May 11, 2006 – 1:38 pm
I recently wrote about Roger, Greg, and I making our first trip to Lucky Baldwins’ 8th annual Barleywine High Alcohol Beers & Imperial Stouts Festival this past Sunday night. Adam joined the three of us for round two on Tuesday night.
This time, we sampled a total of fifteen beers in two groups of five, one group of three, and one group of two. Each sample was a 6 oz. taster glass which Luckys sells for the eminently affordable price of $2. The first group consisted of the Stone Imperial Russian Stout, the Full Sail Imperial Porter, the North Coast Old Rasputin, the Stone Smoked Porter, and the Lost Coast Barleywine (2003). The Stone Imperial Russian Stout, Full Sail Imperial Porter, and Lost Coast Barleywine were holdovers from our previous visit. These were the three we wanted to review further.
The Stone Imperial Russian Stout is an opaque black and has both some sweet and sour to it. The sweetness is up front and reminded me of a sweet barbecue sauce. The sour is mostly in the aftertaste. And of course the roasted malt shows through a bit as well. The tastes are too disparate to classify this as a great beer, but it makes for easy drinking and is enjoyable.
The Full Sail Imperial Porter was similar to the Stone, but it was better balanced. Both the sweet and the sour in it were less pronounced than they were in the Stone. Upon this second review, I think I have to declare the Full Sail a little bit better than the Stone.
In our Sunday night visit, Luckys had run out of the Stone Smoked Porter, but it was back on Tuesday. I’ve already raved about the Stone Smoked Porter on this blog, so I’ll keep my comments short. It has an opaque black color (like most of the stouts and porters at this festival). It’s simple, with the smoky and roast elements providing almost all of the aroma and the taste. It’s just a great porter.
The North Coast Old Rasputin was also an opaque black, and I like to think of it as a slimmed down version of the Stone Smoked Porter. It’s equally simple, but the tastes are a little muted relative to the Stone. It does have a black coffee on the nose that the Stone lacks. Another very good beer.
The last beer from the first group was the Lost Coast Barleywine. We all reacted to this one fairly positively. It was a dark amber in the glass and had a raspberry and floral nose. The taste was grassy and nutty. It’s a complex beer, one that’s hard to figure out after 6 ounces. If you want a beer that won’t quickly bore you, the Lost Coast fits the bill.
From this first group, all three of us (Adam drank his own beers, so Roger, Greg, and I continued our previous tastings) rated the Stone Smoked Porter the number one beer from this group. Greg had the Lost Coast at number two and the Old Rasputin at number three. Roger had the Full Sail Imperial Porter at number two and the Lost Coast at number three. I also had the Full Sail at number two and like Greg had the Old Rasputin at number three. A very good group of beers this was.
The second group consisted of three vintages of the Sierra Nevada Big Foot (2000, 2001, and 2002) and two Craftsman beers (the Triple White Sage and the Eye of the Goat 2005). The Big Foots all were a very dark red, almost entirely opaque. They all had very thin white heads with a floral and grassy nose. I describe these beers as being “hop-forward” in the sense that the hops hit you as soon as the beer hits your tongue and persists through the aftertaste. There definitely is a bitter bite to the swallow. Roger guessed that Sierra Nevada may have used cascade hops in brewing the Big Foot. The younger vintage was a little darker red than the others, and surprisingly we all agreed that the oldest vintage was best (though the differences were admittedly subtle).
The Craftsman Triple White Sage was a cloudy, translucent yellow and also had a thin white head. (Most of these beers had very thin heads that had almost vanished by the time they arrived at our table.) The two words that came to my mind to describe this beer are “spice” and “ginger”. Interesting flavors for beer, for sure, but I’m not confient I found them totally agreeable. I didn’t detest this beer, but it was pretty strange.
The Eye of the Goat (2005) looked almost completely flat when it arrived at our table. It looked like a rose wine in the glass. I smelled an apple juice, or maybe a cran-apple juice, on the nose, but the taste wasn’t as agreeable. We ranged from “acetone” to “candy cane” in describing it. I’m not entirely sure this beer was fresh.
We didn’t rate this second group. None of us were particularly excited about any of the five beers.
The group of three had the Anderson Valley Horn of the Beer, the Craftsman Aurora Borealis, and the Lagunitas Hairy Eyeball. The Anderson Valley was a clone of the Craftsman Triple White Sage. I again found “spice” and “ginger” to be the best way to describe it. Roger thinks it was a better balanced beer than the Triple White Sage, thinking that the Horn of the Beer is what the Triple White Sage was aspiring to be. Adam and I took issue with that. Regardless, they seem to be the same style.
The Craftsman Auroral Borealis was a dark deep red, though translucent. It’s sweeter than most of the barleywines we had up to this point.
The Lagunitas Hairy Eyeball was a very dark brown or black. It had a hoppy finish to it, but didn’t inspire us to be able to draw too many distinctions from the others. I guess I’m saying it’s not that special of a beer, though it’s slightly better balanced than most “hoppy” beers.
Of these three, Greg ranked the Lagunitas Hairy Eyeball first, the Anderson Valley Horn of the Bill second, and the Craftsman Aurora Borealis third. Roger had the Craftsman first, the Anderson Valley second, and the Lagunita third. Adam and I both had the Craftsman first, the Lagunita second, and the Anderson Valley third. (Adam started trying some of the beers Greg, Roger, and I were tasting at this point.)
The final group had two beers, the Full Sail Old Boardhead and the Marin Old Dipsea. The Full Sail Old Boardhead was a light and translucent orange/red in the glass. I described this one as hop-forward, and the only identifiable smell or taste I got from it was tequila. No one else got on board with that one, but we had enough beers by that point that our senses were dulled.
The Marin Old Dipsea was a dark amber and mostly opaque. The nose reminded me of brown sugar, and the taste had a bit of caramel to it. It was definitely sweet, but not sickeningly so. The tastes it did have were subtle, but they all reminded me of various sweets.
Roger liked the Full Sail over the Marin. Adam and I preferred the Marin over the Full Sail.
Now that I think about it, I also scanned our tasting notes this time into a PDF file. (As opposed to last time, I actually did try to write down some tasting information this time around. I’ll try to continue that trend on our final visit.) All in all, it was a very successful second night of tasting. We have fourteen beers to go to complete the festival tasting, and it’s looking like Friday night is going to be the night. I’m already looking forward to it.
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