Jah*va Imperial Coffee Stout by Southern Tier

Each time I peer into my fridge, searching for the next beer to review, it's an exciting hunt.  Sometimes I grab one I've tasted before.  Sometimes I pick one that I've been wanting to try, that I bought specifically to review.  Other times, like tonight, I happen upon a beer I completely forgot I had bought.  Tonight's beer, to be enjoyed by yours truly for Stout Week, was brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Company.  I'm not sure where I thought Southern Tier was from, but I certainly didn't think it was Lakewood, NY.  The Southern in the name threw me...but that's neither here nor there.  Anyway, if you've never had any of their beers, I highly recommend you check them out.  Southern Tier makes some seriously tasty beers of all kinds.  Not remembering when I bought this, I can't guarantee it's still in the stores, but if it isn't, peruse their other beers.

Tonight I have a stout for you coffee lovers out there, Southern Tier's Jah*va Imperial Coffee Stout.  I don't know about you, but just the name makes my mouth water.  Imperial Stout AND coffee?  Excellent.  While many stouts have coffee flavors to them, which come from the types of malts used, there are ones such as this that are brewed with actual coffee beans.  The experience is completely different.

Jah*va pours with a beautiful frothy tan head, which lingers nicely.  One whiff tells you this is a coffee stout, and one sip confirms it.  This is a huge beer.  Alcohol tips the scales at 10.6% (though you don't taste it that much...it just hits you after awhile).  The flavors are intense (but wonderful).  And it is a seriously viscous elixir. 

It seems silly to describe the flavor more, but here it is...coffee coffee coffee...with a bit of dark chocolate thrown in for good measure.  There are hops in their, but they're completely overshadowed.  They no doubt take the edge off of some of the richness, but not by a lot.  But really...coffee.  I'm a huge fan of coffee and dark chocolate and beer, so a coffee stout is always a good thing in my book.  Obviously, if you're not a fan of coffee, this isn't for you...not that you would probably even give it a second glance in the store.

My final words are this:  If you like coffee, stouts, and beers which combine the two, this is definitely worth checking out.  Southern Tier's Jah*va Imperial Coffee Stout gets an A in my book.  Cheers!!!

Moo Thunder Stout by Butternuts Beer & Ale

Tonight's installment of Stout Week is brought to you by Butternuts Beer & Ale.  You'll remember that several weeks ago I reviewed their PorkSlap Pale Ale.  I wasn't overly impressed.  But, a friend pointed out that their stout was much better.  Enter...Moo Thunder!  Seriously, look at the picture below.  These people know how to market their beer.  I must say though, marketing can only get you so far.  The stout will have to beat out their pale ale if I'm going to try other styles.

As with all of their beers, Moo Thunder comes in a graphically fantastic can.  While they still make up a severe minority of the beers  at Julio's Liquors, their aluminum presence is growing.  I hope to some day be able to do a side-by-side comparison of the same beer in a can and a bottle and decide for myself, once and for all, whether cans affect the taste.

This stout pours a deep, dark brown, letting only the slightest amount of light through.  Getting your nose right down to the fluffy tan head rewards you with roasted malt melded with chocolate.  This is quite promising based on smell alone.

The taste?  In a word...yum.  Like the smell, the taste is deep, roasty and chocolatey.  While many stouts have both a chocolate and coffee flavor, I only taste dark chocolate here.  It's very rich, but not too rich.  Their website says they use lactose sugar in making this beer, to add to the body and mouth feel.  I have no idea if that's really the case.  All it leaves me wondering is if someone who is lactose intolerant could drink this?  Yes, these are the places my brain goes. 

I must quote part of their description on their website.  I'm really starting to like these people!  "Unlike a true bovine it has a malty, roasty aroma and a dry finish but no tail or teats, and leaves no unsightly cow pies laying around the yard for you to step in." 

What I can tell you with all certainty is that Moo Thunder is an excellent chocolatey stout.  Butternuts has redeemed themselves in my eyes.  Moo Thunder is a keeper, gets an A- from me and will no doubt make it into my rotation again.  Cheers!

6288 Stout from Tuckerman Brewing Company

In case you haven't figured out by now with this blog, I like big flavors.  I like beers that make themselves known.  Sure, sometimes on a hot day, when you need something really refreshing, a less assertive beer can be the way to go.  Most of the time, though, I go for something more akin to a meal in a bottle (or can...or tap).  Logically then, stouts are up near or at the top of my various beer lists.  Stouts are as much of a meal in a bottle as you can get.  They also often have some of the deepest flavors.  IPAs and the like can be much more assertive, but the flavors that show up in a stout are, in my mind, more complex and interesting.


To start off my self proclaimed Stout Week (might last longer...no clue how many stouts I have in the fridge), I opened an old favorite, 6288 Stout from Tuckerman Brewing Company.  I happened to stumble across a 4-pack of 6288 at McKinnon's Meat Market in Salem, NH.  They have a surprisingly good beer selection, especially for a supermarket.    I wasn't even looking for this, as recently I had been wondering if they were even still producing 6288.  I felt like I hadn't seen it in years.  Then there it was, right there at toe level!  As soon as I got my basket low enough, it just jumped right in...really...you should have seen it!

For those not familiar with the White Mountains of New England, Tuckerman Brewing is named after Tuckerman Ravine, and 6288 Stout is named after the height of Mt. Washington, the highest peak in the northeast.  Further, part of the proceeds from 6288 Stout actually go to support the Mt. Washington Observatory.  Drink a beer and support science.  How can you lose?!  As a side note, if you're ever in Conway, NH, check to see if the brewery is open and go for a visit.  It's not a big place, but the people are great, the samples are always tasty, and did I mention it's a brewery tour?  Why wouldn't you want to go?

According to their website, 6288 Stout is brewed with 5 types of malt, along with American and French hops, and is bottle conditioned for 3 months.  You're probably asking yourself "Self, are those all good things to have when it comes to beer?"  While it obviously demands some serious skill from the brewers, the answer is definitely yes, yes and yes in this case.

6288 Stout pours jet black with a good size tan head.  That head disappears fast though.  Not really a problem in my book, just an observation.  While many stouts have huge coffee or chocolate smells, this beer smells of malty goodness.  It's a wonderful roasty, grainy smell.  Maybe you'll pick up a bit of coffee or chocolate due to that roastiness, but I just smell wonderful beer.  The use of the 5 malts probably lends itself to that nice even roasted smell, but it definitely leads to the richness of flavor.  This is a deep, dark beer.  Those roasted malts are the main flavor.  The hops are a bit noticeable, but they mainly help balance out the richness.  Nowhere that I can find do they say what the alcohol content is, but this is not a hard hitting beer.  It seems to have a good, average alcohol level.  I think what really helps this beer though, is the bottle conditioning.

Bottle conditioning involves letting the beer continue to ferment through one of various different processes inside the bottle.  What does this do?  Well, when it comes to flavor, the beer tends to get somewhat smoother and the various flavors meld together better.  From what I've read, the yeast, as it ferments more sugars, basically counteracts and disrupts some bad chemical reactions that happen in beer once its bottled.  A nice side effect of that is that bottle conditioned beers also last much longer.  If you see that a beer is bottle conditioned, there's a good chance you can age it rather well.  You never really know what you'll get, but some beers just get better and better with age.

Really, when it comes down to it, 6288 is a very solid stout.  You won't be disappointed in the least, if you're a fan of stouts, and I bet you even go back for a second...or third...or fourth.  This excellent example of what a stout should be, gets an A- in my book.  Go grab a 4-pack while it's still available.  You'll thank me.

Stout Week!

My beer situation is getting out of hand.  Solidly half of my refrigerator is beer now.  Wait, did you think I meant that first sentence was a problem?  Of course it's not!  But, it is making it tough to decide what to taste and review next.  So, I've decided to group some things together.  By nature of the fact that I just cracked open a stout with dinner, I'm now going to review a few stouts in a row.  It's a tough life, but someone has to do it.  On tap tonight...hmmm...not the best phrase in this blog.  Out of the bottle tonight is Tuckerman Brewing Company's 6288 Stout, an old favorite of mine.

Shipyard Smashed Blueberry

Happy International Beer Day everyone!  Yes, apparently August 5th is International Beer Day.  I figured it made sense for me to post a review of a very special, unique beer to mark the beginning of this momentous 24 hour occasion.  Cheers!

After hearing several mentions of this beer, I finally decided to pick up a bottle of Smashed Blueberry from Shipyard Brewing (Portland, ME).  Like many of my recent beer purchases, I found this in the Beer Cave at The Drinkery Shop in Londonderry, NH for $9 for a 22oz. bottle.  The bottle looked promising enough, all blue, like a blueberry.  Read the description on the bottle before buying?  Of course not, why would I do that?  This is just a blueberry beer...what's not to understand?

Prepare to have your definition of "just a blueberry beer" blown straight out of the water.  I decided to read the description on the bottle as I was putting it into the fridge.  "Hybrid between a Porter and a Scotch Ale?"  "Notes of coffee and chocolate?"  "Aroma of blueberries."  The last one makes sense, but the first two...what the?  I'm sure you've all had blueberry beer before, the crisp, fruity ale that may even have some blueberries happily dancing up and down in the glass.  While often rather tasty, that kind of beer, this is not.  This is a 9% a.b.v. monster of a beer!

As you can see from the picture, this is an extremely dark, porter-like beer with a tasty looking tan head.  The head fairly rapidly drops down to just a very thin layer, but that layer seems to stick around forever (or at least as long as it's taking to drink the beer).  Does this smell like a sickly sweet, blueberry bomb of a beer?  Not at all.  What you do smell is a hint of blueberry mixed in with the nice malty aroma of a good dark beer.  I actually question whether I'd identify this as a blueberry beer just by smell if I hadn't seen the bottle.  Editor's note: I do have allergies though, so possibly ignore anything I'm saying.

OK, let's get to the meat of this thing...beer of this thing...whatever.  This is an immensely flavorful beer!  When you first taste it, it tastes like a good quality porter...dark and flavorful with bits of coffee and chocolate passing over your now happy taste buds.  The Scotch Ale part of Shipyard's description is less obvious.  Scotch Ales are a type of strong pale ale...slightly hopped, somewhat higher a.b.v and full bodied.  A lot of that gets lots in the porter, which is itself a flavorful, lightly hopped dark ale, but there is a nice balanced hoppiness to this beer and the 9% a.b.v. doesn't hurt matters either.  The alcohol isn't overpowering, but believe me, you will start to feel it as you work your way through the bottle.

As I made my way through this beer, I marveled at the full, balanced, rich flavors.  I was thoroughly enjoying myself.  One thing kept going through my head though...where are the blueberries?  This isn't like a typical blueberry beer where the first sip slaps you in the face with blueberry flavor.  But, shouldn't it be here somewhere?  Then something interesting happened.  I stopped drinking to start typing this and then it hit.  I didn't have a giant aftertaste of beer in my mouth, I had a pleasant, slight aftertaste of blueberries!  Where did it come from?  Really, it is quite interesting.  Like a lot of flavors in beer (and wine and food in general), I think the blueberries are adding to the richness of this beer.  They are just taking a back seat to the other stronger flavors here.  In the end though, they make themselves known, if only subtly. 

I must say, I'm really impressed with Shipyard Smashed Blueberry.  It's not at all what I expected, and I'm happy about that.  I didn't want "just" another blueberry beer, and I certainly didn't get it!  For those who don't like fruit beers, this will change your mind (at least for this one beer).  The blueberries in here complement the beer, they don't overpower it.  You absolutely won't be disappointed.  Shipyard Smashed Blueberry definitely gets an A in my book!