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:

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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 

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5 - Allagash Black - 433  

13 - Founders Breakfast Stout - 208

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

3 - Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti - 453 

6 - Thirsty Dog Siberian Night - 416 

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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  

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3rd Place Matchup:

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8 - Oskar Blues Ten FIDY - 354 

7 - Southern Tier Choklat - 408

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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

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

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.

Introducing Contestants – Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout

It’s been a busy week at the beer tournament, but I’m determined to get intros up here of every beer and every brewery that I’ve heard back from.  Incidentally, if you ever take the time to call or email people at craft breweries, they tend to be overwhelmingly happy to get back to you and help you out.  People in the business of beer tend to be cool.


Anyhow, back to the Stout at hand, or in my case, in hand.  Brooklyn Brewery is a craft brewery located in – wait for it – Brooklyn, NY.  They have a pretty wide variety of beers, and you’ve probably noticed quite a few of them if you go into any decent beer store.  The easiest ones to spot are the giant numbered ones Local 1 and Local 2.  They  have a ton of others, including (naturally) the Black Chocolate Stout.


This is the first one I’ve reviewed where the taste is indisputably chocolate-infused; the label doesn’t lie, and they do it well with the natural malts of a stout.  BBCS checks  in at a hefty 10% ABV, which fits the style just fine.  Chocolate and a hint of alcohol dominate the nose. The mouthfeel on this one is a tiny bit stingy and bubbly, which is a stark contrast to some of the other contestants in the tournament.  I prefer something a little more smooth, but I’m curious to see how that influences things come tournament time.  I’m not the only judge, and I’ve never polled the others about their preferences. 


 
(Thanks to Ben H. and the good folks at Brooklyn Brewery for the pic!)


The beer pours a nice dark black with a brown head, both fine colors for the style.  I thought this was a defining characteristic of the style until the other day at a restaurant.  I ordered a Lone Rider Stout (a local brewery) and at first thought they had gotten my order wrong.  When it came back, I was shocked to find that I could see through the beer.  It looked more like a dark lager.  It ended up tasting pretty nice and fit the stout mold, but I just couldn’t get over the color.  The aftertaste is slightly bitter and chocolaty, but overall quite pleasant. 


I’m a big fan of this beer.  As far as predictions for the event -  I really have no idea how far this will go.  It’s got a tough matchup with a much pricier beer in round 1, Southern Tier Choklat (for now – recall that there may be some switching before May Day), but part of the reason for this tourney was to see if the higher prices on some of these beers are truly merited. It’s a tough call, but I could see it pulling off the upset, which would bring it head to head with (I have to believe) Ten FIDY, which is going to be a tough out.  This beer is fully capable of shocking the tournament, despite being seeded 15th (seeding is done entirely by price).  


That’s one reason I’m a huge fan of this – I can honestly say it’s in the same league as the best in this tourney while being almost half the PPOz of some.  I’m very curious as to where BBCS ends up.  In my “personal seeding,” where I did this by personal preference rather than price, this would probably be sitting pretty in the top five or six.  I’ve made no secret of my love for FIDY, Breakfast Stout, and Allagash Black, but this beer belongs in that class, along with BORIS the Crusher, Southern Tier Choklat, and a few others that I’ll get to in later posts. I don’t mean to universally heap props at the beers in the tourney, but in fairness part of the reason for many of the selections was that I knew them to be good.


Some of the contestants were added by trusted recommendation, BTW, so don’t necessarily take my lack of endorsement as a thumbs down.  For instance, I’ve never tasted our current #1 seed, Schafly Reserve.  The good people at The Perfect Pour in Elkridge, MD (the best beer store I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some damn good ones – the Foodery in Philadelphia is a close second) recommended that one, along with the Sam Smiths.  Sam Adams and Guinness were added purposefully to be the underdogs (and because I’ve had both of them and they are indeed respectable).  This wouldn’t be much of a does-price-matter experiment if we didn’t throw in the most readily available examples of the style.  I have some judges coming in that believe it impossible for a beer to be better than Guinness.  And no, they… okay… he isn’t Irish. 


Anyhow, I’ve managed to go way off track in this post.  The point is, welcome to Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and best of luck.  It’s good, it’s chocolaty, and it has what it takes to make it deep in the tourney.  We’ll see how it all ends up!

Introducing Contestants – Oskar Blues Ten FIDY

Hoo boy.  Next up on contestant's row is Oscar Blues Ten FIDY – and no, I didn’t fall asleep on the shift key.  That’s how they spell it.  Seriously – check out their site.

Oskar Blues is an American craft brewery in Lyons, Colorado that puts out a ton of delicious stuff, but perhaps the most distinct thing about them is that all of their beer comes in cans.  Seriously.  In their own words (from their about us page) :

Why cans? “We thought the idea of our big, luscious pale ale in a can was hilarious,” recalls founder Dale Katechis. “And it made our beer immensely portable for outdoor enjoyment fun.” Katechis and his crew then discovered other bennies of aluminum cans. “Cans keep beer incredibly fresh by fully protecting it from light and oxygen.”

And unlike cans of old, the modern aluminum can is lined with a coating so beer and metal never touch. Cans are also easier to recycle, free of glass breakage issues, and less fuel-consuming to ship. (35% of the weight of a bottle of beer is the bottle itself.)

I have yet to find one of their beers with any hint of what I think of as canned taste, so I’m inclined to take them at their word.  It is still a little weird, though I do enjoy the fact that I can sip a Ten FIDY at my apartment complex’s pool.

As for the beer itself, take a look at this beauty.

(Thanks to Chad M. and the good folks at Oskar Blues for the images in this post.)

Ten FIDY clocks in at 9.5% ABV, making it a nice heavy beer.**  It pours like a kind of thick coffee that you can’t see through, and it tastes delicious.  This is one of my favorites as well, and it has a very smooth mouthfeel to it and a very malty nose.  I’m a sucker for a beer with good nose (the aroma you get off the top of a nicely poured glass, which is noticeably absent in T&A beers).  I can definitely taste the hint of chocolate and caramel, and I love the “coated” feeling this one leaves in your mouth after you take a sip.  There is definitely a little bit more sweetness here than in some of my other favorite beers, but FIDY does well to toe the line without crossing over into super-sugar-insanity. 

As for predictions – I think this one has a shot to take home the title.  I picked FIDY to lose a close match in the finals with Breakfast Stout, but there is no reason this can’t pull out the win.  They have a tough road to the finals; both Southern Tier and Brooklyn Black are similar styles, and they’ll have to take on  one of them in round 2, and I suspect they’ll have to get by BORIS the Crusher in the semis. 

You can get FIDY at nice beer stores in NC and MD.  I’m still waiting for the day when I can go to my favorite bar and see this though.

Someday we’ll get there.  Someday.  Flying Saucer, I’m looking at you.  Make it happen.

** Update from Chad M. at Oskar Blues – Ten FIDY is indeed now brewing at 10.5%.  The can I was looking at while posting this in was old and had an ABV posted at 9.5%.  Not sure how old that makes my can (I bought it two days ago), but on a side note, I can confirm that even apparently older cans of FIDY don’t pick up any taste from the can.  The beer is still great.

Introducing Contestants – Founders Breakfast Stout

The Contestants, of course, are the beers – they’re the ones competing for the grand prize of… well, being the tastiest.  I’ll be doing a quick profile of each of the tournament hopefuls as May Day approaches, as well as intros to each of the judges.

To start off the introductions, we’ll start with one of my favorites (and my pick to take it all, if you’ll recall), Founders Breakfast Stout.

(Thanks to Dave E. & the good folks at Founders for sending me the nice pic of Breakfast Stout)

Founders Brewing Company is a Grand Rapids, MI based craft brewery that has been around since 1990 with a mission to make interesting, complex beers that beer lovers will love.  There’s a bunch of other stuff to be found in their portfolio of beers, but Breakfast Stout was the only one we put in the tournament (because I couldn’t get my hands on any of the hyper-rare, hyper-awesome Kentucky Breakfast Stout anywhere other than the Flying Saucer, and sadly they wouldn’t let me take the keg home).  You can get most of the Founders beers at Total Wine here in Raleigh (I recommend the North Hills and Brier Creek locations), though God help you if you’re looking in Maryland.  Never tried to find it in DC or Virginia.

Founders Breakfast Stout is a wonderfully flavored, malty, chocolaty, coffee-y, oatmealy stout.  Hence the name; it really tastes like a smorgasbord of all those things, which definitely gives the feeling of “breakfast” to me.  I’ve always thought malt tastes like non-sugary cereal, so perhaps I’m odd in that respect.  It clocks in at a respectable 8.3% ABV.  That sounds high if you’re a T&A beer fan (anybody with commercials involving… well… T&A), but for those of us on the high-end beer circuit, that’s middle-of-the-road.  It’s easy to drink and the alcohol doesn’t really impact the taste.

The reason this one stands above the rest to me is the balance of the flavors.  There are a lot of chocolate stouts, a lot of coffee stouts, and a lot of oatmeal stouts, many of which have some flavorings from the others, but I’ve never found another one that balances them all quite so well.  This also avoids the trap that some flavored stouts fall into where they are absolutely overpoweringly sweet.  There’s always a certain sweetness to a malty beer, and stouts are known for so being, but you can go too far.  I had a vanilla stout from a brewery that I was otherwise a fan of (I forget exactly which) one time and it was just sickening.  Liquid sugar is not what I want in my beers.

Announcing the first ever Tournament of Stouts!

To begin this blog, I am announcing the first ever Tournament of Stouts, to be held on the first day of May, 2010.  This will indeed be an epic brawl – 16 stouts enter, only one emerges as the supreme champion of Stout beer.  The entrants were selected based on a number of criteria, but mostly the following.


1. I could find them by searching through a handful of excellent specialty beer stores in Maryland, the District of Columbia, or North Carolina.


2.  They are classified as Stouts.  This is a fairly simple thing to validate; the most this is pushed is to include the excellent Allagash Black, described as a Belgian stout on various sites.  Other than this one, I’ve never seen a Belgian Stout, and I thought it vital to include.  Incidentally – in case Rob Tod (owner/founder of Allagash, with whom I’ve drank and chatted twice at events in Richmond and DC) is reading this, it’s an absolute crime that you can’t buy Allagash Black by the bottle in Raleigh, NC.  Can you please bitch-slap your distributors to get that to the Raleigh area?  Total Wine is the easiest and most popular store to get it into, and I would totally buy a bottle every week or so.


3. I must not hate them.


4. They must not be insanely expensive.  There was only one beer disqualified for this reason, though I’m still tempted to include it if I can get a few people to go in on enough to make the tourney.


I’ve decided to seed the beers by price per ounce – if you cost more, then in theory you taste better, right?  We’ll put that to the test once and for all. I’ll be introducing you to the judges later in this blog; the only firm requirement is that you’re a fan of stouts.  In no way will this be a world-famous grouping of beer gourmands (at least, not until after this blog gets world famous, which it totally will).  I’ll also be introducing you to the contestants (the stouts).  There will be more tournaments like this in the future, perhaps leading to a final four beers of various types; we’ll see.  Right now, we’re judging stouts in a 16 stout single-elimination tourney.


The rules of the Tournament of Stouts:


1. For each matchup, every judge must drink at least one ounce (I’m hoping to find convenient disposable cups for two-ounce pours) and have a glass from which to smell the nose of the beer.  You have to actually swallow beer to properly taste it, unlike wine, so drinking is required.


2. In the event that the voting is tied (there is no restriction on the number of judges to force that number to be odd), the winner is the beer with the cheaper PPO (price per ounce) rating.  If the beers are still tied, everyone keeps drinking samples until a winner can be decided (though such a close vote is carefully documented).


3. No judge should be drunk at any time during the process.  Many of these beers are high proof, but be careful to judge as sober as possible.  You don’t have to be in driving shape the whole time, but you should be coherent and able to take notes on the finer points of the taste and smell of whatever you are drinking.  Our judges will be provided with saltines, pretzels, and water during the judging process.


4.  All judging must be done blind.  By blind, I mean that you absolutely must not know which matchup you are tasting.  The judge only decides between beer A and beer B, not specific breweries or brews.  Doing otherwise could introduce a bias.  Note that this requires you go through the semifinals and finals before finding out who won the semis; otherwise you would know who you were judging in the final matchup.  The semis have beers A vs B and C vs D, and then the winners battle it out (as do the losers, in case you want a 3rd place beer) before the losers are announced. 


With those rules in place, here are the preliminary seedings for the 2010 tourney.  The number beside each is the PPOz rating (price per ounce multiplied by 1000.  Why multiplied by 1000?  Because it makes the numbers prettier, naturally).

1. Schafly Reserve – 591
2. Southern Tier Choklat – 528
3. Hoppin Frog BORIS the Crusher Oatmeal Stout - 500
4. Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti – 453
5. Allagash Black – 433
6. Thirsty Dog Siberian Nights – 416
7. Oskar Blues Ten FIDY – 354
8. Weyerbacher Heresy Imp Stout – 250
9. Young's Double Chocolate Stout – 236
10. Sam Smith Imperial Stout – 235
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

First, a note about how the PPOz was determined.  I purchased the beers at various stores and used the highly scientific price (before tax) divided by ounces purchased to determine this rating.  It’s entirely possible that wherever you are, Guinness is cheaper.  I don’t really care; it would be wonderful if we had a sampling of places where all of these could be regularly found, and then averaged the PPOz rating for them. I am going through a lot of effort to get this tournament together, but driving to dozens of beer stores throughout the mid-atlantic / northern southeast region of the US to find stats on average prices is out of my reach/desire. 


Second, there absolutely are notable omissions from this list.  There may be one or two changes before the tourney starts.  I’m particularly keen to ditch one of the Sam Smiths to avoid having two beers by the same brewery, so something is likely to change.  As far as why things were omitted, see the (far) above listing for why I included/excluded things.  If you think a beer should have been included, please, please comment. I’ll do my best to include it next time.  I know that not all of these are in the same league, but I felt it would be patently silly not to include, for example, Guinness, to see how well the cheaper beers would do (and the cheap ones are not necessarily the ones I personally don’t think will make it very far).


I wish I could have included De Molen’s Hel et Verdomenis (Hell and Damnation), but at over $1 an ounce, I simply couldn’t justify buying a whole lot of it for a party.  That may change (and it would easily be the new #1 seed, having a rating of 1103), but for now it’s out.


The intro to each judge will include their guesses as to who will win the whole shebang, but I’ll go ahead and list mine for good measure.  For those that provide them ahead of time (and I’ll try to get this from everyone), I’ll post their prediction brackets.  The matchups are shown below.
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1 - Schafly Reserve - 591
16 - Guinness - 125
8 - Weyerbacher Heresy Imp Stout - 250
9 - Young's Double Chocolate Stout - 236
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5 - Allagash Black - 433
12 - Sam Adams Imperial Stout - 229
4 - Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti - 453
13 - Founders Breakfast Stout - 208
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3 - Hoppin Frog BORIS the Crusher Oatmeal Stout - 500
14 - North Coast Old Rasputin - 208
6 - Thirsty Dog Siberian Nights - 416
11 - Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout – 235
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7 - Oskar Blues Ten FIDY - 354
10 - Sam Smith Imperial Stout - 235
2 - Southern Tier Choklat - 528
15 - Brooklyn Black Chocolate - 166
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Of these, I feel like the favorites are Allagash Black, Founders Breakfast, and Oskar Blues Ten FIDY.  My personal bracket has Founders over Oskar Blues in the final, though I think that Allagash ought to finish 2nd or 3rd;  I just see it having a hard time getting past my favorite to win it all, Founders Breakfast Stout, in the 2nd round.  I also think Oak Aged Yeti got a particularly crappy draw; they deserve to make it out of the first round, but as it stands I don’t see how they’ll do it.  Schafly makes the semis here in a walk, but I think only because of the favorable seeding.  I don’t see Heresy or Young’s Double Chocolate making much noise beyond round 1.  My big-time upset alert is Brookly Black Chocolate v. Southern Tier Choklat -  BBC is quite good, and could easily overtake its (far more expensive) opponent.  That should be a fun one to watch.  With these brackets, I see BORIS the Crusher ending up 3rd, which is fairly close to where I’d rank them by personal preference; I’d have them either 3rd or 4th, with the rest of the top four rounded out by Founders Breakfast, Ten FIDY, and Allagash Black (in no particular order). 


Anyhow, further brackets, predictions, judges, and beers will be introduced as this blog goes on.  I hope you all enjoy the tourney as much as I will being the judge.


Duff Out.