Every four years, Avery Brewing releases one of their special ales called Ale to the Chief. This ale was created and dedicated to celebrate Inauguration Day and was originally brewed for January, 20 2009. I happened to stumble across this beer at one of my local beer stores and decided to this 8.1% ABV double IPA a go. The video highlights my look at this beer as well as my thoughts, which led me to provide a rating of 4.5 out of 5 for this tasty gem.
Going local with this one as I was able to catch up with Randy Schlitz from Wooden Cask Brewing here in Newport Kentucky, and take a look at their Reformation Scottish Stout. This beer comes in with an ABV of 7% and 29 IBU, and is one that I have had in the past but had not been able to review. So it was nice that they went to bottling their beers in the last few months, which allowed me to bring one home for this look.
My review of the beer can be seen here on the YouTube video but in touching on a few of the highlights: the beer itself does provide a nice representation of the style. The color was where it needed to be although the head wasn’t as strong as it probably could have been. The body played nice and wasn’t really too thin and the flavor was solid overall. Carbonation wasn’t an issue as the beer did go down smoothly. Catch my video here to see more of my thoughts and as for my rating I rated this beer 3.25 out of 5 placing it just past my good level of 3. It didn’t knock me back, but I did enjoy it.
I just thought that I would take a second to introduce some of the home brewing tools that are available online, which may help in the assistance of those in need when it comes to the making of beer. These are ones that I use when I want to check for what may be needed for the beers that I brew.
So it's been a while and I decided to get back into making a little beer. A little while, like almost two years I think, lol, but anyway I decided to pickup some supplies that you can see here and look at making a batch in a return to my home brewing side. It should be interesting and fun.
The Split Shot from Elysian Brewing comes in as a nice representation of a sweet milk stout and proved to be a nice pick for my latest review. The ABV on this one was 5.6% which is decent enough and was coupled with a 28 IBU. Dark in color with good aromas coming off the ale made this one a delight for both. The taste was where it needed to be, but for me the big knock would be that it does have some thinness in its texture. Is that overall bad, not really but I like for my stouts to have a little more sturdiness. The thinness here played more like that of a porter for me but that being said, stouts really are just bigger porters so can’t fault them too much. This one just played like a middle brother rather than the big one. All in all, a pretty decent beer as for me I rated it 3.75 out of of 5 and would definitely drink it again.
So, Holly of Holly's Happy Hour tagged me in this challenge that seems to be going around, and here is my response to the challenge which includes the following:
1. Name 3 YouTubers that have inspired you
2. Name 3 things you're good at
3. Name 3 things you're excited about
4. Tag 3 subscribers!
What did I say? Who did I tag? What the hell am I talking about? You will have to watch to see and find out...