Brewery Website: http://www.rogue.com/
Type of Beer: American Stout
Alcohol Content: 6.0%
Beer Review -
Appearance: Color is completely opaque black. Pours like molasses and gives a nice two finger dark brown head. Looks very similar to an espresso. Head recedes slowly leaving sparse lacing.
Smell: Chocolate, chocolate and some more chocolate. This stout screams chocolate. Pretty much what you would expect from a stout called “Chocolate Stout”. Along with the awesome sweetness of the chocolate notes you can also pick up a slight coffee, smokey smell. Incredibly enticing.
Initial Taste: Luckily the flavor follows suit with the smell. Sweet chocolate malts and natural bittersweet chocolate flavors mix with an ever so slight hop bitterness to create a very well balanced sweet chocolate stout. Finish is sweet and dry.
Thoughts: There are few companies that carry as many awards as the guys at Rogue have accumulated. Turning out beer the likes of Chocolate Stout make all the awards and critical acclaim make sense. This isn’t your usual chocolate stout. A lot of chocolate stouts seem to have an acidic, coffee flavor and fall short with real chocolate flavor. Not with this beauty. Smooth, sweet and chocolaty this beer tastes like a chocolate malted milkshake. With a slight hop and bittersweet chocolate bitterness this beer doesn’t become ‘overly’ sweet. Allowing you to drink multiple beers without feeling overwhelmed with sweetness and chocolate flavor. This is by far my favorite chocolate stout I’ve tried. If you enjoy stouts, more specifically chocolate stouts, and have not had the pleasure of trying this delicious chocolate concoction, I strongly urge you to seek one out. You will not be disappointed. I give this a 5 out of 5. Cheers!
http://www.smithwicks.ie
Brewery Website: http://www.abita.com
Type of Beer: Märzen
Alcohol Content: 4.50%
Beer Review -
Appearance: Pouring down the center of the glass gives this beer a very nice white two finger head. Color is a very vibrant clear orange amber with medium carbonation. The head recedes fairly quickly leaving behind ok lacing.
Smell: Scents are pretty light. Some grains, some sweet malt and a little bit of caramel.
Initial Taste: Clean and crisp this beer has a very nice flavor to it. Some soft graininess up front that gives way to a nice firm (and surprising) hop character. The hops are balanced very well by the crystal malt adding caramel and toffee flavors. This beer finishes extremely smooth and somewhat sugary sweet.
Thoughts: Having been a fan of Abita for a long time I expected nothing but the best from their highest selling flagship beer – Amber. This beer is meant as a session beer and delivers exactly that. With this style of beer you expect some sweetness but what Abita does to make their unique is adding a bit more hops than one might find in a German Marzen. Easy to drink and super smooth it’s no wonder this is Abita’s most popular beer. The flavor is light enough to pair with most foods and does very well all by it’s lonesome. Highly recommend for your next beer session.
Type of Beer: American Amber/Red Lager
Alcohol Content: 4.90%
Beer Review -
Appearance: Pours a beautiful golden honey. Looks just like what you would expect a honey beer to look like. Nice white head with decent lacing.
Smell: Almost strictly honey scented. There is not mistaking this beer for anything else. I could not pick up any other scents other than a very little hops.
Initial Taste: Honey! There is not much else to say except the honey flavor overwhelms the beer. Due to the crazy amount of honey flavoring in this beer not many other flavors can make themselves apparent.
Thoughts: I’ve always been a fan of honey beers. I enjoy the Full Moon honey and have been known on occasion to drink HoneyBrown when the mood strikes me. But I just can’t seem to get any enjoyment from this particular honey infused concoction. It feels as though Michelob tried too hard to make this beer a honey beer and ended up making it taste artificial and overly sweet. If they could restrain themselves a bit and lighten up on the honey flavorings…they may have a drinkable beer. But until then I suggest you stick with the other honey offerings out there in beerland.
