Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Tasting: Briefs

I have been tasting more beers than I can take time to write as I taste, but I want to take notes on them otherwise I will forget.

Young's London Ale: I had the misfortune to eat some cheese before tasting this beer and it messed with my palette so I had my wife taste it, and her evaluation was "very easy to drink". It tasted overly yeasty and sweet to me, but I blame the cheese.


Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale: This is classified as a strong ale on Ratebeer.com, but it isn't as strong as some. Very tasty, hoppy, malty beer.



Coronado Golden Ale: This beer was a mess to pour, 1 inch of beer and 6 inches of foam. I ended up dumping 1/3 of it as I poured off the foam. A bunch of sediment poured into the glass then distributed into a haze. Tasted sweet and yeasty, maybe I got a bad batch?



Stone IPA: Another winner from Stone. The hops are offset by a subtle sweetness, medium/heavy body. Very, very good.



It is amazing how good the beer from Stone and PortBrewing are. I have another dozen or so beers to taste before I will have been through the regular bottled beers from the major San Diego Breweries, but I haven't had a bad Stone or PortBrewing beer yet.

2 comments:

Andrew Campbell said...

Eric:

I was about to e-mail you and suggest you try the Stone IPA. I just tried it for the first time and I'll admit I was a little disappointed, mostly because I thought it was supposed to be hoppier. Try the Lagunitas Maximus as a contrast... or the Dogfish Head IPAs. (My favorite is the 60min, others swear by the 90min, and I've not seen the 120min anywhere nearby to try.)

best
Andrew

Eric said...

I have been wanting to try the Dogfish IPAs, but they are not available for sale in the west since they haven't lined up a distributor out here (plus I suspect they are selling everything they brew without expanding their territory). I am new to IPAs so I expect my preferences to change over time, but you are right, the Stone is not as hoppy as one would expect.