Heavy Seas Loose Cannon Hop3 Ale
“Embrace your inner pyrate!”
– Clipper City Brewing Company
Clipper City Brewing Company‘s Heavy Seas beers are all big, robust beers that have been bottle conditioned. They’re all quite high in alcohol content, but at 7.25% ABV, the Loose Cannon Hop3 Ale — an American IPA — proves that strength and restraint pair very nicely.
I owe a very special thanks to reader PFern for sending me a bottle of Loose Cannon — so tonight’s IPA Monday brew is sponsored by PFern!
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Harpoon Celtic Ale
Today is the St. Patrick’s Day parade in South Boston — or Southie, as everyone here in New England calls it. I wanted to drink an Irish or Irish-style beer today, and Harpoon’s Celtic Ale seemed perfect for the occasion. Harpoon has a brewery in Boston, and its Celtic Ale was originally brewed as “Harpoon’s salute to and the celebration of St Patrick.”
But I’ve also had one reader who has been lobbying me quite strongly to try Harpoon’s Celtic Ale, so it was clear I could kill two birds with one stone. The special request came from reader Bruce Paine, a lager-head who has been branching out, discovering new beer and testing his tolerance for hops.
I can understand why he likes this beer. The Celtic Ale is rich with lots of caramel malt, is fairly light-bodied, and it’s not too hoppy. There’s a lot of flavor, but it’s not my cup of tea — literally, the spice and the wateriness create a tea-like quality that, for my taste at least, is a touch off putting. But pair it with food and you should do pretty well with this beer.
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Rogue Dead Guy Ale
Someone pointed out that I didn’t have any Rogue brews on my list of beer. What can I say — it was a heck of an oversight. I can’t remember exactly who made that observation, but I have to thank him or her for doing so — because the rebuke prompted me to grab a bottle of Rogue Dead Guy Ale.
This Maibock-style beer is a delicious way to spend a Saturday evening. Honey colored and hazy with a yeasty, bread-like aroma, Rogue’s Dead Guy Ale tastes malty without being sweet and citrusy without being terribly bitter. There’s some toasted malt cut through with caramel, vanilla, and tangy fruit. Overall, the beer is extremely smooth and very well-balanced. It feels great in the mouth, present but not cloying, easy but not watery. Dead Guy Ale is a beer full of contrast but little conflict.
Rogue describes this beer as:
In the style of a German Maibock, using our proprietary Pacman ale yeast. Deep honey in color with a malty aroma and a rich hearty flavor.
In the early 1990s Dead Guy Ale was created as a private tap sticker to celebrate the Mayan Day of the Dead (November 1st, All Souls Day) for Casa U Betcha in Portland, Oregon. The Dead Guy design proved so popular with consumers and especially Grateful Dead fans, that we made it the label for our Maierbock ale. Even though the association with the Grateful Dead band is pure coincidence, we have gratefully dedicated Dead Guy Ale to the Rogue in each of us.
The bottle has two images, tiny square glyphs that took time for me to decipher. One is a pig, the other is a fire, and they mean the beer pairs well with pork or spicy food. (more…)
Ellie’s Brown Ale
I came to the realization tonight that a brown ale is can be very much like a porter that ran away to join the circus.
Porter has long been my favorite style, but this Beer A Day challenge has led me to discover that I really enjoy brown ales, too. Until this year, the only brown ale in my vocabulary was Newcastle – which I’ve always found sweet, light, and unexciting. But I’ve had a few robust and tasty browns over the past two and a half months, and my opinion of brown ale has undergone a strong change. It took Ellie’s Brown Ale to help me understand why I might like browns so much.
Ellie’s Brown Ale, from Avery Brewing Company, is very dark and quite rich. In the glass, the beer has a dark reddish-brown color and emanates a low, sugary, roasted malt aroma. Malt overwhelmed my first sip, the taste of sugar and molasses — plus some chocolate and sweet raisins — but as I swallowed, the mellow flavor of a a lightly roasted malt washed over everything.
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Hop Head Red Ale
Green Flash Brewing Co. is named after the phenomenon said to occur as the sun sets on a clear day, at that final moment when the sun disappears and the sky refracts its light, creating — if the conditions are just right — a “flash” of green. Fortunately, Green Flash brews are not nearly as rare or hard to find.
For a quick description of the Hop Head Red, I turned to the Green Flash Brewing Co. website:
Resinous hop character and bitterness balance the rich carmel malt base. We took it a step further and Amarillo dry-hopped the brew to 45 ibu’s, creating refreshing and savory hop flavors and aromas. Is it red IPA? That’s your call.
At 45 IBU and richly aromatic with herbal hops, this Red Ale is certainly strong enough to match an IPA.
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Last Consumed:
My wife and I usually select a Christmas Tree during the weekend after Thanksgiving, and we were thrilled to discover the farm down the road from us is selling trees this year. She and I stopped by the farm while walking our Boston Terrier, Caesar, who helped us sniff out a good one. After my wife and I dithered over the best tree for several minutes, Caesar weighed in with his selection by lifting his leg on a plump Fraser Fir.
I hope that means he liked it.
The tree went up on my shoulder, I carried it home (drawing chuckles from several people driving by), and our Christmas season officially began. We’ve been listening to Christmas music, drinking hot chocolate, and generally sickening all humbugs spying through our windows.
So it should come as no surprise that I’ve selected the “Hoppy Christmas Ale” from Belgium’s Brewery De Ranke. The beer — Père Noël (imported by Shelton Brothers) — intimates the reason for Father Christmas’ jolly cheeks and rosy nose; the label depicts Santa embracing the frothy, 7% ABV Strong Pale Ale.
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