Session # 107 | Rodenbach | Grand Cru | 6% ABV
Flanders Red Sour Ale | Roeselare, Belgium | Rating: 96/100
While not my favorite style of beer yet, the sour ale is slowly creeping up the food chain for me. The beer we’ll be looking at today, Rodenbach Grand Cru, is a very good reason for this. I have been looking for a bottle for at least a year now, and it’s been a long time coming on the show. Well here we are — I finally got it because of a recent visit to Minneapolis. Man I love traveling to other states in my car! Anyway…
The Rodenbach Grand Cru is a Flemish Red, which are known for having that puckering sourness paired with delicious tart fruits like cherries, apples, and pears. They’re commonly referred to as the “vinegar beers,” which, in truth, is not far off from what you smell and taste. The Grand Cru is also aged in large oak vats (seen here), for two years and then blended with younger ale to make for a more balanced and enjoyable experience. In this case, 67% is aged in oak while the remaining 33% is considered “young ale.” Even with the blending process, you can certainly taste the oak character in the beer.
Grand Cru pours a beautifully deep mahogany red with a nice amount of off-white head. The aroma hits your nose before you even get your nose to the glass. It’s filled with tons of sour cherry, tart apple, red wine vinegar, light caramel, and a healthy amount of oak. The taste is not much different (which is always fine with me). It hits you hard up front with the green apple and tart cherry paired with tons of red wine vinegar. The oak, while not predominant, plays a huge role. Though it may be a sour ale, it’s quite refreshing and one hell of an experience. I like this one a lot.
Session # 106 | Pretty Things | Jack D’Or | 6.5% ABV
Saison / Farmhouse Ale | Cambridge, MA | Rating: 94/100
Preface: I want to immediately call out the fact that I realize there is a huge fuzzy on the top of my hair in this video. I also had a tiny visitor later in the video. That’s the joy of reviewing in one steady take. Obviously I didn’t realize I had the fuzzy until AFTER the review. Hopefully it is not as distracting to you (the viewer) as it is me (the creator). But since this is the only bottle of Jack D’Or I have, we’ll just have to laugh about it and move on.
Fuzzy aside… I would have to say that Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, does some of the best labels in the business. I really respect the extra step they take to place labels over the caps of their bottles that clearly call out the batch numbers and bottling dates (as can be seen here). Talk about a brewery with integrity. Jack D’Or, which is the brewery’s Saison / Farmhouse Ale, is no different and I can tell you that this bottle is batch number 10 that was bottled in November 2009. When I opened this beer just before filming, it immediately began to foam out of the top of the bottle. That’s generally a really good sign of bottle conditioning (as most Farmhouse Ales are). So getting it into a glass pretty quickly was a must, and boy is it a nice looking Saison with tons of pillowy, meringue-like, off-white head. In fact, you don’t have to pour this one very hard to see how quickly the head jumps to the top of the glass.
The color, while somewhat hazy, is a nice orange and yellow. Before I even take my first sip of the beer, I am already seeing a great amount of lacing on the glass – much like you’d see from an Orval for example. The nose is spot on for a Saison. There is a good amount of spice that comes from the yeast they use. There are also four different hops in this beer that put off aromas of phenols, caramelized banana, lemon, and funk. The taste is the real winner in this beer. Up front there is a ton of lemon that hits the front of your tongue which unfolds quickly into some grassiness and funky yeast tastes. It finishes every bit as dry as you’d hope, too. Overall this really is a great representation of the style and right up there with some of the best Saisons I’ve had. I will definitely be looking for some more of these (and others from the brewery) in the future. Up next: Rodenbach Grand Cru
Others: Boulevard Saison Brett, Saison Dupont, Ommegang Hennepin
Check out all sessions of The Hopry here.
This beer can be found in these states.
On the iPod: Beck “Bad Blood”
Click here for the handlebar mustache cutout. Thank you for your continued support. Please tell a friend…
I don’t think I’ve ever done this on The Hopry, but I wanted to take a quick moment to share a beer blog with you that I’ve been obsessing over for a few weeks now. It’s called Beer Paintings, which is a blog dedicated to the sale (and potential commissioning) of beer art. All you have to do is take one glance through Cara Thayer and Louie Van Patten’s page to see there is some real talent going on here. If you have a moment to spare (which I know you do), hop on over by clicking here to take a look.
Session # 105 | Dark Horse | Reserve Special | 7.5% ABV
American Strong Ale | Marshall, MI | Rating: 90/100
Here we are wrapping up another week of craft beer where we focus on a specific brewery. This week was Dark Horse and I chose to focus on a few of their stouts. Though you will notice this beer today is not classified a stout, it is virtually stout-like in every way. This is the brewery’s American Strong Ale called Reserve Special Black Bier. I first became aware of it a couple years ago when Draft Magazine listed it as one of their Top 25 Beers of 2008. Of course I had to purchase a few and enjoyed one last year and held on to the other two until now. Reserve Special is a very interesting beer because it really is a Stout or Porter in my mind. It pours black, has a light tan head, and smells every bit as dark and molasses-y as you’d expect from these two styles. The nose is much more elegant than the other two beers from this week. In fact, I could really smell this beer for a long time. Even though I pull out things like dank leather shoes, smoky malts, caramel, and molasses it tastes better than it sounds. Ultimately it has that signature Dark Horse taste that I’ve come to learn over the last week, but it’s clearly the winner for me and the only one I would recommend going out of your way for. Up Next: Pretty Things Jack D’Or
Others: Dark Horse Fore, Surly Smoke, ØlfabrikkenPorter
Check out all sessions of The Hopry here.
This beer can be found in these states.
On the iPod: Arcade Fire “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”
Thank you for your continued support. Please tell a friend…
Session # 104 | Dark Horse | Fore | 8% ABV
American Smoked Stout | Marshall, MI | Rating: 88/100
It’s becoming fairly evident at this point that Dark Horse stouts generally taste the same. On the surface, they all share the same dark malt characteristic that puts off a damp cave aroma and taste. On one hand, this is a good thing because it gives Dark Horse a signature taste. However, with the number of stouts they produce in this Holiday Stout Series, each one is not distinctive enough to really stand out among the other releases. Today’s beer, the Fore Smoked Stout, pours exactly like the Too Cream Stout we looked at on Monday. On the nose, you get a lot of the same characters you find in the Too, which is dark roasted malts, earthiness, and damp cave. The only difference in the Fore is a fair amount of smokiness coming from the malts. A touch of booziness finishes off the nose. As the first drink hits your tongue you immediately notice that this is a bit more viscous than the Too, which I certainly am thankful for. The smoke is immediately apparent in the mouth, as is a good amount of molasses, chocolate, and burnt caramel. As you dig deeper, though, there’s a bit of tartness that comes from the depths of the beer that makes you think of chocolate covered raisins. Again, not the best stout I’ve had, but we’re definitely moving in the right direction. Of the three that I’ve had thus far, I still prefer the Tres the best. Feel free to go back and watch that one now if you’d like (just click here). See you back here on Friday when we’ll be wrapping up Dark Horse Week with one of their better offerings. Up Next: Dark Horse Special Reserve Black Bier.
