Day Nineteen: Saison, style number 9

Another Belgian today, the Saison farmhouse ale, a special beer for a special day. Today is my beautiful wife's birthday, she's awesome. If you are interested in wifey things like knitting, sewing, and/or cooking, you can check out her blog here. We went out to dinner to Phoenecia on Alki and had some delicious food, along with this yummy brew.

Saison means season in French and was historically a seasonal beer, brewed in the winter to be a light and refreshing thirst-quencher for the farm worker during the hot summer months. Originally at about 3-4 % alcohol today they average around 5-7, with the Vieille Provision Saison Dupont being at 6.5 % ABV. Brewed by Brasserie Dupont in the town of Tourpes in Wallonia, a French speaking area of Belgium and imported by Vanberg & DeWulf in NY.

This one came in a 12.7oz green bottle with the classic Dupont cork. Poured light yellow and hazy with a tall frothy head. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of this one until half way through. I really wish I would have, to show off this beautiful beer. It smelled of pears, just a very distinct pear smell, and not much of a hop aroma. Taste was crisp and fresh, with a nice hop bitter as the carbonation dissolved on the tongue. Mouth feel is light and tingly, a beautiful beer, wanted more of it.

On a 0-3 scale: 3, our first one! (for rating info see first tasting)

Would I buy it again: Yes, can't wait

Would I recommend to a friend: Yes and drink it with a friend
What would I do different: Get the big bottle and share it with a friend farmhouse style; on a hot day.

Day Eighteen: Extra Special Bitter, style number 45

Red Hook is Washington's oldest craft brewery and is one of the oldest in the nation. Founded in 1981, they are one of very few breweries that actually advertise their beer, or at least on a major scale. Most recently I have been seeing their ads on the Pandora sidebar. Their flagship beer is their ESB and that's what we're drinking today.

This style is very English in it's character; brown and malty and in this case hop balanced. Red hook gets crap sometimes from people who are snobby about the more "experimental" breweries.They expect everybody to make beer with exotic ingredients or ridiculous amounts of hops or barrel age them, but that's not for everyone. Don't get me wrong, I love all those things, but you can't drink a lot of beer like that, and it costs $10+ a bottle. Red Hook makes good "every-day" drinking beer, they are not the best, but they are not horrible.

This beer came in a large 759mL bottle, but also comes in 12oz six-pack. It's a 5.8% ABV and bottled on May 11th 2011, so still very nice and fresh. I poured it into my brand new "nonic" pint glass. It looked good, amber in color with a very tall head that I just love to make it sit above the rim of the glass. The aroma was crisp but nothing too memorable. I'm not sure what the distention should be in this from like a brow ale or an amber though. It was maybe a little bitter, but well balanced. I really like the beer though.

On a 0-3 scale: 2. (for rating info see first tasting)

Would I buy it again: Yes, I would like to try it on draught

Would I recommend to a friend: Yes
What would I do different: Try it draught

Day Sixteen: Fruit Beer, style number 15

Today was an interesting beer, Rogue First Growth Creek Ale. On the beer-advocate website they classify this as a Belgian Dubble, I classify this as a fruit beer because its brewed with cherries. The reason beer-advocate call it a Dubble is because of a Belgian yeast strain that was used along with a regular ale yeast, which is interesting that they used two different yeast. I wonder if one of the yeast strains was able to take over the other because it sure seems to be more Belgian that a regular ale flavor. Really though the flavor is just about all cherries.

This beer didn't really have a cherry aroma more like a Belgian smell. It looked dark-amber with just a touch of burgundy to it with a smallish head. The taste, like I said, was all cherries with that Belgian flavor, in combination making for a pretty sour beer. The mouth-feel of this beer was very present and balanced.

Rogue is a very interesting brewery, they are very innovative and like their name implies just do what they want without caring to much about standards or how others may be doing it. They are my favorite brewery and luckily they have a pub near by in Issaquah, WA.

These guys bought a bunch of land in Oregon and basically have a farm, growing their own hops and barley and apparently according to the home page, chickens. This beer in particular is from their Grow Your Own list of beers being brewed with their own hops and barley. I really respect what they are doing.

On a 0-3 scale: 2. (for rating info see first tasting)

Would I buy it again: Yes, but not on a regular basis, also would like to brew a fruit beer at some point

Would I recommend to a friend: it's a different beer, not really what most beers taste like, so yes

What would I do different: I was at the pub and wanted to get something to check off my list that wouldn't break the bank too much.

Day Twelve: Helles Bock, style number 13

Did a two a day today. I decided to drink this lager that I bought at The Red House in Renton. Another lager brewed by an American craft brewery, Sierra Nevada Glissade Golden Bock. This was in a 12oz bottle, 6.4% ABV, with a 2011 on the bottle neck. Sierra Nevada, out of Chico CA, has a really good pale ale that I see all the time, but have only recently tried because I was a Northwest snob for a while. I realized that a good beer is a good beer, and Sierra Nevada makes some good beer. I look forward to trying some of their specialty brews sometime. So see some more of my thoughts about beers coming out of northern CA, see my previous post.

This beer was a golden amber color lager, much darker than what I would imagine. It was clear with a very short-lived head, it was gone under a minute. I don't remember the smell of this being anything special. The taste was ok, nothing special once again. It was crisp and refreshing and had some light malty flavors with light hop bitterness. A very easy-drinking beer.

On a 0-3 scale: 1. (for rating info see first tasting)

Would I buy it again: No, I've had better lagers

Would I recommend to a friend: not really, I don't have anything to say about it, good or bad. Why would I recommend this if there are too many good beers?

What would I do different: Sunshine would be nice... I had in later in the evening, but it was a crappy day

Why did I chose this beer: I've recently had the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale for the first time and loved it, all six of them, so wanted to give this brewery another try.

Day Twelve: Belgian Gold Ale, style number 3

Same story every time, no time to drink on work days that's why I haven't done a post for a couple days. But I'm still on track, actually right on track, to finish by mid-September as long as I don't get behind to much more.

This week we have Duvel Belgian Golden Ale. This is a lighter version of the Belgian style of beers which usually are brewed with an addition of sugars and a Belgian yeast. I was looking forward to this one because It's actually a Belgian unlike the tripel I had which was from an american brewery. This beer was categorized as a Belgian Strong pale ale. I guess it's to pale to be a golden but to high in alcohol content to be a pale so they call is a strong pale. I will call it a golden because that's what it says on the bottle and the 8.5% ABV puts it in that category. At the end of the day it really it more important to make a good beer not to make it to style I think because blending styles is part of the creativity and if you have a great result that's all that counts.

This came in a 330mL bottle with a cool short a stocky look. It pours a light, clear golden color with lots of carbonation and a tall white fizzy head. The beer tastes very light, missing a lot of the complexity that a Belgian beer I thought should have. That's not a bad thing at all and it was very interesting that they can make that happen with a beer with such an alcohol presence without much of it's taste. The beer was very crisp and highly carbonated which gave it a tangy mouth feel. This was bottle conditioned, which means that they put a little sugar into the bottle while bottling to give it a little more carbonation. It really didn't have much hop taste or nose but I wasn't missing it either. This beer had a very fruity nose with a strong pear smell and that unique Belgian yeast aroma. Overall this was an excellent beer and made me look forward so much more to other Belgian beers that I have coming up. Maybe I will buy them early and have them sit for a month or two.

On a 0-3 scale; it's a solid 2. (for rating info see first tasting)

Would I buy it again: Yes

Would I recommend to a friend: Yes

What would I do different: maybe a little more complexity would be nice, but maybe it was missing on purpose for a easier drinking beer

Why did I chose this beer: I've heard of it and it's a real Belgian and it was a high scoring beer on http://beeradvocate.com/ 

Day Ten: Munich Dunkel, style number 39

I drank this beer yesterday but since we were watching a movie I just decided to post in the morning, so don't think I drink first thing in the morning. I have cereal first. Now on to the beer...

Spaten Munchen Dunkel, brewed and bottled in Munich, Germany, imported by a company from NY and has no "best-by" date on it. It is a 5.2% ABV. It beer comes in a 12oz green bottle which apparently is not the best for beer. I guess the light destroys the beer somehow, which is confusing because there is a lot of beer sold in green bottles. Maybe because they look all sleek and pretty, as in some of the European imports.

It pours dark like a coke, but almost see through with a small and short-lived head. Not to much aroma in this one. This was a dark beer but tasted light and refreshing, though it did lack a good body. I expected more from it actually. This is such a specific category that I thought I would have something special, but it was just a dark lager. Very light on the hops and decent malty taste.

On a 0-3 scale: 2. (for rating info see first tasting)

Would I buy it again: No. I am still getting use to lagers and their lack of body so I will pass for now since it's not that easily available. 

Would I recommend to a friend: I didn't think anything special of it so I probably wouldn't 

What would I do different: No get so excited about it before I taste it, harder than it sounds, I get excited about beer

Why did I chose this beer: I found it on http://beeradvocate.com/, and it was one that I could find at http://www.99bottles.net/ in this catagory.

Day Nine: Weizenbier, style number 14

So I have most of my brewing equipment and a fer extra carboys. Got a great deal on all this stuff and now I need a sunny day to clean it. A backyard and a hoes would be nice because a balcony just does not cut it for this kind of work. I just wanted to  include a quick picture of my progress in my brew system arrangement.

I will make this review short and sweet. Hacker-Pschorr Weisse, brewed in Munich, Germany. This bottle had a "best by" date of 08/11, which is nice to include on beers coming from a distance away. 

Yellow in color, unfiltered with a nice foamy head, the beer is 5.5% ABV. Came in a 500mL bottle that had a cool picture of some old dead guy, and old dead guys are pretty cool  This was a well balanced beer not to overpowering on either aspect, although it could have used some of the hop aroma from the last beer. I actually liked this beer. Apparently wheat beers are often described as having banana and clove flavors, and I'm not a big fan of bananas so maybe that's why I'm not a fan of wheats, although like I said, this was a good beer. If you like Hefes and want to try a German beer, I recommend this one all the way.

Next is a German lager and I'm excited, never thought I would be looking forward to a lager, but here I am. 

On a 0-3 scale: If I liked Hefes this would be a 3, but for me it's a 2. (for rating info see first tasting)

Would I buy it again: Yes

Would I recommend to a friend: Yes

What would I do different: I want it in the traditional Weissbier 'Vase'

Why did I chose this beer: This was a high scoring beer on http://beeradvocate.com/