Lagunitas IPA Beer Review

Recently I have decided to branch out from my original vision of organizing the Beer Club and get into a more general appreciation of beer. To that end I have decided to begin reviewing beers as I drink them, this has the added benefit of giving me one more reason to drink new beers. With that out of the way, I bring you the first ever Beer Club Beer Review (BCBR).

Lagunitas IPA

Lagunitas claims their IPA is many things including beer, "homicidally hoppy" and "doggone good". Most of the time when I think of homicidal levels of hops I think of Surly, and I think about sipping a beer that burns off the skin in my mouth. There is a group of people in the beer world who believe that a beer can not have too many hops and that if you can't handle it then too bad.

Turns out that Lagunitas is not one of these brewries. For all the threats of "raging hop character" I found this beer surprisingly easy to drink, especially for an IPA. There is some hop bitternes, but pleasant and well balanced. This should not come as too much of a shock when you learn that they blended 43 hops and 65 malts. Personally, I didn't know there were 43 different kinds of hops. So, where did all the hops go?

The first time I tried this I was really struck by how the "other" hop flavors came through in the beer. They seem to come through as more of a floral or citrius flavor - not just bitterness. Normally, these are two things that I hate in a beer, but when juxtaposed with the dry bitter/ hoppy start it works perfectly. Gave me a whole new appreciation for the art of blending hops. This is definitely up there on my list of favorite IPAs right now, and one that I would love to pit head to head against something like Rush River's Bubble Jack...

Final Verdict: This is a great choice if you are looking for a flavorful IPA that you can savor with out a beer chaser.

Please stay tuned for more Beer Club Beer Reviews.

Tyler

Second Meeting: Brown Ales on January 18th

The results are in! Our primitive attempts at democracy seem to have worked, and it only took a solid week of harassment to get everyone to vote, and then just a couple days to decided what I wanted those votes to say.

As far as the beer went, brown ales were by far the most popular. I was surprised that the Brownies were able to present such a united front. This is relatively unknown territory for me, but I am looking forward to learning more about them. Interestingly, Brown Ales are a very wide category. The only pre-requisite is that it be made with a dark malt, alcohol content and bitterness are unrestricted.

The rules that we used last time seemed to work well. Therefore we shall repeat them. Everyone should choose a Brown Ale and post their selection in the comments section of this post. Ideally people will chose beer that is available, relevant and the one they are going to bring. Interestingly, of all the beers people selected for Stouts, only one of them actually showed up at the tasting. We probably need to work on our accuracy.
After the correct beers are selected, then I will pick a surprise brew.

As far as volume, we had some confusion on this last time so figured I should clarify. Bring at least enough for everyone to taste the beer, (approx 2 - 3 oz/ person), and we will be having up to 7 people. Although if you show up with 14 oz of beer we will call you a lousy cheapskate... unless its really good.

The date is January 18th. Apparently we are all very popular people will full social schedules. This is the earliest date where everyone could make it. Almost everyone could make it on the 11th too, but not Tison. Normally this would be unimportant, except that he offered to host the next one - making it difficult to do it with out him. Very sneaky... Because Tison is hosting it, I will let him select the time.

So, it is set. May the selections of the beer BEGIN!

The Second Meeting

Well, after the success of the first meeting it has become apparent that a second meeting should be held soon, very soon. In fact, if we ever hope to make any progress I suggest we try to meet before the pagans celebrate the winter solstice. But, I also recognize that it is a busy time of year, if we have to wait until after the first of the year so be it.

So that leaves us two decisions that need to be made right now: When and what. Where will come later, and How seems to be taken care of. Who is more of an individual topic than a collective one, and is largely intertwined with When anyway.

This is where technology is supposed to help. Ordinarily I would begin by e-mailing all of the members and asking which dates work, then checking the list of dates back and forth until I had one date where at least 2 of you could make it. Now, I can create a poll that will do part of the work for me (compiling the list of dates) and I can focus on e-mailing you idiots and reminding you to vote. Lord knows that the blog helped us select which beers to bring... I can't wait to see how it helps us choose styles and dates.

At the first meeting I was already hearing cries for democratic representation. Honestly, I didn't expect to lose my mandate so quickly. So, here you have your chance at the democratic process. Please vote for the style you wish to try next. After you have all voted I will falsify the results and pick the style that I like best anyway.

Then select all of the dates that you would like to have a meeting on. Note that they are all Sunday's, if you have a problem with that feel free to leave a comment, maybe we can pick a different day of the week. But, probably not.

Also, if we were to have enough people choose a date before Christmas and one after, we maybe able to schedule two meetings at once. Crazy, I know.


EDIT: Please pick more than one date for a meeting. If we have multiple dates to choose from it will be easier to find one date that works for the most people. You should choose one date if it is the only date you are available.

Stouts!

The first meeting of Beer Club was a resounding success, in as much that we did drink beer.
We had a fine selection of stouts, with one porter thrown in for variety.

The five beers were:
A. Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence
The overall consensus on this beer was that it was much hoppier than any other. It also had a bitter after taste, but not as much chocolate flavor as other chocolate stouts. All around, this was the least favorite of all the beers. Someone said, "Interesting, but I don't want to drink a whole one". Also, our opinion of this beer seems to have nothing to do with the description on the website.

B. South Shore Rhode Scholar Stout
This was everyone's favorite. It has a smooth start, followed by an intense smoke/ burnt middle which mellows into a roasted coffee aftertaste. Delicate carbonation and creamy body help to deliver the wonderful taste. This was one of my favorite beers going into the tasting, and I wasn't surprised that it came out on top.

C. Rogue Mocha Porter
The Mocha Porter snuck in to the tasting because I saw "Rogue Mocha" and quite reading. But, despite only being a porter it didn't throw off the results. As a group we did notice that it had less body and more carbonation that the other stouts. It started off bitter or burned, had a smooth finish, and then a bad coffee after taste that lingered on the tongue too long.

D. Young's Double Chocolate Stout
This was one beer that I had high hopes for, and was slightly let down. Young's comes in 4 pack cans with a widget to release nitrogen gas into the beer giving it a very creamy, straight off the tap feel. The can's preformed perfectly with very creamy and fine head. But, what it had it creaminess it lacked in body, some even described it as watery. Overall it was plesant to drink, chocolaty, sweet and mild - almost like chocolate milk. There were no hops or bitterness evident at all in the flavor. Overall we concluded that this was a good stout for people to start with.

E. Lion Stout
The Lion Stout was another beer that surprised me. I had this one before, loved it, but didn't remember it anything like this. This beer provided an excellent example of how blind tast tests can really let you taste a beer for the first time. It was sweet and roasted, with molasses flavors it was the sweetest beer of the night. But, it had plenty of body and roasted flavors with out as much bitterness as the Rogue or Ommegang. It was also the only beer that had distinct alcohol flavors, not a surprise considering it has 8.00% ABV.

Not a bad line up for our first go at Stouts. Eventually we will have to return to this genre because it is evident that we just scratched the surface. But, next time, we will have to move onto something new.... what will it be?

First Meeting

As your exalted Leader it is my duty to make the critical decisions. With out my even temper and guiding hand we would quickly fall into to anarchy... or worse, sobriety. It is with that in mind that I have set a date for our first official meeting and picked the style.

The First Meeting of Beer Club will be called to order on November 23rd, the chosen style will be Stout.

I know, I know, that seems like a long way away. But, do to several holidays taking place in sequence (Halloween and Deer Season) the 23rd is the soonest we can do it. The upside to this is that it gives you all exactly 1 month to research Stouts.

Stouts and porters are very similar beers, with the distinction that stouts include roasted barely. For our purposes we will not distinguish between the different varieties of Stouts, yet. Milk, oatmeal, chocolate and all other stouts are welcome. Today I picked up a pack of the Schell's Stout - a London style sweet Stout - just to refresh my memory.

Once a member has selected a Stout they should post a comment claiming that brew so that we can avoid duplicates. After everyone who is going to show has posted their choice I will pick a surprise brew, which will be revealed after the tasting.



Note: Leinenkugel's Creamy Dark is not a Stout.

The Rules of Beer Club

The Preamble:
We the Hop Heads of the Beer Club, in order to form a more perfect Union, promote the general B.A.C. and secure the blessings of Beer to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish these rules for the Beer Club.

The 8 Rules of Beer Club.

1. You don't talk about Beer club.
2. You do not talk about Beer club.
3. When someone gets too drunk to walk, even if they are faking it, someone should help them to their car.
4. No more than one style of beer a night.
5. Bring the best beer of that style that you can find.
6. Please wear shirts.
7. We drink as long as we have to - no exceptions.
   
8. If this is your first night at Beer Club, you have to bring chips.

Further more, I have decided that the organization of the club will a dictatorship to begin with. Dissent will be tolerated.

Once the Generalissimo (aka Tyler) looses his mandate from the masses the oppression will begin. This is where the violence inherent in the system rears its ugly head.

After the genocide, the UN will step in to transfer power to an autonomous collective. This collective should take the form of an Anarcho-syndicalist commune, complete with an executive officer of the week, bi-weekly meetings and democratic ratification on all decisions of that officer relating to both internal and purely external affairs.

I want you all to know that I struggled with this decision. Oh, I know you all saw it coming, and you were right. But, I want you to know that I didn't do this because it was the easy way out. I did it because rules #1 and #2 were broken yesterday - the result convinced me that these rules were probably a better fit than I would like to admit. The upside was that I have learned there is more interest in Beer Club than I anticipated.

The Founding of Beer Club

I love beer. The combination of malt, hops and yeast is probably the greatest inventions of all time. Well, at least the greatest beverage of all time. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." So who am I to argue with Mr. $100 bill? Beer is the liquid version of God's love.

It is amazing how such a simple recipe can create such a wide range of flavors. The huge variety of beer is one of its best characteristics. You don't have to limit yourself to just one beer, or one style of beer, instead there is a beer for every situation. How could you go through life drinking only ales? or Hefe-weizens? No, experiencing the variety of beer is half the fun.

But, with in each style of beer there is even more variety. No two stouts are alike, no two ales the same. But how to determine which Kolsch is the perfect Kolsch? or which Lager is the best Lager? And which is the worst? We all know that some beers are sub-par, how to seperate the wheat from the chaff? How can you drink enough of these beers to be able to make a judgment on them?

This question puzzled me for some time, kept me awake at night and finally drove me to drink. My first solution was to drink even more beer, but it was like wandering in the dark. It was too hard to compare beers if you drank them a week apart, the subtle differences were lost to time. It occurred to me to keep a beer journal, but if you have gotten this far you already know I am not much of a writer. Clearly, I needed help.

That was when the idea for Beer Club came to me. I would recruit a team of hop heads, beer snobs and drunks and combine our beer drinking effort. Only then could we drink enough beer to have a chance to find the best. With determination, elbow grease and many many trips to the john we would find those exceptional beers.

We are the Hop Heads of Beer Club and our quest is to find the best beers in the world.