Heavy Seas Cabernet Barrel Aged Below Decks Barleywine [Beer Review]
A few weeks ago, we interviewed the founder of Heavy Seas Beers, Hugh Sisson. While I was writing up the article, I got to thinking how much I’ve enjoyed many of their beers as well as how I haven’t had anything by them in a long time. Flash into the future a couple weeks and I find myself at Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont, MA picking up a few bottles when what do I see? Heavy Seas Mutiny Fleet 2011 Cabernet Barrel Aged Below Decks Barleywine! I think, “This has got to be a sign!” and pick up a bottle. I’m glad I did! Heavy Seas doesn’t always get the attention it deserves up here in the well-served craft beer market of Massachusetts, but this might change a couple peoples’ minds!
Normally barleywines pour a golden to rich honey hue, but Barrel Aged Below Decks bucks that trend and falls into the glass a rich, near-opaque coffee color. A tan, single header forms on top but quickly dissipates into a patchy film on top, most likely an effect of the high alcohol and wine barrel aging.
With a barrel aged beer, I often worry that the barrel is going to overwhelm any inkling of the original expression. In this case my fear is assuaged, the first smell I get is a sweet, kind of boozy, malt. It’s rich, smooth and, honestly, smells like the perfectly comforting beer for a cold night. We haven’t had many of those in Boston this year yet, but it’s starting to trend that way so I’m happy to have this one.
Upon reexamining, though, you’ll definitely find a good, strong hint of that Cabernet barrel they splash across the front label. It’s possible to overlook it at first as the dark fruit tones of the wine blend so well with the character of the malt and slightly fruity nature of the English-style barleywine. This is a great example of finding a character that enhances the beer and playing it up. It’s always great to see barrel aging done subtly and in a thoughtful way.
Let this beer warm up a bit before drinking. Then, my instructions are simple: Sip. Pause. Enjoy. Think. Repeat. Honestly, all the components have just come together very well and I am super impressed! One of my favor aspects of this brew is just how smooth and creamy it is; it’s nothing short of incredible in the mouthfeel department. As you take the initial sip, just before it hits your tongue, there’s a quick suggestion of cocoa, but it’s gone as soon as the beer hits your lips, overtaken by plum and fig-like dark English malts. The Cabernet plays right into these aspects, adding an extra level of fruitiness that, with the sweet malt, makes this beer an enjoyment to linger over every sip. Finally, the oak wraps it all up and melds everything together while smoothing the whole shebang out. Only at the end will you note a bit of alcohol but hey, that ain’t bad for a 10% abv beer, right? Definitely go out and try this one soon, it’s a limited batch but it’s oh so worth hunting down.
By the way, this would be a great Valentine’s Day beer! It’s got notes of chocolate, fruit and is insanely smooth. Most anyone will like the beer and it will go great with desert.
I picked this bottle up at Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont.
Sixpoint's Shane Welch [5 Questions]
One of the best things about craft beer is that the beer is made and the companies are run by people who care about what they do. Also, many breweries are local or regional companies which means it's made in your area. All of this lends itself to one of my favorite things about the industry: you can actually know the people that brew your beer and run the companies that produce the brew that you love!
With that in mind, we've launched a series of articles where we'll talk with people from the craft brewing industry and ask them a series of five (or sometimes more) questions so that you can get to know these fine people a bit better.
We're happy to introduce our second guest for this series, Shane Welch, the President of Sixpoint Craft Ales in Brooklyn, NY. It's been a longtime since we had our first Sixpoint beer, back when they were only sporadically on tap in Boston. And it was love at first sip! So much so that we even visited them years ago when we drove down the East Coast brewery hopping. So, with that said, we'll jump right into the interview.
Drink Craft Beer: How did you get into craft beer?
Shane Welch: I got into craft beer at an earlier age than probably anyone in the industry. My father was a very early adopter of "craft beer" in the 1970s when your selection was strictly limited to import brands. At the time, he was drinking Chimay and high-end German imports. Here is a photo [at right] from 1981 where I am drinking the dregs out of my father's ceramic stein. I loved the taste of beer ever since it crossed my lips.
DCB: What was the turning point (a beer or moment) that made you love craft beer?
SW: Are you requesting my "a-ha" moment? :-) My "a-ha" moment was when I started to drink real homebrewed beer. It was the first time I realized that beer could actually be something beyond a commodity - something that was a live product, fermented cereal grains seasoned with hops.
DCB: You walk into a magical beer shop with every beer currently available. You can put together one six-pack. What do you walk out with? Only one beer can be from your brewery.
SW: This is sort of a trick question because many of my favorite beers are not available in bottles. They are draft-only varieties. But since this is a "magical" beer shop I am assuming they also can magically bottle these draft-only varieties and have them for sale. :-) In that case, I will go with beers from:
Live Oak Hefeweizen
Live Oak IPA
Barrier Brewing Company Dunegrass (shout out to Craig Frymark and Evan Klein)
Hill Farmstead Ephraim (shout out to Dan Suarez and Sean Hill)
Ale Asylum (shout out to Dean Coffey)
Augustiner Edelstoff Helles (non-export version, the fresh draft straight from the brewery) - fyi this is a beer I can drink gallons of
DCB: What would you be doing for a career if you weren’t in beer?
SW: Mathematician, and probably working for or with Google.
DCB: What do you drink when you’re not drinking craft beer (or beer at all)?
SW: I love to drink and collect different teas from all over the world.
DCB: Where do you see the craft beer industry going in the next year? And, in that vein, can we get a sneak peak at what new to expect from you in the coming year?
SW: Craft has legs and will continue to grow, even if the growth tapers on a percentage basis. Regarding new beer releases...let's just say we will be combining German precision and engineering with Sixpoint creativity. :-)
DCB: You can brew any beer you like, no matter the cost and consumer demand, what would you make and what dream ingredients would you use?
SW: The Poppenoff, without a doubt. If you have to ask, you'll never know. ;-) [Editor's Note: We have no idea what this beer is...we'd have to ask, so I guess we'll never know]
DCB: Thanks for your time, Shane! And thanks to your dad for having such great taste in beer back in the day...without that, we may never have been able to experience nano-kegs! Also, Shane and Sixpoint just brought on a new Brewmaster as Shane transitions out of overseeing all of the brewing operations himself and into running the company even more. Look our for a new 5 Questions with Sixpoint Brewmast Jan Matysiak soon!
What do you think will be the biggest trend in 2012? [Poll]
In our Top 11 Craft Beers of 2011: Drink Craft Beer Edition and our Top 11 Craft Beers of 2011: Readers' Choice Edition we looked back at the year that was 2011.
Well, now it's time to look forward. We've seen a lot of experts and industry folks saying what they think is going to be the next big thing in craft beer in 2012. Do you want to know what we're really interested in, though? What you, the craft beer drinkers, think is going to be big in 2012!
Vote below then let us know which way you went on Twitter, on Facebook or in the comments below the poll. If you voted "other" let us know what you think that "other" is and why! Cheers!
Top 11 Craft Beers of 2011: Readers' Choice Edition
One week ago, at the end of December, we released the Drink Craft Beer Top 11 Craft Beers of 2011. This was our personal list of the top eleven new beers that really wowed us in the last year. As we mentioned in the article, beer is a particularly regional thing and, due to some seriously impressive growth in the local beer scene in New England, our list ended up being 100% Northeast breweries. This is great news for us and our local readership, as we have tons of new, local beer that we love, but many of our readers who live a bit more far-flung were quick to point out that they felt slightly excluded. Well, as you all know, exclusion is not what we're about here at Drink Craft Beer!
To rectify this error, we turned to some of our favorite craft beer drinkers, all of you: our readers on DrinkCraftBeer.com, our followers on Twitter, people who "like" us on Facebook, people in our circles on Google+, and more! We figured, with readers living across the country and the world, we could put together a great list of new brews from 2011 that are from all over...and boy did we! We polled you all to see what your favorite new beers were and you didn't disappoint. We haven't tried all of these yet (in fact, we've only tried four), but that just gives us some resolutions for 2012. So, with that said, here is the Drink Craft Beer Top 11 Craft Beers of 2011: Readers' Choice Edition!
Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale
Lagunitas Brewing Company, out of Petaluma, CA, brews a much anticipated hoppy brown ale called Brown Shugga' every year...that is until this one. A few big growth years in a row have them pushing the capacity of their brewhouse to the limit and Brown Shugga' is a hugely inefficient beer to make. According to the company, they would have lost the ability to produce three cases of Pils or IPA for every case of Brown Shugga' the made. Obviously that wasn't an option, so they decided to make the best of it and brew a temporary replacement for just this year. In typical Lagunitas fashion, they figured they'd have some fun with it at the same time. And so was born, "Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale," a big, hoppy beer weighing in at 7.85% abv made with barley, wheat, oats and rye. Turns out people loved it, which is good as capacity issues are still plaguing the brewery, so this beer will make a second appearance as "Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Leftovers Ale." We wonder if we'll see it again next year, though?
Stone Brewing Co. 15th Anniversary Escondidian Imperial Black IPA
Every anniversary Stone Brewing Company, from Escondido, CA, creates a new and innovative beer to commemorate the occasion. Having seen success with a Black IPA for a prior iteration, they decided to go bigger and darker, bringing us their 15th Anniversary Escondidian Imperial Black IPA, a 10.8% dark-as-night-and-hoppy-as-the-dickens monster! The beer is delicious and the bottle includes the expected rant from founder Greg Koch or some other member of his team. This is definitely worth looking for!
Deschutes The Stoic
Deschutes Brewing Company, representing the Pacific Northwest up in Bend, OR, introduced a beer that will make you stop and think this year...or at least slow down while you're drinking it. At 11% abv this is not one to be trifled with. It's a Belgian-style Quad brewed with pomegranate, then 16.5% is aged in oak wine barrels and another 16.5% is aged in oak rye whiskey barrels. To be totally honest, we haven't tried it yet, but after writing this we really want to! Anybody want to send us a bottle?
DC Brau "The Corruption"
D.C. Brau Brewing Company is one of those breweries where you don't even have to ask where they're from (it's Washington, D.C. if you had to ask). This is a brewery that was recently brought to our attention by a good friend who moved from Boston (or Cambridge/Somerville as he'll try to protest) to Washington, D.C., so we're stoked to see this place get named by our readers as well! This is another one that we haven't had a chance to try, but people seem to love it and it's an IPA in a can, so we can't wait to go down and visit D.C. to drink some...errr, to catch up with our friend who moved down there...OK, maybe both!
Maine Beer Co. Lunch IPA
Lunch, the much hyped IPA from Maine Beer Company in Portland, ME, is the only beer to make both our readers' top eleven list and our top eleven list this year. It's amazing, but we've already written a lot about this one, so we won't bore you with more. Check out our original review of Maine Beer Co.'s Lunch IPA to see why it's gotten so much attention at a national level, despite only being available in a few states in New England.
Victory Headwaters Pale Ale
For Downington, Pennsylvania's Victory Brewing Company, 2011 was their 15th year of brewing delicious ales and lagers. To commemorate they didn't just launch an anniversary beer, they launched a new flagship beer! Victory Headwaters Pale Ale was made to commemorate not just Victory, but the local river that supplies their water that is so necessary to brew with. By the end of the summer, though, this crisp, citrusy and hoppy pale ale was posing a whole new set of problems for the crew at Victory: the Citra hops they needed to brew the beer and make it so delicious were running quite short. There was a period towards the end of the summer when this beer was hard to come by but, luckily, they secured a new supply and have been churning it out steadily ever since. The aroma is like few other beers on the market and the flavor is out of this world, so we suggest you pick up a six-pack if you see one.
Boulevard Brewing Collaboration #2 White IPA
Boulevard Brewing Company burst onto the Massachusetts beer scene this year but they're far from a new brewery. Based in Kansas City, MO they've been churning out beer since 1989 and have built up quite a reputation in that time. We only get the limited release and special brews up in our state, but that's fine by us as we got a chance to try this one that you all voted as one of the top of the year! They collaborated with another one of the breweries that made this list, Deschutes, to turn out this Belgian-style IPA brewed with lemongrass and sage. It's a really interesting and not-too-bitter take on the style that we could definitely drink more often.
Baxter Brewing Amber Road
When people tell you that the craft beer market is growing, you know that that's a fact. One of the breweries contributing to that growth isn't one of the biggest, but it is growing at a record setting pace for it's first year. Baxter Brewing from Pamola, ME was founded in January of 2011 and it's been on a rocket ship course since then, canning all three beers that it has released. Amber Road is their latest, and most malt-forward, beer that just snuck into the 2011 voting back in November. We've heard good things, and the IPA is delicious, so we can't wait to check this one out!
Troeg's Perpetual IPA
Standing in contrast to the last brewery we mentioned, Troeg's Brewing Company (now in Hershey, PA) will celebrate their 15th year in business in 2012. This past year they launched a new IPA (not short for India Pale Ale, as is usual, but rather for Imperial Pale Ale) that weighs in at 7.5% abv, 85 IBUs and uses five different types of hops. They add hops at every step of brewing to give it a seriously bold and in-your-face hoppiness. According to their website, it's a seasonal that comes out in August so, if you haven't tried it yet, you'll have to wait until then. We'll be waiting with you.
Cigar City Ligero Black Lager
If you like beer and you like hype, then you love Cigar City Brewing from Tampa, FL! Their line-up of big stouts and IPAs has made them many fans across the country, even while their distribution remains limited, causing enthusiasts from across the country to ship rare beer from their regions to friends in Florida in return for a couple bottles of this Tampa brew. That said, Ligero is not one of those hype beers from Cigar City. It's just a German-style black lager (aka Schwarzbier) with only 5.5% abv. Smooth, toasty malt and herbal hops mean this one doesn't get all the attention it deserves, so we're glad to see it get it's place on the Drink Craft Beer Top 11 Craft Beers of 2011: Readers' Choice Edition list!
Hardywood Singel
It's great seeing new breweries on this list as we always love seeing the industry grow! Hardywood Park Craft Brewery is a newcomer from Richmond, VA but founders Eric and Patrick have worked in the industry for years. Their Singel Ale is a take on the Belgian monastery-only beers that are mellow, light and meant for the monks to consume. This one is hazy with the expected yeast esters that Belgian-style brews are known for. It's crisp with some great carbonation. Hardywood Singel would be perfect for a hot summer day, or any time of year with alongside food. This is a style of beer we greatly enjoy when done right, but not many craft brewers are making them. We hope to see this brew up north soon or maybe someone will send us a care package for us to review?
Now that we've told you our favorites of 2011 and the favorites from our readers, do you think anything was overlooked? What was your favorite this year that you haven't seen mentioned? Let us know what you really enjoyed in 2011 on Twitter, on Facebook or in the comments below!
What Was Your Favorite New Beer Of 2011? [Poll]
A few days ago we released the Drink Craft Beer Top 11 Craft Beers of 2011. These were the beers introduced in 2011 that impressed us the most. As many have pointed out, though, it's an extremely Northeast biased list. One of the great things about craft beer is that each region has it's own breweries; one of the tough things about this, though, is that you usually don't have access to those breweries in other parts of the country. While we'd love to travel around the country all the time and try everything, we simply can't. Luckily, we have all of you craft beer drinkers who can help us out with this!
We put out our Top 11 New Craft Beers of 2011, but we want to know what YOU liked this year! What was your favorite NEW craft beer released in 2011? We'll compile all of the votes and then release a Nationwide Top 11 of 2011 list on Tuesday, January 3rd. Since this is a list of 2011 beers, voting closes at the stroke of Midnight on New Years Eve, so you have to get your vote in while the calendar shows 2011 and not a second later!
As usual, vote below then let us know what you voted for on Twitter, on Facebook or in the comments below the poll.
The current standings are (with 77 votes counted as of 12/30/2011 at 2:34pm ET):
Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale - 7
Deschutes The Stoic - 7
Stone Brewing Co. 15th Anniversary Imperial Black IPA - 6
DC Brau "The Corruption" - 3
Troeg's Perpetual IPA - 2
Cigar City Ligero Black Lager - 2
Epic's Big Bad Baptist Imperial Stout - 2
Maine Beer Co. Lunch IPA - 2
Hardywood Gingerbread Stout - 2
Brew Dog Hops Kill Nazis (aka Hops Kill ?) - 2
Backlash Brewing Groundswell - 2
Narragansett Summer Ale - 2
Berkshire Brewing Co. Kelly's 60th Anniversary Dark Red Irish Ale - 2
All with only one vote:
Hardywood Singel
Stone Vertical Epic 11-11-11
New Glarus Laughing Fox
Shipyard Applehead
Midnight Sun Open Container
No Label Black Wit-O
Wachusett Homegrown Hop Ale
Jailhouse Misdemeanor
Lazy Magnolia Ginger Jaque
Boulevard Brewing Collaboration #2 White IPA
Jester King Das Wunderkind
21st Amendment / Ninkasi Allies Win The War!
Notch Session Saison
Austin Beerworks Fire Eagle IPA
Victory Headwaters Pale Ale
Hangar 24 Pugachev's Cobra
Baxter Pamola Amber Ale
Karbach Brewery Sympathy for the Lager
Firestone Walker XV Anniversary Blend
Right Brain Brewery Firestarter Porter
Port City Porter
DC Brau "The Citizen"
DC Brau "The Public"
Coast Old Nuptial Bourbon Barrel Aged Barleywine
Harpoon Chocolate Stout
Drakes Aroma Coma IPA
Jack's Abby Kiwi Rising Double India Pale Lager
