This week's best beers take us from breakfast to the beach.
Fort George City of Dreams - Technically a pale ale, this 5.5% hazy beer makes a great accompaniment to a cup of coffee (trust us, that's how we started football Sunday). What it makes up for in visual appeal in the glass it more than makes up for in citrusy flavor, with an eye-catching label on the 12oz cans to boot.
If a glass of hop juice is a little to much to start your day with, then this next beer is a great alternative.
StormBreaker Mocabe Lo Sabe - A coffee cream ale made in collaboration with Groundwork Coffee it is smooth and creamy, thanks to the flaked oats. Also clocking in at a morning-appropriate 5.5%, coffee beer lovers should seek this out before it's gone.
Breakfast behind us, grab a towel and let's head to the beach.
Urban Family Island Crusher - A dry-hopped sour with pineapple and Amarillo hops, it starts with the aroma of freshly slathered on cocoa butter and the flavor follows with a pineapple/hop bite. Between the green and yellow of the label and the beer inside we dare you not to imagine being transported to the tropics.
As we approach Christmas and the day drinking it likely entails, consider picking up at least one of these for yourself or to share. Remember, Santa sees all.
We're going back to the sour well this week with five of the six beers making our list in that camp.
Little Beast Dream State - Receiving one of our highest ratings this first fruit beer from Little Beast is outstanding. Generally strawberries are one of our least favorite fruits to be used in making a beer but the 100lbs of hand-picked Oregon strawberries displayed their heady aroma up front and with their lush fruit character following the mid-palate funk. It would be easy to drink the full 375ml bottle by one's self but we were fortunate enough that the person that shared it with us was feeling generous.
pFriem Bosbessen - Switching berries to blueberries, they impart a gorgeous color and tart blueberry aroma into this barrel-aged lambic-style ale. That's where they depart and the funk goodness takes over, dominating the flavor in the most delicious way.
Almanac Tropical Galaxy - The name Almanac is nearly synonymous with sour/wild beers although this one is distinctly different from many of the fruit-forward ones we've enjoyed before. A dry-hopped farmhouse aged in oak barrels with mango, lime and coconut the aroma is pretty funky with a flavor that is both smooth and balanced between the various components.
Our next two beers come from the same brewery - Urban Family - but couldn't be more different.
Guava Dawn, displaying a bright color from the pink guava that also infuses the aroma, it is subtly balanced by the Brett, Sacc and Lactobacillus mixed culture it was fermented with. The result is mimosa-like and crushable.
Dark Perennial goes to the dark side of sour beers with a nearly opaque color, a combination resulting from the blackberries, boysenberries and Midnight Wheat. The rhubarb contributes tartness, which often makes for a bit of an astringent mouthfeel, but here is pleasantly overpowered by the Midnight Wheat to provide the a velvet mouthfeel we've not before experienced in a sour beer. A fantastic winter sour.
Departing the sour train, the final beer making this week's list combines our second favorite drink - coffee - to create the most recently enjoyed lovechild of this union.
Ruse Grizzly Menace - A robust coffee porter that was conditioned on cold brew from Coava, the aroma is all coffee with a combination of coffee and chocolate characteristics in the flavor. Complimenting the aroma and flavor is a silky mouthfeel that could be associated with the use of lactose but here it comes from oats. While we love lactose for the mouthfeel and sweetness it imparts, the use of oats is more appropriate for a porter base and keeps the result from being sweet. We've had IPAs, sours and now a coffee porter from Ruse and we're thoroughly impressed with all of them. You can bet we'll be visiting their space along the orange Max line once it's open, currently slated for early 2018.
We drank a ton of great beer last week! And like last week those beers fall squarely into to two quite dissimilar categories - stout and sour.
Barley Brown's Don Vanuchi 2017 - This first beer is one we were lucky enough to drink thanks to Chris' recent trip to Eastern Oregon, which included a visit to his favorite brewery, Barley Brown's. In past years this Russian Imperial Stout has been barrel aged and while we enjoyed that, it really shines without the addition of the qualities the barrels imparted. It drinks bitter, like really good dark chocolate, which pleasantly masks the 9.5% ABV.
Adroit Theory B/A/Y/S (Ghost 546) - Another Russian Imperial Stout, its cocoa-bitter flavor is balanced with just a touch of sweetness making for a very drinkable 10%.
Belching Beaver Mexican Chocolate Peanut Butter Stout - Formerly called Viva La Beaver and Living La Beaver Loca, the aroma is predominately peanut butter with the flavor speaking more to the chocolate/cocoa part of the name with just the slightest bit of heat. It's no surprise that it is Belching Beaver's highest rated beer and that it has been awarded numerous gold and silver medals.
Allegory Fresh Pints!!! - This 4.2% fresh hopped sour ale starts with a great sour aroma, followed by a pleasant, drinkable sour flavor with just a touch of the characteristics from the fresh hops coming in at the end. A refreshing beer and a refreshing take on a fresh hop beer at a time when so many places default to an IPA, pale ale or red ale base.
O'so Tuppen's Demise - Shared by another Chris (who also goes by Tappan, not to be confused with the name of this beer), it's an outstanding blended barrel aged tart beer that's lightly effervescent and displays a gorgeous rosey color from the Michigan blueberries in it.
Flat Tail Dam Wild Raspberry and Lime - Flat Tail continues to impress us with their sour beers, this one full of berry flavor tempered every so slightly by a splash of lime. Clocking in at a surprising 7.5%, it's easy drinking and perfect for Indian Summer days.
Urban Family Zested - A newer beer from another brewery that excels at sour beers, the best way we can describe this is as the love child of lemon curd and beer. If you dig on bright and lemony, you should dig on this.
Fruit, haze, coffee and an imperial stout, this week's list runs all over the beer style spectrum. Whether your palate enjoys similar diversity or you prefer a tighter flavor profile something on here should find its way into your glass because they are all stellar.
Urban Family Aprium Dream - Huge thanks to Chris for sharing this foeder-fermented American Wild Ale (and for snapping a great pic!). Starting with a sweet tart aroma that follows through the to the flavor, it finishes fruity and clean. In case you were wondering, apriums are a real fruit, a hybrid of apricots and plums that Urban Family sourced from Collins Family Orchards and introduced to their house Brett-Saison culture. What a wonderful match!
Block 15 Fluffhead - This hazy IPA smells juicy and has a flavor that follows. Balancing the beer is a slight hop bite from the late addition hopping with Mosaic, Chinook and Azacca hops.
North Jetty Discover Coast Coffee Stout - We've had this beer before but not on nitro and that is most certainly the way is should be served. Starting with a nummy, nutty aroma that is followed by a chocolate milkshake flavor with just the right amount of sweetness, it finishes with a slight bitterness.
Alesong Mocha Rhino Suit - An incredibly smooth 12% beer that is a blend of imperial stouts aged over 10 months in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels and finished on Eugene's Coffee Plant Roasters' Costa Rican coffee beans and Chocolate Alchemy's Honduran cocoa nibs, don't let the slightly sharp aroma faze you. It's adult beer candy that isn't overly sweet and if you can get your hands on this, don't hesitate to do it.
Both the North Jetty and Alesong were enjoyed at a the new Imperial Bottle Shop and Taproom on NE Alberta. If you haven't been, put it on your list to check out. Alex and Shaun have created a worthy sister location to the original on SE Division.
