Nate was right in asserting that I had reviewed Aventinus.  However, I actually reviewed the Eisbock version of this beer.  So, as much as this and the Eisbock are similar, they are not actually the same.  This beer is less intense, less thick, and less strong.  Don't let that statement fool you; this beer is still a beer to be reckoned with. Without further ado, let's talk about this beer.  First off, this beer is a wheat doppelbock.  Translation: it is a wheat beer made in a very strong way, which is described as double strong bock.  (If you want to know what some of this means, it's on this page as a link.)  It may be quite a bit darker than most would expect a wheat to be.  Since I mentioned the color, I'll deal with it first.  It is dark crimson brown in color with a stable and creamy head.  It looked very nice in my glass that was made specifically for this beer.  The aromas of this beer were many.  I noted that it had a mix between a barley wine and Belgian candy sugar aroma.  There was a winish quality that came though as though the beer was aged on lees (expended grapes that were used for wine ...

Ok... I made a blunder.  Without realizing it, I picked up a beer Mike reviewed just a couple of days ago; Aventinus.  I have a horrible memory when it comes to such things.  I just saw the Aventinus, coveted it, and purchased it. So this week you have your choice for the Drink It With Us Friday Beer.  You can pick up and drink the Aventinus, OR you can check out Magic Hat's #9.  Obviously the Aventinus will taste much better.  It also has nearly double  the alcohol content (8.3% to 4.6%). Let us know which you liked better!

While many people would admit to hating surprises, it seems they are really referring to unpleasant surprises.  Who doesn't enjoy a nice surprise? I was pleasently surprised by this weeks Friday beer; St. Peter's Cream Stout.  The adage, "you get what you pay for," certainly had me expecting a mediocre beer, as I believe it has for many...just read the reviews for the Cream Stout HERE at the Beer Advocate.  I think this presupposition renders many reviewers helpless to presupposition as they embrace an economical beer like St. Peter's.  Such is not the case with this not-so-humble reviewer, whose motto (stolen a bit from Andrew Zimmern) is, "If it looks good, drink it!" As the cap popped off the Cream Stout, there was not an enormous ruch of carbonation escaping the bottle.  The pour was proved to be a foreshadowing the mellow texture to come:  smooth, creamy, and moderately carbonated.  A beautiful khaki color head--about a centimeter thick--lazily hung around the surface of the beer. The sweet bouquet that greeted my nose was comprised of sweet malts, hazelnut, chocolate, and striking coffee aroma.  It looked good and smelled good, so I drank it. There was a surprising wine quality about the beer.  Surprising, because ...

Number four and counting.  I'm excited to review this beer.  I think it is the best Ridgeway Ale I've had so far.  I still have a few more to try, so I shouldn't be overzealous.  In appearance, the beer was blond with touches of orange hue.  There was a small but stable head at the beginning of the brew.  In addition, there was not a lot of activity in the glass, which means that the beer was fairly subdued.  When I sniffed the beer, I immediately noticed touches of hay, a hop spiciness, and hints of wine fruitiness.  There were also faint hints of toffee along with sulphur in the the nose.  I found the hop aroma to be particularly nice.  A bit of sweetness was also discernible.  Fresh green hops were immediately evident in the palate of the beer.  The hops went all the way through to the end of the brew.  Intermingled with the hops was a slight sweetness and very faint cola quality.  The beer ended in a dry grain and hops finish. I found the hops in this Ale to be very refreshing and thoroughly enjoyed Bad Elf Winter's Ale.  If you like British Ales with good balance, this is one for you.

This is our second review for "Drink with us Everyday" during our Christmas week.  I hope that you are joining with us as much as possible while we are drinking and reviewing these beers.   Looking at the color of the beer, it had a golden color with hints of Rudolph's red nose.  The beer had a much longer, taller, and stable head than Santa's Butt Winter Porter, which we reviewed last night.  There was a nice creamy looking head on it, which held in place very nicely.  In the nose of the beer there was some fruitiness, which I pinpointed as apricot.  There was also a touch of alcohol aroma that co-mingled through its overt metallic notes.  The metallic notes were also noticeable, but not overpowering, in the palate of the beer.  A medium hop level was present in the beer at a level slightly higher than the first Ridgeway beer that we tasted.  Having gotten past the wave of hops, the beer ended with a dry, grainy, and somewhat bitter finish.  There was maybe even a hint of dried nuts at the end.   Perhaps the Porter was slightly better, but I'm often biased toward darker beers, so how good it is to you is for you to discover.  I will say that I enjoyed the beer, so you might like it, too.

Santa's Butt-- what an interesting name for a beer.  This is one beer in a series of Christmas-themed beers from Ridgeway.  Let's break it down a little.  First of all, Santa's "something" is an appropriate name for this time of year.  Surely, his "Butt" is not appropriate.  Well, there's actually more than meets the eye to the name.  Double entendre anyone?  A "Butt" is actually an older term that meant barrel.  Porters, such as Entire Butt, play to this fact.  I guess the implication is that the beer came from Santa's Barrel (you can see why I didn't say that it came from Santa's Butt).  Ah! British humor.  Without futher ado, let's talk about the beer. The beer comes in at 6% ABV, which is perfectly fine for a Porter.  Of course there are stronger versions, notably Okocim's version.  Santa's Butt had very little head retention and a deep reddish-brown body.  It fit very nicely into a pint glass.  On the nose, it had a slightly metallic, winish touch, plenty of toasted & burnt grain, and touches of chocolate.  There were also hints of honey, hops, and sweet malts.  Along with the chocolate taste, the sweet malts translated into the palate.  Dry burnt grains  also gave off a very nice roastiness to the beer, as well as a imparting a slight ...

Has anyone ever wondered what an I.P.A. (India Pale Ale) is?  I'm going to talk about Pale Ales first because an India Pale Ale is an amped up version of the former.  I've actually already given some good information on Pale Ales when we had Samuel Smith's Pale Ale (here is a link to that article and review).  Even though I've covered some of the bases before, let me just briefly define a Pale Ale. A Pale Ale is not pale at all.  The utilization of lighter grains as compared to those used in English Porters and Stouts helped to give this beer its name.  Some of this had to do with technological advance.  I've written some stuff on grains already, so I'm not going to cover it much here (I'm providing multiple links in the articles to cover some other questions you might have).  In addition to being lighter than other Ales of the time, the beer was also more hopped than a Porter or Stout might typically be.  Rolling Rock is not actually a good example of a Pale Ale (check out the Samuel Smith's that we have reviewed on here for a more classic example of this beer type). Well, Pale Ales were great for the homefront.  But what about people ...

More than O.K.--that is what I have to say about this beer.  I've had Okocim's strong Porter a few times and have enjoyed it.  When I saw this beer, called a Full Pale, I thought I'd give it a whirl.  After all, there are some nice beers coming from Poland.  Upon pouring the beer, it had a little head on it, which was sandy blond and looked fairly clean in the glass.  It was pretty aromatic, as far as a Pilsner-style goes.  On Okocim's website, this is called a Polish Pils Style.  It did have a light hop aroma, which is typical of many Pilsners these days (although not historically).  I noted a slight woodiness and grainy-ness in the nose, along with sweet honey overtones.  Taste-wise, the beer had a slight alcohol taste and a nice grainy finish.  There was also a dry and slightly nutty finish to the brew.  I found the dryness particularly likable.  The honey in the nose came through in the palate of the beer, especially when it came to the yeasty aspects.  There was nothing extremely distinctive about this beer...but something inexplicable made the beer immenently drinkable.  It is a delicious beer that you don't have to overthink.

As the title indicates, this article will cover more ground than just a single type of beer.  However, it will deal with a singular concept, namely, the role of hops and grains in English Ales.  There will be plenty of time to cover other Ale considerations in future articles.  The particular types of top-fermented Ale covered in this article will be "Normal" English Ales, Milds, Bitters, and Extra Special Bitters (E.S.B.s).  As I mentioned above, hops are the major consideration in the variance of these types of Ales.  I'm using "Normal" to designated an English Ale that cannot be further defined by another category of Ale (i.e., it is not a Bitter, Pale Ale, Irish Ale, India Pale Ale...you get the idea).  So, in some ways it is a catch-all phrase.  I suppose these "Normal" Ales have also been called "Pub Ales" (of course, Bitters can also be called by the same name).  Hobgoblin might be a good example of "just a normal English Ale."  If you see the simple terminology of English Ale or English Style Ale, you are probably dealing with a "Normal" English Ale.  A beer that is less hopped than a "Normal" Ale is often characterized as a "Mild Ale."  ...

A few posts ago I mentioned that we might do a "Drink it with us Everyday" for Christmas.  Well, here we go.  I've selected a series of beers that are mostly from the same brewer.  Hopefully we are all able to find most of these.  Ridgeway brewing, a British company, is the ale maker of choice.  Actually, they produce a full progression of elf beers, which goes from "Bad Elf" to "Insanely Bad Elf."  Each step is correspondingly stronger and higher in alcohol.  I have decided to explore some of these beers in order to see how they change from "Elf" to "Elf."  For the sake of variety, I have decided not to do the full line of "Elf" beers, while including some other Ridgeway beers.  Here is a list of the beers that I hope we can all try together: "Bad Elf" and "Seriously Bad Elf" (we are missing "Very Bad Elf," "Criminally Bad Elf," and "Insanely Bad Elf") for our first couple of beers "Santa's Butt," a winter Porter "Reindeer's Revolt," which is an English Christmas Ale. The very last beer is actually one from Three Floyd's Brewery (Indiana).  This is a bit of wildcard because it is fairly regional.  However, Three Floyd's allegedly has the world's best Imperial Stout, called "Dark Lord" (it can only ...