San Francisco

Style: Black IPA

ABV: 8.2

Staff Review: Starts off with a pine in the nose, and the smell of malt. Staff picked up a slight hit of dark chocolate on the nose. The hops are very evident in the nose, although upon tasting the beer you realize it smells hoppier than it tastes. Tastes chocolately, and also has a roasted flavor. As the beer warms, even more of the chocolate leather becomes apparent. Be careful, this beer does not taste as strong as it is, you will not feel the heat from the 8.2%. Finished very dry and bitter with a malt dryness in the flavor. Staff recommends enjoying with BBQ, roasted duck, ribs or s’mores, if you’d rather have dessert.

Chico, CA

Style: Saison

ABV: 7.5

Staff Review: Pours a beautiful golden color with a thin white head. Citrus aromas welcome the nose. Tastes refreshingly crisp, thanks to locally grown Mandarin oranges, a portion of which were handpicked by the monks living on the grounds of the Abbey of New Clairvaux. Finishes with a nice kick of pepper. Enjoyed on a late Spring evening with chicken curry, but we can’t wait to sip this on a hot Summer night.

Fort Collins, CO

Style: Imperial IPA

ABV: 9.7

Staff Review: Slight peach aroma on the nose. Very effervescent with a full mouthfeel through the finish, as the peach flavor smothers the hops. Not a hop bomb. Not a peach bomb. Just a very enjoyable imperial. Is it imperial peach or imperial IPA? Perhaps it’s time for yet another category—the enhanced imperial IPA.

The best part of tasting this beer was the 20-minute conversation that followed. The beer sparked curiosity and discussion around everything from style to bittering to alcohol to peaches to nose. Exactly what an enjoyable beer should do.

Brooklyn, NY

Style: Double bock

ABV: 9

Staff Review: The first thing we notice is how much darker this beer is than Brooklyn Lager. It’s a hazy caramel color, to be exact. Smells of fresh noble hops, bready malts and a hint of sugar cane. Effervescent, but not too much so. Bubbles play up the spiciness of the noble hops and add an earthy quality, as well. From mid-palate to the finish this has an incredibly pilsner like dryness for the high ABV. A double bock worth a 25 year wait!

Cooperstown, NY

Style: Blonde ale

ABV: 6.5

Editor’s Note: Iron Throne is the first of a series of collaborations between Brewery Ommegang and HBO based on the drama Game of Thrones.

Staff Review: A color reminiscent of pale straw, or perhaps Lannister blond, splashes into our glass. Nicely carbonated, we detect honey as well as smoke in the nose. Flavors of lemon pound cake, honey, peach and lemongrass were present on the palate: a feast fit for the rightful king. This Belgian golden ale, with a lot of spicing, has saison qualities. A very drinkable beer; suitable for afternoon jousting or blunting the sting of minor rebellions. One bottle per person per episode is our recommendation.

Newport, OR

Style: Brown Ale

Editor’s Note: In the March issue of All About Beer Magazine, publisher Daniel Bradford wrote that he was “looking for the great brown beers, for porters and dark ales that comfort and don’t intimidate” to usher him through the final months of winter. In response, Rogue Ales president Brett Joyce sent us a bottle of Hazelnut Brown Nectar.

Staff Review: Throws off a beautiful light brown head, with an amber brown hue in the beer. Chocolate and hazelnut aroma, very yummy. Doesn’t have the off-putting side of hazelnut, the sweetness, but rich with the dry flavor of hazelnut. Medium body with dense carbonation. Big time hazelnut finish after a nice toasty, malty beginning. Hints of maple and a bit of caramel, with a much dryer, bitter finish than one would expect from the flavor. Already considered a classic.

Alchemy Hour Double IPA, the latest release from Great Lakes Brewing Company, presents a bright golden hue—brighter than most double IPAs. The color throws out a SRM color barely above 6, much lighter than usual for a beer this big. At 9.4% ABV, this beer certainly brings a lot of punch, but it is very mild and has a mouthfeel appropriate for the style. Toffee and caramel flavors are prevalent, but pleasantly offset by the pineapple and citrus notes of these interrelated hops.

Great Lakes Brewing Company qualifies the name with a surfer’s pursuit of liquid gold. The color nailed it, and in the aura of a morning glow, these intense bittering hops reflect a style found near the North Coast’s inspiration.

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Served from a twelve-ounce can, the wheat ale pours a slightly hazy straw with a light, yet billowy white head and tremendous carbonation. The nose is full of fall fruit, notably apples and sweet figs.

The traditional pumpkin pie spices of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice and nutmeg run together in a melange of autumn. This is no surprise; as with a lot of pumpkin ales on the market, Shipyard brews this beer with naturally-concentrated spiced pumpkin extract and not real gourds.

Apples—Gala and Braeburn, not Honey Crisp or Granny Smith—trail the muted spiciness of the light wheat. Pumpkinhead doesn’t linger in the mouth and leaves you thirsting for another sip of fall.

Last year, the brewery shipped 400,000 cases of Pumpkinhead, and it’s obvious why. This 4.7 percent ABV wheat ale appeals to new, casual and seasoned beer lovers alike. Now that the beer comes in the convenience of a can, expect to see a lot more Pumpkinhead at football tailgates, farm hayrides and fall bonfires.

Twelve-ounce cans are available in CT, FL, MA, ME, NH, RI and VT, with other markets following soon. Twelve-ounce bottles of the beer can be found in Shipyard’s entire distribution area.

The use of Columbus, Centennial and Cascade for bittering and Simcoe, Ahtanum, Amarillo and Cascade for dry-hopping create a combination of deep caramel and sweet, luscious fruit juice that goes down with a bit of heat. This isn’t a dry beer; the use of dextrose may be the cause of a sweetness that continues to coat the mouth while the chest warms. Only after the beer warms a bit and the initial bitterness dissipates do tiny notes of oak peak through the alcohol.

Though it comes in twelve-ounce cans within 21st Amendment’s distribution area, Hop Crisis deserves to be sipped as if it were packaged in a champagne bottle. This imperial IPA will keep you warm in the transition from the long summer days to the short winter nights.

Who would have imagined a few years ago that you’d be able to enjoy a 9.7 percent ABV imperial India Pale Ale out of can? And one aged on oak spirals, nonetheless? No one likely predicted such a response to the hop crisis that continues to plague the beer industry today, but fortunately, Shaun and Nico of 21st Amendment in San Francisco followed Ray Bradbury‘s school of philosophy with their latest seasonal release. “You don’t predict things, you make them…Don’t think about things, just do them; don’t predict them, just make them.”