Moo-Hoo Chocolate Stout - Terrapin Beer

OK, another week…another stout, especially since my trick last week didn’t do anything to bring spring any closer. So as long as it is cold I will be drinking me some stouts. This week I found my new favorite beer store, too bad it is 3.5 hours away in downtown Greenville, SC. That’s right, it’s right there in the picture, The Greenville Beer Exchange, and yes, that is a 64 oz. jug of draft beer, what…yes you heard me. This beer store can sell you beer straight from the tap into a 64 oz. jug so you can come home and enjoy fresh draft beer at home. They had at least a dozen different beers on draft and hundreds more in the bottle.

So even though I don’t have a nice picture of the beer, trust me, it is Terrapin’s Moo-Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout.

My boys said they thought I was drinking a foamy coke, which is how dark it pours with a nice thick brown head. It gives you a really nice scent of malts, not burnt malts like a lot of other stouts but more of a chocolate malt from say DQ or something, or even some malted milk balls. I know I know, that is a different type of malt but it has a sweet earthy tone to it. The taste is really thick and creamy, smooth and bitter and the same time. You really can taste the sweetness from the lactose and the bitterness from the malts blending together as you finally decide to swallow. Wow, I just might have to drink the entire 64 oz’s tonight.

I also picked up a 64 oz. jug of Southern Tier Choklat. I am just as excited to try that as I was this one. I really don’t think I can wait till next week either so we may be doing a mid-week review for that one, who knows. So kids if you ever find yourself in Greenville, SC, you must stop by The Greenville Beer Exchange and see what they have on draft. It is also just around the corner from Barley’s Tap Room and Pizzeria, yeah, they have a few hundred different beers to choose from also with about 30 or so on draft. Well Cheers beer friend!

FourBoysBrewPub!

Torpedo Extra IPA - Sierra Nevada

Who’s ready for spring? ME! There’s a reason I live in the south, I. Don’t. Like. Cold. Weather. So, now that the 2011 ice age has passed I thought if I reviewed a beer more suited for warm weather, well, I might at least feel warmer and who knows, maybe I’ll be like the ground hog and bring spring here sooner rather than later. And with spring time comes God’s sport, Baseball, well it’s America’s sport anyway which is good enough for me.

Torpedo Extra IPA – Sierra Nevada

Not sure what to expect with this beer, is it an extra IPA as in it has more hops than the normal IPA or is it extra as in a higher alcohol content than a normal IPA, a-la Dogfish Head’s 60-minute, 90-minute, 120-minute IPA’s? I do know that it is one of only a handful of beers I have consumed that I could smell as soon as I opened the beer. And for someone who doesn’t like IPA’s, I sure do love the way they smell though, and this one had such a lovely citrus tone to it. It also pours like a summer wheat beer, very orange and cloudy with a nice frothy head. Ok, after the first taste I think I know what they mean by extra, this is the hoppiest beer I think I have ever had. I was so blown away by the bitterness that I had to take several more taste to try and pick up the other flavors; sadly I’m not able to, other than a slight sweetness, but I really struggle to even find that. I guess this would be a hop-head’s dream beer, well, if it brings me spring time it will be well worth it. A quick look at the label tells me this is also a 7.2% abv beer so the extra could be for both, hops and a high ABV.

A few quick notes about the blog in the upcoming weeks, I really hope to have a list of beers, maybe not the standard top 5 and bottom 5 but more of most interesting to least interesting. I also hope to be able to continue doing at least one beer a week but not sure. I really wanted to see if I could do this thing for a full year, last week’s post made it a year with a few extra’s thrown in. So Cheers!

FourBoysBrewPub!

Honey Porter - Samuel Adams

Wow, week 52 is here, I didn’t even realize it till I was coping the photos to my laptop. I kept each week in a separate folder aptly named week XX, last week was week 51 so if my first grade math is correct, this one is week 52. Seems like I should have a special beer for this occasion, well, sorry to disappoint. Although I have had this beer in the past, it was way long ago before I developed a fondness of stouts and porters so when I show it I felt I should at least give it a second try now that I absolutely love stouts and porters now. Now the glassware has become my favorite beer glass, even if it isn’t the proper style for any of my beers that I like to consume. You see, it was a Christmas gift, not from someone special for who he is but rather what he represents, he himself is a Marine, and anybody who serves our country in any of the armed services is a unique individual, someone who we all should give countless thanks to every time we vote, speak in angst of our government, or simply do whatever we please to do as a FREE person in a this wonderful country. Ok, I’m off my soapbox now, on to the beer shall we.

Honey Porter – Samuel Adams (The Boston Beer Company)

It pours a deep dark ruby red, almost so dark it appears black and produces a nice thick tan head. It has an abundance of fermented fruit smell to it mixed with some roasted malts. The flavors don’t really hit you till the very end, very strange not to have something at the front end but it does provide some sweetness that I’m guessing is a mixture from the honey and the malts but then you get a small hint of hop bitterness at the very tail end. This may be the first porter or stout that I can actually recall tasting the hops in, I know normally they just help balance things out without stepping out on their own. This still isn’t one of my favorites but it is tons better than I remember and very worthy of drinking.

Cheers beer friend, feel free to do whatever you shall please!

FourBoysBrewPub!

Bell's Double Cream Stout

Happy New Year peeps, sorry for the lay off last week, Christmas time is a little crazy when you have 3 boys 8 and under. This week may not be my first milk stout but it is the first time I actually knew I was drinking a milk stout. It is also from one of my favorite breweries, Bell’s.

Bell’s Special Double Cream Stout

It pours very thick but doesn’t create a large head, however it does at least stick around. The scent gives off a lot of chocolate, roasted malts. The taste is very smooth and creamy with just a bit of maltiness and a good bit of sweetness. Even though it is a heavy beer it still comes across as one that I could stand to drink 3 to 4 of in one night, it is just that easy to consume.

I am really starting to love stouts and find it easier and easier to drink them. I find myself going out of my way to search for them. Cheers my beer friend and I hope you favorite team plays their bowl game a lot better than mine did, maybe next year UGA.

FourBoysBrewPub!

Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

My favorite day of the week, beer review day. I can’t lie, I have been looking forward to this beer for two weeks, and I cheated, I have already had a few of these before tonight which is not the norm for me as I usually wait till review night to try the beer. I have grown more and more a fan of anything stout but especially coffee stouts. Well this week is no different.

Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout – Terrapin Beer Co.

It pours really dark and thick, just a little thinner than molasses. At first you think there isn’t going to be any type of head but then a small thin brown head appears. The scent is mostly burnt rich chocolate with a slight hint of booze. The taste has a very rich bite of roasted malts with just a few hints of coffee coming through. The mouthfeel is a light, low carbonated one, not heavy at all for this type of beer. It also hides the 8.1% ABV very well, only leaving a tiny bit of an after taste.

Cheers!

FourBoysBrewPub!

Frambozen - New Belgium

Stop the presses! I made it on a Friday for a change. Not sure what to expect with this beer, it has a label that looks festive but not sure a Raspberry Brown Ale is a festive beer. I guess we shall see now won’t we.

Frambozen – New Belgium Brewing. What is Frambozen anyway???

It had a really weird color as I poured in the glass, and it created a purplish head but when the beer was all in the glass, it was almost black. I can definitely smell some tart raspberry but I get some of the famous New Belgium yeast biscuit smell that so many of their beers possess. The first taste is slightly sweet which can be expected from a fruit beer but then you really get the sweetness quickly followed by a sharp tartness of the raspberries. Almost no sign of a malt backbone which I find odd for a brown ale even if it is a fruit infused brown ale. A thin mouthfeel which helps, not sure this beer could handle something heavy as I think that would take away from the fruit that they obviously want you to experience.

Well, I guess I could see this as a festive type beer, not one I would want to drink more than one or two of but might enjoy with some desert after the Christmas dinner. OK, so my curiosity got the better of me before I could even finish this review, I had to know what Frambozen is, well idiot beer geek, it’s right there on the label, it’s Flemish for raspberry. Oh right, so what is Flemish? Oh, it’s a form of Dutch spoken in parts of Belgium, come on man, you gotta get out some more. Now, knowing all of this, I really see what this beer is, a very close ‘relative’ of a lambic. Don’t start with me on what a lambic is, it’s a Belgium Fruit beer made with wild yeast that is often very sour/tart.

Wow, try and drink a beer and make notes about it and you end up learning even more than just what beer you need for the family Christmas dinner, Flemish, a Dutch language, who knew. Cheers! I’m gonna need more beer after this one.

FourBoysBrewPub!

400 Pound Monkey - Left Hand Brewing

Coming to you live and direct on a Saturday night for the second week in a row, sorry ‘bout that. I would really prefer to review these beers on Friday but sometimes life gets in the way, so here we are. I had this beer planned for last week but then I was fortunate enough to get my hands on the very awesome ‘Bitches Brew’ and couldn’t let that pass. The name on this beer is what got my attention but the style is what really got me to get it. ‘400 Pound Monkey’, now who wouldn’t look twice at that right, but it is an English Style India Pale Ale. For those of you not familiar with IPA’s, America is really the only place they are brewed anymore but their origin is England, way back when they occupied India, they would put massive amounts of hop in the beer so it would not go bad before it got to the English soldiers in India, hence the name, India Pale Ale. Now on to the beer!

400 Pound Monkey – Left Hand Brewing Co.

Standard pour for an IPA or a pale ale, light golden in color with a decent head, nothing out of the ordinary. Scent is really in between an IPA and a Pale Ale, you get the scent of hops but not the ‘blow you away’ hops that an IPA gives you. I must say the taste is almost the exact same thing as the scent, either a hoppy Pale Ale or a light IPA. This is probably the best beer I have tried from Left Hand but still nothing I would go out of my way for, if I were in the mood for an IPA and this were available I would take it, but to be fair, and I have said this before, I’m not a fan of IPA’s, sorry hop heads.

So cheers once again beer friend, take it slow tomorrow cause Monday is just around the corner.

FourBoysBrewPub!