Brew Review: The Bruery Batch Levud's

Batch No. 1 of Orange County, California based The Bruery's Batch Levud's, a Belgian style pale/golden ale brewed with Belgian sugar (#1038/2157). Shipped to me courtesy of the great Steve at Summer of Beer.

I'll be parallel tasting this with Summer of Beer Steve, with our review notes appearing at a later point on his website.

First things first, I'll pour this into a room temperature tulip glass as recommended. This beer comes in a 750ml green glass bottle, and is signed (awesome) by what looks like Tyler King (the head brewer I believe) and Patrick Rue (the owner).

Unlike most of the Bruery tastings so far, this one doesn't go crazy with the carbonation and head. There's an absolutely gorgeous bright white, big bubbled but overall modest sized head cresting the glass.

Its a medium murky dark golden color, smells fruity right away, like pears and passionfruit. The head is a sight to behold, Steve calls it sea foam-like, good description there. First taste is ripe fruit, more of the same flavor combinations, with a little something else I'll chase for a bit. This is nothing like the standard BSPA's, much less yeasty and hoppy, more malty and fruity.

If you've had the Ozzy BSPA from Baltimore's great The Brewer's Art ... this is nothing like it. They share a similar color and general direction, but this one veers off from convention (and Ozzy itself is unconventional) and goes fruity, sort of like a white wine meets BSPA.

Once again The Bruery has taken us into what I assume is uncharted territory. These guys have a special talent in doing the obscene and making it palatable for the 21st century beer drinker. In a way they have probably a certain similarity to the extreme brewing going on at Dogfish Head, but with less alcohol and a much greater nod to classic and Belgian styles.

I'm struggling to come up with a comparable beer, but my memory is surging with thoughts from some of the beers I tasted at The Trappist, a truly great Belgian beer bar in Oakland, California that I visited this summer.

This is quite refreshing, a bit out of season now in the Eastern fall as the leaves turn, the sun sets early and my mood darkens just a touch. It's not so refreshing as a fantastic summery Saison, but is more in the heavily fruited white wine class, like a beer-y Gewurztraminer with apples and pears and passionfruit to go with the grape.

Its going to take a while to drink this tonight, as it's really, really sweet. Anyway, I'm off to enjoy the rest of it, I'll offer any other insights if the relevant thoughts surge into my brain.

Parallel Tasting: The Bruery Trade Winds Tripel

This is a Belgian-style tripel ale brewed with rice and Thai basil. Iiiiiinteresting. As always my partner in crime is Steve from Summer of Beer who incidentally happened to send me this exact bottle we are tasting on opposite coasts tonight.

We drank it last night so here are my mental notes of the most important details:

Its very much in the tripel style -- aromatic, floral notes in the nose and taste, golden in color (this is a very cloudy golden), sweetness. It was fairly well carbonated and less careful pours were greeted with heavy doses of foam.

The Bruery did something interesting, brewing it with rice and Thai basil. I definitely picked up the Thai basil taste, and it stayed the whole time. That was very interesting, more enjoyable at the start although a bit weird when you're drinking 750ml of it.

It had that classic Belgian yeast must or whatever you want to call it in the nose, which is always intoxicating. In general it just smelled terrific and tasted near-terrific as well. Not a world beater, but a fine and most interesting brew and done well. There's always the danger of making an unpalatable beer when being different but the Bruery succeeded here.

Update: Here's the transcript.

Parallel Beer/Blog Tasting: Lost Abbey Bourbon Barrel Angel's Share

As is the occasional ritual at Baltimore Beer Guy (Example #1, Example #2), I did a parallel blog/beer tasting with Steve from Summer of Beer last week. Silly me, I forgot to write about it until now.

From separate coasts we simultaneously drank a bottle of the Lost Abbey Bourbon Barrel Angel's Share from Lost Abbey in San Diego, California. I haven't had a ton of Lost Abbey until this most recent trip (I'll write about that soon), so this was a treat and a hard-to-find offering of theirs.

Steve's got the full review, so please do stop over there for most of what went on and my thoughts. Hint: this beer is delicious.

Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA Tasting

Courtesy of the fine folks at Dogfish Head who actually sent me a bottle of this (as well as a Palo Santo Marron and a DVD about the Palo Santo Marron and some stickers) a few months back. The cool thing is that it has been aged a little over a year, smoothing out the flavor profile just a bit.

And like the Palo, I'll be simultaneously tasting with my good friend Steve from "Summer of Beer". My bottle is dated 6/10/2007, his a 10/10/2007.

Poured into a Dogfish Head logo snifter purchased at the Milton, DE brewery facility. Initial pour, rapidly dissipating, bright yellow head. Slightly cloudy amber color. Unusual aroma, not very pungent surprisingly. Sort of got a root vegetable smell/earthy. No hop aroma that I'm aware of.

Sweet, fruity flavor, like passion fruit maybe. Only mild bitterness. Definitely not what I expected. A lot of people have called this a sweet beer, and I agree with them.

Steve just said something really interesting, and after a few sips I think he's dead on about this:

Steve (9:59:22 PM): the finish is really strange

Steve (9:59:25 PM): like sugary something

Steve (9:59:34 PM): like burnt marshmallows

Steve (9:59:41 PM): like when you set the mallow on fire

Steve (9:59:49 PM): and then you taste that carmelized burnt outside part

I wonder when the 21% alcohol starts to kick in?

Still getting lots of sweetness, starting to get a bit sticky now. Some kind of fruit in there, haven't quite nailed down but its refreshing. Definitely not like any beer I've ever had before.

Another good offering from Steve, who seems to have a good grasp of this beer tonight:

Steve (10:02:59 PM): i hate to use the term for so many beers but maybe it's like an orange marmalade

Steve (10:03:13 PM): certain hops really give off that sorta sweet orange flavor

After a while this tastes distinctly Dogfish Head. It's interesting how certain brewers have a trademark flavor no matter how differing the styles they brew. If I'm blindfolded and trying a bunch of beers and you try to sneak anything Stone or Sam Adams in front of me for example, I'll know. Same thing with Dogfish Head, it seems.

Its hard to describe the specific uniform taste, but it never fails to reveal itself.

Anyway, this is nice, much less harsh than I would have expected. If not for the ridiculously potent alcohol level (21%), I'd probably say this is a beer you could repeat in a single sitting and many times over the months. That's an unusual thing given my mixed relationship with several other DFH offerings (although the 60 and 90 minute IPA's are tremendous and are good early and often).

Many thanks to Sonia at Dogfish Head who sent all these fine DFH offerings to me. It's been tremendous fun. Now if you don't mind, I have a few more ounces of this DFH 120 Minute IPA to enjoy.

(Image: newyorkbrew.com)

Parallel Blog Tasting: Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron

For laughs I traded tasting thoughts over AIM tonight with friend and fellow beer blogger Steve at Summer of Beer. Be sure to visit this link to get the rundown on our real time thoughts on a specially crafted beer from Delaware's Dogfish Head Brewery called Palo Santo Marron. It is a "brown ale" aged on Palo Santo wood.

Also: my review at Beer Advocate, as well as Summer of Beer's.

Not bad, overall. A unique tasting experience both trading thoughts with Steve and enjoying the unusual beer aged in the incredibly dense Palo Santo wood from Paraguay. Check out these YouTube videos for more on this crazy experiment.