Sherwood Forest

Things with disclaimers in the name usually aren't good; American Style cheese-food, Vegan jerky-style treat, Uncle Jeb's shrimp-esque product (now with less beaks!) for example. This is not always the case Morningstar farms used to make a burger-style cheese pocket that was awesome and truth be told I like American "cheese" for grilled cheese sandwiches. So it was with some trepidation that I tried one of my new beer of the month club beers, Sherwood Forest Belgian-style White. What does that mean exactly? It's Belgian-like that's what. That translates to we'll give it a try to emulate the style but we won't try very hard.

I love wheat beers. A lot of people don't. They either don't like the taste (fine), think they are "girl beers" (go die in a fire), or don't like how trendy they have become with even BMC dabbling in the style (don't be a baby). Label design on this one sucks (maybe I'll post a picture later) it's a half-hearted affair with a computer rendered friar Tuck I suppose we could call that foreshadowing. I cracked the friar open after a considerable amount of rolling on the floor, the beer not me, to suspend the large amount of sediment. Poured it into a tall glass, it was light yellow with little to no head. I drank it without a lemon not because I think the lemon is a moral failing like many beer snobs do, but because my wife was using our lemon for dinner and I didn't want to stand in the way of a very pregnant woman with a knife. Smelled like a good wheat beer, citrus, yeasty, little bit of spice. I was excited. Then I took a taste, and another and a third before I said "Where's the beef?" but you know with "flavor" substituted for "beef". The beer starts strong with all the tangy, citrusy flavors you expect from a wheat beer but then you swallow and it's done. The flavor is all up front and then dies. There is a lingering bitterness, almost like the pith of a citrus fruit after the swallow but it's not great and doesn't make up for what the beer lacks.

Overall it's not a bad beer it's just not great. I'll certainly finish the rest from this month's shipment with no problem I'll probably just never go out of my way to get more. I'd rather drink a franziskaner or a deathfish brewery wiess.

(PS Deathfish brewery is a local brewery I love)
((PPS by local I mean it's in my basement, but in all honesty my hefeweizen from last year was AMAZING))

Founders Breakfast Stout

The other night, Feb 11 to be exact I went out to the local Irish Pub-type establishment to celebrate the 21 st birthday of my sister, 21 being the legal age to drink in case you forgot. This particular Irish pub (Dublin Square in Bordentown) had a rather mediocre beer selection last time I was there so I resigned myself to drinking Smithwick's and Guinness...Guinnesss? Guinnessi? Multiple Guinness stouts for the evening. Lo and behold I discover they have seriously revamped their beer selection and now have some great choices!

I started with a Rogue Dead Guy, on tap mind you, which is approximately 6.4 % ABV. I enjoy Rogue's offerings as a rule (the exception being the American Amber) but their proprietary yeast strain (Pacman) does impart a sameness to their brews that I've noticed. Dead Guy, if you haven't had it, has a nice creamy full mouth feel, a good amount of maltiness and enough bitterness for balance but not the prominent punch you in the mouth bitterness, the good kind. I noticed on draft the flavors imparted by the pacman yeast were not nearly as prominent as in the bottle. A solid beer.

Then things got a little strange. I ordered a Left Hand Milk stout. I've had it before, it's dark but not heavy, sweet but not cloying. It's good. I will not go into any more detail than that because it's not what I got. They hadn't gotten the delivery in cause of the snow. What the waiter offered as a replacement was Founders Breakfast Stout. I had read about this stout on line and I love oatmeal stouts so I said sure. My friends there are 2 things wrong with this situation 1) Founders is not comparable to a sweet stout and 2) this waiter was trying to kill me.

I liked the Founders, don't get me wrong, I reeeeeeeealy liked it. My family hated it. It's reminiscent of very strong, black coffee, with some flavors of roasted and burnt malt. Light on the carbonation but there's a good reason for that, it's a double/imperial stout (8.3% alcohol). So now that I've think I've had 2 beers which puts me at about .02-.04 blood alcohol content I've really had .......well more. Trying to talk to my wife I noticed my usual eloquence was marred by impediments. the next morning I work up and my stomach hurt like I had gone out for a night of binge drinking and I couldn't figure out why. Until I checked beer advocate and realized I had more alcohol than I had intended.

So let that be a lesson to you all; waiters want to trick you into drinking high alcohol beers for some reason or another. Probably because they hate you, but that might just apply to me.

Another beer blog.

Here's another blog about beer to add to an already glutted internet. There are plenty of fine blogs about beer already out there. I don't write as well as those bloggers, I don't drink as much as them and I probably won't update as frequently as they do (I know this because I am the author of several failed blogs already). So why should you keep reading any further than this?

That's a good question.

Maybe because like me, and all the other people out there making beer, drinking beer, and writing about beer, you can't get enough of that wonderful stuff! So until I decide to give up on this blog too I will update periodically on what Jason is drinking, Jason being me in this case. Be it beer of the month club inclusions, stuff I come across at bars or the fare I brew up in my own kitchen.

Hopefully someone will find what I write entertaining even if it's only ironically.