It Takes Two

Beer #717 Two Hearted / Bell's Brewery, Kalamazoo, MI 
Previously from this brewery: Oberon, another Oberon, and a Double Cream Stout

Tonight's beer is an old favorite; a bottle of Two Hearted Ale from Bell's.  This IPA has a clear, dark gold hue and a wispy white head.  There are big grapefruit aromas, with lemon and pine as well.  When you take a sip, you find a wondrous mix of tropical fruit citrus and dry, earthy pine, with enough malt to balance things out.  A mellow bitterness to let you know that this is an IPA, but not enough to kill your taste buds.  A Top 25 selection, for sure.  To be fair, that list is now well beyond 25 beers, but it's still a high honor.

Nothing fishy about that!

I suppose you should read Ernest Hemingway's Big Two Hearted River when drinking this beer, if you want to get all up in the theme.

Thing to Think About Today:
Bottle of Two Hearted?  Don't need two, just need one Heart in this space - the Heart with the timeless classic What About Love?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE5GGMhmo-M

Heavenly Hellish

Beer #716 Hop Devil / Victory Brewing Company, Downingtown, PA
Previously from this brewery: A metric ass ton of beers

I have bad posture when I sit and type.  I have no idea what prompted me to type this, other than the fact that I'm sitting here hunched over the computer like a 98 year old, hammering away at the keys without noticing that sitting like this makes my back hurt.  Sometimes, I'm not as intelligent as I think I am.

Now that I'm sitting like a normal human, tonight's beer will be another from the archive, a Hop Devil from Victory Brewing.  You see a light, clear copper color and a lingering white head.  Your nose finds a citrus and earthy aroma mix, and your taste buds pick up the flavors of lemon and pine, with a touch of malt, and a dry, bitter finish.  Just the way an American IPA should taste.

Hop to it

Thing to Think About Today:
Another beer with a devil connection tonight, and while I usually go for something from the dark side, tonight I'll look upwards instead.  Going to close with The New Pornographers and the thankfully not religious All the Things That Go To Make Heaven and Earth.  The sound isn't completely outstanding on this live video, but this is a band I desperately want to see live one day, so we'll go with it.  Night all....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tklMIph-19o

"Our time reduced to an honorable mention"

Harvest Time

Day #687 Northern Hemisphere Harvest Wet Hop Ale / Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Chico, CA
Previously from this brewery: Southern Hemisphere and Summerfest

Another Sunday of realizing that Penn State football isn't very good.  They aren't supposed to be, and they don't need to be, but still.... losing sucks always and forever.

Beer review for the day is a Northern Hemisphere from Sierra Nevada.  It has a clear light amber color, with a lingering white head.  There's ample bitterness, but not as much citrus as I was expecting.  Good bit of piney, earthy flavors.  In all, a solid beer, but there are others with more welcoming balances of flavors out there.  Worth a try, though.  The interesting story about this beer is that the hops used go from the fields to the brew kettles in less than 24 hours.

I have no picture, as this one is lost in my phone somewhere, and that's just the way it goes some days.

Thing to Think About Today:
On a fall day with Northern Harvest beer, I give you Neil Young and Harvest Moon.  Good day, folks....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2MtEsrcTTs

"When we were strangers, I watched you from afar / When we were lovers, I loved you with all my heart."

Day 563: Uinta Brewing Hop Notch IPA

Ah, the mysteriously and wildly different labels of Uinta Brewing Company. 

Anyway let me put my weird hang up about the wide variety of beer labels from Uinta aside and tell you about their Hop Notch IPA.

It pours a beautiful golden brown color with a thick, sudsy off-white head. Now that we're in the heat of Philadelphia summers, I have to remember to stop pouring my beers in the frigid air-conditioning and then taking them outside to photograph. My glasses and bottles keep getting all foggy!

The Hop Notch IPA smells strongly of piney hops and fruit sweetness. The flavor is delicious. There's a nice perfumed hop in there along with pine and orange. It also has a nice crackery dryness.  I also like it because it has a good amount of malt, which rounds it out nicely.

Why is it called "Hop Notch"? It's a play on words (top notch) that will hopefully become part of the beer lexicon. For example, "That IPA was hop notch." Now you know!

Beer stats
Style: IPA
ABV: 7.3%
IBUs: 82
Rating: Good

Previously reviewed from Uinta
His and hers reviews of HooDoo kolsch
His and hers reviews of Cockeyed Cooper (barley wine)

Day 539: Frankenmuth Batch 69

I'm out of words. No pearls of wisdom today. If that's disappointing, prepare yourself for more disappointment. Today's beer is the Frankenmuth Batch 69 IPA. It's an American IPA that claims to taste of citrus, flowers and pine.

I drank this at a decidedly unbeercentric household so no appropriate glassware. It poured a bright deep golden color with very little head. What was around was white. It didn't smell of anything in particular and it was very malty without any discernible hop profile. Given the description from the bottle, I was expecting lots of hop in there. Instead I got lots of sweet, lots of orange and not much else.

Overall it was a real disappointment. Even more so because Frankenmuth is one of Michigan's oldest breweries--hailing all the way back to 1857. It's located in Frankenmuth, Michigan, which is known as Michigan's Little Bavaria. With that kind of reputation, maybe I would have been better off with one of their pilseners or dunkel lagers. Alas this was the only option available to me at the time.

Beer stats
Style: American IPA
ABV: 6.9%
IBUs: 69
Rating: Poor

Previously reviewed from Frankenmuth
First out the limo! (And maybe the last...)