Thursty Thursdays: Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale

One of the great ironies of unemployment is that with all this free time there seems to be very little to blog about. Even when I attempt to force myself into weekly benchmarks, I find little time to keep up with them.

Well, let's try again and with something I'm pretty good at -- drinking beer. And with every visit to the Lakewood Whole Foods or Central Market, I scan the beers for anything new or interesting. This week's victim: Sierra Nevada's Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale.

I had encountered, for the first time, one of Sierra Nevada's Fresh Hop Ales back in November while working in the OC. It was one of many beers I found in the Tustin Whole Foods' Wall-o-Beer. These beers are brewed with fresh hops picked the day before brewing. I gave that beer a B+.

As with most pale ales, this pours out with a beautiful copper with a thick foamy head.

OK, enough of that beer nerd shit. Is it good???

Yes.

A lot of hoppy beers balance their hoppiness with lots of malt. And what you get is a very sweet bitter pinecone. When it works, it works fabulously (see Langunita's Hairy Eyeball). And going into this tasting, I was not in the mood for an overly sweet beer. Just something nice to wind down the day.

With an ABV of only about 6.75%, there was not an over abundance of malt used to make this beer. So there was only a slight sweetness but a nice maltiness. The hops were relatively light for this style of beer from this brewery, but still enough to satisfy all but the hoppiest of hopheads.

Ultimately this may be an example of the right beer for the right time. But I'm still going to give it a:

B++

Not good enough to make an A, but it was a little better (although honestly I don't remember) than it's predecessor. Yeah, I'm making this stuff up as I go along. But at least I'm posting something.

Thirsty Thursday: Dogfish Head Red & White

For my first venture in beer reviewing, I could think of nothing better than going to my all-time favorite brewery -- Dogfish Head. I recently found a seasonal from them, Red & White. So here goes.

A big, belgian-style Wit brewed with coriander and orange peel and fermented with Pinot Noir juice. After fermentation a fraction of the batch is aged in Oregon Pinot Noir barrels, and another fraction is aged on oak staves. The beer is blended together before packaging.

That's what the bottle says.

I can think of nothing better to drink than a Belgian Wit or an Oregon Pinot Noir. So I'm excited about trying this.

This bottle is a formidable 1 pint 9.6 ounces (750 ml) and a stout 10% abv. I doubt I'll be able to drink all of this. In fact, I probably shouldn't.

On first pour, the color is golden, typical of a strong Belgian ale with a hint of red -- the Pinot Noir, no doubt.

The aroma is also typical of a great Belgian ale. It smells very much like a Maredsous 10.

The taste is slightly milder than a Maredesous 10, but also slightly sweeter.

This is delicious!!! It tastes of so many late nights at Gezellig.

There is a hint of Pinot Noir. But, honestly, if I didn't know it was there I probably could not identify it.

I feel guilty about opening this bottle. I'm not going to be able to finish it. Luckily I have a vacuum sealer. Hopefully it will work. This needs to be preserved for a least another day.

A+