March 2012

Bottle or glass?

Warm or cold?

 

If you're drinking a good beer, or even a beer that just claims to be good, you can't really judge it fairly unless you pour it in a pint glass. I'm not really sure what the reason is for this, but many beers taste distinctly different in a bottle than in a glass, and the flavor in the bottle is generally worse. Some of the complexity of the beer's flavor seems to get lost, and whatever the strongest element is tends to get exaggerated even more. “Old Rasputin Imperial Stout,” for instance, has a far superior flavor in a pint glass than in the bottle, where it sometimes tastes too hoppy. “Obsidian” stout is the same way.

Baltika

Odd-Tasting Russian Beer

 

 

“Baltika” is an extremely popular beer in Russia and Eastern Europe. I tried it out because it was inexpensive, and because it was described as a “dark lager,” which is one of the less common types of beer. I was expecting something similar to Xingu (a Brazilian black lager), but it was nothing like that. Actually, it was like nothing I have ever tasted before in a beer with the exception of some odd and in my opinion unfortunate home brewing experiments, the kind where your buddy hands you a bottle of his very own swill and you take sip, stifle a grimace and describe it as “interesting”.

The Reverend

Belgian-ish Quadrupel

“The Reverend” by Avery Brewing is a Belgian-style ale, done in the “quadrupel” tradition- high in alcohol, complex flavor, and sweet enough to be almost overwhelming. Apparently this type of beer was invented by Trappist monks, although not by Belgian Trappist monks, oddly enough, but by Dutch Trappists. I was really into this style of semi-Belgian beer just a few years ago, but now I think I've gone off it a little. Why is that?

Oak Aged Yeti

And The Trouble With Guinness

“Oak Aged Yeti” is supposed to be a “more sophisticated” version of Great Divide's “Yeti,” an Imperial stout. What makes it more sophisticated, you might ask? I assume it's the oak aging, but I'm not really in a position to compare the two because I've only tasted the Oak Aged version, not the original and presumably less hoity-toity original. But that doesn't really matter, because any beer must stand on its own- and this one does.