Raveen and I had another indoor soccer game tonight. I love the footy and in outdoor soccer I love playing goalkeeper. I find it exhilarating. The indoor game is a different story. The field is small. The action is more like pinball than the beautiful game and people LOVE to get really close and tee-up. One of the good things about taking a serious beating is that I can come home, throw my clothes in the laundry, crack open a cold one and count my bruises.

Tonight’s beer is Woodstock Inn Brewery’s Pig’s Ear. It pours deep brown and has a smoky, peanutty flavor. The body of the brew is medium. It has a very light finish. The flavor in the one that I tried was inconsistent, with the initial sip nearly smacking me in the mouth with smoked peanuts. I thought it had quite a unique flavor, but it did not maintain for the life of the glass. This is a good beer. It is very sessionable if that’s a word. It not not too light or too heavy. You can appreciate the fact that you are, in fact, drinking a brown ale. There is no question about the identity of this beer. It is not going to light your night on fire with its creativity. I think this is what Newcastle Brown Ale wants to be or perhaps used to be.

I was so excited to try this that I cracked a warm one open last night. Do not do that. Magic Hat beers are not known to be conventional. Their ale wizards boil their brews in cauldrons with mystical ingredients like gillyweed, blast-ended-skroot ass and peaches. If you fail to follow the simple, unwritten chill-and-enjoy instructions, you’re strapping on your silly. I was pretty sure that I drank concentrated benzocaine because of the comfortable numbness and awkward cherry-acid flavor.

Reboot!

Pours a burnt orange color under my skewed pinkish overhead lighting. I smell Hot Tamales and HOLY HOPS Batman. Also, grapefruit. Taste- felt like I’d been ROUND-HOPPED in the jaw. WOW. Delicious! The spices are so subtle you might call this a Pale Ale or an IPA if you taste it blind, but if you wait for it after the hops hops-a-long, you get a cinnamon leave behind which leaves a dainty burn that I like. I would even welcome it a little stronger. I’m considering drinking this while eating red-hots just to see if I can look into the future. The grapefruit flavor is not there, but the citrus bitterness is real and IT IS SPECTACULAR.

This will have a higher “mass appeal” than the Harpoon Winter Warmer just because of the subtlety of the spices. The problem is that this could easily be a year-round offering. It’s not special enough for me to be a seasonal. I think the balance tips toward the ordinary. Anyone who calls the spices too strong has uber sensitive taste buds and should consider a career in tasting.

Note: I have revised the rating after having more. This beer is fabulous.

Drinking (responsibly) is awesome. It goes even better with eating! Freezerburns.com is a man’s quest to eat his way through the freezer aisle, one box at a time.

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According to wikipedia: Lambic is a very distinctive type of beer brewed only in the Pajottenland region of Belgium (southwest of Brussels).

I may be wrong, but I could not find any information that suggests that Jim Koch has setup shop in Belgium to pound this seasonal out, therefore this beer is not really a lambic. Let’s call it Samuel Adams Sparkling Cranberry Hops Juice. Other anal beer reviewers have also noted this. Lambics are complex blends of more than one beer that are brewed using wild yeast strains. It is also brewed using a method called “spontaneous fermentation”.

As a result, lambics have a dry, almost champagne-like quality about them. They are quite delicious when paired with the right meal.  You certainly would not sit around scratching yourself, eating pretzels, watching football and chugging lambics. Lambics are not banquet beers and you will never see them turn a bottle blue or be “vented” in through some gimmicky can.  I’ve never seen a lambic in a can. If you know of a lambic that comes in a can, please post it below.

Facts:

• I like cranberries.
• I like cranberry juice.
• I like Samuel Adams.
• I like lambics.
• This is not really a lambic.
• I like it anyway.

It pours medium red. The primary scent is cranberries and the special yeast.  The taste is light and almost carbonated.  There is no bite to speak of. It finishes nice and smooth with the same sweet berry taste that it starts with.  The remarkable thing is that the “cranberry” taste is not bitter at all, and it should be.  Cranberry is a New Englander’s berry. It’s not for sissies. It fools you initially with a bit of sweet and then punishes your gullible pallette with a bitter finish. HA! Acquire that taste!  I like this beer, but I must ask Samuel Adams, where is the bitter?  Maybe I need to search harder. I guess I will drink a few more.  You can only find this in the Samuel Adams superb winter seasonal variety pack.

Winter means fresh tracks at Sugarbush, those friggin brilliantly delicious waffles they have, my good friend Grateful Pete saying things like “that was a real thigh burner” after every single trail and of course the winter seasonal brews.

Caution: If you’re a Bud-slugger, a Blatzman, a pisswater guzzler, or a Schlitz Sessioner the seasonals are not for you. You will be bowled over by their intensity their is more than a fair chance that you will reguritate on first sip.  Even Raveen, who has cultured pallette and (I assume) an advanced degree in  lagerology and  is not a fan of this particular product.

Harpoon Winter Warmer is the season in a glass. When you crack open the bottle, there is an intense smell of nutmeg, holly, cloves and pine. It pours a beautiful, burnt orange. The flavor is a little intense. You can taste the cinnamon and nutmeg. The bite comes from the spices moreso than the moderate hops. These fade a little as the beer warms.

Put the disclaimer on this beer if you bring it to a party.  If you’re like me, it pains you to see someone drink one who does not appreciate its intensity. Sessionable? Not for everyone. Compare it to Great Lakes Christmas Ale if you can get your hands on some.

Roasted coffee with a sweet, dark chocolate finish. Young’s Double Chocolate stout has distinct flavors that stick with you long after you have taken the last sip. Not sure this is a good thing. Coffee drinkers, brush your teeth before you come to a meeting and sit next to me. Halitosis! I cannot pinpoint the fragrance. It is floral and reminds me of lilac, but I need to sniff a few flowers this spring so that I can paint a clearer picture. That’s on me people. I need to continuously improve if I am going to be able to barely keeping above the bar of useful information and entertainment in the beverage sector.

Graham says that flavored beer is for girls.  I disagree.  I am that guy who does not fear putting a shot of Chambord in my Guinness from time to time. I am comfortable with my sexuality. I also drive a Subaru.  Am I digging a deep hole here? Give this beer a try. It is delicious. It is harder to find in a bottle, but the bottled version is better than the version in the can.

The point is that this is not the beer for the guy who still lives in mom’s basement. This is sophisticated beer. I mean it has fucking English chocolate in it, which everybody knows is way better than the shit we get in the states

While Smuttynose Ales tend to blend together a little for me, I do not mind. Smuttynose Old Brown Dog Ale is a year-round beer that starts off with an earthy, almost offensive aroma. I called the aroma “stinky”, but Jason did not call it stinky. The color is a light maroonish-brown. It pours a nice, light brownish-red.

Compared to English Brown Ales, this is stronger, more carbonated and hoppier.  There is a mellow nuttiness that gives was to the hoppy bite.  If you like India Pale Ale and you are looking for a little change of pace, this is one for you.

This is a nice and drinkable and we recommend you try one if you are over 21.

Harpoon Brown Session Ale is a year-round, Brown Ale that inexplicably showed up in my Harpoon Winter variety pack. Boasting 6 different malts, this beer is not a winter beer, in fact I would call it 3 season. It has some fruits that could make it enjoyable in the spring or summer. The brown color makes it blend in with the falls, but it is not at all hardy or spicy like I would expect a winter beer to be. Harpoon Brown Session Ale has an orange zest flavor and either a lemongrass or lime aroma. They also allege chocolate malt. This must explain the brown color.

Our friends at Beer Advocate (I use that term loosely, I’ve never met them), took a stab at defining the term “session beer”.

session beer n.
Any beer that contains no higher than 5 percent ABV, featuring a balance between malt and hop characters (ingredients) and, typically, a clean finish – a combination of which creates a beer with high drinkability. The purpose of a session beer is to allow a beer drinker to have multiple beers, within a reasonable time period or session, without overwhelming the senses or reaching inappropriate levels of intoxication. (Yes, you can drink and enjoy beer without getting drunk.)

Harpoon calls it complex, but I found it a little confusing given that it was in my Winter variety pack. I am going to have to try this again in the summer. It is smooth drinking. The finish is clean and I could see myself drinking more than one. See the video for REAL TIME REVIEWING ACTION!

Smuttynose Old Brown Dog Ale: Rating: B-
Harpoon Brown Session Ale: Rating: B-

This is IT! I remember the very first time I had a Sam Smith’s.  That is pretty remarkable since the first time was when I was 22. It was a Nut Brown Ale and it was special. When I started appreciating stouts and porters,  Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout was a game changer for me. It is deceiving because you can crack open the bottle and  be disappointed with the lack of a stimulating aroma. The joke is on you if you stop there. (Who would?) Sam Smith’s has figured out a way to hold everything back until you actually imbibe.

The taste is strong and smooth. There is a chocolatey sweetness to it. This is not Hershey’s chocolate, this is like the stuff that my mother-in-law brough back from Estonia: rich, smooth, bittersweet and nutty. The taste sticks with you and finishes pretty much the same way it starts except that the bitter goes away. I remember drinking this with Dave and Brian back in the day and all of us being literally blown away and adding it to the top of our mental best-beers-of-all-time list.

I would love to get your thoughts on this beer as long as you are 21 or over. Please comment below and don’t forget to rate it!