thegreatbeerquest-blog

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Review: Oskar Blues G’Knight

Oskar Blues has exploded onto the main-stage of craft beer as one of the early adopters of the “craft beer in a can” movement. With seemingly every brewery following suit with their own can releases, the trend does not seem to be going away anytime soon. 

G’Knight is an Imperial Red Ale, or as we like to call it, one of those made up styles that’s really hoppy AND malty. G’Knight places more emphasis on the former, with sticky pine resin notes dominating the mouthfeel. A little lingering caramel, toast, and honey round out a solid malt backbone. It’s an intense beer as to be expected from OB, but certainly a good one. 

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Review: Firestone Walker Sucaba

Sucaba is one of the most critically acclaimed barrel aged beers in the world, and for good reason. The complex depth of fruit flavors combined with a dominant bourbon finish will coat your tongue with rich sweet goodness. Surprisingly, citrus and tropical fruit have a notable presence, with fig, raison, and caramel rounding out the full body. It’s a tough find, but worth the hunt. 

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Review: Ballast Point Victory at Sea

An unbelievable dessert beer, with huge notes of dark chocolate, coffee, and vanilla, the beer tastes like chocolate covered coffee beans. At 10% this Imperial Porter isn’t messing around, and the lingering alcohol heat is a reminder of just that. Highly recommended. 

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Review: Full Sail Black Gold

This is an astonishingly drinkable Imperial Stout considering the depth of flavors and 11% ABV. The bourbon is present but not in heat but flavor: rich, sweet, and buttery. There’s a notable amount of chocolate, banana, and vanilla, with some dark fruits and coffee lingering. The result is more of a complex beer than a pallet-bruiser, which is a nice accomplishment for an Imperial Stout. 

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Review: Evil Twin Freudian Slip 

This 11% ABV Barleywine from one of our favorite brewers is simply awesome. Complex but intense flavors of dark fruit, citrus, caramel, vanilla, chocolate, with hints of banana sticky resin round out a full and boozy body of malty goodness. But don’t forget about the hops! They’re definitely present here too, making for a well balanced beer. 

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Review: Stone RuinTen IPA

RuinTen is this years release of last year’s 10th Anniversary of Ruinition IPA ( I guess it was so good they just had to make it again!). Ruinition was one of the biggest, hoppiest, and boldest IPAs out there when it was first released in 2002. Since then, the hop wars have escalated to produce countless Imperial IPAs that proved similarly ambitious in flavor intensity. Well, I guess Stone wasn’t having any of that so they decided to go even bigger with RuinTen. 

The result is a sticky, bitter bomb of hops with a large caramel malt backbone. There’s a ton of grapefruit and pine, while floral notes are forced to the background. It’s a great beer if you like really bitter, not so drinkable explosions of flavor. If you’re looking for balance, look else where (as Stone would say, you’re not worthy anyway:)) 

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I'm not much of a beer guy - I'm not a beer guy at all. My boozes of choice are usually spiced rum and milder whiskeys. That can get a bit expensive, however, not to mention awkward to order at a lunch with friends when you want to be sober afterwards. I'd like to find a beer I can enjoy; what are some good places to start looking?

It's hard for me to answer that question without a better idea of your taste preferences in beer. Many beers will be aged in whiskey barrels and will carry some of these flavors through, but those are typically very intense strong beers that may be difficult to jump right into. 

Fortunately, I'm currently working on an app (http://spothopper.tumblr.com/) that will allow you to really easily discover personalized drink recommendations when you're at a bar or liquor store deciding what to order. We plan on launching it in October of this year so maybe follow the blog for now until then? It will be really cool when it launches because it will allow you to use flavor sliders to describe exactly what you feel like drinking in a beer, and then find the best match! 

(Sorry for this response being all promotional but this is really the best answer I can give ya right now)

Cheers, 

GBQ

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3 Reasons you’re wrong if you don’t think wearable tech is the next big thing

With Google glass and the iWatch, it seems as if the futuristic sci-fi societies we once dreamed of are suddenly thrusting themselves into the present. However the reaction hasn’t been all positive, with many insisting that the fad will never really catch on. Well, here’s why those people will be wrong… at least eventually. 

1. Photo and Video Sharing

How many times have you gazed in awe at a truly stunning view… magnificent mountains, rolling hills, or beautiful architecture only to take out your phone and realize that it looks like crap on the tiny 4 inch screen?

But what if you could share with the world exactly what you saw? From eye to eye.. the full beauty of the landscape that surrounds you? Now we’re not saying wearable tech is capable of that just yet, but the idea doesn’t seem that far out of reach.

Furthermore, imagine the potential for video sharing. Have a friend at the football game: watch it with him! Or go cage diving with great whites right from your living room. 

2. Connect information to your world

Walk past a cute little restaurant that you want to know more about? What if instead of googling it and scrolling through webpages for information, you could have all the info you would ever need broadcast to your glasses as you glanced upon the restaurant’s front door? GPS and already existing software are already taking us close to accomplishing this, so wearable tech may be the next step. 

3. Interact with software organically

Touch, tap, talk, sing, or blink.. the days of interacting with technology with a keypad are dwindling. Wearable tech may just be the next step to being able to access a computer as if it was a person. 

One example is outlined in point number two, the ability to specify a location simply by looking at it, but the possibilities are endless. Siri showed us (and then stopped showing us, but who knows maybe she’ll get back to work soon) that we can talk to a computer. But wearable tech with motion capturing controls can open the way for much much more. 

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Review: Maine Beer Company Mean Old Tom

We’ve been wanting to try this beer here at SpotHopper for a while! Fortunately a business trip out to NYC did the trick.

Thinner than you would think, Mean Old Tom is about striking a balance between bitter coffee and sweet vanilla, though the latter comes through less prominently than expected. There’s also some charred dry nuts and wood flavors that bring forward a great toasty flavor. 

It’s not a flavor bomb, but it’s a really nice beer that’s worth checking out if you don’t mind spending a few more dollars than most. 

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Introducing SpotHopper Live Specials

Live Special push notifications allow bars and restaurants to send you instant, impromptu special offers on drinks that are exclusive to SpotHopper. The Specials are filtered based on your preferences as a user, so only the ones you care about get through! 

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Review: Ayinger Weizenbock

This is a near perfect example of a weizenbock. Tons of juicy tropical fruit, banana, apple, nutmeg, and a touch of dark fruit and wheat to round out the complex body. If you like German or fruity beers in general: Find it. Buy it. 

SpotHopper Score = 8.8/10

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Review: Dieu du Ciel Derniere Volonte

A Belgian Blonde Ale that resembles sparkling pear cider, Dernier Volonte is a bit too drinkable. Thankfully, a bit of floral hops add a nice bitterness to contrast the sweet fruit. It’s an easy to find beer for the most part, at a reasonable price: worth checking out!

SpotHopper Score = 8/10

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Review: Troegs Nugget Nectar

This is really more of an IPA than an amber ale, but I guess that’s what the “Imperial” is intended to symbolize. Regardless, the beer is great: potent, fresh, sticky hops dominant the pallet while the bitterness better resembles a mild pale ale. The number of beers that manage to achieve this balance are few, making it an always notable accomplishment. Rounding out the flavors are pine and a little bit of apple. 

SpotHopper Score = 9.5/10

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Review: Southern Tier Live 

This is a new pale ale from Southern Tier and it’s actually pretty phenomenal. Managing to extract as much hop flavor as possible out of a beer without an overdose of bitterness is not an easy task, but it’s one that Live excels at. It seems as though new beers tend to have a tough time achieving really high scores on beer review websites unless they’re from one a hand full of breweries, or are very limited in their release (little placebo effect going on?). Live might suffer from this  phenomenon a bit, but we can assure you it’s worth noticing. 

SpotHopper Score = 9.5/10 

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A review I wrote for SpotHopper!

Review: Brasserie Dupont Avec Les Bons Voeux

Another nice Saison, which is no surprise coming from Brasserie Dupont. Very crisp with lots of yeast, some subtle bitter orange peel, pepper, and lots of grass. It’s a great example of the style and a perfect summer beer, though not worth some of the astronomical prices we have seen it go for. 

SpotHopper Score = 8.5/10

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Where I've been, and the future of The Great Beer Quest

Sorry for the lack of reviews lately! In reality I've actually been reviewing about three beers a day, just not for GBQ. I recently started working for http://spothopper.tumblr.com/, a tech start-up company launching a local search engine built for craft beer, cocktails and wine. The app will be incredible, and I will post more info about it soon. For now however, I am helping run some of the company's social media accounts, including beer reviews for their tumblr! 

So don't worry, lot's more reviews are coming! The only difference is that I will be posting them for SpotHopper, and reblogging them to this account. However, please follow http://spothopper.tumblr.com/ for all my review directly, as well as cool info about cocktails, wines, and the app itself which will be released in the coming months.

Before more "official" info is released about SpotHopper I can tell you that for beer geeks like us, it's the first software that actually makes the process of figuring out what beer to order at a bar or liquor store really easy and informative. Individually looking up each beer name for a ratebeer score, which I may or may not agree with, is a giant hassle. 

SpotHopper makes it easy...

1. Check-in to the bar or liquor store

2. Describe the qualities you are looking for in a beer using flavor sliders

or

... Just name a beer you love that is similar to what you feel like drinking right now

3. Get personalized recommendations that are available wherever you are checked in. 

Without giving away too much, I will also say the app acts as a beer finder after making beer recommendations tailored to your individual tastes, and uses the same system to recommend great bars as well as live specials. 

Anyway stay tuned! More info is on it's way.

Cheers,

Niko 

GBQ

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Review: Mikkeller Black Buffalo

At 19.3% ABV I think this may have been a new toxicity record for me. And though all super high alcohol beers are at risk of coming across way over the top and messy, Black Buffalo is a stunning stout. Aged in bourbon barrels, the beer somehow manages to limit the booze to a warm lingering heat in your throat: no resistance in the mouthfeel, and goes down relatively smooth. 

The flavors are intense: lots of dark bitter espresso and dark chocolate with a great buttery bourbon sweetness and some vanilla/toffee flavors lingering in the finish. It's an amazing beer. If you can still find it, it is absolutely worth a try - if you can handle the intensity that is. 

Score = 9.75/10