Some Recent Beers

I have to start with what I am drinking right now.  Russian River Brewing's Beatification.  This bottle is Batch 2 from 2008.  This stuff is super dry, ultra funky, and uber-tart.  The nose on this beer is all lemon and barn yard.  It tastes like grapefruits, lemons, the sugar from the bottom of a sour-patch kids bag.  As you drink it you get distinct experiences all over your tongue. The tip gets the citrus, the middle gets an earthy/mushroomy flavor, and the sidesget assaulted with acidic/tannic prickliness.  As it has warmed up and my pallet has become accustomed to the flavors the flavor of the beer has evolved.  The intense sourness has tapered off and the earthy complex components have come forward.  I really enjoy the California versions of lambics.  I wish they would make more of this stuff.

My last batch of home brew has come into it's own over the past couple weeks. I was shooting for a belgian wit but the homebrew shop did not have the proper yeast strain when I  was buying my ingredients.  But they did have a Belgian Golden Strong Ale yeast (Duval). So I ended up with a hybrid of a beer.  This was my first all grain beer and I has turned out very well.  There is an aroma to it that I do not like but the flavor is awesome.  There is a bit of the sourness that comes from wheat and the malt flavors are much more complex compared to when I have brewed with extracts.  While I was brewing I threw in some dried orange peel, dried lemon peel, coriander, and a few cilantro leaves.  There isn't anything too distinctive in the beer, just a light easy drinking wheat beer.  It weighs in at about 3.8% abv.

Stone Brewing offered up some vintage beer last weekend.  They were pouring their 2008 Old Guardian Barley Wine aged in red wine barrels.  This stuff was pretty cool.  A big beer at 11.26% abv.  It is malty.  The hops that were there in 2008 have faded away; this was expected due to the beer's age.  The barrel influence on this beer is rather subtle.  It is not red wine like, nor woody, nor sour.  I enjoyed the beer.  I expected the barrel aging to make it more extreme; but the barrel helped mellow out the beer.

Finally ,I attended Stone's 4th Annual Sour Fest over a week ago.   Missed out on a some of the more popular beers (the kegs had already kicked by the time I got there).  But I still had my share of old rotten beer.  I love those sours.