About the beer: Ah yes, the crisp air of the fall season can only mean two things for beer lovers: 1. Pumpkin flavored everything & 2. Oktoberfest style beers! Being a native New Englander means being lucky enough to experience all four seasons, but it also comes with the unapologetic love for all of the Sam Adams seasonal varietals. And what’s not to love about a new beer for every season?
About this beer: Boulevard is a regional craft brewery located in Kansas City, Missouri. They were virtually unknown to me until this year’s American Craft Beer Fest. I didn’t get a chance to try the quad and was incredibly excited to get my hands on it. It clocks in at a healthy 10.5% ABV and is supposed to have hints of dates with a “sweet malt smell.”
About the beer: Dopplebocks are dark and strong lagers that are traditionally enjoyed in the winter months. There’s still no reason why you can’t enjoy them any time of year though so last week I cracked open a bottle I had in my small beer cellar. The one I went with, Smuttynose S’Muttonator is a great example of this traditional style, but with an American twist.
In a Nutshell: Smuttynose S’muttonator is a great American take on a classic German style.
Review: Smuttynose has long been a favorite New England brewery of mine. While they are mostly known for more conservative fair like pale ales, when they do bolder styles in their Big Beer series they never disappoint. The S’Muttonator is no different. It’s a big, bold, nutty beer that tastes great. While dopplebocks are meant to be strong beers, both in their flavor and alcohol, I’ve often found many of them a bit too sweet to really get into. The S’muttonator does a nice job balancing out the sweeter qualities with just a kiss of hops, making it a beer I think anyone could enjoy.
Rating: 4 out of 5
(Photo by Dan Larson)
About this beer: Scotland’s Belhaven brewery is known for a.) being around almost literally forever. and b.) for making simply stunning beers that exemplify Scottish brewing. Their beers are usually nothing short of stunning, I have yet to have a bad beer on draft. I decided to see if their beers bottled would be as fine an example of good beers. I was far from right. I chose the Scottish stout, which when on draft ranks in my top ten of beers, it’s chocolaty,sweet and creamy. It has one of the most amazing mouth-feels ever. In the bottle? not so much.
In A nutshell: Seek this beer out on draft. Avoid the bottled version at all costs.
Review:When I picked up the bottle I was excited, it was jet black. In my mind the brewery went past brown bottles and made a black one! how cool is that? Only once I left the store did I realize that the beer was in fact in a clear bottle, something that would have had a great effect on my purchase.(Clear bottles let more light through than brown bottles and tend to skunk beers quicker.) When I cracked it I had hoped that the beer would have survived the trip across the sea and was still drinkable. It passed the test but barely. The pour was perfect, a great creamy head and jet black color. The aroma was off though, there was just a hint of that sweet malty smell that the draft version had and was left with a borderline skunked smell. (I have yet to be able to put the smell of skunked beer into words, easiest way…go buy a Heineken and smell it once cracked.) This effected everything in the beer; the taste had overtones of a beer going bad. I could still get the chocolate taste as well as the malt backing but ti jsut wasn’t strong enough. The beer’s body was incredibly thin and unsatisfying.
Rating: 2 out of 5
(Photo by K. Graham)
About: 
Michigan’s Jolly Pumpkin is perhaps best known for their American take on traditional Belgian and French styles like saisons and bière de garde. Jolly Pumpkin is also known for a characteristic tart-ness of many of their beers, and those of us who love sours are big fans of their work. Much of that characteristic flavor comes not only from their yeasts but from their particular aging process – all of Jolly Pumpkin’s beers are matured in oak barrels before being re-yeasted and left to bottle-condition.
Billed as a Dark Farmhouse Ale, the Bam Noire asserts that it’s ”Dedicated to the dark side.” Let’s find out.
About: Craft beer isn’t exactly the first thing one thinks when one thinks of New Jersey. There are however a number of fine craft breweries in the Garden State. Today we’re going to take a look at a brew from River Horse Brewing Co. out of Lambertville, NJ.
Every trip I take begins with the mapping out of local breweries. This week I am vacationing in Chautauqua Lake, located in Western New York, with my fiancée’s family. Along the road-trip from Boston to Chautauqua lie two of the east coast’s greatest breweries Southern Tier and Ommegang. This week I will focus on the prior.
About the beer:
For a guy who knows an appreciates craft beer I admittedly know very little about barleywines. For the most part barleywines have always been selected for me or given as gifts, with this week’s Beer of the Week selection being no exception. Over the weekend a selection of the Beeriety crew had the opportunity to pop open an Old Boardhead Barleywine by Full Sail brewery. The 22 oz., which was gifted to us by friend of Beeriety Meg Whyte, had been aging since 2009 when she had resided in Portland, OR. Since it was a rare treat for the east coast Beeriety team you can bet expectations were high, given the aging and anticipation of trying this new (to us) barleywine variation.
About the beer: Great Divide Brewing Co. has to be one of my favorite breweries. Based out of Denver, CO, it’s rare to find a beer that’s bad from them (only once have I really disliked one of their brews). Today we’re doing the little dance with their Rumble Oak Aged India Pale Ale. They claim the beer is a, “gently aged on French and American oak resulting in a wonderful balance of bitterness, caramel sweetness, vanilla, and undertones of pine and citrus.”
In a nutshell: All I can say is, it’s not bad.
Review: When you first take a sniff, you definitely get some really nice, hoppy smells that are balanced out by the woody undertone brought in by oak barrels. In my ever so humble opinion, I don’t think the smell really matches what you’d expect in taste. You definitely get the barrel flavor in there, but it almost overtakes the hops, to the point of not being able to taste them much at all. I know that barrel aging a beer like an IPA helps round out the flavor and mellow out the beer as a whole, but I feel like this isn’t the best attempt at producing a fantastic result. It doesn’t taste as great as some of their other beers (my favorite being the Titan IPA), but it’s way better than their Double Wit. I don’t get much of the vanilla, pine or citrus from the taste, though the caramel and bitterness come in just fine. And as I sit in my 80 degree apartment drinking this, I realize it’s not the most refreshing option to beat the summer heat. This would probably be really great in the fall time.
Rating: 3 out of 5
About this beer: Scotland’s Brewdog is one of the most intimidating craft beer companies around. They make the world’s strongest beer, The End of History. (41% ABV) They aren’t just known for making crazy high ABV beers alone, they also have an incredibly wide range of non-coma inducing goodness. For this beer review I choose to step away from the relative safety of trying their highly regarded IPA (Punk IPA) and chose to drink something a bit more eclectic. Having never tasted one of Brewdog’s brews before I decided to go with Dogma, which is a strong ale made with honey, kola nut, poppy seed, and guarana.
