There Can Only Be One Highland Brewing Company

Having just finished my final fall semester of my undergraduate career, I felt it was time for a nice little vacation. A few friends of mine and I went down to Outer Banks, North Carolina for a few days since one of them has a house down there. Since I was far out of my usual area I decided it would be the perfect time to try and find some local beer that I couldn't find in the Northeast. We went out Sunday for lunch and football to a local bar/restaurant, which i expected to have a decent beer selection. Unfortunately, I was wrong, they had a very limited list of beers. Fortunately, they did have a few local options, so I went with the Highland Brewing Company's Gaelic Ale. Highland Brewing is located in Asheville, NC and while not within a short drive of where we were staying it was by far the closest option and one I have never seen any of back home. The waitress gave us our bottles as well as glasses to pour them into if we so chose to.

Courtesy of Highland Brewing Company

While I really wanted to drink straight from the bottle because I'm lazy, I felt it would be a great disservice to not pour it into a glass since it took me an extra 30 seconds.  As I expected it had a beautiful deep amber/brownish color. After pouring it into my glass I noticed very little head and even less lacing. What little head there was, was very light in color. There was a very nice slightly sweet aroma to it, which was rather surprising to me. Now for the most important aspect of the beer, the taste! On first sip I was very confused about what exactly I was tasting besides hops and malts.  After letting my taste buds adjust, I found it had a nice lightly sweet flavor similar to how it smelled when you first took a sip.  However, that was only how it opened and welcomed itself.  Once it hit your mouth for more than the initial moment the flavor changed. While not a dramatic or crazy change it does give a stronger hops and wheat taste.

All in all this is a solid beer. It may not be the best I've had, but it is far from the worst I've had.  I thoroughly enjoyed it while watching some decent football and would not mind having it again.

It's That New Bitches Brew

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery always has and most likely always will be my favorite craft brewery.  The things that Sam Calagione and his staff do down in Milton, DE are nothing short of awesome and amazing.  I have yet to try a bad beer from them, ranging from their quintessential 60 Minute IPA all the way to their Midas Touch and oh so famous Punkin Ale.

I have finally gotten my hands on one of their beers that I have not been able to find since its creation in 2010, Bitches Brew.  It was a beer created for the 40th anniversary of the original release of Miles Davis' album with the same name.  The beer was created as a fusion of imperial stouts and tej, which after doing some research is a traditional ethiopian drink considered a mead or honey wine made with honey and roots from the gesho plant.  It is made up of much more imperial stout than tej as the tej is just added for some sweeting and contrast in flavor if you ask me.  Sam stated that the reason he created the beer this way is because it goes along with the album, which was a fusion of jazz, funk and rock, the first of its kind.  The label is absolutely beautiful and contains the artwork from the album created by Mati Klarwein.

Image courtesy of www.dogfish.com

So enough boring stuff and onto the good stuff, the beer itself.  It comes in an a larger 1 pint 9.4 oz bottle, which is obviously much larger than the typical 12 oz bottle or can.  As such I had to share this drink with someone else and that lucky person was my old man.  Good thing we split it too because it would have been difficult to finish the whole thing with dinner otherwise.

So we poured it into our glasses and that was the beginning of a very lovely journey.  It comes out extremely dark and almost creamy with a very nice coffee colored head.  It is opaque or damn close to it when held up to the light.  Next came a nice waft to see how delicious it smelled.  While it had a very typical imperial stout scent at first with a delicious roasted barley and malt smell, there was a hint of something I could not initially put my nose on.  It then came to me when reading the label, it's the sweet smell of raw honey!  Not something you deal with on a daily basis, but certainly has a distinct and delicious smell.  There was nothing overwhelming about the scent, it seemed to hit all the right notes at all the right places.

It tasted like something I had never had before, yet felt very comfortable to drink and not to crazy of flavors.  It certainly tastes very strong of an imperial stout and has a certain creaminess to it.  However, it doesn't have lingering bitter notes like other imperial stouts I've had.  Instead it has a delicious sweet and creamy finish to it that leaves you wanting more, almost similar to a chocolate milk or chocolate truffles.  It weighs in at 9%ABV which is on the higher end of beers, but falls directly in the average range for Dogfish Head and may actually be on the light side, especially when compared to the likes of their 120 Minute IPA, which weighs in at 15%-20%ABV.  However, this is certainly not a beer you will drink more than one of as it is rather filling and would undoubtedly sit on you if you had too much of it.

According to ratebeer and beeradvocate it got an average score of 99 and 92 out of 100 from each site respectively.  If you can get your hands on this beer, I highly suggest you grab as many as you can as this is a limited release beer.  I myself bought 4 of them total as I have fallen in love with them.  While it may not seem like a wise decision on a college budget when you consider that they ring in at around $12 a pop.  It isn't the worst idea when you think that a single bottle may last you a lot longer than you'd expect throughout the night.

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Breakfast for Dinner for Breakfast

I'm back again and I'm absolutely delighted to be writing about a very special beer today. Given the horrible wet weather we've been suffering through the past few days, I needed a good pick-me-up and it came in the form of breakfast. I'm sure you've noticed the my befuddling title for this morning's post, but don't be alarmed. Everything will make sense shortly.

I work the graveyard shift. It's long, it's dark, and it's tough to stay awake, but I deal with it. Tons of people do it, but everybody knows that when you work the night shift, you never really get used to your changed schedule. When I come home from work around 6 am, I'm going to reach for a beer and some food. After a dull night waiting for something exciting happen, it's nice to sit back and unwind. It's also 6 am, so my body is still convinced it's time for breakfast. In short, I'm looking to have dinner for breakfast.

"But that's two pieces of the puzzle, Pat! What about the other breakfast?"


That's where the beer comes in. This morning, I present Founders Brewing Company's Founders Breakfast Stout. Defined as a Double Chocolate Coffee Oatmeal Stout, it is not to be mistaken for an actual breakfast, although I certainly think it could give those canned breakfast shakes a run for their money. Weighing in at an impressive 8.3% alcohol by volume, this Stout is meant to be enjoyed slowly and deliberately.

On first pour, you could easily confuse this thick and black brew with motor oil. It sits still in the glass with an absolutely spectacular deep tan head that lasts until the final mouthful. Again, I blame poor head retention and lacing in the glass I used on my dishwasher, but the Stout managed to power through and put on its Sunday best. With an opaque black appearance, Founders Breakfast Stout is truly a beautiful beer.

I swirled the glass and let the beer talk to my nose and my goodness, what a story it had to tell. Cocoa and coffee blended for a heavenly aroma unlike any beer I've smelled before. Between that and the roasted malty smell, you would think you were about to drink a fancy espresso. On first sip, I knew this beer was something special. Yes, I've had it before (on tap too), but a beer this good makes you feel like every glass is your first glass. Coffee, chocolate, and roasted malt flavors were immediately apparent with the slightest bitterness appearing as well, but an overall creaminess lends to the breakfast-like feeling evoked by the flavors. A full-bodied beer, this Stout drinks smoother than most other beers, despite its nearly double digit alcohol content.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. If my writing wasn't enough to convince you, do your best to go out and find Founders Breakfast Stout. It exists as a rare breed of beer that truly speaks for itself. Yes, it has a 99 out of 100 on beeradvocate.com and a perfect 100 on ratebeer.com, but don't let the words of myself and others convince you that this beer is special. Try it yourself and see why it considered one of the best in the world.

Lager Bloggin'

While I did write the introductory post, I really failed in introducing myself. My name is Patrick and I love beer. No really, I love it. Ever since I was 21, I knew the normal party beers weren't for me. While my friends were chugging Coors Light and pounding Lionsheads, I was looking at the beers kept in the coolers in the dark corner of the bar. I didn't care about getting drunk on less than ten bucks. I just wanted to see what the world had to offer. I've never been a regular guy. Some people dance to the beat of their own drums; I want to know why the drum makes noise. To say that the same applies to my love for beer is an understatement. I'm just glad I found the opportunity to create this blog with a great group of friends who love beer too. With that out of they way...

Happy National Lager Day, everybody! If you're in the US (or elsewhere - we won't judge), go ahead and grab your favorite lager. Be it a Pilsner, Bock, Dunkel, Helles, Marzen, or American it's a great day to relax with a beer as storied as a lager.

In the spirit of the holiday, I ventured out to the beer store to restock my supply. Besides finding a beer I've been looking for for a few years now (Dogfish Head's Bitches Brew) and picking up a pack of what is arguably one of the best beers I've ever had (Founder's Breakfast Stout), I also purchased a bottle of Smuttynose Brewing Company's S'Muttonator Doppelbock and a six pack of Brooklyn Brewery's Brooklyn Lager. While I've been waiting for the S'Muttonator to cool down in the fridge, I went ahead and tore into the Brooklyn Lager.

 Having taken a tour of Brooklyn Brewery only a few short months ago, I've already had the pleasure of enjoying their Lager. While it's not my favorite beer they've ever produced (that distinction belongs to their Mary's Maple Porter), it's a solid brew nonetheless.

I went ahead and poured this into a snifter-like glass I had laying around. If you take their brewery tour, they give you a really nice laser-engraved tulip glass to take home with you; I couldn't find mine, but I digress. After the pour, you're left with a short head (less than one centimeter) that dissipates in a rather short period of time. Swirling the beer around leaves a little bit of lacing that just faded almost immediately. I don't know if this is because my glasses aren't as clean as they can be or because of the beer itself, but it's no big deal for me. As far as appearances go, Brooklyn Lager is nothing special. It has a nice golden amber color, but as far beer goes, it's a run-of-the-mill look. If Brooklyn Lager was a t-shirt, it would be a white v-neck T-shirt - not quite as dull as a crew neck, but not wild enough to truly set itself apart from others.

On the olfactory front, I found the aroma of this beer to be quite pleasing. It had a fruity smell with definite floral tones and surprisingly, it persisted. Many beers have the tendency to smell strong on the first sniff and then that's it, but I was pleased to find that the Brooklyn Lager's aroma had some real sticking power. Subsequently, the taste exhibited the same characteristic. Brooklyn describes their Lager as having a "floral hop character" and they were dead on with that. Much like the aroma, there is a fruity and floral mix that's immediately evident, but what I found especially pleasing was a slight bitterness provided by the hops. I'm a hopaholic, so any bitterness is greatly welcomed. While nowhere near IPA or other similar Pale Ale levels, the bitterness in the Brooklyn Lager was strong enough to properly complement the floral tones in the beer.

On the whole, Brooklyn Lager is a solid beer. It's not the greatest beer I've ever had, but it's certainly far from the worst. The guys and gals at the Brooklyn Brewery are a dedicated bunch with a real knack for brewing and their Brooklyn Lager is testament to that. On National Lager Day, I say go out and try the Brooklyn Lager if you can. It's affordable, local (well, a short ride away for me), and best of all, it's an all-around good beer.