Tag: Sierra Nevada

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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 – 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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Up From the Cellar – 30th Anniversary Imperial Helles Bock from Sierra Nevada

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Originally released in 2010, I bought all four of the XXX anniversary beers from Sierra Nevada, And with Beer Camp having rumbled across America and into recent memory, now seemed a good time to open 1/2 of my bottles up. I had a hard time picking two but I thought this Bock (Imperial & Helles in one bottle) might be the first to fade so it was plucked first….

At 8.3% this would not seem a suitable candidate for aging and my initial review when I sampled it at a Library Alehouse Sierra Nevada dinner offers a second dissent to having squirreled it away.  This is my review from June of 2010, the beer “pours a dark red/brown. It is all over the place to me. It is not heavy but it has an alcohol kick to it. Bock maltiness shows up then fades into a note of hops. Complex but not one of my favorites.”

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In 2014, this beer pours a very hazy orange with tints of brown to it.  There is still a bit of head to this beer with an island of foam floating on the surface as I sip it.  The aroma is strong and a traditional bock / German notes.  I get a bit of what some may characterize as caramel while others call it butterscotch.  I also detect a little bit of sherry and a smidge of citrus as well.

This bock is pretty thin but still lively.  The alcohol kick that is sensed over four years ago is but a lingering memory.  There is a bit of sharpness left but only just hanging on.  It is almost as if someone took a sherry or port and put it over ice and an hour later I am tasting a much lighter and diluted spirit.

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The Verdict? – I like it better now.  It has a certain dessert / by the fireplace feel to it without being a sugary, syrupy mess.  It is sweet for sure much like a maple bar is sweet.  Which is why I would pair this with donuts which may seem odd but I think the malt and sweetness of the beer would really echo the same in a donut.

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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.

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Review – Chico King from 3 Floyds & 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 we start here with 3 Floyds and the Chico King.

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“Chico King is a mash-up of our mutual passion for hoppy pale ales and combines a uniquely robust malt body with intense citrusy and fruity new school hop varietals.”

The King pours a dark but still luminous orange color with quite a bit of foam and lacing to it.  The aroma is split between a toasty malt note and grapefruit pith with the toast coming out more and more as you smell it.

The taste is bright and carbonated.  Lot of bubbles rising in the glass as you watch it.  Bitterness sticks everywhere and, for me, primarily on the front of the tongue.  I keep coming back to toast but this is almost like having good bread with a tart marmalade on it.  The peel note isn’t there but this has that type of flavor mix going on.  The beer tastes heavier than the 6.5% noted on the label.

I have not had a pale quite like this though I would guess you could call this an IPA without anyone batting an eye.  Good start to my randomized journey through Sierra Nevada’s Beer Camp.

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In the Tap Lines for August 2014

header_attractionsSO this month is going to be real heavy on Sierra Nevada.  Why?  Their Beer Camp Tour Across America is well under way and there are 12 collaboration beers (+1)  made in honor of their second home in North Carolina.  SO there will be reviews and more reviews of Chico brews.  And also coming this month…..

~ e-visits to three breweries from the Netherlands!  Brouwerij Maximus , Rooie Dop and Duits & Lauret
~ video reviews of two beers from Sierra Nevada Beer Camp.  But which 2?
~ two more beers will come up from the BSP cellar to be reviewed. This month two Sierra Nevada beers from their XXX Anniversary
~ Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events
~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark
~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world
~ … and Session # 90 will converge bloggers onto a single topic, this month Beer Fight Club

Here are two events to get your August started in the Los Angeles craft beer world:
1) Saturday, August 9th – Downtown LA Beer Crawl hosted by the Beer Chicks
2) Sunday, August 10th – Blue Palms 6th Anniversary Celebration

 

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No Card, No Problem

After reading a BeerGuy LA post about buying beer at Costco without a membership, I decided to give it a whirl and see what the experience (and selection) was like. Here is what I found….

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I haven’t been to a Costco in a long while, so after hustling by the food court that was pretty busy, I headed to the entrance to test a couple employees on the buying without a membership question. Because, it may be a corporate / state legal issue but that may not have filtered down to individual locations. Both answered that I could though, so I trundled on to the beer aisle.

Which was both cool and not cool. Nothing refrigerated. Big ol’ cases of Coors but also a good little selection of Eagle Rock beers, Goose Island and Firestone as well. There was Golden Road IPA packs stacked up as well as the Kirkland House variety box. But I was there to test another rumor. Was the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp variety box in abundance? That answer was yes. So I hoisted one up and headed to check-out.

Is a trip worth it? Should it be added to the beer buying rounds? If you already shop there then check out your store’s selection. The prices weren’t out of whack with what is being charged elsewhere. But I wouldn’t make a special trip unless you knew they had something you couldn’t get elsewhere or would have to go farther afield to acquire.

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