Style: Belgian style dark ale
Menu description: Hint of oak & red wine, malty, flavors of dark fruits.
ABV: 8.3%
Tasting notes: Quite malty, but decent. Tastes kinda chocolatey on my second go around. I approve!
Rating: 3.5/5
Tag Archives: malty
Beer Review #46: Krombacher Pilsner
Style: German pilsner
Menu description: Germany’s number one selling premier pilsner. Grassy notes, grainy pine malts, crisp.
ABV: 4.8%
Tasting notes: This has a nice sweet malt aroma. It’s slightly sweet, but predominantly tastes of a grass infused…. Pilsner flavor? I don’t know quite how to describe it. Most pilsners seem to me to have a characteristic flavor that I haven’t tasted elsewhere. It’s got a malt backbone, but is pretty light and sort of herbal. There’s a dryness to it as well. This has a strong carbonation, which helps support its crisp feel. The aftertaste is slightly metallic, which I’m not a fan of. It’s not bad for a pilsner, but it’s still a pilsner, so I’m not really a big fan.
Rating: 3/5
Beer Review #43: Troegs Troegenator Double Bock
Style: German Doppelbock
Menu description: Hints of banana, sweet bread, malty flavors.
ABV: 8.2%
Tasting notes: Delightful! There’s a bit of tartness at the end, but it’s not a bad thing. It’s got some solid banana notes with a bit of wheat blended in. The flavor isn’t quite banana bread as there’s a good bit more tartness and bitterness to it, but it’s very enjoyable all the same.
Rating: 4/5
Beer Review #42: Hacker-Pschorr Hubertus Bock
Style: Helles Bock / Maibock
Menu description: Toasty malt flavors, hints of fruit & floral hops. Notes of toffee, caramel, and honey lead to a dry finish.
ABV: 8.7%
Tasting Notes: This is quite good! The flavor is light and airy. It’s got a nice aroma, seems like the floral notes in the beer influence it greatly. There’s a very, very light amount of bitterness in the aftertaste. There’s a slightly sweet taste to it and again I’m surprised that this is another beer with toasted malt flavor that isn’t terrible! I’ve not had good luck with beers that have some variation of “toasty malt flavor” in their description.
Rating: 3.75/5
Beer Review #31: Tsingtao Lager
Website description: Tsingtao Lager offers a crisp and refreshing flavor with a nutty and subtle sweet taste that will complement your choice of cuisine without weighing you down.
ABV: 4.8%
My thoughts: This has a very fresh scent. It reminds me a little of fresh linens, oddly enough. It tastes a bit sweet. There’s a light, malty finish. This beer has some strong carbonation. Amazingly, this has turned out to be one of the few lagers I like! Not only that, but I’d say this is just a really good beer overall. The flavor is mellow without suffering from that watery nonsense most lagers taste like. If I can find this again, I’ll definitely be bringing some home. Something to note here is that the glass they served this beer in was frozen and had a thin layer of ice on the bottom third. While a fun way to keep the beer cold, it actually ends up being too cold and doesn’t do the beer any favors. I’d love to try this again at a more reasonable temperature, but I think my overall opinion won’t change. If it can still taste great when its served way too cold, it’s likely phenomenal under normal circumstances.
Number of times I’ve had it: 1
Rating: 4/5
Location: Sea
Brooklyn, NY
Beer Review #18: Lagunitas Censored
A post a day? Ha! More like a post a week, amirite? I really need to set an alarm or something so I remember to do this. ANYWAY! Today’s beer is Lagunitas Censored, from the fine people at Lagunitas!
Website description: Malty, Roasty, and Deceptively Smooth This Amber-esque ale gets more of a cocoa-toasty flavor from the use of chocolate malts.
ABV: 6.7%
My thoughts: This was my second beer here in Cali. It’s got a sweet and sour thing going on, which I really liked. Its not really a sour patch kid thing, but more of a sweet and sour chicken thing… if that makes sense. It tastes like it’s made with brown sugar or something similar (which I later learned was chocolate malts). I’m not sure what gives it the tart taste, but its a combo that works really well. I wish I’d taken a picture of it poured out in a glass, but I was too busy being a savage and drinking straight from the bottle. I’m definitely a fan.
Number of times I’ve had it: 2 (12 ounce bottles)
Rating: 4/5
Location: Store bought, drank at home
Beer Review #16: Ramstein Maibock
This is one of my early reviews. I knew less and wrote less and generally they are not as detailed as my later reviews. As I go through my tremendous backlog of beer notes, I’ll indicate which reviews are based off of my older notes. They have less info than I’d like, but they still helped me keep my beers straight, so I figured they’d be worth posting. From here on out, I’ll simply add the “early review” tag to beer review posts that are from those early days instead of having this big block of text at the start of the post.
Menu description: Bready malt, hint of honey, very smooth.
ABV: 7.5%
My thoughts: It has a strong honey taste. Aaaaand that’s about it. There wasn’t much in the flavor that I really noticed other than some mild malts and the honey. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really anything special. The description from the Croxley’s menu lies about this beer being smooth. It’s an easy enough drink, but again doesn’t stand out in the smoothness category. It smells pretty nice, but unfortunately you don’t get any of those scents in the flavor. It’s too bad, with an angry sounding German name like that, I expected a more exciting beer.
Number of times I’ve had it: 1
Rating: 3/5
Location:
Croxley’s Ale House
Farmingdale, NY
Beer Review #9: 2013 Anchor Christmas Ale
Update: Yeah, so this experiment in real time writing while drinking didn’t really go anywhere. I think I did this for maybe 2-3 weeks before calling it quits. Keeping notes in Evernote and fighting the WordPress app to update the website without posting enormous versions of the pictures and trying to actually hang out with my friends was just a bit too much to juggle at once.
Yes, yes, I know it’s been forever. Why has it been forever? I’m fucking lazy, that’s why! On with the show!
So I’ve decided that on Mondays I’m gonna update this shit real time as I drink these beers. Unfortunately, this Monday all the beers are repeats from last week, so my thoughts are all from last week, but you haven’t seen them so you wouldn’t know anyway!
Menu description: Robust malt & spice flavors, great winter ale.
ABV: 5.5%
My thoughts: This is a very good beer. Malty goodness, which is hilarious for me to say because I’m typically not a big fan of malt flavors, as regular readers would know. Assuming I even have regular readers anymore. Or had them in the first place. Uh, so anyway, this beer is dark as night and smells pretty good. It’s very smooth and easy to drink. Not too strong, so you can have several. Highly recommended.
This is my 2nd glass now, and it’s even better than the first. Christmas seasonal beers are my 2nd favorite type of beer, after fall seasonals. They’re just so full of warm and fuzzy goodness. I don’t know how such a thing is possible and able to be shoved into a bottle, but there it is.
Number of times I’ve had it: 3
Rating: 4/5
Location:
Croxley’s Ale House
Farmingdale, NY
Beer Review #7: Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
Before we begin today, I wanted to note that I’ve updated my post about Blue Point Sour Cherry Imperial Stout. I got to have it again recently (it’s a seasonal beer) and have some more stuff to say about it!
Today’s beer is the illustrious Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA. Last time we discussed how much I love IPAs, so I’m pretty sure you can guess how I’m going to feel about this beer.
There’s actually an interesting story involved with this one. The first time I had it, there was a mix up and I had the 60 minute IPA instead of the 90 minute IPA. This was after Joe and Luis, a couple of friends of mine, had raved for months about how excellent Dogfish Head Brewery’s beers were. So I grab my glass, thinking it’s 90 minute when it’s really 60 minute and I take a sip.
I had fury.
This was an IPA?! This was one of the best breweries around? Shenanigans! This was swill! Trash! Basura! I did not care for it one bit. I would not drink it with a fox, I would not drink it in a box. I would not drink it with a mouse, I would not drink it in a house. I do not like it, Luis and Joe. 60 minute completely blows!
Because of this experience I swore off Dogfish Head for quite a while. After some time had passed I was prevailed upon to try it again by my Dogfish Head loving friends. Adam (best bartender ever!) assured me that 90 was really good and 60 was not so good. We speculated that there may have been a mix up at the bar I tried it at before, so I gave it another shot here. I’m really glad I did because Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA is an excellent IPA. I don’t think anything will dethrone Sierra Nevada for me, but this is the next best thing, as far as I’m concerned.
It’s classed as an Imperial IPA and that sounds very fancy. I should probably look that up one day to see how that’s different from the regular people IPA that I’m used to. 90 minute is hoppy, even for an IPA, so if that’s not your thing, you’re gonna have a bad time. Its slightly malty, but not overly so. The hops are really front and center here and Dogfish Head must be using some really quality stuff because every glass I have is flawless. I can’t praise it highly enough. It is a bit strong, so be prepared for that.
9% ABV
Beer Review #6: 21st Amendment Brew Free or Die
The holidays are over and its time for me to stop being a lazy asshole. After almost a month of sloth, stuffing my face with holiday treats, and wild parties (maybe not that last part) I’m getting down to business with a delightfully patriotic beer, 21st Amendment Brew Free or Die!
The website has a pretty great description of it, even using some scale I’ve never heard of to describe how bitter it is. It’s 7. It’s 7 bitterness units. Whatever that means. Silliness aside, it’s an IPA and you know how I love me some IPAs!
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