Week 8: Belgium & Holland

Alright so this week I was sitting an thinking…. What do I know is a good beer (at least from peer recommendations) because this week I just really want a damn good beer.  So while looking I saw these three and realized, hey these have a common element (being that they are all brewed in Belgium or the Netherlands… I think)  and with that thought I realized, I must have these!  Now if you don’t drink many Belgian beers you have to realize a few things, while they may have a bunch of dark beers (Hoegaarden being the only “dark” one here) their light beers are what gives them their fame if you ask me.  It’s all good stuff and Stella is the classy way to drink Belgian beer.  So basically here’s three rules of thumb about these beers. (without any sort of taste based review)  1.  Stella is just a classy beer and if you want to look good in front of everyone, key word EVERYONE, order this beer and break that little paper seal around it to be the classiest person in the room.  2. Grolsch invented the flip and seal cap, I mean how freaking cool is that?  If someone does something like that they obviously have their shit together.  3. Hoegaarden.  Enough said.  Obviously just an awesome beer at the very least by its name.  So drink it, love it, worship it. 

Hoegaarden:   alcohol content: 4.9%

Nick:  I have to agree with Alex, it tastes pretty similar to franziskaner. I remember not caring to much for the fraziskaner, but I don’t dislike Hoegaarden.  Seemingly  starchy tastes kinda like corn. But it tastes better as you drink.

Alex: After sipping the first sip of Hoegaarden, I feared it would take me back to Franzfarzskinar. It has a strong starch taste to it at first, but evened out as the beer progressed. Turned out liking this beer.

Lyle:  I’ve had this beer a bunch of times before, so this blurb has been thought over quite a bit.  I love this beer though, it’s delicious.  This beer is a little reminiscent to Franziskaner, but I like both.  They each have an earthy taste, and are a little reminiscent of either corn or possibly cinnamon. Both absolutely delicious.

Grolsch:     alcohol content: 5.0%

Nick:  Initial thought: taste like piss.  Like with most other beer, gets a bit better as it’s drank.  I really like the bottle and its lack of a main label. I certainly wouldn’t buy this again, I think its absolutely horrible.

Alex: Well, at first look, I was worried about this beer tasting like Spatten. But as to my surprise, I really enjoyed this dry and tasty beer. If I could compare it to any other beer, I would say Rolling Rock.

Lyle:   I love Grolsch, easily in my top three beers ever.  I would say this one and Stella are in my top three, so this week pretty much corners this market for me.  Grolsch is delicious though, I can’t think exactly what this tastes like, it is like others I’ve had but I can’t remember what.   Anyways, I love this beer, if you enjoy my other beers that I’ve rated highly, please try this, I promise you wont be disappointed. 

Stella Artois:     alcohol content: 5.0%

Nick: Seemingly high class yet so accessible. Everything about Stella just exudes effortless class, from the extended paper wrapper, to its history and taste.  Taste wise, this has got to be probably my favorite beer. A balanced of flavor in several aspects.

Alex: Oh how I was so excited to drink the Stella! This was my absolute favorite of the three for a couple of reasons. One being, it has an excellent combination of hops and dryness. The other being it’s a Belgian beer! In my opinion, Belgium brews some of the best beers.

Lyle: I love Stella, I’ve had this one before but it’s just such a good beer that we had to do it again this week.  This is in my top three beers (Grolsch is pretty darn high up there too!) and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone should at least try it.

Week 7: New Belgian Brewery

Alright everyone, so we are a little over half a week late with this post, but I mean how much can you really expect from a BEER blog?  Exactly… But no, we as a three had things going on last Thursday and Friday… and well, all weekend, so here we are, on a Monday, with our blog rolling along.  So, this week we tried New Belgium Brewery beers.  While this may be common due to Fat Tire and all, we decided to try three of their not-so-tried beers.  These three were all interesting and all had good flavors (Read the reviews to find the untruth!) I would advise you drink any of these three with a little rock and roll playing in the background to make you a little happier and maybe ignore all the hops that were in two of these beers.  So hey guys, if ya wanna sit down and try one of these, I advise ya throw a record on the turntable and relax while soaking up all the hops.

Ranger      alcohol percentage  6.5%

Nick:  Seemingly fruity, a whole mess a’ hopps. Delicious, I can see myself buying this in the future,  but its not for everyday.

Alex:  Wow! The “hoppiness” of this IPA really kicks you in the mouth when taking the first sip. As I drank the beer, I enjoyed the beer more, but…with this beer, I would rather not have the hops overbear the taste of the pale ale.

Lyle:  Alright, so let me beat a dead horse, as we all know, not a hop person.  By correlation, this really isn’t a good beer for me.  I mean I can see that this would be a good beer, just not for me.  I think this did taste a bit like the Wyld from Four+ and by that it isn’t too bad, but overall, just not for me.

Blue Paddle  alcohol percentage  4.8%

Nick:  pretty good, Super smooth.  I just cant drink this quickly at all, which isn’t necessarily . Much lower alcohol content compared to the others that we drank.  I think that I would probably just buy Fat Tire if I were to buy from the New Belgian Brewery.

Alex: A much more liberal beer in terms of hops. It is very smooth throughout the sip with a good bitter aftertaste that doesn’t take away from the overall taste of this pilsner.

Lyle:  After Ranger this was a delicious change.  I love this beer and if put into more rationing, I would say I like this more than original Fat Tire.  I don’t think that this beer could be drank quickly by any means, but if you drink it slowly and to enjoy, I would easily recommend this to anyone.

Hoptober   alcohol percentage  6%

Nick: This tastes just like the Ranger, just slightly maltier and slightly less bitter.  It must be sipped. 

Alex: Déjà vu! I like this beer, but like Nick and Lyle, it tastes almost the same as Ranger. The only difference between the two is the addition of malt in the Hoptober, which makes it more favorable to the Ranger. This is my second favorite of the three.

Lyle: I hate hopps. Lyle Lyle Lyle Lyle Lyle Lyle Lyle Lyle Lyle Lyle Lyle Lyle Lyle Lyle. Lyle.

Week 6: Flying Dog

Now this is a story all about how my life got twisted, turned upside down and I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there; and ill tell you how we tried to figure out the mystery of Flying Dog beer.  As we were perusing the isles of our local beer store we saw a brand of six packs called Flying Dog.  Immediately we all thought of a little place in our town that was called Flying Dog and had the same symbol. So we, as the assuming people that we are, thought that this had to be a local brew, but alas, it was not. (What a damn let down, c’mon local brewers step it up!)  We decided to purchase these brews anyways since we were already convinced that we must try them since they MUST be local.  So after purchasing these and settling ourselves into the six-pack-club lair we cracked open the first frosty one.  The mugs were ready, the pouring commenced, and after our eye-contacting prost, we all took our first drink.  Now I won’t say that we were disappointed, but.... we’ll we were disappointed.  Now it’s not that these were bad beers exactly, it’s more that they didn’t stand out compared to any others.  But hey, thats just one poor boys opinion and I do by all means think these have their good qualities, so... since the suspense is broken, read on anyways and figure out some fun details! 

for more info go to www.flyingdogales.com

Doggie style:       Classic Pale Ale    alcohol content: 5.5%

Nick:  It's really smooth initially, it has a nice bite to it, on the hoppy side.  Not like a typical pale ale, still delicious though.

Alex:  One of my favorites, as far as pale beers go. This ale is very dry and has a smooth aftertaste that makes it a great beer to enjoy.

Lyle:  Personally I didn’t like it at all.  My first thought was this is a pale ale that tastes kinda like a hefeweizen.   I don’t think I would buy this on many other occasions.  When I drink this I think of Fat Tire and Blue Moon and personally I would rather drink either of the other two.

In-Heat Wheat:    Heffeweizen   alcohol content:4.7%

Nick: It’s a pretty good Heffewiezen,  a solid wheat beer, but I cant decide if I really like it.  Pretty complex flavor, pretty full.  There is a reason that the heffeweizen is a great Oktberfest brew, its perfect for the fall. The name is pretty gross, I don't want to think about animals in heat, ever.

Alex: A good solid Hefweizen with an acute flavor of caramel aftertaste. It closely compares to the Shiner Hefweizen in that it is full and flavorful.

Lyle: I thought this was a good beer that tasted a lot like the Franziskaner we had not too long ago (if you didn’t catch that one scroll don’t a little bit and read all about it!) and I kinda like that.  No matter what though, I think I’ll be buying the Franziskaner over this beer on any given day. 

Tire Bite:      Golden Ale   alcohol content:5.1%

Nick : Pretty good, least favorite of the three, but that is not to say that it isn’t great. Pretty summery, so our timing is a bit off.   But as a whole, I am really unimpressed with this entire brew company, nothing is really unique or special about it, the beer is good, but I would much rather buy another brand. 

Alex: A decent beer with a smooth taste throughout. What makes me not have anything that special to say, is that it doesn’t have a unique taste that separates it from any other ale beer.

Lyle: Good beer, smooth also.  I don’t think I would purchase this one on a daily basis either.  So for me this is a strike three of three… otherwise saying Flying Dog is out of the question for me in the future!  But hey I don’t discredit their beer because it is good.  I just think there are beers that are better from other companies.

Week 5: Anchor Brewing

Anchor steam is the choice of the week!  If you haven't heard of it, you should definitely pay attention because this is one hell of an American brewery that has been around for awhile and can actually be acquired in a lot of places.  One more fun thing about these beers is the bottles.  These are pretty cool little things in a weird bottle that I've never seen anything similar to, and if you have any sort of sense of aesthetics, then you will love it. (or maybe you are just bling... or like ugly things?) So now I'll move on to a few qualities on why you should actually purchase this beer... Alright so first things first, it's very foamy.  This beer has a great head that is very light and it creates a unique texture to the beers.   The bottles didn't really do these beers justice since unfortunately you can't get the head that you could out of a tap, so I would really recommend all of these straight from the tap to anyone.   Now, if that little blurb didn't make you want to try these beers, you can go on to read our reviews (which if you don't read those... why are you here?)  and if you want more than that, we will even be nice and provide a website link for you so you can go to their site and read stuff by their lovely writers. 

Liberty Ale:    alcohol content: 5.9%


Nick: Very hoppy, I liked it more initially than I did by the end. I cant help but feel patriotic when drinking it.
 

Alex: At first I did not like the hoppy taste of the beer, but as the drink progressed, it became more and more enjoyable. The hoppy taste seemed to balance out and impressed me.

Lyle:   I really enjoyed this beer, which I wont lie, is kind of odd considering I usually don't like hoppy beers.  So in my book, this beer was quite delicious (and also very very foamy! I mean dear lord did this beer have a head to it!) and I would probably buy it on a weekly basis since it is a change up since I usually don't do hoppy beers.  

Anchor Porter:    alcohol content: 5.6%

Nick:  Super dark, looks like motor oil. I don’t usually like darker beer, but this seems to be an exception, it has a surprisingly unsatisfactory after taste. Very bold.

Alex: A very very dark beer, almost taste like a strong alcoholic coffee. If you love dark beers you will love this one. Personally, not a big fan.

Lyle: So I wont lie, I didn’t really want this beer to begin with (I wanted to try the Old Foghorn instead) but it turned out to be a great surprise.  I don’t typically like beers that look like mud but this one was delicious.  It had a very staunch flavor that wasn’t overbearing.  I would recommend this beer to anyone who likes a good dark beer, it is a nice change that goes down a lot smoother than most dark beers I’ve had.

Anchor Steam:    alcohol content: 4.9%

Nick: Definitely good, my personal favorite of the ones that we had tonight.  Very smooth, and  generally likable.

Alex: Out of the three we drank tonight, my favorite. I can really taste the flavors that went into making this beer. A medium flavored beer that doesn’t bite too bad.

Lyle:  So I am a little biased when it comes to the classic Anchor Steam brew.  I have had this one on past occasions and it still comes as a delicious surprise each time I try it.  It is a very smooth beer that smells a tad bit of earth and corn, which is interesting considering it doesn't make it have a musty or dank smell, but instead a sweet smell.  I would recommend people try this one at the very least because it is a very good American beer that you can get in most places but isn't the stereotypical American beer.

And here's the link I promised everyone in case you feel like reading up a little more about these San Franciscan brews!

http://www.anchorbrewing.com/