Our final review of the year is another winter offering from Bell’s Brewing. It is the canned version of their Winter White Ale.
WW pours a hazy muddled light orange color with little brown yeasty bits down in the bottom of the glass. The coriander really pops in the aroma almost to the point of being as strong as cinnamon. That spice carries through to the flavor where it is augmented by an orange juice note. This wit beer finishes very dry. Pretty much a by the guidelines wit. And that is a good thing.
Open Mike
I have blogged before about cans that don’t just open a hole in the top of the can but take the whole thing off turning the can into a glass, automatically. When I did, there were none in the L.A. area to buy or test. Now there might be because Mike Hess Brewing has introduced its Open Mike™ beer can.
From their press release, “Open Mike six-packs will be available as early as November 1st wherever Mike Hess beers are sold, including Southern California and the greater Phoenix, Arizona, markets. The first brand to feature the new packaging and Open Mike™ ends will be Habitus®, Double IPA, World Beer Cup gold award-winner in the Rye Beer category.”
I can’t wait to see how this works and report back.
50 Cans!
I saw this post on Facebook recently and was glad to see another milestone passed in the craft beer cause:
That is amazing! If you don’t believe, just check out the really cool and oft referenced CraftCans.Com to see the width and breadth of canned craft out there.
Holiday Ale # 2 – Christmas Ale from West 6th
Christmas in a can from Lexington, Kentucky and West Sixth Brewing. “The West Sixth Christmas Ale is spiced ale with aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg with a sturdy malt backbone that will hold up to the chilliest of nights.
It’s a higher gravity beer weighing in at 9% ABV. This is our slightly darker take on a holiday beer – perfect for evenings by the fire.”
Badgers in Cans
This post isn’t to hammer home the point that beer in cans is growing and that practically any beer can be canned. Nor will I be making any Packer Cheesehead jokes. Nope, this is a quick post about the design of the cans from Badger State Brewing.
This is a perfect example of being not only consistent but inventive as well. Most cans don’t truly utilize the background to the full potential without overwhelming the beer purchaser with too much twee detail. These three designs are simple but bright and bold and for once, the background is what draws the eye in first. Be it the plaid, the green stripes or the picnic checkerboard, all three really pop. And that choice for background allows the main badge detail to be set-up in the same arrangement without getting boring. The two elements really play off the other well.
Though I wouldn’t ever trust a badger with an axe.
Review – Yonder Bock from Cigar City & Sierra Nevada
Does Sierra Nevada teamed with Cigar City create something different? I ask this with the last Beer Camp beer because SoCal gets a few CC collaborations and I have yet to look at the contents of the glass with wonder. Will Yonder Bock make me wonder?
I do like the idea of a Tropical Maibock. And the mixture of the guava notes from Calypso hops and the blueberry of what was known as Hop 366 aka Equinox should liven up a stalwart German style. Yonder pours a reddish tinted orange. Lots of initial foam that fades into the ether completely. The bock style comes through loud and strong. The Mai part of the bock doesn’t enter the picture for me. The aroma carries notes of a tropical cocktail. One you might find in a tiki bar. Pineapple and guava come through to my tongue.
This is certainly more bitter than your average Maibock which usually has more caramel in my reviewing history. This beer substitutes that for fruit punch and a little residual bitterness in the back. This is unique and I do like it but it is not the type of beer that blows your palate away at the start. You do have to search your memory banks to identify the aromas and when they come they do reward you.
I am a bit sad that the Beer Camp has left my ‘fridge. I wish a new box of 12 was coming down the pike. I could review these type of beers each month.
Review: Maduro Brown ale from Cigar City
From the can from Cigar City. Love to see more cans because I feel a bit better carbon footprint wise. Checking in on Ratebeer I see that Damn, there are a lot of different versions of this base beer. And I am just now trying it. Back to focusing on the shadowy figure on the can. A definite milk chocolate aroma on this one. The taste has both a nice carbonated zing to it and some creaminess as well. More milk chocolate taste here. Followed by a touch of caramel. It is more on the thin side but that doesn’t stop this beer from being complex and a really nice sipping beer.
Review – Saison from Hilliard’s
One of the beers that I have been meaning to try was one of the rare saisons in a can. This one comes from the land of the 12th Man and Super Bowl champion Seahawks and the brewery is Hilliard’s.
This saison pours a really strange light orange murky color. Tangerine juice creamsicle looking. This is after a really foamy pour. It has a citrus meets Hefe aroma. Some typical Belgian notes in their as well. Very juice tasting to me. Really dry finish. More in common with cider or champagne to me. Big amount of a dark brown sediment at the bottom of the glass. A little touch of spicy mineral notes at the back. Not at all what I expected and it makes me want to try it on draft to compare.
Love the can design. Very cool looking.
Review – Next Adventure Black IPA from Fort George
This stranger than usual collaboration between Fort George and Next Adventure is a Black IPA. Why strange? I don’t know of any other beers done in concert with a new and used outdoor equipment store. Do you?
It pours a dark black and if you like your black IPA’s to be 50/50 between roast and hops. (Like I do). Then this will not be that one. Not to say it isn’t a good beer. It is. But from the aroma to the flavor and the aftertaste, this beer is more roasty. Loads of coffee ground bitterness in the aroma. Same with the initial flavor notes. There is also a floral/spruce/pine note of bitterness floating around as well which does tie the beer up into a nice bow. The coffee taste wins me over in the end.
I still won’t buy any camping gear though.
Canned Gose
One of the great sites on the beer interwebs is CraftCans. From time to time, I check out their site and a few weeks back, I did and ran across two unique beers.
First up is a Gose, the old German style brewed with salt that us wily Americans have grabbed and then re-configured in the way we do. It comes from Westbrook Brewing in South Carolina. The can design utilizes simple design elements and a minimum of colors but is very effective.
Now if I only knew someone in South Carolina.