Live review: Brown's Brewing Co. Whiskey Barrel Aged Porter . . .

Beer-tasting in progress: Sometimes I will review beers by tasting them and jotting down notes, then writing the results up later.

Sometimes, like now, it’s a live-blogging exercise.

I was checking out at Oliver’s Beverage in Albany, N.Y., this afternoon. It’s the best beer store – bar none – in the Capital Region of New York, say from Kingston, NY up toward the Canadian border and west to Utica.

I was chatting with the cashier-guy about Wolff’s Bier Garten, and he asked me if I knew that Brown’s Brewing (from Troy) had its Whiskey Barrel Aged Porter out. (It’s part of their “Seasonal Sessional” line.

I said I’d had it on draft (in fact, I had discovered it on draft at the Man of Kent Tavern in Hoosick, N.Y., after the brew pub had run out.)

No, he said, they have bottled it and sent someone to get a 22-ounce bomber ($7.95, I think). It nicely filled my box. It checks in at 5.75 percent alcohol (yay for hundredths).

It pours a very deep brown with very little head. You can smell the whiskey in the nose.

The whiskey is very strong at the top of the palate and into the sinuses. It’s got a very long finish and actually makes you salivate under the tongue at the end. The taste settles in very quickly. It’s not nearly as strong after the first several sips. It also gets a touch bitter as it warms up, but not to a great degree.

It’s a fairly medium-range porter – heavier than most but lighter than some. It tastes better when it’s colder.

Definitely a bomber to share with a couple of other people. It’s a tough one to drink by yourself.

A note for the local -- Upstate New York -- folks . . .

For folks in the Capital Region of New York: (And probably other parts of the East Coast) It was strange to see in the middle of July, but I walked into Oliver's Beverage in Albany, NY, today and saw multiple cases of the Southern Tier Pumking Imperial Pumpkin Ale just sitting there.

I nearly dropped the $89 on a case, but settled for four bottles at $7.99 each, a dollar cheaper than last year.

For my money, this is the best commercially available pumpkin beer on the East Coast.

Also today came the discovery that Brown's Brewing of Troy, NY, has produced its Whiskey Porter in bombers.

An IPA and a barleywine . . .

Two quickie reviews


Dogfish Head Squall IPA: It’s an unfiltered and bottle-condition 90-Minute IPA that includes six varieties of hops.

It’s hazy and the color of a light maple syrup, and the smell of hops makes your drool. Well, me at least. It’s got a slight head and is very carbonated going down. It’s got a full taste that lasts a long time on the tongue, and you get the alcohol rather thoroughly.

Flying Dog Horn Dog Barleywine: From the “Over The Top Is A Good Thing Department,” this is a good, smooth barleywine from a brewer that tends to push the edges and sometimes crash through them.

It hits high on the palate and strongly alcoholic, but, hey, this is a beer that checks in at 10.2 percent alcohol.

It is sweet and smooth. A solid barleywine.

Beer trades: What do *I* want?

I wrote earlier about the camping event where friends and I trade beer from other parts of the country, and I listed what they usually ask for and what else I like to bring.

In the immortal words of Mr. Morden from Babylon 5, people ask me, “So what do you want?”

The first beer I request is from Three Floyd’s in Muncie, Ind., and it’s called “Gumball Head.” It’s an IPA and, yes, it tastes like gumballs. My second request is always Edmund Fitzgerald Porter from Great Lakes Brewing in Cleveland, Ohio.

My friend Henry is bringing the Gumball Head.

I’ve commented before on beers that have cool names and turn out to be excellent beers, too. This is a great porter.

The third request is from Michigan, for Founders Breakfast Stout, especially the oak-aged version. Another is the Fat Tire Ale from New Belgium brewing in Colorado.

We do get a lot of beer from across the country on the East Coast, so I don’t need to ask for Stone, Alaska Brewing or many of the other West Coast beers. We get Flying Dog from Colorado, too.

Beer trades: What people want . . .

I’ve mentioned before that one of my other hobbies is Medieval re-creation, and every summer we go to western Pennsylvania for a week for two to camp with 10,000 other people as crazy as we are.

Since people are traveling from all over the country to get there (we also gets Brits and Aussies and the odd Israeli), it’s a great chance for beer-trading.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been in touch with folks, mainly from the Midwest, trying to figure out what I’d like them to bring and what I can bring for them.

The answer to the latter question is Saranac. For folks outside of the region, it’s a highly sought after beer, especially the mixed packs, because there are so many different beers in them. Also, I think Saranac’s one of those breweries that people feel is consistently good across different styles. One of the most asked-for varieties is the Black and Tan.

Another commonly requested brewery is Long Trail, and again I think it’s for overall consistency and for specific varieties, such as Blackbeary Wheat and Double Bag.

Magic Hat also draws a number of requests, especially for the No. 9.

One specific beer that folks ask for is the Ubu Ale from Lake Placid.

This year’s list from my friend Henry in the Midwest asked for Victory Wild Devil
And three from Troegs -- Flying Mouflan, Nugget Nectar or Dead Reckoning


If people say, “Pick what you think is best,” I will start with the 12-packs of Cooperstown Brewing (they are actually packing a 13th beer as a promotion. There’s a lighter-brewed pack with ales and the pilsner and the darker pack, which includes the stout, porter and my favorite from them – Pride of Milford, a strong ale.

I will also often pick up some Trout River, especially if they like the Oatmeal Stout. Wanting to promote very local beer, I sometimes bring Dacker from Davidson Brothers Brewing in Glens Falls or Brown Brewing from Troy.

In the next post: So what do I ask for?

Friends make tasting more fun

We all have our hobbies.

Sometimes you want to be able to combine your hobbies.

Besides drinking beer and writing about it, I am also involved in Medieval re-creation in the Society For Creative Anachronism. One of the things I do there is to raise money so the king and queen can travel to visit different groups.

I generally run auctions, and one of the “prizes” I have been using is a beer-tasting that I’ll run at a person’s camp at an event.

Over Fourth of July weekend, I did two of them, with my 22-year-old daughter, a veteran beer geek, as my assistant and with my wife as an observer.

It was really cool. I learned a lot about beer and about people.

Pete was the winner for the first night, and George won the second night. They are both good friends of mine. George had said he didn’t like Belgians, so I brought the two I had to Pete’s. Each person got to have three others taste with them, but in actuality, more people took part.

In both cases, the audiences were really interested in what we were doing. On Friday, I introduced Pete and his friend to a pair of Belgians -- a Saison du Pont and a quad called Gravitation from Smuttynose. We also had the Long Trail IPA and the Arrogant Bastard Strong Ale, from Stone Brewing.

Pete had never had Belgians, other than the Belgian Whites, which are citrusy and citrus isn’t so good for him. He really liked them. So did his friends.

The Gravitation, part of Smutty’s Big Beer series, was very sweet and was a big hit.

The Saison, much lighter, also appealed to folks. Two of the people who were tasting were fairly knowledgeable, but the others seemed really impressed by the different tastes.

At George’s on Saturday, after a wonderful meal, that he had cooked. We had Long Trail Blackbeary Wheat, Gritty McDuff’s Black Fly Stout and two strong ales – the Bastard and the Long Trail Double Bag.

I think the Bastard was probably the most popular on that night.

I used my spiffy new six-ounce beer-tasting glasses from Stone Brewing, but I found you cannot put them back in the box with the packing peanuts if they are the least bit wet.