100 Hits! Celebratory Beer = Petrus Oud Bruin!

That's right, after just over 2 weeks of being live, The Blog-O-Beer had its 100th hit today. Congratulations to my good friend, Seamus, for being the 100th visitor. For those who don't know Seamus, he's a meek fellow, who manages a small alpaca farm in southern Kentucky. Seamus was not only the 100th visitor, but also my first visitor, and for that he wins my undying gratitutde....and nothing more.

But now on to much more important matters: tonight's celebratory beer, the Petrus Oud Bruin from Brouwerij Bavik in the great beer nation of Belgium. It's only appropriate that I do some real tasting notes for this one, so I saved a little beer in my glass from dinner. Enough chit-chat...on to the review!

Aroma: A wonderfully complex aroma, with a heavy initial dose of milk chocolate laced with notes of dark and dried fruits. The nose continues with hints of vanilla and some definite oak character from the barrel aging. The beer has that "sour" smell, as expected, but is not overwhelming--the balance is impeccable. No noticeable hop aroma.

Appearance: Medium-brown with decent clarity. The head pours thick and slightly off-white with great retention. There is no apparent lacing.

Flavor: Dark fruits come to mind with some chocolate as in the aroma. The beer is definitely soured, but blended well to produce an easy-drinking product. Sweet at the introduction, but finishes rather dry with no hop flavor, though there is a mild bitterness in the background--the beer is definitely malt-balanced. The oak aging rounds out the flavor with some notes of wood and helps to smooth out the sourness.

Mouthfeel: Light to medium-light body with mild carbonation that coats the mouth and leaves a tingling sensation on the finish. There is a slight astringency that leaves you puckering a bit (maybe tannins picked up from the wood?).

Overall Impression: For those not familiar with the Flanders Oud Bruin (Old Brown) style, it's a soured Belgian brown ale that is generally aged warm in stainless steel (as opposed to Flanders Red Ale, which is usually aged in oak). So, while it may not be true to style, I think the oak aging lends a wonderful character to the beer and helps to round it out a bit. It's a surprisingly drinkable beer (one of my favorite beers is the Rodenbach Grand Cru, a Flanders Red Ale, and though I love it, you can't drink to much of it in a session--I guess I was expecting something similar). I think I'll definitely be buying this one again and I highly recommend it!

Nights I Can't Remember, With Beers I'll Never Forget

This past weekend I visited my alma mater (Cornell) for my fraternity's (Pi Kappa Phi) initiation weekend. One of my good friends and fraternity brother came up with his fiance as well, and the three of us shared some awesome beers on Saturday night. Yes, we were "pre-gaming" for a fraternity formal, but as alumni, we classed it up a bit with an incredible craft beer lineup. Some of the freshman didn't even know you could get beer in "wine bottles" as one of them put it. One freshman girl tried a sip of the Harpoon Catamount Maple Wheat (from their 100 Barrel Series) and commented, "it kind of tastes like Budweiser." Needless to say, I cringed a bit and a little piece of me died inside.

So, here was the night's lineup. As this post's title alludes, I don't remember much of the night, but these beers all left a lasting impression! In order of drinking, we had:
Harpoon's Catamount Maple Wheat
Lagunitas' Hop Stoopid
Brooklyn Brewery's Brooklyn Local 1
Ithaca Beer Company's TEN

My favorite was probably the TEN, a hearty brew weighing in at 10% ABV. It's described as an "Imperial American Extra Strong and Special Double Red Ale," which is a mouthful. Basically, it was big in all dimensions: malt, hops, and alcohol. Amazingly though, the alcohol was very well-balanced, and although the beer was certainly warming, it was not overwhelming. It kind of sneaks up on you and hits you later. The TEN was definitely the highlight of drinking that evening. It goes without saying that the formal did not have a stellar beer lineup, but I got the bartender to bring out a case of Sam Adams, which improved the menu tremendously (my previous choices were Bud Light, Coors Light, or Labatt).

I hope everyone had a good weekend, and as a not-so-important person once told me, "Drink Your Beer!"

Witkap-Pater Abbey Singel & Colonel Blide's Cask Ale

Last night with dinner I had the Witkap-Pater Abbey Singel from Brouwerij Slaghmuylder, a small Belgian brewery. I didn't do full tasting notes, but the beer was decent--nothing particularly interesting about it. The carbonation was a little too high and left a sharp carbonic bite in my mouth. Other than that, this was your standard Abbey-style ale; nothing about it jumped out and made me want more. This one is definitely not a repeat.



Next up, with lunch today, I popped open one of the bottles in the variety pack from Cricket Hill that I got on Wednesday at their brewery. I pulled out their Colonel Blide's Cask Ale. If I didn't know the story behind this beer, I would've laughed at the fact that they were calling it a cask ale. For starters, it's bottled and it's not even bottle-conditioned at that. Basically, the beer began as a true cask ale a few years ago when they first made it, but it became so popular that they started bottling it and force-carbonating it for consistency. It also was originally a blend of their Hopnotic IPA and American Ale, but now they brew it as its own beer with its own recipe. It's very similar to their IPA, but with a fuller and more complex hop profile, mainly because the beer is dry-hopped after primary fermentation. All in all, a good, sessionable English IPA. As with the first beer on this post, it's nothing extraordinary, but it's well-made and tasty.