Ommegang – Hennepin
Oh Ommegang, you've done it again! Its hard to believe this brewery is domestic. I think I'm going to plan a vacation to Cooperstown, NY just to visit this place. Every single beer I've had from these guys is pretty freakin great.
Anywho, Hennepin comes in either a 4 pack of capped 12oz bottles or a giant corked bottle. I recommend buying the giant corked bottle. Why? Well because once you open it, you've got to finish it!
So down to Hennepin. Its a bit lighter than most of my favorite beers, although I've gotta admit; Belgian style ales are really starting to grow on me. Its got a strong hoppy smell to it, and a strong hoppy taste as well. But it doesn't go too far. A lot of beers that go heavy on hops tend to get a bit bitter. Hennepin found a nice balance here. Its strong, but not bitter. You can still taste the hops in the finish, but its nice and smooth.
Oh yeah, and its 7.7% alcohol! Thats not to shabby!
So go buy yourself a nice big bottle of Hennepin and don't waste a drop. And make sure to work your way through everything Ommegang has to offer, its all good.
So it looks like Hennepin scores a 7.2ish
Jacobsen – Dark Lager
So I thought today seemed like a good day for beer drinking, although honestly what day isn't? Anyway my selection for today was carefully chosen based on the following time tested criteria:
1 - I wanted beer
2 - This beer was on sale
3 - It looked good and I wanted it
So after passing this rigorous trial, Jacobsen's Dark Lager can count itself among the select few (many) beers to be drunk by me.
And so on to the tasting.
Jacobsen smells a bit fruity at first, although those aromas are weak and quickly give way to an almost yeasty smell. When tasting this brew, those fruity aromas kind of make their way back, but are a bit muted. This actually reminds me quite a bit of Chimay Blue, only with a much weaker flavor (and much smaller price tag). Somewhere in between lifting the glass and swallowing, there's a weak, but distinct caramel flavor as well. All in all I'm pretty pleased with this find. I was actually expecting something like a dark, smokey beer but what I found was a not-too-overpowering, somewhat fruity dark lager that finishes surprisingly smooth. I'd recommend this stuff in a second. And to top it all off, it was on sale! Hooray!
So I guess my frugal find here scores about a 7
Bass Ale
A very happy Valentine's Day to those of you with reason to celebrate... and to the rest of us, happy drinking day.
My choice for this occasion is one of the UK's finest; Bass Ale. Though I could have undoubtedly made my selection more relevant to the occasion, I have not. The reason for that being that I bought a 6 pack of Bass the other day and three of them were still in my fridge today. Now there are none. So it goes.
And on to the beer. Flavor wise, this beer is a bit on the bitter side. I'm not often one to go for bitter beers, but I'd say this is just bitter enough without crossing the line. I suppose there are much worse flavors to beer out there. I mean its not like this tastes like rotten cranberries and mottled raccoons. After all, to get that kind of flavor you'd have to do something insane like not add yeast to your beer and expect nature to do it for you. But anyway I suppose the bitterness does introduce a certain level of complexity to the beer. It's certainly not a boring flavor, and I imagine that's what keeps people coming back.
So pip pip and cheerio Bass, you get a 6.5
Blue Moon
Ahh Blue Moon. One of the best of the mediocre beers. This Belgian style wheat ale is a great introduction to the wonderful world of weiss bier if you haven't yet had the pleasure. Blue Moon overall is a pretty mild brew. Nothing incredibly outstanding about it, save it's incredibly smooth and refreshing taste. Actually, one of the things I love most about this beer has nothing to do with it's taste; its the accessibility. I've been to some pretty grungy dive bars that have this stuff on tap. It seems to have a pretty wide audience as its not too classy and not too low brow. Its like that kid in high school that could hang around with all the clicks, but didn't really fit into any of them.
So getting back to how the beer actually tastes...
Like I said, its pretty mild at first; no overwhelming flavors that stand out. It finishes with a slightly sweet aftertaste, which I feel is pretty distinct to a lot of weiss biers. So overall, I give this one a 6
stupid hackers
So if any of you tried to access my blog sometime between midnight last night and 1:00pm today, you would have been greeted by this message: