Archive for the tag “San Diego”

12 Sep 2014

Old Scallywag – Coronado Brewing Company (2013 vintage)

scallywag_bttl

11.4% ABV
Purchased at Pangaea Bottle Shoppe ($16.99/22 oz. bottle) and poured into an oversized wine glass [cage of emotion].

This “barley wine aged in oak bourbon barrels” is from Coronado Brewing in San Diego, which of course in German means “a whale’s vagina.”  Old Scallywag pours as silky smooth as the beard of Zeus, a clear and dark maple with a tight tan head.  The aroma is a formidable scent.  It stings the nostrils…in a good way, with waves of bourbon, dried and dark fruits, roasted nuts, barrel wood, brown sugar, and maple candy enticing the nose like a jazz flute solo.  I wanna be friends with it.  It’s delicious on the first swallow, more English than American barley wine, with brown sugar sweetness, wood bitterness, and a bready texture dominating up front, and ending as clean as a nice pair of slacks.  Some apple and tea enter the picture as the beer rests on the tongue, and the overall effect is not unlike a wood-fired apple pie drizzled in scotchy scotch scotch. Beer drinkers assemble!

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OldScallywag2

 

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Posted in 4-5 Toasts, Barleywine, Barrel-Aged, Beer Review and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
21 Aug 2013
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Stone Farking Wheaton W00tstout – Stone collaboration with Fark.com and Wil Wheaton

w00tstout-bttlSoCal Beercation Edition

13.0% ABV
Purchased at Fathom Bistro, Bait and Tackle in San Diego ($7/10 oz. pour) and served in tulip glasses.

This collaboration between San Diego kingpins Stone, Fark.com founder Drew Curtis, and actor/homebrewer Wil Wheaton pours ebony with an enormous but quickly dissipating light brown head.  Wood, fresh roasted nuts, cola, and black licorice greet you on the nose, along with a small dose of hard alcohol courtesy of the partial barrel-aging.  The first swallow is a mind-bending mouthful – nuts, coffee, and chocolate on the front end melt into vanilla, wood, and bourbon flavors on the finish.  Only a quarter of this sublime brew was barrel-aged, so you get bourbon notes without any residual alcohol heat.  The lasting impression on the tongue is of nuts, almost certainly due to the addition of pecans.  This is a flat-out brilliant beer – complex yet compulsively drinkable, with a relatively light mouthfeel.  More coffee ground flavors come in as the beer warms, and the beer’s decadent breadiness gives it an overall impression of a boozy pecan pie chased by black licorice.

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Woot

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Posted in Beer Review, Stout and tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
19 Aug 2013

Bois – The Bruery

boisSoCal Beercation Edition

15% ABV
Purchased at The Bruery Tasting Room ($7/4 oz. pour) and served in mini-snifters.

This barrel-aged offering from The Bruery pours a muddy brown with a tight eggshell white head, and a surprisingly subtle nose of alcohol, vanilla, and touches of brown sugar and coconut.  It offers an eye-opening taste of hard alcohol on first swallow, but without the residual throat burn, instead fading into flavors of pineapple, brown sugar, and vanilla beans.  The alcohol burn eventually comes in on the finish, but there are also some bread, spice, and molasses notes in the picture to capture your attention.  Bois is not a beer for timid palettes, and it’s almost too intense to be fully appreciated at present (a couple years of aging should take some of the edge off), with the alcohol beginning to overwhelm the subtler flavors after the first few sips.  That said, if you’re looking for a big beer, they don’t get much bigger or more flavor-packed than this one, with everything from nuts to tree sap to unsweetened maple syrup making an appearance on the tongue.

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bois

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Posted in Beer Review, Old Ale and tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
13 Aug 2013

The Roustabout – Societe Brewing Company

Screen Shot 2013-08-12 at 8.09.41 PMSoCal Beercation Edition

9.3% ABV
Purchased at Societe Brewing Company tasting room ($2/4 oz. serving) and poured into taster glasses.

This Double IPA from San Diego-based Societe pours a completely clear straw yellow with a minimal white head.  The Roustabout is a prototypically big SoCal DIPA with a prominent nose of hop flowers, pine, grass, hay, and some citrus zest, not unlike rolling in a country field.  It offers an absolutely immaculate candied hop flavor on first swallow, followed by waves of grass and pine, and finishing with sweet biscuits and oily tree needles. There is a surprisingly light mouthfeel here for such a dank beer, and the hop flavors are absolutely brilliant, perhaps perfect.  Societe has produced a beer that definitely takes the drinker on a journey, as myriad types of IPA tastes dance across the palette (even cracked pepper makes a cameo), never straying too far in any one direction.

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Societe

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Posted in Beer Review, Double IPA and tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
01 Oct 2012

Smoking Wood (Bourbon Barrel-Aged) – The Bruery – SoCal Taster

13% ABV
Purchased at The Bruery Tasting Room ($7/6 oz. serving) and poured into tulip glasses.

This bourbon barrel-aged version of The Bruery’s Imperial Smoked Porter pours an incomprehensible black with a quickly settling, brown sugar-colored head.  With its intoxicating nose of bourbon and slab bacon,  Smoking Wood is quite possibly the best-smelling brew I have ever sniffed.  It packs a walloping first swallow of whiskey, barrel wood, and delectable smoked and dried meats, up to and including prosciutto, salami, and pepperoni.  Smoking Wood is rich and velvety but also immensely well-structured, a beer that seems almost specifically tailored to my “ultimate beer” mantra of “full flavors in perfect balance”.  The jerky-like taste is given amazing body and complexity by the barrel-aging process – it’s zesty, rich, challenging, and inviting all at once.  I will dream about this beer for a long time.

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Posted in Beer Review, Beer-cation, Porter, Smoked Beer and tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment
26 Sep 2012

Road to Helles – Port Brewing – SoCal Taster

5.19% ABV
Purchased at Lost Abbey/Port Tasting Room ($4/16 oz. serving) and poured into pint glasses

Road to Helles from Port Brewing pours a clear hay-yellow with a discreet white head, and has a lovely nose of wet grass, apricots, and other stone fruits. This brew is light in texture and appearance, but with plenty of flavor, including understated stone fruits and a touch of pilsner-y sweatsock, although not enough to perturb the palette. More honeycomb comes in on the nose and tongue upon subsequent swallows, in the vein of grilled peaches and apricots, but without any syrupy-sweet residue. It’s a very nice and session-able brew with relatively complex flavors, (it would pair beautifully with peach cobbler), and ultimately it’s like an unusually flavorful cross between an amber and pilsner. 

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Posted in Beer Review, Beer-cation, Helles and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
24 Sep 2012

Friendship Brew – Green Flash/Brasserie St-Feuillien – SoCal Taster

5.7% ABV
Purchased at the Green Flash Tasting Room ($4/13 oz. serving) and poured into tulip glasses.

This black saison was brewed in collaboration between San Diego County’s Green Flash and Belgian stalwart Brasserie St-Feuillien.  It pours a murky black with a tight, cola-colored head, and a lively nose of Belgian yeast, nutmeg, dried figs, and black olives.  Friendship Brew offers unique farmhouse flavors on the first swallow, tempered by savory spices but fairly devoid of barnyard funk.  The taste never quite gets sour, but there is a tantalizing, ever-present tang, while dusky spices confound the tongue and peppery yeast settles on the palette.  There is a rye-like structure and a surprisingly light mouthfeel to this dark farmhouse ale, but Friendship Brew is well-hopped enough to stay true to the Green Flash ethos while remaining a mysteriously pleasing beer. 

 

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Posted in Beer Review, Beer-cation, Saison and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
19 Sep 2012

Ale Epiteios – Left Coast Brewing Company – SoCal Taster

10% ABV
Purchased at Small Bar in San Diego and served in goblet glasses.

This barrel-aged Imperial Stout pours jet black with a miniscule, sawdust-colored head, and a nose of coffee, cocoa nibs, and fermented grapes that suggests a red wine-and-chocolate vibe.  Instead, blackstrap molasses, black licorice, and bit of booziness hit you on the first sip, and yet the flavors are surprisingly balanced and mild.  More cocoa notes come in on subsequent swallows, but the alcohol aftertaste remains while never straining the barrel-wood backbone.  Ale Epiteios has a light mouthfeel given the strong dark flavors, and those promised red wine flavors emerge as the brew warms, but I would have appreciated a little less sweetness and a little more complexity. 

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17 Sep 2012

A SoCal Taster

During the last week of August, His & Hers Beer Notes took a long-desired trip through the thriving San Diego beer scene, with brief stopovers in Escondido (Stone), San Marcos (The Lost Abbey), and Anaheim (The Bruery).

In San Diego, we hit many of the city’s notable brewery tasting rooms (including Ballast Point, Alesmith, and Green Flash) and bars (we made it to Small Bar, Toronado, and Blind Lady Ale House) during our three-day stay. Our goal was to try as many new and interesting brews as we could while leaving time for sober sightseeing in the sunlight hours, and San Diego did not disappoint on either count.

On the ride from San Diego to the LA area, we stopped at the immense and impressive Stone World Bistro and Gardens in Escondido, as well as The Lost Abbey’s much more scaled-down business park tasting room a few miles up the road.

Anaheim led us to the thriving upstart Anaheim Brewery, and our first-ever trip to His and Hers’ Holy Grail of Tasting Rooms, The Bruery’s recently renovated space in Placentia.  We also made a return browse through the eminently tasteful bottle selection at The Bruery Provisions Store in Orange, scoring a few unseen-in-Sacramento treasures for the cellar.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be reliving our Southern California beer-cation with sketches and reviews of some of the new beers we sampled, also spotlighting some of our favorite new discoveries along the way. 

Cheers!

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