Day 688: Rogue Voodoo Doughnut

Several weeks ago I found out that my local Whole Foods got in a shipment of the Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Chocolate Banana  Peanut Butter stout. I like Rogue's beer. I really like Voodoo Doughnuts. And despite having heard from many people that the first iteration of the Rogue/Voodoo beer was a terrible, smoky mess, I could not resist the siren song of a stout with flavors of chocolate and peanut butter. (See evidence here, here and here.)

Can someone come over and rake all those leaves?
Mr. Blog and I are too busy drinking beer.

It poured an almost black brown color with a deep tan, full head. It smelled strongly of bananas that faded nicely into strong dark chocolate aromas. As it sat on the table next to me, I could easily smell the chocolate scent wafting over to me. I took a sip and my first thought is that it is kind of watery. Another sip. Yup, watery. There's some chocolate in the flavor but it's light compared to the smell. There is a lot of coffee, which I wasn't expecting. There was also something perfumey in there and I can't describe it any better than that. Sadly I'm not getting any peanut butter and I had to work hard to get any banana. I wavered between rating this one average, but the more I tried to drink it and then sleeping on it overnight, I decided that it was getting a poor rating. 

Beer stats

Style: Stout

ABV: 5.3%

IBUs: Unknown

Rating: Poor

Previously reviewed from Rogue

Beard beer, more Beard Beer, Eugene City Brewery Honey Orange Wheat Ale, Juniper ale, the sampler 

Day 645: DuClaw Sweet Baby Jesus

After doing a little blog housekeeping this weekend, I found a bunch of reviews from this summer that went unused thanks to the gazillion reviews that resulted from my trip to Belgium. So today's post is a trip down memory lane to TJ's Independence Party where I had a chance to try DuClaw Brewing Company's Sweet Baby Jesus.

Sweet Baby Jesus is a peanut butter chocolate porter. It poured deep brown, almost black in the glass with a think off-white head. It smelled deeply of peanut butter. The flavor is full of chocolate and peanut butter with some roasted, smoky coffee notes. I also noted a little more hop flavor in this one compared to other chocolate peanut butter beers that I've had recently (Tired Hand's Five out of Five or Spring House's Big Gruesome, for example).

Beer stats
Style: Stout
ABV: 6.5%
IBUs: 53
Rating: Good

Previously reviewed from DuClaw
Venom (American pale ale), more Venom

Sweet!

Day #534 Troegs Pale Ale / Troegs Brewing Company, Hershey, PA
Previously from this brewery: the delightful Nugget Nectar, Sunshine Pils, and Scratch 57 (starring Darryl Dawkins!)

Happy Memorial Day to you all!  Hopefully you have fun plans for the day, or at least get to spend it with loved ones.  And I do hope you'll pause in some way to honor those who died while defending our country (friendly reminder: Memorial Day honors the deceased, while Veteran's Day celebrates the service of all veterans).

I'll be spending a portion of this holiday in the yard, trying to tame the jungle that seems to have sprung up recently.  Long time readers of this blog may recall that I would sooner cut off a limb than work in the yard, so you know this is a task I'm dreading.  My allergies started to flare up this weekend, and when you combine that with the approximately 100 bug bites I'll receive while I'm out there, you get a recipe for me being really miserable today.  Sorry to go all Debbie Downer on you there.  Just saying.  And I still didn't receive that invite for a BBQ, by the way..... must have gotten lost in the mail.

Part of Sunday afternoon was spent meandering through Central Pennsylvania, which included a stop at Troegs to get a beer fix.  Found a seat at the bar in their large tasting room, and ordered up a Troegs Pale Ale, which arrived sporting a bright copper color and persistent white head.  This might sound strange to non-craft beer believers, but then again maybe not: this is a very attractive beer, with a bright, clear quality (pic below doesn't do it justice, sadly).  You find a mild aroma of citrus and malt on the nose, and flavors of pine, lemon and orange, and caramel malts.  There's a dryness to this beer, and a very manageable 5.4% ABV.  Not the most complex or unusual beer Troegs produces, but definitely an enjoyable pour to sip on a sunny afternoon.

Trust me, prettier in real life.

Troegs' new brewery location is located right on Hersheypark Drive, around the corner from Hershey's famous amusement park.  I envision tons of dads dropping their kids off at the park to ride the rides, then jetting over to Troegs to relax and enjoy some beers.  Regardless, a trip to Hershey definitely shouldn't be considered complete without a stop at Troegs and their great tasting room.

Thing to Think About Today:
Troegs is located in a town affectionately known as "The Sweetest Place on Earth" thanks to the world famous headquarters of Hershey.  So let's get real relevant and let the Carolina Chocolate Drops (chocolate!) close out the weekend with Your Baby Ain't Sweet Like Mine (sweet!).  See what I did there?  Anyway, I hope this fun song helps you kick off a sunny Memorial Day.  See you all soon...

(music starts at the 1 min mark)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjyw-nW0D90

"And when I'm feeling lonesome and blue / my baby knows just what to do!"

Day 532: Saucony Creek Bling Blangers

Summary of today: 17 miles on the bike. Few hundred yards on a busted tire. Two mile death march to an access point where Mr. Blog Named Brew could pick me up. Casualties: one tire, one tube, my left calf and my pride.

So then I drank a beer. Not this beer. This beer is the Bling Blanger from Saucony Creek Brewing Company. It's a chocolate brown ale. The brewery doesn't have a website yet. There are barely any reviews on Beer Advocate and what's there doesn't include this beer. A mystery!

It pours with a thick, creamy tan head over a deep, dark chocolate brown ale. It smells toasty and malty. The flavor is predominantly chocolate with a little bitter coffee bean thrown in. It has a strong malt profile. The mouthfeel is light but complicated with lots of flavor. It's incredibly smooth--almost too so as I guzzled down half this beer while writing notes.

Beer stats:
Style: Brown ale
ABV: 5.5%
IBUs: Unknown
Rating: Great

Previously reviewed from Saucony Creek
First beer ever from here!

Beer 460: Full Sail Session

I'm fascinated by the phenomenon in which you hear or read about something that at the time sounds so obscure but which insinuates itself throughout your waking life.

For example, on Sunday Gary was changing the lightbulb in our porch light and heard our neighbor blasting Yah Mo B by James Ingram and Michael McDonald. He tells me about it when I arrive home, but it was odd enough for him that he wrote a post about yacht rock. Not having the savant-like repertoire of music knowledge like Mr. Blog Named Brew, I had to ask for a definition. Instance one and two of yacht rock references. Fast forward to Tuesday when I'm driving home and one of my preset radio stations plays a couple of yacht rock songs. Number three. Fast forward to tonight when there's an entire show dedicated to yacht rock on another station that I just happen to be listening to. Instance four.

Strange, but true.

This is known as Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Trust me, my writing about it is going to cause it to pop up several times in your life during the next few days or weeks. The definition is simple: It's when one happens upon some obscure piece of information--often an unfamiliar word or name--and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly. Anytime the phrase “That’s so weird, I just heard about that the other day” would be appropriate, the utterer is hip-deep in Baader-Meinhof.

Is the phenomenon all in our minds? Could be. Our brains have an amazing ability to recognize patterns--a key to learning. But what causes a particular pattern to stand out amongst all the other patterns we encounter on a daily basis? Why don't we log all the beginnings of sequences and note more patterns. It seems to be the relative obscureness of the pattern that signals to your brain, "Hey! Pay attention to me!" Interesting, huh?

I thought I was onto another instance of Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon this past week when I was inundated by information about a new set of session beers from Full Sail Brewing in Oregon and then ended up at a BYOB dinner where one of the beers of choice was Full Sail Session Black lager. I think that was just a coincidence.

It comes in a fantastic chubby little 11 oz. bottle and pours a cola color with a light tan head. It has a strong chocolate malt smell with lots of roastiness. The flavor is best described as a chocolate lager. It has a full roasted malt flavor with a thin mouthfeel. More sips revealed a definite lager-ness to it. There was a strong grain flavor and it reminded me of a stout but not quite a stout. It's a wildly different beer that I really enjoyed.

Beer stats
Style: Black lager
ABV: 5.4%
IBUs:  18
Rating: Good

Previously reviewed from Full Sail
Gary's yacht rock / Session lager review