Framboise Boon

I had a bottle of Framboise Boon the other night and it was surprisingly delicious.  I say surprisingly because their Kriek was entirely too sweet for me and I expected the same from the Framboise.  I was incorrect.

Smelled of raspberries with lots of tart notes.  No sweetness in the nose at all.  First sip had fruit as expected but the sweetness was balanced by the tartness.  Don't worry though as the tartness isn't overwhelming, just incredibly pleasant.  Really clean finish.  The best part of the finish is, unlike the geuzes, the tartness leaves quite quickly which made drinking it quite easy.  No build up, no palate fatigue, no dry mouth, just a nice tartness with some raspberry.  If you are looking for a Lindemans style framboise, however, keep looking.  But if you want something different, run out and pick up a bottle and tell me if it was as delicious as mine.

Pumpkinfest at Devil's Den

Devil's Den has the best fests in Philadelphia (okay not really, but yeah hyperbole!).  First it was sourfest and now it's pumpkinfest.  Yeah fests!  This time wasn't quite as extravagant though.  They had 6 or so pumpkin beers on draft, 7 or so bottles of pumpkin and some pumpkin food dishes.  Thursdays are apparently much busier at Devil's Den (which is a good thing) and the bar was pretty full when we got there.  Luckily there was a table in the back so we didn't have to wait.  The food was quite good once again and the beer, as always, was reasonably priced.  It helps that they do half price drafts from 5-7.  Pretty amazing deal considering the quality of the beers they offer.  Devil's Den is pretty awesome.

I started with Brew Works Devious Imperial Pumpkin (I hope you can guess the style.)

Once again, terrible picture.  Stupid phone without a flash.  Oh well.  Poured a dark orange brown color with no head.  Very little carbonation in it.  Smelled of sweet pumpkin and some spices, more sweet than spicy.  The flavors were three fold.  A little tart at first, then a little alcohol, and finishing with pumpkin spices.  Pretty good pumpkin beer.  Thick, slightly syrup mouth feel but not cloying.  I didn't know what to expect, but I liked the Devious quite a bit. Fegley's Brew Works (Bethlehem and Allentown Brew Works are their brew pubs) makes quite a few good beers.

After that, I had what has been my favorite pumpkin beer, Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin.

More pumpkin pie spices than sweet pumpkin in the nose.  Get hints of cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon.  Flavors in this one are a bit smoother than the Devious.  More spices than sweet and they blend really well with the beer's natural flavors.  Some sweetness came out as I drank more.  Even at 8%, this is incredibly drinkable, even more so than the Devious.  This has been my favorite pumpkin in past years and this reaffirmed my belief.  I liked the Southern Tier Pumking I had two weeks ago but it was more pumpkin pie in a glass than beer.  This one is a really good beer with some pumpkin flavors.  Depends what you are looking for as far as what to like, but I prefer the Weyerbacher.

Oh and this was my 50th post on the blog since August 23rd.  Yeah 50!

Maredsous Abbaye

Opened up a bottle of Maredsous Abbaye, a dubbel.

Poured a caramel brown color with an inch of really cool looking head.  Well carbonated.  Pretty sweet smelling to me with some fruit flavors.  Not strongly fruity, but there's something there.  Sweet malty flavor with absolutely no bitterness.  The carbonation gives it a nice prickly feel when drinking it.  Not like a soda but still more carbonation than a lot of beers.  Very easy to drink even at 8%.  Good stuff.

Sierra Nevada Autumn Tumbler

Finally got to try Sierra Nevada Autumn Tumbler brown ale last night.

Smelled malty and a little bready.  Good, strong smell for a brown ale.  First sip had a nice roasted flavor to it with a little sweetness.  Hop bitterness follows and sticks around for a bit.  As I had more the hops came to the forefront although to be clear it's nothing like an IPA or anything.  I enjoyed this but Jo found it to be a little bitter for her.  She likes them to be malt forward with a few roasted notes and no bitterness and this was too consistently bitter for a whole pint to be enjoyable.

Tumbler was their early fall seasonal (late Summer?) so it's probably not easily available anymore.  There may be a couple cases at places but it probably won't be easily available until next year.

Lunch at Monk's Cafe

Monk's Cafe is a famous Belgian Beer bar in Philadelphia at 16th and Spruce.  They have an incredible selection of beer and great food (including very good mussels).  I hadn't been there in quite a while because while it's an excellent bar, it's not very large and gets super crowded.  Because of the structure of the bar and how the entrance is setup it's very hard to stand around while waiting an hour for a table.  There isn't enough room by the front bar to wait and it can get frustrating since you are constantly in the way of everyone.  However, if you're in Philadelphia it's worth a visit just because of the history just go early enough to avoid the major crowds.

Yesterday, Monk's did a Russian River event to earn money for a breast cancer foundation.  It was a good cause (see I went for charity!) so I headed there with a friend of mine for some lunch.  I haven't quite found a reason to open one of my bottles of Temptation so I jumped at a chance to try it on draft.

It poured a lovely golden color with about 2cm of head on it.  Smelled tart with hints of lemon and orange, almost fruity.  Tasted very tart with a bit of sourness to it.  Not puckeringly sour but close to it.  The aftertaste was pretty clean and the tartness didn't stick with me.  I'd say this is similar to a geuze but no where near as dry.  I enjoyed it quite a bit although I'd put consecration and supplication ahead of it.  The fruit notes in those two give them more dimensions which makes them slightly more interesting to drink.  Still, Temptation was great and I'm quite excited for the bottles of Temptation I have waiting for me.

Beer Tasting

I had some friends over on Friday night for a beer tasting.  I got 3 bottles for it and everyone else brought 1 or 2 big bottles (except 1 guy who brought 4, 2 commercial and 2 homebrew.)  I thought it would be a fun way for all of us to try things we either don't usually drink or can't drink alone because the bottle is too strong.  I've had a bottle in my fridge for 2+ months because of that issue.  I took some notes and tried to get pictures of all of them but missed 2.

By the end, we finished 12 bottles.  I'll go through the first six and then the last six just to split up the post a bit.

Lucky 7 and the Phillies

Jo and I decided to catch the Wednesday Phillies game at Lucky 7.  Not Taco Tuesday, unfortunately, but you can't win 'em all.  Food was pretty good again and we really like the feel of the bar so it worked out.  It never got too crowded, but it was full which is pretty much perfect for watching a baseball game.

For my first beer, I got a draft of Dark Horse Crooked Tree IPA.

Poured an orange color which is pretty normal for an IPA.  Nice floral, citrusy smell from all the hops.  The smell is one of the best parts of a good IPA.  First bit was hoppy but backed up nicely with a bit of sweetness.  Keeps it from being overbearingly bitter.  Good touch.  Decent body on it, a little bit of thickness.  Nothing crazy, but it makes drinking it more interesting.  On top of that, only a mildly bitter aftertaste to it.  I'm not a huge fan of IPAs in general, but maybe I'm getting more used to them.  This was quite good and another good offering from Dark Horse Brewing.

The last beer I had was Paulaner Salvator.

This is a Doppel Bock, the same style as Troegenator from Troegs.  The smell of this Salvator was super sweet and malty and smelled really inviting.  Tasted of caramel, toffee and malt.  Just incredibly smooth and sweet.  As expected, the after taste was sweet too.  Nice thick body on it.  Some of the sweetness and smoothness may be because this bottle was apparently from June '08.  (As long as the bottled on date of 06/08 means June '08 that is.)  I don't know how the bar has a 2+ year old bottle but hey it tasted amazing.  I've never had a beer with such a smooth, sweet flavor.

Good time at Lucky 7 even if the Phillies are kind of sucking right now.

Well's Banana Bread

I drank my last Well's Banana Bread the other day.

This is the third bottle I've had of it over the course of a couple months and this was the best of the three.  The flavors and smell seemed much stronger now than before.  The first thing I noticed was the huge smell of banana bread.  It's kind of amazing that a beer can get the smell so close.  Following that, the taste is all banana bread as well.  It starts out sweet and malty (the bread and caramel flavors) and ends with pure banana.  All together, drinking banana bread.  The only downside to this beer is all you get is banana bread.  There's nothing else to the beer.  I wouldn't want to drink more than one in a night just because of that.  Still, really interesting thing to try.

Duck Rabbit Milk Stout

Tried to go to The Bottle Shop on Passayunk on Saturday for their Grand Opening only to discover that they postponed the opening.  Sucks since it is pretty far into South Philly.  Ah well.  Since I was already near Hawthorne's, I decided to grab a quick bite and a beer there.  Hawthorne's is really a bottle shop but because of stupid Pennsylvania liquor laws they also serve food.  Turns out that their food is quite good though so it makes a great place for lunch.  Since they have like 7 fridges full of bottles there is also always something to drink.  The hardest part is just deciding what to grab.

This time I went with the Duck Rabbit Milk Stout.

Poured a dark brown with lots of bubbly brown head.  Nice looking stout.  Drinking it out of a mason jar was a little odd, but that's the glasses Hawthorne's has available.  It smelled of delicious roasted malt with just a hint of sweetness from the lactose.  Nice thick mouthfeel, very enjoyable to drink.  The sweet and roasty flavors fight for supremacy as you drink it and then slowly balance each other.  Makes for a great combination.  I like milk stouts as I feel like they have great flavors along with great mouth feel, but without the ridiculous ABV of an Imperial Stout.

Hawthorne's actually had bottles of Older Viscosity but at $21 for a 375ml bottle, it was too rich for my blood.  I'd really love to try it again but I'll just have to wait until I can either find it in California for cheaper or somehow see it on draft again.

Sunday at Capone's

Jo and I went to Capone's and enjoyed some great buffalo wings and beers.  As usual, their draft list was excellent and they have 25 cent wings on Sunday so it's a great place to watch some football.  They are doing some construction on the place, but the back entrance is open so don't think they are closed because of the closed front doors.

I started off with a sampler of 4 beers.

Starting with the front left beer and going clockwise I got: Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela, The Bruery Autumn Maple, Amager Imperial Stout, and Great Divide Espresso Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout. 

The Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela was interesting.  It's supposedly a Pumpkin Ale but I couldn't detect pumpkin in it at all.  It smelled lemony and sort of tart.  Just a little bit of head on the sampler, but I'm guessing there would be a bit more in a full glass.  The first sip was mildly tart as well but not too strong.  Very smooth flavor.  It was similar to Nodding Head's Berliner Weiss but with more body and not quite as tart.  As I drank more of it, the beer got more tart but nothing crazy.

After that was the Bruery Autumn Maple.  Smelled mildly Belgian as it's made with some Belgian yeast.  At first, there was only some yam flavor with a mild sweetness.  Hard to find the Belgian flavors in the beer as a result of the yams and maple.  Nice thick mouth feel to it.  The second full sip I took was just full of yams.  I couldn't believe it and took another sip just to be sure I was sure of the flavor.  Super interesting to be drinking that taste out of a glass.  I liked it but a full glass may have been a bit much.

Following that was the Amager Imperial Stout.  Amager is apparently a brewery in Denmark, who knew.  The Imperial Stout had some slight roasty notes and a little alcohol on the nose.  The taste, however, was full of roasted malt flavor with no alcohol presence.  As it warmed up, the alcohol was slightly noticeable, but not out of place.  Not a bad Imperial Stout but nothing too special to me.

Finally, the Espresso Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout.  I talked about the family of Yeti stouts from Great Divide in this post, my first time at Capone's.  This will be the second of the four I've had and hopefully I'll be able to have the other two at some point.  Jo smelled some wood flavors in this but I didn't notice much of anything.  Pretty big espresso flavor in the first sip, but it wasn't crazy.  Nothing like Founders Breakfast Stout for example.  The coffee does sit on the tongue after each sip though.  Nice thick mouth feel to this one.  As it warmed up, the espresso becomes more noticeable but again not bad.

After the sampler, I tried to get a glass of Rodenbach Vintage 2007 but they were out.  Instead, I got a Southern Tier Pumking

There wasn't any head on it but you'll just have to trust me since I forgot to take a picture before drinking a bunch.  It smelled of pumpkin and a lot of spices.  Interesting smell, pretty much what a lot of people think of when they hear of a pumpkin beer.  The Pumking was very sweet with a lot of spices.  Kind of crazy how much pumpkin pie flavor they packed into this beer.  Even with all the spices and the high sweetness, it was still quite drinkable.

Went into the bottle shop before we left and man I love that place.  They have so many good beers.  Even if the prices can be a little high, there's just so much to find.  Every nook and cranny is just jammed with random beers.  I could come out of there with so many if I didn't care about money.  Ended up getting a Hoppin' Frog Boris the Crusher, an Oatmeal Imperial Stout, and a 2008 Rogue Imperial Porter.  The Rogue had an absolutely sweet bottle although it's no real surprise because if there is one thing Rogue does well it's make cool bottles.