Joining me on this podcast was Kevin Malavarca from the Liquor Outlet in Boonton NJ, and Mark Jackson.  We sure missed Marks colorful commentary over the last dozen podcasts, but he is back with a vengeance!  The only prerequisite I have for the podcast is a love of beer.  You don’t need to know anything about the beers we are drinking only a willingness to try them and voice an opinion.

As usual we have a podcast ready for download:

Listen to the Podcast (1:01:13)

or download it from iTunes

On Tap:

• Cucapa Obscura
• Big Sky Moose Drool Brown Ale
• Southern Star Buried Hatchet Stout
• Surly Bender
• Surly Coffee Bender
• Southern Star Pine Belt Pale
• Butternuts Porkslap
• Cucapa Chupacabras

	Cucapa Obscura podcast Stated off with a great aroma and that is where it left us, as Marl said “This could be Montezuma’s revenge!”
	Big Sky Moose Drool Brown Ale One of the better beers of the night, great malty aroma, creamy with a bit of spice, but desperately lacked in carbonation.
	Southern Star Buried Hatchet Stout The use of Saphir hops gave this beer a lot of potential, but an astringent flavor ruined the great flavors that were there.
	Surly Bender Where do I get more of this!  One of our favorites of the night.  We were surprised by how subdued the aroma was, but the flavor was was smooth and well balanced
	Surly Coffee Bender Again, where do I get more of this!  Open this can was like walking into your favorite coffee shop. Coffee coffee and more coffee!  My personal favorite of the night.
	Southern Star Pine Belt Pale This beer like the first one had a great nose, but the we got hit with that metallic flavor that caused this podcast to begin with.  On top of that there was such a strong buttery flavor and very little little carbonation even with a decent head.
	ButterNuts Porkslap Ummm… listen to the podcast…. Moo Thunder is a pretty decent Stout, nice hint of smoky roasted flavors.
	Cucapa Chupacabras Was this a barley wine or pale ale?  The label says American Pale ale.  tasted like an English Barley wine, super sweet and malty.  It wasn’t a bad beer, just not what we expected.

Simply Beer Podcast #33 Canned Beers is a post from: Simply Beer

First let me introduce my fellow craft beer soldiers! Joining Me in this epic canned beer tasting will be:

• Kevin Malavarca, Beer Manager, Liquor Outlet in Boonton NJ
• John Hoyos, Hunterdon Distributing
• Mark Jackson, making is return after a year on hiatus from our podcasts!

Now here it is the LIST! not sure how we are going to make it through this, but we will persevere or at least try really hard.

- Boulder beer hazed & Infused
- Butternuts Porkslap
- Cucapa Chupacabras
- Cucapa Obscura
- Moose Drool Brown Ale
- New Belgium Ranger IPA
- New England Sea Hag
- New England Amber Ale
- New England Lager
- Oskar Blues Gubna
- Ska Modus Hoperandi
- Ska True Blonde Ale
- Sly Fox Phoenix Pal
- Southern Star Bombshell Blond
- Southern Star Buried Hatchet Stout
- Southern Star Pine Belt Pale
- Surly Bitter Brewer
- Surly Bender
- Surly Coffee Bender
- Surly Furious
- Surly Abrasive Ale
- Wisconsin Amber
- Wynkoop Rail Yard Ale

Any on had these? I’m so looking forward to see if I continue to get that metallic flavor that always seemed to get with most canned beers…. Time to put my psychosomatic idiosyncrasy to the test.

Preview Simply Beer Podcast 33,34,35 Canned Beer is a post from: Simply Beer

Joining me on this podcast was Mike Carrino, owner of Restaurant Passionne, Eric Ottaway, General Manager Brooklyn Brewery, Kevin Malavarca from the Liquor Outlet in Boonton NJ, and John Hoyos from Hunterdon Distribution. The only prerequisite I have for the podcast is a love of beer.  You don’t need to know anything about the beers we are drinking only a willingness to try them and voice an opinion.

Before I go on I’d like to give a Special thanks to Rob Tod and Jason Perkins of Allagash Brewing Company for the beer and the time they spent talking to me about these beers and the process of brewing these craft beers.  Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River for his time speaking with me about their brewing and fermentation process. And finally, Mike Carrino for hosting us at Restaurant Passionne.

As usual we have a podcast ready for download:

Listen to the Podcast (1:01:45)

or download it from iTunes

On Tap:

• Russian River Beatification Batch 3
• Russian River Beatification Batch 2
• Allagash Coolship Resurgam (#2)
• Allagash Coolship Cerise (#9)
• Allagash Coolship Red (#3)

Download the podcast and listen to all the details about how these Amazing Beers stacked up and the process with which they were brewed.

Russian River Beatification Batch 3

The first beer of the night was Russian Rivers Beatification, batch 3.  With both batch 2 and 3, these beers were spontaneously fermented in the barrels.  The barrels provided the bugs for these beers and was a blend of two spontaneous beers from June 2007 and Feb 2008.  Both Eric and Mike pointed out this is a great beer for shellfish or briny fish.  It had a strong lemon, grassy nose that carried over nicely into the flavor.  With the lemon in the flavor there was also a strong white grapefruit flavor on a very tart finish, but wouldn’t consider this sour.  We also detected a some interesting spice notes of Thai-Basil or white pepper. Listen to the Podcast

Russian River Beatification Batch 2

Next was Russian River Beatification, batch 2.  Like batch 3, it was spontaneously fermented in old oak barrels and was also a blend of two beers.  For this version it was a blend from July 2006 and Jan 2007.  It really showed how this beer will age over a year.  It was a lot more muted with its flavors compared to its younger sister.  We also noted the beer didn’t linger as much on the palette nor was it as tart.  Batch 2 was also a bit more lemony, Mike compared it to Limequat and thought it would work well with a spice Thai dish with coconut. Listen to the Podcast

Allagash Coolship Resurgam (#2)

The Third beer of the night was the Allagash Coolship Resurgam.  This is a Blend of 40% 2yr, 40% 18m, and 20% 6 month spontaneous beers.  This beer had a very nice, albeit unusual, tropical/passion fruit’ish nose.  The mouth feel was very smooth, mostly because of the low carbonation.  A very nice beer, not very sour, but had some decent tartness and finished pretty dry. Listen to the Podcast

Allagash Coolship Cerise (#9)

The next to last beer of the night was Allagash’s Coolship Cerise, a blend of 90% 2yr spontaneous with 10% 6 month  spontaneous which sat on local Maine Montmorency tart Cherries for 3 months.  The most noticeable character of this beer was the lack of color, aptly nicknamed by Jason Perkins as the “Albino Kriek”.  While it didn’t look like much of typical Kreik, it smelled like spicy cherry pie.  While funky, sweet, and tart, the finish was a a bit short lived.

Allagash Coolship Red (#3)

The Final beer of the night was the Allagash Coolship Red. Probably my favorite of the night; I love raspberries.  It was considerably more tart then the other 2 coolship beers even though it was the same blend as the Cerise, but sat on fresh raspberries for 3 months. It smelled of raspberries and funk.  The flavor was tart, almost sour, considerably bitter like biting into a raspberry and finished dry.

One other things we noted and Eric pointed out, while the Coolship beers we wonderful to try, you could tell they were evolutionarily young.  Meaning the process and utilization of the wild yeasts was still being put together.  Don’t get me wrong, If you get a chance to try these don’t pass it up.  But, the up side is Allagash has something special here.  With the talents of Jason Perkins, Alagash’s brewmaster and Rob Tod’s ability to push his company and portfolio of beer forward; I can only imagine how spectacular this series of beer will be in the future.  I salute them for doing something different, doing it well, and putting these beer out there for us to sample.

Simply Beer Podcast #32 – Spontaneous Fermentation is a post from: Simply Beer

So what is American Spontaneous Fermentation, well there are many common names for it.  Most common would be “lambic”.  But like champagne, the American Brewers beers we will be sampling all have a tremendous amount of respect and feel Lambic should rightly be reserved for the Belgian breweries that have made this style what it is.  Since this is a “preview” I’m not going to get into specifics or a definition of the style, but will leave you beer geeks drooling with the line up of beer I’ll be sharing with 6 others next Monday.

• Allagash Coolship Resurgam – a Blend of 2 year, 18 month, and 6 month or Spontaneous Beer
• Allagash Coolship Red - 2 year old aged on Raspberries for 3 months
• Allagash Coolship Cerise – 2 year old aged on cherries for 3 months
• Russian River Beatification - batch 002
• Russian River Beatification – batch 003
• Jolly Pumpkin Lambicus Dexterius – 4 year old aged wild ale

Usually I only have 2 or 3 other people joining me on these podcasts, but with such rare and fantastic (hopefully) beer there will be 6 of us, gotta share the love!

• Peter Kennedy, Simply Beer’s Craft Beer Guide
• Kevin Malavarca, Beer Manager, Liquor Outlet in Boonton NJ
• John Hoyos, Hunterdon Distributing
• Lee Williams, Hoptopia.com
• Mike Carrino, Chef / Owner Restaurant Passionné
• Eric Ottaway, General Manager, Brooklyn Brewery

Simply Beer Podcast #32 – American Spontaneous Fermentation – Preview is a post from: Simply Beer

The Players:

Peter Kennedy – Simply Beer

Kevin Malavarca – Beer Manager, Liquor Outlet

John Hoyos – Hunterdon Distributors

Jim Galligan – Beer and Whiskey Brotherhood

So now you know the players, how about the beer?  This was a hard choice for me, because I don’t really do session beer drinking, since most of what I drink I write reviews on.  If I do session beers chances are they are 6-9% abv, not 3-5%.  So… after much internal debate, loss of sleep, and anxiety over what to choice, Here is my choice along with Kevin’s, John’s, and Jim’s.

The Beers:

Peter – Stone Levitation & Victory Prima Pils

Kevin – Left Hand Sawtooth & Victory Lager

John – Avery Redpoint Ale & Dupont Avril

Jim – Troegs Pale Ale & Anchor Steam

This should be interesting with such common beers how they stack up with each other.  Of the 8 beers I have not had 3 of them.  Looking at this list, it makes me thing of what our definitions of a session beer are.  Had it been the summer and hot out I think I might have thrown in the Bruery Hottenroth.

What are your favorite session beers?

Preview – Beer Brawl™ 30 – Session Beer Throw Down is a post from: Simply Beer

With me on this podcast was Mark Jackson, Corey Greenburg, and Will Hogan.  The only prerequisite I have for these Beer Brawls is a love of beer.  You don’t need to know anything about the beers we are drinking only a willingness to try them and voice an opinion.

As usual we have a podcast of The Beer Brawl:

Download Podcast

or download from iTunes

On Tap:

• Weyerbacher Blanche
• Brooklyn Weiss
• SlyFox Project Pale Ale (marynka hop)
• SlyFox Slacker Bock
• Captain Lawrence Double IPA
• Youngs Double Chocolate Stout

We all agreed this was a nice change of pace, first recording outside of the Beer Cave and secondly the luxury of draft beer.   We started off with an exceptional Wit beer, Blanche from Weyerbacher.  We all thought this was a refreshing, full bodied, well-balanced beer.

The Brooklyn Weiss was next.  One of the things I really love about Andy’s, they always pour the beer into appropriate glassware.  We were drinking half glasses, so we didn’t have the full experience of the weizen glass with this beer.  None-the-less, the beer had a pleasant aroma and good flavor, but was missing on the back end.

The two Slyfox beers were next on the hit parade, unfortunately they we not big hits among us.  The Project Pale Ale had a burnt flavor that keep on compounding making this beer more and more unpleasant to drink.  And the Slacker Bock, it just didn’t seem to have an identity, falling short in our books.

Thankfully for us, the Captain Lawrence cask Double IPA was up next.  It was arguably one of the best IPA we have had.  Right up there with Pliney the Elder.  It had a wonder aroma and well balanced flavor.

We ended off the night on a controversial sample of Young’s Double Chocolate Stout.  My beer was far different then the others, with strong butterscotch and chocolate aromas and flavors.  Both Mark and Will’s beer was chocolate with out the lushness I had in mine.

Download the podcast and listen to all the details about these craft brews stacked up against each other.

Next Podcast will be recorded from Amanti Vino in Montclair, NJ. For our 20th podcast we’ll be celebrating with a bunch of Barley Wines!

Beer Brawl 19 – Andy’s Corner Bar is a post from: Simply Beer

With me on this podcast was Mark Jackson and Teri Gatto from New Jersey News Room.  The only prerequisite I have for these Beer Brawls is a love of beer.  You don’t need to know anything about the beers we are drinking only a willingness to try them and voice an opinion.

As usual we have a podcast of The Beer Brawl:

Download Podcast

or download from iTunes

On Tap:

• 21st Amendment Hell or High Watermelon
• Dogfish Head Sah’Tea
• Old Danish Braggot
• Avery Collaboration not Litigation
• Ommegang Ommegeddon Funkhouse Ale

Mark(left) & Peter (Right) finishing off the beers after the recording was done

Under the umbrella of Unique and Unusual, the Hell or High Watermelon is the first beer I’ve seen that uses watermelon.  While watermelon isn’t a strong flavor, 21st Amendment uses enough to give the beer a bit of flavor, while still retaining some of the Wheat characteristics.  I did enjoy this beer, it wasn’t as well received by Mark or Teri.

The Dogfish Head Sah’tea is unusual in two ways, no hops and the method used to boil the wort (see video).  Using white-hot river rocks they boil the wort with the rocks not a flame. There’s a ‘ton’ of spices used in this beer instead of hops, like cardamon, cinnamon, cloves, and black tea.  Overall we all loved the flavor of this beer and the craftsmanship that went into it.

Mark Discussing his views on the Ommegedon

A braggot is not a common drink in the US; it is a blend of mead (honey Wine) and beer.  This produces a very fragrant and strong drink.  The Old Danish braggot was an interesting diversion from our typical Beer Brawl path.

The Avery Collaboration not Litigation has a great story behind it, creating a great Belgian Dark Strong Ale by the brewers at Russian River and Avery.

The final Beer, the Ommegang Ommegeddon Funkhouse ale, a farmhouse style ale with Brettanomyces Yeast added to it to give it a funky and interesting flavor.  A definite must try beer.

Download the podcast and listen to all the details about these craft brews stacked up against each other.

Next Podcast will be recorded from Andy’s Corner Bar in Bogata NJ, where we’ll be sampling what ever he has on tap.

Beer Brawl 18 – Unique & Interesting Beer is a post from: Simply Beer

With me on this podcast was Mark Jackson and Stephen Kennedy.  The only prerequisite I have for these Beer Brawls is a love of beer.  You don’t need to know anything about the beers we are drinking only a willingness to try them and voice an opinion.

As usual we have a podcast of The Beer Brawl:

Download Podcast

or download from iTunes

On Tap

• Elysian Perseus Porter
• Avery New World Porter
• Rogue Mocha Porter
• Stone Smoked Porter
• Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter

This is one of my favorite styles of beer, so to say I was excited and had some high hopes for these beers is an understatement.  We quickly went through these beers with only one disappointment.  The others were all pretty good, with the Flying Dog brewery winning its second Beer Brawl with the Gonzo Imperial Porter.

Download the podcast and listen to all the details about these craft brews stacked up against each other.

Next week, Simply Beer Cellar clean out, Interesting and Unusual Beers.

Beer Brawl 17 – American Porter is a post from: Simply Beer