Mike Loves Beer

This past Monday I made my return to Monday’s Social Beer Night at Coffee District (who has a new website designed by yours truly) after missing a number of weeks being sick.  So here I am with another Big Beers, Small Thoughts.  Let’s just dive on in.

North Coast Old Rasputin XII – The twelfth anniversary of Old Rasputin is aged on bourbon barrels in this one.  The nose and taste are dominated by the sweet bourbon.  Hints of cherry come through with a little boozy flavor as well.  I still find it a bit hot and think it will become incredible in a year or two.

Tampa Bay Brewing Iron Rat – Apparently there is a normal and imperial version of this beer.  Both with the same name.  That’s not confusing at all.  Kevin who brought it wasn’t sure which it was.  But it had a quite smokey nose and taste.  I got a lactose smell from it as well.

Beer Here Malus Pater – This beer must have been sent from overseas because I see no way this label was approved in the states.  It is by far one of the most out there designs I’ve ever seen.  The beer inside was a pretty standard quad.  Lots of dark fruit, Belgian candi sugar and yeast.

BrewDog IPA is Dead: Nelson Sauvin – One of the new single hop IPAs BrewDog is doing with one of my favorite hops.  The nose is incredible.  Very strong scent of the Nelson Sauvin hops.  Fruity and a little piney.  Reminds me of Funky Budda’s Don’t Try since they used Nelson Sauvin hops in that.  But I become disappointed with the taste.  Slight taste of the hops but the rest just seemed watery and bland.

After working 11 days straight I was given a four day weekend from Thursday through Sunday.  For the most part I stayed non-existent.  I cleaned the house, caught up with some friends I hadn’t seen in awhile, went grocery shopping and had a few beers.  And truly I mean that I only had a few beers, well that is until Sunday afternoon.

To call this an epic tasting simply would do it no justice.  How about we come up with a new word for moments like this?  I’m going to go with brewtastical.  Yeah that sounds just right.  Phil and Kelly of Dos Beerigos opened there house, and parts of their refrigerator, to a group of us for this tasting.  Included were Ed Roberts from Total Wine in Ft. Lauderdale who has become mister beer news for us in South Florida with new releases.  Tony Kirkish, a new comer to South Florida but by no means a new comer to craft beer.  He hails from San Diego where there is many a great craft brewers.  Brian Torres and Vanessa Heine, collectively known as Brinessa, graced us with their presence as well.  Brian works at the Total Wine in Boca Raton while Vanessa writes an awesome blog about cooking with beer.  Lastly was Tom Barris who you might remember from such festivals as Brew at the Zoo and NewTimes Beerfest.  Okay so you now know the players involved.

Everyone brought beers to share but unfortunately (or fortunately for our livers) we did not get to them all.  A lineup that included such big names as Dark Lord 2010, AleSmith Speedway Stout, Ballast Point Sea Monster and Bell’s HopSlam was over shadowed by two elephants in the room.  Well actually one of the elephants was a penguin.

Tony was nice enough to bring his bottles of BrewDog’s two extreme beers, the 32% Tactical Nuclear Penguin and the 41% Sink the Bismarck.  None of us had any clue really what to expect.  We have all had Sam Adams Utopias before and reviews between are mixed on our thoughts on it.  Some of us do not even like calling it beer, myself included, but more on that later. [...]

Name – BrewDog Paradox Isle of Arran
Country – Scotland
Type – American Imperial Stout

Appearance – Poured an ink black color with no head at all.

Smell – Some smokiness in the nose along with vanilla and some roasted malts.  You get a whiff of the booze.

Taste – Quite peaty and smokey.  Nice vanilla flavor from the barrel along with some chocolate and roasted malts as well.  As it warms up you get the alcohol burn for sure.

I was a little concerned with this one as bourbon barrels are not my thing quite yet but this is a bourbon barrel that is then used to age Scotch Whiskey in.  The result is very smooth with not much feeling of bourbon at all.  The smokey peat flavor is very nice in this and a welcomed change of pace from other barrel aged stouts I’ve had.  Absolutely lovely beer.  Vine and Barley in Pt. St. Lucie has this on draft right now.  So if you take the trip there definitely get a glass before it’s gone.

Overall Grade – A-