Left Hand TNT

Two posts in one day, its catch up day!!! Another new beer from a brewery that's been in our market for a quite a while. This one is interesting: Weizen Dopplebock brewed with Lapsang Souchong tea. From the wiki page (so take it with a grain of salt), Lapsang Souchong is a smoked tea traditionally over pinewood fires. I love Weizen Doppled bocks, one of my favortie beers is Aventinues, however I also feel that it is really an underbrewed style. Very happy to try Left Hands version with the twist of smoked tea added. The Beer: The beer weighs 7.9% and pours a cloudy chocolatey brown, with a thin colored head. A very unusual nose, smokey, notes of tobacco maybe? Then the familiar banana and cloves show up, along with some fruity earthy notes. Medium bodied, but creamy, banana and cloves on the flavor profile. Tobacco maybe? Chocolate, some fruity earthy smokey flavors. As it warms, tea flavors come out, more tobacco, dried leaves, earthy flavors, some more smoked. Not smoked meat like a German Rauchbier, more of a earthy smokiness if that makes sense. A interesting and enjoyable twist to a weizen dopplebock. Its a unique mix of flavors that I've not seen before in a beer. Eye opening. I liked it, but not sure how many of these I could drink. This gets a B from me.

Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse

A couple years back two brewers came together from different parts of the world with different philosophies and traditions in brewing. One was Garrett Oliver from the great Brooklyn Brewery, home to Local 1, and Local 2 as well as one of the best Imperial Stouts around. The other was Hans-Peter Dresler from Schneider and Sons brewery in Germany, home to one of the best wheat beers around as well as Aventinus. They came together to make two beers, one made in Germany, the other made in New York at the Brooklyn Brewery, creating two very unique beers. This beer is the one brewed in New York packaged in a champagne like bottle. Its a pale-weisse bock fermented with the Schneider house yeast, and dry hopped with Amarillo and Palisade Hops.
The Beer: This one weighs in at 8.5% and pours a honey golden color with a thick pillowy white head, instead of dissipating the head seems to continue to grow up over the lip of the glass. The nose is banana, fruity esters, hops, cloves, it smells of hoppy resins. The mouthfeel is thick and chewy. Tons of spice, cloves, cinnamon, bananas, hops, citrus. Very effervescent. Has a very dry finish that has become a Brooklyn hallmark. Just a little alcohol. The finish is bitter, some from hops, some from something else that I just can't place. As it warms it becomes creamier, but that bitterness on the finish just doesn't subside. Its not the citrus peel bitterness of hops its something else that's not all that pleasant honestly. This starts as a great beer that finishes a notch below. It gets a B from me. Here's what the folks at BA had to say.

Schneider Aventinus

The Aventinus is Schneiders Weizenbock, which basically translates to a dunkel-weizen (dark wheat) brewed to doppelbock strength. This is traditionally a dark and rich, made with at least 50% wheat (some contain up to 70%) with very little hops. Its also a relatively new style of beer beer, the first Weizenbock was commercially available in 1907. That first one is what you hold in your hands Schnieder and Sons Aventinus.
The Beer: This Weizenbock weighs in at 8.2% and pours a rich deep brown with a taupe colored thick head of foam. Nose is bananas, cloves, chocolate malt, vanilla, and a slight sourness that tingles the nose. The mouthfeel is thick and chewy, lots of banana and cloves up front, subsiding into chocolate, rich malts, plum flavors. An incredible chewy beer that reminds of chocolate covered bananas and spice. Smooth beer, very smooth. This is a classic and its an amazing one at that. Gets an A- from me. Here's what the folks at BA have to say.

Saint Arnold's Divine Reserve 7

Last night I decided to crack open one of my last bottles of Saint Arnold's Divine Reserve 7. Most DR's are made to stand up over time, however this one being a wheat based beer had the potential to not age very well, so after almost 10 months I was curious to see what changes their were to this beer. As a reminder this is a Weizen bock and it weighs in at 8.7%. Here are my notes from last time. Just a note about how I age my beers. I use a temperature controlled wine fridge and keep it around 50-55 deg F.
The Beer: It pours a deep rich brown with a thick white taupe colored head. It still looks like a good beer. The nose is roasted malts, a slight banana and cloves, chocolate. The mouthfeel is full, with notes of chocolate, dried coco and again a hint of banana. A comparison I make is chocolate covered banana slices. Its not a lot, but the hint of it adds a nice complexity. Its very smooth, the rough edges that it had when young are gone, very enjoying. No alcohol burn. However, the beer seems to be fading, I may have missed a sweet spot here. The flavors are all there, but they seem to fade quickly leaving a very short finish on the palate. I'd say this one is still very good, but drink them now as I'm not sure how much longer they'll age properly.

My Monday at the Saucer

This past Sunday my wife ran in the Houston Half Marathon, and if I may be so bold did a fantastic job. As a reward for her and to help her along the road to recovery from the race, she had a very nice spa day at the Houstonian Hotel. To kill time while she was at the spa, I headed to the Flying Saucer to try some new beers (well at least new to me). It just so happen that all three beer's I had were local Texas products, and all three were wonderful.
Southern Star Buried Hatchet Stout: This will soon be Southern Star's next canned beer, but in the meantime its only available in draft. It weighs in at 9% and pours a deep rich brown almost black with just hints of light shining through. The head is thin, but that may have been due to a bad pour. The nose is strong with roasted burnt malts, coffee, and dark bitter chocolate. The mouth is creamy and thick, dark chocolate covered espresso beans, very smooth and very little alcohol burn. There is some really strong bitterness here, not from hops, but from the malts. It's like eating a 90% dark chocolate bar. Very very nice, I can't wait to try it again. This one gets a B+ from me. It seems the folks at BA like it as well.
Live Oak Primus Weizenbock: Another Texas brewer putting out a Weizenbock. Not to long ago I had never had one, now I've had two from Texas. This one weighs in at 7.5% and pours an extremely cloudy beige (almost unappealingly) with a thick taupe colored head. The nose is chock full of bananas, cloves, roasted malts, and chocolate. The mouth is chewy, thick and tongue coating. It sits on the tongue soaking down into it so you get all the flavors. There are notes of bananas and cloves of course, along with roasted malts, chocolate. Its smooth, its not as bitter as Saint Arnold's version was. Bready and yeast as well from the wheat in the beer. Its a very good beer, but there is some lack of depth in the flavors which is why this one gets a B from me. Good love from BA as well.
Real Ale Sisyphus 2005: Saucer actually had the 03, 05, and 06 on tap. I tried a taster of the 03, but the O5 was what I took notes on. I'm pretty excited to try this one as I have a couple of bottles of the 07 waiting around for me to drink. This one weighs in at 10.5% and pours a cloudy orangish color with a thick dense foamy white head. The nose is sweet malts, citrus orange, and pale toasted malts. The mouthfeel is creamy and dense. Strong notes of orange peel, like I'm chewing on it, caramel, apricots. The finish has a slight alcohol burn and strong citrus hop notes of grapefruit. This is a wonderful beer with strong flavors through out. I don't know what it was like fresh but I it doesn't seem to be very mellowed. A wonderful beer that will probably get better over the next year or two. This one gets an A from me.

A Divine Vertical

As I mentioned Saint Arnold's Divine Reserve 7 has been released and I decided to celebrate that release in a special way, by doing a tasting of several DR's. For the tasting I got together DR's 7, 6, and 5. I figured this would be a great way to experience the new DR and at the same time seeing how other DR's have aged over time. So let's get to it.
Divine Reserve 7: This is of course a weizenbock that weighs in at 8.7%. It pours a deep almost pitch black (see pic on the right) with a tan colored thick foamy head. The nose on this one has lots of banana, wheat, roasted malts and nutmeg. The mouth is chewy and thickly coats the tongue. There are flavors of banana's, munich malts, nutmeg, and rye bread flavors. There is a little bit of alcohol burn. As I mentioned yesterday I got to try this on tap at Gingermans, I actually think its much better out of the bottle, smoother, less harsh. Its a very rich beer, something that I think will lighten up as it ages. This is a great beer and gets an A- from me. Here's what the folks at BA think.
Divine Reserve 6: This is the American Barley wine. Here is my review from when I tasted it on June 12, 2008. The beer pours a cloudy brown with a thick taupe colored head. The nose is of hops and sweet roasted malts, citrus and earthy notes, yeasty even. The mouthfeel is thick, resiny from the hops with a great big wallop of roasted malt flavors, raisins and figs. There is some caramel sweetness but not as much as I remember before. While hops are still at the forefront, malt flavors are coming up in a big way with this beer. I actually would LOVE to have this beer aged in oak and try it in a year, I think it would be absolutely amazing. Continuing my local eating and drinking I actually had this particular beer with some local cheese, the Veldhuizen Bosque Blue Cheese and it paired really really well.
The Divine Reserve 5: The last one and its the famous Russian Imperial Stout. Again here's my review from the first time I had it on September 09, 2007. Yes it's made it a year, it was difficult not to drink it! This one pours an absolutely pitch black with a dark crema colored head(sorry about the picture quality on this one). The nose has an extreme amount of roasted malts, coffee, dark bitter chocolate. It has a chewy mouthfeel a little chalky with flavors of cocoa, burnt malts, dark chocolate covered espresso beans. Very malty. There was no alcohol burn this was one smooth beer. There is some bitterness from the richly dark roasted malt flavors but it adds such a deep complexity. This may have been one of the best beers I've ever had, better than the first time. My wife and I shared this beer with some local cheddar that was actually made with this Divine Reserve. Unsurprisingly this was an absolutely wonderful pairing.

This was a really interesting tasting, not a true vertical of course, but extremely insightful for me as it was the first time for me to taste a beer that I had aged. It was my last DR5 which makes me sad, but I've hopefully put enough DR6 and 7 away to continue these tastings as subsequent Divine Reserves come out.