Style: Red IPA
Menu description: Sweet malts, hint of caramel, some citrus.
ABV: 7%
Tasting notes: Good IPA, slightly more bitter than Sierra Nevada, but also with some faint sweet notes. Interesting red color.
Rating: 3/5
Beer Review #48: Clown Shoes Clementine
Style: Belgian Witbier
Menu description: Orange peel & pepper, grassy hops.
ABV: 6%
Tasting notes: Not much to say here. This is like a cross between Blue Moon & Hoegarden. It’s citrus ans wheat and very smooth. A pretty mild, but enjoyable beer.
Rating: 3.5/5
Beer Review #47: Woodchuck Pear Cider
Style: Cider
Menu description: Sweet, lightly carbonated.
ABV: 4%
Tasting notes: This has an extremely light flavor and a very light, crisp feel. You can taste the pear, but it’s faint. I can’t even say that this is terribly sweet. Compare it to Angry Orchard’s standard Apple Cider and you’d think the Woodchuck people are entirely unfamiliar with sugar. I actually don’t mind the lack of sugar or sweetness or even think it’s necessarily a bad thing, except for two problems. First, there’s almost no other flavor other than the hint of pear. If the pear was stronger, it would be fine. Second, the Woodchuck website claims that this is a very sweet cider and that has not been my experience any of the half dozen times I’ve tried it. All that said, it’s not really bad. It’s good for novice drinkers or anyone else who doesn’t want anything strong or heavy.
Rating: 3/5
Beer Review #46: Krombacher Pilsner
Style: German pilsner
Menu description: Germany’s number one selling premier pilsner. Grassy notes, grainy pine malts, crisp.
ABV: 4.8%
Tasting notes: This has a nice sweet malt aroma. It’s slightly sweet, but predominantly tastes of a grass infused…. Pilsner flavor? I don’t know quite how to describe it. Most pilsners seem to me to have a characteristic flavor that I haven’t tasted elsewhere. It’s got a malt backbone, but is pretty light and sort of herbal. There’s a dryness to it as well. This has a strong carbonation, which helps support its crisp feel. The aftertaste is slightly metallic, which I’m not a fan of. It’s not bad for a pilsner, but it’s still a pilsner, so I’m not really a big fan.
Rating: 3/5
Beer Review #45: Goose Island Sofie
Style: Belgian Saison
Menu description: Tart fruits, clove & pepper, clean & fresh.
ABV: 6.5%
Tasting notes: A tart but tasty finish. This has a fairly sweet, banana tinged aroma. That banana scent doesn’t carry over to the flavor, however. It’s a bit spiced and has a very mild citrus feel to it. There’s some sweetness to the flavor as well. It’s crisp and finishes with only a little bit of an aftertaste. Said aftertaste is a nice combo between sweet and tart. This has a light body and the carbonation takes a back seat.
Rating: 4.5/5
Beer Review #44: Dogfish Head My Antonia
Style: American Imperial Pilsner
Menu description: Grassy hops, earthy hint of citrus & pepper.
ABV: 7.5%
Tasting notes: Definitely more earthy than anything else, but not bad. It’s not great, and not one of Dogfish’s best efforts, but it’s OK.
Fun fact: I reviewed this back in late 2011 or early 2012 and the above is all I wrote. I really should have taken better notes back then because a bunch of beers from my early reviewing years have sparse notes. I guess this fact is actually not that fun.
Rating: 3/5
Beer Review #43: Troegs Troegenator Double Bock
Style: German Doppelbock
Menu description: Hints of banana, sweet bread, malty flavors.
ABV: 8.2%
Tasting notes: Delightful! There’s a bit of tartness at the end, but it’s not a bad thing. It’s got some solid banana notes with a bit of wheat blended in. The flavor isn’t quite banana bread as there’s a good bit more tartness and bitterness to it, but it’s very enjoyable all the same.
Rating: 4/5
Beer Review #42: Hacker-Pschorr Hubertus Bock
Style: Helles Bock / Maibock
Menu description: Toasty malt flavors, hints of fruit & floral hops. Notes of toffee, caramel, and honey lead to a dry finish.
ABV: 8.7%
Tasting Notes: This is quite good! The flavor is light and airy. It’s got a nice aroma, seems like the floral notes in the beer influence it greatly. There’s a very, very light amount of bitterness in the aftertaste. There’s a slightly sweet taste to it and again I’m surprised that this is another beer with toasted malt flavor that isn’t terrible! I’ve not had good luck with beers that have some variation of “toasty malt flavor” in their description.
Rating: 3.75/5
Beer Review #41: Waterzooi Grand Cru
Style: Belgian Tripel
Menu description: Candied sugar & banana flavors, floral aroma.
ABV: 9%
Tasting Notes: It’s not bad, but not great. It’s solid and feels like a high end big brewery beer. If Bud or Miller made beers like this, I’d actually drink them.
Fun fact: This was made for a local restaurant named Waterzooi, which is owned by the same people who own Croxley’s. Also, it’s made by the same brewery that makes Gulden Draak!
Rating: 3/5
Beer Review #40: Common Roots Daylight
Style: Imperial IPA.
ABV: 8%
My thoughts: Mild hop scent. And that’s about the best I can say about it. It tastes like a chemical spill. I guess it has an aftertaste who knows make it stop I am going to drink this as fast as possible and forget it ever existed.
Rating: 0/5
Brewery website: Common Roots Brewing Company
