Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Post super bowl beer buzz

Yeah, ok, the Super Bowl is over and done with. Good. As @jumblejim said afterwards, “That was fun. When does baseball start?” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

So, it is Feb 9th and Johnny Damon still doesn’t have a home. Way to go Boras. Turning down the 2/$14 deal from the Yanks was really stupid in hind-sight. I think a lot of people thought it was a bad idea then though. That is Damon’s problem though. Whatever. I am not a fan of him (and no it isn’t because he spurned the Sox for the Yanks offer…. I just don’t care for the guy or his defense). But, he will get some team a great deal for a relatively cheap amount as long as that team’s owner doesn’t go all Minaya on him or something.

Otherwise, not much really going on in baseball news. Red Sox appear set. Yankees are set. Now it is just going to see what happens with spring training about to start (9 days baby!).

So, on to much more interesting stuff currently: beer! I have had some really interesting ones lately and figured I would give a quick run-down on them here.

First, lets start with Sam Adams Noble Pils. Apparently there is a real media blitz by SA for this beer. I have seen nada on advertising for it myself. Maybe that is because I live here in New England and SA doesn’t really need to do much selling up here. But, I had some at a pub a few weeks ago and thought it was decent but wanted to try some more. Well, my wife picked me up a bomber of it the other day and I had it this past weekend. I decided I really liked it! It seemed nicely hopped and good bitterness to it. Gets better the more you drink as well. I would give it a 4 on the 1-5 scale.

Last night, went to Doherty’s East Ave Pub in Pawtucket. Decent bar, good food, ok beer selection, but not cheap. Anyway, had a few different beers there (ok more than a few) with my wife. First one up was the Olde Burnside Ten Penny Ale. This was a Scottish Ale and I liked it. Malty but not overly so like most Scottish ales. Good body on it too. I would give that a 3 as well.

Then went with Allagash Odyssey. This was a Belgian style strong dark ale. Oak-aged at 10% as well. Well, it was good, but to be honest I was a little disappointed. I love BSDA’s usually and this just had too much oaking for me to really get behind. Maybe it just was not my style. I would give that a 3 all in all because it still was good.

I had a Zywiec Pilsner from Poland. Not bad. Not great though. Surprised me as I was expecting more bitterness to it and there really wasn’t much. It had much more of a malt flavor, which sort of was odd on a pilsener. There was nothing special on this one though. I would give it a 2.

Finally, I just tasted a Xingu from Brazil. This was a schwarzbier style which I found odd coming out of Brazil? But, it was really intriguing to me. The beer had a syrupy consistency which may be good for a single, but I could not have had more than that. But, it was good enough that I would have rated it a 3 or so just because it intrigued me so much.

The last one to talk about was the Brooklyn Black Ops which I had with my wife this weekend. Wow. That was awesome. It was young as we just picked it up last week. We already had one that we are aging and we decided to open this bad boy up to see how it was now. Oh my was my initial thought. The bourbon barrel aging on the stout was very noticeable and added good flavor to it. The stout (which is just the Brooklyn Black Chocolate stout they normally sell) was aged in the barrels for fourth months. This toned down the normal burn on the BCS and made it really drinkable already. With aging, this is going to incredible. Lots of chocolate, bourbon, and vanilla flavors were found in this beer. I loved it and will put this in my exclusive 5 category.

It will be interesting to see what is happening going forward with beer, but this was not a bad past week or so I have had (beer wise at least).