[BW] Beer Blog

Brewery: Roots Organic Brewing
Style: Red Ale
BeerAdvocate.com Rating: C
RateBeer.com Rating: 3.41 (78th percentile)
Serving: 22oz Bottle

Note: Just for fun both the Bearded Brewing Company and I have decided to simultaneously review this beer on our sites to see what each other though about this one. After reading this review, stop by the Bearded Brewing Company blog to see what Eric thought. If you’ve arrived here from Bearded Brewing, thanks for checking out my site.

Roots is an all organic brewery located in Portland, Oregon that is most notable for being perhaps the most active brewery in the entire pacific northwest in terms of environmental activism. They also created the first all organic beer festival in Oregon and I believe they were also the first brewery in Oregon to go all organic. Needless to say, their list of accomplishments is quite large.

Since I’m a fan of both red and organic ales, it was an easy decision to pick this one up. I’ve had their Woody IPA before and while it wasn’t completely unique in the oceans of IPAs out there, it was definitely delicious. Let’s see what this one is all about.

We call this a RED stout. Very full bodied complex ale brewed with a good amount of oats and barley, which lend to the nice bread and malt flavors and help Give this RED a very rich & creamy head.

Red stout, huh? I’m all for innovation, so here goes nothing:

Appearance - Mahogany body that’s still clear enough to let a health amount of light through. Pours with a healthy finger or two’s worth of tan, frothy head.

Smell - Typical hoppy smells of a red ale, but with a much higher malt tone that tags along behind the hops.

Taste - Wow, that definitely is unique. Factor in all of the standard red ale tastes, take it down a notch or two in what a typical northwest red has in hops flavor, and factor in what I’m sorting out as either a toffee or coffee hue due to the higher malt content. I see how Roots kinda sorta spins this as a red stout not by the name, but by the mixture of flavors you get. It’s definitely tasty, but it’s also difficult to review as I can’t think of anything even remotely similar.

It looks like folks on BeerAdvocate are complaining about this being unbalanced due to the hops and not the malt, but I’m going to go ahead and attribute that to said reviewers being wusses. This isn’t even in the upper 50% of hoppy beers out there, so I don’t understand that argument. I do see how some folks might complain about this being unbalanced. I, however, think this is a delicious and incredibly unique brew. Pick up a bottle if you get a chance to, if anything, try something I guarantee you haven’t experienced before.

Remember to check out the Bearded Brewing Company as well to see Eric’s thoughts on this brew.

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Ever have one of those moments where, when put into perspective, something really hits you? I recently had one of those moments when I viewed this:

http://ru.fishki.net/picsw/012008/09/reklama/00cd5kd0.jpg

By no means am I saying we need to stop drinking beer and instead save the world, but I connected with this enough to send a few pints’ worth of money to a similar charity. I think most of us can spare a pint’s worth of cash to send along, so think about giving if you can.

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Brewery: Laurelwood
Style: Porter
BeerAdvocate.com Rating: B+
RateBeer.com Rating: 3.47 (83rd percentile)
Serving: 12oz Bottle

I’ve been holding onto this one for quite some time. While Laurelwood’s attempt at a winter warmer didn’t exactly blow me away, I’m giving them a second chance with their organic Tree Hugger Porter.

Tree Hugger Porter features a rich chocolate malt flavor that finishes dry and roasty. Delicate hop flavor rounds out this rich full-bodied ale. This beer is brewed with 100% Organically-grown malt.

While Laurelwood’s website doesn’t have much to say about this porter, hopefully I will. Let’s find out!

Appearance - Very dark brown, yet not dark enough to absorb all light. The consistency looks closer to a brown ale in that it’s viscosity isn’t as thick as other porters. Pours a very think, tan head that dissipates within half a minute.

Smell - Very apparent coffee, chocolate, and malt hues. Almost smells similar to other coffee porters.

Taste - Very delicious brew! I can’t think of anything this brew does that is incredibly unique, however, I find this completely dismissible as it’s the only organic porter of this kind I have found so far. Think of this as an organic Black Butte Porter turned to 11. This beer is a huge step for organic beer fans out there as we now have a world-class porter to choose from. Pick this one up if you can find it.

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This last weekend I had the opportunity to visit Portland for a couple of days and made my requisite visit to the Belmont Beer Station. Usually Belmont is where I decide to pick up tons of seasonals, imperials, or other one-offs that I know I can’t get elsewhere. This time, however, I was a little nicer to my wallet and instead picked up mostly beers that I just hadn’t gotten around to trying yet. Here’s what I wound up with:

-22oz Bison Chocolate Stout (Have had once before, but did not review)
-22oz Roots Island Red
-22oz Mirimoto Black Obi (I love this stuff)
-Nøgne Ø #100 Barley Wine
-12oz Kiuchi Commemorative Ale

Along with that order were the three beers I picked up for Eric at Bearded Brewing as well. At this point I’ve realized that I need to do some serious beer drinking. Before buying those I still have seven other brews that I need to review. This brings my total to a dozen beers I have in my possession just waiting to be poured and reviewed for your reading pleasure.

I’ve also got four bottles of The Abyss =)

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Brewery: Bearded Brewing
Style: ESB/Pale Ale (loosely)
Serving: 12oz Bottle

Northwoods Ale is the second ale sent to me by Eric over at Bearded Brewing. This one intrigues me as its both organic and sounds truly unique.

This beer is brewed with maple syrup and wild rice. The rice gives it an interesting taste. Its a fairly light ale, but I don’t really have a category for it. I kind of based the recipe off a British Bitter, but it turned out much lighter and I also use a fairly standard American yeast

Let’s see what this light, British, earthy ale is all about!

Appearance - Eric warned me about the possibility of a ton of head pouring with this one, but my results left a healthy finger’s worth of white head. The color is a light gold and fairly translucent. A healthy amount of bubbles are apparent as well.

Smell - Somewhat yeasty, yet also sweet. This is probably due to the maple syrup. For some reason I’m also smelling a little citrus coming through, although I don’t know if that was intended or not.

Taste - This took me a sec, but I think I’ve got it. At first it tastes like a fairly carbonated light ale, but then the brown rice reveals itself as one is left with a slightly earthy taste as it dissipates off the palate. This sensation is probably most similar to Rogue’s Morimoto Soba Ale if that helps at all. The maple syrup is only apparent as the very last 1% of it finishes going down the hatch.

All in all this is a very tasty brew and I think Eric is onto something, but I think he could experiment by adding even more brown rice to see how far he can take the earthy hue without it being overpowering. This is not to say that this brew can’t stand on its own as it is very refreshing and I can easily see this stuff disappearing in an instant at a bbq/party/etc. Yet another excellent brew from the Bearded Brewing Company.

As a huge thanks to Eric for attempting to send me three of his brews (one broke in transportation), tomorrow I’ll be sending him a package with the following:
-Bison Organic Belgian (22oz)
-Deschutes Organic Green Lakes Amber Ale (22oz)
-Roots Organic Island Red Ale (22oz)

Overall I’d say this experiment was a huge success. We’ll definitely have to do it again some time.

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As this site grows and becomes more popular, it seems I am frequently being made offers by members of the brewing community to shill their stuff. Each time this happens I have to admit, I stop and think about it for a second.

The most current example of this is an email sitting in my inbox from a major marketing company who wants to buy space on my site to advertise a product from a major American macro brewery. I’m sure many other beer blogs received this same offer, but the point is I have an email in my inbox essentially offering me money just to put up an advertisement.

For those of you who are long time readers, you all know that at no point have I ever had advertisements on my site. No banners, no Google Adsense, nothing aside from my “Made on a Mac” Apple logo on the bottom of my navigation bar. I’m at the point where I’m pulling enough traffic that my site could be self sustaining from advertisements, but to be completely honest my web hosting is only $5 per month. Is selling parts of my site to companies I fundamentally disagree with really worth it? I think not.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the offers as I certainly wasn’t getting this kind of attention a year ago. The problem is that I like to think readers enjoy my blog because of the lack of advertisements. If something is on this site then you know that it’s on here because I think its worth your time and my money to both buy it and pay to write about it.

I apologize for this not being another beer review, but I thought I’d update you all on some of the current events involving my blog. I’m always looking for feedback as well, so please feel free to either leave a comment or shoot me an email at any time. Look forward to a new beer review or two within the next couple days.

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Every time I think I’ve got a handle on the larger beer blogs out there, I stumble upon one that I’ve never heard of that I wish I knew about earlier. The newest blog of this description is Chris O’Brien’s Beer Activist Blog.

It’s no secret that I’m somewhat of an environmentalist and am a huge fan of the organic brewing movement. Chris takes this even further and looks at the sustainability and environmental impact of EVERY aspect of brewing. In his latest column, Chris analyzes the entire building of a pub.

Chris has even written a book titled Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World. The guy definitely knows his stuff and I highly suggest you check out his site if this is something that interests you.

Beer Activist Blog - http://beeractivist.wordpress.com

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Brewery: Bearded Brewing
Style: Belgian
Serving: 12oz Bottle

While larger craft breweries like Dogfish Head, Rogue, and Stone enjoy large national distribution channels and sales growing every year, it’s easy to forget that every one of them started as a single aspiring brewer making craft beer at home. This is exactly what my fellow blogger Eric is doing under the name of the Bearded Brewing Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Bearded Brewing Company has been has been operating for about 4-5 years now and its selection seems to keep growing and improving by the week. In some what of a surprise, head brewer Eric Vernon emailed me to see if I would be interested in reviewing some of his brews. While I had never given any thought to reviewing home brews in the past, the idea seemed fantastic and something I’m all for. I’ve read his blog for months and I can tell how passionate he is about brewing, so no matter what I know I’m going to be drinking something that Eric truly put his heart into in an effort to create something special. So, for the first time in [BW] Beer Blog history, the following is my very first home brew review.

Up first from Bearded Brewing is Bangy Tangy! Bangy Tangy is a white Belgian brewed with orange marmalade and cranberries. While I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the biggest fan of Belgians, I do enjoy Belgians with strong citrus hues. Oregon Trail’s Wit is one of my absolute favorite beers and this one sounds like it might be comparable. Let’s find out!

Appearance - Bright, gold in color with a finger’s worth of white head. Rather opaque, but still lets some light shine through.

Smell - The very first thing I smelled even upon just opening the bottle was the orange marmalade. While the orange hues shines through, it is not overwhelming in the least bit. After that, one is greeted with the standard array of Belgian hues.

Taste - Oh my gosh, this stuff is really tasty! Definitely citrusy as most wits are, however, it has a slightly (and aptly named) tangy kick to it that’s most likely attributed to the cranberries. Also noteworthy is that the carbonation seems a bit higher than most Belgians, but that’s definitely not a bad thing as it actually comes off as more refreshing. I’d also like to note that I excitedly drank the first third of this brew before I started writing, which I believe is a first for me.

Bangy Tangy would be a hit at any summer barbeque or any hot day for that matter. It can easily be drank as a session beer and apparently isn’t offensive in the least bit to those who generally dislike Belgians. Bearded Brewing has produced a truly unique brew that can hold its own against even the most highly regarded brews of this genre. I highly recommend that Eric starts entering this in competitions to see what happens. To say I’m excited to try the other brew Eric sent me would be an understatement.

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Brewery: Hale’s
Style: Imperial Porter
BeerAdvocate.com Rating: B+
RateBeer.com Rating: 3.24 (65th percentile)
Serving: 22oz Bottle

In the state of Washington, Hale’s is pretty popular due to their ESB. I hadn’t tried any of their other brews, or even seen any others for that matter, so picking up their Troll Porter was an easy decision.

When you set out to make a beer that’s gonna keep a troll happy, it better have a lot to chew on. This one does. Troll Porter pushes the porter category to a new edge–big, complex, quite black with herbal hop influences–enough to keep that grouchy old troll off your back, at least for a while…

Is this beer insinuating that it’s going to make me a happy troll? Sounds good to me!

Appearance - Jet black, but not as thick as an imperial stout. Almost no head shows aside from a ring of white lace.

Smell - Smells of malt, rich chocolate, and even slightly hoppy. Smells sweet, but not overwhelming.

Taste - I’m kind of surprised as the first thing I noticed about this brew is the alcohol content. Bitter chocolate and roasted coffee flavors shine through, but not overwhelmingly. The mouth feel is also not as thick as I expected. I’ve honestly never had a porter with this much of an alcohol kick, so this is a new experience for me.

All in all this is good for a porter, but not outstanding. I definitely understand the happy part due to the alcohol content. I don’t know how high it is, but I would guess around 10% or so. Pick this one up if you’re a fan of imperial style porters, otherwise you may be somewhat left wanting more.

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