It’s not often I see a small 375ml bottle with a pricetag around $15.00 USD, so curiously I went over to check it out. The reveal was The Lost Abbey’s Deliverance, which is a subtle combination of the Serpent Stout aged in bourbon barrels and Angel’s Share aged in brandy barrels. Being a fan of both beers and bourbon, this was an easy decision.
Mendocino Brewing Company is one of those breweries that I didn’t know about until I received one of their beers via a “beer of the month club” package. Out of this package I got two beers, one of them the Black Hawk Stout and the other the White Hawk IPA. Today I’ll be reviewing the White Hawk as it is 60 degrees at the end of January, and an IPA seems fitting and refreshing.
The beer geek in me will try any beer, at least once. As was the case with a bottle of Cave Creek Chili Beer, which is now brewed at Cervecería Mexicana. Unfortunately for this beer, it has a stigma of being one of the worst beers ever made coming in at #14 on Beer Advocate’s “Bottom of the List.” Well, my curiosity got the best of me, let’s see how bad this really is.
Bell’s Hopslam Ale is one of those beers I look forward to its release each year. After getting word a semi-local distributor received cases, I promptly drove 50 minutes one way to acquire one. Bottled on 1/9/2012, these are extremely fresh and hopefully tasting just like I remember last year: hoppy, bitter, citrusy and sweet.
Maximus and IPA are two words that belong together, their destiny is to be imprinted on a bottle of beer. That’s just what Lagunitas did, they took plenty of hops, malt, and yeast to make the Maximus IPA. Clocking in at 72.41 IBUs there should be some decent bitterness, but not so much that it is difficult to create a well rounded IPA.
