Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary Grand Cru

Style: 
Other
Rating: 
5

Wow. My first reaction - wow.

I was letting the beer warm up to get a better feel for the aroma, but couldn't wait to have a taste. Wow.

According to the label, this beer sits at the intersection of Bigfoot, Sierra Nevada's barley wine, Celebration and Pale Ale. I expected a potent mix of hops and alcohol, strong and bitter, and it delivers.

The aroma is full of phenols and higher alcohols - sweet and strong. The hops have a tough time getting heard with all the competing flavors in this beer.

It pours copper in color, with a thick creamy head and lots of lacing, from all the malt to fuel this

Anchor Brekle's Brown Ale

Style: 
Brown Ale
Rating: 
4

Anchor Brewing Company's Brekle's Brown Ale is an interesting, flavorful twist on the classic brown ale. Its an all-malt brown that manages to avoid the heaviness that plagues many dark beers. It relies on a single hop, Citra, to give the blend of roasted malts a surprising depth and complexity.

Brekle's has a nutty aroma, with caramel notes and a hint of smokiness. It has a beautiful color for a brown - deep copper that is not too dark, settling nicely between an amber and a porter, a delicate trick to pull off for the brewer. Its head porous creamy, with dark brown color and nice lacing.

Its

Stoudts Pils

Style: 
German-Style Pilsener
Rating: 
4

Stoudts Brewery has long been one of my favorite American craft breweries. I met Carol and Ed Stoudt years ago on the beer festival circuit and always enjoyed their German-style beers. Over the years, they've expanded their roster off ales.

Stoudts Pils is a traditional German-style Pils. The beer had a dark golden color, much darker than a typical pilsner, but not yet the copper color of a Sam Adams Lite. Surprisingly, my bottle poured very hazy - I suspect the effect of too much time spent warm on a package store shelf.

Sam Adams Latitude 48 IPA

Style: 
India Pale Ale
Rating: 
3

Sam Adams Latitude 48 IPA is a twist on a traditional IPA. On the label, it says its made with German, English and American hops all grown at the same latitude around the globe. The result is a combination of Hallertau, East Kent Goldings for spicy and earthy flavors, combined with American varyeties Zeus, Simcoe®, and Ahtanum hops to give it some citrus punch.

This IPA has a deep copper color, much closer to amber than one would expect from a traditional IPA. It pours with a thick, brownish head - lots of carbonation.

Boston Beer Works Fenway Pale Ale

Style: 
American Pale Ale
Rating: 
3

This is a beer close to my heart - I played a role in the original design of Fenway Pale Ale and brewed it for many years while I was a brewer at Beer Works. It is still one of my go to beers, alongside Back Bay IPA, when I visit Beer Works for Red Sox games.

Beer Works started bottling the beer in the past few years. I visited their Lowell brewery and bottling line about two years ago - when Acquia was based in Andover - and they were still experimenting with their process for filling, bottle conditioning and more.

Sam Adams Noble Pils

Style: 
Bohemian-Style Pilsener
Rating: 
4

Another great looking beer, every pilsner lager should aspire to this color. A perfect pour with no haze. The aroma is subtle - sweet notes with mild perfume, floral notes from the european hops. Over the past year, I've had enough Sam Adams Noble Pils to notice subtle grassy, almost skunky notes at times. The combination of noble hops and exclusively pale malts make this almost a naked beer - there's almost nothing to hide potential pilsner off-flavors.

The delicacy of the nose hides the big hop flavor that come through when you taste this Pilsner - it grabs you right from the start with

Goose Island India Pale Ale

Style: 
English-Style India Pale Ale
Rating: 
4

My fridge is starting to get a little cramped, as I'm accumulating a collection of beers to review. As I was just in Chicago a few weeks ago for Drupalcon Chicago, I'll start with a Chicago favorite - Goose Island India Pale Ale.

Goose Island is one of Chicago's oldest craft breweries, they've been wining awards at the Great American Beer Festival since 1989. Their India Pale Ale is golden in color, with a cloudy haze that is probably both from the protein and a result of the distance its traveled to the Boston area.

Anchor Humming Ale

Style: 
Pale Ale
Rating: 
4

I'm always pleasantly surprised when I see a new beer from one of my favorite breweries. Sierra Nevada, Dogfish Head and others have introduced a steady stream of new brews that highlight why they are some of the best breweries around. Now Anchor Brewing is playing along too, with their new beer Humming Ale.  Humming is their first new seasonal in five years, introduced in bottles for the first time in 2010.

Its a copper colored mouthful of hops, another example of what's becoming an IPA renaissance. The nose is balanced, a blend of sweet and citrus notes.

Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale 2010

Style: 
India Pale Ale
Rating: 
5

Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale 2010 has an updated label, but has kept its award winning IPA recipe in tact.  I originally reviewed back in 2008, and this year's edition retains big, floral hop characteristics that have made this beer a mainstay in my fridge at the holidays.

Aromatic, floral nose precedes the big hop flavor with lots of spicy bitterness (chinook hops at work) from the whole hop oils, as this beer is aggressively dry hopped.  Its a well balanced and actually starts hoppier than it finishes.  

Pass on all the spice holiday beers and go with the hops instead.

Sam Adams Pale Ale

Style: 
English-Style Pale Ale
Rating: 
3

Sam Adams is a brewer who confounds me at times. They do some things exceedingly well - their Oktoberfest is one of the best in the US, Boston Lager is rock solid - but their catalog of seasonals & brewmaster's collection is too large to be consistently good across the board. And for reasons I can't fathom, they still brew too many fruit beers.

Sam Adams Pale Ale falls somewhere in the middle - its a quality beer, but not good enough to reflect well on the brand. It pours deep yellow in color, but very hazy.

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