Avery Maharaja

Stopped at the Kite & Key yesterday with Jo and ordered an Avery Maharaja, a double IPA.

Nice clean grapefruit and pineapple nose. The fruit starts, followed by a light bitterness, and finishing with some caramel sweetness. There was a a lingering dry bitterness to it, keeping the caramel from overpowering the hops and the whole thing from being too sweet. Considering it's over 10%, this was quite impressive in not being too alcoholic or tasting particularly strong. Definitely a good double IPA for me.

Cisco Brewers Imperial Stout

Opened a bottle of the Cisco Brewers Russian Imperial Stout with our friends this past Friday night. This is part of their slightly limited Island Reserve series.

The nose was roasty with some citrusy hops in the back. Body followed with the roast starting things off like a normal imperial stout but then huge citrus and bitterness finishing things off. This was really reminiscent of 21st Amendment Back in Black though slightly hoppier. Not quite as hoppy as Victory Storm King though. My friends enjoyed this but I'll admit I like my stouts with less hops. Just not a huge fan of the super hopped ones. If you like Storm King, though, you'd almost definitely like this one.

2010 Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron

This one has been sitting in my refrigerator for a while so why not open it on a random Thursday. This was a nearly two year old Palo Santo Marron from Dogfish Head.

Huge caramel nose with a little bit of smokiness in it. Really nice body, nice and thick. Caramel sweetness started things off with a nice fruity finish. More of the interesting woody smokiness throughout. Hid the 12% ABV really well though I'll be the first to admit I don't notice alcohol much anymore. Pretty terrific and delicious. Just a great complex beer that continues to get better every time I drink it.

Brewfest at the Philadelphia Zoo

This past Saturday was the annual brewfest at the Philadelphia Zoo. The first thing that was different from last year was most noticeably the temperature. Instead of being one of the hottest nights of the year, it was a reasonably cool night. And let me say it made a heck of a difference. I also wonder if that caused a lot more people to actually come as the beer lines this year were a bit longer compared to the past.

We arrived about 20 minutes before the event started and the lines to get in were already pretty long. Guess lots of people were excited! Here's the line just to get our tasting cups.

Central Waters Peruvian Morning

Central Waters isn't super well known but they are a very high quality brewery. They also do a bunch of barrel aging and are quite good at it especially in making a large enough quantity to satisfy their markets. Last night I drank a bottle of Peruvian Morning, a bourbon barrel coffee stout.

There has been reports of infection in some Peruvian Morning so I was a little worried but luckily this bottle was delicious. Soft bourbon coffee nose though a thin appearance. Started with some light coffee sourness, probably due to the age of the bottle, then followed by bourbon and a strong vanilla finish. The sour coffee flavor faded after a bit and left me with just vanilla, bourbon, and some chocolate from the base stout. The sourness wasn't a sign of infection as far as I know, just the coffee aging poorly in my opinion. Pretty good beer though the body could have used a little work.

Tired Hands Visit

Took a visit to Tired Hands after work last week to try out some of their new beers. The nice thing about them going through a ridiculous amount of beer is that they'll always have something new for me to try! I had read about the sour wheat beer, Brothers, they had on draft and knew that would be the first I'd order.

Goose Island Summertime

I'd pretend going to the gym after my visit to Kite & Key means I'll automatically choose lower ABV beers, but I don't think anyone would believe me. However, I actually did that this week! I got a Goose Island Summertime, a kolsch, since I was hot and tired and figured something strong might knock me out.

Kind of a sweet and bready nose. Sweet and slightly fruity up front then a bready and malty finish. No bitterness or anything, just an enjoyable lightweight beer. Very nice considering I was still slightly hungover from the bottle share the day before!

Bottle Share at 943 BYOB

This past Sunday, PhillyTapFinder and PhillyBeerScene held their inaugural bottle share at the byob of 943 in South Philly. They've been planning it for a while now and things finally came together for two plus hours of trying awesome beer. The idea of a bottle share is pretty self explanatory, but for those that don't know, everyone brings a bottle (or two or three) with them to the event, opens it when they feel like it, and then you pour samples of what you want.

When I arrived the table was already pretty full and people were inspecting it, planning their afternoon.

Foothills People's Porter

Brian, a friend of mine, gave me this along with a DuClaw beer in exchange for a bottle of Weyerbacher Rapture. He picked it up down in Charleston I believe.

Really nice roasty nose without going over into burnt territory. Clean roasted body followed without any noticeable bitterness. Continued that way through the glass along with a good level of carbonation. Just a delicious porter as long as you like the slightly burnt flavor going on in it. Glad Brian chose this one for me.

There was a great bottle share put on by PhillyTapFinder and PhillyBeerScene yesterday at 943, a byob. Look for a write up tomorrow hopefully. Considering I'm still kind of feeling the effects of it, I couldn't handle being that creative today. I expect there will probably be a bunch of posts on other blogs too so I'll link them if I see them.

Night of Lambics!

My wife wanted to open something fun this past Sunday and I've had these two lambics in the refrigerator for a while so I figured it was time. The first we opened was the Drie Fonteinen Oude Kriek. I bought this a while ago though not so long that I expected to see a 2007 date on the bottle. Five year old kriek? Sure, why not!