Mid January, that’s the last part of the Holiday Season for me, since that’s when Genny releases their annual bock beer. The beloved weed-chewing jumping goat on the garish green can makes the beer looks like it’s the cheapest nastiest thing in the world, but in fact this is the best thing Genesee makes, and it’s only on sale in Janauary and it sells until it’s gone. For another year. This time, the bock lasted until early March. I usually stock up and it lasts me through May.
Last year i had a few tucked away until November. This year there were three goatbeers hiding in the far corner of the fridge until July. Why the love? Bock is made from the unfermented sugary grainsludge which they scrape out of the vats once a year, and if there’s sugars, then you can enslave yeasts to make beer out of it.
Talk about a hearty beer body. This bock is thick and chewy, color dark and brooding, the sweet syrupy malt-mud concentrates dozens of runs of Genny’s standard beer, which is undrinkable on its own, into a fine melange of flavors which you just can’t achieve by freshly malted grains on their own. Sour, from the over-complete fermentation and some normal hopping. It’s really a masterpiece and anyone who tries it for the first time is shocked that a beer this tasty came from Genny.
The limited run certainly lends extra appreciation via anticipation, but it actually is good beer. I rate it a steady 8.0 for the weight and taste, and because it’s Genny most people won’t buy it, so the price remains pleasingly low.
Caramel in the heaviest way, a true German beer with soul built in by law. It has that backmouth sour as it goes down like many German beers, and a squeaky feel on the tongue. Don’t know why, but many German beers remind me of shoelaces. But in a good way. Even i don’t know what that means.
Being a doppelbock (double bock), this is brewed from the leavings of other Spaten bocks, which were themselves brewed from the leavings from Spaten’s regular beers. The silt and scum from a brewing run is high in unconverted sugars, locked away in the dead bodies of little yeast bugs who gave their lives and fortunes for alcohol. Thus, a scoop of double-brewed silt has even more sugars. Enter more unwitting yeasties, and there’s a lot of sugar… they can’t help but turn it all into alcohol, making this double-bock beer a serious 7.6% alcohol.
Worlds of taste from the multifarious malts which went into the constituent beers, and they were all compliant with the strict German Beer Purity Law. German beer is what beer really is, and this third-level brewing is not cheap, but it is the pinnacle of what German brewers are allowed to do under the Rheinheitsgebot of 1516 Anno Domini.
Still mostly in effect after an even 500 years, the Rheinheitsgebot law is constantly under attack by, simply put, jackasses. Both within and outside Germany, people keep trying to claim that gluten-free beer is real beer (it is not), and self-important Euro-zone bureaucrats keep trying to chip away at Germany’s Beer Purity Law on the grounds that it’s “protectionist”. What a bunch of turds.
Five centuries of pure beer have developed German brewers into the world’s experts at making real beer, using only: water, yeast, hops and barley. Nothing else. This forces Germans to make the best of it, and they’ve done just that… they make the best. Some inside Germany want to repeal the Purity Law so they can make all sorts of abominations, like cherry flavors and adding sugars and colorings. Jackasses. All the Rheinheitsgebot says is that they can’t do that and still label it “beer (bier)”. Doesn’t prevent them from making all sorts of abominations, they just can’t call it beer. Because cherry beer isn’t real German beer, it is, in fact, an abomination.
I hereby call on American brewers to support the Rheinheitsgebot, and to abide by it voluntarily. There should be a little ‘R’ inside a square, a small and unobtrusive mark on the label, to alert knowing consumers that the beer inside is absolutely real beer. Water, barley, hops and yeast. Only those ingredients. If you do that, put the (R) mark on the label. If you can’t abide, then no problem. But if you do, then let us know. I would whole-heartedly gear my purchases towards beers that bear an (R) mark. We don’t need a law to enforce beer purity, but we sure as hell need a way to tell what’s real beer and what is carrying additives.
But off the rant for now, back to Spaten’s Optimator…
Knowing what it took to make this beer, and acknowledging the unqualified success in flavor, the rating has to be 9.7 for excellence. A great “last beer of the night” to send you off with that toasty roasty flavor lingering for a long time, and the high proof lending an extra depth to your sleep and extra oddness to your dreams. I dreamt that there was a girl who slept on her ceiling every night. She’d start out in bed but over the course of tossing and turning she ended up on the ceiling, so her folks wouldn’t let her move out on her own even though she was in her 20s, for fear a strange bedroom would end up with her falling 10 feet onto the floor in the morning.
Wow, what a weird/awesome dream. And it came after drinking real German doppel-bock. Thanks, Spaten!
Good start to the experience with some humor on the outside of the bottle (non-twist cap says “Tools Required”), and when opened, the insides smell promising. And i was not misled. This is a mighty fine IPA. Rounded beer body gives a rich creamy dimension to the hops side of the equation, without tamping down the tartness. In fact, there’s nothing getting in the way of these hops. They don’t brag about species or blends of hops on the packaging, Full Sail just does it. It does claim that the IPA is “Ridiculously Tasty” but it’s not bragging if it’s true.
Not a sipper’s IPA, i felt zero guilt about greedily gulping this one down, and it was not even a hot day. Luckily, at a reasonable 6.0% alk, there’s nothing for a gulper to fear. Very well balanced taste sockets: low sweetness, high hops, real wort flavor survives the brewing. Highly recommend this one even though i don’t want to, it’s an East-West thing. Full Sail is from Oregon and i’m in New York, so naturally i’ll root for my peeps. Not as bad as a Biggie/Tupac feud, but this Oregonian winner evens the battle for tops in hops.
The previous 3 were Smuttynose Finestkind from Maine and Sam Adams’s 48ยบ from Boston, and Sierra Nevada’s Hop Hunter IPA out of Cali. Now with another West Coaster in the elevated echelon, we’re all even, Steven.
Thank god they don’t brew good beer in Missouri, ahem, or we’d be headed towards another messy Compromise, and we all know how the first one turned out. Full Sail’s IPA rates a 9.2 on my tastebuds, and those buds may not be for you.
Billed on the bottle as using 4 types of hops and 3 kinds of malts, and in teeny tiny print, a warning of sorts: this IPA is packing a sweltering 8.2% alcohol. That must be the 2X they’re talking about, because the taste is neither extremely hoppy nor whole-beer malty. Good balance of sweet and pointy hops, even if the latter is not really sharply hopped, is it a little pointy. Can taste the alk underneath the beer, not as dire as some malt liquors on the market, but certainly there.
So with this alk it’s not a great hot-day refreshment, but not bad for a cooler Spring evening when there’s nothing attractive to drive to. Sedate hops, not bright and burning, a slight citrusy hint but more like pine than lemon. OK as a beer, but no reason to buy this as long as Smuttynose is still making Finestkind. My rating of 5.6 takes into account the lower hops and higher brainwreck potential.
Billed as “continuously hopped” and i’m not sure what that’s supposed to do for the beer, but i’ve had hoppier. A little tangy on the beer side of the equation, almost like you can taste the stainless steel it was brewed in. The hop side of the formula is bright but blunt, gets citrus on you and grasps at the tart ring but that’s just out of its clutches.
A sweet lemony flavor, think Lemonheads not Sour Patches. Halfway through the pint, the sweetness grows up and leaves the hops behind. At 6% alk this won’t brew your brain, but still strong enough to respect. By no means a terrible thing, but nothing here really stands out. Aftertaste fades too quickly and the body is light. Tastes like it would make a great pairing with white fish for dinner, but not a beer adventure on its own. I’ll call this one at 5.2, for being unremarkable yet $10 bux a six, and that’s on sale.
Yet another IPA from the prolific people at Southern Tier, not too bad an attempt at the balance which Smuttynose has discovered. A darker aspect tells about heavier grains seared longer, the hops are clear and solid, and the sugars are also the lower notes on the scale, from a darker malt allowed to cook a deeper brown.
The heavier malts give this one a meatier taste in the mouth, and there’s some hints of toast playing off the sour hops, a nice touch. At 4.5% alcohol, this one is not going to toast your brain, and it’s refreshing in the way that old-tyme beer was refreshing, by being a meal where the water is bad and the workday is long. Have to give it an 8.1 for yumminess.
Make mine slutty! Ooops, the slogan is “Make mine a Smutty”. Same difference, really. Kidding aside, don’t be put off by two lounging geezers on the label, this here IPA is a true winner. Perfect balance of beeriness and hoppiness, a body that makes you want to make a sealskin coat out of it and a flavor that makes you wish your own nose was as smutty as the brewery’s pinnipedal mascot.
Almost a creamy top note to the flavor, like you’re scooping it right out of a barrel freshly arrived in India. The beer side of it has barely enough sweetness to make the hop side of the palette truly “citrusy” in a way that others only claim to. And Smuttynose doesn’t claim to, they actually do it, and without crowing about it, which is also great.
The lighter malt wedded to good hops, might be an intentionally faster fermentation which leaves more sugars in it, the overall balance of components makes this one of the top IPA’s i have tried. It’s a buzzy one at 6.9% alcohol, but very refreshing. Now i know why the geezers on the label look so giddy. Fitting that they made up a new word for this one: “finestkind”. A great IPA, in my book it rates a lofty 9.7 for exquisite balance.
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And to update this review, now more than 3 months later, this is still and truly the best IPA i have tasted and tested to date. Note that 9.7 rating above, and remember it. By now, have reviewed 60+ IPA’s and 9.7 is the highest rating i’ve given to anything. Smuttynose Finestkind is the tops!
The standard India Pale Ale from Southern Tier Brewing, the nose is crisp but weak, the taste brings more malt flavor than their “Live” ale. Both ales mention 4 malts and 4 hops on the label, but this one favors the grains over the cones. Still nicely hopped, just not sour-face hoppy.
A good rounded feel in the mouth, overall a better ale than the “Live” one, with the balance more on being a beer than being hoppier-than-thou. 7.0% alcohol here, so prolly not the best drink to relax on a hot day, but in New York you’re not melting on the porch for 9 months, only three. So low on hops, but nice real-beer taste.
The longer you sip it, the more lingering the taste of hops is, and i think this means they used pretty fresh hops. I’d call this one a nice round 8.0 for, well, well-roundedness.
Pretty good, label calls it “citrusy” which i didn’t even know was a word, but does have those hints of tang from hops, which could mimic, on a good day, some soury fruit. Hey, if they can make up words like citrusy, then i can make up “soury”. Slightly cloudy in its quite-pale color, the nose is tangier than the taste, which is a little sweet. On the whole, a fine hoppy beer which the label also calls a “session ale” and i confess i haven’t the foggiest idea what that means. Good taste, nice refreshment with the sweetness, 5.6% alcohol in this bottle, i’d give this one a 7.7.
