Archive for Beer a Day
MoJo India Pale Ale
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A “trippy” IPA seemed required on an IPA Monday like today, and the colorful label on Boulder Beer Company’s Mojo IPA fit the bill.
Boulder Beer Company boasts the 43rd brewing license in the country (receiving it in 1979) and was the first microbrewery licensed in Colorado. They originally focused on English-style ales, but branched into bigger, bolder styles starting with a beer called “Hazed & Infused”. Hazed is intense, aromatic, and hoppy — or so the Boulder Beer website claims, as I haven’t had the pleasure of trying it. They designed bold, colorful packaging for Hazed to make it stand out from their other beers, and the Boulder Beer “Looking Glass Series” was born.
Mojo IPA is the fourth beer released in the Looking Glass Series. The label contains the following definition:
Mo-Jo: 1: A magic spell or charm; magical power; 2. Herbaceous ale that summons hop attacks.
Samuel Adams Imperial White
Posted by: | CommentsImperial! Imperial White! Samuel Adams Imperial Series!
“Enough with the shouting,” I thought, “Let’s see what this beer actually tastes like.”
I’ve heard great things about the Imperial White from Sam Adams. But after having the seasonal Samuel Adams White Ale yesterday, I wasn’t expecting much from this new year-round Imperial version.
But it delivered. And how!
The beer poured much darker than the regular White Ale — the Imperial White was a coppery amber, while the regular White Ale was a straw-like gold color. And while both beers were quite hazy, the Imperial White was much more visually appealing, lacking the tiny, scattered suspensions that were so present in its little brother.
What an aroma! The Imperial White’s smell is full of juicy, sweet fruit with just a hint of coriander. There’s a profile of fruity, Belgian-style yeast combined with lots of alcohol. If the color was my first indication that something new was afoot, the aroma removed all doubt.
Sweet grapes, sugar, and raisins exploded like a muscat wine on my tongue with the first sip. There’s that hint of spice again, but the sweet malt is dominant. This has a full and honeyed mouthfeel, moving thickly through the mouth and leaving a brown sugar and warm alcohol aftertaste.
Samuel Adams White Ale
Posted by: | CommentsBoston Beer Company’s Samuel Adams seemed an appropriate “welcome home” after a week in Texas.
Samuel Adams White Ale is a seasonal brew that has been in the back of my refrigerator for some time now. I almost drank it weeks ago, but several helpful folks on Twitter recommended I drink the Imperial White instead — which I didn’t have in my arsenal at that time.
With the unusual restrictions of this beer-a-day challenge, the only way I can compare two beers is to drink them on back-to-back days. So I bought a bottle of the Imperial White and waited for a weekend when I could do just that.
I poured the White Ale into one of my curvy Sam Adams glasses, and the pour was fun to watch. It started out as a fairly clear straw gold color, but at the end yeast and sediment from the bottom of the bottle poured out and darkened the beer, cascading and swirling like a mini-tornado. Before long, the sediment evened out and left behind thousands of tiny suspended particles.
Widmer Hefeweizen
Posted by: | CommentsWhen you’re trapped at the airport, sometimes the only thing you can control is what type of beer your order.
I spent several more hours in Texas than I had planned, thanks to poor weather. Had everything gone well, I would have been enjoying a beer at Fenway Park, watching the Red Sox play the Orioles — my flight was scheduled to arrive just as the game started, and I going to jet straight to the ballpark. Instead, my wife had to give up our tickets (she was in Boston, but didn’t want to go to the game alone) while I curled up at a bar in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport.
All around me, would-be passengers were drowning their delayed sorrows in tall glasses of Widmer Hefeweizen. Who am I to question the wisdom of the crowd in a situation like that?
Portland Oregon’s Widmer Brothers Brewery is purported to have brewed the first “American-style Hefeweizen” in 1986, serving it with a lemon to enhance the beer’s citrus notes and immediately causing the world to ask, “Wait, why is there lemon in this beer?”
Heineken
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It was bound to happen, but I wasn’t expecting it to happen in Texas.
While my basic goal is to drink exactly one beer a day all year long without repeating a single beer, I have a broader goal of discovering new beer. With a few exceptions, I have deliberately sought out beer that I’ve never tasted before.
There were some beers, seemingly ubiquitous on American menus, that I decided to drink only in emergency situations. And I had one of those during my last night in Dallas.
I was in Texas for a work conference, and the final night included an excursion to Lone Star Park for horse racing, drinks, and a buffet dinner in a box suite. I had hoped to find some more Texas or southern beer at the track — at least a bottle of Lone Star, since it shares a name with the race park — but one look at the bar told me I had bet on the wrong horse.
