Current Featured Beers - May 2013

This smooth oatmeal stout has won well over a dozen additional gold, silver, and bronze medals at various beer competitions since first bringing home a silver for Lost Coast in the 1997 World Beer Championships. Presenting a deep, rich brown on the pour, capped by plenty of fluffy light brown foam, 8-Ball offers up luscious aromas of dark chocolate and well-roasted coffee, with some hints of smoky char and a bit of an earthy character. Look for a core of roasty-toasty malts on the palate, joined by some scorched caramel and a mild...

Pouring an attractive golden copper color with a large crop of sticky, glass-coating foam, this IPA is certainly a looker. The aroma notes are quite unabashedly West Coast in style with big, bold notes of Pacific Northwest hops. As assertive as they are, to us there’s a certain soft quality to them as well, with the citric notes (think orange, grapefruit, tangerine) and touches of pine joining with floral notes to greet, rather than assault...

Dominion Lager is brewed in the Dortmunder style, which originated in Westphalia, Germany in the late 19th century as the region’s answer to the closely related helles lagers of Munich and pilsners of Lower Saxony. You’ll notice a bit more of an amber hue on the pour compared to your average German pils, and it’s a reflection of the more prominent malt character this style delivers. On the nose, expect a very European grassy and earthy hop...

Hop Mountain pours a deep amber color with an ample, fluffy head that sticks around. On the nose…ahhh, sweet hops. Pleasant grapefruity citric aromas merge with a lightly floral impression and hints of melon and tropical fruit, while a lightly sweet caramel maltiness lies underneath ready to provide structure. In the mouth the hops hit upfront with a moderate bitterness, then build into a juicy quality as fruity hop notes expand across the palate.

This is a relatively new beer for Primátor, and is just making its way to the US for the first time as we write this. In fact, the 500 ml sized bottles we were sent for our panel evaluation were still wearing Czech labels with nary an English word to be found besides “English Pale Ale.” So how well did these Czech brewmeisters manage to do with their interpretation of an English ale? Pretty darn good, especially considering their expertise...

“What’s a maibock?” you ask. Also commonly known as a Helles Bock, it’s a variant of bock that’s lighter in color and generally a bit more assertive in the hop department. On the pour, Primátor Maibock presents a rich golden color with a sizeable off-white head that leaves some foam clinging to the glass as you drain it. We found the malty aromas to be pretty big on this one while the hop aromas took a bit of a back seat; expect a prominent...

When one sees a label that indicates a list of ingredients like “ale brewed with spices, almond milk, cocoa, chili, black beans and avocado leaves,” there’s a certain part of our discerning selves that’s very curious, and perhaps a similarly sized piece that’s very skeptical. We’re not alone here. The addition of atypical ingredients has arguably gone from points of desperately needed innovation early on to approaches that suggest a...