Category: Beer Reviews

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Review – Tater Ridge from Asheville & Sierra Nevada

The headline has been shortened Sierra Nevada did not collaborate with the entire city of Asheville.  The co-conspirator in this case is the Asheville Brewers Alliance and the sweet potato.

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Tater Ridge pours a reddish hued brown with a nice amount of lacing on the glass.  I am not getting a heckuva lot of starchy aroma.  Just a hint of toast like malt on the nose.  The taste is a bit on the thin side for my liking.  And it is pretty one dimensional.  Slightly malty but there is no sweetness just a bit of something that I can’t quite put my finger on.  A certain earthiness with minerals that is not helping the cause.

This is probably the weakest of the bunch in my opinion.  I was expecting something stronger with a bigger flavor and it isn’t here.

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IPA Taste Test – Stone Edition

Whilst wandering through my Trader Joe’s, I stopped at the “orphan” bottles and cans section of the beer aisle and I saw a “classic” Stone IPA right next to the newer Go To Session IPA. Immediately, I thought, it was time for a taste test. How did the two compare. Is there a stylistic shift or are they just variations on a theme?
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Classic IPA
Pours clear and fizzy orange. Compared to the Go To, it has less head to it. Pine/woodsy aroma and a strong punch of bitterness. There is some notes of citrus and fruit punch in there as well which fades as the beer warms and more of a spicy rye quality becomes more evident. A bit too astringent for me after a strong start.

Go To Session IPA
Pours a hazy yellow color. Oddly no “enjoy by” date on this bottle. Lighter tangerine aroma here. Much softer and a little more floral/ soapy notes here. Both have lingering hop presence to them. Just that this fades out quicker. A little watery as well.

Verdict – Neither have much malt presence to them. My preference for lighter hands on IPAs leads me to Go To but in the end the harshness of the Classic loses the battle more than Go To wins it.

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Review – Torpedo Pilsner from Firestone Walker & Sierra Nevada

In any variety pack there are beers you mark as special and this was one that I dog-eared when I first saw it. How would two California Beer Titans mesh into one beer.
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Well Torpedo Pilsner from Firestone Walker and Sierra Nevada pours a yellow to orange color. The first taste and aroma is Sweet Tart candy. Bitterness is there but that unique candy taste is the boss. Some citrus but it us sweet orange not Farmers Market orange. Their is a lightness and metallic bit that is the pilsner part if the equation. Very light and almost a pils version of Easy Jack except for a lingering perfume aroma and taste. I’m getting flower shop mixed with parfumerie type of feel here.  The Southern Cross and Motueka hops used haven’t given me this flavor and aroma profile before so I don’t know what alchemy the two breweries have been up to but this is quite unique.
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Review – Electric Ray from Ballast Point & Sierra Nevada

I will be reviewing ALL 13 of the special Sierra Nevada Beer Camp collaborations this month. I had my non-drinking wife randomly select the order and up next  is Electric Ray brewed with Ballast Point of San Diego.

The Ray/Torpedo pours a golden tinted orange. And at 8.5% this is not your grandpa’s lager or even yesterday’s IPL. Orange is the dominant aroma as well. A just peeled navel to my senses. That follows through in the initial taste as well. Then some grapefruit slips in towards the back.
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It does taste different from a pale or IPA but not by a wide margin. It’s cleaner and drier thanks to the L in the IPL but because of the strength, I think most drinkers would rate this as an IPA.
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In the battle of hoppy beers from this series, I would rate Chico King higher by a few lengths. But the next beer is a hopped up pilsner from Firestone Walker.

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Review – Canfusion from Oskar Blues & Sierra Nevada

I will be reviewing ALL 13 of the special Sierra Nevada Beer Camp collaborations this month. And due to the random order, this is the first of the two cans that I will be reviewing.
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CANFusion pours a reddish orange. That first sip is quite sparkly, and hoppy too. Which comes as a bit of a surprise.  In a blind taste test I wouldn’t initially have pegged it as a bock at first. As it warms up though,  the German-ness comes out more and more. There are some caramel notes too and a metallic taste with an alcoholic bent. A little of the rye spice is a finishing note.

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I wish there had been more cans in this pack. Maybe a 50/50 split would have been cool.

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Review – Mocha Machine from Beachwood Brewing

What is this?  A review of a beer NOT from Sierra Nevada?  Well it is Beachwood and I do love their beers, so yeah. And yes this was a “press copy”,but  I knew that impartiality would be hard no matter how the bottle made its way to my ‘fridge.  But I will soldier on with an objective review.

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Mocha Machine is a Bronze Medal World Beer Cup medalist from 2014 and there is good reason.  This is a serious coffee bomb.  Coffee Beers can be big on aroma and too light on flavor but even the chocolate adds more of a bitter nib taste instead of milk chocolate so you get a double whammy of bitter that really sings.  There is a pepper skin aroma from the coffee beans that really adds an additional note that I like which is weird because I can’t eat regular peppers at all.

This does taste stronger than the 9+% ABV and is best shared.  I poured a bit out for my sis-in-law to have with dessert.  But I think this beer would actually be best paired with mole or maybe something with bacon.

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Bottles are hard to come by but you will find it (occasionally) on tap at the two Beachwood locations.

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Review – West Coast Double IPA from Sierra Nevada

I will be reviewing ALL 13 of the special Sierra Nevada Beer Camp collaborations this month.  And this is the 13th or 1st of the 2014 Beer Camp Across America beers.  It is also Not in the Box / Not a Collaboration.  Simply a 24oz bottle of West Coast Hop-itude.

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The aroma is dank with a touch of cat pee (which I seem to be able to pick up where others don’t)  and a bit of citrus peel.  The bitterness is there for sure and it sticks around so it certainly is in range of the amorphous DIPA style guideline.  The flavor is a mixture of woodsy, which is the dominant component and tropical fruit which is the back-up singer in this equation.  This is a straightforward beer.  No bells or whistles.  Almost like a single-hop beer to a certain extent.  Juicy tasting but with plenty of hops to satiate the hop thirsty crowds.

Of the now 5 beers that I have tasted, this would be closer to the bottom.  Not because it is bad, just because the others one’s were more unique and complex.

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Review – Maillard’s Odyssey from Bell’s Brewery & Sierra Nevada

I will be reviewing ALL 13 of the special Sierra Nevada Beer Camp collaborations this month.  I had my non-drinking wife randomly select the order and the next beer on the docket is from Bell’s Brewery, Maillard’s Odyssey.

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I think I have a contender for favorite. The MO pours similar to the previous Double Latte. A very dark brown with an espresso head. But then it veers off as I get a crazy mix of flavors. Coffee. Chocolate. Fig. And even a bracing dose of hops.

And it is very zippy. Not viscous or syrupy at all. At the end I start getting a slight burnt char flavor that just stacks on top of the rest to form a really interesting brew. This beer and the New Glarus were the most anticipated in my mind because we don’t get them here in LA and this works great.

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Review – Double Latte fron Ninkasi Brewing & Sierra Nevada

I will be reviewing ALL 13 of the special Sierra Nevada Beer Camp collaborations this month.  I had my non-drinking wife randomly select the order and the third beer is from Ninkasi Brewing, Double Latte.

“Double Latte combines two of the greatest things in life: good coffee and great beer. Oregon’s Ninkasi Brewing knows their way around a good cup of joe. Featuring cold-press coffee from the legendary Stumptown Coffee Roasters and a dose of milk sugar, this coffee milk stout is a rich and roasty treat.”

When scanning the list of beers, this was the one that made me nervous.  See L.A. has a premier example of a coffee milk stout.  It is Naughty Sauce from Noble Ale Works.  Even with Stumptown Coffee, how could this beer compare.

Time to find out.

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This Double Latte of a beer pours with a big, foamy espresso colored head to it.  That foam recedes fairly quickly leaving a ring around the glass and plenty of lacing.  The aroma is straight up coffee though milder than I expected.  The taste is a blend of coffee and a chocolate chip sweetness.  There is a sense of cream taste from the lactose but it isn’t pervasive.  It is almost a milk chocolate covered coffee bean flavor.  The coffee is certainly bitter.  There is also a bit of carbonated zing in the middle of each sip as well.  All of the flavors that I taste are fantastic but I don’t know if they blend into one beer that rivals the Naughty Sauce.  That is a tough goal and one that the Double Latte valiantly fights but doesn’t quite win.

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Review – Myron’s Walk from Allagash & Sierra Nevada

As threatened at the start of the month, I will be reviewing ALL 13 of the special Sierra Nevada Beer Camp collaborations in August.  I had my non-drinking wife randomly select the order and the second beer is from Allagash, Myron’s Walk.

“Myron’s Walk is a Belgian-style pale ale combining the best of our two breweries. It features intense citrusy flavor and a complex aroma from the use of fruity and resinous whole-cone Citra and Mosaic hops offset by the complex spicy character of Allagash’s house Belgian yeast strain. ”

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I took one sniff and one sip and said, yup, that is Allagash all right.  Put this beer into a line-up of their beers and it certainly would not stick out as a collaboration.  That coriander and a faintly Indian spice profile is right up front.  There is a lemonade quality lurking in the background that makes this a bit more complex and is probably the Sierra Nevada 1/2 of the equation but I wish it was a bit more prominent because the battle goes to the Belgian yeast here.  And that is not necessarily a bad thing but when I think of collaborative beers, I hope for a beer that is redolent of neither brewery in total.  While still having components of each.  As the beer warms up, I start to detect a hint of tea tannin as well.

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As we progress through the box o’ beers, I will start to rank them but as of now, the first two are pretty even.  Both were very flavorful.