Koko Brown’s distinctive, nutty aroma and flavor comes from real toasted coconut blended into each brew. One sip of this roasty, smooth, mahogany colored ale and you will feel like you are on a warm sun-drenched beach in Hawaii. Aloha!
From my notes:
Thin head, light caramel colored, smells like coconut and malts. Tastes of roasted nuts with a coconut finish. Subtle bitterness at the end. Dry, with a medium, creamy, body.
I need to get some other types of glasses..
I really didn’t know what to think when I read the Koko Brown label and saw that the beer was brewed with toasted coconut. It sounded interesting but while I’m okay with coconut I’m not a super-fan. I’m glad I did though. Koko Brown is a nice American Brown Ale and the coconut is well balanced. Very drinkable.
Unibroue's La Fin du Monde - I got a little excited and started drinking before I took the picture
From the label:
The excellence of triple fermentation through a blend of special yeasts gives this malt beverage LA FIN DU MONDE (The End of the World) an exquisitely robust flavour of exceptional refinement.
From my notes:
Get a whiff of the yeast and banana coming off of this beer. There also seems to be some spice and lemon in there. Large bubbled head about one and a half inches thick, leaves nice lacing (as you can see…) The taste delivers on the promise of the smell. Banana and yeast with the spice kicking in, cloves specifically. Mild hop finish with a lingering taste of spices.
La Fin du Monde is a wonderful Tripel style beer. Tripel’s are actually pale ales but because they use triple the amount of malt in the making, as well as a lot of sugar it’s hard to tell. Another thing to remember with tripel’s is the high alcohol content (La Fin’s is 9% ABV!?) this isn’t a beer to be chugged. So pop a cap and sip this beautiful drink while you watch the sunset, or the game. Whatever it is you do to relax.
Dark, malty and mysterious, this porter is as complex as the man it celebrates. Brewed to honor the life of Hunter S. Thompson, Gonzo Imperial Porter is an assault on your taste buds with just the right amount of irreverence thrown in.
First, I apologize for pouring this beer into the wrong style glass. But, I don’t have any tulip glasses, yet. Second, sorry about the poor notes on the beer. I drank this beer quite awhile ago. I suppose for those of you who don’t know, and this might be an internet secret, but, I drink these beers beforehand and have about ten of these lined up at a time. I had this one before I started making a concerted effort to expand my palate by drinking beers with a more robust hop profile. So, I do need to go back and give this beer another try. For that reason I’m not rating this beer yet.
I don’t want this post to be an absolute waste though so let me drop some knowledge on you about Imperials. Historically, Imperial was a term used to describe beers that were made specifically for export and brewed in such a way as to prevent the beer from spoiling before arriving at market. Today, it is more often used to mean STRONG. What does that mean? Well, it means it should be more alcoholic for sure… An example of this is a barley wine, which is just a stronger version of a pale ale. It’s not a very fixed definition for sure but it should give you a rough guide to what it means when you see the word emblazoned across a can or bottle!
I’m lucky enough to live in a town that enjoys beer. We have two specialty grocerystores with two large beer sections. We have about a dozen bars with different beers on tap within a 5 block square, there’s a brewer’s association and we have the Beer Shoppe. The Beer Shoppe opened last year some time but I hadn’t been to it until last Thursday when I met up with a friend and what turned out to be the President and many of the members of the aforementioned brewer’s association. Between talk of brewing beer and coming out to the Association’s meeting I was able to sample some of the many (many, many, many, beers the Shoppe had for sale. But, first a little more about the Shoppe:
The The Davis Beer Shoppe is a beer shop that offers the largest selection of premium quality beers in Davis. While they only have 9 taps (which rotate at least weekly, eight CO2 and one nitro), they have more than 600 different bottled beers, most available already cold, that you can buy and pour right there in the tasting room. The vast majority of beers sold are not available in most grocery or liquor stores.
Forgive the fuzzy picture, I didn't take it
There’s not a lot of floor room for tasting but luckily my friend had been there for an hour or two before I arrived and had saved a seat for me. My first brew was Allagash Black. I really enjoyed their White but I hadn’t seen their Black any where:
I wasn’t disappointed either! Black smells lovely, full of dark fruits like raisins and plum. There is also some yeast and the roasted malts. The smells all come through in the taste, this is a complex beer and I found myself looking for words to describe what I was tasting and failing… It was a good balance of fruit, chocolate and roasted malts though, a little hops in the finish as well.
After drinking something so dark though I needed something a little lighter. I was hopping for a good wheat beer that I hadn’t tried before. All the beers that the brewers had suggested to me though were ones I’d already tried or were currently out of rotation. At the bar I noticed what I thought was a Kona brewing company wheat ale (but after doing some research I’m not quite sure what it was…) and picked it up, it turned out to be awful and taste skunky. I took it back to the bar though and the owner was very helpful and nice and set me up with a good pilsner:
Mama's Lil' Yella' Pils from Oskar Blues Grill & Brewery
The President of the brewer’s association said that Lil’ Yella’ had the classic Pilsner profile for a drink, I pretended to know what he was talking about and nodded my head sagely. This is what I thought, the beer comes out a hazy, straw yellow and smells of grass, and a little florals in there. Taste has some mustiness to it, which is the first I’d ever experienced that in a brew, it was grainy and tasted a little bit like fresh corn. Not a bad brew but it did leave me scratching my head a little.
I also picked up a bottle of Unibroue’s Ephemere Apple, which I haven’t ever seen anywhere else but with apple must in it I knew I wanted to give it a try. I also know I’m going to have to go back to the Shoppe and soon. It’s all a little too overwhelming on your first visit. I don’t feel as if I absorbed a 1/10 of the variety and selection they have there. I do know that I want to sample more of it though.
On a side note meeting the brewer’s there was a stroke of luck! I plan on attending their next meeting and hopefully meeting up with someone who can show me the ropes, give tips, and help me make my own brew better (one of these guys has his own 20 gallon brew set up?!)
