Day #175 – Mustang Washita Wheat

I was at a party in Oklahoma and I haven’t had a chance to fill in my blog post for the day. It’s coming, granted will probably be super short because I am beat.

Mustang Washita Wheat

I’m watching Phantom of the Opera right now with a beautiful girl who is belting out the high notes. Sigh….on to the beer…

This beer is from Mustang Brewing Company for the 2nd day in a row.  It is classified as a wheat ale with an ABV of 5.3%.  I wasn’t too jazzed about last night’s beer but maybe this one will be better!

The beer pours a cloudy orange color. Some white head.

Aroma is straight grains and sour malts. not great. Whatever.

Taste is the same.  I really am not feeling this.  Sorry so short!  Tomorrow will be an excellent beer I promise!

Cheers!

Day #163 – Samuel Adams Summer Ale

Still reeling off the Mavs win last night! We haven’t had a National sports champion in North Texas since the Stars won the cup in 1999. Rangers were SO CLOSE last year when they went to the Series and the Cowboys…well….we’re not going to discuss that. Time for a special beer today.

Samuel Adams Summer Ale

What the hell? How is this beer special? Well, it is special to me because this was the first beer I EVER drank. Yes indeed, and there’s a story that goes with it but it’s slightly embarrassing so I’m not going to get into it. It involves Zima though! 🙂

Sam Summer is brewed by Boston Beer Company out of Boston and this is their annual summer seasonal. They market this one as being brewed with Grains of Paradise, as well as other spices and lemon peel. According to Wikipedia Grains of Paradise is a type of pepper that is native to certain regions in Africa, and the scientific name for it is “Aframomum melegueta”. How about that.

This beer pours a semi-transparent orangish yellow color with a fuzzy white head. Lots of carbonation in this one for sure.

Aroma is grainy upfront, with some lemony notes and light pepper. I bet this beer would go well with a slice of fruit in addition.

Flavor is bitter grains that morph into a lemony taste. Not really peppery in flavor but certainly has a bite of spice. This beer takes me back…

Cheers!

 

Day #146 – Breckenridge SummerBright Ale

Wow today has been a busy busy day for me!  First off it was the last day of school for me so I am officially on summer vacation.  When I got home I immediately started work on my homebrewing.  It seems I am running my own little brewery here!  I had to bottle a beer and transfer another into a secondary vessel.  It was really awesome pulling beer out of one carboy, quickly cleaning and sanitizing it only to put another beer in it.  I felt very professional today.  10:40 pm and I am just now getting a chance to sit down and open a beer.  I’ll probably have a homebrew tonight too but it seems like a great opportunity to break into another one of my summer beers.

Breckenridge SummerBright Ale

Breckenridge is a Denver, Colorado brewery and this is their summer beer.  It is classified as a wheat ale and has an ABV of 4.5%.  Very easy-going.

This beer pours a slightly hazy light golden color with a small white head.  Not a large head response to speak of.

The aroma is very wheaty with a strong citrus orange aroma.  Some lemon tartness; mainly grainy.

Flavor is also grainy and citrus sweet.  Dry flavor of wheat that finishes much the same.  Lots of sweet fruit flavors make this easy and smooth to drink.  Just what I needed to cap off this long day.

Cheers!

Day #134 – Saint Arnold Texas Wheat

Well I’m beat. Absolutely beat. Woke up this morning and it felt great outside so I decided to go for a little jog. Came back for a bit and watched some golf, and then got a call from a friend that wanted to go jogging…..so I went again! A few beers and a burger later and I’m fighting to stay awake. What a great view though.

Better review my beer before I pass out!

Saint Arnold Texas Wheat

This beer is in it’s last stretch of life. I read a press release from Saint Arnold a few weeks ago that said they are discontinuing the Texas Wheat in place of a new beer. I was shocked and a little sad as I have always liked this beer. I put it on my list of “beers to get soon” for my blog and we have it here today! The Texas Wheat is brewed by Saint Arnold Brewing Company out of Houston, Texas and is classified as a wheat ale. 4.9%.

This beer pours a very clear yellow gold with a tall foamy white head. I was a little surprised to see that this was a filtered beer. Often times brewers will leave wheat ales and hefeweizens unfiltered to maintain the original flavors and aromas. We’ll see if SA manages to keep these even through filtering.

The aroma is fairly pleasing, with dry wheat malts and a fair amount of lemon peel. Nice aroma.

Flavor is dry as well, with a hefty wheat flavor and some sweet citrus. Lemon is also present here but only in essence, not sourness. I still like this, even years later.

A special note: this week begins the American Craft Beer week, celebrating all things craft beer. I encourage you to support your local craft brewery this week, and choose craft over macro.

Cheers!

Day #132 – Anchor Summer Beer

I’m headed to another event tonight so this one will be fairly to the point.

Anchor Summer Beer

Anchor Summer Beer is a Wheat Beer at 4.6% ABV. Good ole’ Anchor is in San Francisco and has been brewing this beer for as long as I’ve been alive! 1984 was a very good year.

The label on this beer talks about the “unusually abundant head” that you may notice. Yes…there is a nice head, but I don’t know why they felt the need to mention this on the label. Several beers have a copious head, but they relate this to the malted wheat barley. The appearance is a clear light gold color with a foamy white head. All that writing when I could’ve summed it up in that one sentence!

The aroma here is of sharp grains and malts, with a bit of metallic notes and bitterness. Very bready for sure.

It has a thicker mouthfeel than I expected. The flavor is also of sharp bitter grains with a bready flavor. A metallic bitterness also sticks around after the finish that doesn’t necessarily compliment it. The guy at the beer store talked this beer up like crazy and now I feel a bit betrayed. 😦

Cheers.

Day #114 – Petes Place 1919 Choc Beer

Day #114. This day is special to me for a few reasons. When I was in college I was in the band service fraternity Kappa Kappa Psi. I was an active member for several years and had quite a lot of fun doing it. Our particular chapter was number 114, so we went nuts over anything 114. We’d take pictures with highway mile-markers, addresses, room placards…you name it. 1919 is also significant because it is the year the fraternity was founded. Glad I made it to 114. AEA brothers!

Petes Place 1919 Choc Beer

1919 Choc Beer comes from Petes Place, which is a brewpub in Krebs, Oklahoma. Oklahoma is one of the few states that has very strict regulations on alcohol. They cap the alcohol level that can be sold at grocery stores at 3.2%; anything higher must be sold at a liquor store. They also have some sort of limits on Sunday sales. I dropped by this brewpub on the way home from Oklahoma a few years ago, but they wouldn’t sell me any of their beer because it was Sunday. Well I take that back, they did offer me their lightest one which I think was in the 2% range but I passed on it.

This beer is classified as a wheat ale and measures right at 5%.

Pours a clear yellow color with lots of white foamy head. This is bottle conditioned so there was lots of yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle, but I chose not to pour it in with the beer.

The aroma is very dusty, like what you might shake off an old box found in the attic. Dusty smell with a bit of aging grains and perhaps light lemon? Not a whole lot of citrus but just enough to detect it.

Flavor is grainy with lots of wheat tones and definite lemon flavor. The finish is slightly sweet with the taste of fruit and wheat with some sweet malts as well. Not bad, sort of dry.

Cheers and AEA!

Day #106 – Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen

Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen

This is a Wheat Ale from Widmer Brewing Company based out of Portland, Oregon. Widmer is owned by a larger conglomerate organization called the Craft Brewers Alliance. The Brewers Association recently released the statistics for the largest breweries of 2010, and according to that CBA came in at #9 in the US. Widmer itself brewed 170,000 barrels of beer last year, with the Hefeweizen being their flagship. It comes in at 4.7%ABV; quite sessionable.

This beer pours a very cloudy and hazy golden light orange. There is a large head response as well that forms a nice foamy white. Looks even better in my authentic Widmer shaker.

Aroma is very grainy and wheat tones with some citric notes and banana.

Flavor is pleasant; wheat grain and light malts with a lemonhead sweet touch and a gentle kiss of hops. Easy finish that is pretty smooth.

It is easy to see why this is Widmer’s top selling beer. It’s easy to drink and flavorful, and it pairs well while watching Happy Gilmore.

Cheers!

Day #104 – Jester King/Mikkeller Drink’in the Sunbelt

Taking my blog on the road today to a fairly new bar in Dallas called the Meddlesome Moth. It is a fairly classy restaurant that prides itself on a great beer selection. Part of their slogan is “if you see it on a commercial, we probably don’t carry it.” They also carry several hard to find Texas beers and feature their breweries. I am looking at the beer list right now and have already handed off the keys to my buddy. It’s gonna be a good night!

Jester King/Mikkeller Drink’in the Sunbelt

As I have mentioned before, Jester King is a fairly new brewery out of Austin, TX. They have however been making huge strides to becoming a big player in the craft brewing industry. This beer is a collaboration with a European brewery, Mikkeller. Mikkeller has already established themselves as a worldwide fixture in quality beer, and the fact they are already collaborating with our little Texas brewery in itself is pretty amazing. It is interesting to note that Mikkeller does not technically have a building of their own to brew at. They contract with some friendly breweries around Europe. How cool is that??

On to the beer. It was served as a part of the flight you see above.

This beer pours a cloudy light orange to almost gold pour. Big white head response. They had to pour it several times before it calmed down.

The aroma is very hoppy, but in the harsher sense. Small lemon citrus notes with a fat punch of almost catty hops. Some sweet fruit prevails.

Watery mouthfeel with honestly a weak flavor. Very bitter hops on the flavor with maybe some sweet fruit? Whatever redeeming qualities it may have is demolished by the SUPER bitter hop flavor.

Too bitter, not enough malt/grain backbone to support it. It was an interesting idea to collaborate with a world renown brewer, but this fell short.

Cheers!

Day #85 – Samuel Adams Coastal Wheat

I’m bottling my most recent homebrewed beer, which is a Golden Ale which I have affectionately named “Fireman’s #451” and to do that I have to collect lots of bottles.  I like the shape and build of the Samuel Adams bottles, so I picked up some more of them.  Today’s is their Coastal Wheat.

Samuel Adams Coastal Wheat

The Coastal Wheat is a wheat ale which is most notably brewed using Lisbon lemons, which are grown in California.  Let’s see if those characteristics show up in the flavor.

It pours a slightly hazy golden color with lots of carbonation bubbles that form a foamy white head on the top of the beer.

The aroma is fruity and tart.  Lemon and floral sweetness on the nose, with wheat grains and maybe a light spiciness. Kind of a candied aroma as well, like lemon drops.

The flavor is a decent balance of lemon peel and zest, and wheat bread.  There is a light bitterness on the finish but it is fairly subtle.  The lemon spice is what prevails in the flavor here.  Hmm, this one is fairly well done; flavorful and different.

Cheers!

 

Day #59 – Shiner Hefeweizen

Day 59 and I decided to continue with the Shiner thread.  I had played with the idea of tossing something in the middle of Shiner week but…..that wouldn’t really make it Shiner week now would it?  Tonight is a better beer than last night, I promise you!  Then again, how could it be worse????

Shiner Hefeweizen

Shiner Hefeweizen is a Wheat ale that clocks in at 5.28%.  Very exact if I do say so my self.

It pours a hazy orange color with golden touches and a heavy white foamy head.

The aroma is mainly grain and soured grain at that.  I suppose there is a slight bit of banana and citrus sweetness but not by much.

It has a dusty flavor that mixes with a big citrus boost and banana notes.  This ends with as much sweet fruit as it begins with.  Not bad, and LOADS better than the day previous.

Cheer!