Pangaea: Not Just Any Super Continent

Hey Gang!

Wow it's been awhile since our last post but we're back in a serious way! Moving to a new place sure takes some time to get everything set up but now that we're in good shape we've got our own home brews on the way. That's right, in conjunction with Good Brew Hunting I'll be starting my home brews under the Rayje Brewing name but with the same bulls-eye Good Brew Hunting logo. Once our first batch, the .38 Amber, is ready to drink we'll be doing tastings from both room temperature and cold conditioned bottles over several months to gauge the flavor. I hope to be as hard on myself as I am on other beers as I expect the same level of flavor from myself as other craft breweries (obviously on a smaller and INITIALLY less sophisticated level). Stay tuned!

What better way to get back in to the beer tasting spirit than to go out on a cultural limb with Dogfish Head's Pangaea! We've reviewed Midas Touch awhile ago and while I wasn't the biggest fan of the beer, I applauded Dogfish Head  for their bravery as conjurers of beer recipes. Pangaea is one of their unique "Occasional Rarities" and the ingredients are quite varied. A dash of flavors from the 7 continents (Antarctic water, Australian crystallized ginger, Asian basmati rice, African muscavado sugar, South American quinoa, European yeast, and North American maize) were enough to peak my interest and give it a shot.

The color (a yellow gold with hint of amber), carbonation (tiny bubbles instead of any head) and smell (there's more than a hint of wine in her) made me ask myself if I poured a chardonnay. The bottle recommends a snifter or wine glass but I have those rad martini glasses and I think it gives it the appropriate breathing room. Can't wait to find out what's beneath this complicated continent.

Wow...So lets roll back to my review of Midas Touch. I recall saying it was a wine trying to wear beer clothing. This time, we have the opposite problem/flavor combinations.  This is a beer dressed as a wine. Everything going in to this beer told me to expect a heavy wine flavor. Not the case. At the start there is the tiniest of wine influence what I would attribute to the fusion of ginger in to the other six ingredients. From there we enter into a wit bier (European yeast and quinoa are most likely the culprits here). Maybe that Antarctic water is who I can thank for the refreshing beginning and end to the beer. Oh, and somehow that wine influence returns at the end, waiting behind a corner to pop out and surprise me before it completely left my palate.

Surprisingly refreshing, incredibly complex yet simple and elegance. The bottle intimidates like a Beethoven symphony but you're romanticized by Stravinsky violin elegance. I can't imagine a more perfect harmony of several ingredients to complete a unique beer from beginning to end. I was expecting originality but not perfection from Dogfish Head in this beer but, for what it is, that's what they've given me. I'm only too happy to reward Pangaea with a Scottish PINTRS score. Till next time!

Shipyard Sets Sail

Hello all!

Today we've got one of the more popular of the craft breweries (at least in New England), Shipyard Brewing Company.  A brewery with it's roots grown deep in Maine, the brewery has some serious success throughout the country and is able to boast a 38 state market.  That's no small feat for a craft brewery and today I picked up their flagship (no pun intended) beer, the Shipyard Export Ale.

Shipyard Export is hard to miss on your local liquor store's shelf.  It's label is very matter-of-fact and looks classy not cheesy.  Shipyard Brewing Company provides some great in-depth information on each of their brews, including a specific breakdown of hops, yeast, and malt used. It's described as lightly sweet, subtle, and clean at the finish. Do they pull it off?

Ignoring the strange curvature of this photo, the color is really quite pretty. It's sharp and golden color is inviting and it is devoid of smell. On first taste you'll want to draw comparisons to a flagship ale of one of the Big 3. However, take some more time with it. It's definitely refreshing, but there is a lot of subtle flavor to discover. There are slight citrus undertones with the sweetness, quite flavorful but homely simple all in the same.

Maybe not full in flavor, but easy to drink with plenty of flavor to last throughout the glass.  Maybe the name is affecting me, but this really is the perfect beer for a clam boil. I'm comfortable in giving it a UK PINTRS rating, as it is a great flagship ale for a brewery that has a lot of depth. Consider this a nice tip to a bigger iceberg.

A Placid IPA

Hello all!  We're going back to Lake Placid Brewing Company to give their Lake Placid IPA a shot. Again, I recommend checking out their website as the story behind the brewery, especially their Ubu Ale, is pretty cool.

The IPA selection from Lake Placid Brewing Company has the same logo as their Ubu Ale but with color variations.  I'm partial to how they've designed the labels across their selections as it makes them very recognizable regardless which beer but is also subtle enough to differentiate from the four selections they offer.

The IPA has very little smell after pouring, with a large head that settles quickly.  It's color is a darker-than-amber variation in the IPA category. Lake Placid Brewing Company describes this IPA as overloaded with American hops. If by overloaded they mean tame, then yes. Seriously, this IPA is much more refreshing than I originally expected and was somewhat light on the hops.  This could be the kind of American hops used (sorry, no further information there). In either case, they did successfully manage to create a balanced IPA. Along with the balance is a pleasant but slight malt sweetness.

There isn't much else going on in this IPA but I think as IPAs go it's a nice selection to have, especially for the casual IPA drinker.  It's hard to pull off a subtle and flavorful IPA.  Not quite as good as it's Ubu Ale, the Lake Placid IPA earns itself a UK PINTRS score.

Ubu is more than just an Adirondack

Evening all!

Tonight we begin the first of two reviews of the Lake Placid Brewing Company. Lake Placid Brewing Company is the culmination of two people who loved the craft of beer and took up residence in a small pub in (you guessed it) the village of Lake Placid.  The flagship beer of the brewery, Ubu Ale, will be the subject of tonight's review.  This is, literally, a presidential beer and I highly recommend checking out the Lake Placid Brewing Company website for the full story.  After reading it, I was excited to see what could be so special in this bottle (though, given the president in question and his taste in women, perhaps I should have approached it a little more cautiously...)

Now that you see the label of the beer (and if you know what an Adirondack village is) you know where I went with the title.  It's simple yet effective.  This is the flagship of the brewery and it stands on it's own two feet.  The label is a little 'busy' if I want to get picky.  A solid tone label with the Adirondack chair and the title would help it stand out a bit.  Now what's under the cap?

You'll notice the beer has little to no head.  I was somewhat surprised at that considering it's described as an English Strong Ale and I would expect a little bit more in such an ale.  The smell was very distinct to stat with, first with a molasses sweet smell with the scent of chocolate.  This quickly faded to the background and provided a hint of the smell for the rest of the tasting.

Upon taste, I was impressed with the smooth, rich, malt flavor.  Described by Lake Placid Brewing Company as deep garnet red but really looking more brown, it certainly delivered on the flavor I would expect with a beer of reddish hue.  It reminded me of dark chocolate; balanced in sweetness and bitterness that felt genuine.  When the beer is described as being complimented by just the right amount of English hops I have to agree.  Hardly over powering but certainly there in adding depth to the beer.  The beer left behind a stickiness which resembled a scotch ale both on my palate and in the glass but with less bite.  

This beer belongs beside you, certainly in an Adirondack chair, relaxing by the camp fire or as a colder day on the beach begins to end.  It's much more refreshing than it's darker hues would suggest, and it has a level of complexity which is astounding given it's relatively simple ingredients and description from Lake Placid Brewing Company.  The beer deserves a French on the PINTRS and I can't wait to drink the rest of them!

Hurricane Kitty Lacks a Category

Good evening all!  First a little admin news.  My blog was recently reviewed! Check out the review at The Kindle Blog Report to see the review.  Now, on to today's review.

We're sampling another brew from the Keegan Ales.  Last time I was more than pleased with their Mother's Milk and today we're trying Hurricane Kitty.

Hurricane Kitty is billed as an India Pale Ale (IPA).  Keegan Ales gives a great description of the beer's history and flavor, so I'll display that here:

"This brew is a coppery and heavily hopped India Pale Ale. Named after brewmaster Keegan’s grandmother whose driving earned her quite a reputation with local police racing her six children to and from a local Long Island beach ferry during the 1960′s, Hurricane Kitty is the undisputed family favorite. We try to make the hop bill read as aggressively as her driver’s record."


With a beer that has as rich a history as this one I was quite excited to see what makes Hurricane Kitty different than your run-of-the-mill IPA.

The aroma of the beer was nothing unexpected.  There was a tinge of sweetness along with some citrus backgrounds.  The Frosted Mug states the beer's head hangs around much longer than you'd expect.  Seeing this for myself was pretty interesting.  It's not a large head but it certainly hangs there and adds to the taste on the first swallow.  The color is a deep coppery color, so still nothing too surprising here.

About that first taste.  The IPA flavor is dead on with the exception of refreshness.  The beer has a very distinct bitter citrus flavor which will hang around your taste buds for awhile.  There's also the malt sugar flavor interlaced within this bitterness but it doesn't come through quite strong and is well overpowered by the bitterness.

This is definitely an IPA, but nothing else.  Where Mother's Milk was unique and flavorful, Hurricane Kitty is predictable and found lacking.  I don't hate the beer, so I'll be given it a US PINTR in the system.  I just wish there was something more, or something more unique, to enjoy.

Son of a Peach with a Pit

Hey brew lovers!  We're back with another iteration of Good Brew Hunting.  Our schedule is set and ready for new posts at least once a week so make sure to stay on top of us as the weeks go by.

This weeks review hails from the RJ Rockers brewery from Spartansburg, South Carolina.  If I rated beers on websites alone, RJ Rockers gets high marks for both website design and content.  I won't steal their thunder, but I highly recommend visiting the RJ Rockers website and perusing their various tabs.  I was really intrigued by their focus on sustainability.  The best beers are represented by wholesome natural ingredients and it seems like RJ Rockers really has an appreciation for the craft.  Now for the beer!

Today's selection is RJ Rockers's Son of a Peach American wheat ale, a Gold Medal winner at the Los Angeles International Commercial Beer Competition in the Fruit Wheat Beer category.  As is the case with their website, RJ Rockers deserves high marks for their bottle/label design.  That peach sure looks like an angry S.O.B. and it would really stand out when stacked aside an aisle of craft beer selections.

(Sorry about these angled photos, must have been that East Coast earthquake tilting my equilibrium!)

I was impressed when I popped the top of this brew.  The color of the beer in this picture really doesn't do it full justice.  It had a fleshier tone, dare I say closer to a peach color.  I was thrown off a bit by the amount of sediment I saw but I wasn't completely surprised.  A bit of sediment in an American wheat ale isn't all that strange, but it is something you will notice when pouring.  The aroma tempted me with the peach fruit ale I was promised on this label.  It had a wonderful sweet peach smell that was really more reminiscent of a dessert than just the fruit itself.

The taste...left something to be desired.  Maybe it was the smell that had me expecting more from this brew.  It certainly was complex, but I'm not sure it was complex in a good way.  It was a light beer and was certainly more of an American wheat ale than anything else.  Granted, that's exactly how it's sold on the bottle.  When you smell that aroma though you will most likely get stumped by the actual taste.  It just doesn't carry over the sweetness I would've expected.  There really is very little fruit flavor inside the beer but definitely had the light but noticeable aftertaste of a white or wheat beer.

This beer is going to get a US PINTRS rating.  It's a light summer beer that will appeal to the general mass, but I felt like this was a missed opportunity.  RJ Rockers had the chance to really make a fusion beer with very positive complex flavors working and it just didn't happen.  It's like an unripened peach;  refreshing but not nearly as good as it could be.  I look forward to more beers from this brewery thought as they have the right mentality for an American craft brewery that's sure to breed success.

120 Pulls a 1080

We've talked about Dogfish Head brewery before.  They've been able to establish themselves as a US-wide high quality craft brewery that happens to have a few alehouses (where I highly recommend sitting down and grabbing a bite with your brew).  They have a few of what they call "Occasional Varieties" in their beer selection.  The one we're tasting today is the 120 Minute IPA.  I highly recommend checking out the Dogfish Head video regarding 120 Minute IPA.

The labels from Dogfish Head are well done and each of their selections stand out well against each other. There's still not much style to the outside of the bottle, but it speaks of an gentlemanly elegance.  Does what's in the bottle match up?

You'll see I poured in a pilsner-like glass, which I knew was not for this beer's ilk. But I like continuity and you can see the fullness of the beer when stood up within this glass. If a beer could pour like molasses this one would have.  There was a syrupy-thickness to the pour which was further emphasized by the overpowering aroma as the beer was poured out.  The smell of this IPA permeated throughout my bedroom with a pungent, malty alcohol wafer that's sure to intimidate.  On to the taste.

And what a first taste it was.  If we're talking about beers who can TKO just about any other beer, this is it. There's nothing really like this beer, and you can tell from it's strength just how much an impact being aged a whole month with whole-leaf hops has.  My palate felt like this was a beer that had nuzzled up with a warm whiskey barrel and comes out wanting to show the kinds of mountains beers can climb. Syrupy, sticky sweetness which sits in your mouth (and a slap of hardcore alcohol which warms the blood) on every taste.

After a few sips, I switched the glass.  My glass selection is somewhat lacking but this particular martini glass worked great as I was able to keep the beer at just the right cold temperature I wanted. My recommendation? Find this beer, buy it, and age it a little more too. I love this beer as an after dinner drink.  Drinking this in a nice snifter glass, 120 Minute IPA belongs rick with that high backed dark leather chair with an ABV that can light it's own pipe. Complicated brilliance in a bottle, this commands a Scottish PINTRS score.  Be warned, this beer will kick your ass and not feel bad about it.