and intense for two on our panel but others questioned the basic recipe regardless of strength. There was a bit of that same sentiment with the 2 Turtles Doves. "Overwhelming" and "strong for the sake of being strong...sips well but you get bogged down and bored after a few sips". I would add the word cloying; something initially pleasant but quickly becoming too rich or sweet. There are a good number of barleywine or strong spicy ales which run circles around this one. The next days should become better and for this price we hope so. The Bruery Or Xata Blonde Ale Brewed with... RATING: 4.5 Placentia, California ...rice and lactose, with natural cinnamon and vanilla flavor added. This 7.2 percenter pour a mostly clear, medium gold under an ivory head of some duration, limited size. Since 2008 their experimental beers have rewarded us to some extent, though we've never found most of the in the top heap of elite, worldwide choices. Their barrel work seems much more impressive. It is an homage to the Horchata, a sweet, milky drink from Spain and Latin America that is free of ethanol. Their website says it was first released in 7.1%, 11.5 IBU trim in 2017. First sip is fairly sweet, quickly infused with spices, some vanilla, and a delightful mellowness overall. The rice and lactose are put to good effect, making it a true Spiced Cream Ale. Comparisons to cream soda are obvious but the cinnamon really conquers the day. It is very agreeable and nicely done while being fairly simple in terms of overall depth. It was tad short on depth and those of us knowing the tradtiioanl horchata much better consider it a nice bonus to have ethanol but not fully believable in this form. The Bruery White Chocolate Ale Aged in Bourbon Barrels with Cacao Nibs and Vanilla Beans RATING: 4.0 Placentia, California This firm has been doing alot witrh flavored stouts of late but this wood-aged, flavored ale is a much paler thing in the general flavored ale class. Carrying a whopping 14.8% ABV they are saying it's in the wheatwine style, while in our files here are not flavored. The pour is a rather clear amber, mid- copper if you will, the head light cream, short, lasting a bit, fine of texture, low and rocky in one. It was released recently on 4 Feburary 2019 in a larger, bottled form rated at 14.0%, our version a tall can. It has been offered since 2013 and there is a cherry-infused version too. First sip is curious, very bourbon-filled but a fairly sweet, sticky version of that beverage. You can imagine's candied boubon nature to contain chocolate but these would be someting like bourbon bon bons! It has high points with immensely complex and very, very usual flavors that charm but also some lower ones, harsh ABV with equally harsh wood. During it's worst passages the thing is almost undrinkable and very unlikable but on the 70% other occasions you find remarkable chocolate-bourbon pairings which are curious, really fun, and quite agreeable. Then a let down in the next sip or two. There a number of "all over the map" aged brews this year and some which are simply "kitchen sink nightmares" which need a whole lotta cleaning up. This one has notes 3.0 awful and 5.0 brilliant but the later are far too rare. But since they've been selling this since 2012 and it gets some very high scores online, I doubt things will improve much under this name at least. White chocolate is indeed like a box of Grumpian chocolates. This Burial Cocoa Bolo Coconut Brown Ale with Chocolatenigh RATING: 5.0 Asheville, North Carolina Part of the reason we liked this better than other coconut and chocolate dark beers is that a brown ale base was used and not a denser porter or stout framework which can drown out the two major flavors additions. French Broad Chocolate Co. supplied the nibs, coconut was added in "piles", and lots of brown sugar for good measure. This is a very drinkable, not overly sweet, delightly brew with just the right balance of flavors and the traditional brown malty ale base. Have a sip and gaze into the green skulls on the can just below the Mayan altar. Just one of many fine superb beers out of the Asheville area and it's not from one of their giants, either. Carolina Strawberry Ale RATING: 4.5 Mooresville, North Carolina I was very suspicious when this sixpack appeared at the Kroger in Cary NC in November 2008. The whole red label was like a soda label from one of those gourmet soda companies. Perhaps they were being honest as many fruit ales as more "soda beer" than true ale. This is NOT their earlier Strawberry Blonde formula by the way. I was surprised and wrong, one of those delightful discoveries I find just once every week or two in beer tasting. Fragaria x ananassa is a major spring crop in NC, accounting for over 20 mill a year though just a smidge compared to FL and CA. Most strawberry ales are good or mid-rate ales flavored with a vague fruity tartness that may or not be recognizable as to the genus. Others are sweet things flavored with artificial berry flavor and rate as absolute crap - neither a good berry soda nor a bearable beer. These folks got it right, the berries very clear and sharp but the ale background is clear and not always in the background in fact. The fine-tuning could be done 212 ways I suppose and this formula is nearly where it should be. It's not too tart nor too sweet nor is anything really wrong with it. Their website quotes a Robin P. from Pittsburgh PA who said "I have never believed in mixing fruit and beer, but after trying your Strawberry Ale, I can't get enough". I can get enough of this but if did the same with our state's blueberries and raspberries, we'd have much more praise to point in their direction. If strawberry ale has never been real, good, or even palatable to your before give this one a try.

Casita Cake It Easy with White Chocolate Cherry Almond Cake RATING: 4.5 Wilson, North Carolina You sure this is not a stout? I asked. No? It sure sounds like a stout to me. I was wrong. It pours as rich pink....nay orangish-red as fruited ale gets. This five percenter is influenced by Pils malt, oats, lactose, sweet cherries, white chocolate, and almonds. It's a very bold color and the head is pinkish, very noisy, fizzing, and short-lived. Looks like a fruited sour or our else people will think you're downing a cocktail. First sip is a bit dry, loaded full of non-tart cherry and almond right away and by middle passage some moderate and very real chocolate. They used real almonds which is a more nutty effect than those "natural flavorings" that make cherry, pistachio, and almond ice cream; each one colored to thing they are marketing. It is semi-sweet later on in the finish. This is the real stuff and nicely dosed as such. You get more of the flavors than in a stout because the malts are not heavy enough to intrude and there are not hops to speak of. Like most Casita products they are complex, suitably rich, and clearly the result of careful, refined experiments. Very nice change of pace.

Catawba El Gato Mariachi Horchata White Ale RATING: 4.0 Morganton, North Carolina This recipe at 5.3 percenter makes use of natural, sweet cinnamon, lactose, and vanilla flavoring. Horchata is a Mexican drink made with rice, cinnamon, and milk although the name comes from a word meaning barley. Puerto Rico tends to use sesame seed and it may or may not have vanilla to flavor it. sIt was a sweet, milky, spicy beverage in any case. My mom used to make me a rice dessert with cinnamon, ample sugar, and milk. It was a cereal alternative and when one consumed the milk from it....nirvana! There are many versions in many lands but the Mexican styles are most popular in the US for obvious reasons of proximity and regular cultural exchange. The pour here is very pale, Pilsy light yellow, clear as anything clear, the head near white, fairly coarse and collapsing in a few to a rocky thing as the finer bubbles persist. First sip is timid at first, a lightly but nicely flavored thing with faint cinnamon, very subtle, and some vanilla with it. Middle passage is better but still very subdued without being too weak. There is nice sweetness that develops with more sips and the lactose is surely responsible for that. Some finishes can be very sweet but most are moderately sugared. Now this is a not a milk- nor cream-based drink so one cannot expect the richness of the real horschata. But as a flavored ale it's very interesting even if subdued and introverted at times. Not weak ever mind you. I liked it fairly cold best as at warmer temps it can drag and run out somewhat. I really think they might turn it up two notches for the spice and vanilla, at least the first one, and really lay it on thick. The real thing is not this timid. Much potential. Clown Shoes Mango American Kolsch RATING: 3.0 Clifton Park, New York/website also says Ipswich, Massachussetts The Kolsch is technical an all but more like a Pilsener so we'll put it down to rest here among fruited ales. The pour is suitably pale yellow under a white head that is less persistant than a fruit fly on crack head towards a giant fan. We had to do some super-magnification tricks with both our reading glasses (you know our panelists all mostly old foggies) and their website to see "malt beverage with natural flavor added" in a very convenient miniature, black font. The website says the mango flavor is "all natural" and it certainly seems that way, some of us (I mean me your Editor) having smoked mango vapes a time or two and not being impressed with it's veracity. This one is very sweet and that's more than mango talking unless a truck full of that fine tropical fruit happened by accident to fall into the brewing hall. You would not know it's a Kolsch or even a Pils so dominant is this sugary, estery-laden presentation. We had a Pils expert on our panel during the review and he had no clue as to Pils yeast or proper malts being used or not. It is thus our opinion we have a tarted-up or mango-upped beer of new real pedigree or perceivable background with no real depth, complexity, or points of dignity. Why not just buy a mango juice in the grocery store? It might also have probiotics and some healthy herbs too. Why bother with a juice-beer? They sell but not to informed people more than once.

[D9] District 9 Americana Ren Faire Heather Ale (Seasonal) RATING: 4.0 Cornelius, North Carolina This here eight percenter combines a "honey sweetness with delicate notes of heather". This is no new idea and in fact no one is sure how old the idea is. One report suggests it goes back to 2000 B.C. before hops were even available in any quantity. It was often honeyed up and give a wine-like finish, the heather sometimes even smoked a bit for a peaty, whisky type note. Other available herbs and spices might be added too. Hops were not always plentiful during times of poverty, war, and general economic downturn so local heather was used to give the beer a minty, perhaps chamomile, and light lavender or floral flavor. Williams Brothers, Highland, and Cambridge make versions of it. Most others come from Scotland where heather is abundant and pretty much free for the taking. The pour here is a light gold, dark yellow with loads of carbonation the head near white, short, short-lived, diverse in textures. The nose is light sweetish malt similar to a full-bodied Pils. First sip is slightly sour (1-2 on our 10 scale, 10 being acidic and caustic) and the carbonation adds a bit of a strange nip too. It there should be the heather dose is mild, giving more fruity than herbal notes. Only a faint mint or chamomile flavor is provided but it's surely a different thing. "Very much like a malty sour that is made sweeter and more mellow...but not entirely sweet or honeyed" wrote one panelist. The heather bit might escape you quite frankly but do finish the entire tall can to get the best of it.

[D9] District 9 Brown Sugar Brown Cow Mocha Brown Ale RATING: 4.5, later reviwed in 2017 as 5.0 (see second review below) Cornelius, North Carolina This one pours more like a red ale under a mid-cream head but there are some brown ale tints too. Chocolate, vanilla, lactose, brown sugar, and Colombia coffee conspire for what could be call a "very fine beer-soda". This 6.6% brown cow is sweeter than your teenage cousin in daisy duke shorts at the family reunion with all the pervy uncles, cousins, and two grandpappies looking on with decidedly non-Baptist thoughts. "My, my....she has really grown up into a fine lady" and they're all thinking much more. The ABV is a nice 6.9% but the IBU is just 15 given the uber-sweetness. There is really not a flavored ale out there like it. And it's not as simple as some sugared up crap from mass market dudes. First of all, they add five different good things to it and secondly there's a bit of malt to balance it right out to a reasonable degree. It might be the sweetest, tricked up ale we actually liked. If this is gimmick beer they sure spent a fortune on five quality ingredients and died trying to paint the cow. Effort and likability score a half extra bottle here. This could well have been the recipe for Saranac S'Mores and might well have been had they been smarter.

D9 Brown Sugar Brown Cow Brown Ale RATING: 5.0 Cornelius, North Carolina With three browns in the name it's practically a family reunion. It is actually one of the least brown ales we'ved evaluated in terms of actual brown color, it favoring a bright reddish-copper under a thin, white, quickly disappearing head. This 6.6 percenter ismade using chocolate, vanilla, brown sugar, lactose (as in a milk stout) and coffee. First sip is amazing, rich, sweet to an honorable degree, deep with the forementioned goodies and almost like a liquid smores bar - far more so than smores ales which usually taste like sweet chemical soup. This is delicious, slightly carbonated, and with enough malt of the right character to charm. Only one of the panelists suggested the "beer soda" phrase and then only with half an intension. It is very enjoyable and after why do we spend billions as a world on craft beers when dull, genetic vodka would do the buzz drink for less money. Flavor! This one has flavor, decent and rich ones in spades! Nicely done. We've added this also to the flavored ale section for it belongs there as well.

Deep River Bad Barista Vanilla Latte Ale RATING: 4.0 Clayton, North Carolina Most of the time a vanilla latte brew will be a stout. This 5 percenter has coffee notes with vanilla in a pour that's a clear, dark amber-orange to burnt orange. The head is large, mostly fine of texture, rocky in two. Some later pours had a long persistance of the head. First sip is curious, not full at first, still a bit weak in mid passage, and the finish with slight vanilla and a dry coffee note of no particular clarity or quality. As we settle in for more sips, the coffee is medium strong with vanilla still wanting and very much not a latte or vanilla latte taste. It would be easy to say a bad barista made this and we are not inclined normally to go for an easy, cheap joke. It gets better as coffee-themed amber ale with more saturation over time but the vanilla is still missing. How that possible when 2 cents worth of extract per can would have done it rich and full? This is a subtle thing at best and the coffee is never bitter. It reminds me of a my espresso machine doing a second brew through the same pot as before, a more mellow, lighter and still pleasant coffee flavor. Forget the vanilla and the latte and consider it a nice, fairly good coffee ale.

Dogfish Head/Birreria Brothers Birra Etrusca Bronze (2013) RATING: 4.5 Milton, Delaware 8.5% is the beginning of this odd, ancient formula that utilizes ancient wheat, hazelnut flower, myrrh, honey, raisins, pomegranate juice, gentian root, and pomegranates. Whatever! And how is this different from Bud Light Gentian Root Lager? Oh. That won't exist until 2072? Okay then. This collaborative ale also involved the work of archeologist Dr. Patrick McGovern whose research helped make it authentically ancient in Etruscan trim. It is fermented in bronze, a material used back in the day. Pour is rich amber-gold, the head mid-high and light tan. All the odd ingredients conspire to make a fairly drinkable even if utterly unique, fruit-herby ale that gives some pleasure. It would be an acquired taste and I suspect the old stuff might have been made much sweeter as we know old beers were often like liquid sweet breads, storing calories in a fermenting, non-perishable manner for long journals or longer winters. I had no problems drinking the entire small bomber in one session but not everyone liked it enough for more than a glass. The symphony of unfamiliar ale ingredients comes off fairly like a Belgian single or double for some of the notes mimic coriander and yeast spicing. This is not going to knock Bud off any sales chart but neither should it. After all, Gentian root is not exactly grown by the thousands of acres anywhere I know. For what it is, a totally curious, blast-from-the- way-past, Etruscan charmer with fun flavors, it succeeds to a degree we had not expected.

Dogfish Head Midas Touch Handcrafted Ancient Ale RATING: 4.0 Milton, Delaware Dogfish makes some very fine, curious beers, a few dogs, but most are respectable hits. This formula is very different for it's made with barley, honey, white muscat grapes, and saffron. Say what!!! This 9% ABV selection is colored like any golden ale, no strong nose, and slow lace. One does not get the grape clarity as with the SA Longshot Grape Pale Ale but yet you known something is there. I've loved saffron as a flower and cooking ingredient since childhood and I must say that it's contribution is fairly slight (perhaps a good choice) and only is detectable after drenching the tonque with a full bottle or two. You certainly would not guess grapes or saffron even if you life depended on it in some sadistic game of beer tasting and analysis to the death. It's okay, differentish, not great nor memorable, no way near worth the $3.49 a small bottle that Whole Foods inflicted on the research budget.

Dogfish Head Pennsylvania Tuxedo Ale Brewed with Pennsylvania Spruce Tips RATING: 5.0 Milton, Delaware Being a potent 8.5% ABV this ale is already nippy and tangy. Then they spruced it up - literally. Adding bits of conifer is a century's old tradition in Europe and that was their way of adding a nice resinous, coniferous, or pine note before we had hops to do this. The "Pennsylvania tuxedo" is a tribute to the "fannel-suited hunters and gatherers who dwell deep in the backcountry of North-central PA". It's pretty much a red and black plaid one-piece suit, perhaps with matching hat and earlaps. The pour is a deep amber under a creamy, variably-textured head of some duration. There is just the right of amount of light sweetness to tamp down the spruce nip but it's fairly dry to semi-dry in the finish. It's nippy and zippy from the very start, far more than an IPA but far more complex, fascinating, and deep than a simple resinous hop dose. Being a curious kid, we lads used to smoke home-made cigarettes made from the local arborvitae and spruce in New York - so this flavor is very familiar to me. I once was so desperate I used paper from the back of my fancy Holy Bible I got for Christmas. No telling what all those chemicals did to us but at least one of us survived to write 3200 beer reviews. Maybe this is the product of brain damage after all. I really love this beer not only for reasons of it's sentimental call to my own history but for the unique and very sophisticated flavorings that immediately appeal and draw you in. Panelists said "this is proof that hop varietals are not the best way to resinous, coniferous flavors...and not by a mile or two" and "what a special thing!...informative and brilliant though a new take on an old concept of adding bits of trees to one's ale". This label could have been a purely novelty formula but with Dogdish Head in the head role, it was going to be stellar, refined, and suitable for very experienced, very demanding ale drinkers. It is. Grab it while you can.

Classification: this fits CONA (Conifer Tip Ale) in the new Hatch's Classification of Beer system.

Note: By the way, before you add any tree or shrub or flower to your home brew batch do make sure it's not toxic or slightly annoying to our human interiors. Lots of plants when raw or cooked or boiled change their chemistry from bad to good and equally so from good to bad. I can think of one common species when boiled that goes from a pleasant nip to full blown cyanoide production. It will knock a thousand pound cow on it's ass prior to excruciating death. Please boil plants with care.

Dogfish Head Sudden Comfy Imperial Cream Ale Brewed With Apple Juice, Cinnamon, Allspice, and Vanilla Beans RATING: 4.5 MIlton, Delaware If this eight percenter with 20 IBU doesn't sound like a comfy recipe for a chilled apple pie then what does? Not finding it on their 2020 calendar we dug some and found it was an October to December 2019 release as a first time offering. It arrived in central North Carolina in March 2020 and not sold before. The cinnamon is from Saigon and the vanilla from Madagascar. The pour is a faintly cloudly dark gold with amber highlights, the head a yellowish-cream, tall at first, diversely bubbled (some very large), so rocky in a few. It will appear a pale amber in a dark room. First sip is immediately spicy and much more so than anyone's granny's apple pie. Sweet fruit of apple persuasion comes out by middle passage as your first mortar shell of spices dies down some and the allspice-cinnamon smoke clears. The cream base does not matter much as all these additions will drown out most of it's malts. There are some background malts still but not typical of the subtle cream style in general. As for the "liquid apple pie" theme it's pretty darn true and near perfect in that phase of the simulation. Of course what makes a truly homemade,fresh apply pie so wonderful are the diverse flavors of the crust, the crunch of carmelized sugar and apple bits, more apple chemistry than pasteurized/heated juice can provide, and earthy pastry notes. But we can't expect everything in a bottle form can we? Our panel loved it and found it appealing even if the spicing was a tad obnoxious at times - not bad - just over the top.

Dogfish Head Theobroma RATING: 4.5 Milton, Delaware The dark, subtle Mayan sun-clock on the label features a sort of big-eyed princess, apparently munching something from a bowl. It's cute and sort of like Polly Pocket as an ancient deity. These Dogfish folks are getting famous for artful liquids and artful labels and we can use much more of both. To say this ale is flavored is an understatement. Ancho chillies, ground annetto, and honey compliment the main ingredient - Theobroma. Make that Theobroma cacao. Think Godiva, Swiss Miss, and Ghirardelli and maybe that sweet town in Pennsylvania full of factories and ferris wheels. This 9.4% beverage present itself in dark gold with an ivory head. Lace is endless. When was the last time a beer flavored with chocolate and named for such was less than a dark brown? Is this a white chocolate thing or something new called liquid golden chocolate?

Remember that Dogfish markets themselves as "off-centered ales for off-centered people" and has their typesetter going nuts raising letters up and down on that sentence. Askinosie cocoa nibs and cocoa powder are added to the recipe along with the forementioned peppers, annetto, and honey. At first and second note points, I get something very rich and deep, especially for such a golden ale. The depth of the faint cocoa replaces traditinal, darkening malt in one sense. The finish intensifies (especially after 4-5 sips) to reveal the ancho addition. After most of the bottle, the ancho faded to a minor flavor and let new things happen - all very, very good. Iron Chef Bobby Flay would have made this for the GABF; though probably with deep-fried drinking straw formed from a tube of chives and lemon grass foam. The Chairman checks his purple satin pocket square and smiles-nods in approval.

Theobroma means "food of the gods" and it was once reserved for offerings to unseen gods, human royalty, and the wealthy at one time. There was no Snickers machine for the working man in those days nor could such a sweaty fellow buy his lady fine Lindt truffles at the gas station on the way home from work! I like this beer and it provided me and friends with endless opportunities for productive discussions. It is not a cocoa-rich beer but is in fact one which uses those rich, dark flavors to replace malt to some extent. Mixing chilies and chocolate actually predates it's blending with nuts, coconut, peanut butter, and even milk. This is a fine product, not as cocoa-laden as it might be but a good step in the right direction. How 'bout an Imperial Theobroma?!?!

Dogfish Head Aprihop RATING: 5.0 Milton, Delaware Once you remove the lovely copper-coated cap, the bright golden-amber product comes up with a thin ivory head and no lace to speak of. Having tried and hated dozens of fruit ales, one is immediately impressed with the fact that this one is based on a potent IPA, ie. very hoppy ale. There is no generic, formulaic, sweet ale trash that was "fruited up" with some frozen juice from a restaurant supply company. No, here one gets "real apricots" and a flavor that confirms it from first sip to loving last. It goes from apricot tartness in mid-presentation to a rather less fruity, solid finish, hops jumping about throughout but having no solo of it's own really. Apricot and it is surely real is truly the star and rich bitter hops the very superb choral background to use a theatre or opera analogy. It is not apricot with nothing. It is apricot plus hops more than hops tarted up with apricot. This approach and sincere approach works and works very well. A lesser brewery might not have pulled this philosophy off. Howls all around for dogfish - or should that be a tip of the dorsal fin.

Dogfish Head Chateau Jiahu RATING: 5.0 Milton, Delaware Name me an ale brewed with grape concentrate and hawthorn fruit and you'd pretty much better name this one. "9000 year old Chateau Jiahu stands apart as the most ancient, chemically-arrested alcoholic beverage in the world". Microanalysis of old Chinese (Jiahu) pottery in the Yellow River region determined that a recipe with rice flakes, honey, muscat grapes, barley malt, chrysanthemum flowers, and hawthorn fruit was in order. Dogfish Head is not only making some unusual recipes but some very impressive and supremely memorable ones too. The pale-skinned Chinese lady with a bare back on the label is impressive and memorable - more fine art from this firm - art equal to winemakers and then some! When was the last time your brewer consulted a Ph.D. archeologist before developing a production model and marketing plan?

This eccentric nectar pours in dark gold, shaded to amber, the head near white but thinnish for me. The nose is frankly that of over-sweetened, bubblegum-laden crap beer. Sorry but true. But the first sip loads you with dozens of things - explosive diversity like a Celestial Seasonings label - tartness proceeds to rich malts as wide and deep as China from New York. There are complex fruit esters, some sweet, others less so, and this explains the superficial "bubblegum" note in the aroma. There are bananas with honey, grapey malt, floral musk, mums with apricot, faint ginger spice with healing roasted barley, light Belgian Saison, and anything with everything. Some reviewers felt this more of an alcoholic herbal tea which any of us might create with a bag of something and a splash of Grey Goose. It's too potpourri for many traditionalists but I for one like it and apparently people in China must have. Forget about the Chicoms and remember the rich glory of that land when people were free and culture free to run. It seems we may have lost some of beer's diverse, botanical charm by insisting on the Teutonic Holy Four and narrowing our options for these last few centuries in North America. It so often takes an Asian influence to make us Euro-Americans free to appreciate new- ancient wonders. This recipe is peculiarly novel, exciting and singular, and at the same time as radical as it is historical. Sound but unsound, something new and yet something quite old. Two criticisms that might hold sway with you or yours: 1) the lack of overpowering hops offends some who insist all beers must have this aspect and 2) excessive sweetness. Regardless, Chateau Jiahu informs us about history, not our chosen history but REAL HISTORY and does so with uncomprising, vivid flair. I frankly hope more Ph.D.'s inflluence brews in the future and I surely wish Dogfish Head to be making them.

Dogfish Head Noble Rot Ale Brewed with Grape Must and with Grape Must Added RATING: 4.0 Milton, Delaware This is not technically a beer x wine hybrid because the grape juice is not yet fermented. "Must" is a very fresh, high-solid juice, not filtered nor pasteurized, and usually made from pulp, seeds, skin, and even some grape stems. ABV is 9% and the pour is pale yuellow, the lacer slow but long, the head cream and thin after a minute. Alexandria Nichole Cellars helped them with the grape must thing and the label calls this a "sort saison" style. First is light, juicy, quicking turning into a sour Siason style with white grape flavors but the semi-dry finish. The must is "botrytis-infected Viognier grape" which is good kind of fungal infection on a white cultivar proven since Roman times. "Must" as in musty like the old pair of swim trunks you forgot about and left in the trunk for a week in July. Hence the name Noble Rot. This formula is very tart at times, sour at others, and overall a fairly successful blend of fruit juice and golden ale. This ale is likable, more of a creative exercise than a really sessional pleaser. The final word is not out on grapes mixed with ale or wine-2-beer blends. Perhaps they might be avoided altogether but one has hops...Imeans hopes given this recipe's promise and the decent product that is the Widmer Lemongrass.

Dogfish Head Urkontinent Ale RATING: 4.0 Milton, Delaware This is one of the strangest looking labels you will ever see on any product. Looks like a sci-fi writer was trying to write an aesthetioc ransom note. But then is no conventional ale. It is brewed and flavored with wattle seed (fruit of Australian Acacia trees), amaranth (a seedy grain), rooibos (South African plant also known as red tea), Myrica gale (Latin name for the shrub bog myrtle or sweet gale), and something odd called honey. The sweet gale is an abortifacient not recommended for pregnant ladies but we presume they have not used very much of it. This 8% curiously augmented ale pour dark reddish-brown with a positively dark tan head of medium duration. As an "off-centered for off- centered people" (boy, did they send that up our alley!) the very malty infrastructure is broadly in the Belgian dark style. The spicing is clearly different and creative. It is more different and creative than brilliant - more of another route to decent, fine spicing but nothing to praise as a breakthrough. Panelists here noted "just another novelty to me...very drinkable...heard it was made in Dullaware" and alternatively "a refreshing change of pace...DFH is always pushing the frontier and going so far outside the box I need a telescope...you need long sipping time to get everything out of each ingredient". Yes, you can't evaluate this one quickly or without reading a bit about each herbal item to know what you are looking for - unless you were raised on wattles, myrtle porridge, and red tea. Overall, it is more of a clevor idea and while not bad it is scarcely more than good. For $11.99 for a medium bomber (May 2012) I'd think twice before making the investment unless you are a try-every- known ale drinker. That said, it makes a curious addition to a beer tasting party for not even your most educated foodie, snob friends will get the ingredients right. Spring it upon them (give no clues or research time) and watch them squirm for their low Ale-Q score.

Dogfish Head/Dan The Automator Positive Contact Ale RATING: 4.0 Milton, Delaware Now that we beer-wine hybrids, it seems there is going to be a rush to beer-cider hybrids; especially where golden ales and ciders can share similar spicing. This 9% product is based on an ale blended to Fuji apple cidar, slow-roasted farro (sugar), cayenne, and fresh cilantro. Okay then, maybe it's then a beer-cider-salad hybrid. The pour is lightish yellow, lace small but long, the head near white. Giving the Fuji apple addition, this ale has something of a farmhouse or saison-quality and the spicing adds to that Belgian taste and feel. We have undertaken a number of beer-cider blends on our own so this is no our first barley-apple rodeo. It is a very pleasant formula and with added sips you get more of the faint cayenne spice. The cilantro might as well pass for general spicy-veg notes. It is by no means salsa-like in the least and we have tried both apple and peach salsa before. Reviewers here noted "curious and fun...I was getting bored and found this intriguing but not world-changing as a whole...nippy and reserved...a nice trend" and "CIDERALES in the future must be very crisp and spectacular because any fool can blend a very good microbrewed ale with an elite Brit cider...and get something very, very nice". The cidarale future is before us and Dogfish Head is giving us an early benchmark to lay out and measure.

Edmund's Oast Cereal for Dinner "Edmond's Oats" Blonde Ale Brewed with Almonds, Vanilla, Lactose, and Coconut RATING: 4.5 Charleston, South Carolina There are numerous "breakfast stouts" which simulate a liquid flavored coffee, donut, or even an entire plate including pancakes and bacon. There are more and more cooke-themes, cake-themed, and breakfast cereal-themed ales of late and this is a new one to us. This five percenter pours a moderately cloudy medium yellow that in a darkish room has some dark gold and amber hints. Under LED light it's a much brighter, lighter thing. The head is pale cream, short, very bubbly in many sizes, rocky but low. First sip is strange and curious but pleasant, a mix of vanilla, grains (presumably oats), and a big more than eventually develops into a good, solid, realistic grade of coconut. Not many beers get coconut right but these folks do here. Being a blonde, golden ale base it's not overly malty and something of a light, Cheerios® type approach to pleasant flavors without too much sugar. You can almost believe this as golden breakfast cereal with an oat theme. I searching for almonds and thinks I found a note or two here and there. Almonds being subtle are very hard to do in beers and that is why hazelnut extracts are more popular. The oaty-coconuty base of this recipe works and of course any baked product in the last two centuries must have some vanilla in it for depth and brightness. The lactose makes it more semi-sweet and mellow but cannot convey a dairy, milk theme - not should it in this context. I've made a pledge this year to be more tolerant of things around me and I'm starting with improved lactose tolerance. (bad joke sorry but you probably will repeat it). This is a very creative, truly inventure, and yes, very unique recipe. We really like it and think it could be developed further.

Edmund's Oast Lord Proprietor's Mild English Style Mild Ale Brewed with Charleston Black Tea RATING: 4.5 Charleston, South Carolina This 3.5 percenter pours a dark but translucent brown under a mid-sized tan head of little duration and very fine textures. In colonial British times a Lord Proprietor was given a charter to establish a colony of his own ruling and was not as the name might imply merely a seller of goods. He was probably a seller of everything including land, guns, and your very life. The Carolinas for example had eight such men, some of whom gave their names to counties and places such as Craven, Carteret, Colleton, and Albemarle. Sir George Carteret thought one of his patches reminded him so much of back home he named it New Jersey. Some of Carteret's West Jersey land was sold upon his death to a man named William Penn and you may easily guess what that wooded, sylvan land is called today. Anywho...this beer on first sip is faintly malted like a true English Mild and by mid passage the rich black tea notes develeop but make it smoother, far deeper, and more elaborate on the tonque. A mild is good with subtle sauces and goods you don't want to get overwhelmed by a stronger hoppy or malty ale. This is a very pleasant, refreshing beverage even if fairly simple and direct. I would like to see more mild, flavored or not, in the US craft industry. They will serve us very well.

Elysian SuperFuzz Blood Orange Pale Ale RATING: 4.0 Seattle, Washington/Tempe, Arizona The pour is a slightly hazy amber-gold under a white, lasting head of limited height. It is surprising light for a blood orange infusion as that fruit's pigments often make a brew quite amber-orange or pinkish-gold. The 6.2% ABV is a welcome thing we noticed right away. IBU are at 45. Names of beer are sometimes odd as this would be a better name for a peach ale, that fruit been truly fuzzy and ale...er...all. There doesn't appear to be any connection between this product and the Italian-American movie Super Fuzz - the guys look as different as can be. One of our panelists finally figured it out. The sunglass-bearing gentleman on the cover with a massive psychedelic, filigreed afro looks a might piece like one Mr. Jimi Hendrix. Of course Elysian never says so and could not for numerous legal reasons. Hendrix was famous for use of the fuzz distortion pedal with his magical guitar; a product today sold as Fuzz Face and Super Fuzz amongst other brands. Once again, a curious name choice because a grape or blackberry ale would have some purple haze going on.

First sip is confirms real orange juice, almost breakfast type and quite genuine. That probably comes more from the added orange peel than the blood orange juice added later in the fermenter. The mid to late passages quickly bring in some rich malts and dryish hops which run roughshod over the juice notes more than they should. The finish becomes there a muddle of bitter hops and tart fruit, not always harmonious or crisp. Hops are German Northern Brewer, Cascade, Citra, and Amarillo - the later two in the finishing position. Malts are pale, DextraPils, and Munich. We found the last pour to be stronger and more interesting, being so loaded full of floating yeast it looked like a HazMat scene but in a good way. It was apprecably more orangey but those strong supporting flavors just interrupted and overpowered in a way we'd like to see dialed back.

Epic Sour Apple Saison Belgian-style Ale RATING: 4.0 Salt Lake City, Utah Imagine a vat of brew that accidentally had an extra barrel of pie spice added. What to do? Add apple flavors and call it an Apple Saison. This is by far the most spicy ale, Belgianoid or otherwise, in our known world - and our panel goes a good 2000 labels deep. The initial effect is shocking but one later gets used to the effect of granny overspicing the Granny Smith apple pie again this ear. The pour is absolutely pale yellow, the lace decent, and the head very near pristine white. Just 1800 bottles of this label (or is it just Release #6) were made so not every spice girl and guy are going to get this experience. Still it is delicious even if not a very sour in either saison or apple terms. Nor is it intense and layered in the Belgian style. Pleasant, curious and fun, occasionally too intense, and well worth seeking out.

Epic Brainless on Peaches (Exponential Series) RATING: 4.0 Salt Lake City, Utah The 10.5% ABV is enough to make one temporarily brainless or at least deprived of the former brain cell count. It is very pale yellow, Belgianoid in theme, hazy, and with a mid cream head. Nose is acidic. French oak barrels lend to the flavor improvements which are very evident after two glasses. First notes are tart with no peach, later unfolding to a bitter, dry peach layer. Peach is fuller with more sips but surprisingly it is never sweet at any point. The finishing notes can be "rather harsh" as one reviewer here gasped and nearly all of us thought the fruit was poorly integrated into the basic brew formula. Firestone-Walker Old Man Hattan Cocktail-inspired Blended Ale (2019) RATING: 5.0 Paso Robles, California This is clearly inspired by the Manhattan, a drink aside from bitters and it's liquors is mainly flavored with cherries and orange. Hold our horses. The "Old" in the name actually implies it is a cross of the The Manhattan and the Old Fashioned. Good thing for websites. The Old Fashioned tends to be sweet, a different liquor mix, also cherries, and a more strong bourbon flavor. This recipe is 9.5% with 30 IBU and made with British ale yeast and thereafter bourbon-barrel aged. It's one of those boxed offerings going for $10.99 in late 2019. The pour is dark brown, opaque surely, and the head fine- textured, short-lived to lightly persistant (experiences varied), light to medium tan. First sip is surprising bright in fruits and while nicely malted definately not in the porter or stout familiar of dark brews with flavors. It is blend of "five notable" ales including select lots of their Parabola and Helldorado. This is then aged in barrels with aromatic bitters, cherry, and orange. It was originally to be a brewery-only Black Friday special but became so popular it is now bottles and sold all the way to the East Coast. Considering this would make up a $66 sixpack before taxes, the standards have to be very lofty here. I found it very refreshing and as another panelist stated "one of the better fruited ales with superior complexity and an aura of the highest quality". The blending of notable, noble ales is a key to this being spectacular for us. Then came the three things they added to the barrels, not just fruit but bitters too as both cocktails require. Then they kept the ABV high enough to be interesting but low enough to make it velvety and very highly drinkable. This would be much worse in stout or high ABV form I am certain. Everyone is going imperial stout this or that and some of the stuff would be far better in a lower ABV brown ale format. One panelist gave it a 4.5 (math winning out towards the 5.0 mean) because he got some odd celery notes now and again. I did too but but those down to the bitters and slightly vegetal nature of a few notes which fit in well enough with the true fruit. Admittedly the cherry chould be a little brighter but they went malty ale and restrained and I cannot fault that. This is a real find on the East Coast and worth grabbing while ye can! Many of their other boxed specials are sold out in my area so it should not be past up on first sight.

First Coast Mango RATING: 3.5 Wilmington, North Carolina/Fernandina Beach, Florida First Coast has named their beers Mango, Beach, and Bikini. They are hung from their lids and sold three to a pack costing around $3.50. Mango is made with ale naturally flavored with mango flavor. The packaging is bright, festive, and very tropical. The two places where it is made know something about partying anyhow. The color is medium yellow with a lasting near white head. The scent is of fruit juice. The flavor is fruity and much to our collective surprise - very dry! The underlying ale seems to be okay though modest in flavor. Some reviewers complained it was a little bitter at times - and not the hops kind we adore. It does have a substantial quality and unique flavor to it but is very hard to rate. There is something about it worth studying.

Flying Dog Dead Rise Old Bay Summer Ale RATING: 4.5 Frederick, Maryland Now Frederick Maryland is a good place to get seafood with Old Bay® seasoning is amongst the best and most famous. Putting in an a golden ale with lemon is not the usual offering. No doubt it pairs with a dish using the same seasoning. The "dead rise" refers to a specialty boat crafted for the unique waterways of the Chesapeake region. The pour is mostly clear medium yellow to light gold under a lasting, near white, lowish head. The nose is very fruity. First sip is a relief for we expected maybe an overwhelming spicing like a chili beer. The early flavors are quite fruity and the lemon is very wonderful and overt. It is semi-sweet, overall a lemony golden ale. As the bottle increases you get a slight hint of spice but you'd never guess it was a culinary spice so moderate is the approach. This 5.6 percenter would no doubt go well with a blue crab meal. Heck, I'd drink any beer with such a precious feast.

Flying Dog Tikikeaks Mai Tai Blonde Ale RATING: 4.5 Frederick, Maryland Ordinarily fruity blonde ales are about as shallow as a bikini-clad blonde beach bunny. And by shallow I don't refer to her...nevermind. This one starts off with a goodly 7.8% ABV instead of the usual 4.7% or something close. The recipe is curious too with only oats in the malt bill and just Galaxy in the hops dosing. Pineapple, tangerine, lime juice, hibiscus flowers, and lactose come in to play. The pour is a fairly clear amber-gold rich golden-amber with lots of lace. I had expected it to be more red with the hibiscus flowers. Maybe they used yellow ones and not red. The had is lasting, low, mixed textures, and cream in tone. First sip is quite sweet and loaded full of the forementioned fruits, pineapple being the most dominant. Tangerine and pineapple always pair well in my opinion. The lime gives it a shade of tartness and no doubt the oats and lactose give it the lasting smooth appeal. You could really consume 6-8 of those while sitting on some beach watching the...nevermind. They might have made this some hazy NEIPA but resisted and made it more clean, distinct, lucid, and pomologically pristine. I like that....pomologically pristine. This is a good entry in the fruited ale world for it has great substance, true fruit flavors, and is very velvety without being too sweet.

Flying Machine Dreamy Eyes Tangerine Cream Ale RATING: 4.0 Wilmington, North Carolina This 5.1 percent uses tangerine and vanilla beans to give what is pictured an orange CREAMSICLE®, a product which is trademarked and thus not available for free use on a beer. The pour is a hazy yellow bordering on gold with a short-lived but very noisy off white head. First sip is quite mellow and creamy, not tart as expected. Tangerine kicks in a genuine way by middle passage but it's not overwhelming and sometimes a bit reserved towards the finish. There are sharp, tart notes but they are quickly extinguished in favor of a dry but smooth ale approach. It's vastly inferior to Stone's Tangerine IPA even without the hops punch and one cannot really marvel at the fruit note except for quality - not quantity or depth. It's nice very cold but nice is not great in our book.

Founders Curmudgeon's Better Half Old Ale Brewed with Molasses and Aged in Maple Syrup Bourbon Barrels RATING: 5.0 Comstock, Michigan You have to read the website or study the bottle with a magnifying lens (we old farts had to) to see the word Curmudgeon as it's a much tinier font. It was annnounced August 2018 but did not make it to our area in NC until two years later. It had been made until 2012 but there was a gap of six years or so. Now again. Having loved their KBS variants, this was a must purchse without doubt. It registers at 12.7% ABV (no small value) and 35 IBU. To be clear, the bourbon barrels held maple syrup in their previous role and not from Founders' operation. That is where the molasses comes in and takes over. The pour is a mostly clear, dark brownish-amber (more brown in a dark room), showing nice copper glints all around. The head is tan-cream, short, short-lived and of mostly fine to medium textures. First sip is rich and full of both molasses and maple syrup, more the former because of it's more recent influence. The supportive sweet malts (and this is a very sweet beert) are stunning, just heavenly, and go on forever. I regularly make lattes with molasses so the quality of this flavor is something I am well suited to judge. Molasses are not found in some modern grocery stores and when you can get it there often a very harsh blacker version on offer. Young folks know little of it. Even pecan pie today is often made without molasses and using some crap dark corn syrup instead. This sweet old ale is a liquid dessert of the highest, finest kind, a masterful mix of sugars and malts that blend to rich, lusciuous perfection. I would have trouble consuming more than one at a session for all it's rich nature. A flawless and robust treat, superfially simple and direct but expertly crafted and that attention to the bourbon barrels makes it even the better.

Founders Mas Agave Imperial Gose Style Ale with Grapefruit Aged in Tequila Barrels RATING: 4.5 Grand Rapids, Michigan Having loved the lime version of this Mas Agave line, the grapefruit version was an immediate must try. The pour of this 9.7 percenter (a shade weaker than the lime) is bright, light copper-amber that is smashing in any type of glassware. The head is cream, fairly rich in tone, short-lived. First sip is slight tart but soon come a host of sweet, barrel notes that smooth it out and make it warm and even more delightful. Their goal was the cocktail known as Paloma, combining tequila, lime, and grapefruit. The flavors are very dense, the alcohol there but retreating when it should, and overall there is sticky, thick, dense mouthfeel that is not so gose-like to us. This is a super drink, more potent than refreshing and more powerful than a summer citrus refresher. It is produced in May as is the lime version and summer is had in mind. It did get one 5.0 score but for some of us it as bit too heavy-handed or densely flavorful to actually please as much as the lime did. Still a very fine citrus brew and it may be perfect for you. Founders Mas Agave Imperial Lime Gose Style Ale Brewed with Agave Aged in Tequila Barrels RATING: 5.0, BEST TEQUILA LIME BEER EVER Grand Rapids, Michigan "A party in a bottle". They really love their cocktails and wanted an ale just as good but of course not so alcoholic. This one weighs in at 10% and that is perhaps what some shady bars deliver Margareta- wise. The pour is a medium amber-copper with loads of ongoing lace, a creamy head, short, and not enduring too long. The nose is lime, more lime, and yet more malty lime. First sip is almost like one of those cocktails-in-a-can in a good way. It's semi-sweet, full of lime, agave flavored too, and then more...tequila barrel character depth not canned or boxed cocktail is going to provide unless it cost a small fortune for good Tequila. It was a "wow" for me from sip one and I'm not a big tequila or margarita fan either. There is depth, deepness, and cavernous downwardness here. Okay, the sweet lime is an easy thing to like but the tequila wood and agave notes with good hopping and fine background malts make this a very serious, highly sumptuous, and massively engaging ale. It's intense at times, gloriously casual and mild at other times, and overall a truly lovable thing. It has the wow heading towards super wow.

Founders Underground Mountain Brown Imperial Brown Ale Brewed with Sumatra Coffees, Aged in Bourbon Barrels 2019 (Barrel-Aged Series) RATING: 4.5 Grand Rapids, Michigan At 11.9% with 30 IBU this is no simple nor thin creation and is in fact aged a year in "caves below Grand Rapids". Play their website video as this place looked like a French wine cellar and is massive. The first time I had "earthy" Sumatra coffee a friend told me that is clever talk for saying "it tastes like dirt". I have come to like that harsher, raw type of Sumatran coffee and it's one I need to sugar and cream up to make it finer. The pour is a dark brown with some rays of red coming out under LED pressure, the head a light-medium tan, lasting, very rocky in a few minutes. The nose is whisky with ale malt. First sip is class barrel-aged and uber malty but a notch or two down from the bourbon- influenced stouts on the market. The coffee comes up quickly and is shadowy, thick, murky, sometimes a good bitter. This one is gloomy one second and bright from the brown ale base at another, something like a porter and barrel-aged stout trading cannon fire note for note. The finish is sweetish but occasionally a bit dry. You get tart coffee, then dank coffee, then a malty mix, and then a bright brown ale passage in the course of little time and sometimes them all harmonizing very well. You can pick out brilliant notes and then they disappear into a wonderful dark soup that is everything all at once.

Freehouse Folly's Pride Blonde Ale Brewed with Grapefruit Peel RATING: 3.0 North Charleston, South Carolina Certified organic by the USDA and Clemson University. This 4.8 percenter pours a hazy light yellow, almost like freshly squeezed grapefruit juice itself. The head is massive, white, very rocky, and actually out of control. It has a light citrus flavor but it's actually a strange brew with odd notes were cannot fully explain. One panelist felt it was overly malted, weakly hopped, and these malts do suit the peel very well. Whatever the cause, it does not work and comes out not as the summer refresher they planned but something really off and close to be bad. If one adds good peel to a fairly mediocre blonde ale, you're going to a slightly citrusy, fairly crapped blonde ale. One panelist felt it was a 4.0, slightly liking the overmalting, and the rest of us hated it.

Foothills Tangled Vine Berry Rose Ale RATING: 4.0 Winston-Salem, North Carolina The symbolism here is a bit confused. A lovely African girl is wrapped in vines with a hat like the berry-cherry version of Carmen Miranda. To be clear however one panelist pointed out the young lady is actually toned in brownish-lavender-gray and is well...perhaps of the berry race. The odd thing is that the added fruit, cranberry, tart cherry, and strawberry are not borne on vines - not one of them! Hops is but the leaf shape is no match and just generic. This 4.5 percenter is just 6 IBU and is very dry, tart, and well-carbonated in the amber-gold pour. The head is near white, very low, and fleeting. It is refreshing enough but we found the occasional discordant note when the hops, yeast, and fruit collided in slightly awkward ways. They make it yearround. Fort Collins New Planet 3R Raspberry Ale RATING: 4.0 Fort Collins, Colorado This gluten-free ale uses sorghum and corn extract with raspberry puree and orange peel. The pour is a curious melon-orange shade, not classic orange or amber, the head near white and vanishing fast. The nose is dark, some medicine, some malt, some thick esters. Lace is medium fierce. First is muddle of many of things, none too familiar, followed by dark berry notes (not bright or tart like many raspy ales), and a finish both weak-tart, and mellow grains. I do like a fine sorghum ale but one had better be informed of it's inclusion and value or this may come as an awkward surprise. This ale is fine for what is needed to be for the gluten-challenged and gluten-avoiding population. Panelists were not sure who wide a birth to give this approach as the approach is very much a medical issue. Does one dare compare sugar-free, chocolate lumps in a plastic bag for diabetics to hand-made treasures from one's local, seducing-like-Satan chocoletier? As a general market beer it's decent and dankly devoted to sorghum grain notes. As an alternative grain beer it's above many attempts to fruiten up the class. We are very mixed here and given an everchanging benchmark we have for gluten-free beer this one is not as good as some unfruited choices.

Founders Curmudgeon's Better Half Old Ale Brewed with Molasses and Aged in Maple Syrup Bourbon Barrels (2018 Release) RATING: 5.0 Grand Rapids, Michigan This 12.7 percenter with 35 IBU showed up on 3 January 2021 in my local wine shop with a bottling date of 8.28.2018! That's seems like a whole bunch of bottle aging if you ask me. The Better Half name describes their goal for a "harmonious matrimony". Before this 2018 bottling it was last made in 2012. In 2018 their SRP for a four-pack of 12's was $16.99 and in January 2021 is was going for $22.99 and available just after the FBS Mackinaw Fudge variant came out. The pour is a very dark copper under the golden-beige head of fine textures, quickly rocky, and last a minute or two. First sip is reminding us of a Wee Heavy and then the wallup of very densely sweet caramels, and later a bit of wood. There is certainly no deleterious effect of being 3.5 years in the bottle. Did we get free cellaring here? I suppose so. And that time does not include the barrel time either! This is a remarkable brew, half way to a barleywine though much paler than normal and as good as flavored up, wooded Wee Heavy as one might hope for. Panelists wrote "just remarkable...a true honor to have some to sip so long and with love...shared with my better half as well" and "deep, ultra sweet...the very best notes molasses and maple can provide a brew...deep and wonderful...better than FBS to me anyhow".

Founders 2011 Blushing Monk Belgian Style Ale RATING: 4.0 Grand Rapids, Michigan This pretty-in-pink 9.2% ale is based on a Belgian style but fermented with raspberries as a Lambic - yet different. The pink portion is actually the glowing head as the brew itself is an opaque violet-red like real fruit juice. It is slightly sweet, no Lambic sourness here, and I'm guessing they used one heck of alot of berries. I'm normally hard on and very critical of brews where the quality of the actual brewing cannot be determined for all the "natural flavors". But knowing something of this brewery and having consumed a full bottle, I consider them except for this scepticism. Surely there is no scrimping here in terms of real juice vs. flavorings. This monk is so dark red, he was either burnt to a crisp on the monastery roof or is about to have a full-blown coronary. Perhaps this is best classified as Lambic for Americans, not off-putting with tartness but still having genuine, very bright fruit flavors of the highest quality. There are background malts but you need many, many long sips to evaluate this in the way it deserves. Some tart notes occur but they are short spikes and never result in a rough finish. Nor it it ever a soda-sweet or any other kind of fructose bath. I would a bit less juice with malt turned up some. This is hard to judge and yet a somewhat unique product worthy of your opinion too.

Four Saints St. Luke Honey Ginger Pale Ale (Special Release) RATING: 4.5 Asheboro, North Carolina This 5.3 percenter with 41 IBU is a bit of a mystery. Their website lists the exact same name as 9.1% ABV and 62 IBU. Our was the canned, tamer stuff. The website lists their stronger version as based on their traditional English Pale Ale (pale malts, Kent Golding, British yeast) fortified with local honey and candied ginger and a small comparison to mead. It was dry-hopped with Kent Golding. They said they did not expect the "super spike" in ABV so perhaps it has be diluted for the mass, canned market. The pour is a light haze (more medium haze by the last pour) golden amber (hardly the website's 9.1% woody brown) with a yellowish-cream head of mixed texture, rocky in three, generally long-lived. The nose is strongly of ginger so the "aromatherapy quality" of the stronger stuff holds with the can too. First sip is fairly dry, light in ginger at first but that saturating by sips two and three, very much stronger by the end of the tall can. There is no candied honey or mead-quality in general and the dry-hopping does add some mellow, Old World hop notes with just a nano-particle of background bitterness. I guzzled it, nuzzled it, cuddled it, and sniffedit a dozen ways anf found the ginger always dry and devoid of honey though mellowly hopped. This is not a ginger to nip or bite (save two particularly unexpected claws at the end) but it remains sufficient and more with a well-judged moderation that suits the hop moderation and velvety touch very well. This is cultured and developed well but just short of our 5.0 "wow" requirement.

(Brasserie des) Franches-Montagnes RATING: 4.5 Jura, Switzerland Literally brewed in the Swiss mountains, this 6% unfiltered ale is pale yellow and as cloudy as a yeasty beer gets. It is also brewed with the herb sage - hence the placement in this section of the Reviews. Now, $6.99 for one 11.15 (not even an 11.2 ouncer!) bottle is a bit steep but this slightly tart ale is warmed and augmented only lightly by the culinary herb sage (Salvia officinalis) - it is not liquid crotons in other words. You might guess it was herbed at all if you think of it as a tart European golden ale in the first place - where stuff is added anyone and you just flow with their own local recipe. Even in this tiny bottle, one could probably strain out a quarter teaspoon of yeast particles if you tried - very densely cloudy on the last slow pout! It is pleasant beer if you things on the herbal-fruit tart side and occasionally I really, really enough that change of pace. It will not likely be your favorite brew but could be a popular "now for something completely different" presentation to friends and family.

Frederick Hempen Ale RATING: 4.0 Frederick, Maryland This medium amber-brown ale is brewed with hemp seeds (yes real Cannabis). The labels are bordered in green pointed pot leaves though they are considerably toned down - fogged out and not realistically pointed to be exact. I shocked a co-worker the day saying I bought a "bit of Cannabis" during my lunch hour. Eyebrows were raised until I produced the bar of peppermint-scented hemp oil soap that was on sale at Kroger! The brewers claim the additive adds a creamy head and an herbal flavor. No doubt sales are enhanced as well. Investigating that flavor one would be hard pressed to tell it from a good ordinary hops dose and indeed this might be compared to a lighter IPA. But are hemp seeds a worthy new ingredient to revolutionize the microbrew industry? Probably not. This may be regarded as mainly a novelty - though a very well made one at that. Frederick Robinson's/Unicorn: Robinson's Chocolate Old Tom Ale RATING: 4.5 Stockport, Cheshire, England The Ginger version of this ale as well as the regular or base ale are amazing, stunning even. This one takes the base and uses the product of master chocoletier Simon Dunn. The pour is brownish-amber, surprising pale and not portery in color at all. The dark cream head is rocky and lasting. The flavor at first is almost one of malt tea but the cocoa-fine notes appear soon and endure in a slightly vegetal- chocolate, dry finish. This is no sweet choco-ale nor should it be. There are some sweetish middle notes which I think keep the chocolate flavors in their proper, mellow place. It is not what an American microbrewery would do and in one regard that is a good thing. I have had chocolate tea of the black Camellia tea variety and this shares some traits with that. It is very pleasant but no one here found it as educational and thrilling as their other US offerings. We have had some world-transforming chocolate beers and most of them are porters and stouts. Frederick Robinson's/Unicorn: Robinson's Ginger Old Tom Ale with Ginger Root and Pear Juice RATING: 5.0, Award of Merit 2013 Stockport, Cheshire, England The neck label says "made with the World's Best Ale". With? Is it some kind of blend? This 6% fare pours a dark brownish-amber, more medium brown in pub-type lighting conditions. The head is middle-toned cream, lumpy, medium in size. The nose is highly aromatic and tempting, clearly like a ginger tea augmented with faint malts. The ginger nip is wonderful, sweetened enough to make it never bitter and always invigorating and zesty. Pear juice is a unique choice for fruit-sugaring but it works very well here. Old Tom is a legend among Brit ales and this is a lovely spin on that impressive, sophisticated theme. If you don't like ginger this could offend slightly but we found not one detractor here. Here is a superb, ideal example of ale flavored to make it interesting and supremely enjoyable without diminishing the excellence of the base ale notes. I have had many forms of ginger tea (which also have dark, tannin-loaded flavors) as well as ginger sodas. This is my favorite ginger-infused drink yet (January 2013) yet I must say potent Chinese ginger tea flavored with powdered honey is a close second if far less complex than this ale. Panelists "I am not ordinarly a fan of ginger drinks but this was a revelation...simply a perfect interaction of malt, pear, ginger, some plum, and lots of sweetness" and "wow, super wow, clearly an Award of Merit winner to me...absolutely top drawer without any doubt...brewing perfection....and most importantly an experience to be cherished and repeated". This is lofty accomplishment in expertly flavored ales and one not to be missed. Ginger heaven on the Cloud Nine level. Here is true brilliance and the apex of fruited ale execution.

Fullstream Apple ESB (Fearrington Seasonal) RATING: 4.5 Durham, North Carolina Made for this elite restaurant and resort (and shops and homes and funny banded cows) this dark amber-brown brew has a short but lasting head and light fruity nose. "Pressed heirloom apples" are used to augment this autumnal product in a 6% formulation. First sip is that of a mild with restrained tartness and light fruit. We were expecting a very overt flavor like 'Granny Smith' or green apple bitterness but instead got something a akin to a mild cider-ESB blend that is very smooth and rewarding. Most apple-infused ales go the green apple, super tart route and this does not and to a better end. From the color you can imagine the malts are substantial and reinforcing but dominate the delicate apple notes. At Fearrington one is apt to spend $200 a dinner for a couple and with lots of fancy dishes where you do not want your seasonal microbeer to overwhelm that kind of expenditure. I suspect this apple ESB will not put a damper of your smoked duck with blackberries and orange sherry. Nor would it impose on your grilled octopus with scallop tartare - and these are their real Fearrington offerings in August of 2016 lest you think I am going wild yet again with my hyperboles. Quail with peaches. True to reality once again and this beverage might just get you home in the S63 AMG without so much as a fuss or burp. Our panelists notes that "they resisted all the wrong impulses to make this too sweet, too tart, hopped up, or overpowering and by their restraint...they have succeeded very nicely" and "different...got my attention right away... you like it but I suspect in the context of the marketing program it's got to be subserviant to the chef's faire...we are getting so many fruit ales that pair with fine cuisine but you would not want to drink them on their own for more than 5 minutes...hard to rate."

Fullsteam Farm's Edge First Frost Foraged Persimmon Ale RATING: 4.5 Durham, North Carolina The choice of the name "first frost" is meaningful to anyone who has ever been on the wrong side of a persimmon fruit; usually a joke played by a devious or cruel uncle, grandpa, or former friend. If the fruit of the on-tree persimmon is not modified by a good frost or two, it is so insipidly bitter you almost beg for someone to kill you then and there. If you take a full bite, it stays with you for many painful minutes...while the aforementioned people laugh uncontrollably and thrash about at your expense...and it remains astringent and painful despite many spittings and pukings...and memorable the rest of your life. Properly prepared as jam, jelly, steamed pudding, or ale, the persimmon is a wonderful, complex fruit full of iron and manganese. The role of this fruit in old, wild American is clear. Just 100 grams provides 80% of your daily Vitamin C and that is God's good answer to illness along with rose hips and hawthorn berries in times before we had the bottled pills. Fortunately this lovely ale is never ugly but always sweet, never bitter, nectar-like in fact, and simply delightful in it copper-amber trim under a short, cream head. It is an amazing 12.4% of the good stuff. Abbey yeast and Belgian candied sugar celebrates this wonderful eastern US species so popular in the south. The tree is so cool it's bark looks like a freakin' black alligator with deeply ridged plates. It has some of the unique persimmon bite left in it and that may upset some tastes but I appreciate it for what it is intended to be. So might the Japanese where their persimmon species has a similar "fruit of the gods" order of respect. One reviewer among us wrote "this is a classic American micro at it's best...combining skilled brewing with an offbeat and worthy native fruit that is often overlooked in modern times...can a pawpaw porter or mulberry malt ale be far off?".

Gizmo Kolsch Me Outside Lavender Kosche Ale RATING: 4.5 Raleigh, North Carolina We were expecting something "curious but nasty" as one of our panelists said previously about a homebrew involving herbs and ale. Some of those Herbed Ales with basil and thyme can get odd in a hurry. And strangely enough, your brain almost tastes tomatoes for the frequent usual pairing in pasta or pizza. This is one of the best herbed ale we know and the lavender is laid down with prudence, moderation, and skill - in other words, nicely dosed. They employ organic French lavender in this light crisp, 5.1% recipe that pour light gold under a whitish head. They wanted "light floral" and got it not through hops but an actual, well known herb. That is wise thinking for sometimes herbs and real fruit are far more interesting than their hop-driven chemical versions. Hops can similar floral and fruit very well at times but not as richly or dramatically as the real thing. Herbed ales are going to get better and more enjoyable. Just watch...

Gizmo Maillard Reaction Imperial Brown Ale Brewed with Cinnamon, Vanilla, and Brown Sugar (Inventors Series) RATING: 3.0 Raleigh, North Carolina This 9.5% October 2016 release is a very dank, nearly opaque brown under light tan head of some duration and medium height. The Maillard reaction is the chemical interaction of amino acids and heated sugars that makes browned foods like meat, caramel candy, malted barley, toasted bread, fried onions, french fries, roasted coffee, and assorted other things taste...well tasty. Unfortunately this production is neither sweet, nor roasty toasty like a strong brown ale, porter, or stout could easily be and become. It is surprising ethanol-strong, hoppy bitter in the finish, and thin on malt complexity. The name and concept are lovely but this is not a great example of the "browning reaction" which might well have been a malted barley treat full of a caramel, roasted coffee notes, and other fine things. The brown sugar is there but somehow the vanilla and ethanol make it crudely bitter, "frankly odd" (as one reviewer noted), and not especially likable or really delicious. It is better near room temp but unlike most flavored brown ales not really pleasant at all very chilled or slightly cold. In this price you can't be curious and odd without being sumptuous and likable.

Great Divide Wild Raspberry Ale RATING: 4.0 Denver, Colorado Hundreds of pounds of red and black raspberries were used in each batch. The Dunns also remind us to 'insist on real fruit in your ale' - good advice in this age when even top brewhouse names are using 'natural flavorings'. The brew here is amber-red with a pinkish-cream head and the authentic scent of the real berry thing. It is truly Rubus flavored though some of us thought it was overdone - not a wine cooler this time but perhaps an 'ale smoothie'. Others were pleased with a mild tartness and some decent malt notes coming through. Even a few big burly guys admitted to liking it. Yet for those with a taste for a good berry lambic it does not exactly come home with the gold medals. A fine product - but do we need it? Green Flash Saison Diego Ale Brewed with Spices RATING: 2.5 San Diego, California This farmhouse ale was headed for Ale - Belgian - Golden, White, or Wit bin with it's Seville orange peel and grains of paradise. It was the Chinese ginger that got it here are some out of the basic Belgian realm. Color is hazy, pale yellow in the Belgian style, the lace scattered but lasting, the head frothy and near white. It is unfiltered from our view at Whole Foods it was a mess of pretty sediment from the start. The spicing turns out to be semi-authentic, very nice in some passages but hopelessly thin in others, a very mixed experience. The nip of ginger is somewhat apparent but this is hardly a ginger-citrus ale which do exist in clear intensity. The finish had some very off, metallic rough notes even though the bottles did not come to our Whole Foods until the current week. For $8.99 a small bomber is a bit of bargain but not much considering the sketchy quality. Panelists here remarked "does not live up to the fine sales pitch and ingredient list on the label...big time disappointment" and "a few choice fruit, faint spice, and lofty citrus notes but lots of other flavors get in the way and muddle it up". A muddled disappointment is about right though it is undrinkable.

Green Flash Tangerine Soul Style IPA RATING: 4.0 San Diego, California Here's a 6.5% with 75 IBU that pours an amber-gold under a very rocky, tall ivory head. There is some haze in the last pour. As a SoCal summer fresher it contains American malts with Citra and Cascade hops. They make it year round (as of 2017). It is not a heavy IPA but one as the name suggests more of a moderate tangerine and citrus-forward presentation designed to delight and not put on a hop "shock and awe" show for no real reason. The citrus flows and flows again and again and the finish is bitter with enough sweetness to mellow it nicely. It is not a wow IPA that is yummy, rare, or earth-shaking but on the mid to low strength approach it does tangerine very well. It is somewhat "mono-dimensional" and simple. That was flaw to us but maybe not for everyone.

Harpoon Grateful Harvest Cranberry Ale RATING: 4.5 Boston, Mass./Windsor, Vermont "This ale supports local foodbanks" via the Harpoon Helps. It also supports suds addiction in a very positive way. Brewed for the cranberry-friendly Thanksgiving table, we are also grateful for this rich,. 5.9% golden-amber brew. It carries a rocky, cream head of some persistence. Based on New England, use of this berry is both traditional and convenient. First sip is tart, not at all like Ocean Spray, then come the malts by mid passage, and finally mix of real fruit and mid-potent, complex malts, the finish both sweet and semi-dry. Any fool can splash some red stuff from a plastic jug in a malty amber ale. This is something brewed in and much better, even if not bitter-intense with the bog berry. The tartness is well-judged and I think suited to a hefty T-giving meal if not most any others in the next few months. My bottle came from Triangle Wine Company of Morrisville, NC in January 2013 and it was a delight. Panelists said "good flow from sweet to tart notes, real fruit is without doubt....the supporting malts are serious as with their other products...great experience even if not world- shattering" and "nice change-of-pace ale...I'm always a fan of fruit ales when the fruit is natural and the beer base (malt, hops, yeast) are still in the foreground...subtle and it should be that way....berry:malt balance is about right for me." Heather Alba Scots Pine Ale RATING: 4.5 Alloa, Scotland My grab at the beer market was based on a label not seen before but my usual joy at tasking another Scotch Ale. Wrong! It is from Scotland and an ale. This 11.2 oz (deductions!) bottle is 7.5% ABV (points replaced). It is based on an old Viking custom of using spruce and pine sprigs to flavor beverages including ales. This practice continued in Scotland until the late 19th century and now we have it again. Bruce Williams of Heather Ale makes this product in way done before by many others. Captain Cook is one famousname known to have used spruce ale as it handled long voyages. Their label proclaims "Scots Pine" (and it is not Scottish Pine either) and the curious Latin name of Pinus Alba. Being something of a conifer nut (two books and a Masters thesis so far), I knew that Pinus alba means nothing and that the noble Scots Pine is actually Pinus sylvestris and has been since Linneaus in 1753. Their point with Alba was unclear and there is no chance this is a white or wit ale from its' rich amber color. I lagter learned that Alba (Latin for white) is gaelic for Scotland. It pours luminous amber, slightly cloudy like a rich lemonade, strong lace at first, a medium to small head in cream. With the proclaimed additive it was expective "resinous hops" or "piney finish". Instead we get a very brilliant (in all meanings of this word) ale that is a revelation and revolution all in one. Wow, wow, and quad wow! I cannot place most of these flavor in traditional terms but find them all amazing. Berries are certainly there in bunches, malt on the foundation, very little hops as I know them, caramel sugar supporting, and lazy citrus too. Their is certainly complex coniferous chemistry in the works too but not in the bold nor overt way. I was something at a loss for another aspect of the flavor until I read duffextracold on the Beer Advocate: "smells way too much like red twizzlers [a fake licorice brand], with a hint of bitterness". He nailed it.

Then the finish. Sad that. The carbonation and a bit too much EtOH make things a bit of course and crazy strong. This stuff won a Gold at the 1998 World Beer Championship. It is complex and pleasantly sweet in a the style of a quality candy which needs not too much sugar to impress. One I genuinely admire and adore this approach, the whole "history revisited" concept, and the startling early flavors. The finish drives me crazy for a good thing is ruined. I'd redo it with more spicy charm and less fake fruit. It impresses but there's too much fake licorice fruit in the overall presentation.

Heist Hive Fives Hoppy American Blonde Ale Sweetened with Local Honey RATING: 4.0 Charlotte, North Carolina This 5.5 percenter carrying 25 IBU has a giant green honeybee on the label, her abdoment suspiciouly shaped and textured like a hop cluster. Got a problem with that? I'll sting your ass with lupulins and honey! The website is a tad confusing this American Blonde all of a sudden becomes a "Belgian Blonde". They link immediatley to Untapped, a fine site even if with lots of good comments and some pooled ignorance from anyone who can type from a keyboard. Not sure farming out your reviews and details to a third party is either smart nor good management though it's surely quick and expedient and millenial modern. The pour (and we actually tipped the can instead of a virtual digital simulation from some unnamed sticky bar) is a moderately to slight densely hazy medium gold under a large, ivory head of mixed textured, quickly rocky and very 3-D. First sip (and actual human tonques were employed) is slightly honeyed, not terribly sweet and a golden ale with more malt than expected. There is more quality bitterness (still moderate) than honey but the honey surely mellows it out some. A real "Belgian blonde" is akin to a Belgian Singel but the ABV here is a bit low - the IBU is spot on. The BB is low in hops but they are detectable and pleasant so here again we have a style that is hoppy against the true definition of the style. The light sweetness is BB true but they would only rarely if ever use honey. This is not a pure AIPA because there is a hint of Belgian fruit and perhaps estery yeast and spice - one can imagine anything these days with brewing being what it is. I'll guess they used a Belgian style yeast but no one is telling. There are nuances here and or panel it as more likely on the yeast than spice (coriander, clove) front.

Heretic Tangerine Tornado Blonde Ale with Tangerine RATING: 4.5 Fairfield, California "Never filtered. Never pasteurized. No shortcuts". The pour of this nine percenter with 18 IBU is a medium gold to medium yellow with lots of lace from the get go, the head small, off white, diverse in texture and clinging only to the rim in one. Initial pour was very fine of texture, medium in height for the head. Their goal is an orange creamsicle flavor with a bit of vanilla as we had in our childhood treat. First sip is rich in true tangerine, gaining strength and a very authentic flavor by mid passage but no vanilla at all, really. It is slightly sweet but sufficiently a bit tart in the finish to give it a citrus-forward punch. No hops can be this tangerine filled. It is best served very, very cold for full refreshing flavor as with most citrus-themes ales. It's surprising clearish for an unfiltered ale. The mouthfeel can be medium-high but that adds to it's rich persona throughout. Frankly I'd rather have a tangerine fruited ale than something dependent on hop citrus notes as these can be cheerier, richer, and more authentic for me if citrus is claimed. Great stuff.

Heavy Seas The Greater Pumpkin Ale Brewed with Pumpkin and Spices Aged in Bourbon Barrels (Unchartered Waters Series) RATING: 3.5 Baltimore, Maryland This 10 percenter pours as a hazy amber under a small, slightly durable near white head. Vanilla, oak, and "autumnal spice" are the theme here for the Halloween and weeks thereafter. They use English malts and actual pumpkin fruit in this process unlike some of the folks cutting corners out there - and we all know who/whom they are. "In the most worthy of pumplkin patches and during the silence of the midnight hour, the Great'er Pumpkin raises up and pours a rich deep and burnished ornage color". I guess they could not reference the Great Pumkpin of Peanuts and Linus fame. Bourbon, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, British crystal malt, and clove are mentioned on their website. On first sip the 10% ABV is apparent but not offending, the rich, quality spice is there (no mass market crap slurry here), and so is the fruit, true pumpkin and that is solid and believable too. As punkin' ales go this is one of the best though it comes a tad acidic and not as smooth as some of the pumpkin stouts and porters (also wood-aged) present themselves. "This is a very rich formula but yet I do not actually like it because it cannot sooth, session, nor calm me" wrote on of very experienced ale panelists. I agree. It thumps because it needs to be powerful, potent, and Greater. Maybe it should have glided over the patch with skill and grace and charmed us with smoother yet rich notes, seducing us more with charm than potency and danger. You want to meet and worship the Great Pumpkin in the narrative of Peanuts and not fear him. The Great Pumpkin is something of a metaphor of Christ returning (though some may deny this) and all this must in that analogy be a velvety smooth, pleasant, totally easy sort of snatch and grab towards heaven. This Great Pumpkin is a bit hostile, rough, ungodly, and crude while still having power and punch. One of our panelists wrote as fine summary here: "We don't need more potency...any fool can add more stuff to a tank...we need clear thinking to get us to a place where the brew is subtle in places and hammering in others...smooth...disciplined and clean...and most important of all we need to enjoy it". We don't need more potent pumpkin ales, spiced or otherwise, which in the final analysis must be consumed with a bit of dread and very little pleasure. It's better warm but nothing close to being fun.

Hivemind/Bhramari Bumblestick Nut Brown Ale with Toasted Cinnamon RATING: 3.5 Asheville, North Carolina This 5.5 percenter is made at Hivemind under the Bhramari label. The pour is very dark brown, nearly opaque and more porter-toned than classic brown ale. The head is light tan, short-lived and mostly fine of texture. First sip is moderately weak brown ale ("tastes watered down" said one panelist) but the cinnamon saves it (some) by middle passage and more dry by the finish. It does not seem to have much malt depth so we're thinking it was cut down a good bit and the cinnamon added to save the day. Just the guess of people with 100+ years of beer tasting, now. That background ale infrastructure is really quite weak and thin and unless this thin had all the bark in Borneo and half the peppermint oil from everywhere it was going to end up being thin and unsubstantial. Too bad they did not use a fuller nut brown ale base.

Hoppin' Frog Frosted Frog Christmas Ale RATING: 4.5 Akron, Ohio This 8.6% ale sold for $10.99 for a smallish 22oz. bottle, a rich hazy copper brew infused with lovely ruby tones. The head is mid-tan, rather dark, bubbly and short-lived. The infusion of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmet makes for a very festive, spicy ale; one loaded with sugar plums (yes, I've had them) and more clearly the flavor of something called mincemeat - the later spicing resemblance is very clean. Mincemeat is dominated by raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon, citrus, and brandy. Ignor reviews which speak non-sense of similarity to holiday fruit breads and rancid fruit cake. This is liquid mincemeat in the very finest sense of that aromatic, darkly fruity style. It is very unique and festive, not the basic holiday spicing that we get for October, halloween, and in pseudo-Belgian offerings around the last part of the year. This is very rich, sipping rich, and righteously strong.

Kid Notorious Apricot Ale RATING: 4.5 Waynesville, North Carolina The Smoky Mountain Brewery of Waynesville, North Carolina makes this unique and well-refined ale with apricots brewed in. Color is a cloudy, shall we say apricot shade of orange - redder than most amber ales. The head is surprisingly dark tan (give the fluid color), is small, but lasts. The carbonation is quite enthusiastic. Flavor is very natural and it reminds one of the very best type of berry ales; that is, the real fruit ones. Hops and malt seem well-balanced with the fruit; complementing but not overshadowing the apricot. Reviewers marked that 'even if FRUIT ALES are not your thing this one has appeal' and 'no lambic to be sure but very drinkable and well crafted...partial nectar qual- ity...big thumbs up'. This is truly a must try for its uniqueness AND character.

Kona Koka Brown Ale Brewed with Toasted Coconut (Aloha Series) RATING: 4.5 Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Yes and no. Those are the respective answers to "does the coconut add value to the flavor?" and "is this stuff brewed in Hawaii?" It is made quite a world away as noted above. It has a nice nutty, roasted appeal from the malts and the kernal of the famous palm does give it some interesting flavors on the order of a German chocolate cate but never so sweet. Great stuff and very enjoyable.

Lagunitas/Shorts West by Midwest Passion Grass Ale Brewed with Lemongrass and Passion Fruit RATING: 4.0 Petaluma, Michigan/Chicago, Illinois/Short's Brew in Belaire, Michigan This is a collab with Short's Brew of Belaire, Michigan and is of 4.6% potency with 54.2 IBU. Hops are Idaho 7 and Vic Secret which we could only know by playing their video. We had to look up Idaho 7 and found out it has a zesty orange, tangerine, marmalade, pine, and black tea contribution. While this is a product that may get you into some Victoria's Secret, the Austalian born VIC SECRET™ hop is known for being soft, pouting, demure, delicate, lacy...I mean...pineapple, pine, passion fruit, a bit lighter than Galaxy with alpha acids in the 14-17% range. If you're consuming in East Hollywood Darling, Victoria may have another secret...plums, nutty, very fruity, fake melon, fresh cream, etc. Check before you purchase. I digress by four hundred miles!. The pour here is light-medium yellow, faint to very little haze, massive head of fine texture, soon rocky, ivory to near white, lasting long. First is light, hinting at fruits, middle passages soon richer but very delicately guarded fruit notes, sweet citrus and surely a spicy lemon-grass as the finish turns semi-sweet to semi-dry. There are some vegetal, earthy notes that either take you to more citrusy, tropical ones or leave you high and dry. There is some dropoff in the middle to late passages as the intact grows. I like a good subtle, fruity, sometimes creamy ale but this is a very curious. The lemongrass nips now and again like a baby pet alligator circling the backyard or a playful kitten with their little needle claws being tested on human flesh for the first time. It fades into mellow fruit esters again, a harmless playground and into other curious places that are mostly, nearly all good. This ale has brilliant flashes but also off, strange, and unkempt ones. We'd love a second generation refinement. Laughing Dog Huckleberry Cream Ale RATING: 3.5 Ponderay, Idaho Here is one of the coolest beer names of late and they resisted the urge to name it something stupid like Huckleberry Hound; even though a nice creamy hound appears on the impressionist-brushed woodland label. I am told the beast might in fact be an ordinary golden retriever like their mascot. How knows or cares? We'll call her Huckleberry Cream, hound or not. I always love it when breweries use the native fruits, spices, and grains in a new way. The ABV is 5% and the pour medium gold with a semi-lasting, off white head, rocky in a bit, medium tall. The nose is fruitful and berried of a different sort. First sip is scarcely definable and estery-fruity, leading to a bit of tartness and some cream ale notes of mixed sort. I'm sure idiot on Beer Advocate is claiming mango or star fruit notes with grassy hops and toasted Thomas' English muffins. The real result is a very different fruit ale and one both curious and slightly uncomfortable. By a second glass, I was more accustomed to the huckleberriness and the other flavors that seem to be background to the malts, though oft badly muddled and not always creamy smooth. I like the potential but even if very cold, this ale comes off more gimmick than solid execution. A cream ale is a fragile, subtle, very delicate and any degree of flavoring is going to make it a simple generic ale with some added malts perhaps. The fruit here overcomes the malt at times while other times the fruit hides. I almost needed to shake the entire can (in theory) to get the flavors to homogenize. Pleasure trumps novelty in the beverage world and this one is sure to sell but requires refinement. If pleasure was not paramount, I would be rich with my mango-spinach-cinnamon IPA.

Left Hand Flamingo Dreams Nitro Berry Blonde Ale RATING: 4.5 Longmont, Colorado "You're ready of a pink beer. Join the flock and let's flamingle". The "striking pink color" alludes us except for the tone of the head of foam. The body is downright red in any light type we tried - that being LED, incandescent, and fluorescent. It's barely hazy to a bit so. Since most flamingos are actually a coral pink or orangish-pink even the head is not close to right shade either. There are some strains of flamingo which are less orange and pink, more raspberry red and this would match those fellers and gals better. The head will last an hour but is not all. This 4.7 percenter has 11 IBU and a malt bil of pale 2-row and Carafoam. The only hop is CTZ with black currants and raspberries round out the additions. Doing this in a nitro version is a nice plus and you get a fresh, alive can that way - not much if any lace, however. First sip is overflowing with authentic flavors, raspberry first as it's brighter and tarter and then true currant. There are several black currant beers around but none is as true to that species as here. The tartness is very light and only enough to make it a true berry flavor, 1 on our 1-10 sour scale (10 being most acidic, caustic). We found it a very agreable, highly rewarding, totally pleasant drink but there was a slight lack of complexity. It is near perfect. Left Hand Good Juju Beer Brewed with Ginger RATING: 4.0 Longmont, Colorado Here's a label to make even the most appreciative of Grateful Dead fans adoring. The psychodelic chartreuse, white, olive, and red label has a million flowers and one large skull with one snake and one salamander swiming in the eyesockets. Ju-ju comes from the West African culture but is apparently a version of the French joujou (literally "toy"), meaning a supernatural object or fetish - either for good or for evil. The brew comes at us in richest gold, the head rocky, cream, and of medium duration and height. Ginger or some nippy vegetable is apparent in the aroma. The ABV is listed at 4% which I found disappointing but perhaps they are aiming at the widest possible micro- market this time around. There seems to be a lack of hops and what malty base you get is as subdued as a Deadhead with a pocket full of curiously missing Quaaludes. The ginger gives a nip to the finish, a quality and good one and this intensifies as you consume more ounces and bottles. This seems to be a miminalist beer in many respects and I have no fault with that theory in this age when everyone has labels just about "more" regardless of the consequence. It is light, faintly sweet at times, not weak light mind you, just faint malts of quality dancing quickly now and then with ginger and then it all going quiet for a note or twelve. I would not confuse the subtlties here with weakness and cheapness for there is more at work here. This "refreshing frivolity" has a quality of malting that approaches buttery, smoothness and in fact some reviewers think they do in fact taste butter! I should be very cold in general to give zest but even warmed a bit (as was my first bottle) the malt and ginger holds up nicely. It is sure to be controversial in any informed session of beer tasting and Left Hand is not new at messing with our heads.

Legal Remedy Plea Bargain Pecan Ale RATING: 4.5 Rock Hill, South Carolina "A nutty deal...". The pour of this 6.2 percenter with 24 IBU is absolteluy porter opaque. The hed is lasting, light-medium tan, finely textured for the most part. The nose is rich in sweet, nutty malts. First sip is impressive with loads of chocolate, some fainter background coffee (which gets stronger in the late passages), pecan tastes (not a sweet pie by any means), and overall surrounded by roasty, toast malts. It is classified here with both the browns and fruited ales but could almost go with the porters too. The lack of sweetness is notable because pecan ales invariably try to emulate the sickly sweet, yet oh so wonderful, famous southern dessert pie. This has a faint sweetness in some passages and becomes very desirable. It narrowly missed a perfect 5.0 rating and would be 4.75 if we graded on decimal points.

Legal Remedy Courthouse Cookie Ale Brewed with Cinnamon and Raisin RATING: 3.5 Rock Hill, South Carolina "...if you give the judge a cookie". This six percenter carries 22 IBU and 26 SRM in a translucent brown with some red tints. Their website says 5%, 26.8 SRM, and 22.1 IBU but does not mention the cinnamon and raisin part. Two different recipes or did it change at some point? First sip is very disapppointing and it runs thing of flavor and watery in mouthfeel, hardly a strong or thin brown ale by any means. The flavor additions are very moderate to weak also and give just a hint of what it could and should have been. More malt, more flavors, and less water would be welcome. There is really nothing here to please and charm or get you off. Contempt of court....30 days.

Lonerider The Melon Patch Blonde Ale Brewed with Watermelon Concentrate RATING: 4.0 Raleigh, North Carolina "Ales for outlaws". At least they admit it's concentrate and I have no issue with that. This 5.8 percenter pours a medium gold under short-lived cream head with faint pink and yellow tints. First sip is a dry, fruit ale without much hops and by middle passage the real watermelon kicks in - real fruit not the candy flavoring. The tartness is rightly judged although in truth watermelon is best served when more sweet and sugary than still tart. This needs to be well chilled, that is, very cold for the best effect. It's good and pleasant but not too exciting nor world-changing and was not for any on our panel save for one giving a 4.5 bottle score. The ale base flavors are apparent and they score well for not have a fruit dominated ale rather an ale flavored by a nice fruit. The fruit is not strong enough for most of us, even though authentic. It might also be one notch sweet but that is not essential as I see it.

Lost Coast Raspberry Brown Ale RATING: 4.0 Eureka, California This glowing brownish-amber ale comes with a short-lived head and a nose with the essence of generic fruit and malt. Chocolate and caramel malts round out the main flavor positions, giving a mid- strength dosing that is neither too bold nor too soft for the raspberry flavoring. It is very faintly tart, joyously not oversugared, and is respectable as a fruit-flavored ale instead of the horrible alternatives - beer soda, malty wine cooler, etc. I found it very refreshing and enjoyable quite cold, not a brew for room temps by any means. It is decent though not earth-shattering. On the whole, Wynkoop Solstice Summer (Belgian Raspberry) Ale would be my pick for a domestic raspberry ale.

Melbourn Brothers Apricot RATING: 4.5 Stamford, Lincolnshire, England This brew is amber golden with a small head and rich fruity aroma. Looks almost like a glass of apricot juice with some carbonation added. It is a bit more tart than their Strawberry version (below) and in most opinions not so refined. It might have used a shade more sweetness or probably a bit less of the juice. The splendid balance of beer and fruit seen in the Strawberry has gone slightly astray here. We are talking $6.00 (Spring 2000) for a 500ml bottle so the standards ought to be high. We'll admit that some of us today are influenced by apricot nectars which are artificially sugared - perhaps prior to purification with vodka! But if one compares this to pure apricot juice blended to an ale (it's a nice experiment) or a Peche (peach) lambic one could imagine they have options for improvement.

Melbourn Brothers Strawberry RATING: 5.0 Stamford, Lincolnshire, England Melbourn Brothers brewery was founded in 1825 and rebuilt in 1876. Strawberry juice is added to the normal hops-malt-water-yeast quartet, producing a 500ml product that cost us $5.99 (Spring 2000). That is lambric price and more in a few cases. Color is golden amber with a big, bubbly head and strong lace. An authentic strawberry aroma overwhelms you at first pour. The balance between tartness and sweetness is just right. Unlike some American attempts at fruit wheats or fruit ales the essential flavors of a good strong beer are equally matched to the fruit juice. In other words, the quality was there before the juice went in. But unlike a lambic there is not the powerful acidity and yeast complexity - that is both good and bad. While slightly less rich than most berry lambics it is very well crafted and equally satisfying to most of us in the review. The price is more than justified. For a genuine beer with strawberry flavor this is one of the top choices in the world. A very good beer for a special occasion with friends - or that special gal who is not ordinarily a beer lover. This was my favorite new fruit ale in 1999. I have not found it since.

Mother Earth Fig and Raisin Ale (Windowpane Series) RATING: 5.0 Kinston, North Carolina When Mother Earth was first unearthed years ago, I liked many of their products (and still do) and said "someday they will be great...very great". Now my hopes are peaked with the corked-and-caged, barrel-aged products like this one made better from apple brandy barrels over three months. The pour of 10-percenter is dark, ultra-hazy amber under a cream head of some size and duraiton. It is based on a Belgian Double and quite different on first sips. You need it to warm up physically as well as get buds around these three other flavors - raisin, fig, and apple brandy wood. I have had some very raisin-drenched brews over the years and this is not one of those. It is Belgian tart to begin with, never sour not overly sugared up. Nor is is fig nectar but at times and in some flavor passages it approaches from that direction. As it warms the fruit warms and the Belgoid tartness diminishes towards a complex fruit ale of mixed pleasures and varied persuasions. It is made with skill, grace, and adroitness though we know the Europeans now claim American ales get by on fruit alone and are deficient in the basic, pure, clean skills of ale-making. It is not true of course....any more than saying an AMG Mercedes is tarted up and overly augmented because of better handling, wider tires, and more horsepower. Here's to fig-power and brandy handling like nothing else.

New Belgium + Ben&Jerrys Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale RATING: 2.0 Fort Collins, Colorado and Asheville, North Carolina What hath we wrought? I'm not talking about the atomic bomb but in this case the merger of a famous ice cream maker with a golden ale maker. And it's supposed to "combat climate change" according to the label. Chocolate and vanilla are added to this golden brew with a thin near white head and it tastes like a golden ale with vanilla added and something darker...maybe chocolate and maybe not. Can fudge packed porter and Cherry Garcia Stout be up next? Based on this sort of silly nonsense (and I know New Belgium is not always the most respected and venerated of brewers with their Flat Tire and Snap Shot crap...yes I said it) why would people making very fine, worldwide, gourmet ice cream agree to such a freakish, horrible tasting, nearly undrinkable experiment?

We're assuming B&J don't know beer or instead think the "global warming" thing will get people to support it even if it's...horrible tasting crap like generic Food Lion artificially flavored Lime Sherbet. Ben and Jerrys are putting their name of that type of product and worse. Do they know it? I had to force myself to finish the bottle because of of "whole bottle...or no review" rules at BrewBase. One panelist said "they are raising awareness of global warming...how about masssive global vomiting and the pollution made by every sane ale lover trying to get this sh*t down?". They are talking about "Protect our winters" while we're worried about the linings of our stomachs and throats and traumatizing our tastebuds with this PC, horrid, badly conceived and executed, pints of future puke. They talk endless on the website about B corporations and then it dawns us...big tax deductions for asking the public to drink the most hideous swill we've tasted in years. How corporate bat-fuck crazy is that? Not at all - expected when your liberal, dead brain is connected to a giant, tax-free, probably Republican (not green nor liberal), accounting firm who suggests doing PC stuff and writing pretty press releases by doing bad, bad, abusive things to beer. Molest the ales to cover the new Aspen lodge and Porsche GT3. Bentley makes an SUV now. I had not heard. We'll feel good and connected. Let's save the planet by poisoning American tastebuds and making crap soda ales! I just invested in the environment....it's called a pile of vomit outside my door and helping something or other on the lawn grown better...might feed a wild dog passing by or some bug...we'll see.

New Belgium (Lips of Faith Series) Eric's Ale RATING: 4.0 Fort Collins, Colorado This is a wood-aged ale and said to be a sour fruit ale for those who neither like sour ales nor fruit ales. It had better be something special for an ordinary bomber tagged me for $9.99 (June 2010). ABV is 7% and it pours rich amber-gold, suggesting the real peach juice in every bit. The head was thin but ample for a time. The first sip is off-putting but once you get acclimitzed to the sour approach (which is true of most anything edible and sour) you begin to explore some wonderful notes. Rather than being peach wine cooler simple, this sour adaption is very workable. The ale framework harmonizes well with the juice and yet the neither is favored in many of the sips. The aging make it more nuanced and stratified. Over the years, I have had some good peach wines (not cheap stuff either) and this is generally more enjoyable though I no time was I was really bowled over. Here is one of the beers in the "well made - change of pace" classes but it may not change your world unless you live entirely for fruit ales as the primary reason for your happiness in life. I might have gone another way with a bit of cherry which associates well with peach and added some malt in the finish. Fun and tart and miles above most any fruited beer in your supermarket. There is a good niche to fill if this Sour Fruit Oak-Aged Ale submarket is developed in the US in a way the Peche lambics have developed in Europe. This is more approachable than many peach lambics and I rather think an American approach will be interesting to enjoy in future years. In other words, great first effort but do experimenting. New Belgium + De Koninck (Lips of Faith Series) Flowering Citrus Ale RATING: 4.5 Fort Collins, Colorado With help of their friends at De Koninck Brewery, this 7.4 percent, right-medium gold ale sits under a near white head of many scents and flavors. Hibiscus, rose petals, and citrus fruit (key lime and whole lemons) are melded with strawberry-inducing Mistral hops. It makes a wonderfully fruity and flowering ale for a hot day, a sort Belgian shandy without it being watered down with lemonade or soda. It is just alive with flavors not widely seen in ales and surely not a simple copy of a Belgian ale despite similar citrus nodes. There is no coriander but lots of other fine things. A very nice concept and one executed to near perfection.

New Belgium (Lips of Faith Series) Peach Porch Lounger RATING: 4.5 Fort Collins, Colorado This curious pint shows an old shingled house in white with a transparent, bottle-colored dude playing a glowing orange guitar and harmonica. Very cool and peachy so far. This Bret-infused ale used molasses, lemon peel, and real peach juice to make it a fun, super thing; luscious and refreshing at every passage through the peach orchard. Some of us thought it a peach wheat at first sip, so earthy and grainy were the earliest notes. The 9.4% ABV score endears one to this formula too. The color is amber-gold or perhaps we should say a peachy-hued gold with a last cream head of fine texture. The nose is like sniffy a warehouse in Georgia full to the rafter with overripe Prunus persica pomes. Reviewers here noted "awesome summer refreshing, a near perfect choice of ingredients [molasses, lemon peel, peach]...the finish is slightly abrasive and strong, partly from the bumped up alcohol and likely also from Brettanomyces too...the could improve that finish and really should" and "no complaints and my highest score [5 bottles] on this one...a sublime product and more appealing than frozen peach smoothies or peach schnapps". This is a superior, very fine formula, very good execution but the finish is a tad overwhelming and what I would call "pleasantly ragged" and yet in need of refinement.

New Belgium (Lips of Faith Series) Prickly Passion Saison RATING: 3.0 Fort Collins, Colorado The lovely painted bottle features a prickly pear cactus aka Opuntia with Passion Flower aka Passiflora flowers too. The juice of the species' fruit are said to have magical cures but at the very least they're mighty tasty. The prickly genus of cacti is said to have benefits for a bit of anatomy close to the word prickly but leaving off the last two letters. Add in the passion fruit and me might have something-something useful here. Then again, just about ethanol-infused liquid works fairly well too unless overdone. French Saison yeast was used. The pour is dark gold, more amber-gold in a dark room, the head rocky and creamy and made of large bubbles. Flavor is fairly sweet at first, drenched with the curious flavors of the two added species, and finish is more dry but not always easy to get past. The malts and hops are there but do not support the fruit species as solidly and harmoniously as they might. A retune of this recipe might be in order though we all enjoyed the new experience; having only had prickly pear beer once before and that without the passion vine. It's certainly off-based, a big change of pace, and yet not pleasant nor unpleasant. These strange ales for their own sake are a mixed lot, entertaining to be sure but hardly advancing the brewing arts more than pouring some exotic fruit smoothie into a glass of ale or vodka. I felt this was juice squeezed into a ale bottle and not ale augmented by and improved by juice. The juice must enhance and be secondary to the ale or we have a premium wine-cooler priced to match. Enjoyment of the brew must be paramount and novelty, screwy labels like this are seldom more than "buy and try" experiences. That is enough for many breweries but it leaves us impressed only at their marketing skills and creativity for recipe building. Were I to invent a Kiwi-Coffee-Mint Porter it need to be rewarding, buyable again, truly memorable, and damn near awesome or I will be charged with assorted offenses as a gourmet fool. Don't be curious and peculiar for it's own sake folks.

WARNING: don't attempt this recipe going cold unless you know some botany. Passiflora leaves are often very toxic. A couple of species are toxic in their fruit too. We're talking cyanide poisoning folks so it's not a great idea adding stuff to home brewing unless you know your species, the chemistry of their various parts, and are very sure of the ramifications. This recipe is about their fruit and the cactus fruit too.

New Belgium Nitro Cold Brew Cream Ale (Up Next Series) RATING: 4.5 Fort Collins, Colorado/Asheville, North Carolina This five percenter and IBU in 13 units is from a basic cream ale recipe with oats and coffee from High Brew Coffee Co. The hop varietal is Nugget. The malt bill is pale, black, Munich, and oats. It is nitro canned too. They aimed for a velvety mouthfeel. My first reaction is why would you add coffee, a very strong ingredient in any brew to a subtle thing like a cream ale and expect the base to shine or add creaminess? That's like making a triple Jalapeno hollandaise sauce. We will see. The color is a surprising dark reddish-brown, translucent with lots of red rays shining out. It is not porter dark but surely looking nothing like an cream ale. The head is lasting, low, very finely textured in cream, almost with a coating, millky look. First sip is gourmet coffee of the finest kind but it is also creamy, more from the oats and other malts we suspect than the cream ale recipe. But cream ales being a very variable, hard to define substyle, what one brewery does from another is mostly a secret. Just define this is a very solid, truly pleasant Coffee Ale and be done with it. Great stuff and very nigh perfect. Our panel gave one perfect 5.0 score and the rest 4.5 so math rules once again.

New Grass Winteropfern Rum-barrel Aged American Strong Ale with Vanilla Beans, Montgomery Cherries, Lactose, and Cacoa Nibs RATING: 4.5 Shelby, South Carolina From what amounts to a suburb of Charlottte these days, comes a recipe more like a stout for the additions but based on an American strong ale. The pour of this 10.2 percenter is a barely hazed copper under a dark cream head of medium size, some duration, diversity of bubbles, rocky in 2. It sold in the marked down bin of a local Lowes Foods store for $12.99. Not sure of the regular price for this brown waxed 500ml treat. First sip is slightly tart (2-3 on our 10 scale, 10 being most sour) but soon by middle passage come some very sweet caramel notes of a candy-like quality together with other notes. Those mid to late notes are vanilla, rum, wood, faint chocolate, and real cherry. It is not a sour ale per se but made a tad so by the fruit added. The cherry and rum combination works well and I'm not sure we've rated that combo before - surely cherry-chocolate and cherry with with most any other fruit. The sturdy strong ale base makes the flavors pop more than they would with a stout's malt cloak mufflling them and silencing them. One panelist wrote "caramel-cherry candy delight and the rum makes it a more respectable, deep, and lingering set of flavors...very different and very well done". If the chocolate or sweet caramel (either or both) we're turned up 2-3 notches this might become perfect.

New Holland Beerhive Tripel (High Gravity Series) Brewed with Honey and Ginger (Vintage 2011) RATING: 4.5 Holland, Michigan The first two or three times I read the label I swear it said Beehive. The brain is a lovely thing. Besides helping us really enjoy beer and other sensual pleasures, it tends to tell you might it thinks might make more sense - hence Beerhive becomes the vastly more likely word Beehive. (By the way, Beerhive pubs exists in Salt Lake and Pittsburgh). You might guess that a hexagonal waxy hive pattern in rich gold and scarlet is the background of the label. It is also a Tripel with that notorous Belgian spelling. Little John contributed wildflower honey for an earthy and sweet effect. 8.47% of our favorite intoxicating molecule is employed in this rich amber fluid (not honey gold actually unless it's an organic, raw wildflower honey). The head is mid-toned cream, medium sized, and lasting a short while. Nose is actually of honey and fine ale malts. First sip is perplexing, the ginger kicking in a bit quickly, tempted by reasonable, well-judged sweetness, faint hops, and substantial background malts.

Reviewers here added "not clearly a Belgian Tripel with ginger being the main spice...coriander is quite secondary at that point" and "smoth, very pleasant...highish ABV is nicely disguised...liked it but love here". Tarting up a Tripel, no matter how quality these two additions could be questioned and we only want to do so a little bit - and to make a nice joke. I just painted my new navy Mercedes S-class with "Tangelo" stripes but used only the highest quality, custom-mixed, pearlized, metal-flake paint with the finest 23-layers of rare, premiere "wet wet" clearcoats shipped from China in small drums on Gulfstream jets twice a year. Does any of that quality stuff matter after the S-class word? Do we tinker with indisputable greatness (S-class or Tripel) and if so, what are the boundaries? Is gingering and beehiving up a Tripel acceptable or even a good idea given the dosing here? I say it is acceptable and decent even if not perfect. My proof for that theory is that the ale base is high gravity, well- carbonated, high ABV, and not a foil for weak recipe. They added good to great and the aspects of taste (in all senses of that word) are up to consumer. The foundations here are solid even if the architecture is a bit gaudy and maybe too sweet for it's own best interest. I would make it again, more subtle and with more of the original spices and yeast coming out. It's a nice spin but I think overdosed in the two main additives and I would think they go more subtle next time 'round. Does any of this matter if half of us (and perhaps half of your suds-drenched cohort) left unimpressed in terms of "likely re-buy preference"?

New Holland (The Cellar Series) Envious (Vintage 2010) RATING: 5.0 Holland, Michigan This is one unique bottle, very classy design in an almost wine-like style with old fonts and ornate crenulated borders in dark violet to pale lavender tones. The vio-purple foil is unique in American beer marketing vocabulary too. Nice touch even if an unneeded expense. The 7.5% formula is augmented with Michigan pear (juice form) and raspberries - can't say in all my years I've combined those too in any pie or beaverage...I mean beverage. Can Georgia peach and asparagus ale be far behind this one? It was further aged in oak and this surprising dark amber-red ale comes with a large head of strong tan color. The fluorescent light hue would be all Cherry Coke, dark and lusty. The nose is uber- fruity and earthy ale. First sip is a bit odd, very malty and not clearly a fruit-enhanced product as one would expect from Joe's Raspberry-Pear Ale in the grocery beer section; something favoring a wine cooler at best. The Cellar Series was launched in February 2010 and these 22 ouncers came first.

Here is a laudable, very unique oak-aged ale that happens to have fruit to improve it and diversify and enrich it. It is ABOUT THE ALE and not about the fruit. That's a central point of important distinction when great fruit ales are to be judged and set apart from the juicy masses; the pseudo-wine coolers supposedly based on ale, lager, or wheat beers but only malt beverage crap in the final analysis. Here is the real glory and attainment of real fruit ale. I get the raspberries by the fourth sip though these are never sugary nor tart. The pear is a mystery and I needed to be told it came with the package. I like fresh pear juice and make it often and in the mid analysis (by sip 20) assume it has stratified itself with the complex malts to augment them and not defeat nor contest them. I think the finest, most rapturous passages with this ale is when the sticky-malt flavors nearly drown you in heavenly music and quickly some tart razzlebry comes up quickly with a lusty bite. That berry can jump up and explode in good ways, very short bursts and again, never too tart but always pomologically smooth and crisp. The pear never nips or kicks or bits but is on background, supportable, and valuable. The pear may serve in the "dark fruit" realm as would notes of raisin or fig in stronger barleywine. Yet Envious is brighter and more peppy and crisp than a barleywine so it will not classify well there. The Pyrus communis is perhaps angelic dark matter to blend with dark matter of the malt universe. Pear is both hard and easy to cook with and so in brewing we have a challenge too. I love what they have accomplished here and even with the full 22 under my belt, I feel there are new places to explore. I do need another bottle and the IRS can dispute this if they will.

The "session" term is overused and abused so let's go with tryst and intense seminar; informing with lots of everything flirty, cunning, and yet ultimately performing. Performance counts as much as dream and passion in the eccentric ale world. Envious is not a mountainous wedding cake with a train running around it's tiers costing $11K (as an object of envy) but more an Iron Chef worldclass squash soup; conquering and successful but on the shy, shrewd, and savory side. New Holland is one of the Top 10 microbreweries for mischeivous imagination paired to actual proficiency. Their tricky, well- planned preparations shock our brains and thrill our hearts. May the Cellar Series live long and charm us over and over.

NODA Coconut and Chocolate Ale Blonde Ale Brewed with Coconut and Cocoa Nibs RATING: 4.5 Charlotte, North Carolina This 4.9 percenter with 20 IBU came in a four pack make of four different flavored tallboys. The pour is a clear mid gold with amber hints under a shortish, near white head, a just a bit of the lace for a few minutes. First sip is remarkable, surprising chocolate, yes real chocolate good for such a pale colored thing. The cocoa is real and the they got the coconut just right too; the later a rare treat in this industry where coconut is tossed about and seldom done well. It is quite good and the background infrastructure of malts makes it even finer. It got one perfect 5.0 score with us so it's definately an accomplished recipe that many of you should like. Real cocoa and real coconut have seldom found such a perfect home and blending.

NODA Lemon Shortbread Kolsch Ale Brewed with Lemons RATING: 4.0 Charlotte, North Carolina This 4.8 percenterwith 20 IBU came in the same mixed, 4-pack with the Coconut and Chocolate ale reviewed above (April 2020) in what is a "cookie-inspired" series. The pour is a medium yellow, not gold, the head lasting, short, and near white, fine to medium textures, a tad rocky on the glass walls only. The nose is tart fruity but not really lemon in particular. First sip is that of a Kolsch, lagerish golden ale with the flavors of true lemons much as if you added some juice but far less tart this way. As for their "shortbread" theme we are a bit perplexed for there is nothing particularly buttery or sweet or malty or cookie-flavored with separate it from an average lemon-infused brew. Much is therefore left to the imagination! We have seen brewers add graham crackers for a key lime pie or cookie effect but what would you add for a shortbread flavor other than the real thing? We scoured the web to see if there were other shortbread ales and we could find none. They are blending of stout and ale- influenced cookies but not the other way 'round. Perhaps they might have used some wheat as shortbread is best made with that and also something of a buttery flavor without going too chemical and all. Hard to say. A good lemon Kolsch but not terribly special.

NODA Peanut Butter and Chocolate Brown Ale RATING: 4.5 Charlotte, North Carolina This came in the same mixed, 4-pack as the two flavored ales above, adding a Mint Porter which is filed elsewhere. This has the highest ABV of the three ales, being 5.4% with a much high IBU at 50 as well. Cocoa nibs were conditioned on peanuts and it's by far the darker of these three ales. The head is also very much the tallest, being light tan, mixed textures, very talll, and dissolving to a lower, rocky peak in three minutes or so. The nose is true, natural, fresh peanut butter if ever there was an ale being so! All these are "cookie inspired" including the mint porter. The pour is a very dark, reddish- brown, barely translucent. First sip is heavy on the peanut side and by mid passage we're a bit shocked for a sweeter, candy-like boost to mix chocolatr and the nut in almost Reece's flavoring. That sugar boost hits with thunder and we were not expecting that. It is one of the better peanut butter- chocolate brews around and many are frankly crap. It is not as easy a combination of flavors in liquid form as you might think. Very nice and pleasant.

NODA Sammies Blonde Ale Brewed with Coconut and Cocoa Nibs RATING: 4.5 Charlotte, North Carolina With a name like Sammies this 4.8 percenter wiht 20 IBU could well have been flavored with pastrami and mustard seeing as how Sammies is a synonym of sandwich. However, this "cookie-inpsired" brew is a replication of Girl Scout® Samoa® cookies which are made with chocolate and coconut but have a registered trademark on both these names. The pour is slightly hazed blonde with very long lace and carbonation that goes on for minutes. The head of ivory, very finely-textured, and eventually all the lace takes it down. First sip is faintly fruit but it did have a slightly malt Pils-type nose and by middle passage some light chocolate (something like a blonde flavored stout) comes into play. The coconut is subtle but you get more of it in time. This is no liquid cookie by any means and it's surprisingly malty until the end of the can, very slightly sweet and fairly dry in most finishes. This is a pleasant brew but only for its' light cocoa and malt appeal and frankly less flavor than we might have liked. A stronger, blonde stout version would be nice.

Oak and Dagger Apple Harvest RATING: 4.5 Raleigh, North Carolina As a 4.5% recipe, this "fruit ale" uses freshy pickled apples that "won't keep the doctor away". Thirst is another matter. For some reason it is labeled as containing sulfites. That occurs with lots of ciders so not a terribly bad thing - but allergic folks like those with asthma do take note. The pour is an ultra clear, very, very pale yellow, lighter than most Pils in fact. The head is near white, short, and lasting. First sip is apple ale rich and not popular sort of commercial "apple ale" that is actually a fermented, malt beverage loaded full of corn syrup. These days both the "apple ale" and cider can be formulated in a lab (later on a larger scale massive tanks) from citric acid (simulating malic acid in apples), corn syrup (in place of natural apple sucrose and fructose), a hint of real apple, and then both fake and derived natural apple flavorings. This is not the case here but "fruit ales" and "apple ales" brewed with actual yeast have a something poor reputation in some parts - or are at least a lower case product that fruit ales of this style. This product is bright, crisp, radiating true apple and is very clean in the finish, semi-dry but with sweet fruit notes now and again. This is both a true ale and a true apple ale in one, being very refreshing, joyful, and a desirable real treat. Good work. Fine effect.

Old Hickory Acan Imperial Brown Ale Brewed with Agave and Aged in Tequila Barrels RATING: 4.5 HIckory, North Carolina Agave nectar is used in what amounts to two sources of the blue succulent plant and at 12.6% ABV this is one potent thing. The pour is a nearly opaque brown, emitting some brownish rays, the head big and noisy at first, lasting a short time. The lace is pretty long and lively. First sip is very rich and in two seconds very tart and bright. You can a whole spectrum tequila and agave notes along with medium strong malts. These flavors overshadow what would normally be a malt-fest in an imperial brown. The carbonation and ABV nips at you from time to time but in a playful way. Don't think of it as a flavored brown ale but more of a Tequila ale with more malt than usual. The tartness never subsides (2-3 on our sour scale, 10 being acidic, caustic) so in one sense it's almost a flavored sour without a farmhouse, American wild, or saison origin per se. This is an admirable and pretty darn unique ale but was a shade too sour I think.

Old Tom = see Frederick Robinson

Ommegang Three Philosophers Double Chocolate Ale RATING: 5.0 Cooperstown, New York "Chocolate is happiness you can eat...a deeply considered chocolate philosophy". This Hall of Fame- quality brewery is famous for their very respectable, authentic copies of Belgian style ales and they have in the last few years (since 2019) gone some new places with less familiar styles for them and now a strange brew to be sure. It's a blend of their legandary Three Philosopher's Quadrupple or Quad Ale with Kriek Ale and also cacao nibs. Vanilla is also added. Kreik ales are cherry ales so this amounts to...(drumroll please)...chocolate covered cherry ale. Their partner for the quality chocolate notes is Taza Chocolate and thus it's a collab beer. At 9.7% ABV it's quad enough but there are stronger ones of that style. Being a blend of other stuff...all is forgiven on that point. The malt bill is 2- row, amber, caramel, Munich-20, aromatic, and Extra Special Cara-20. Liefmans Cuvee Brut is the source of the Kriek cherries. Hops are Styrian Golding and Spalter Select. They use their own house yeast. The pour is unusual for any beer, a dark reddish-amber and far darker than copper, the head a dark cream of diverse textures, rocky in one and interesting for the odd shapes. First sip is strange as all get out. I am glad one of panelists thought thought my "spiced wine and delightful cough syrup" reaction was not just my imagination. This is one super strange brew but fascinatingly friendly and pleasing at the same time. There are elements of Three Philosophers' dark rich malts and goodly hops but there is much more, dark fruit (not immediately clear as cherry), a herb blend (almost Ricola style), licorice syrup, dark caramel sweetness to bind it, and what is a very highly flavored set of chocolate notes. If I had one of those mass spectrometers like chemistry labs use, I fear the think would either explode or work for 22 hours to figure all these notes out. One panelist said "curious and curiouser by the second...almost as complex as a premium bourbon with 20 different notes plus chocolate, herbs, and cherries to boot...intriguing and is nothing like it". It does give you that complex whiskey puzzlement for all the stuff blending and swirling around your nose and tastebuds. High recommended and no beer review season will be boring with this one on the table! Guaranteed to get discussion if not arguments going.

Oscar Blues Death By King Cake Ale with Vanilla, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Cacao Nibs, Orange Peel, and Pecans RATING: 5.x Longmont, Colorado/Brevard, North Carolina/Austin, Texas "Plastic baby not included". This should not be confused with the Death by Hops Series from Olde Hickory which is also brewed in North Carolina. These the splendidly successful folks who put canned IPA of amazing quality on the map with Dale's Pale Ale. Now we no longer think bad hoppy APA or AIPA come in the can. That was one useful barrier broken for good. King Cake in some cultures is a festive Christmas cake or sweet bread but in the US it's mostly known as a Carnival or Mardi Gras treat in New Orleans. There was a traditional "share for the poor" reserved for the first poor person who called or was seen nearby by the family. What if we did that today with our special mealsall around the world?!?! Anywho...this 2020 release is based on a white porter recipe but we're putting it with flavor ales so far. The pour is a medium amber, very clear except lots of cabonation for a minute or so. The head is off white, low, not lasting too much, mixed texture. First sip is initially muddles and confusing, not terribly fruity or flavored nor spicy, really, strangely bland in fact. As the sips increase we realize it will not get too much better and is only flavored very lightly, weakly, simply and without much regard for taste. As for the white porter base, there is nothing malty to impress here and it's barely amber ale malty in fact. Barely and towards the thin end of those. We tried it very chilled, cold, and even warmish to see if the flavors or malts popped. No luck at any temp. If there was a NOLA king Cake this terribly cheap and bereft of flavors, I would expect to find the baker and vendor outside town deep in the dump somewhere. This will not fly in liquid form either and is a grave, very horrible disappointment. I hope someone or their kid is getting a Porsche out of all this money saved. Maybe not. Likely so. There will by a Death by Coconut this fall and we hope, most sincerely hope the flavor is not left out. Please. Please.

Palmetto Ginger Slap! Red Ale Brewed with Ginger and Cardamon RATING 5.0 Charleston, South Carolina Here's a 5.8 percenter with a red ale base, having fine base malts and adding two of Charleston's historically important, imported spices, ginger and cardamon. We've had a good two dozen ginger ales, stouts, and porters by now and as well as real ginger tea, so it's gotten easier to separate the works of genius from the rest. This one is immediatley a winner with all the planets...spices, hops, yeast, and malt alligning to absolute perfection. The pour is a bright, glowing cooper with a moderate haze. The head is old ivory, lasting, low. One panelist wrote "this is sweet enough that it is richer, more soothing, and satisfying than any ginger soda or adult beverage I've ever had...the whole harmony with this recipe is the reason and it's a superb one". This real, real ginger ale; the kind you can get excited about. Ginger Slap one has everything going for it, no flaws in any passage, a coherent and effective punch, and gives a "wow" factor that you just can't create or ignor. This is a good standard for use of ginger in a ale because of the strong malt and hop infrastructure. Cardamon is even more popular these days as brands are trying hard to differentiate their cinnamon-based pumpkin/halloween beers from Christmas offerings which might favor cardamon, peppermint, or another spice.

Pete's Wicked Mardi Gras (Ginger) RATING 3.5 St. Paul MN This February seasonal appeared here in January and is a mid-strength golden ale with a ginger flavoring. The tapestry-like colorful label received very high marks. The flavor was something else. As some of us have made a steady diet of Old Raleigh Honey Ginger Wheat microbrew the simple and shallow nature of this product was suddenly apparent. The $5.99-6.99 price (1990's) was more than exceptable if the rarer Raleigh product is not available. No doubt the Mardi Gras revelers would not notice if the beer was flavored with swamp water but we'd like to think the first few should taste worldclass. Pete has had a few misses (though many hits) of late and we hope this market- driven seasonal is not a trend when it comes to quality.

Pete's Wicked Strawberry Blonde RATING: 3.5 St. Paul. Minnesota Pete's newest adventure is a golden ale flavored lightly with natural strawberry flavors. It is ale first with the flavor being subtle - it is no beer cooler by any means. It must be near freezing or it can be strange and boring at once. The berry flavor while intended to be thin is realistic. Pete decided to be very 'PC' as the label shows but three ship hands - with a name like this we can think of a dozen more fun pictures (some G-rated too)! Reviewers had widely divergent opinions from 'neither a good ale nor a good fruit beer...waste of time' to 'high praise for being tempered and skillful in the use of flavors... just right'. However most felt it was a 'TOO' beer - Try Once Only. There are certainly many better fruit beers - strawberry lambics for one. Pete's Wicked Winter Brew (rare after January) is far more sophisticated and spritely. Nice collectible painted bottle. Nice experience but you could overlook it.

Rogue's Cran-n-Cherry Ale RATING: 4.0 Newport, Oregon Samuel Adams makes a Cranberry Wheat (not a true lambic) but this one is based on ale with Pacman yeast. Saaz hops and the two real juices are icluded. We have no idea what 'free range coastal water' is but we hope it has nothing to do with 'free range chickens'. Color is amber-tinged red. The head is indeed 'purplish' though our resident colorist says its more 'ivory mauve'. First response is that is 'sweet tart' (like those silly candies) but not a lambic sort of acid. The hops and malts GREATLY moderate the fruit flavor and round it out well. Reviewers say 'you know this is real beer...fruits HELP rather than monopolize the presentation' and 'I did not really identify the fruits too well...maybe that is good'. We like to call it a FRUIT-N-MALT ALE actually. Rogue Juniper Pale Ale RATING: 4.5 Newport, Oregon This 34 IBU ale in 650ml brown bottles is made with Pacman yeast and Northwest Harrington, Crystal, Triumph, Maier Munich, and C-15 malts. The hops are Styrian Golding and Amarillo varieties. Juniper berries are used for flavoring. Most of you know that juniper berries (technically they are not fruit but flesh strobili or cones) are the traditional flavoring of gin; though a great manner other spices contribute to the modern recipes. The label shows something like a red cedar, the country's most common Juniperus but the traditional gin is made with Common juniper (Juniperus communis). It pours bright yellow ("saffron" they call it at Rogue), good lace, and a medium duration cream head. First sip is that of rich, earthy malts, slightly sweet in the mid notes but quickly becoming bitter and dry in the finish. There is something more than hops in the flavor and the strobulus of the juniper is apparently it. It is not a gin-like flavor to me. It won 2006 and 2007 World Beer Championships with Gold medals and quite a few other awards have come to it. It's a remarkably refreshing ale, a nice change of place, and despite the pale color it's one that malt connisseurs will surely respect. With more sips, the junipery-ness comes out more as a strong spicy-herb in effect and many online reviews condemn it for this additive's taste alone. I like it and respect Rogue's nerve to go in yet another creative direction.

Rogue's Rogue-n-Berry RATING: 4.0 Newport, Oregon Oregon Brewing Co. of Newport OR makes this unique brew using 'Marion berries' (no not the Mayor) added to an ale. While one expects berries in a Belgian lambic this recipe and Pete's Wicked Winter Brew (raspberries) prove to be a different style - sweet, fruity, less tart. Lambics are based on wheat while this is ale-derived. This style is sometimes called FRUIT BEER or BERRY BEER and puts all berry wine coolers to shame. The bright color is more red than amber and is superb is classware of all kinds. As an experi- ment it is pleasant and highly drinkable IF VERY COLD but Rogue's Somer Orange Honey Ale RATING: 4.0 Newport, Oregon One would think a bottle full of yeast and flavored with spices and orange peel would an attempt to make a Belgian ale of some sort. Not so here. "This unfiltered ale is medium bodied with no harsh bitterness". Two row malts, Crystal and Rogue Farm Willamette hops, coriander, orange peel, chamomile, honey, wheat, oats, and Pacman yeast conspire to make this interesting, truly medium- strength ale - very suitable as a super cold summer...make that Somer pleaser. I'm guessing the athletically clad lady painted on the bottle who looks like Martha Stewart's young, less cute sister must be "Somer". That's probably not fair to the real girl, assuming they had one in mind, for if I were painted on anything...it would not look half pretty. Never mind.

First pour to me was generic golden ale honeyed up to an offensive level. The remaining pours got me a dose of that sweet, fruity yeast; which looks like the milky way galaxy hidden in a bottle and suitable for use in the movie MIB III. The yeast adds much, balances much, and gives the other flavors some stability and centering that gives it a true Rogue quality and their usual smart level of appeal. It's cloudy gold if that was clear before. Your average golden Belgian or a US clone of it would have far too much EtOH to be a chilly summer cooling beer. By the way, some folks susceptable to ragweed and other daisy family pollen allergies are allergic to chamomile and it's inclusion here should be noted for such people.

Rogue Chatoe Rogue First Growth Creek Ale RATING: 4.5 Newport, Oregon In the First Growth Series, the Roguestas (or is that Roguites?) grow their own goodies, in this case Dare™ and Risk™ malted barley, melded to Rogue Hopgard Revolution Hops, adding Pacman and Belgian yeast. The "Creek" thing is a play on the world Kriek used to denote a cherry Lambic ale. This cherry-augmented ale uses Montmorency cherries. It pours a delightfully foggy reddish-brown, like a cherry desk color perhaps. The head is dark cream, lasting but low. I just gulped it down like a refreshing beverage of a more simple, less potent sort and found it satisfying, loaded with malt, and more delicately lined with cherry flavors, dry in the yummy finish. It is never Kriek or cherry lambic tart or sour - no - not that kind of copy even though Belgian yeasts have been employed. It is faintly tart in mid notes and with the even beat of true fruit and rich malt, you get a wonderful concoction. It is ale with fruit, not fruit juice that happens to have ale malt.

Rogue Hazelutely Chocabulous Candy Bar in a Bottle (60% Hazelnut Brown Nectar Ale and 40% Chocolate Stout Brewed with Chocolate) RATING: 5.0 Newport, Oregon The Rogistas have "for years" been asking for a chocolate candy bar ale and this "dark and decadent" hybrid has immerged in 5.7% ABV and a massive 75 IBU trim. "Candy bar in a bottle" is dangerous place for brewers for 9 out of 10 times by our count it does not impress and comes off cheap, rude, and tacky like cheap rose perfume in a whorehouse. A "chocolate truffle finish" is promised and that is of course not the fungus but the chocolate candy called a truffle by some famous guys you know where. The pour is stout dark under a fine tan head of some size and a nice duration. The nose is of medium malt of fine quality and not much more. First zip well chilled is malt overshadowed massively with real chocolate, Belgian fine even and Hershey's mild choco on steroids.The hazelnut notes temper it like a very fine Ritter Sport bar and in some rough ways Nutella. While our panelists and I are not apt to like "candy ales" and certainly not Smores porters this one has a superior base credability from a proven, award-winning brown ale and a very refined stout. While their bacony breakfast offerings may fail to work this is one hybrid of several flavors which does enchant and charm. As the stout bases go this is semi-sweet and the candy bar theme is not overly sweet nor too extreme. Potent, adventurous, luxurous, and accomplished flavors are here in spades if not served too cold. You get more velvet, opulence, and Old World Cacao brilliance with a warmer temp so do bring it down. Seldom has a nut and chocolate been done so well. Kudos, mega-kudos, and much praise to the Rogues.

Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale RATING: 3.0 Newport, Oregon If the name does not fascinate you the bright pig-pink bottle will stand in any beer section. The ingredient list is a crazy thing involving applewood-smoked bacon, Briess cherrywood smoked malt, Revolution and Independence hops, and Pacman yeast. The real theme of course is that of a mock breakfast like a feast of donuts, maple syrup, pancakes (not included except for malt bits), and bacon. The pour is rich golden-amber, the head dark tannish-creamn, and medium in duration. The nose is unparalleled and wierd. The fact that that maple syrup flavors drowns out most of the smoke is a good thing and saves this curious entity from being either unbearable or horrible. Still, no one asked for a second glass. It is briefly fun and very soon annoying. Are we in the beer world so bored we no longer need stuff like this instead really good Belgian chocolate porters and heavenly bourbon-influenced ales? Those are getting good but far from mastered. Voodoo here is time badly spent and we need to move on to more profitable tastings. Just because you can does not mean one should! Now back to my recyclable all-bacon car. Damn those hounds! Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Chocolate, Peanut Butter, and Banana Ale RATING: 3.5 Newport, Oregon Just as their misguided liquid breakfast ale from Bacon was horrible and horribly expensive, we have high hopes for this one on the sole basis of it's name. Pour is a rusty-red, hazy for sure, and a head as massive as quad-decker PB-Banana with chocolate sandwich on Texas toast - except a muddy beige. This is no soda and it comes out dry but we do get some bitter chocolate, faint butter-of-nut, and very little banana. There are yeasty beers, some wheat-based, and one Banana Bread ale which are nana 'til the mules come home. This one is not much if any Musa to our knowledge. They might have gotten away with very little authentic chocolate flavor but the PB is suspect for many panelists here too. "It's not donut-bready either" said one. We are assured by the ingredient list that everything was included but here we have the thinnest of chicken-wavied-over-the-pot creations in the ale hall of shame. And why would something named for four sweet things be this bitter? Do tell? If only two of the four promised flavors poped we'd be lauding them. Let's say a banana-sweet ale with Euro-class chocolate notes, the PB and doughnut left only to the imagination. That would be a a fun thing and is very doable now - I could blend any Belgian chocolate-infused stouts into Well's Banana Bread ale and get a yummy thing. This comes so far often that blending reality, I wonder if the rogue-ites have found a new strain of tall you-know-what and the brewing has gone all to hell, tended only by some guy who loves pink bottles. Root Sellers Himmel and Erde Carrot and Apple Ale RATING: No rating to date. A few years ago it came up whether or not "apple ale" brewed with yeast was still a real beer or not. The yeast was there but the malt and hops are generally not. Here again that question is raised by this ingredient list: "hard carrot beer (water, carrot juice, sugar), sugar, apple juice". The carrot juice is from concentrate. This hazy, very highly orange stuff looks liek soda and has almost no classic ale head. We presume yeast must be here too but the Root Sellars website has nothing about this label and only their soda - accessed 11.11.2016. The package is a tallboy can. My opinion is that this is a yeasted, fermented juice and not a true ale, fruited or otherwise. In their favor we will capture here what the label says about the product: "while exploring Bavarian and northern Germany, Root Sellars founders Kit and Greg were inspired by a traditional German dish called Himmel and Erde (Heaven and Earth) served with apples from heaven and potatoes from the earth. Wuith an idea and craving from something new, the two set out to brew a product truly in a class of it's own". Again, their is fruit and yeast (we assume) but no malt or hops and it's sugar up like a soda. Fruit soda x ale hybrids are nothing new but this one is puzzler. For record once again. The label does use the term "ale". It's a very tasty thing but more on the line of a well-carbonated, ultra-sweet carrot-apple soda and some of us are prone to like those too!

Salty Turtle Betio Blonde Ale with Coffee RATING: 4.5 Surf City, North Carolina Cute turtle on the can, his shell the shape of a hop flower. Hop flowers with legs. How nice. A medium roast coffee is added to this golden ale recipe, designed for a smooth and crisp finish. This 4.8 percenter is medium to rich gold when with a creamy head of medium-large to deep size, diverse textures, and rocky in one. First sip shows some ale notes of depth and a very subdued, I would say lightly roasted coffee approach. The mouthfeel is a bit heavy but the base recipe is solid and the real thing. The gourmet quality, only faintly bitter coffee serves to round it out and make it more interesting. Finish is truly crisp and smooth. Because of the coffee's tannins one gets the feeling this is a darker ale since tannins are also occuring in malts. Normally the dark, musky, and rich tannins in a beer come from malt but here the coffee takes that roll but adding it's own unique chemistry. This is a pleasant product and worth having one or two in a row. Samuel Adams Maple Ale RATING: 3.5 Boston, Massachussetts As a 2016 Limited Release pours a delightful brownish-red in a 6.3% 18 IBU formulation. Chinook is the only hop in play and the malts are their two-row pale blend, Special B, and Naked Oats. The head is enormous, lasting, and pale cream in color. The malts come out in first sip, a bit weak at first, then ramping up. There is some maple but one would be very hard-pressed (or should I say "tapped") to name it without knowledge of it's name. I have had some good maple beers and even augmented my own from time to time (German double bocks being a nice blending pal) and this is sadly not one of them. Maple syrup, even poor grade US stuff, is not cheap. You'd need 30 cents worth retail of the stuff (can't imagine how much wholesale) to even give a beer a good Acer saccharum punch. If there are signs SA is losing it's cred and creativity, I'd somewhat to the former and no to the later. They are just not delivering on these nicely named, creative products! One panelists here noted he'd feels like a "sap...tree sap or otherwise if I paid a righteous price of this in a retail establishment". It does not meet the name but again...we judge beers from what they are and not what they are called. Still we call call them out! This was a let down in that 2016 Limited Release box and if you want sweet malts there the molasses-filled Toasted Caramel Bock is heads and shoulders above this and quite the treat.

Samuel Adams Norse Legend Sahti RATING: 3.5 Boston, Massachussetts Ole Sam has gone crazy and off tradition since 2010 or so and more on the experimental side like the Dogfishians. That is not a bad thing. In fact, Dogfish does make their own Sahti as does New Belgium. Real Sam actually sold malt and never brewed beer as we understand history. This 7% ale is both brewed with and "aged on" juniper berries. Should that idea sound familiar, juniper berry beverages are usually sold as gin. The "Fresh, Bold, and Lively" recipe is said to be based on kegs found on Viking or Norse ships. "Herbal, woodsy, and ripe citrus" notes are to be expected here. Then the juniper berry is said to "enliven the sturdy and smooth malt backbone". Here we tasted Batch No. 1. There is absolutely nothing gin-like about this mellow, faintly flavored ale which is sophisticated and far from the beaten path of flavored and fruited ales found here. The pour is glowing amber-red, the head light beige, and foamy-enduring. Sahti is a Finnish beer dating to the 1500's made with barley, rye, wheat, and oats, both malted and unmalted and even bread on occasion. Juniper berries are used to flavor it instead of hops with the mash filtered through juniper twigs. Baking yeast is used and this tends to produce isoamyl acetate that yields banana-like flavors. While this item has some sweet phenolics and esters, none of them shouted banana to us. Regrettably we could not come up with any Sahti imported from Finland for this review so our appraisal is preliminary at best. This offering is flavorful and pleasant in slightly odd way and overall we asked our panel if it was "bad odd" or "good odd". The later phrase won. I personally expected more banana glory and would have liked an ABV closer to the traditional 7 to 11 peak. "Sweet banana" is missing here even if the herbal-earthy- woodsy notes are respectable enough and half-way to nirvana. The intellectual brain enjoys this more than the culinary side of one's gray matter. Until we can find the Finnish import as a benchmark, we have only this brew as a de facto mild disappointment. And we have a question about the strength of the Juniperus berries for in the ancient gin recipes they had very strong medicinal effects not entirely friendly to the next generation.

Samuel Adams Verloren Gose (Batch No. 1) RATING: 4.0 Boston, Massachussetts Gose (say "rose-uh" ) is a German ale that basically includes coriander and salt, the later either added or from local slightly water. It is associated with Leipzig and usually included both wheat and barley, adding yeast and some lactic bacteria for fun. With it's additions it does not meet the pure Reinheitsgebot but is old and dates from the mid 1700's. It is top fermented but originally they added yeast and let it done it's thing in bottles pretty much at random. This SA version is a tad stronger at 6% ABV. The flow here is bright gold, the head near white with clear but well-spaced lace. "Bright and elusive yet utterly distinctive" is the marketing tag but SA in their new-found wildness (mostly since 2012) has had a few misses. They also compare their Gose to old Saxony products and having a base of unfiltered wheat ale. Odd the stuff is not hazy at all. Salt is said to give it a mineral drink buzz while the coriander clearly suggests both spiced wheats and Belgian golds. The flavor profiles are rather flat, not salty but clearly not sweet either. The coriander is hard to detect but there is something vaguely peppery and nippy there. Hops are classically backgrounded in this style and do not explain any nips. The salting down perhaps makes it a very tame, neutral brew, about as interesting as coriander-flavored salt water! We are pleased that it is a style most of us had not tried and needed to Google several times before Sunday. It is very much a specialty brew and we credit SA well with going out on this very remote, saline limb. "Mild and subdued" is what the German Beer Institute says of this style. They also mentioned banana, green apple, dried apricot, zest, and whiff of spicy coriander. The apple and apricot seem to be here. Having no authentic Saxony Gose to test with it, we are unclear on the quality of this facsimile. Overall, it is boring but competent, kind of like your dull accountant who you really need sometimes and really want to avoid most of the year.

Shipyard Applehead Ale RATING: 4.5 Portland, Maine Taking up on their Pumpkinhead theme, a respectable halloween ale, they are now using apple "natural flavors" and cinnamon to augment the fine wheat ale base. Willamette and Halltertau hops join malts of the 2-row British Pale, Light Munich, and Malted Wheat categories. Pour is dark gold, the head near white but short-lived, and the nose of spiced pils. First sips is mid-potent golden ale but quickly the fruit and spice, authentic apple pie to be sure, comes out and gives one something of a dessert ale thought not overly sweet at any time. Applehead stands above other apple-pie ales in the authenticity of the flavors, the desirable dry, cider-style finish, and it's refreshing charm when icy cold. Reviewers here said "great stuff all around... a celebration of brewing, orcharding, and baking in one liquid dream" and "everything is nicely judged and I did not expect that from my Pumpkinhead experience...this spin was needed and necessary...top notch".

SLO Brewing Blueberry Ale RATING: 5.0 New Ulm. Minnesota Whereas SLO refers to San Luis Obispo this arrives from New Ulm, MN that source of a few decent microbrews. Natural blueberry juice (should there be any other kind) imparts no color (somehow?) of its own. Aroma is unmistakable however. The rich golden color (maybe a touch cloudy) is topped by a sizeable head of near cream color. Flavor is sweet, genuinely of the Vaccinium sort, and not tart like so many berry beers. Many of reviewers felt it was one of the more successful berry-based beers from the US and far preferrable to those hideous raspberry wheat things that inflict our shelves. Even the head persists as long as you can bear to leave outside your body. It is both refreshing and charming glass after glass. And it doesn't leave your lips purple. This is one of the best true-berry ales in my memory.

Samuel Adams LongShot Grape Pale Ale RATING: 4.0 The SA LongShots have been fun, mostly hits and a couple of close misses. This 2007 Winner from Lili Hess of Hawaii, a SA employee is thankfully not the color of Grape Knee High nor does it have a faint violet tint under light. That test is passed. It's amber, well-carbonatd, and the head is respectable strong. A medium-rich pale ale got the addition of natural grape flavor (not juice I must note) and maple syrup. Her inspiration was not a purple or Concord-style grape but the fresh, crisp, "white" (green) variety. That's a nice clarification. That would be champagne territory then added with the sticky byproduct of Acer saccharum., dripped slowly, boiled long, and bottled. I did not like it from the fridge at first and found it's weakness a flaw and yet the sweetness not overboard. The grape was not reaching me. Very cold from the freezer for a short period made this a bit more impressive, not great but interesting. "Interesting" is enough in this crowed beer market where any fool can brew from 200 world-class recipes on the web with a little practice and patience. It's new, a little different, and now I move on. Why did they bother? Sales, sales, sales - and that can hinge entirely on fancy names and novelty value. They still delivered a decent brew even if it did not make us beg for more grape ales.

Samuel Smith Organic Cherry Ale RATING: 4.0 Tadcaster, N. Yorkshire, England This is the best of Smith's organic fruit ales in our opinion, rich in true cherry notes even though the ale is secondary to the cause - true of all this series in fact. It pours juice red with a hint of amber from the malt no doubt. The USDA Organic seal has turned up recently. Reviewers here noted "very pleasant...too much of a girly brew to me...a notch or two above the similar wine cooler" and "well made and authentically infused with real cherry juice...the ale is subdued and hard to pick out from the fruit notes". This product once again proves it's still hard to merge fruit juice with ale and have a good, resultant authentic and bright on both accounts.

Samuel Smith Organic Raspberry Ale RATING: 3.5 Tadcaster, N. Yorkshire, England One normally expects a raspberry ale from the other Samuel place, that one in Boston and not the Old Country. One cannot hardly say no to British razzle-brees added to a legendary brewery's stuff. They also do a cherry juice infusion. Even the lovely foam has a pastel lavender-rose sheen to it, suggesting good things...perhaps or not. Fruit ales are a minefield and not a few great breweries have gotten their figurative extremities (not to mention their berry clusters) blow off over the years in the review process. This one pours a curious dark amber-red and smells of genuine fruit at least. My first reaction is overload, a raspberry broth tinged with ale perhaps? It is not soda sweet but neither is it lambic sour. It does have the fruit density of a lambic and in the final analysis I am going to label this a Raspberry Cider and not a true fruited ale. It is a very pleasant and agreeable product, neither fruited ale, wine cooler, lambic, nor raspberry malt beverage. Perhaps they tried to learn from other firms where the fruit flavor was too subtle and much secondary to the ale notes, sometimes conflicting with strong hops or not paired well to the local malts. I think they turned up all the digital knobs very high and turned a potential berry ale into a berry cider. I like it but cannot call it a real ale by any allowance of my conscience. I love a good Brit cider (and they make many of the finest ones) and will consider this for my table but only in that classification.

Samuel Smith Organic Strawberry Ale RATING: 3.5 Tadcaster, N. Yorkshire, England Much as stated above for their cherry and raspberry variants, this has nice juice and is more of juice flavored (a bit) with ale. Not what is could have been and should be in future. No doubt this "soft" beer will sell for its delicious flavors that have little to do with brewing arts. It seems to be out of the US trade in the 90's and just as well. Saranac Clementine Pale Ale RATING: 4.5 Utica, New York Clementine, citrus peel, and tangerine are blended with Cascade, Centennial, and Columbus hops for this festive, winter delight from one of our favorite value brewers - though the hurt and horror of the S'Mores fiasco is still in our minds. The 5.5% pour is dark gold, more amber-gold under low light with a rocky near white head of some size and duration both. Clementines are apt to be expensive even at wholesale rates so it was not surprising they got several other citrus sources in the kettle. First sip was a refine balance of hops and diverse citrus (at least 6 things possibly contributing citrus notes) and the hops went away quickly by middle passage into a semi-sweet fruit drink of reasonable quality. It is "fruit first" and that did trouble a couple of our hop-crazy panalists who like the citrus slightly subserviant to the almighty vine - though they are bright enough to realize all gradations from fruity to hoppy are logical and surely to be loved by the drinking masses. Fortunately we gave this one a run against Sidecar Orange Pale Ale from Sierra Nevada that was acquired in the same order. SN's label says "hop forward" - big surprise there! Oddly enough the Sidecar was an odd creature only "hop forward" in the finish and with only the occasional note of true orange. Saranac won that battle even with hop nuts.

Shmaltz He'Brew Origin Pomegranate Ale RATING: 4.0 Saratoga Springs, New York The Torah refers to the pomegranate fruit in romantic tones, erotic even, and the label here cites one such verse from the Song of Songs (Solomon). The reference to "Origin" is curious because some scholars believe the Punica granatum tree is in fact the real "apple" of the Garden of Eden; the first forbidden fruit. It appears in very ancient illustrations with a serpent in the boughs and a lovely long- haired lady debating on whether to pick a fruit. The unique shape of the pomegranate calyx makes the identification unmistakable. The fruit has always been a symbol of fertility, being choke full of large ripe seeds like...you know. It is also said the wild (not garden) species was a source of early birth control chemistry because it would cause fetal absorption - I must strongly add the modern garden forms and juice therefrom no longer have such properties. Today the tree is a source of tasty beverages and desserts, know widely for it's powerful antipoxidant qualities.

The pour of this fruity ale is hazy, mid-amber with a rich cream head. As one should expect, addition of the juice makes this a very tart, fruitful affair. The "Imperial amber ale" base is both strong in hops and malt unlike the majority of fruit-augmented ales offered today. ABV is an impressive 8%. It is pleasant and very drinkable even though the background ale elements disguise the fruit a bit. Still this is better than an fruited ale which is all flavor and nothing of ale. This is by all means a real potent ale to it's very core. Panelists here summed it up with "authentic, high quality ale but it does not delight as it might...perhaps the existance of yummy drinks make using grenadine syrup...make it suffer in comparison" and "ultimately disappointing...I would dial back the assertive malts and let more of the fruit shine". For some of us the idea of a pomegranate lambic or saison would be a far better choice to showcase this fruit species. Shelton Brothers Pickled Santa English XMas Ale RATING: 3.5 Oxfordshire, England Brewed with spice, this 6% ABV is a Christmas special and I noticed there was a choice of cute Santa caps for this one single label. It was brewed by Beer Counters Ltd. for Shelton. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and coriander at used so it reminds me of some recent Halloween, Pumpkinoid offerings. The color is amber-gold, the head ivory, fluffy, and long. Their claimed "ruddy chestnut" color is laughable to anyone whose ever seen a chestnut of any species. It has a rich bready flavor of a good English ale but the finish is neither bitter nor sweet - yet smooth in the lightly spiced presentation. This product made exclusively for the US market is no hasty, cheap gimmick - it's close enough to real ale even if not as bitter as my real ale fans say they had expected. The finish gets a bit weak at times and I wish the spices were taken up one gear. It's what I expected, wanted, and a smidge less. A couple notches up and we have a good theme and 4 bottles. Must be chilled for near room temp it will get wimpy on you. Shiner Ruby Redbird (Summer Seasonal) RATING: 3.5 Shiner, Texas I had expected this to be a ruby red ale of some sort. Instead and perhaps with a better result for this brewer (who tend to make weakish, failing mass-market ales), it's Texas Ruby Red grapefruit juice from the Grande Valley mixed with ginger in a golden base. Pure Munich malts are blended with Citra, Mt. Hood, and Cascade hops for an interesting spin. The result is tangy, zippy a bit, even if very carbonated and soda-like in the immediate presentation. I am not a fan of a beer that stands only on the merit of fruit and herbal flavorings, even if real, authentic, and strong enough. There is no "beer here" if you will and only the citrus juice and ginger give it merit. That is philosophically a problem for me and some of you too - I am certain. I could take weak-as-water Pabst and add any lime or tomato juice and cilantro and make it delicious and for once desirable. It would not constitute great beer by any calculation known to real beer enthusiasts. The result without the philosophising and pundatry is respectable and enjoyable when super cold. Fairly cool stuff really and never bad. It will give them a decent rating for this is the only one of the Shiner bottlings to date (June 2011) I would even consider buying again - even if the top 10 microbreweries went away with the great, inevitable west coast earthquake. Ruby Redbird is a cheap, cheating formula but is effective and portable. Any fool can can make fun grapefruit-ginger beer but I give them credit for actually going there and apparently doing it first and at a fair price. Now can we have a real beer on this theme, perhaps an Imperial Grapefruit- Ginger Barleywine spun and crafted to real perfection.

Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Sweet Sunny South Southern Table Beer RATING: 5.0 Chico, California and Mills River, North Carolina This very eccentic is a hazy straw yellow under an enormous white head. It clocks in at 4.9% and is made using Magnum, Hallertau, and Huell Melon hops and a saison type yeast. Malts are diverse being, Pilsner, wheat, and acidulated. It gets even more curious. Corn grits, black teat, honeysuckle, peach, papaya, guava, and prickly pear are added and some of them come from...well...way, way down south. It is pleasant tart and fruitier than an explosion at the Hawaiian Punch plant. You do get those Old World malt notes of bread and biscuit along with a melony hop and the bittering of Magnum. It is a perfect treat and likely...sadly...to be very rare if not extinct in future.

Sierra Nevada-Dogfish Life and Limb 2 Ale RATING: 4.0 Milton, Delaware/Chico, California Very pretty, artistic label for starters. SN and Dogfish making a joint ale is something like Porsche tuning your favorite somber Mercedes S-class sedan - which of course did occur in the mightly 355bhp 500E. This champagne-corked pours a nearly opaque brown (porter dark) with a big, rocky, dirty tan head of long duration. Nose is semi-sweet malt, very weak and non-hoppy for a Sierra Nevada label. The roasted malt brew is flavored by maple syrup (not a new thing at all) but also something called birch syrup. Both bold and aromatic hops are used, sparingly it seems. The sticky Acer product comes from Calagione Farms in Mass. I've never seen birch syrup in stores but my research says it comes from Alaska where hardly any maples are cold hardy. Less than 1500 gallons of the stuff is made worldwide. Flavor notes with Betula sap include sweet-spices including hints of sorghum, horehound candy (something like herbal coughdrops), and complex honey; more more spicy and caramel-like than maple stuff. It's about two-thirds sugar, half fructose and half glucose with bits of sucrose and galactose. One things annoys me. Only one leaf in the label tree looks like a maple and maple just three approximate a birch.

Surprisingly the additions are moderate and this is no a sweet ale by any means - something which 10.2% ethanol helps to curb. Malts are not overly complex but are layered with these two complex sets of sugars for a very pleasant effect - more simple and only faintly hoppy with taste bud saturation. It is perhaps the least hoppy SN product I know. Life-limb.com has more of the story but is confusing with their separation of the 10% and 4.2% versions with different ingredients; even if you drag the blushing daisy down the very bottom of the vertical scroll bar. (Here is sadly another overproduced, under-functioning beer website, more pretty than accessible. Perhaps this is emblematic of the ale itself, lots of fuss and aura but substance and message are wanting). My bottle had a big number 2 on it meaning something....This beer can be aged with success (we are told as I will not bother), even more than the wood used in the original product. Reviewers here said "seems more Dogfish-like than a Chico product...pleasing without being really complex at all" and "too expensive...very drinkable but for the life and limb of me I can't understand what all that syrup does for it". Martin said something about being a sap and we'll not record that comment here. Other good remarks included "why bother?..no one here [our panel] seems to know why and how this exists...maybe a badly planned merger with muddled goals...might be SN's worst failure...is that a cuckoo bird I see in their label tree?" and "yes, yes..really...they went out on a limb, got some syrup and need to be rescued...gotta have more hops in the finish, richer malting, maybe wood-aging tooked the zip and sugar out of it?...please try again". The finish gets sweeter and more spicy (hoppy spicy) as the sips progress. One little cup is not beer tasting I must say for the 1200th time! Is it simple perfection or much-ado-about-nothing - the truth may be in the middle. Maybe we're so used to SN and Dogfish blockbusters were expected the tree sap to be another worldclass, game-changer. It is pleasant but not impressive nor really worth the money if truth be told. It reminds me of a very expensive cab wine with a label and name so fetching your eyes are more dazzled than our taste buds. It is never a bad experience, perhaps an opportunity lost for lack of malt layering and missing diversities there - just not the wow that corks and these breweries usually produce. Is the shark swimming below the label an ominous sign?

Sierra Nevada Sidecar® Orange Pale Ale RATING: 3.5 Chico, California and Mills River, North Carolina Orange peel and "natural flavored added" come together for this 5.3% pale golden-amber thing under a rock, off white lasting head. Hops are Cascade, Mandarina, and Equinox with Magnum in the bittering stage. Malts are two-row pale, honey malt, and Munich. It is an odd thing and when the label said "hop forward" we felt it would be citrusy SN classic with perhaps a bit more orange in the punch. It comes off as a mostly citrus creation, not Sierra Nevada ale-like at all, and the orange notes while real are not there in every passage or second as they might be. In our trials it had a rare loss (perhaps a first) to Saranac's Clementine Pale Ale with 6 different sources of citrus flavor and these more believable and enjoyable than this formula. One panelist said it should be called "Boxcar for it reminded me more of a convenience store ale mixed with water-down OJ that some hobo created using things from his last stop...experimental at best...not up to Sierra standards". Another penned "it was not bad nor was it good...odd flavors, "natural flavors added" perhaps, not unified nor pleasant really...overall it fits the "why bother?" category for me and Sierra Nevada rarely makes that list". I've had orange-flavored Alka-Seltzer® in a cup that was more zesty.

Southern Tier Manhattan Style Ale Brewed with Cherry Juice, Orange Peel, and Coriander Aged in Bourbon Barrels (Barrel House Series) RATING: 4.0 Lakewood, New York This $13.99 bomber is one of several "cocktail inspired" ales on the market and this seems to be a new theme. Take a familiar, loveable bar drink and make a lower or higher ABV beer version of it. The pour of 14.1% creation is a bright copper-red, the head cream and mostly thin. The nose is of bright fruit including cherries galore. First sip is faintly tart for a sec, then quickly into very deep, rich malts, somber dark fruit (not Manhattan cheery to us), and a moderate, restrained set of barrel notes that are light on whiskey, heavier on oak and vanilla. We applaud the lack of classic, barrel-for-barrel-sake strength that hinders the ale and other flavors from being expressed. In other worlds this is not a bourbon-dense drink. This is best as a small glass sipping ale and my attempt to down the full bottle was futile - our standard is 12 oz. and that took some doing! You like it in small measures but any choice of mass quantities will ruin your experience. Mouthfeel is sticky and thick. One panelist felt the flavors were "all over the map....a gumbo of good ingredients...and this time the luck was not with them". Another said "lovely fruit notes both dark and light but inconsistent in their progression...lots of wood moving in and out of the flavor passages yet surprising not much bourbon...coriander and peel are likely contributors but not obvious with so much going...too much going on for me!"

Southern Tier Orange Grove Orange Pale Ale (Seasonal) RATING: 4.0 Lakewood, New York "Natural orange extract" is the operative addition here, surprisingly not orange peel, orange juice, or the like. This 5.5 percenter pours a nice golden amber under an ample head. First sip is citrus to be sure, mid passage more intense, and the later/finish rather try and slightly bitter. Most of our panel felt the bitterness was not only from hops (though this is by no man a hoppy IPA) but from the fruit too. There is not much of a juice taste and some orange-flavored ales and lagers do approach an O.J. theme. This is more of a slightly stronger orange peel note. Any chef or cook will tell us that orange peel is more about estery oils and the juice about complex molecules dispersed in sugary, acidic water. Peel is much more full of oils than we humans often realize. If you've even peeled an orange in the presence of a friendly feline, they'll soon flee and treat you like an abusive person who just slapped them in the face. Cats are hypersensitive to citrus peel oils, detect them acutely, and absolutely deplore the experience. Orange Grove is a pleasant thing but not impressive and we'd recommend it fairly cold, frigid in fact. Still it fails to impress and the dry, sometimes astringent finish is not always the best thing as it warms up a bit. Super cold is best. We really like Southern Tier and they have some very superior, even brilliant, labels in the line but this one is a miss needing more work. Spanish Peaks Honey Raspberry Ale RATING: 3.0 LaCrosse, Wisconsin The chance of me liking or even respecting in the morning any beer with "honey" in then name is about 231 to 1; against. Here is comes..."light bodied amber ale". Let's admit failure up front and on the top label - a kind of truth in advertising that any real beer lover will notice. The fruit is "raspberry extract" (okay?) and the honey is from...dare I say..."wildflowers". What? As opposed to all the honey made from greenhouse flowers and florist's fields or city parks or pots in homeless garden? It pours medium amber, the head mid-duration and cream in shade . The flavor is big raspberry, a good copy at least of the real thing, modestly sweet (which I had not expected), and yet some supporting malts for quality. The finish trails off into places I care not to describe and you would neither care to read or experience for yourself. Very chilly it is a bit better but I evaluate with at least 5 degrees off the optimum which is a real life situation for every brew, especially at a fine meal. The malty infrastructure is nice but it's going to feel like a raspberry soda (made with real fruit) augmented with malt and no hops for most of us. I don't hate it as it's very pleasant at some points before the finish. Still, I'm not about fruit juice flavored with beer. If you are, give it a go and don't pay microbrew prices. I do not support fruit anything that obscures or mitigates a need for brewing skill. Points removed. Smuttynose Hanami Ale RATING: 3.5 Portsmouth, New Hampshire The label is unusual with a little picnic scene, two Japanese dolls, sushi as miniature food, and a sushi sudare (bamboo mat for rolling sushi) as their blanket. Cute, double cute. Girlie girls will reach for this bottle. Hanami refers to the spring tradition of cherry blossom viewing - hence this is a spring seasonal. Nice art, great colors. The brew pours rich amber, slightly hazy, the head big and ivory. It is comes off medium bodied from the start and from their it gets neither better nor worse. Tartness increases and one gets semi-sweet malt some oddish form of hops; the later being Styrian Golding. The tartness comes from cherry juice (fitting for it's name) even though the spring cherry viewing species are only remotely related to our edible/juicing kind. I would have guessed cherry unless told - and that speaks volumes good and bad - very subtle and yet too subtle. ABV is just 4.5%. Malts used include Pils, Carabell, Aromatic, and Carafa. I would turn up the cherry two or three more notches and copy some of highly-rated cherry ales, wheats, and lagers as a model for determining strength of the juide.

Star Pineapple Ale RATING: 4.5 Portland, Oregon The only pineapple beer we had before was a nice lambic. This ale self-labeled as 'A Vacation in a Bottle' was quite different. Cascade and Columbus hops plus fresh pineapple are used. Color is very light amber and a fruity aroma is impossible to miss. Big foamy near-white head. Unlike the lambic the 'pineapple flavor gets a bit lost in the hop-malt balance but that is okay... pineapple is a part of the whole flavor palate and not the biggest part at all'. The label describes a 'smooth citrus finish' and this is true. The beer is unique and very good so our recommendation is very positive. Some skilled beer tasters said 'a more worthy fruit additive than nearly all berry beers tried this year' and 'skillful intergration of many components'.

Steamship Raspberry Ale RATING: 4.0 Norfolk, Virginia This cloudy golden beverage has a persistant near white head and some pleasant yeast dregs. The 'all malt' ale is brewed with raspberries and gives it a rather understated fruit flavor. It is NOT one of the those berry-cooler sort of tastes but instead presents itself to be beer first and fruit-flavored second. That said it was hard for some people to name the fruit when given a so-called blind taste test. It also proved a bit tart for some folks but those used to the regular fare of fruit-brewed ales felt it was among the better ones. We still maintain that Rogue-n-Berry is perhaps still the best of this lot. Yet at the $0 price we paid for this it is surely a fine enough value and would be welcome at almost any table. The style is yet to be perfected. Stillwater Artisanal Cellar Door American Farmhouse Ale RATING: 5.0 Baltimore, Maryland This pretty, artful, ornamental label is the work of Lee Versoza and we like the idea of crediting the few skillful label designers out there. Then we realized that through all the creamy smoke that CELLAR DOOR was the real name of product; so hard to comprehend you'd need to stare at it for 27 hours in several buzzed states with a pile of magnifying glasses to figure it out. The "hard to read" approach is popular with some web fonts but on a product it's a marketing risk when you're asking for thirteen whole dollars (Feb. 2012) for a beer made with sage of all things. It is also 6.6% ABV and that's a good deal shy of the desired potency for a premium beer at this price point and with so much lazy crazy hazy haze. I am not surely how many ales ever flowed from American farm houses but we in the southern US done prefer things a mite stronger and out in the woods if ye will. Malts are German wheat and pale, hops citra and Sterling. Now that sounds promising! A bit of white sage finishes it off. We think this means Salvia apiana though common sage, Salvia officinalis, is occasionlly called white sagre for it's silvery-white colored leaf. The sage, tangerine, herbal, grass, and yeast flavors are very lovely, smooth and delightful from first note to last. It's a herbal ale in the best sense of that name, a sophisticated tea and laudable ale in one luscious package. Cellar Door is a pioneering brew, a fresh lesson in new hops (Citra) with herbs (white age) in a full-bore yeasty package with refined malts. Reviewers here noted "I've made herbal tea with vodka and this is a much finer choice by a farmstead country mile...the wheat malt and yeast prepare it for perfection" and "they got this one just right...spot on...I could not stop pouring and consuming....just a revelation...thank you Stillwater". One descenting opinion was "yes they tried hard but sage in a farmhouse ale?; which should be a bit sour and not like a smoothe from a New Age cafe...lock it and that spooky label in the cellar like your crazy aunt...marketing will not impress an ale lover...". We wonder if a Rosemary Red Ale or Borage Brown are next. Actually, brewers have yet to explore even a hundreth of the rich flavors in the world's herb garden and many of them will love being blended with hops and barley; umm...the herbs not the brewers; they're already spiced and sauced. Can Herbs of Provence Country Ale be far from our shelves? It will pair well with Veal Parm and pizza. Here is a controvseriALE that we figure 90% of informed drinkers will adore and 10% will find a way to call the rest of us gullable and herbally compromised. They do that so let them be. Try it in all cases.

Stone Saison de BUFF RATING: 4.5 San Diego County, California This bright lemon yellow ale requires more explanation than a Mel Gibson tape to his last six girlfriends. It is filed here under Stone but accurately if made by BUFF (Brewers United for Freedom of Flavor) which adds the fine folks at Victory and the even finer folks at Dogfish Head. At 6.8% ABV and $3.99 (July 2010) for a 12 ouncer, it needs to be very special and quite good. The head is ivory and huge. The nose is pure herb garden. One is immediately caught by the tamped on freehand speech over where the label normally would be - kinda like a transparent letter to the would-be buyer. The "saison of sorts" is "hellaceously herbacous" adding parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme for flavor. Thyme and time I suppose. Those exact four herbs should set your head and feet a tapping to a certain pop folk melody from....you know...Paul and that guy with big hair. Do I like herbal beer? Yes, I do and most particularly this one. It is restrained and well-dosed but it might well have been a mess. Rosemary is hard to use in anything and sage and thyme can take over any recipe very easily - sometimes fighting with each other rather than harmonizing. I think they succeeded in part because there is some sweet fruit in the yeastiness to count the savory herbal qualities of the good additives. Big kudos to getting this right and giving us a new, worthwhile, almost fun experience in new brews.

Stone/Fat Heads/Bear Republic TBA Extra Hoppy Brown Ale RATING: 5.0 Escondido, California This 7.1% ale is brewed with brown sugar and molasses, also extra-hopped. The pour is reddish- brown, the head rich tan and lasting. The head has a particularly fine-textured bubble formation, ie. foamy, and very aethestic in a glass. Nose is sweet but hoppy, very far from a candy-malt as such. This "wickedly exciting brew" is made at Stone with two of their respected peers, hoping to take an old style to slightly new, zippy places. First sip is not as sweet as the lovely additive list would indicate. In fact, it is not really a sweet brown ale as normally defined or formulated. It is actually more hoppy, dry, licorice-infused, and supported with complex, good brown malts. They resisted the "candy it up" impulse and we applaude that as much as we love the result. Licorice-noted ale can be a very nice thing even if firm, dry, and tangy. Good real licorice of the candy sort is actually not very sweet and can be dry and bitter in it's natural perfection. This is a very nice brown ale and a lovely addition to the breadth and range we have today. It is needed and we loved it. This is a new benchmark among dry, hoppy browns and simply fills a void we had never knew existed. That is a true accomplishment in any field. Sufferfest FKT Pale Ale Brewed with Salt and Black Currant RATING: 4.0 Chico, California "Will sweat for beer". Brewed at the famous Sierra Nevada operation, this woman-owned brewery emphasizes flavorful but lower carb beers suitable an exercising and active lifestyle - in other words, very enjoyable but not calorie loads off the charts. Their Kolsch for example has full Kolsch and Pils flavors at 95 cals without being the least bit weak or light. For those of you more prone to beer drinking as a sport, FKT means Fastest Known Time. It is not usually about some Olympic record (but could be) but perhaps the fastest run time around a local park or up and down a particular mountain. Some folks devote their weekends (and more) to matching or beating these times. Good for them. This brew pours a clear reddish-amber to copper-red, very clear, the head lasting, low, and cream in tone. First sip is slightly tart giving some currant flavors in moderation and hops about the APA (not AIPA) intensity. After all, SN knows pale ales. Now at 165 calories this has much more carbs than their 95 calorie Kolsch but it's still a lower thing. If you'd rather hydrates after that hill climb or marathon with a fruity liquid that has hops and malts for added pleasure, this is a nice choice. The salt makes it more smooth, savory perhaps, and easy drinking. About half our panel felt it came out more thin than necessary and the rest a good compromise between carbs and flavored water. Nice product but I think they can up the currant flavor to make it more interesting. Sycamore Dreamstate Blueberry Pastry Ale RATING: 4.5 Charlotte, North Carolina Today my fav bottleshop was a'buzz with mango peach smooth lagers and imperial s'more ales. The shelves looked more like a canned smoothie menu or candy counter than a real ale display. Holy hell guys! What has become of old school ales. If your IPA does have nine spices, herbs, foraged nuts, and exotic fruits it nobody will notice. Or so they figure? "Our ale has foraged persimmons, dragon fruit picked by virgins, rare cinnamon that ripens every ten years, gourmet coffee which costs $120 a pound, heirloom white raspberries from 1798, vanilla so rare it comes from a single vine stolen from a royal palace". Holy shit brewers. Let's get down to earth. Dreamstate here is more down to earth for it colors up a nice reddish-orange, the result of blueberries or any other berry in the malty mix. It is a bit of a gourmet recipe, adding graham crackers, blueberries, and milk sugar. As we said, the pour is a kind off a cherry-amber or reddish-copper, showing the berry anthocyanins giving it color. The head is white, fleeting, and low. It is reasonably tart, slightly sweet in some passages, and very easy on the tongue. I detect blueberries, being a tart but complex fruit flavor but it is no blueberry smoothie or vodka blueberry mash. There is a certain mellowness and depth in the malt approach that is pleasing so perhaps those crackers from Mr. Graham do something good. The milk sugar is not new but it's rarely seen (or admitted anyway) in American fruited ale. Panelists found it "intriguing for the ingredient list but in the final analysis just somewhat of a very good to average fruited ale" and "needs more blueberry and that can be done in regular and sour ales both".

Terrapin-Schmaltz Reunion Ale '11 RATING: 3.0 Athens, Georgia Terrapin of Georgia has teamed up with Shmaltz Brewery to "Present a beer for hope", raising funds for The Institute for Myoloma and Bone Cancer. I generally dislike "charity beers" because often the are either eccentrically or feebly awful - and it's not very PC to criticize good intensions. The 7.6% ale pours very dark brown with a tall but fleeting beige head. Chile peppers, vanilla, and cocoa nibs were added to soup up the broth. It first sip or two, the approach seems pleasant enough and even a bit interesting. By sip eight I almost feel that someone put liquid pepper extract in my brown ale as a prank. It is becomes almost undrinkable for some folks at some point. Intensions aside, this is one beer with too much going on and too much added of those things. I drank one bottle, wishing they'd called it Tabasco Ale and inherited one from a panalist who was done with it far too early in the tasting process. There are good chile beers, bottled as such or made after pouring, and all the good ones are fairly modest and subtle; teasing you with delicious hotness inside of being a vegetable sledgehammer. I had to cut my second half bottle down with some sweet, fruity ale to even get it down. Chile may be useful to cure some cancers but this recipe will make us think twice for spending bucks on all the Terrapin specials in future.

Terrapin Peaotch Ale Brewed with Peaches (Midnight Project Brew Four) RATING: 4.0 Athens, Georgia This lovely ale pours a peachy-amber color under a mid-tan, lasting head with variable textures. The flavor of authentic peach juice is very evidence on first sip. Tartness and sweetness are nicely balanced, fading into nice malts in the finish, a few nippy hop saturated after more sips - hops not being evidenct early on. Peaches from GA and CO are used in the batch, making a fairly potent 7.2% buzz. Bottles were $7.99 for slim bomber in September 2011. It would make a delightful summer cool- down beer akin to a hard lemonade for refreshment after mowing the lawn or a hard day putting all your empties into numerous recycling bins before the wife kicks you out.

Reviewers here noted "best very cold...more cooler-like than an impressive ale since the background hops and malts are very far in the background...as luminous as a peach" and "nearly drank the entire bottle in one minute....alive, refreshing, bright with real juice...a good standard for a true fruit ale". We discussed whether more overt but complimentary hops could have been used, bringing up that flavor element to an exciting level. One of us joked that maybe the hops are so complimentary to the peach juice we cannot detect them! Perhaps so but we think not. The world is loaded with peach-based adult beverages so why should this one be an ale - an ale for it's own sake when peach juice, vodka, and assorted more things will satisfy to the hilt? Great recipe but more more malt and some complimentary hop layering would make this a real...gem. And get more sleep next time (just kidding).

Terrapin Samurai Krunkles Ale Brewed with Ginger and Green Tea (Side Project #17) RATING: 3.5 Athens, Georgia The crazy white dude on the label (maybe an insane British madman based on the facial hair and goggles) is pouring a green tea bowl surrounded with ginger root. He seems to be screaming as hops and wheat surround his batch of something. My two favorite drinks are beer and tea and I've always hoped the two worlds would not try much to merge or converge; despite IPA being something of hops tea in it's oldest variant. Tea-tea does very well augmented with vodka and one can add herbs and spices (with or without Camellia sinensis in it's green, white, or black forms) in many ways until the cows and teaballs come home. I do not think the other brewing world need intrude on our existing teabag, teaball, and vodka-adding world unless it must. Malt is no friend of the tender tips of Camellia nor is the harsh, abrasive, very overt hop vine. This true brew uses ginger, jasmine green tea, and jasmine rice if the curious on the label is to be literally believed.

The pour is bright amber-gold, the head small, off-cream, and the lace short-lived. I served this very cold at first and gave a second serving a little warmer to be fair. It proved to be a "goofy brew" (Thanks Ron), odd for it's own sake, faintly of green tea, nips of hops and ginger both, and overall more a curiousity than a precious transformation of the Art of Ale. Terrapin go off into broadly-angled tangents, trips to a maybe non-existant moon, and uncanny combos which will never become fades. On some level I adore their creative juices and experimentation thrust. On the solid, regular ale- swilling level who pays the bills for $10-20 bottles of experimentation, I need to reign in the craziness. Wild exploration, a distribution system, and suitably bold, new graphics do not enhance brewdom in the final analysis. They just make people more skeptical of the odd newbies and make the brew- reviewers job a bit harder. Too much crazy is bad for the business. Unless one loves the ginger-hops nexus of bitterness and cannot live without it, this was a wasted set of kettles. Triple-dosed Green tea with real ginger bags and a splash from adult decanters makes this flakey ale unnecessary - and the real green-ginger nexus will be full of phytochemicals to heal unlike any bottled ale.

Terrapin Special Anniversary Ale (2012) RATING: 4.5 Athens, Georgia First off you notice the cut-out or irregularly cropped label with a math equation, some dude's purple head, and the lovely 9.969% ABV or pretty damn close to ten. The equation solves for 10 so that implies the 10th Anniversary as their website confirms. Nelson Sauvin hops are used with Pils and Malted ryes. Spices and adjunts are coriander, chamomile, dextrose (a complex sugar), and two kinds of orange peel, thus quite Belgian-themed which the yeast also matches in origin. The light-bright yellow pour carries an rocky ivory, quite Belgianoid to be sure. The nose is of faint spices and not much else. Does the rye make a difference? I say yes but only in what might be termed "bready depth". The spicing is of mild mint which these traditional often create in combimnation. Nelson Sauvin hops are from Nelson, New Zealand so this is very much a international assembly of stuff. This hop gives a supposed grapey (not Grape Knee High) flavor of the famous Sauvin style. Others say it is more goosberries and passionfruit or kiwi. There is clearly a good sweetish fruit flavor in the base here and so this very special brew offers one a "spiced white wine" quality. Cheers for this creative, unique recipe even if there wows but no holy wows in our group. It proved a small measure "contrived, gimicky" to one panalist and "too much like fruit-flavored mouthwash" for another. Most of us were far happier with it but not one found perfection in the sips. I have had Nelson Sauvin hops before so perhaps this needs a compansionship with a varietal of another stripe, citrus, Brit bitter, or floral would get this recipe some endurance under another name. Mono-varietal hop ales are sometimes fine but Nelson Sauvin is not a good choice for single hop productons in my opinion. Semi-awesome, delightful and very informative at a minimum, and surely unlike any other golden B- Ale. Please do this kind of thing again and again but they are very apt and clevor at experiments and successes already.

Terrapin White Chocolate Moo-Hoo Ale Brewed with Cocoa Nibs and Natural Flavor (2019 Reserve) RATING: 4.0 Athens, Georgia At last a beer withg a blaring cowbell on the label! The bins are sourced form Olive and Sinclair and this 8.5 percenter is based on their Moo-Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout which is weaker at 6.0% ABV. This 2019 offering is the third time it's been brewer but we are unclear when this all started. It won the vote in their "People's Choice Election". The malt bill is 2-row pale, flaked oat, Crystal 85, chocolate, DH Carafa III, and roasted barley. Hops are Nugget and Willamette. The milk can on the bottle says "adding white chocolate to the mix" and implies they did. That in it's best form is very subtle thing so we will see, right? For being a flavored ale and not a true porter or stout the pour is very blackish- brown, opaque. The head is medium-sized (large for one panelist), lasting long, most fine of texture but can be mixed, rocky after a few minutes. First sip is a bit strange, not really likable but velvety and full of chocolate. Then we get it. The "natural flavor" bit is vanilla which tends to make cacoa nibs seem like popular "white chocolate" of mass market candy bars. By the way, Nestle launched the first white chocolate "MilkyBar" in Europe in 1930. Let's be clear, true white chocolate is made only from cocoa butter and there has none of the dark colors of the dark colored solids in the full chocolate liquor. FDA requires a true white choc to be at least 20% cocoa butter, 14% milk solids, and 3.5% milk flat with no more than 55% sugar or other sweeteners. Since this is a not a chocolate product rules are off. With the dark malts, we cannot really determine what was employed other than cacao nibs but suffice it to say this beer is not 20% cocoa butter or I'd be rubbing my lady's back with it. I believe we can assume this is ordinary yet quality cacoa nibs with vanilla for that white chocolate taste and not too much more mystery to be had. Our panelists were highly divided on this one, ranging from "horrible and undrinkable like their Moo-Hoo Stout but giving more stage to the offending flavors" to "gloriously smooth...a chocolate treasure that made my day". Another panelist emailed me that he got a note of fish, maybe smoked salmon and thought he was loosing his freakin' suds-sucking mind. I assured him I got that same odd "natural flavor" too and cannot explain it. That is very, very minor note and not worth discussion unless you our very loyal Brew-Base.com readers wish to check your brain and tastebuds against us. I pretty much know when my ale or stout has been dosed up with nibs and vanilla to an insane level and I say....less cowbell please. I think they tried once again and half- way succeeded but do bring it back without the baggage. This is very hard to judge with scores all about. You try it in your beer tasting and let us know.

Tobacco Wood Rocket Surgery Juniper Kolsch Ale RATING: 4.5z Oxford, North Carolina North Carolina's first female veteran's owned brewery gives us this unique product in 5.2% and 12 IBU form. A Kolsch ale while technicially an ale is somewhat akin to the Pilsner Lagers and so this could fit with Flavored Lagers too. We may do a Flavored and Fruit Kolsch section soon as we have a few of these already in the file. Here's a quiz to state. What other famous beverage is flavored with juniper? That would be gin. Of course, today they use very lilttle of the juniper berry as that is semi- toxic and was an early birth control product as the species would often cause "fetal absorption", a disappearing act courtesy of herbal science. Modern gin and surely this product are not strong in juniper berries but the idea of an intoxicating beverage that contains birth control - the ancients weren't as dumb as we often assume. If you care to go searching in this PDF file, you'll find that Sam Adams and Rogue have already used juniper cones (popularly called "berries") in their ales. As as you may well know, good gin is made not only with juniper being dominant but up to 40 other spicies in the pot. The pour here is a light-medium yellow (never gold), suitably Kolschy in color under a near white head of diverse textures, short-medium, rocky in two. First sip is a moderately rich Kolsch, lots of nice malts and yeast that continue stronger yet into the middle passages. Then we waited. Not too much more in the flavor department. Another sip, now three. Something is arising, a bit different, very very subtle, a small nip and herbal flavor that is not a classic hop. The juniper berry, assuming they use Juniperus communis (native to North America, Europe, and Asia), gives a gin-like flavor, a nip of spice, faint citrus, and some coniferous resin. Gin is made with green berries and the commericial herbal berry is usually dark and very ripe. One could be forgiven, without reading the label, to call this a "hoppy Kolsch" for the juniper flavor is not so strong nor obvious nor popularly in most beer drinker's flavor library of the brain. This is a good Kolsch and a reliable rich, malty delight even if the kick is light and delicate.

Tommyknocker Imperial Nut Brown Ale Brewed with Pure Maple Syrup RATING: 4.0 Idaho Springs, Colorado For you geo-curious folks (and I confess to be one of y'all), Idaho Springs is on 1-70 west of Denver and another town well known for golden brew...Golden CO. You'd probably pass by this town and brewery on your way from Denver to Vail or Breckenridge. Now the shock. I paid $3.99 in distant NC for a 650ml bottle with the word "Imperial" on it, a special (pricey) additive, and a whopping 9.5%. This is either the best deal in microbrews since Idaho Springs ran out of gold or it's a faux deal. More explanation is needed of the name even if you've seen the Stephen King book and/or movie . Tommyknockers were mischievious (oft evil) elves who slipped into 1800's mining camps, stealing stuff and generally causing chaos. They are, in short, the Welsh-Cornish version of Irish leprechauns.

Now for the beer....It pours very dark reddish-brown, as dark as some porters in fact, the head is nearly impossible to make large. Nose is sweet malt, faintly so. When chilled, it begins EXCEEDINGLY tart, soon crystal and choco malts coming to the fore and then the maple sweetening up the whole affair for a more easy finish. European and American hops are used. The alcohol is strong in some passages, annoying once or twice, but again calmed down by the boiled down Acer saccharum to a nice level. It is said to be a bigger, bolder version of their Maple Nut Brown Ale and having never seen that one, I must judge this with reference to other brands. It is a superb value in a strong, flavorful beer but the harsh tart start and ethanol burn is off-putting in SOME places - though the better, sweeter, smoother sips are rather more refined. I think things rendered "Imperial" in a beer style but not an imperial sword to the throat. Perhaps it merely needs to be served on the warmer side, blended down a fraction, as the tart bits are worse when ordinary cold for a brown ale. The 2007 GABF Bronze Medal may say I am wrong but I wonder what temp they tasted at?

Tommyknockers Maple Nut Brown Ale RATING: 4.5 Idaho Springs, Colorado The high ABV Imperial version of this product but less than it might have been but this common label (which comes in their popular Trail Mix sampler), is more direct and on message. It pours medium brown with a lasting tan head. Very pretty beer in a glass. Pure syrup of the familiar tree is used with ample persuasion for a real candy beer that could not be consumed in any real quantity. It is something of the sipping port or sherry of the beer world. I think the maple-ness or Acerocity is perhaps just a single notch too high and I'd really like the syrup supporting the malt rather than dominating it. As with the Imperial version, chocolate malts with nutty flavors are used and give a nice supporting base note that is unwavering. Treat it like a good porter and drink a small glass for fun. Tommyknocker TundraBeary Ale RATING: 4.5 Idaho Springs, Colorado The pretty scenic label features a rather large, fuzzy cinnamon "beary" dining on native berries with lots of green meadows and Colorado-style, snowy peaks in the background. By the way, these guys don't generally share their produce patches even if very cute. The brewmasters admit to blueberries and raspberries; confessing "other fruit juices" in the process. One usually gets either Vaccinium or Rubus with an ale - seldom both. Color is cloudy amber, a near white head of some duration, and an estery aroma over weak malt. The balance of berries and hops is much in favor of the fleshy, dark- colored fruits and in this regard some are going to think it a Beer Cooler on the first and usually wrong first approach. In early sips (and NEVER LATER) it seems simple and coolerish but enough malt in the backbone arises to make those wild berries harmonize with full freshness and delight.

Lots of fruited ales try to mix hops and berry and come up with all sorts of tart-bitter-estery-sweet blends - many of them very conflicted, discordant, and lacking unity in all respects. I don't think traditional hops varieties are made to mix with berries. Yeasty-fruity wheat beers with fruit is quite another thing. But pairing malt with berries as performed here is a more successful approach. I did not notice this at first but it is very valuable determination. I will warn you of one thing - TundraBeary is shallow and perhaps too coolerish in the first few sips - even the first entire bottle. I did three 12's as is my custom so the saturation of flavors and the shift of temperatures from cold to less cold would influence me towards fairness. As I say often these days, now decades into beer reviews: "if you find a questionable recipes and flavors from an otherwise proven, high quality brewery at first presentation...sip and sip on...there is often a wiser, later conclusion to be found". Reality tends to dawn with more exposure. Ethanol rarely improves my opinions and oft to the contrary; I tend to get more ballistic and mean with a buzz; and god help you if your label is full of ugly flying dogs in some annoying color. When a second or third bottle transfuses and doses me towards discernment, I should learn from that experience. We need time and volume in this field of beer tasting. Tiny little paper cups and even one oddly cooled bottle at some Fair is no measure of a label! Our final conclusions will become more accurate with more ounces consumed and vapors processed. Beer tasting should be a slow, lasting, totally encompassing experience and not one limited by money or hours available. Work late, spend lavishly, and write from the heart as all the organs, nodules, and glands inform our skulls.

TundraBeary is more of an impressive Malty-Berry Ale while also being a multi-berry blend! It resonated with me more with volume and my loyal tastebuds by mid pour of a second bottle. I almost feel myself as a grumpy, malty-brown bear browsing for sweet treats but finding it here in a vessel as cinnamon as me.

Unibroue Ephemere White Ale with Apple Juice, Coriander, and Curacao RATING: 4.5 Chambly, Quebec, Canada I poured this the first time and was utterly shocked. Did I get a sour, spoiled bottle? Probably not, the fruitiness was real, sweet enough and very tart. Then I spyed the fairy-like nymph on the label toughing a giant green apple (an Garden of Eden reference?) and the whole apple thing clicked in my brain. (Okay, I have my slow moments but please read on...). Color is bright, lightish yellow, the lace unceasing and casually timed. The sour aroma is off-putting so just don't sniff the stuff and QUICKLY move on to the part where the liquid goes into a human mouth. The first sniff of the 5.5% beverage is very tart, then Granny Smith apple (the exact cultivar they employ), and then some faint spices said to include coriander. Sweetness is moderate and kept in check. High marks for avoiding that deep pit. Curacao? A beer flavored with a tiny Carribean country? Them must be some big ole shiny copper vats in Chambly thar! Actually the "curacao" name here also refers to liqueur flavored with dried Laraha citrus peels (resembling the Valentia orange but more bitter) from the country of the same name. Thank god they didn't use the ugly blue-tinged curacao stuff in a bottle - that would be some ugly fruit beer - or not. I'd have made it a little green like Granny - a very pleasant color in fact.

Maybe on St. Patricks or Curacao Independence Day. Curacao Flag Day is July 2nd - another good excuse now for a long, beer-drenched week. Party on! This stuff is almost a cider-brew and I mean that in a very positive way. There are good apple beers and many bad ones. This is a great one and a genuine winner. They just need to get rid of that sour, swampy aroma and it's a 5 bottle for sure. The website says to serve it with Cheddar cheese, pork, or onion soup. I tried the first and yes the acids seems to meld very well. Unibroue Quelque Chose RATING: 5.0 Chambly, Quebec, Canada The corked bottles sold for $13.99 (October 2010) and pour a surprising clear reddish-brown. Quelque chose is French for "something", something of a triffle or insignificant in general - quite the wide opposite in this case. The formula is 50% dark ale and 50% brown ale brewed with cherries - geared up to just 8% ABV. I am confused as some online reviews which compare it to a cherry lambic for my bottle was never tart or sour as that entity and quite the sweet malty cherry ale of a very different and significant character. It is warmly spiced, a deep and yummy flavor as if a cherry pie were made with healing and old-fashioned apple pie spices; giving it a harmonious and comforting aspect. There are good notes of mince meat pie, somber malt, and sugar-laden cherry pies all thoroughout the journey of flavors. The label confesses to notes of vanilla, clove, cinnamon, and honey. If anything is claimed to be wrong, it's too syrupy for some tastes, though I feel it was expertly judged and gotten righty.

Unibroue/Trader Joe's 2019 Vintage Spiced Ale, Dark Ale Brewed with Spices RATING: 4.0 Chambly, Quebec, Canada This 750ml bottles, corked and wired was just $5.99 on special at TJ, up to $7.99 and still a bargain at some shops. That is the bargain of the century in flavored ales. This nine percenter pours mostly opaque, dark reddish-brown color with hints of amber and red showing out under LED. The head is micro-fine, soon finely rocky, light beige, low, and lasting just may 20 seconds. First sip is mellow, not tart, very malty and fully spiced. Again, this is a value deal of the decade, a premium spiced, uber malty ale in such a fine size and trim for this price. It has a certain straight-forward simplicity and while the malts are not super complex and there is little hops, the approach is mimimalist and precise. It is scarcely sweet but neither is it harsh and dry. It favors dry and spicy for most of the passages. This recipe while cheap is admirable and a good thing in this world of overpriced, corked, non-sense with fancy names and expensive labels. I like this approach and while it's not a world-beater it bring a smile to my face.

Unita Labyrinth Black Ale Brewed with Licorice RATING: 4.5 Salt Lake City, Utah "and there are faint licorice, plum, and banana notes". Like hell! Much of that wine amd beer stuff in fancy media is really just imagined grandeur and semantical silliness. Few real humans with real tongues and informed brains detect more than half the fancy, named stuff - and this includes trained, sensitive tasters. In the case of Labyrinth the licorice and fruit notes are not imagined. The fruit is more background and what I would call non-tart cherry. They actually brewed it with licorice sticks (natural we hope and not the commercial artificially flavored, sugared up stuff?) and then age it in oak barrels. The ABV is a whopping 13.2% and I felt my living room was soon a labyrinth wrapped inside the corridors of Pentagon superimposed on the hidden chambers of the Valley of the Kings, flipped into a worm hole and folded into a hop-laden origami map with a raised fractal surface. Back to....I forget now.

This is one fine, firm, malty buzz. Color is stout opaque, the head semi-lasting, low and tan. Like their Tilted Smile (forgettable) and Cockeyed Cooper (memorable and deep), this Uinta offering is a pricey at $12.99 (February 2011) in it's corked majesty. I like a rich malty beer (stout, porter, or black ale) with a nippy finish. Usually that comes from hops and a bit ethanol - but here we have a third nipper in the licorice bite. The aging may be short (can't say for certain) because the usual barrel notes are subdued though clearly there. Fascinating and informative but there is a bit of room for improvement. More mellow, oak-based aging just might get them to God's highest heaven or whatever they call it in Salt Lake these latter days. Back to the Labyrinth...

Unita Birthday Suit Sour Cherry Ale (Crooked Line) RATING: 4.0 Salt Lake City, Utah The corked, caged, and bottle-conditioned giants pour a curious reddish-amber color under a reddish- tan head; showing there is surely some juice in the juice. This "sinful pleasure" marks the brewery's 19th birthday and so the cherry tree became a scene from Eden. It needs to be very cold. It has lots of carbonation as bottle-conditioning often produces and the cherry flavors are real enough but tending to the sour side. It is no sweet cherry ale as some others are. Nor is it as sour as a cherry lambic, though the finish is a tad sour and dry. It is pleasant enough offering but fails to get us contemplating vile things with or without fig leaves and serpents. The Unknown Hospitali-Tea Southern Amber Ale Brewed with Tea Leaves and Honey RATING: 5.0 Charlotte, North Carolina I've always been a fan of quality tea x ale hybrids and have blended a couple myself. Take a golden ale and dump in CONSTANT COMMENT™ tea. Our what about an ESB with some Earl Grey. My experiments with rare Chinese white tea and ales are still underway. Hint, hint broadly to any brewers reading this. Silver Needles and White Peony rule. Buy them directly a proven Chinese supplier on eBay and they might actually be cheaper than hops. Honey all these tea-ale infusions to taste. 'Nough to make a Brit real ale fan cry.

When I first saw this canned recipe I went back to 1982 with my first time sitting in a North Carolina BBQ house and thinking the sweet tea had accidentally been dosed with five times the correct amount of sugar. I was about to alert the waitress until my buds laughed with utter cruelty at me. The liquid amber syrup of that house revolted me, I cringed, shouted something rude, and yet it quickly became a favorite if I could the local house to provide enough fresh lemon slices to temper it down with some citric acid. Usually they will. So how does this Unkown recipe need honey in any way? Better leaves with honey than the common restaurant excess. The pour is perhaps intentionally an amber tea color, faintly hazy, the head boldly bubbled in ivory, lasting well. They did not use the ultra- sweet southern style tea but used raw leaves it seems - very wisely I think. The honey is modest and moderate and will not make a Carolina sweet tea virgin blush. The honey is well judged and the tea actually makes the hop amber base better, mellowing it, detailing it new notes for an ale, making it dry and somber. That is a very hard to do as my ale and brewed tea blending experience tells me. They nailed this one. It's very much perfect as is here and paying $8.99 for six cans was the deal of the month. This is a genius creation and I would like to see them try other formulas and recipes with tea. Here is a wonderful ale, subtle and sophisticated, majestic in it's merger of two age-old beverages, a harmony not easily executed, and in the final analysis: highly loveable.

Verhaeghe Vichte Duchesse Cherry Aged in Oak Barrels with Cherries RATING: 4.x Verhaeghe Vichte, Belgium This begins life as a Flander Red Ale and then is aged with cherries, champagne-corked and caged in 6.8% trim. The 12.7 ounce bottle retailed for $9.99 in December 2019.

Well's Banana Bread Ale RATING: 4.0 Bedford, England There are a bunch of good fruit ales...sorry. Let's start over. Using mineral water and "fairtrade" bananas (which I think means the employees are paid 1 US cent more a week) is blended with barley malts, fresh hops, and "peppery spice". It's 5.2% ABV and and poured aroma is enough to drive a barrel of monkeys insane. The concept comes from the warming quality of a good banana nut bread which is hardly beaten anywhere by anything in the baking world if you ask me. It is further extended by the history that beer was in ancient times "liquid bread" that was a way to preserve carbs over time because of the ethanol in it. The tint is that of slightly amberized gold with a big off white head. The flavor is "spot on" as our English counsins say, not some tarted up ale with banana extract tossed in at the final hour NOR is it weak real bananas because real fruit, fairtrade or otherwise, is quite expensive to add to anything. One detects faint spicing at some points but the flavor notes are irregular are a few positions, hollow and empty in the finish owning to it's surprising dry nature. One might have ruined banana bread beer twelve ways and the most obvious is making it overly sweet like banana-ale soda. I think they may have erred on the dry side for it has metallic, uneven aspects to the flavor that a little more sugar might have covered. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I'd advise them to sugar it up just a notch, maybe two, and clean up those awkward, dry flavor notes. The concept is a very 'peeling one and deserves another go towards excellence.

Widmer Brothers Prickly Pear Braggot Ale RATING: 4.0 Portland, Oregon Usually it's colorful foiling, a cork and wire job, a very thick brown bottle, numbered edition stamps, or just simply the price that sets special brews apart from the ordinary stuff. In this case it's a simple cardboard box with a label that holds this bottle that sets it apart and makes a bit curious. ABV 10%. Check! Honey and prickly pear (Opuntia cactus) juice. Check and double check! Now being a botanist I've eaten prickly pear juice from the pads and fruit both and even had it fried with peppers of all insane, delightful things. Walk into the desert...free food and instant hydration. Then there is that Braggot thing, a difficult topic in bars perhaps when talking about stuff with pricks and honey. Braggot (sometimes pronounced like "bracket") dates from the 14th century and is related to mead, being a blend of such with traditional beer, spices, and herbs. Braggot is usually more hoppy and malty than mead but spiced mead is not uncommon these day. There were forms with and without hops for spicing in early times. It can be 6-13% ABV so this 10% is mid strength actually.

In terms of modern brewing it is something of a Strong Honey Ale and not much more than that. Curious, fun, nicely brewed, but don't expect any top medals. I'm pretty sure Chaucer, the dude who told us that "love is blind", told no tales about adding a cactus to honey. He did say that "by nature, men love newfangledness" and prickly pear ale becoming popular would make him right for the 13th million time in the history of product marketing. Our curiosity and boredom will sell the first hundred cases anyhow. Color is dark gold, tinged amber, head short-lived and near white. The honey is needed for the Opuntia's raw vegetable nature is on the bitter side here, not unexpected to me, but savory enough to need sweetenin' up as we say in the South. There are many edible species (100+, 10 common), many ways to process the PP juice, varieties of various colors, and hence different flavors - raw chlorophyll, citrus, watermelon, honeydew melon, and fresh strawberry being commonly cited. I have no idea what kind, quality, or amount they used here but surely it was not the concentrated, red pigmented stuff. Prickly Pear drinks are usually mid to dark red. There are interludes in this brew that are pure honey ale, faintly mead-like but still more malty and hopped, but overall we have something a tad different from not straying too far from my comfort zone. There is a rumor that prickly pear juice soothes hangovers (and treasts everything from cancer to diabetes) and that is not established by anyone I can cite with authority - and surely this brew would not have enough concentration to do any of that to much effect. The real genius of using this member of cactus family in beer is that it has a long history of use in Margaritas and what is good for mixed drinks will eventually find it's way into the brewer's kettle and bottling machine. Bring me that Melon-Appletini Wheat Beer and make it fast! Wynkoop Solstice Summer (Belgian Raspberry) RATING: 4.5 Denver, Colorado Color as expected is reddish amber with a smallish yet enduring head tinted of rose cream. The raspberry flavor is mightily authentic and presents itself with just the right measure of sweetness - this being an art not all raspberry ale and wheat brewers have perfected. They do dare to use the name 'Belgian' four times on the label, making a comparison with aged, bottle fermented lambics a near necessity. Frankly this cannot compare for overall complexity - even though one must recall that berry lambics are rather tart. This is certainly one of the top berry-flavored beers from our country and only a tiny minority considered it fit for the wine cooler crowd. If fruit-flavored beers usually offend you give this one a long sip.