As I mentioned previously, no promises on how long this blog will last. Also as I had previously mentioned, school has kept me too busy to spend time here.
That said, I plan to continue this, but with a new focus:

Beer

I know, I know, this site already is a beer site. Here’s the difference though: this has been unintentional. I have been posting the things that I have been finding interesting. Unintentionally, this has been about beer. I am now intentionally planning on solely writing about beer.

The next obvious question, is why?

I like beer. Specifically craft beer. The stuff that consists of multiple types of grain and hops and the beers that actually taste like it came from plants. In my opinion, beer has a far wider span of taste qualities than any other alcohol. Yes even wine.

But more than that, I like drinking beer with friends and family. This is the way alcohol is meant to be enjoyed. It is meant to bring people together, to laugh and enjoy each others company. Yes, alcohol can be easily abused and can tear people apart. But when used in responsible moderation, it brings people together.

The craft beer community specifically is about bringing people together. Craft beer consists of only 5% of all beer sales. The other 95% go to only 2 companies: Anheuser-Bush InBev and SABMiller-Molson Coors (Yes only 2 companies and those are the actual company names after all the merging). Beer, one of the most quintessential American past times, is dominated in America by companies that are not even American (anymore). Because of this domination, craft beer companies solely focus on actual people, as opposed to advertising and money. Attend any beer festival or visit a brewery and you will see exactly what I mean. Having visited the Stone brewery this past week, I saw employees share their passion for the company in their tours and beer descriptions. I saw employees on their lunch break sharing a beers together in the Stone restaurant.

To that end, I want to people to come together and support real American companies. Companies that create art out of their passion as opposed to creating a product as cheap as possible to improve profit margins. When I had my beer tasting party last month, I loved seeing such a large group of people, gathered around 30+ beers and sharing them back and forth, recommending to each other their favorites, laughing and having fun together.

So what does this all mean for this site?

Living in Las Vegas I will primarily focus on craft beer that is distributed to Las Vegas. I will continue my reviews but add recommendations on where to find it for sale in town. When I go to a bar and restaurant in town, I will write about what their beer list looks like and recommend what to order. As I visit some of the local breweries, I will add posts about their beers. On a larger scale, I will write about the beers and breweries that I admire and recommend (did I mention that I visited Stone? I’m still excited about that). I will write about current events in the beer world and how it affects consumers. I often try to find ways to use beer as an ingredient in my cooking so I will add those recipes here too.

On top of all that, I have been planning to start brewing beer and will likely start in the next few months. There will definitely be quite a bit to write about once I start with that.

Eventually, I will change the domain name to something that makes a bit more sense. In the meantime, please give me your thoughts on what you like and don’t like. I don’t want to keep this up just for myself.

ALC/VOL: 7%

Color: Reddish Auburn

Smell: Very hoppy aroma

Feel: Medium body/average carbonation and mouthfeel

Taste:  Strong hop taste. Light citrus finish.

Overall: This is a very good beer. It tastes very similar to Dogfish’s 60 Minute IPA. There’s not a strong apricot taste. It’s present more so in the finish but not in aroma or body. Just lightly citrusy. Despite how good this beer is, I feel like there is little uniqueness compared to 60 Minute IPA to justify the price increase. A four pack of Aprihop costs the same as a six pack of 60 Minute. I might need another to get a definitive opinion. Either way, saying this tastes like 60 Minute is not a bad thing. 60 Minute IPA is the gold standard of IPAs.

ALC/VOL: 4.2%

Color: golden yellow

Smell: Broccoli

Feel: crisp and well carbonated

Taste:  The initial taste is some sort of vegetable. It’s not broccoli. I can’t put my finger on it. The finish is very pilsner like.

Overall: The brewery calls this an aroma hop ale. It definitely has some sort of flowery, vegetable like aromas to it. I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it. It’s not that it’s a bad beer. It is good, but I’m not exactly in the mood for something like this. The problem is, I’m not exactly sure when I’d be in the mood for this. I might be a bit generous with this brewery since I liked their Witty so much. I don’t want to say it’s bad, it’s just unique. And for that I want to commend them for taking a chance with something different. It may be a bit weird, but it’s still a good quality beer.

ALC/VOL: 10%

Color: Black

Smell: Dark chocolate, espresso, burnt toast

Feel: Big foamy head gives this beer a smooth feel. Little to no carbonation.

Taste: Tastes like it smells. The dark roasted malts give this beer a very coffee-like taste.

Overall: Sea Monster is a beer for people who love dark beer. This is a very dark beer. Darker beers are made with malted barley that is roasted longer than the barley used in lighter color beers. Much like the darker coffee roasts, Italian, French or espresso roasts, darker roast beer has a very defined smokey, bitter taste.

This beer is very similar to World Wide Stout that I reviewed earlier. The tastes are almost the same. The main difference being that this has almost half the alcohol content that World Wide Stout has. This gives the beer a less alcohol pungent taste, and a little bit more carbonation. All in all, this is a very good beer.

ALC/VOL: unknown

Color: hazy golden yellow

Smell: lemon/orange citrus, banana, clove

Feel: very light in body texture. Fluffy, foamy head. Very little carbonation.

Taste:  Light and refreshing. Very crisp, clean finish. Tastes like what a Hefeweizen should taste like. Even without a lemon wedge, this taste very lemony, in a good way.

Overall: I’ve never had a hefeweizen I didn’t like and this one is no exception. Definitely an American style hefeweizen. These are typically less carbonated and spiced than the more traditional German hefeweizen. This is very refreshing. I would probably go ahead and say that this is a better hefeweizen than both the popular Pyramid and Widmer hefeweizens!

Imperial stout is a stout beer that is known for it’s higher alcohol content. Most stouts have about a 5% alcohol content. Imperial stout is around 10%. The name comes from the fact that the beer was made in England specifically for the imperial courts in Russia. The higher alcohol content was necessary to ensure that the beer would not freeze en route to it’s icy location.

ALC/VOL: unknown

Color: dark reddish amber. Very cloudy with a lot of sediment at the bottom of the bottle.

Smell: Honey, orange citrus

Feel: very bubbly, almost soda pop level of carbonation

Taste:  Floral, pale ale style hops. Clean after taste.

Overall: The name had me thinking it was going to be a hoppy beer. I’d say the hops were at a pale ale level. As mentioned above, this is a very floral or earthy tasting. Or as my wife says, “tastes like burnt hair.” To each his own.

This was a good beer. I’m running out of descriptive things to say that distinguish this beer from any other…I give up.

ALC/VOL: 5.4%

Color: pale yellow/orange

Smell: orange/lemon citrus, banana

Feel: bubbly, kinda champagne like carbonation

Taste:  lemon/lime citrus. Orange juice aftertaste

Overall: very good and very refreshing. I was a bit worried about this beer. I love white ales like Hoegaarden and New Belgium’s Mothership Wit. However, Blue Moon is also a white ale and I’m not too fond of that. I was sure, however, that this would more like Mothership or Hoegaarden just by seeing the name Witty. In Belgium, white ales are called “witbier.” Hence the name “Witty.” Blue Moon on the other hand, being as it’s just Coors in disguise, calls itself “Belgium style white ale.”

Witty is in between Mothership Wit and Blue Moon, leaning much more heavily towards Mothership. The color was darker and more orange than most witbiers. Honestly, it may rank the same as Mothership Wit being as I haven’t had it in almost a year so my memory may be off. Nonetheless, by the end of the glass, I was wanting more.

In the leaflet that came with my beers it states that Witty won the gold medal in the 2010 World Beer Championships. I can see why. Well done Chameleon Brewery!

Last month it was all about hops. 2 pale ales, an India pale ale and a spicy winter ale. This month is leaning towards the lighter, sweeter ales.
2 wheat ales: a Hefeweizen and a white ale. I love hefe’s and whites (with the exception of Blue Moon!) so I’m excited for these!
The other will be interesting. One is named “Hop On Top” the other is an “Extra Special Bitter” ale however, the descriptions state that neither is overly bitter. They are both supposed to aromatic and lightly sweet. Hmmmmm… We’ll see!
As before, I plan on writing reviews of each of these. Not than any of you will find either of these in Vegas. I mostly do this for my own beer snobbery knowledge!

Last night at the bar it was mentioned that many people don’t realize how many different types of beer there are. I thought I’d give a brief overview:
To simplify things, there are primarily two different types of beer: Ales and Lagers. At the most basic level, the difference between the two is the type of yeast used to ferment the beer. Lager yeast ferments at colder temperatures and ale yeast ferments at higher temperatures. Lagers and ales break down even further into different types of beers.
Lager:
This is the most prominent type of beer simply because this is the kind of beer that Budweiser, Miller and Coors are. Other common lagers are the popular Mexican beers: Corona, Dos Equis, Pacifico etc. These beers are best served at ice cold temperature and as such have a lighter more “refreshing” taste. Or as I think of it, kind of watered down taste. The predominant lager beers are American lagers and pilsners. Again simply because this is what the big 3 companies make. The good lagers are the kind that Germany makes: marzen, bock and dunkel. These beers are typically darker colored and have a much more complex taste than the common American lager. However these beers are still lighter in flavor and feel than most ales and don’t have a predominant hop taste.
Ales:
These are the more complex beers with a wider range of style. These range from the wheaty Hefeweizen and white beers (like Pyramid Hefeweizen or Blue Moon) to the dark stouts (like Guinness). Pale ales and India pale ales sit in the middle of the spectrum. IPAs and pale ales are recognized by their hoppy bite. Ales are the predominant type of beer everywhere except North America. I couldn’t begin to try and explain every type of ale because there is just so many kinds!
Ales are by far, my favorite kind of beer just because there are so many different kinds. The few beers that ive blogged about here have all been ales. I’ll try to continue to review different beers and use that opportunity to describe the beer type and it’s common characteristics.