Notes from the Panel Archives - Page 15 of 25 - Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club

AguaMala…This ain’t no Corona, Baby!

March 31, 2015 by Kris Calef

I’ve been wanting to run a Mexican craft brewer for a while now as there are quite a few that have popped up in recent years making really nice beer. The AguaMala Brewery initially sent us four beers to check out: a 3.4% session pale ale, a 4% amber ale, a well hopped American pilsner, and a 7% IPA, and we really liked them all. As much as we loved the IPA, we were really impressed with the two session beers. It’s a real art to be able to deliver that kind of flavor and body at such a low ABV. Makes me want to head down to Tijuana, plop down on a bar overlooking Avenida Revolucion for say…6 or 8 hours…and drink a lot of (good) beer while pounding street tacos.

AguaMala produces six or more other beers which we’ll be taking a look at as well and we’re going to do our best to line them up in the next 6 months. Sweet label art too. Stay tuned.

Prost!
Kris

Getting reacquainted with an old friend, Fantôme’s Magic Ghost

March 24, 2015 by Kris Calef

This beer tripped me out when we first featured it back in 2011 and once again over three years later when I busted open a bottle I had stashed from the 2011 run. It was still green to be sure, but not quite as vibrant as it was when we first ran it. Definitely a creeper that didn’t feel anywhere near 8% and I found the beer’s herbal qualities to be even more pronounced after some time in the bottle allowing it’s hop profile fade. As I was drinking it, I imagined Dany, the head brewer, darting about in the forest collecting various twigs and vines to toss in the mash. Still a definite lemon/lime citric nature to it and I still got the green tea notes that we picked up originally.

Suffice to say, my mood was altered a bit after downing the bottle while not doing much of anything else on our deck. It was pretty good (my mood) before I opened the beer…But really much, much better after the ghost worked his magic. Be sure to check out our original full tasting notes from when we first ran it.

Prost!
Kris

Fünke Hop Farm delivers the goods! Another Rare Beer Club® Exclusive

March 16, 2015 by Kris Calef

I’m really excited about this beer. We worked with Sudwerk damn near 20 years ago in The Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club™ as they were, and continue to be, one of the best US craft beer producing lager houses. Honestly, I’m not sure why we didn’t connect again until 2015, but I’m really glad we did. I noticed that they were branching out into some barrel aged, small batch, creative stuff and reached out to them last year to discuss an exclusive project for The Rare Beer Club^®. They were all for it and sent us down a number of experimental beers that they were playing around with to run by the panel: Velvet Jackhammer, an 8% Helles Bock; Game Changer, a 7% funky wild lambic; and a bourbon barrel aged dry stout. Suffice to say, we dug them all, but then they sent us down a bottle of Fünke Hop Farm, a Dry-Hopped Blended Sour Saison, and it moved rapidly to the top of the queue.

You’re going to LOVE this beer. It’s brewed with oats and wheat and fermented out with two strains of saison yeast. About 6-9 months in an assortment of barrels (Petite Sirah, Grenache, & Chardonnay) all while being fermented with Brett and Lactobacillus. These various treatments are then blended with an all-Brett beer that’s barrel-aged separately, bringing in more tropical and guava notes. Then it’s dry-hopped with Simcoe, Nelson, and Citra. Suffice to say, Sudwerk busted out all the moves on this beer and it shows.

We’re proud to feature it.

Prost!
Kris

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February 2015 Rare Beer Club Special Offer

February 10, 2015 by Kris Calef

Today we’re excited to announce our first Rare Beer Club^® Special Offer of 2015! You can read a summary below or visit the special offer page for full tasting notes and access to the order form.

If you’re new to the club: welcome! One of the best things about being a member is that, in addition to our normal monthly selections, you can take advantage of our periodic special offers on additional exciting and hard-to-find beers.

We sampled a lot of beer during the last few months in order to home in on four outstanding brews. These standouts really impressed us, and each in their own unique way. We know you’ll enjoy them as much as we did. Cheers!

Brasserie du Flo: Cuvée St. Antoine Blonde – Brewed on a tiny 2-bbl system by Didier Cornet, a friend of Fantôme’s Dany Prignon, this superb beer comes through as a mixture of bready blonde ale and peppery saison, with layers of intermingling yeast, firm and funky acidity, well-fermented dryness, and plush fruity esters. 7.5% ABV.
Brouwerij Kerkom: Reuss – A blend of 80% blonde and 20% lambic, Reuss delivers a heady, toasty, yeasty aroma with a citrusy tart backdrop, while the juicy, acidic tang and subtle funk of a precise gueuze comes forward in the flavor, with a touch of herbal hop bitterness throughout. Approx. 6.5% ABV.
Mikkeller: Frelser – Brewed by Mikkeller at De Proef, Frelser is a massive, hugely appointed überbock delivering deeply caramelized sugars, dried dark fruits, some dark roast, leather, and a ton of rich, intricate maltiness – all within a soft, finely carbonated texture. 11% ABV.
Epic Brewing (New Zealand): Epicurean Coffee & Fig – An impressively unique imperial oatmeal stout featuring Turkish figs and conditioned on toasted Philippine coconut & Kenyan coffee beans. Pouring jet black, there’s tons of roasted coffee and subtler chocolate, while figs play off the coffee, and the coconut offers a toasty, slightly tropical backdrop. 8% ABV.

Flexible ordering allows you to order 2, 4, 6, 8, or 12 total bottles, combining any of the 4 featured beers in any way to get there so that you can easily try all four. Orders ship after our February 18th cut off date.

Order online or at 800-625-8238 Mon-Fri 7 am – 5 pm Pacific. If your Rare Beer Club^® membership was a gift, you will be contacted by one of our team members for payment information if you submit your order online.

Click the “Learn More” button for full tasting notes, and to access the order form.

If you wish to get any of these limited selections, please respond to this special offer by 12:00 PM Pacific on Wednesday, February 18th.

Cheers!

Jolly Pumpkin Agrees to another Rare Beer Club® Exclusive!

February 7, 2015 by Kris Calef

JPartisanAlesHalfCircle I’m fired up. I just heard back from Jolly Pumpkin’s Head Brewer/Founder, Ron Jeffries, that he wants to do another RBC exclusive for us this year. The brewery is well known and loved for their funky and sour beers so I suggested that we do some kind of a wild ale this year. Looks like we’re targeting June, just in time for Father’s Day! I’ll keep you posted as we firm up on the details of the beer. We might even do a naming contest with this one be sure to check back with us from time to time. We’re making a real push to increase the number of exclusives that we run in The Rare Beer Club®. I’m hopeful that we can nail down more than half of our featured selections this year.

Prost!
Kris

Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin

January 26, 2015 by Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club

I first ran into this beer at a liquor store in San Diego while visiting my brother for the day. I was instantly filled with excitement and joy, being that I am a huge Sculpin fan already, and love me some grapefruit. I couldn’t wait to get this beer home and give it a try. However, I wondered how Ballast Point could improve on Sculpin’s already unique flavor. I’ve always followed the motto, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” but, in this case, it works. The tart freshness of grapefruit perfectly complements the IPA’s citrusy hop character. It pours a brilliantly clear, golden, honey color with a large layer of perfectly white foam, which quickly fades to a very thin layer with good cling. It draws in a strong aroma of citrusy fruit, mostly grapefruit, go figure, with the apricot, peach, mango & lemon I’ve grown to enjoy with the original Sculpin. There is a light pine scent with floral hints and subtle alcohol. Taste is very fruity and very citrusy. Grapefruit is unmistakable, mostly in the backend, which is surprisingly crisp. This finishes clean, dry-bitter with pine notes and lingering citrus flavor. The balance between pine and citrus has been tilted way to the favor of the citrus, which is not a bad thing in this case. Grapefruit is known as a winter fruit, but this easy-drinking ale tastes like summer. Overall, a great IPA.

Salud!
Jason

Preparing for our first shipment of canned craft beer!

January 24, 2015 by Kris Calef

These are exciting times in the craft brewing industry to be sure and to make sure we’re able to continue to offer our members the country’s best craft beers, we’re opening up the beers considered for all but the Rare Beer Club® to breweries that only offer their products in cans. Although some may have reservations about canned beer, rest assured that we wouldn’t be doing it if it didn’t absolutely make sense. At this time, by not offering canned selections, we’d be limiting the breweries we can work with significantly and that trend is only going to build, limiting us even more over time. Offering canned selections opens up some of the country’s best breweries like Snake River, Oskar Blues, Cigar City, Surly Brewing Co., and The Alchemist, makers of Heady Topper. Trust us on this one. We’ve been doing this over 20 years now and it’s the right call.

Also, today is Beer Can Appreciation Day were we celebrate the day beer was first served in cans 80 years ago today on January 24, 1935!

Prost!
Kris