Firestone Brewing Coconut Merlin Milk Stout

You know, you just know that Ill-Gotten Booty loves milk stout - and we've got another beautiful example of the style with Firestone Brewing's Coconut Merlin Milk Stout. It pours, as you might expect, an impenetrable almost-black brown with a frothy three-finger head. It's rich and velvety. The coconut flavor, of course, is there, but very laid-back, hardly noticeable. There are also coffee and vanilla in the mix, and a teeny tiny bit of chocolate. This is a great milk stout!

Kinkaider Brewing "Dan the Wiser" Kölsch

What's a kölsch? I'm glad you asked! It's one of those hybrid styles. A hybrid style generally mixes some aspect of top/warm fermenting ales with bottom/cold fermenting lager resulting in a unique blend. Some examples include:

• Cream Ale: an ale that is attenuated, that is, stored cold to age, like a lager
• California Common: also called a steam beer, results from using lager yeasts, but fermenting at high, i.e. ale temperatures. 
• Altbier: traditional Dusseldorf beer; pilsner yeasts brewed at high temperatures
• Kölsch: an ale that originates in Köln (aka Cologne) Germany, top fermented, and then lagered at cool temps. 

Dan the Wiser Kölsch pours a pale yellow with a fluffy white head. Kölsches are typically light and a little sweet, but if I was to try this without knowing that it was a kölsch, I would've guessed that it was a Czech Pilsner, due to it's distinct hoppiness. So, if you're looking for style purity, it's not really a kölsch, but if you're just looking for a decent beer, then you're on solid ground. In addition to the pilsner-like bitterness, there's lemon and lime notes, and some hints of pear and apple as well.

Cosmic Eye Brewing - Arrow of Time Black IPA

It's beers like this which should convert those who "just don't like dark beer". "Dark" is not a flavor! See this old article about what the color of the beer means:

https://ill-gottenbooty.blogspot.com/2014/03/dont-be-afraid-of-dark.html

So, if you just closed your eyes and took a sip of Arrow of Time I guarantee that you would not notice that it poured a dark hue. Granted, the dark malts give it more of a chocolatey taste than a typical IPA, but only really noticeable if you're looking for it. The dominant notes are mainly citrus, with a little bit of piney hops. I'm catching some lemon zest, and maybe a hint of pineapple. None of these flavors are overwhelming - they all blend really well to deliver a unified whole rather than a free-for-all of competing flavors. The 60 IBUs give it an uppercut punch of hop bitterness. Good stuff!

Destihl "Wild Sour" Series: Piña Colada Gose

First - what a gose? (pronounced go-suh). It's a traditional beer style that originated in Goslar, Germany. It's a sour ale that is brewed with at least 50% wheat.  It technically does not comply with the Reinheitsgebot, the German beer purity law, because salt and coriander are usually added, but is granted an exemption since it is a traditional regional specialty. Originally goses were spontaneously fermented, i.e. with no added yeast, but it generally is brewed using top fermenting yeast and lactic acid bacteria. 

Since a gose is a variety of sour ale, Piña Colada Gose is naturally...well...sour! The sea salt adds an unusual kick, the coriander is subtle and understated and the pineapple and coconut (the piña and the colada of the name) both assert themselves and balance nicely. The underlying taste of the gose, once you get past the added flavors, is still apparent - a tart citrus. I'd pair this with something spicy, like chorizo or pizza with hot peppers. Great summer beer.

Boulevard Rye on Rye

Boulevard has been doing several barrel-aged beers over the last few years, sometimes part of their Tasting Room Series. Today's (actually yesterday, but I'm just getting around to the review tonight) offering is an ale made with rye malt, aged in Templeton Rye Whiskey barrels.

The most common grain that is used to brew beer is barley. Sometimes a brewer will use another type of grain for variety, wheat being a common alternative. Rye is a very flavorful grain, and is the type of grain associated with American Whiskey (Bourbon generally uses corn, Scotch, barley).

Rye on Rye is not only a beer brewed with rye malt and aged in rye whiskey barrels, but for good measure they added maple syrup (I was eating a waffle with maple syrup when I was drinking this). It pours a tawny hue with a skimpy head. There is a medley of flavors and aromas that immediately tickle the nasal passages and taste buds, such as vanilla, toffee, oak, pepper, apricot, and a general spiciness. The 13.2% ABV gives it a distinct alcohol heat, it's like drinking a fine whiskey; it's not something that you let your mom give to the lawn guy. 9.7 on the IGB scale.

Belching Beaver Brewery's Peanut Butter Milk Stout

I have to admit, several things drew me to this beer: first and foremost, the name. Belching Beaver? How can you not love that name? The other is milk stout. Milk stouts, sometimes called sweet stouts, are up there in my top 5 or so favorite styles. A milk stout is brewed using lactose, a sugar which doesn't completely ferment, leaving some behind to sweeten the finished product. Finally, peanut butter is one of the flavors that, in my opinion, is an appropriate addition to a stout or porter (not a lager, IPA or pale ale however).

Belching Beaver's Peanut Butter Milk Stout has all the subtlety of a kick to the head with steel-toed boots. If you're looking for "hints" and "notes" of various aromas and flavors, disabuse yourself of that thinking right now! There's some chocolate that the malt brings out, along with the peanut flavoring and you get a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in beer form.

That's it.

Nothing fancy!

Bell's Kalamazoo Stout

Kalamazoo Stout is an American stout with a 6% ABV. The label says "brewed with brewer's licorice" - which almost caused me to steer clear - I wanted to avoid too many flavored beers this outing. But "brewer's licorice" isn't the same as tossing a stick of licorice candy in your beer; here's an article about the flavoring:
https://beerandbrewing.com/special-ingredient-brewers-licorice/

Kalamazoo Stout pours a super, duper dark brown, you might as well say black, with a 3½ finger tan head. The consistency is thick and creamy, almost a quintessential stout. The licorice taste is very subdued, which seems to be the plan. Roast malt is a predominant taste, as well as dark cocoa, molasses and coffee. They don't list IBUs, but the hop bite is very moderate and balances the maltiness very well.

This is one of the better, non-fancy, basic stouts. 9.0 on the IGB scale.

Evil Twin Imperial Biscotti Break

My intensive research revealed that Evil Twin Brewing initially marketed this as a porter with an 8.4% ABV, but this version is being labelled an Imperial Stout at 11.5% ABV. Beer pedants (of which I am one) will tell you that there is a difference between a stout and a porter, but there aren't many rules governing what you can call a beer style, and the definitions overlap quite a bit. Even the modifier "imperial", which once referred to a specific type of stout, Russian Imperial, now generally refers to an style where the alcohol content is increased - double or tripled sometimes.

I've also discussed the relative merits of flavorings in beer. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. In my opinion fruit flavors don't work in stouts or porters, but work well in IPAs, while coffee, chocolate or vanilla rarely add to the enjoyment of a pale ale or lager, but enhance the experience of drinking a stout.

Imperial Biscotti Break pours a deep, dark brown, with a two-finger milk chocolate head. The consistency is silky smooth, with a decadent heaviness. Coffee, almond and vanilla are added, but all of the flavors are subtle and blend together well. There's a medium-level sweetness that isn't cloying, but would go well with a chocolate brownie.  Underneath the additions, there's itty-bitty hints of dark fruits, especially black cherry that sneaks in as the beer attains room temperature. The high ABV should be imparting some alcohol heat, but it doesn't - and you don't want that in a standard stout, or even an imperial unless it's bourbon barrel aged.

Overall this gets a 8.5 on the IGB scale.

New Belgium Nitro Cold Brew Cream Ale

Some odd things coming together in Nitro Cold Brew - first, it's flavored with coffee beans, which you don't often work in anything other than the usually heavy stouts and porters. Secondly, it's a cream ale. A cream ale is an ale, that is top fermented in high temperatures but is lagered, i.e. cold conditioned. This gives it a crisp, clean taste as you would expect from a lager, but complex aromas and tastes that you'd get from the typical ale. Nitro Cold Brew pours a dark reddish amber with a quickly disappearing head. It tastes pretty good, but in my opinion the addition of the coffee flavoring detracts from what was probably a decent cream ale.

Kinkaider Snozzberry Sour

Sours are not for everyone...but they are for me! I'd always get a kick out of the Yia-Yia's bartenders whenever I'd order one saying "Sir, you know this is a sour, right?" In my not-so-humble opinion, sours are the ideal summer beer, and they're one of the beer styles where flavorings, especially fruit flavorings, don't detract from the ale itself.

The color is kind of hard to describe, reddish, almost like the color you'd expect from an herbal tea. Must be the snozzberry. Not much of a head. Seriously though, "snozzberry" is probably a combination of cherry and raspberry, maybe a little lemon zest and grapefruit too. Definite tartness, but not too much of a pucker factor. I'd pair it with a green salad or perhaps seafood. I'd give it a 7.5 on the IGB scale.

Founder's Brewery Backwoods Bastard Ale Aged in Oak Bourbon Barrels

Anyone who is a regular Ill-Gotten Booty reader, or has sat with me at Jake's or Yia-Yia's, knows that I am partial to bourbon barrel aged beers, especially quadruples and stouts. Backwoods Bastard isn't a stout or a quad, but is a Scotch Ale, based on Founder's Dirty Bastard, a regular Scotch Ale. Scotch Ales are similar to the English Barleywine style, high in alcohol content, with a heavy malt character and often with evident caramel notes. The Wee Heavy style tends to be a Scotch Ale with a higher ABV. Both versions often have a smoked flavor.

Backwoods Bastard takes the basic Scotch Ale profile and adds the distinctive aroma and taste of the bourbon with hints of oak. It pours a ruby-mahogany, with a one-finger coffee-and-cream hued head. Flavors that start to emerge initially are nutty with some obvious caramel. Bourbon, of course, with some dark chocolate and vanilla bean. Very subtle dark fruit hints, black cherry, fig and dates. There's some heat from the 11% ABV, but not much smokiness, as one would expect from a Scotch Ale.

Since I'm partial to the style, and think it represents the style well, I'll give it a 9 on the IGB scale.