Please check out my craft beer articles on the Ann Arbor edition of examiner.com. You can find my articles here. If you want e-mail notifications when I write a new examiner article, just go to my examiner.com site, click "subscribe" next to my name, and enter your preferred e-mail address. Based on my experience subscribing to other examiners' sites, you won't be hit by other examiner.com e-mails when you subscribe. You'll just get notices of when I post a new article, and the notice will indicate what the article is, so you can easily choose whether to bother clicking on the link in the e-mail.
Shameless self-promotion? Perhaps. It is really good to have subscribers. But I figure that if your eyeballs are reading this, then you're interested in the topic and might dig my examiner.com articles, where I'll be posting much more frequently.
Thanks! And may the beer joy be with you.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Harvest Beer Festival was fantastic!
I cannot get over how wonderful the Harvest Beer Festival was, and my hat's off to the Michigan Brewers Guild for pulling off a wonderful event. Actually, it was cold enough there that I'd better keep my hat on. Despite being a chilly, blustery day at Eastern Market in Detroit, with some intervals of rain that mostly stayed light, the festival was amazing, with 38 Michigan micro's offering samples of over 200 beers. And nearly 2,500 people feeling the craft brewed love. Heaven!
I did a write up in Examiner.com. Check it out here!
Next stout review coming soon... mmmmm, stout.
I did a write up in Examiner.com. Check it out here!
Next stout review coming soon... mmmmm, stout.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Michigan stouts: Arcadia Cocoa Loco
Arcadia Brewing Co. is a Battle Creek brewery specializing in British-style ales. I don't know that their Cocoa Loco stout is really "British-style," but it is an interpretation and expansion that is well worth drinking! I picked up a single at Arbor Farms for $2.79, and it is fairly widely available.
This deep, dark, brown-black stout pours quietly, with a fairly thin, reluctant, caramel-colored head that dissipates quickly. The aroma is roasty-burnt, with a strong blackstrap molasses presence mixing with coffee, all against a background of chocolate that promises some pretty glorious flavor. There’s a touch of alcohol aroma, too, in this 7.0% ABV stout.
The brew is assertively bitter followed quickly by a wash of chocolate. There is plenty of coffee here, roasted to dark, fragrant perfection. The carbonation is fairly small, a bit more noticeable than I thought it would be when the beer poured so quietly, but it’s no distraction. This beer has a medium body, less heavy than I expected.
In the finish, there’s a bit of alcohol and associated warming. Later in the long, pleasant finish, a vanilla note springs forward, superb and worth waiting for. It took considerable time to form, so pause awhile over this brew. As it warms, it doesn’t sweeten much, and the flavors continue to deepen. This is an unabashedly burnt-roasted, coffee-inflected, chocolaty beer.
Cocoa Loco is an outstanding, big beer, completely worth lingering over. It would make a wonderful after-dinner drink. It’s made with chocolate malts, cocoa nibs, and 63% cacao bittersweet chocolate, as well as molasses and lactose. Arcadia describes it as a “triple chocolate milk stout.” Well said indeed.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Harvest Beer Festival: October 24, Eastern Market!
The Michigan Brewers Guild's inaugural Harvest Beer Festival is coming up October 24, 1:00-6:00 p.m., at Eastern Market in Detroit. It looks to be an amazing event. Click here for details and a slew of links to sponsors, participating breweries, etc. I hope to see you there.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Ann Arbor Craft Beer Examiner
Apparently, the page is up and running. Visit at www.examiner.com/x-27116-Ann-Arbor-Craft-Beer-Examiner! Thanks, and enjoy!
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Good Beer, and Good Beer News
As I write this, I'm feeling like dreck due to a head cold that hit late last night. I had hoped to continue my stout reviews, but that will have to wait a few days. A beer doesn't sound like the best idea right about now.
I did want to mention a couple of things, though. First, I went out to dinner last night with a friend who was in town to visit his folks (he grew up here). He wanted to go to Cottage Inn Restaurant. We were pleasantly surprised to find two excellent craft beers on their "special" list. One was Magic Hat's #9, a terrific beer from Vermont that my friend, Sean, tipped me off to. Turns out it's not hard to get here -- in fact, I saw a six pack at Kroger the other day -- but finding it on tap was very nice. Luckily, I was drinking it before my cold set in, though by the end of the evening I knew I was coming down with something. I won't review it here other than to say it's got a nice combo of floral, bitter, and fruit flavors and was a joy to drink. The brewery describes it as "not quite pale ale," and that was about right.
The other beer on tap was Bell's Best Brown, which is always delicious -- or at least it was supposed to be available. My friend ordered a pint only to be told that they were still finishing up the last keg of Oberon. Now, that didn't necessarily say much for its freshness, perhaps, but my friend was more than happy to have one last pint of Oberon before it disappears into hibernation. I'm guessing the Best Brown will be tapped soon. I'll admit that I never thought of Cottage Inn as a place to grab a craft beer, but I'm happy to have been proved wrong.
On a completely different note, I've been selected to be the Ann Arbor Craft Beer Examiner for the Detroit edition of Examiner.com. Once my articles are up and running, I'll post more info here. Some content will overlap with this blog, and some won't. I will be continuing the Michigan stout series at both venues. For Examiner.com, I'll write beer reviews, tip readers off to beer-related events, and get a chance to explore and write about Michigan's brewing community and rich craft beer offerings. Please stop by and check it out. And if you have any tips, please send them my way!
I did want to mention a couple of things, though. First, I went out to dinner last night with a friend who was in town to visit his folks (he grew up here). He wanted to go to Cottage Inn Restaurant. We were pleasantly surprised to find two excellent craft beers on their "special" list. One was Magic Hat's #9, a terrific beer from Vermont that my friend, Sean, tipped me off to. Turns out it's not hard to get here -- in fact, I saw a six pack at Kroger the other day -- but finding it on tap was very nice. Luckily, I was drinking it before my cold set in, though by the end of the evening I knew I was coming down with something. I won't review it here other than to say it's got a nice combo of floral, bitter, and fruit flavors and was a joy to drink. The brewery describes it as "not quite pale ale," and that was about right.
The other beer on tap was Bell's Best Brown, which is always delicious -- or at least it was supposed to be available. My friend ordered a pint only to be told that they were still finishing up the last keg of Oberon. Now, that didn't necessarily say much for its freshness, perhaps, but my friend was more than happy to have one last pint of Oberon before it disappears into hibernation. I'm guessing the Best Brown will be tapped soon. I'll admit that I never thought of Cottage Inn as a place to grab a craft beer, but I'm happy to have been proved wrong.
On a completely different note, I've been selected to be the Ann Arbor Craft Beer Examiner for the Detroit edition of Examiner.com. Once my articles are up and running, I'll post more info here. Some content will overlap with this blog, and some won't. I will be continuing the Michigan stout series at both venues. For Examiner.com, I'll write beer reviews, tip readers off to beer-related events, and get a chance to explore and write about Michigan's brewing community and rich craft beer offerings. Please stop by and check it out. And if you have any tips, please send them my way!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Orange. Banana. Beer.
Just a quick entry to comment on Sierra Nevada Kellerweis, their golden-orange, cloudy hefeweizen. Obviously, it's not from around here, but it's not that hard to find and certainly isn't one of their more popular brews. Sierra Nevada is known for their pale ale, of course, but this brew is worth a mention. Maybe it's my way of bidding final farewell to summer. Sigh.
The label recommends pouring 2/3 of the bottle into a glass, swirling the rest, and then pouring the remainder into the glass, since yeast is suspended in the brew. It forms a big head that recedes pretty quickly to soft peaks and then a nice layer of foam with a touch of laciness on the glass.
The aroma struck me as mostly orange with a touch of banana. As for the taste, it's a whole lot of banana with subtle spice notes, followed with a nice bitterness, a touch of sweetness that doesn't quite balance it out, and a finish that sees the bitterness soften and disappear pretty quickly, mingling with fruit and leaving a bit of malty breadiness at the end. As I was getting to the end of my glass, I noticed a new taste: a distinct cinnamon quality at the back end that was really quite good. A nice surprise.
I'd drink this beer on its own or with food that isn't too salty or otherwise strong. It wouldn't take much to overpower the flavors of this beer. That's not to say it's not flavorful. It certainly is, but the flavors are delicate, and the interplay between them is subtle.
The label recommends pouring 2/3 of the bottle into a glass, swirling the rest, and then pouring the remainder into the glass, since yeast is suspended in the brew. It forms a big head that recedes pretty quickly to soft peaks and then a nice layer of foam with a touch of laciness on the glass.
The aroma struck me as mostly orange with a touch of banana. As for the taste, it's a whole lot of banana with subtle spice notes, followed with a nice bitterness, a touch of sweetness that doesn't quite balance it out, and a finish that sees the bitterness soften and disappear pretty quickly, mingling with fruit and leaving a bit of malty breadiness at the end. As I was getting to the end of my glass, I noticed a new taste: a distinct cinnamon quality at the back end that was really quite good. A nice surprise.
I'd drink this beer on its own or with food that isn't too salty or otherwise strong. It wouldn't take much to overpower the flavors of this beer. That's not to say it's not flavorful. It certainly is, but the flavors are delicate, and the interplay between them is subtle.
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