Review – Southern Tier Pumking

Pumking is Southern Tier in a bottle.  Southern Tier does not do flavor halfway.  Choklat was the most powerfully flavored beer in the Tournament of Stouts.  Pumking will absolutely be the most powerfully flavored beer in the Tournament of Pumpkins.  The nose is overpowering - in my opinion this is a wonderful thing.  I love to know how the beer tastes before it ever hits my lips.  The spices mostly hit on the sides of my tongue and bubble up in the aftertaste.  Mouthfeel on Pumking is smooth; bubbles are sparse in a properly settled pour.  There is a bitter aftertaste that isn't hoppy, but more a product of the spices infused in the beer. 

The color is actually a little on the light side of copper, but still well within the standard for this genre of beer.

It's been no secret that Pumking is one of my favorite pumpkin ales, and I think it has a very strong chance to go all the way in this tournament.  It may, however, fall prey to the same issue that Choklat ran into in the earlier tourney; the flavor is so intense that after a while you just want a break.  Unlike Choklat, though, I can actually drink a whole bottle (22 oz).  That's a bit dangerous, though, as Pumking is (like any truly good beer) a decently heavy hitter, clocking in at a mean 9.0% ABV.  The high ABV adds just a touch of sweet that does well to enhance the flavor.

Southern Tier is a craft brewery in Lakewood, NY, and they have a huge selection of seasonals.  I’m a fan of Choklat, Pumking, Heavy Weizen, and Krampus.  Check ‘em out if you like full-flavored beers.  Bud Light fans beware.

Review – Big Boss Harvest Time

Big Boss has an incredible nose - perhaps the best I've ever smelled in the pumpkin ale category.  It stands out in an entirely different direction from every other pumpkin ale I've tasted or reviewed.  It's the first time where the nutmeg, the cinnamon, the spices, and everything, all stand out over the pumpkin.  Somehow the nose is amplified when you take a sip, even as the taste just seems to fall short of the nose.  The taste doesn't impact you nearly as much as the nose. The aftertaste is light - it's a characteristic I'm used to from Big Boss beers in general; a very slightly bitter but fairly pleasant sensation at the back of your tongue as you take a sip.

Pumpkin is understated in Harvest time, but it is understated in a good way.  It's not that you don't know this is a pumpkin ale; you can't miss all the spices.  It's just that it doesn't hit you in the face with it, and for once I don't mean that as a complaint.

Big Boss Brewery is located right in my hometown of Raleigh, NC, and I’m very excited to be featuring the craft brewers closest to me in the tourney.  They have a quartet of regularly available beers and a handful of seasonals (Harvest time is a seasonal), all of which are pretty highly regarded.  I’m a fan of Aces & Ates (a coffee stout) and Hell’s Belle, a Belgian-style blond ale.  They also do a bitchin’ tour on the second Saturday of every month that nets you lots of free tastes.  (Blogger likes this)

Harvest Time has what it takes to make a splash in the tournament, but unfortunately their first round matchup is with Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale, which I see as the favorite to win it all.  I’m sticking with my prediction of a first round out, but I think Harvest Time will put up a valiant fight.  Bad luck in the draw, old boy.

Final Tournament Lineup

Earlier I posted a set of beers that were definitely in the tourney (coming this Saturday!), and others I was trying to get. I had win and fail in that; one of the definites is out, but the final list has come together nicely.  Rather than seeding by price, I’m seeding this tournament by Beeradvocate rating (in parenthesis below).

Without further ado, the beers:

1. Southern Tier – Pumking (4.04)
2. Dogfish Head  - Punkin (3.90)
3. Weyerbacher  - Imperial Pumpkin Ale (3.89)
4. Carolina Beer Company – Cottonwood Pumpkin Spiced Ale (3.83)
5. Heavy Seas - The Great Pumpkin (3.82)
6. Big Boss – Harvest Time (3.80)
7. Post Road – Pumpkin Ale (3.60)
8. Blue Moon – Harvest Moon (3.11)

Notably absent is Shipyard, which I ended up not being able to get enough of in time.  I wasn’t that high on Shipyard (as you might notice from its review, but I had hoped to get it in.  Apparently the good people of the greater Raleigh area were big fans and picked it all up while I hesitated.  Also absent is New Holland Ichabod, which I actually am holding as a reserve.  It’s BA rating is 3.45, well below the beer that replaced it (Post Road), so I’m sticking with that for now.  In the event that the only one of these beers not in my personal possession right this second (Heavy Seas) doesn’t make its way here for whatever reason, Ichabod is ready to go.

That puts the matchups as:

1. Southern Tier – Pumking
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8. Blue Moon – Harvest Moon

4. CBC – Cottonwood
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5. Heavy Seas – The Great Pumpkin

3. Weyerbacher – Imperial Pumkin Ale
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6. Big Boss – Harvest Time

2. Dogfish Head – Punkin
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7. Post Road – Pumpkin Ale

My predictions:

Pumking over Harvest Moon, The Great Pumpkin over Cottonwood, Weyerbacher over Big Boss, Punkin over Post Road.  I see Heavy Seas over Cottonwood and Post Road over Punkin as the most likely upsets of round 1.

That puts my projected round two brackets as:

1. Southern Tier – Pumking
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5. Heavy Seas – The Great Pumpkin

3. Weyerbacher – Imperial Pumkin Ale
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2. Dogfish Head – Punkin

I think Pumking takes the top bracket, and Weyerbacher wins narrowly at the bottom.  For the overall winner, my money is actually on the #3 seed, Weyerbacher.  I’d probably rate Pumking as the victor in a personal test, but Southern Tier has a way of flavoring their beers that I’ve seen wear out tasters in the past, which is absolutely what happened to Choklat in the tournament of stouts.  People liked it and then got sick of it.  Pumking is more drinkable than Choklat, though, so it might have what it takes to power it through.  Anyhow, this should be fun.  Can’t wait till Saturday!

Review - Heavy Seas The Great Pumpkin

The nose from Heavy Seas Great Pumpkin is deceptive; it's the weakest point of the beer.  On first whiff, I thought this one would end up more like New Holland's Ichabod, Blue Moon's Harvest Moon, or any of the other good-but-not great entries.  The taste, though, proved me wrong.  Spice is heavy at the start of my first sip; it overpowers the pumpkin by a wide margin in a good way.  The balance isn't as far in favor of the spices as Big Boss's Harvest Time, but they are definitively the dominating taste.  The sweetness of decently high alcohol (8%) is also noticeable, and pleasantly so, in this beer. This is officially labeled as an “Imperial Pumpkin Ale,” just as is Weyerbacher’s entry in the tourney, and it lives up to the challenge.

 
I've found Heavy Seas beers to be hit-and-miss in the past, but this is one of their highlights.  Heavy Seas is a craft brewer from Baltimore, and I saw a heavy helping of their beers around when I lived in Maryland.  They have a great variety, and I'd definitely recommend picking up anything they put out for a try.  Heavy Seas Holy Sheet (a self-declared Uber Abbey Ale) is a good one, but beware - it packs a mean (9%) punch.  Both are part of their Mutiny Fleet, a set of beers with high ABV (my favorite kind).

As far as predictions go, I’d label this one a potential dark horse winner.  It has all the right stuff, and it’s one of the few that I could see myself voting all the way through. 

A word of caution – Heavy Seas has two pumpkin beers, The Great Pumpkin, and The Greater Pumpkin.  The latter is bourbon barrel-aged and higher ABV (only 9%, so don’t get too worried).  I actually prefer the lower caliber beer, but The Greater Pumpkin is also quite good.

Review – New Holland Ichabod

My first experience with New Holland was their Dragon’s Milk Oak-Aged Ale, so Ichabod had some big shoes to fill on the expectations front.  The color is pumpkin standard orange-tinted copper:

There is a definite hint of pumpkin and nutmeg in the nose.  Holiday-themed flavoring is very present, but you still get an overall amber beer flavor, which is a bit of a rarity given the genre.  Ichabod has a distinct aftertaste that actually reminds me of a weaker and slightly more bitter version of Pumking.  I don't notice the cinnamon, but then again I rarely do. 

I'm very pleasantly surprised by this brew; it's low on the ABV scale (5.2%) and decently pricey (10.94 per standard six pack).  For some reason I had it in my mind that I had tried it long ago and hated it, but that wasn’t the case at all; it was quite good, and I rather enjoyed my glass.  If you're looking for the lighter side of pumpkin this might be the right way to go.  It doesn't have a sweetened flavor that I usually like in my pumpkin ales, but that tends to come more with the higher ABV ales, such as Weyerbacher (8%) or Pumking (9%).  There is a certain bitterness about the ale that grows the more of it you drink.

New Holland is a very interesting craft brewer from Michigan, a state that has one of my favorites, who sadly won’t be in this tournament, as I have yet to see a pumpkin ale from them.  Why not give it a whirl Founders?  Why not, I ask?  Anyhow, New Holland has a lot of cool-sounding stuff; sadly I don’t know them very well.  The only other beer of theirs that I’ve been fortunate enough to get a hold of is the aforementioned Dragon’s Milk, which is excellent.  It’s also widely regarded as their best (a statement it looks like they agree with). 

I have a mixed opinion on Ichabod.  It could do well in the tournament if the judges break the right way, but if I had to put money down on it I’d peg it for a very close first-round exit, again depending on the matchup.

Review - Blue Moon Harvest Moon

This is a light pumpkin ale, but it leans more toward the sweet than the bitter.  Blue Moon manages to get the nose right, if a little weak, and the aftertaste is pleasantly in line with some of the more powerful pumpkin ales out there.  It's not overly powerful (5.7% ABV), and is quite easy to drink. The color is pumpkin-standard orange-tinted amber ale color, though I've found few that stand out in that regard.

I'm not overly clobbered with pumpkin flavoring.  Some people may like this, but I prefer my pumpkins big and bold.  It claims (on the bottle) to be flavored with pumpkin, cloves, and allspice, but I don't really notice much of anything besides the title ingredient. 

I'm inclined to rank this as a mid-range pumpkin ale, but I could see it being popular for just having an easy, light-but-noticeable, sweet flavoring to it.  I wouldn't put it as going very far depending on the matchup, but I'm definitely hanging an asterisk next to that prediction.  I'm not the unique judge for this tourney, and the popular vote may end up sending this one on a streak.  This is the first ale I've tasted that didn't have nutmeg.  I can't say for sure whether or not I miss the flavoring.  I give this one a solid “B” as a pumpkin, which is what I've come to expect from Blue Moon.  Despite being owned by MillerCoors, they deliver consistently decent beers.  They have yet to deliver me a knockout, gotta-have-it, raving-to-all-my-friends beer, but neither have they put up many disappointments.  Well done, Blue Moon.  I'm a fan, just not a huge one.

Review – Shipyard Pumpkinhead

Unfortunately, this beer starts off at a disadvantage. I’m drinking it as my second pumpkin ale of the night, and the “warm up” was Weyerbacher’s IPA* (P = Pumpkin, to be reviewed later). All I can think is that this tastes like the Bud Light of pumpkin ales. There is no nose on this, and I’m drinking it out of one of those wonderful Sam Adams glasses. How do you miss the nose when you’ve got a well shaped glass, you ask? Well… open up a bottle of X Lite. X can be anything, so long as it has a light version. They all smell the same, which is to say they don’t smell at all. I want to give this beer a fair shake, but I’m just not a huge fan.

There is a faint pumpkin flavoring to it. The aftertaste is where it most came alive to me. It’s a very lightly colored beer, which is rarely impressive to me. One of the positives of this beer is that it does feel very light, so you could drink a lot of it and not feel weighed down. It actually does quite well as a second beer, in the sense that I had a very heavy beer first and just didn’t want to get extra hammered tonight.

Given what I wanted, it succeeds, but in so doing it doesn’t impress me as a pumpkin ale at all. I can’t get over the light taste of it; pumpkin ales are known for smacking you in the face with all the cinnamon, pumpkin, and nutmeg you can handle, and in that vein I can’t help but be disappointed.

I don’t think this will be a big winner in the tourney. We haven’t yet set the pairings, though I do plan to feature this for lighter fare. I have my own biases towards the powerful and heavy, though, so we’ll see how the jury votes. Sorry, Shipyard, I’m just not a fan of this one.  Looks like the Beeradvocate review agrees.  I don’t expect this one to go very far, but I’ve been surprised before by a jury of my peers.

Shipyard is a craft brewery in Maine, and it appears they have a fairly broad selection of seasonals.  I wish I could have gotten hold of their Smashed Pumpkin, but alas, it was nowhere to be found in the Raleigh or DC areas.

Announcing: Tournament of Pumpkins

[Farnsworth voice] Good news, everybody!  [/Farnsworth voice]  We’re getting the tournament back together – but this time it’s a battle royale of fall seasonals.  This November 20th, my friends and I will gather to decide the best pumpkin ale we could get our hands on in full bracket-style glory.  Eight pumpkin ales enter, only one reigns supreme.  It should be a good time for one and all, and just as I did with the Tournament of Stouts, I’ll be posting to the blog, reviewing the contestants and musing other beery* thoughts. 

We learned a few things from our first tournament experience, and I’ll list them here for your reading amusement/benefit, should you ever choose to do a tournament of your own. 

1. The first and by far most important lesson learned from the Tournament of Stouts is that there is such a thing as too much awesome beer.  Sixteen beers is too many to review in bracket-style in one night.  By the 20th or so taste, what I wanted to win changed drastically.  Take the case of Southern Tier’s Chocolat.  I voted for it enthusiastically for the first two tastes, and it did indeed make it through to the semifinal.  I regretted that last vote for the rest of the tourney, as the smell of something so rich actually got to be sickening.  Cutting the field to eight beers cuts the number of tastes in half (yay exponentials), and allows you to be able to appreciate each beer in the same state, before your taste buds start telling you to lay off the dark stuff.  Seeing as how everything we’re reviewing this time is pumpkin-flavored, this is a very important lesson to have learned.

2. Two-ounce pours are easier to judge with.  A one-ounce pour is just too little to properly appreciate everything about a beer.  Given lesson #1, this is an easier rule to apply.  Wider cups help you to get the nose of each of the samples as well.  I recommend white mouthwash cups.

3. White or clear cups are very important – but be consistent.  We started with some white cups, then went to smaller wine-tasting clear cups.  Switching was a mistake.  You definitely want something neutral; drinking out of a blue cup will change your taste perceptions.  It’s true.  Switching from white to clear didn’t really damage the tournament, but it somehow threw me off. 

4. Have a bunch of neutral snacks.  Crackers, pretzels, or just plain old bread are great for cleansing the palate when you’re doing a lot of tasting.  Wine tastings will also usually have something of the sort; it helps to feel taste balance, not to mention gets something in your stomach to soak up all the delicious, delicious beer.

The list of contestants for the Tournament of Pumpkins is actually up for some discussion at the moment.  I know that the following are in.

1. Southern Tier Pumking
2. Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale
3. Dogfish Head Punkin
4. Blue Moon Harvest Moon
5. Shipyard Pumpkinhead

As for the last three, they could be…

1. Heavy Seas Great Pumpkin
2. Heavy Seas Greater Pumpkin
3. Cottonwood Pumpkin
4. Wolaver’s Will Stevens Pumpkin Ale
5. Hoppin Frog Frog’s Hollow Double Pumpkin Ale
6. anything else that catches my eye in the next couple of weeks

I would love – LOVE  - to get Hoppin Frog, but unfortunately their distributor in North Carolina doesn’t deliver to anywhere I can easily get to.  And while I’m at it – I actually spoke to the guy that (allegedly) was in charge of getting stuff to the Raleigh area.  He told me that all Total Wines in the Raleigh area had it.  I called every single one of them, and absolutely none of them did.  Most hadn’t heard of it.  Seriously, Hoppin Frog – what’s up with your distributors?  And why don’t you ship to MD?  You make a pumpkin ale that wins the gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival, but you won’t ship it to all your fans, even the ones that usually have access to Hoppin Frog beers.  Total Wine has plenty of BORIS the Crusher (which is awesome).  But no Frog’s Hollow (which is probably also awesome).

Anyhow, I’ll get that list solidified and the reviews out in the next couple of weeks.  Stay tuned!

Coming soon to a blog near you…

I mentioned in a previous post my plans for future beer tournaments, and while that certainly will be coming to you soon it occurs to me that this will be an extraordinarily boring blog between now and then unless your humble beer blogger takes drastic action – and I am no stranger to drastic action. 

Hence, I intend to continue reviewing beers, beer-related topics, breweries, and other delightful topics related to the finer things in life on a regular basis.  As the summer marches on and things get hotter, expect to see a lightening of the average beer reviewed (but I’ll never give up my stouts completely), and I plan to have a pumpkin beer extravaganza as October approaches.

Fear not, faithful readers (I’m going to go ahead and pretend there are more than 5 of you) – more beer will be coming your way, and tourney action will be starting again. 

Duff Out

Adventures of a pre-tourney beer knurd

Had to take a blogging break for a few days to stop feeling like a high schooler who just discovered the internet, but now that I’m back, there are a few matters of business about the tourney and the blog.

First – I do intend to keep blogging here, both about future tournaments and beer in general.  We kicked around ideas during the more sober moments of the tourney as to what we’d do next time.  Obviously, there will be a Tournament of Wheats.  There are simply too many absolutely lovely wheaty beers that are begging to be judged in convenient knockout form.  Will it just be a cakewalk for Weihenstephaner, or will a domestic craft pull it out?  It also stands to reason that we’d do a Tournament of Belgian-Style Ales.  We could do one that was entirely actual Belgians and one that was a tourney of American Craft Belgian-Style beers and then pit the winners against each other.  One of the more interesting ideas I heard was a “Tournament of Crap,” where we line up all the crap beers that are available at literally any bar in the US of A and pick out the best of the crap-heap so we know what to buy in a pinch.  One nice advantage of such a tournament is that it will be cheap as hell to put together.

I alluded to a story in an earlier post about the shenanigans that my old roommate and I got up to earlier in the day, so:

David drove in from Maryland on the night prior to the tourney with the rest of the beer we needed to finish it all up.  Naturally, when we got it all together we had to get a pretty picture of it all.

All told, we had about 1536 ounces of beer, which translates to 12 gallons of truly epic stouts.  We got a fridge pic too, but it somehow looks less impressive from the point-of-view of my iPhone.

 

Since David lives in Maryland, he took the opportunity to pick up a few beers from the Total Wine up at Brier Creek that he can’t get up in MD (because MD, particularly Montgomery County, has idiotic beer laws), such as anything by Founders, our tournament champion.  He naturally picked up 16 Breakfast Stouts for the trip home.  While we were there, we happened to notice a vanity plate that was sufficiently odd for me to snap a shot (and I don’t usually take random pictures).

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for being proud of what you do for a living, but really?  I mean, really?  BNK TELR comin’ through, bitches!  Oh yeah!  You wish you could be me.

Since he was visiting Raleigh for the weekend, I felt obliged to take him out to the Bavarian Brathaus, a totally sweet German restaurant in Cary.  He arrived Friday night and was leaving Sunday morning after the tournament, so we really could only do this on Saturday for lunch.  If you have German food without beer, you’re doing it wrong.  We had lunch at about 1:00 and the tournament got underway at 7:00, so we figured there would be no problem having a single good German beer at lunch and then going all out for the evening.

That was before we noticed a very interesting option on their beer draft list: you can have a small taster of all fourteen Bavarian Drafts for just $8.  David and I like beer.  Like, a whole lot.  What were we supposed to do, not take advantage of an awesome opportunity to have fourteen one-and-a-half ounce tastes of excellent German beer just because we planned on having thirty-two more one-and-a-half-ounce tastes of much stronger beer that evening?

Clearly no.

That. Was. Awesome.

Also, in case it’s hard to see in the tiny iPhone resolution pics, the tasting glasses were little boots.  My wife (our resident beer goddess) loved them.

We were surprisingly not drunk after all that, though Ashley drove us home just to be sure.  It may have had something to do with the copious amounts of awesome Schnitzel I consumed with my beer shots.

So, just to recap, we had 46 1.5 oz beers that day, and 30 unique beers.  That’s just under three pints each, which doesn’t sound particularly impressive until you recall that most of the beers we tasted that night were at or above 9% ABV, and the Germans were no slouch either.

Sometimes it’s hard for a day to get any more awesome.

The Results: Shocking upsets and narrow victories

My old roommate and fellow judge David decided to go on a CSS rampage and create an online bracket which ended up looking pretty sweet – definitely view source if you’re into the whole web development thing.  No HTML tables involved.  We ended up with 12 judges on the day, though the scores don’t always add up to 12 since judges were allowed to abstain if they couldn’t choose a victor.  This happened exactly three times, and they were all interesting.

Round 1:

The first round ended up decently close to the BeerAdvocate predictions with a few differences.  By far the biggest upset (IMHO) of the tournament happened here when Weyerbacher Heresy managed a 6-6 draw with Oskar Blues Ten FIDY and was able to advance over one of my heavy favorites by virtue of being cheaper – about a dime per fluid ounce.  Sam Adams managed to pull off a convincing victory over Allagash Black as well, winning 8-4, but this didn’t surprise me quite as much.  I happen to be a huge fan of Allagash Black, but it was certainly one of the most distinctive beers in the tourney.  Belgian stouts are almost unheard of, so it had a far different taste than most of the other competitors.  I thought there was a chance it would blow them all away with its delightful array of spices and flavors, but also a chance that it would strike out because it was just too different.  Unfortunately, it ended up being the latter.  North Coast Old Rasputin managed a convincing 8-4 victory over Oak Aged Yeti as well, which definitely surprised me.  We were able to go back and check our votes once the round was over and I found out that I had indeed voted for FIDY, Allagash, and Yeti, though in that round I actually didn’t recognize which ones I was tasting.  I would have thought that I’d pick out Allagash in a heartbeat, but with sixteen different stouts coming at me in rapid succession I didn’t notice it till it was gone. 

I was surprised at how close the voting was for Siberian Night over Sam Smith, Schlafly over Guinness, and Southern Tier Choklat over Youngs.  All three only won their matches by a vote of 7-5.  Founders Breakfast Stout won 7-4 over Hitachino, as one judge abstained (legal since there was a tiebreaker). 

What I thought would be the most interesting matchup of the first round was actually the biggest blowout: BORIS the Crusher beat Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout 9-3. 

Round 2:

The upstart Heresy had no trouble with Schlafly, beating it 9-3 to get into the semis.  I was surprised to find that I actually voted Schlafly on that one.  Similarly, Sam Adams was no match for Founders Breakfast Stout, and got tossed by the same margin.

The other side of the bracket is where things got interesting.  Old Rasputin eeked out a 7-5 win over Siberian Night to punch its ticket to the final four, and Southern Tier Choklat managed to tie BORIS the Crusher 6-6, knocking it out of the tournament by being the lower priced beer.  Choklat ended up being the easiest beer to identify by taste – it’s a very, very sweet beer and the chocolate flavor is powerful without being overwhelming.  I voted for it in the first two rounds, but would later regret my vote in its matchup against BORIS.  As it turned out, I loved it at first, but as the night wore on and I kept drinking more and more rich beers, the richest of the bunch (Choklat by a mile) became too much.  It turned my nose to taste it again.  I suspect Choklat is best enjoyed as a single bottle split amongst friends as a desert.  It’s strong enough that you don’t need much more and it’s hard to drink a full glass of it; the chocolate is just too sweet.  I voted against it in both of the later matchups.

Semifinals:

Founders destroyed Heresy 8-4, the last remaining blowout of the tournament.  I was happy to see my favorite go on, though sad I didn’t get to see it matched up with Ten FIDY as I had hoped.

The other side of the semis was decidedly closer.  Old Rasputin beat Choklat by a score of 6-5 (with one abstention).  It was a sign of things to come…

Third Place:

Bear in mind that the judges didn’t know the results of the semifinal matchups, so even though we could easily identify Choklat, we didn’t know whom it was paired with or whether or not we were tasting for the championship or third place.  Choklat pushed its way through for the victory with a 6-5 win over Heresy, earning it a solid third place.  I said from the beginning that this beer might turn some heads, and it certainly did so.  The third place matchup, though, was only a taste of what was to come.

Championship:

Founders Breakfast Stout versus North Coast Old Rasputin.  The top two beers in the tourney ended up being the 13th and 14th most expensive – one of the reasons I seeded by price was to see exactly how much the cost would come into play.  It certainly didn’t appear to be the case that the more expensive beers outperformed their cheaper counterparts; the highest seed in the semis was Choklat at 7 (though it very easily could have been the $0.50 per ounce BORIS the Crusher). 

Everybody tasted the samples and turned in their ballots and lo and behold, it was a tie, 6-6!  The cheaper beer wins.  We’re all surprised and excited that Old Rasputin managed to pull the upset… except… when I go to check how much cheaper Old Rasputin is than Breakfast Stout, I notice that they both have a 208 ppoz rating.  I seeded them arbitrarily (alphabetically, actually), as they were the only two in the tourney with the exact same price.  It’s $10 per four-pack of 12oz bottles.  Which meant that our tournament would end in a tie. 

Earlier in the night one of our judges decided he didn’t want to drink quite so much in a night, so he dropped out of the judging.  We had to have a victor, so we drafted him to be the kingmaker: one taste test to rule them all!  It wasn’t 100% blind, as he knew the matchup he was judging, but he had never before tasted either of the beers and of course he wasn’t told which was which when I poured them.  He carefully went back and forth between the two disposable plastic tasters, one with a green dot and the other with a yellow, first getting the aromas.  He took a sip of each, swirling each one around in his mouth to get the feel of it.  The room went silent as he carefully considered his options.  He raised one cup and declared “Green’s the winner!”  Just like that, in a double-overtime decision, Founders Breakfast Stout defeated North Coast Old Rasputin 7-6 to take home the title.

What a night it was!  Congratulations to Founders Breakfast Stout, and indeed to North Coast Old Rasputin for taking them right to the edge.  My favorite to win it all ended up taking home the title, but not by much.

This definitely won’t be the last beer tournament we host, so stay tuned. 

Duff Out

PS – I’ve got a lot of pre-party pics and interesting shenanigans to post soon!  I’ll get them up here as soon as I can.

It’s here! It’s here! The day has come! Also – Introductions.

Today (edit – yesterday; took me too long to post this) is the day.  No holding back; leave it all out on the floor and let the hops fall where they may. 

I sincerely wanted to review all of the beers before the tournament started, but circumstances (and time, to an extent) prevented me from doing so.  Specifically, I couldn’t get enough of the following beers to taste one prior to the tourney and still have enough in case they made it all the way through.  I do plan to review them afterwards (Never fear, my fine readers.  The blog will go on.)

Southern Tier Choklat: (Thanks to Nathan at Southern Tier for the graphics)

This is a damn good beer.  The only problem is that I haven’t had any in a few months and I don’t have enough spares to drink one to review it.  It clocks in at a nice, heavy 9.5% ABV, so this is one of many that’s going to give the judges a wonderful time this evening. Both from the BeerAdvocate reviews and my own personal recollection, I think this beer is entirely capable of pulling off a string of victories and winning the whole thing.    It all depends on the tastes of today’s judges.  You should definitely check out Southern Tier’s stuff – they make what is regarded by many as the best Pumpkin beer every fall, Pumking Imperial Pumpkin Ale, and they have a whole lot of others that I’m a fan of, such as the Heavy Weizen Imperial Unfiltered Wheat and the Krampus Imperial Helles Lager.

Also, Nathan gave me another cool Choklat graphic.

The draw for Choklat is tough – they’re in something of a World Cup group of death.  I think they’ll handle Young’s Double Chocolate in round 1, but then they have the misfortune of facing the winner of Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and BORIS the Crusher, both of which could win it all.  Choklat is fully capable of making it out of that grouping to the final four; time will tell.

Speaking of BORIS the Crusher:

Thanks to Fred at Hoppin Frog Brewery for giving me permission to use graphics from their site.

BORIS (Bodacious Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout) is a killer, killer stout.  It’s decently pricey (clocking in at $0.50 per ounce) but worth it.  I’ve had this plenty of times, just not since about February and I felt odd reviewing it without a fresh sample.  It’s good, fully capable of winning it all, and sitting down there in that group of death with BBCS and Choklat.  For my money, the best matchup of round 1 is the 2 v 15 match between BORIS and BBCS.

Also not reviewed was Weyerbacher Heresy Imperial Stout. 

I know I’ve had this one, and I know I liked it.  As with the two above, it’s been a little while.  Weyerbacher has a lot of fantastic brews, and this one is no exception.  They’ve been around since 1995 and are located in Easton, PA.

I’m going to skip the predictions hereafter because (commence dirty secret) the tournament occurred before I was done writing it, and I know exactly how Weyerbacher did.

Just a few more:

Schlafly Reserve, whom I’ve been dreadfully misspelling for this entire blog.  Somehow, every time I saw the beer, I read it without the first L and made it into “Schafly.”  Schlafly Beer is a small craft brewer in the St. Louis area.  Note – they are in no way responsible for the humongous abomination of a beer-like substance maker also located in St. Louis.  They opened in 1991 and have a fine selection of nice looking beers.  I must confess I’m not too terribly familiar with the brand, though I look forward to picking a few more up.  Their tournament entry, Schlafly Reserve Imperial Stout, is the 2008 version of that barrel-aged beer.

It comes in a sweet box with a nice explanation on the back about the origins of barrel-aging strongly flavored, high proof beers, which actually makes for a good read and gets extra points for using the first sentence to beautifully dump on the T&A beers of our day.

Last of our too-close-to-press-time to review beers is Hitachino Espresso Stout.  I’m particularly excited to have this in the tournament as it expands the reach of our tourney across the Pacific: Hitachino is in Japan (warning – website uses a ton of Flash).  The brewery’s roots go all the way back to 1823, when they were established under the name “Kiuchi Brewery,” in Kounosu village.  The rebranded Hitachino Nest Beer was created in 1996, and has made quite a bit of noise on the international brewing scene.  Most Japanese beers that I’ve come across have been light pilsners.  Hitachino has a range of styles and flavors; I’m not a fan of all of them, but the Espresso Stout in particular left me very impressed.

They also have a sweet owl logo.  I like this beer, and I think it has a fighting chance in the tourney.  The first round matchup with Founders Breakfast Stout, though, isn’t going to help.

Lots more to post in the coming couple of days, including results!

Duff Out.

Introducing Contestants – Samuel Adams Imperial Stout

What can I say about Sam Adams? I’m actually very pleasantly surprised by this beer.  My first impression wasn’t the best (note: unlike most of the reviews, I’m not tasting this beer live.  Took notes while drinking it at the Flying Saucer last night so I could post during my lunch break) – Sam Adams, like almost every beer with a large distributorship, has practically no nose.  I get nothing when I take a nice big whiff of this.  However, the flavor is… pretty damn good.  You definitely get the caramel and licorice in this guy, and that’s a hard thing to get right.  It’s labeled as “just” an Imperial Stout, but you usually end up with a chocolate, caramel, or vanilla overtone; in my experience everybody who leaned towards caramel or vanilla did so too much and it was sickening.  Sam Adams gets it just right.  The malt doesn’t come out quite as much as I’d like, and the aftertaste vanishes like most large-distributorship beers I’ve had, but while it’s in there you get more of a treat than I would have expected from a big brewer.  The feel is smooth, not particularly stingy, though this isn’t a nitro.  It’s just not overly carbonated.  It does pack a decent punch, though weighing it at 9.2% ABV.  Color’s a nice, solid black as well.

Do I really need to introduce the brewery?  It’s freaking Sam Adams.  Makers of pretty decent beer and commercials about said beer that take the radical step of not using breasts to sell their product.  I’m torn as to whether or not this is a good thing, incidentally.  They have a whole lot of different beers, most of which are pretty decent.  Their Imperial Series (of which the Imperial Stout is a member) is a little newer, and is intended to be for “big beers,” a goal I think they hit pretty well.

As far as predictions – I think this beer has a fighting chance.  I don’t think it’ll make it out of the first round, but that’s only because they come out of the gate facing Allagash Black, one of my favorites.  I think they could pull off the upset against quite a few others in the tourney, though I don’t know how many I’d list them as favorites against.

Best of luck to Sam Adams on Saturday (tomorrow!!). 

Duff Out.

Introducing Contestants – Allagash Black

This beer is different.  Lots of the beers in the tourney are flavored, but mostly with coffee, chocolate, oatmeal, or some combination of those three items.  Black is very much not like the others – it’s delightfully Belgian, and the spices and aroma hops punch you in the nose with that Belgian smell and don’t let you forget it as you’re drinking it.  It is on the light side color-wise for the beers in this tourney, but not much more than any of the others.  It does have a very stingy mouthfeel; there’s carbonation a-plenty, which actually does detract from my enjoyment of it a tiny bit.  Clocking in at “just” 7.5% ABV, this is one of the less potent potables in the brackets, but it still packs a punch if you try to down a bottle.  After having a few sips I’m getting just a hint of coffee, but mostly it’s just the malt with the taste of the traditional Belgian sugars.  I’m a huge fan of Belgian beers and that style in general, so it’s possible that’s the reason I’m much higher on this one than the gents over at BeerAdvocate, who ranked this one 14 out of 16 for the tourney), but I still think they are just plain missing something.  This is an absolutely lovely beer, and I would easily put it in my top five, possibly top three, of those here assembled.  FBS and Ten FIDY are firmly planted in the top two spots, though I don’t know the order.

Allagash is a terrific brewery up in Portland, ME.  It has a pretty large variety of beers, but there’s a good chance you’ve only ever seen or tasted Allagash White, their flagship beer.  Most of their stuff can only be found in 750 Ml bottles, such as Black:

Much thanks to Rob Tod, owner and founder of Allagash, for the nice shot of the bottle of Black. 

They have a pretty wide variety, but you’ll find a Belgian influence on them all, which suits me just fine.  If you want a beer that’ll absolutely blow your mind, I suggest picking up a bottle of Confluence, a “wild ale.”  I love it, and it’s the first beer I ever had where I took a nice sniff of the nose and came back with the distinct impression of a smell of bananas… and it didn’t ruin the taste.    I’ve had the good fortune to knock back a few fine Allagash brews with Rob Tod at some events in the DC area, and I have to say it’s a real pleasure to chat with a man that just plain lives beer and loves sharing it with others.  My sweeping stereotype of people in the beer industry, particularly at craft breweries, is that they are all nice, very cool people.  Rob absolutely enforced that stereotype.  The only other head brewer from any of the tournament beers I’ve met is Mark Ruedrich from North Coast, and he was pretty cool too.  When I do my tour of US breweries, and I sure plan to do it before the wife and I have any little ones tying us down, it will include a stop in Portland, Maine.  It’ll probably also include a stop in Portland, Oregon as well, but that’s for entirely unrelated reasons. 

As for predictions… hmmm… this one is tough for me.  The key here is that this beer is really, truly, damn unique among the beers in this tourney.  I’ll be able to pick it out without even taking a sip.  I think this is easily a top-four beer.  That being said, I don’t think it’ll make it to the final four because it needs to knock off Founders Breakfast Stout to do it, at least as the seeds stand, and my gut says the panel won’t vote that way.  They could – they absolutely could.  We’ll see.  This is why they don’t play the games on paper, as they say.  This beer absolutely has what it takes to go all the way.

Best of luck to Allagash Black on Saturday.  Who knows?  They could pull off the upset and win the whole damn thing.  It could happen.

Duff Out.

Introducing Contestants – North Coast Old Rasputin Imperial Stout

Old Rasputin tastes far more pure than some of the other non-flavored stouts in the tourney.  The lack of sweetness is almost surprising after doing so many other tastes for this tourney, but it is by no means disappointing.  This is a medium-bodied beer, not as light as the Guinness/Young’s/Samuel Smith crowd, but nowhere near the weight of the Ten FIDY group.  It has a fair amount of carbonation, and it maintains its espresso-colored head fairly well.  Despite some other reviews I’ve read, I’m not getting much in the way of hints of chocolate or coffee.  It’s entirely possible that I’m just not tasting the subtle additions after having so recently tasted things like Founders Breakfast or Brooklyn Black Chocolate where you couldn’t miss the flavors if you tried.  This is a pretty pleasant stout, very good for relaxing.  The aftertaste is slightly more bitter than I’d prefer, but still very satisfying.  I might be imagining things, but the malt almost tastes a bit toasted in comparison to the field.

In any case, a solid beer from a solid brewery, North Coast.  North Coast makes a lot of wonderful beers, from the delightfully wheaty Le Merle (a Belgian farmhouse style ale) to a handful of pale ales and even a few more stouts (definitely check out Old No. 38 if you’re a fan of the genre).  They also make Brother Thelonius, a fantastic darker abbey-style ale.  They’ve been around since 1988 and have won tons of awards for their craft – I recommend giving them a try.  If you’re in the Mendocino Coast area of CA, stop by and see the brewery itself. 

The bottle itself is quite cool.  Thanks to Mark R. At North Coast for sending me some nice graphics – this is actually a photo I took that was a little easier to format for the web, but I appreciate all the help I get.  I also totally dig it when I get emails from brew masters, one of the most fun parts about putting on this tourney.

Now for the prediction: this beer certainly deserves to go far.  In fact, if I were as to rank them by personal preference, this would easily be in the top half of the standings, maybe even top five (BeerAdvocate ranks Rasputin 5th overall in our tournament).  Unfortunately, though, as the seedings stand, Old Rasputin has a date with Oak Aged Yeti in round one – talk about a bad draw.  I just don’t see it beating out one of my favorites to make it all the way into the final four.  To be fair, the gurus at BeerAdvocate agree with me – they have Oak Aged Yeti at 3rd.  Had we seeded the tourney by the BeerAdvocate ratings, Rasputin would get a matchup with Schlafly that I think they’d win, and then have to face Southern Tier Choklat in the next round (most likely).  That one would be pretty close to a toss-up, IMHO.

Anyhow, best of luck to Old Rasputin, and sorry about the killer matchup.  We’ll see how they do on Saturday!

Duff Out.

Introducing Contestants – Young’s Double Chocolate Stout

I picked this beer up in a bar in DC when I was pleasantly surprised to see it on the menu.  YDCS is pretty highly rated on BeerAdvocate, and I actually didn’t realize when I added it to the tournament that this one was also from across the pond: Wells Young’s Brewing Company is in Bedford, UK.  This is a very easy-to-find beer.  Most of the nicer pubs I frequent have it either on tap or in a can, and you can find cans and bottles in plenty of stores.  I’ve seen the cans in grocers at times, and it’s quite low on the PPOz rating, so you’ll be getting plenty of bang for your buck.

Perhaps it was a victim of high expectations for me, but I just wasn’t in love with this beer.  Reading around the web it looks like I’m just about the only one with this opinion.  Nonetheless, I call ‘em like I see ‘em, and I don’t see this one making much noise in the tourney this weekend.  The taste is very nice and you better damn sure believe they hit you upside the head with the chocolate in this one, but for me the feel was just too light.  It’s a very smooth beer, almost too much so for me.  It went down like air; the only beer with comparable weight in this tourney is Guinness.  It’s entirely possible that my mild impression of YDCS is strictly from that comparison.  YDCS is on the low end of ABV, clocking in at a trim 5.2%.  A beer certainly can have an excellent flavor and feel without a high ABV.  In this case, though, I feel the low ABV may be holding it back.  Most of the higher brews I’ve tried have a much fuller taste to them – I’m not entirely sure if that’s the alcohol or just a common technique among brewers that also put a lot of kick in their brews. 

Just as with some of the other beers I’ve given so-so reviews to, I do actually like this beer.  I just don’t see it going anywhere in this tourney, not with a tough matchup with Southern Tier Choklat in round 1.

We’ll see how it does when the chips are down this weekend!

Duff Out.

Introducing Contestants – Thirsty Dog Siberian Night

My first impression out of the bottle is that of slight surprise – this stout isn’t pitch black.  The bottom of the glass has a reddish-brown glow that I previously saw only on Guinness.  The nose is fantastic, though, acting as a precursor to a heavily malty taste.  The mouthfeel is fairly light, though not nearly so much as the lightest ones in the tourney, Guinness and Young’s.  It’s a fairly stingy feel as well, there isn’t much coating your tongue after you swallow.  The aftertaste is almost smoky (though this isn’t a smoke beer), and I’m left with just a tempered bitter feeling on my tongue ten seconds or so after swallowing.  At 9.7% ABV, it’ll getcha drunk alright, and you’ll have a mighty fine time of it. 

Thirsty Dog Brewing Company is an American craft brewery in Akron, Ohio that makes a decently large selection of tasty brews.  I’m a fan of their trippel as well as their pumpkin ales, but Siberian Night is the best of show, IMHO. 

I want to state for the record that I’m a big fan of this beer and regularly pick up four-packs from Total Wine in NC and the Perfect Pour in MD.  That being said, I don’t see this one making it out of the elite eight because it’s got a date with Oak Aged Yeti, which I feel has a slightly fuller taste.  I like the high ABV and the mouthfeel is actually a surprisingly nice change-of-pace from a lot of the very smooth, coating feels you’ll find on some of its competitors (including OAY).  Even though I don’t see this one hitting the final four, it shouldn’t have any problem dispatching its first round opponent, Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout (which I was never very high on to begin with).  Siberian Night is a solid beer from a solid brewery with a lot going for it.  I just don’t see it taking the title against this very tough competition.

The matches aren’t played on paper, though, so we’ll see how everything unfolds this weekend. 

Duff Out.

Introducing Contestants – Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout

My first thought when I took a sip of Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout was “Guinness…,” and as the sip went down my throat I added “…now with oatmeal!”  Drinking more of it makes the differences between SSOS and Guinness a little clearer, but I still have hints of that initial impression.  Like Guinness, it is a little on the light side for a stout, particularly for one in this tournament.  I can faintly see my hand on the other side of the glass and the bottom of it is distinctly brown, rather than pitch black.  The head is bright white and much bubblier than its Irish cousin; nonetheless the mouthfeel is similarly light.  This has a pretty crazy high rating on BeerAdvocate, but I just don’t see it.  SSOS has a very light mouthfeel to it, and it’s gone except for traces of bitterness once you swallow.   It’s also a very low ABV for a stout, clocking in at just 5% (and they annoyingly didn’t list that on the bottle).  

This one came highly recommended from some decently knowledgeable people, which is why I opted to give it a try – it also adds a splash of international flair to the tourney, being from Samuel Smith’s Old Brewery at Tadcaster in Yorkshire, England (note – link goes to the American distributor’s page for the brewery because it is much better than the actual site).  I know it shouldn’t matter, but honestly the bottle looked so boring to me that I was never really inspired to pick it up before.

I don’t mean to sound all negative – it’s a decent beer.  I’m just not sure it’s up to snuff for the tourney.  I’ll be utterly shocked if it manages to score more than one or two votes in its first round matchup with Thirsty Dog’s Siberian Night.  So far the imports are doing nothing to disavow me of the opinion that American Craft breweries are the best in the world. More to the point about the taste, I barely get any of the oatmeal taste the title promises. 

Oh well.  It’s not a bad beer and it’s relatively cheap, so you can kick back with friends and drink a few – perhaps quite a few because of the low ABV.  It’s not going to make any noise in the May Day tourney though.  A certain visitor from Ohio (Thirsty Dog’s Siberian Night) is going to make sure of that.

As for the brewery itself, it appears to have a decent selection of styles, but none of them really show the experimentation and pizazz that you’ll find in some of the other breweries that I’ve profiled (or will soon profile), such as Southern Tier, Allagash, Brooklyn, Hoppin Frog, Great Divide… well, just about any of them really. 

Ah well.  It’ll take up its spot diligently.  I predict a first round loss.  Sorry Tadcaster – it’s not bad, it’s just not at the same level as a lot of the others here, its BeerAdvocate rating notwithstanding.

Duff out.

BeerAdvocate Preview

As a fun thought experiment, I wondered how the tournament would play out if we just used the BeerAdvocate ratings.  Had we seeded them this way, things certainly would have looked a lot different.

Our brackets as they currently stand are:

--------------------------------------------

1 - Schlafly Reserve - 591

16 - Guinness – 125

 

8 - Oskar Blues Ten FIDY - 354

9 - Weyerbacher Heresy Imp Stout – 250

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5 - Allagash Black - 433

12 - Sam Adams Imperial Stout – 229

 

4 - Hitachino Espresso Stout - 438

13 - Founders Breakfast Stout - 208

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--------------------------------------------

3 - Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti - 453

14 - North Coast Old Rasputin – 208

 

6 - Thirsty Dog Siberian Night - 416

11 - Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout – 235

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7 - Southern Tier Choklat - 408

10 - Young's Double Chocolate Stout – 236

 

2 - Hoppin Frog BORIS the Crusher Oatmeal Stout - 500 

15 - Brooklyn Black Chocolate - 166

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Using the BeerAdvocate ratings, this would be our elite eight:

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1 - Schlafly Reserve - 591

8 - Oskar Blues Ten FIDY - 354 

--------------------------------------------

5 - Allagash Black - 433  

13 - Founders Breakfast Stout - 208

--------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------

3 - Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti - 453 

6 - Thirsty Dog Siberian Night - 416 

--------------------------------------------

7 - Southern Tier Choklat - 408

2 - Hoppin Frog BORIS the Crusher Oatmeal Stout - 500 

--------------------------------------------

That’s all more or less as I predicted, though looking at the numbers (you should check out BeerAdvocate for that – it requires a membership, but it’s free), I’m surprised at some of the rankings.  Most notably, Young’s was higher than I expected at 4.1, and Allagash Black was lower than I expected at 4.01.

Our Final Four:

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8 - Oskar Blues Ten FIDY - 354 

13 - Founders Breakfast Stout - 208

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--------------------------------------------

3 - Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti - 453  

7 - Southern Tier Choklat - 408

--------------------------------------------

Again, nothing here shocks me.  I think BORIS might beat Choklat, but I’m not certain of that.  And Siberian Night definitely stands a chance, as does Allagash (though not according to BeerAdvocate).

The championship:

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13 - Founders Breakfast Stout - 208

3 - Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti - 453  

--------------------------------------------

3rd Place Matchup:

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8 - Oskar Blues Ten FIDY - 354 

7 - Southern Tier Choklat - 408

--------------------------------------------

Oak Aged Yeti and Choklat only differ by 0.01 in the ratings, so that one was about as close as they come.  Not quite as close as they come – Yeti and Ten FIDY have the exact same rating, which would have resulted in the narrowest possible victory for FIDY had they played, according to our tiebreaking rule of the cheapest beer wins.

Having given away the fact that FIDY and Yeti have the same rating, it should come as no surprise that the champion would be FBS (my prediction from day 1), and FIDY would be holding steady in 3rd.

It’s D-10 day. Soon enough we’ll see how it plays out for real.

Duff Out.

Introducing Contestants – Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti

Back to the grind – the tournament approaches, and I’ve got 12 more reviews to do in the next week and a half! 

Great Divide Brewery is an American Craft Brewery in Denver, CO that produces a staggeringly large variety of beers.  They also paid up for a very cool (though Flash-based) web site, which is totally worth a visit.  They are a very highly acclaimed brewery and have won dozens of awards that they are more than happy to detail for you on their site.  Today, however, we’re looking at their Yeti family of beers.  Actually, we’re only looking at one member of that family, but you might find it interesting that there are quite a few others.  It started with Yeti, an imperial stout with a heavy malt flavor that has a good amount of hops (weighs in at 75 IBUs).  The next member of the family is our tournament contestant – Oak Aged Yeti, which has a flavor quite different from the original.  From there they went to Espresso Oak Aged Yeti and finally Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti.  I’ve never had either of the last two, but I’m quite curious.  Oddly enough, all four clock in at 9.5% ABV.

Let’s get down to business about our contestant though.

 

Oak Aged Yeti (OAY hereafter) is a fine dark stout.  After reviewing Guinness the other day, it’s nice to see a stout that is properly opaque and intimidating in its glass.

My first thought upon taking a sip of this bad boy was that I completely forgot how incredibly awesome this beer was.  It’s the first pure Imperial Stout I’ve had in a bit that wasn’t explicitly flavored (FIDY doesn’t list a single flavor, but there’s something in there) and man does it hit you with malt the second it hits your tongue.  The mouthfeel isn’t slightly stingy, but not overwhelmingly so. There are definitely bubbles in there.  It does a great job of coating your tongue and throat with an aftertaste of vanilla and malt, leaving you with that lasting impression for twenty seconds after your sip.

This is definitely a final four quality beer – which actually was my original prediction for it, but that was more based on remembering it fondly and not seeing any other contenders that might get in its way other than Thirsty Dog Siberian Night, which I still think will give it quite a run for its money.

I’m calling it – OAY in the final four.  How it does once there is anyone’s call, and don’t forget it’ll have to take down the winner of a very strong group just to get there: my group of death with Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, Southern Tier Choklat, and BORIS the Crusher. 

Best of luck to Great Divide and Oak Aged Yeti in the tourney – they’ve got what it takes to go a long way. 

Duff Out.

A word on reviews…

The idea for hosting a tournament of stouts was something my old roommate David and I came up with (he had the first spark) a few months back.  We knew immediately that it was a pure genius idea – why bother debating back and forth which of our dozen favorite microbrews was the best when we could have a quasi-objective test that determined exactly that?  It was a fantastic idea that we had sometime in February or March.


Now that we’re well into April and the tournament is actually going to happen, I realized a flaw in our plan.  Stouts are great, but they are often thought of as winter beers.  I happen to think that’s pure crap – I could drink a fine stout any day of the year – but sadly many of the best stouts are brewed seasonally.  And if you start gathering up all your beer in March, then schedule the tournament for May, then get a few more people than you initially anticipated as judges… well… there’s a great big FAIL hiding in there: winter seasonal beers are running out.  This hit me square in the forehead the first time I made my way over to Total Wine and noticed that they were all out of Ten FIDY and Founders Breakfast Stout.  I asked the manager when they’d be getting more in, and he told me that they wouldn’t be getting any more FIDY till October or so, and he doubted he’d be getting any FBS either. 


Now, I was able to stock up on FIDY at the Perfect Pour in Maryland, and as it turns out some other Total Wine stores in the Raleigh area have plenty of FBS, but still, that one set my nerves on pure panic, and I quickly started counting up the beers that I had.  Right now we have 13 judges, and if a beer goes all the way it will be tasted four times per judge (once per round).  At 1.5 oz per taste, that puts us at 4 * 13 * 1.5 = 78 oz of each beer needed for a tournament.  And wouldn’t you know it, I have almost exactly that amount of many of the beers in our fair tourney. 


As I’ve said in other posts, I’m trying to give a fair review of all of the beers in this year’s tournament, but I’m limited in some cases by supply.  For instance, I’ve had both Schafly’s Reserve and Southern Tier Choklat before and very much enjoyed them both.  I have about 75 oz of Schafly’s and 88 oz of Choklat – the Choklat is in 22oz bottles.  I’ll already be skimping on pours (more accurately, my wife and designated Beer Goddess Ashley will be skimping on pours) should Schafly make it to the final, and while I’m fine on Choklat, I have exactly as many bottles as I need (4), and I can’t get any more in Raleigh and won’t be going to Marlyand again before the tournament.  The big problem here is for reviews.  I have consumed both of these beers – but not in several months.  I can’t accurately contrast Choklatt with Brooklyn Black and other chocolate stouts, nor Schafly’s with other imperials, without a fresh taste.  I will still post something about them, but it won’t include my own personal opinion about the beers.  Perhaps I’ll do a post-tourney review.


Incidentally, I’m particularly sorry about not being able to do a proper post on Southern Tier Choklat, as Nathan at Southern Tier actually got back to me by phone on the very day that I sent out emails to a bunch of breweries (and gave me some cool promotional graphics for them). 


So – I might not be able to give the best reviews of all of the beers, but review them I shall.  The tourney approaches!


Duff Out.

Introducing Contestants - Guinness

Okay, so it’s Guinness this time.  I know, I know.  Guinness.  First, I want to be clear about this – I think Guinness is a fine beer.  There is something pretty cool that they do with their beer to get that perfect foamy head, and the neat bubbling action going on with the Nitrogen bubbles when you pour it into a glass, that’s just straight up cool.  Since I actually went and bought a pack of Guinness to do this review, I’ll soon update their official PPOz rating to be 134 (I got a 4-pack of 14.9oz cans for 7.99 at the grocery store). 

I’m not going to post any Guinness graphics for two reasons: 1) It’s Guinness, and you know damn well what it looks like - they pay for ads to be beamed into your head at night, and 2) unlike most of the other contestants, Guinness is a really, really big brewing company, and will be a tad harder to get in nice, personal contact with.  I could just steal some graphics from their site, but I have the feeling that would turn out badly for me, as this would (presumably) trigger an army of drunk leprechauns to descend upon my apartment in a no-holds-barred death match, during which they would hurl their tiny bodies upon me while pelting me with unbelievably shiny gold pieces and stuffing rainbows into orifices I’d rather they left alone. (The preferred orifice for rainbow-stuffing is clearly the nose, but leprechauns can’t reach that high.)  Although… I am curious in a GTA-sort of way about how many of the little bastards I could take with me before they reduced me to a gold-stuffed piñata after painting me green and removing all the icky bits. 

Leprechaun death-matches aside, Guinness is a nice beer.  You could do far, far worse for a beer that is distributed to every bar on Earth by fanatical legions of storm troopers and brewed in an Irish Death Star (it’s like the Empire’s, but with a much wobblier orbit and fiddle music). 

All niceties behind us now, we can get to the meat of this review: this beer isn’t going very far in this tournament.  I’ll be shocked if it comes close to beating Schafly Reserve.  It’s not Guinness’s fault – they make a fantastic mass-marketed beer that can appeal to millions of people around the world.  Such a beer needs to have a less powerful taste than the “extreme” beers it’s up against here.  It’s far and away the lowest ABV at 4.2% (a number that is maddeningly absent from their cans – I had to do some actual internet research to find it), and the color is incredibly light for this group.  Incidentally, for the beer n00bs, that should give you an idea of what kind of stouts we’re drinking here – Guinness has a very, very light coloring for this tournament.  The taste is similarly light, though pleasant.  There is a very nice head on a pint of Guinness, though, that they can be justifiably proud of; it does make the experience of drinking one better.  It’s a very smooth beer, almost no stinginess in the mouthfeel, but it doesn’t coat your tongue like some of the heavier beers it’s up against.

The real reason I elected to include it in this tournament is because I felt it was needed for a sense of legitimacy.  There should be a beer that everybody is at least passingly familiar with, if only to stomp out the idea of “Yeah, that tournament might have shown who was the best of the little beers, but throw Guinness in there and it’s not even a competition anymore.”  This mentality has been shockingly common among people (non-beer-knurds) to whom I’ve described the tournament.  Guinness is way, way, better than Bud Light, so clearly it must be the best beer out there (their reasoning, as best I can tell).  Well, I agree with your premise, good hypothetical sir, but I can’t say that the implication holds. 

Most of the beers in this tourney are American craft brews – and I think they could easily be among the best in the world.  American beers get a bad rap mainly from the Macros, the T&A beers, which are sadly just about the only ones we export. 

I’ve got to do a European tour of craft breweries to see how they stack up; I certainly hope that the imports we can get over here aren’t the best of the bunch or else the ancestral home of beer has been left far, far behind in beer making talent, with only a handful of exceptions, particularly when it comes to truly dark beers.  The trappists still rule the roost when it comes to the classic Belgian ales, but there are plenty of North American brewers that are  right on their heels (and in some cases ahead – I’d take an Allagash Dubbel over a Westmalle or an Orval any day).   

Anyhow – this post has gone on long enough and gotten far, far away from its original purpose.  Guinness.  Decent beer, funny commercials and all, but not going to make any noise in the Tournament of Stouts.  Hey – only 125 calories though – so it’s kind of a diet beer for me.  I’m down.

Duff out.

Bracket Update!

I mentioned in my first post that I wasn't thrilled with the idea of having two beers from the same brewery, and hence wanted to jettison one of the Sam Smiths in favor of another challenger.  Well, this weekend I got a chance to stop by the Perfect Pour and we have a new contestant!


Let's all welcome the one, the only... Hitachino Espresso Stout!  It's the only beer from the other side of the Pacific in this tournament, and it has as good a chance of any to make some noise in the brackets.  Hitachino is a pricey little fellow (with a cool owl as its bottle cap mascot), ringing in at 458 on the PPOz scale.  We'll be saying goodbye to one of the Sam Smiths; at the moment I'm looking at ditching the Imperial Stout and keeping the Oatmeal, but I'll be soliciting opinions from my fellow judges on that one.  They're seeded the same, so it makes no difference for the brackets.


Unfortunately that's not the only thing that affects the brackets - somehow I managed to misread my receipts from the first batch of PPOz scores, and Southern Tier Choklat was treated as being far more expensive than it really was.  In fact, Choklatt only scores a 408 with its proper price, which certainly affects its seeding.  As things stand, we have the following.

1. Schafly Reserve – 591
2. Hoppin Frog BORIS the Crusher Oatmeal Stout - 500
3. Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti - 453
4. Hitachino Espresso Stout - 438
5. Allagash Black - 433
6. Thirsty Dog Siberian Night - 416
7. Southern Tier Choklat - 408
8. Oskar Blues Ten FIDY - 354
9. Weyerbacher Heresy Imp Stout – 250
10. Young's Double Chocolate Stout – 236
11. Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout – 235
12. Sam Adams Imperial Stout – 229
13. Founders Breakfast Stout – 208
14. North Coast Old Rasputin – 208
15. Brooklyn Black Chocolate – 166
16. Guinness - 125

How does that affect the brackets?  Well, let's take a look:

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1 - Schafly Reserve - 591

16 - Guinness - 125

8 - Oskar Blues Ten FIDY - 354 

9 - Weyerbacher Heresy Imp Stout – 250

 
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5 - Allagash Black - 433 

12 - Sam Adams Imperial Stout - 229

4 - Hitachino Espresso Stout - 438

13 - Founders Breakfast Stout - 208

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3 - Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti - 453

14 - North Coast Old Rasputin - 208

6 - Thirsty Dog Siberian Night - 416

11 - Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout – 235

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7 - Southern Tier Choklat - 408


10 - Young's Double Chocolate Stout – 236

2 - Hoppin Frog BORIS the Crusher Oatmeal Stout - 500 


15 - Brooklyn Black Chocolate - 166

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Wow, what a change.  I feel like the bracket just got very top-heavy.  Brooklyn Black Chocolate is still the most interesting beer in the standings.  I don't think they've gotten any easier a matchup - BORIS is widely regarded as one of the best stouts around, but I have to believe that the winner of that 2 v 15 matchup is going to find themselves on the inside track to the finals, provided they can get past Southern Tier in the next round (no giveaway there).  I don't think Young's DCS is going to have a chance at knocking off Souther Tier; Young's has a far lighter flavor - almost a summertime stout.  Around all these heavy, powerful opponents I think it is just going to be drowned out.  That's not to say it's a bad beer - it's quite good and I pick it up from time to time.  I just don't think it's going to get past Southern Tier, not in a tourney of this nature.  My new final four: BORIS, FIDY, Founders Breakfast, and Siberian Night.  Call it a hunch.  And its still missing one of my faves - I'm trying to pick what I think will end up the most popular among all of the judges, not just my own personal tastes.  And I do think that Breakfast Stout could easily be upset twice - the first time by Allagash Black, and the second time by Ten FIDY.  I'm picking BORIS for the runner up with these brackets, with FIDY over Siberian Night in the bronze medal match.

I'll keep you posted if there are any more changes.  I have no particular impetus to do so now, though I'm interested in perhaps bringing in one more heavy hitter that I've mentioned before, De Molen Hel & Verdomenis.  I'm still on the fence as to whether or not I can swing it.  We'll see.  Not sure who the next man out would be - that might have a lot to do with availability, or failing that a quick straw poll of the judges.

Anyhow - hope this made the bracketology more interesting!  

Duff out.

Update -- apparently I suck at reading numbers, and the seeding should have gone with Oak Aged Yeti at number 3 and Hitachino at 4.  I don't think this alters my brackets much; I expect Yeti to go about as far as Hitachino would have in that spot, and Hitachino draws the matchup of death with Founders in round 1.