Ridgeland’s River Dog Brewing Co. is giving one of its brews an upgrade and adding it to the year-round release schedule.
Starting soon, RD will begin producing its 6.5% ABV Chocolate Rye Porter regularly. The brew – as the name implies – is a blend of sweeter chocolate flavors with a slight spicy rye bite to the finish. It joins the brewery’s other year-round releases, including the American Pale Ale, Coastal Wit and IPA.
After some delays in getting the can designs approved, Westbrook will finally begin canning their One Claw Rye Pale Ale and Gose this week.
Photos tweeted by Westbrook’s Mike Levin show rows of the new cans ready to be filled. The Westbrooks themselves told me last week both beers should be hitting shelves across the state by the end of the month, so expect to pick these up soon.
Maybe now this will finally put all those “rumors” about canned Gose to rest.
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
Chico, Ca
Ruthless Rye Rye Beer
6.6% ABV
One of the most hyped and well-regarded new beers of 2012 was Ruthless Rye, the 6.6% rye beer Sierra Nevada introduced as its new spring seasonal. The Internets were wowed by its solid blend of rye spiciness and solid hop and malt profiles. As with the vast majority of beers produced by Sierra Nevada, it was regarded as a winner.
I was one of the few who didn’t jump to such a conclusion, which was strange for a lot of reasons. I love rye beers, I’m an unabashed hophead and I generally love whatever comes out of the Chico, CA, brewery. But for some reason, Ruthless Rye left me shrugging my shoulders and wondering what everyone was so excited about.
The year passed and a few weeks ago, Ruthless Rye returned to store shelves just as the warmer weather was beginning to roll in. No sooner had it arrived than the hype machine took over once again, with plenty of people proclaiming it to be better than last year’s batch.
With my palate having developed plenty since then, I gave it another shot. I was …
The nose is a juicy blend of wet pine, melon, sweet malts and a slight spiciness from the rye. Compared with other rye beers – i.e. Bell’s Smitten – there’s definitely more of a juicy hop presence on the nose than a rye bite. The hops give off rich orange, melon and honeydew notes with a light lemony citrus as well. It’s sweeter and fuller than I remember.
The bite on the front of the tongue is strong and spicy, a good mesh of the citrus notes from the hopes and the spice from the rye. There’s just a slight carbonation and a medium body. In the middle of the mouth was where the rye took over. It scorches the middle of your tongue with spiciness, which is accentuated by the bite of the hops. The finish is just slightly dry, with those citrusy notes popping up again and giving it a crisp lemony finish.
All that being said, Ruthless Rye – once again – left me unimpressed. Again, it’s a good, solid, flavorful rye beer, but I honestly don’t see what the fuss is about. For the second year in a row, it left me underwhelmed, and that’s not because I overhyped it in my mind. It just didn’t deliver what I expected it to. To be fair, it’s much better on draft, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t try it. But for the second year in a row, this beer did not deliver.
Bell’s Brewery, Inc.
Galesburg, MI
Smitten Golden Rye Ale
6% ABV
As winter begins to loosen its grip and spring … uh … springs again, hopheads everywhere rejoice, for it heralds the return of one of Bell’s most desired beers: Hopslam.
But seemingly lost in the mix is Smitten, one of the newest Bell’s beers which also just recently hit shelves. What started out as part of a smaller series of rye beers, Smitten is an American pale ale with a heaping helping of rye malts to help spice things up a bit. But with the hops used, you’d think you were drinking … well, you know.
For a brief second after first checking the nose, I thought I had poured myself a bottle of Hopslam. Those rich, juicy flavors of mango, papaya, pineapple and more are all there in spades, and there’s a dank hoppiness coating everything coming out of the glass. But those dreams were quickly dashed when the spicy rye took over. It’s masked just slightly by the hops, but there’s certainly a bite in there. There’s just a touch of wheat and a yeasty sweetness present as well.
The taste is pretty unique compared with other rye beers I’ve had. To start, it’s got a really dry and bitter beginning. There’s a slight pinch on the front of the tongue and just some mild carbonation on the mouth. In the middle of the mouth, you get those really dank wet pine notes from the hops, which is cut immediately by the spice of the rye. The finish is dry and piney again with a lingering wheat and yeast sweetness. The rye lingers quite nicely throughout the mouth, but it settles and lets up a bit the more you drink. The mouthfeel is full and flavorful, and overall it’s a great new brew.
It’s not strange to find my wife and me at Columbia’s World of Beer on any given night of the week, but Tuesday evening was something special. Westbrook, a brewery you might have heard me talk about once or twice, held a beer pairing dinner along with Motor Supply, one of Columbia’s exceptional and more popular restaurants.
A full rundown of the (incredible) food and drink is coming later this week, but there are more pressing things to get to. Namely, three big pieces of news that came straight from the horse’s mouth – the hose being brewery founder Edward Westbrook – and surprised a lot of people.
New cans – Prior to the pairing with Westbrook’s Citra Rye Pale Ale, Ed gave the rundown about the history of the beer and how it’s grown in popularity over time. It’s become so popular that Westbrook has decided to make it – or at least a variety of it – a little more available.
Starting later this year, the brewery will add a version of its Citra Rye as the third year-round canned beer in its repertoire. This new beer will join White Thai and IPA as an everyday 12 oz. offering from Westbrook. Exactly what the beer will be called, when it’ll be released or how it’ll differ from the current Citra Rye recipe wasn’t touched on, but soon enough you’ll have another Westbrook option to safely enjoy poolside or at the beach.
Mexican Cake goes seasonal – The evening’s dessert was paired with Mexican Cake, my favorite beer of last year as well as one of my all-time favorites. While having the beer on draft was good enough, Westbrook dropped some huge news that made it even better:
Starting this May, the 10.5% imperial stout will become a seasonal release.
It’s been rumored for some time that Westbrook would be releasing Mexican Cake again sometime early this year. Kegs have slowly been popping up around the state for the past few months, and I’ve seen a few cases of the bottles chilling in the brewery’s barrel room. And while I thought it would be a one-time deal, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
The initial release of Mexican Cake was gone from store shelves nearly as soon as it was released a year ago. To say the beer is popular is a massive understatement, and if the reaction from the people sitting around me was any indication, it’s showing no signs of losing popularity.
Again, details of the release are TBA.
New barrel-aged series drops in March – Asked what new brews they had in the works, Morgan Westbrook announced a new series of barrel-aged sours brewed in collaboration with the Charleston Beer Exchange will be bottled and released starting this March.
Last week, the brewery’s Facebook page featured photos of the Westbrook and CBX crew sampling some of the varieties of the beer, which has been aging in cider, red wine and rum barrels, among others, for more than a year. The series – dubbed Old Time after CBX Manager Brandon “Old Time” Plyler – will first be bottled in a couple of months and may make an appearance at Brewvival, but don’t quote me on that last part. It’s unclear which variety of the beer will be released first. As for Westbrook’s other series – Single Hop and Bearded Farmer – there was no news on when the next entry in each will show up.
And as usual, you can expect full reviews of all the aforementioned beers right here whenever they’re released.
Coast Brewing Co.
Charleston, SC
More Consistenter Single-Hopped Rye Pale Ale
5.5% ABV
Not to be outdone by their S.C. beer brethren in Mt. Pleasant, Coast recently put out a Citra single-hopped rye pale ale of their own. Much like Westbrook’s Single Hop: Citra, More Consistenter lets uses a rye beer base to help showcase the nuances and flavors produced by Citra, one of the most popular and sought-after hops around. The hop is so popular that the entire 2013 crop is sold out, and if brewers missed out, they won’t be getting any until 2014.
I loved Westbrook’s attempt at the beer and was just as excited to see what Coast did differently. But the end result … well …
As with the Single Hop entry, the nose is unmistakably and deliciously Citra heavy. It’s like the tropics in a bottle, with lush notes of papaya, mango, juicy oranges, pineapple, peach and the like flooding the nose. But where More Consistenter departs from Single Hop is the sweetness that’s very heavy on the nose. There’s a sort of syrupy sweetness coating everything, kind of like you’d get from canned peaches. There’s not much of a rye spiciness on the nose, and if there is, it’s canceled out by the sweetness.
Unfortunately, what the nose giveth, the taste taketh away. It starts with a mild sting of bitterness on the front of the tongue, followed by a bite of carbonation and a pleasantly smooth mouthfeel. The finish is somewhat dry, which does a nice job of helping the hop bitterness hold on and finally reveal the rye spiciness. The rye bite is most prevalent in the middle of the palate after a few sips as the beer warms.
And … well, that’s really all there is. The big, juicy tropical fruit notes from the nose are more or less non-existent on the palate. From the smell, you’d expect a really flavorful beer, but it’s just not there. The rye certainly is, and the malt profile is good, but those peach and mango flavors you’d expect the Citra to impart are nonexistent. Maybe the Westbrook Single Hop spoiled me, but on the second try, this just isn’t what I’d hoped for.
I hate to say it, but More Consistenter is one of the more disappointing beers I’ve had from Coast. It’s certainly drinkable and enjoyable, and I certainly love a good rye beer – which this is – but the Citra just doesn’t shine on it as it does on the Single Hop variety. There just isn’t anything going on the in the taste except the rye, which is surprising given how flavorful the nose is. More often than not, Coast impresses me with their stuff, but More Consistenter is not one of their better offerings.
What would the holidays be without alcohol? Copious and copious amounts of alcohol in all forms to help you get through the insanity of family, shopping, holiday parties and the like. Fortunately, there are plenty of holiday appropriate beers to help you get through it all. Here’s what I enjoyed during this week.
After having our own mini Christmas at our new home, my wife and I drove back to my parent’s house in Georgia to celebrate Christmas with them. I have the good fortune of having an easy-going, non-dysfunctional family, so I don’t need a lot of alcohol to help me cope. But that didn’t stop me from bringing along a bottle of St. Bernardus’ Christmas Ale to enjoy and share with loved ones.
At 10%, the spiced Belgian strong dark ale does plenty to keep you warm and toasty. A malty nose brings hints of cocoa, plums, caramel, black pepper, cloves and that classic Belgian yeastiness. A similarly complex taste follows, with a strong effervescent quality leading off flavors of berries, plums, cocoa powder, leather, tobacco, sweet bread, cinnamon and other spices. St. Bernardus always impresses me, but it also impressed my younger brother – a newly 21-year-old frat boy – and my dad, whose tastes lean toward “dark, heavy stuff.” It was a good way to warm up on Christmas Eve.
After returning home to Columbia on Christmas Day, my wife and I tucked in to some holiday selections from my cellar. We started with a 2009 bottle of Samichlaus Classic, a 14% doppelbock from Austria that previously held the title of strongest beer in the world.
At 14%, there’s just a slight hint of booziness on the nose, accompanied by a big, sweet malt character, hints of rum-soaked raisins, caramel, figs and a bit of maple syrup and just a slight alcohol burn on the back. The alcohol certainly hits you more on the taste, but it fades quickly into this sweet, rich, full-bodied blend of caramel, toffee, butterscotch, figs and a big malty sweetness with an almost hard candy quality. The sweetness is definitely cut well by the alcohol, which you can feel warming in your chest after a few sips.
As we settled in for the annual Doctor Who Christmas special, I popped a bottle of the 2011 Santa’s Little Helper imperial stout from Port. Last Christmas, I enjoyed the bourbon barrel-aged version but help on to the standard version for this year.
The coal-black 10% imperial stout presented with aromas of bittersweet chocolate, a touch of booze and a little bit of licorice, all underneath a cozy cover of big roasted coffee and espresso. Those roasted malts impart a big bitterness on the front of the tongue followed with a bitter coffee finish. There was a ton of espresso, dark chocolate, roasted malts and cocoa on it, but it’s not overly chocolatey or sweet at all. There may have been a slight infection in my bottle as there was this strange almost cough syrup quality on the finish. There was a phenolic burn on the back, kind of like the sweeter alcohol finish from NyQuil. It didn’t turn me off at all, and it honestly kind of worked with the bitterness.
The third of four Christmases this year was spent at my mother-in-law’s house on Wednesday. With all due respect to my in-laws, they are a bit more … eccentric than my family, and two little ones running around only add to the insanity. That’s why I was happy to walk in to the middle of a holiday beer tasting orchestrated by my sister-in-law, which included the St. Bernardus Christmas Ale, Rogue‘s Santa’s Private Reserve Ale, Grand Teton‘s Coming Home Ale 2012 and, for dessert, some Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout. I also got sent home with bottles of each, as well as a Rogue Farms Single Malt Ale and a Westbrook Dark Helmet. Add that to the two six-packs of SweetWater Festive Ale my brother got me and the SweetWater IPA and Terrapin Liquid Bliss “reinbeers” from my mom, and this was quite a holiday helping.
Whatever you celebrated this season, and whatever you’ll celebrate in the weeks to come, may your world be filled with delicious brews and good times. Cheers to all, and to all a good night.
