For our Friday afternoon beer tasting this week, we decided to take a walk on the wild side with Stone Brewing Company’s Crime. This is the most aggressively hot chili-infused beer any of us have ever experienced. It’s polarizing, and we’ve got quite a bit to say about it.

Crime began as a batch of Lukcy Basartd (yes, that’s how it’s spelled), which is an excellent blend of Arrogant Bastard, Oaked Arrogant Bastard, and Double Bastard. Aged in bourbon barrels, the beer then received a mammoth dosing of some of the world’s hottest chili peppers. Their website lists the following: “red and green jalapeño, Fatali, Caribbean Red Hot, habanero, Ghost, Black Naga, Super, Moruga Scorpion, 7 Pot, Aji Amarillo, Scorpion, Giant White Habanero, 7 Pot Douglah and Douglah peppers.”

We’re big fans of Stone, and we’re actually very fond of chili pepper heat in some beers (generally beers made with chocolaty malts and/or cocoa nibs). But what about this one? Does adding an insane amount of hot peppers to Lukcy Basartd actually work?

Umm, that depends.

Let’s address the heat. It’s very high, but not crazy. If you’re into hot food, the heat here is manageable. But it is very strong, and it does linger. It’s the only beer where you might actually want a chaser of cool water or milk. But since we’re macho we didn’t use anything like that.

Now for the flavor. It’s unlike anything else. There’s a sweet, malty undertone, a little fruit, hints of bourbon, some booziness, and a big dose of chili pepper flavor running over the whole thing in a flaming chariot. I don’t just mean heat – that’s there too of course – but vegetal, peppery flavor from the stunning mix of exotic pain-inducing fruits. Hop bitterness is 102 IBUs, but who can tell? The brain short circuits so fast trying to deal with the heat and the alien flavor combinations that there are no neurons left to evaluate the hop contribution.

Did I like this beer? No – I wanted to, but… no, it’s just not working for me. At all. I gotta keep it real. Yet I enjoyed the experience of trying it; in fact, I was amused by it. I’ll hold off on judging whether this level of heat is too much for a beer – I think it is, but I can’t be sure. I just don’t think the flavor combinations work here at all. The large mix of spicy, vegetal pepper flavors is perhaps too complex to be appealing, and just doesn’t play well with the underlying bourbon barrel aged mix of “Bastards” that is the beer’s core. But I’m just one opinion.

David liked Crime much better than I, although he said he wouldn’t want the whole bottle to himself, and I think that hits the key point with this beer: Try it with friends. I think it’s worth the experience. It will spur conversation and debate. It’s fun. It’s intense. It’s unique. And you might even like it – it does have a very fresh, fleshy, hot, and complex pepper flavor profile going for it. But it’s a pricey beer, so splitting the cost with two or three other people brings the cost of trying it down to earth.

While it got mixed reviews from our staff, we all liked the novelty of it. Is it ahead of its time? A niche product? A crazy gimmick? A crime? You decide. But I will say cheers to Stone for having the guts to produce a beer like this. Just understand what you’re getting into if you buy it (the label does warn you!).

Cheers,
Brett

Last week we celebrated the end of the week with an imperial IPA from Valiant Brewing Company. This week we headed over to our local bottle shop to grab something to enjoy this afternoon. From experience we know it’s always a good idea to ask if they have anything special behind the counter, and whaddya know – they did. With just two bottles of BearRepublic’s 2013 Racer X left in stock, we knew we better pounce on it while we could.

So, yes, it’s another imperial IPA, but I knew our staff wouldn’t complain – is there such a thing as too much imperial IPA? I think not. BearRepublic’s Racer 5 is a go-to IPA for many of us here, and Racer X is a similarly excellent representation of the bigger “imperial/double IPA” style.

Racer X is a showcase for the famous “Three Cs” that it’s made with: Cascade, Centennial, and Columbus hops. As expected, the hop aromas are big, offering a floral fruitiness composed of orange blossom, tangerine, some grapefruit, a little pine, and some spicy, herbal undertones approaching mint. There’s a caramel malt sweetness underpinning the whole thing too. All of this comes through on the palate, as well, with the robust malts adding enough backbone to hold the whole thing up while delivering a lingering toasty note in the finish. In fact, BearRepublic touts this beer as being well-balanced, and we agree. I’m laughing as I write this because only in our twisted, hop-crazed minds can any 100+ IBU double IPA be “balanced”, but, at least relative to some others in the category, it is – and we like it. A lot. Pick one up if you can find it!

Cheers!
Brett

It’s Beer O’Clock here at the office again! After the craziness of the holiday season, we’re getting back on track with our informal Friday beer tastings, and today we’re trying a brewery that’s new to us – Valiant.

The beer scene here in Southern California keeps getting better and better. Based in Orange, CA, Valiant has been open for less than a year – and if their Jericho Imperial IPA is any reflection of the rest of their portfolio, they’re definitely a brewery to watch.

Luscious floral, citrus and tropical aromas and flavors burst out of this brew including grapefruit, orange, tangerine, pine blossom, pineapple, passion fruit, and more. Hops are quite spicy on the palate, too, and there’s a nice mild minerality to the beer.

This is one very well balanced imperial IPA, with the pale and lightly caramelized malts adding wonderful balance and roundness to the beer without in any way distracting from the juicy and delicious hop explosion.

We all were really impressed with this one. At 10.8% ABV and 100+ IBUs, Jericho is big and bombastic while somehow managing to remain tremendously graceful and composed. And just straight up delicious.

If you’re in Orange County, keep on the lookout for Jericho – this is Valiant’s first bottled beer, and it’s well worth picking one up if you can find it.

Cheers!
Brett

 

 

Being based in Southern California, we’re lucky enough to have access to a tremendous variety of good local brews. Naturally, one of our old favorite local brewers is Stone, and one of our all-time favorite releases from them is their “Enjoy By” series. Stone loads this baby up with hops, hops, and more hops; a video on their website claims 9 different varietals: Super Galena, Simcoe, Delta, Amarillo, Motueka, Citra, Cascade, Nelson Sauvin, and Galaxy!

Instead of hiding their best-by date on the back label in some smeared code of black dots you can’t decipher, Stone plasters the date on the front of the bottle. In fact, it’s basically the name of the beer.

Weird? Yep, but it makes total sense because Stone has brewed this double IPA with so much intense and aromatic hops, that it simply must be imbibed as soon as possible – in all its fresh, hoppy glory – before the delicate hop aroma compounds begin their inevitable decay.

So with today being the deadline for Enjoy By 10-25-13, we had to crack open our last bottle this afternoon. Not a bad way to end the week. So what does it taste like you ask? Hop Heaven I say.

“A verdant garden after a spring rain,” says Jason, our marble-collecting Systems Administrator. And you know what? He’s right. The hops jump out at you so incredibly fresh in both aroma and flavor – so floral and loaded with citrus and tropical fruit – that you simply can’t crave anything else while you’re drinking it. And that’s the mark of a great beer. We think arguing over which beer is the “best” of a given style is pointless, but if one absolutely must debate about the best IPAs and DIPAs being brewed today, Enjoy By belongs in the discussion.

Check out Stone’s Enjoy By page to keep track of batches as they’re released to see if any will be making it to your area of the country. If so, grab a bottle. They’re not cheap, but trust us it’s worth it.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Cheers!

Brett