Beer…Again…

I opened up an Oskar Blues Ten Fiddy tonight. Ten Fiddy is an imperial stout with 10.5% alcohol. This beer pours nearly black with a caramel colored head. Aromas of coffee and bitter chocolate, hints of vanilla. The flavor has roasty malts and dark chocolate, toffee, caramel. The beer is so thick and viscous that it coats the inside of the glass with it’s color…really cool. I love that you can get beer like this, high alcohol and big flavor, out of a can these days. I’d definitely recommend this to someone who likes stouts.

I folowed it up with a New Belgium Le Terroir from their Lips of Faith series. My friends have raved about this beer and I expected good things but didn’t know exactly what was coming. This beer is amazing! Hazy golden pour with soft white head. The aroma has notes of barnyard, dried fruit, hops, and mandarin oranges/citrus. The flavor is sour fruit and floral hop flavor without the hop bitterness. Medium dry finish. I am savoring every sip of this beer. Usually beers from New Belgium’s Lips of Faith series sit on the shelf for a while…this one seems to be gone everywhere right after it was released. I’m so glad that I was able to get a bottle and try it. Find a way to get this if you like sour beers.

Living that IPA life

I’m opening up the night with a tall can of Oskar Blues Deviant Dale’s IPA. First of all, I’ve tasted all of the Oskar Blues beers before, the ones that are canned at least. I thought they were pretty good but never had a whole one, just tastes. This is my first whole beer, and this is delicious! I have to rethink all the beers I’ve only had a taste of, starting with the Oskar Blues family. This beer, Deviant Dale’s, is supposed to be a hoppier, higher alcohol version of Dale’s Pale Ale, Oskar Blues flagship beer, and it succeeds. Great hop profile and a much more interesting flavor than I remembered. I get grapefruit and something like a lime zest in the flavor. I could be way off, but I think Oskar Blues has a philosophy about drinking beer from the can too, so I didn’t pour this one into a glass as I usually do. No clue what color it is, amber? gold? Well it’s tasty.

For the second of the night I opened a Widmer Nelson Imperial IPA. This beer is…strangely close to the one I just had in flavor. First impression, something like the last, but I taste orange. I don’t expect this good of a beer from Widmer, mostly because they’re more mass produced, but they have been doing more crafty offerings in the last year or two it seems like. I don’t mean to imply that I haven’t liked their beers, I’ve had a number that I enjoyed in the last year, but all of them came in larger bottles, things that are barrel aged and the like. This one is good as well and worth trying. Cheers.