Brewery Name and Location: Avery Brewing Company of Boulder, Colorado, USA

Name of Brew: Hog Heaven

Style of Brew:  Barley Wine

Purchase Info: $5.99 for 22oz bottle

ABV: 9.2%

Ingredient Info: Columbus hops. Two row and caramel malt.

Nutritional Info:

Vessel Used for Tasting: White wine glass.

Aroma/Olfactory: There is a strong hoppy aroma that sits over notes of alfalfa, black current, and brown sugar.

Visuals/Appearance: Deep, clear mahogany w/ a fine, frothy, tan head.

Taste/Flavor: Deep bitter taste that rolls across the palette. Alcohol is very upfront, boozy flavor.

Palate/Tactile: Thick, resinous, sticky.

Tasting Backstory: Most of Avery’s brews are fairly extreme and this is no exceptions. A boozy, somewhat overpowering, hop bomb.

Rating: 6.5/10

Value Rating: 5/10

Brewery Name and Location: New Belgium Brewing of Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

Name of Brew: Somersault

Style of Brew: Blonde Ale

Purchase Info: $9.49 for 6* 12oz bottle.

ABV: 5.2%

Ingredient Info: Apricot, Ginger, Centennial hops, Oats

Nutritional Info:

Vessel Used for Tasting: Wine Glass

Aroma/Olfactory: Grassy nose underlied w/ NW hops and Belgian yeast aromas.

Visuals/Appearance: Clear golden-yellow w/ pervasive white head and lace. Tiny bubbles.

Taste/Flavor: It starts w/ a mild hope bite, with a brief flash of the classic Centennial hop flavor profile, and is quickly overpowered with apricot and oat bread flavors. Taste is slightly bitter, slightly sour.

Palate/Tactile: Crisp and light.

Tasting Backstory: This is New Belgium’s new Summer Seasonal. I’m not a huge flavored beer fan. I think there are a couple that I have liked, but usually I prefer straight beer. On this ale, the apricot drowns out the natural flavors of the ale, which are actually fairly good. Anyways, it’s not awful but it is nothing I would buy again.

Rating: 4.5/10

Value Rating: 3.5/10

Brewery Name and Location: Lagunitas of Petaluma, Sonoma County, California, USA

Name of Brew: Wilco Tango Foxtrot Ale

Style of Brew: Strong Ale

Purchase Info: $3.99 for 22oz bottle

ABV: 7.86%

Ingredient Info:

Nutritional Info:

Vessel Used for Tasting: Glass Mug

Aroma/Olfactory: The nose is dominated by a caramel nuttiness with notes of licorice and citrus.

Visuals/Appearance: Cloudy dark amber with a persistent khaki head and lace.

Taste/Flavor: A brown sugary, malty sweetness is balanced with a dank bitterness. The overall profile leans towards the malty side of things.

Palate/Tactile: A fairly heavy ale with a pronounced stickyness.

Tasting Backstory: A pretty solid strong American ale. A bit too heavy for the casual beer drinker but ideal for the more serious types.

Rating: 7.5/10

Value Rating: 7.5/10

Brewery Name and Location: TailGate Beer

Name of Brew: Blacktop Blonde

Style of Brew: Blonde Ale

Purchase Info: $7.99 for 6 * 12oz cans.

ABV: 5%

Ingredient Info:

Nutritional Info:

Vessel Used for Tasting: Glass Mug

Aroma/Olfactory: Corn and grain dominate the nose.

Visuals/Appearance: Clear straw yellow with persistent white head.

Taste/Flavor: Taste is mild, slightly sour. Flavors are corn, grain, and a bit floral.

Palate/Tactile: Light bodied, crisp, and easy to drink.

Tasting Backstory: This brew is made by a relatively new brew company that started in San Diego and then outsourced their brewing to Minnesota. Their whole deal is craft brew in a can. There are a couple of other brewers that are doing that and I’m all in favor. What can I say? Cans are convenient. And the quality of the product is comparable. My take is that cans are like 90% as good as a bottle when fresh but keep better in the long run but not the really long term. Anyways, this beer is decent. Very easily drank but the flavors are too similar to macro brews.

Rating: 5/10

Value Rating: 5/10

Brewery Name and Location: Boston Brewing Company of Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Name of Brew: Latitude 48 IPA

Style of Brew: IPA

Purchase Info: $9.49 for 6* 12oz bottles.

ABV: 6%

Ingredient Info:

Nutritional Info:

Vessel Used for Tasting: White Wine Glass

Aroma/Olfactory: Floral and citrus over a hint of toffee. Smells amazing!

Visuals/Appearance: Clear reddish copper with an off-white head and lace.

Taste/Flavor: Extremely balanced. Tastes starts slightly sweet, finishes slightly bitter, and the after taste is slightly sweet again. The flavors are oranges, grapefruit, flowers, pine, and a toffee backbone. It has a fairly complex hop profile that is well balanced by a straight forward toffee flavored malt profile.

Palate/Tactile: On the heavy side of medium bodied. A bit sticky and resinous.

Tasting Backstory: Boston BeerCo finally got on board the IPA train with a regular release. Good for them! Only a decade behind us West Coasters. At least they came correct. This has a distinctly East Coast hop profile that blends the NW American hops with the Euro hops, kinda like the Dogfish stuff. The bottle reads: “A unique IPA brewed with a carefully selected blend of hops from top German, English, and American growing regions, all located close to the 48th Latitude within the ‘hop belt’ of the Northern Hemisphere.” (Koch, 2011) It is a solid IPA and a nice change of pace from all our wonderful Pacific adjacent breweries.

Rating: 8/10

Value Rating: 6/10

Brewery Name and Location: Cerveceria Modelo from Mexico

Name of Brew: Victoria

Style of Brew: Lager

Purchase Info: $6.99 for 6* 12oz bottles.

ABV: 4%

Ingredient Info:

Nutritional Info:

Vessel Used for Tasting: White Wine Glass

Aroma/Olfactory: Very muted nose, notes of straw.

Visuals/Appearance: Clear, light amber with a dispersive white head.

Taste/Flavor: Slight sweetness and slight Euro hop bitterness. Muted flavor. Notes of straw, corn, maybe grass.

Palate/Tactile: Light bodied and refreshing.

Tasting Backstory: Where the hell did this beer come from? Okay, Mexico, thanks smart ass. What I meant was, I had never seen it before two weeks ago and now it is everywhere. Quite an inoffensive beer for the tasteless masses. That doesn’t mean it is bad, just not any good. At least it doesn’t reek of cereal grain flavors. At least the bottle has a nice aesthetic.

Rating: 4.5/10

Value Rating: 4/10

Brewery Name and Location: Tied House Brewing of San Jose, Santa Clara County, California, USA

Name of Brew: Cascade Amber Ale

Style of Brew: Amber Ale

Purchase Info: $2.99 for 22oz bottle.

ABV: 5.2%

Ingredient Info:

Nutritional Info:

Vessel Used for Tasting: Schooner Glass

Aroma/Olfactory: Grainy, farmy, bready nose.

Visuals/Appearance: Very hazy deep amber with an off-white head.

Taste/Flavor: Bizarre flavor reminiscent of bran cereal with a twang.

Palate/Tactile: Medium body, a bit sticky on the lips.

Tasting Backstory: Tied House is officially one of the worst craft brewers around. I think it is the water in San Jose, CA. They have awful water. Anyways, this brew is barely drinkable and amber ales are hard to fuck up. It was endured but not really enjoyed.

Rating: 3/10

Value Rating: 4/10

Update: I actually couldn’t endure it. Poured it out. -1

Update 2: A Tied House representative responded (read the comments for New World Wheat) and it is likely that I got a bad bottle. It also looks like I was wrong about the water, hence the strike-through. I will be on the look out for this beer again so that I can give them a fair shake.

Brewery Name and Location: Ninkasi Brewing Company of Eugene, Oregon, USA

Name of Brew: Oatis

Style of Brew: Oatmeal Stout

Purchase Info: $3.99 for 22oz bottle

ABV: 7.5%

Ingredient Info:

Nutritional Info:

Vessel Used for Tasting: Schooner

Aroma/Olfactory: Roasty nose with notes of dairy (yogurt), oats, a bit of mocha…

Visuals/Appearance: Opaque brown-black with a dispersive tan head.

Taste/Flavor: Slightly sweet flavor. Oats flavor upfront. Notes of mocha and dairy.

Palate/Tactile: Kinda luscious but not quite.

Tasting Backstory: Fairly standard oatmeal stout. It is drinkable but nothing all that special.

Rating: 5.5/10

Value Rating: 5.5/10

Brewery Name and Location: BridgePort Brewing Company of Portland, Oregon, USA

Name of Brew: Hop Czar

Style of Brew: DIPA

Purchase Info: $8.99 for 6 * 12oz bottle

ABV: 7.5%

Ingredient Info: Nugget, Chinook, Cascade, and Centennial Hops

Nutritional Info:

Vessel Used for Tasting: Schooner Glass

Aroma/Olfactory: It has a sort of peach cobbler nose. Peach, brown sugar, grain…

Visuals/Appearance: Copper color with fine, yeast particulates and an off-white, creamy head and lace.

Taste/Flavor: Starts really crisp but then bitter taste underscored by a slight sweetness dominates. A very balanced beer. Strong hop profile of peach, pine, earth, and citrus is balanced with the brown sugar and strong barley flavors of the malt profile. Alcohol is detectable but not overwhelming.

Palate/Tactile: Medium to heavy body… Sticky.

Tasting Backstory: A rather delightful DIPA. Not quite a hop bomb, but close, and incredibly balanced for the style. The bottle design is one of my new favorites. Overall, I like it a lot.

Rating: 8/10

Value Rating: 8.5/10

Brewery Name and Location: Tied House Brewing of San Jose, Santa Clara County, California, USA

Name of Brew: Alpine Gold Blonde Ale

Style of Brew: Blonde Ale

Purchase Info: $2.49 for a 22oz bottle.

ABV: 4.6%

Ingredient Info:

Nutritional Info:

Vessel Used for Tasting: Schooner Glass

Aroma/Olfactory: Smelled like a farm, in a relatively good way. Like a pile of racked leaves.

Visuals/Appearance: Clear golden with dispersive white head.

Taste/Flavor: A very plantatious flavor. Like leaves and plants and all that. Taste is a balance between sweet and bitter.

Palate/Tactile: Light to medium body, not all that refreshing.

Tasting Backstory: This is another Tied House Beer from San Jose that was on sale at BevMo. A lot better than the nasty wheat beer. It has a really interesting flavor and nose. It totally reminded me of the little farm at Rancho San Antonio, in the same area as the brewery. I also picked up a new glass, a schooner. It is nice and hefty but not so much as the Big Glass Mug from previous posts. I actually found out that style of glassware is called a Gibraltar Mug, hm. Anyways, this brew is not bad and is great for the clearance price. Very organic, in terms of flavor not necessarily inputs.

Rating: 6/10

Value Rating: 8/10