FiftyFifty Eclipse 2011 Grand Cru verson

I have a few bottles of Eclipse left on the shelves downstairs, but can never remember what version each is. Since the only defining feature is the color of the wax, I usually don't find out until I take a sip, try to figure it out, then look it up on FiftyFifty's website here. Note, I'm usually wrong and feel dumb, but oh well. This time, I took a sip and swore it was the brandy version. Turns out, it was the Grand Cru version from 2011. Maybe it had some of the brandy blended into it as it was a blend of a bunch of the variants? Let's go with that so I feel less bad about my guess.

Very sweet, almost cherry like nose. It was the fruitiness that really threw me as I thought it was brandy. Some chocolate and fudge add complexity to it as well. Very nice body, thick and chewy which was sort of surprising. I've had other eclipse's that were a bit thinner than I like so this was nice. Body had a vanilla, bourbon, and chocolate sweetness with a very light alcohol burn in the finish. Between the strong chocolate and vanilla flavors and the chewy body, this was really good. Quite enjoyed this.

On a separate note, I still have a pretty big backlog of beers right now. I also want to talk about my trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming before it's too far in the past. Hopefully, some of that will occur next week but we'll see I guess!

Goose Island Gillian

I have quite a back log right now so I'm going to try and work through at least some of it. That means I actually drank this a while ago which was apparently December 6th according to the date on the picture. But, whatever, i'ts not like my notes go bad. Gillian is a sour saison brewed with strawberries and peppercorns (and possibly a few other things) and then aged in used wine barrels. Pretty complicated beast. One fun trivia fact is that the experimental name was Scully, which if you've ever watched the X-Files, Scully was played by Gillian Anderson. Get it? Scully -> Gillian? Okay, maybe only nerds will think that's neat but it totally is.

Spicy, peppery nose with some light fruit and a bunch of oak. Body was similar, starting off lightly peppery, almost bitter, followed by strawberry, oak, and a little white wine flavor. As I drank more, the bitterness faded like it usually does and the strawberry and wine notes really came to the front. Very tasty beer with the only real negative being the price. Not sure what the going rate for it is in Philly, but it easily could be $35 or $40 given the usual markups. Knocks it down a few pegs for me just because for that kind of money I could get other beers. Still, glad to have tried it at least once.

Port Brewing Santa's Little Helper

I may not be writing as much, but I am still making my mostly weekly visits to Kite & Key. They've been varying a bit between Tuesday and Thursday but that's mostly depended on the weather. Regardless, I've still been going each week so that's something. This visit I ordered the Port Brewing Santa's Little Helper, an imperial stout.

Nice chocolate and coffee nose, definitely my style of imperial stout. Nice mouthfeel too. It wasn't oily, but was still a bit thicker, if that makes sense. Body was full of chocolate and roast with a light citrusy, bitter finish. I'm not sure others would get citrus and instead some other flavor of bitterness, but that's how it presented to me. Quite an enjoyable imperial stout and something I'd order again. I know I've seen barrel aged versions of this, but feel like I've heard complaints about it. Not sure but it feels like it would be good after tasting the base. Who knows.

Paul's Amber IPA

Still trying to work out the timing for writing more posts, but we'll see what the new year brings. To start things off, I'm going to talk about my buddy's first attempt at homebrewing. I could have chosen something more available, I guess, but what's the fun in that? Paul called it an Amber IPA mostly because of the recipe he followed.

Masking tape label and nothing else, so homebrew. In all seriousness, the tape came off easily so it's a perfect label as it makes the bottle quickly reusable. As for the beer, it was, well, definitely a first attempt at homebrewing. Still, I wasn't upset to drink it. Pretty sweet caramel nose with a hint of chocolate. Pretty thick body, almost a little syrupy. Body was sweet caramel with no real bitterness to clean it up. Basically it just felt a bit under attenuated aka not fully fermented. The thick body with the very sugary flavor kind of implies that. Funny enough, though, this was still better than the majority of beers Jo and I had at Amherst Brewing Company a while back so go Paul!