Beer Tasting 5

I've been lax in having my friends over for some simple sharing of beers so I made up for it last week. If you're interested, you can read about the first four at these links: one, two, three, four. For those that are new to my beer tastings, the basic idea is I invite some friends over and they all bring something they've wanted to try or just something they find on the shelf and then we share them. Pretty simple. Sometimes people choose beers based on the label, some times they actually want to try something specific, and sometimes it's their homebrew. Really, it's just an excuse to get together and make some of my friends try new things. Heck, my friend Jeff picked up a bottle at the Sam Adams brewery in anticipation of one of these nights. It's nice to know I have an affect. Hmm, effect? Affect? I probably should just use a different word. Oh well. (edit: My wife has informed me it's effect. So grammar issue solved.)

Here's the first set of bottles we opened. Really like the barrel structure of the Samuel Adams bottle on the right.

Labor Day Bar Crawl

It's Saturday, my wife's out of town, I'm alone. So what do I decide to do? What? Not that, sicko. I decide to do a bar crawl going to Farmer's Cabinet -> Varga Bar -> Hawthorne's Cafe -> Devil's Den. Now, I guess it's weird that I decided to bar hop by myself for hours on end, but I really enjoy sitting at bars, talking to bartenders and trying new things. I guess I'm a weird dude and I'm okay with that.

First stop was the Farmer's Cabinet. I haven't been back since my awesome birthday dinner and knew it had been too long. At 11:30am, it wasn't particularly busy which was nice. There was only one other dude at the bar plus the bartender. I started with a glass of De Molen Cease & Desist, also known as Disputin, a Russian Imperial Stout.

Sly Fox Route 113

To warm up for the IPA Block Party outside of Hawthornes (post incoming tomorrow), I opened a can of Sly Fox Route 113, an IPA.

Sort of a perfumy bitter nose.  Not citrus or pine, but maybe grapefruit?  I honestly couldn't tell and Jo wasn't around to help.  Bitter up front, followed by some grapefruit notes, some of the perfume notes from the nose and finishing a little bitter.  As I drank more, the sweetness slowly overpowered the bitterness and it started becoming a little cloying.  Not sure why that happened as usually the bitterness overpowers everything but maybe it's a result of having it after a coffee stout.  Who knows.  Wasn't bad, but I've had better ones recently.  I definitely enjoyed it more when I had it on draft at the brewpub a while back.

Sly Dog Night at Belgian Cafe

Had a great night at the Belgian Cafe on Tuesday.  They were doing a joint Sly Fox and Dogfish Head night (nicknamed Sly Dog by Suzie Woods) and I was interested in chatting with her again when I was sober (instead of like during the Craft Beer Express) and, of course, trying some new beers.  As usual, the food at the Belgian Cafe was pretty great.  I had a vegan burger with brie and pickled jalapenos that was delicious and Jo had a chicken sandwich with leeks and blue cheese (aka the Monks Burger).  Suzy and the Dogfish Head rep, Wendy, showed up around 7 and I chatted with them both for a while.  Like I usually say, it's always nice when people are willing to talk to me about beer even if it's their job to do so.  I'll take anything.

Sly Fox Gold Rush and Cigar City Maduro

This will be a double beer post since I'm a little backed up with notes right now.  Need to get these two down as I have some super exciting events coming up this weekend.  Really cool stuff, but first two normal beer posts.

To start with, Sly Fox Gold Rush Lager, a Steam Beer.

Obviously, we picked up a growler of it when we visited the brewery over the weekend which means it was a beer that Jo liked.  For those that like beer but not the crazy stuff, this would be a good choice.  It smelled malty and sweet like a lager as expected.  Some sweetness, some maltiness, no bitterness at all in the flavors.  Very well balanced beer, quite enjoyable and easy to drink.  Great choice for relaxing in the afternoon.

Later in the week, I opened a bottle of Cigar City Maduro Brown, an American Brown Ale.

Cigar City is a brewery out of Tampa, Florida.  It makes some awesome beers, but right now only a few are available in Philly although I'm sure Bella Vista is working hard to get more here.  Getting back to the Maduro, I'll warn you now I'm going to use the word roasted quite a lot in this post.  I'd try to avoid it, but I have 3 lines of notes and used it 3 times so I'm sort of screwed.  I could consult a thesaurus but it's a blog not a novel so deal with my repetitiveness.  The smell was roasty but not too strong.  Flavor had a little sweetness, but once again the roasted malts came to the forefront and left their mark.  Aftertaste was also, surprise surprise, quite roasty.  There wasn't any bitterness in it and I thought it was closer to a porter than anything, but regardless I enjoyed it quite a lot.  So there we go.  I used roasted three times in three sentences.  Go out and try the beer and let me know if I'm wrong.

So yeah that's my current backlog (sort of.  I drank a Coronado Islander IPA today and it was good but I'm not going to post about it any more than this.)  Look for some cool stuff from the coming weekend although I know everyone will just read it Monday morning when they get to work.  And, sorry Jeff, they are probably going to be long posts.

Sly Fox!

Jo and I went to the Sly Fox brewpub Saturday evening.  We had been to the Pheonixville location before so we decided to check out the one in Royersford.  The brew pub was in a strip mall and was nondescript from the outside.  Still I'm always excited to go to a new brewpub and this wasn't an exception.

I started with the Oatmeal Stout which can't be that surprising to people who know my beer preferences.  (For those that don't, if a stout is available, I'll start with it.  If more than one is available, I'll just drink them all before trying something else.)

It smelled of oats and roasted malts.  Nice thick mouth feel on it.  Some roastiness, tiny bit of bitterness, some nuttiness.  I got a nice oatmeal aftertaste as well.  As I drank it, the bitterness disappeared once I got used to it.  Pleasant oatmeal stout, basically what I'd expect from the style.  Sly Fox makes beers that represent a style well which is great since you know exactly what to expect when ordering one of their beers.  The only downside of brewing to style is you know exactly what to expect from their beers.  Sounds odd but sometimes I like to be surprised with new flavors from a familiar style.

After that I got their Saison Vos, a farmhouse style ale.

It smelled so inviting that I forgot to take a picture of it until halfway through.  (That's totally true, I swear.  Stop looking at me like that.  I didn't just forget.)  It had a slight Belgian smell (the description implied it used a Belgian style yeast) and I thought it had a slightly musty smell as well.  It had a nice sweetness to it with some base spices, things like all-spice, pepper, other things like that.  The flavors blended a bit as I drank more of it and it warmed up.  All in all it was quite good.  Very similar to Ommegang Hennepin, another farmhouse ale.

I finished with their Route 113, an IPA.

Smelled pretty hoppy as expected.  Surprisingly thick mouth feel for an IPA which was nice.  Some hoppiness obviously but after that it had pretty smooth flavors.  There wasn't a lot of bitterness at all even with the hoppy notes.  No lingering bitterness in the after taste either.  All in all, I really liked this IPA.  Enough hoppiness to be pleasant, but no overwhelming bitterness.  Just really well balanced.

Very nice visit to the Sly Fox brewpub.  The food here was decent (although nothing spectacular) and the beer was pretty good.  I do enjoy Victory more but I enjoy their beer more so I kind of expected that result.  I want to check out the Pheonixville one again as I've read they moved to a new building since Jo and I visited (plus it's been years), but I'll probably wait until their Bockfest in May.  They have a goat race plus a whole bunch of great sounding beers.  Seriously, a goat race.  How can you not go to that!

Random Sierra Nevada and Sly Fox Weekend

Jo and I planned to head to the Sly Fox brewpub in Royersford on Saturday so I figured I'd start the weekend off with a bottle of Sly Fox Black Raspberry Reserve Friday night in order to have a Sly Fox themed weekend.  However, we stopped in at Brigids and they just put on Sierra Nevada Fritz + Ken's Ale and I had to try it, ruining my theme.  The things I do for beer.

Sierra Nevada Fritz + Ken's Ale is the first of their 30th Anniversary beers.  It's an Imperial Stout (although Sierra Nevada calls it a Pioneer's stout, but that's not really a style so yeah.)

It's called Fritz + Ken's because of the people who brewed it.  Each of the first three 30th Anniversary beers were brewed with a guest brewer from some famous brewery.  This one was brewed with Fritz Maytag, the owner (or founder, not sure if he still owns it) of Anchor Steam brewing.  Ken is Ken Grossman, the owner (founder?) of Sierra Nevada.

I smelled some roasted notes plus a little bit of alcohol on the nose.  Basically reminds me of a Russian Imperial Stout which is probably a good thing since it basically is one.  Some roasted malts, a little sweetness, and a bunch of bitterness in the end.  Decently thick mouth feel.  As I drank more of it, the bitterness faded and each sip started with a burst of sweetness almost tasting like a milk shake.  This 30th Anniversary was quite good.  I still think I like the Jack + Ken's Ale a bit better but this was impressive.  I can't wait to try the last one though.  It sounds awesome.

After that, we came home with our food and I opened the Sly Fox Black Raspberry Reserve to start my theme.

First notice the color and head.  It's a dark ruby with a thick amount of violet head.  Decent carbonation.  As expected, it had a huge raspberry smell.  Very inviting.  Tasted sweet with some fruit flavors mixed into it.  The beer itself was pretty mild but the raspberries bring it from okay to quite good.  Very clean finish on it, no hint of any bitterness.  Jo took quite a few sips of this one and also enjoyed it.  If you're looking for something to drink while relaxing, this is a good choice.

Next up will be a write up on the Sly Fox Royersford brewpub and some other Sly Fox beers.  I'm excited for it.