22 oz bottle. Pour is a rich, golden color with good clarity but a few hints of hazy cloud. Head forms quickly, is small, light and fluffy and fades to yield no more than a thin film and next to no lace. Nose is interesting. As well as the tart acidity that one is expecting, there is also a fleeting whiff/hintof the green-feel hops. However, this slips away quickly to give way to the acidity in the blink of an eye. The tastes mirror the nose with the apple acidity barging past a minor hop kiss...
Notes on beers brewed by
New Belgium Brewing
Lips Of Faith Dunkel Weiss
22 oz bottle, the usual Lips of Faith series presentation from Hop City, Atlanta, GA, USA. Pour gives a lovely black color (in poor light), but a more traditional brown based beer in better light. The head is tight, and mocha in color with a nice amount of retention and lace considering the ABV. The worry with the ABV of 9% is that the solvent alcohol may begin to take over the beer and rob it of its normal style characteristics. Fortunately it doesn't, and the beer delivers all of the...
Lips Of Faith Vrienden (Allagash Collaboration)
22 oz bottle in the usual Lips of Faith presentation. Pour is a good looking, light, bright copper hue with some sticky, complex lace. Head is small and leaves just a ring around the extremities of the beer. Clarity is excellent, carbonation medium. Essentially, if you've ever had an English, west country cider you will have had an experience mightily similar to this. Nose and tastes reveal some fairly straightforward and simple light apple and cherry acidity that offer a pretty gentle...
Lips Of Faith Sahti
22 oz bottle. Pour is a very, very good looking golden orange body with a wispy, thinnish head. Not much retention, some lace. Nose has plenty of sweet malts and perhaps a whiff of solvent like alcohol. Not very well defined as far as I could make out. Tastes are built around that of a malty, relatively high gravity lager with some lemongrass notes. There is little or no juniper character, and the beer reminds me a bit of a watery Maibock. It really doesn't have a lot of body but in one way...
Frambozen Raspberry Brown Ale
12 oz bottle in the usual New Belgium presentation. 20FEB11 is dot-matrixed on the label. New Belgium has been in the GA market for sometime, but this beer is a relatively new entry. Single from Hop City, Atlanta, GA, USA. Pour is a really attractive, dark copper brown with great clarity and a spectacular abundance of bright read highlights. Really great color. Head is initially large but fades quickly to give a little lace and some thin film across the surface of the beer. Nose offers some...
Lips Of Faith Belgo IPA
22 oz bottle in the usual Lips of Faith series presentation. Beer pours out a pretty dark, copper color with a medium head. The lace is surprisingly good and forms a nice pattern. This is one of the better parts of the beer. Nose is largely American IPA without much Belgian influence. The tastes do better, with a healthy dose of Belgian candy sugar and some yeast notes. Some metallic notes appear in the back end with a little coinage. The beer seems very dry to me, and the combination offers a...
Eric’s Ale (Lips Of Faith #3)
22 oz bottle from Green's on Ponce. Got lucky with this one. Brickstoredave gave a few of us a blind sample and I (like most others) loved it. I then proceeded to miss the very few bottles that came to GA. A week or so later, apparently a small second wave made it back to the state and I stumbled on to one - lucky me, this is a SUPER beer! Pour gives lovely clarity from the bottle with plenty lively carbonation out of the bottle that subsides quickly to leave a thin film on the surface. Golden...
Lips Of Faith Belgian Style Blond Ale
Golden pour with some delightful looking, full, frothy head that leaves some great lace. Good clarity on the pour. Attractive looking beer. Smells and tastes replicate a light yeast note with a touch of sweetness. The beer is pretty well balanced and as such it *could* be a potential stepping stone for a non-craft drinker. However, the problem is really the ABV. Even though the alcohol is very well hidden, the beer still creeps up on you a little, and even though the alcohol does not...
Skinny Dip
12 oz single, Hop City, Atlanta, GA, USA. Clear, honey golden pour with a decent frothy head. Nose has some acidic malts, but not much else. Tastes are very neutral to me. High level of carbonation gives a mineral like, sodium hydrogencarbonate taste as if I was drinking an antacid. The mineral base and large carbonation does give a lively mouthfeel which I like. Finish leaves a touch of bitterness and more of the lingering dissolved salts. Very odd beer for me and I can't get past the odd,...
Mighty Arrow Pale Ale
12 oz single from Hop City, Atlanta, GA. Very simple, but well constructed brew. Orange, slightly chill-hazed body underneath the firm, white egg-shell head; average lace and retention. Looks solid. Very light citrus aroma with a decent malt base that comes through with some English style biscuit flavors in he flavor. Tangy, orange based hop finish, but nothing of any real consequence. Mouthefeel and drinkability seem fairly standard. Tasty and simple fare that one could drink a couple of and...
Ranger
On tap Taco Mac, Douglasville, GA, USA. Pour is a very attractive golden hue with very good sticky lace. Appearance is the best part of the beer for me. Steady but mild bitterness with a clean edge that showcase the apparently pale malt base and the fresh hop feel. Aroma is clean. Well constructed for sure, but to be honest ultimately not a stand-out by any stretch. The bazillionth solid American IPA - yawn. Not sure how thi stuff will carve a niche for itself. Decent drinkability but not...
La Folie
Part of the new wave of Lips of Faith releases, this one in the silk-screened, Lips of Faith series as a 22 oz bottle rather than the corked and caged affairs of years past. I bet the purists are saying, "it's just not the same". Having not tasted this until now, I can't possibly comment on that so this review is just based on what's in the glass now. A good thing I feel. For me, the temperature of this style is absolutely fundamental and crucial. Warming, as it does naturally in the glass,...
Lips Of Faith Biere De Mars
22 oz screened bottle from Hop City, Atlanta, GA, USA. Pour gives a golden body with a frankly disappointing head. Not much retention or lace. Good clarity if nothing else. Nose gives a lot of apple acidity that is quite noticeable. It also has a fairly large whiff of manure/wet horse-blanket. Interestingly enough, most of the funk goes away in the taste. There is a touch of cider in the back end, but the beer is not a funky one at all. Some yeast also comes into the picture along with some...
Hoptober Golden Ale
12 oz bottle from Hop City, Atlanta, GA, USA as a single. A lovely, golden body with perfect clarity and some excellent wispy, fine lace. Bone-white colored head. Carbonation is medium. Good color, and the fact that the name includes the word "Golden" seems appropriate. Nose and tastes reveal a very subtle, but potent hop profile. This is VERY reminiscent of a wet-hopped beer. I don't know if it is ACTUALLY wet-hopped but it certainly smells and drinks that way. Decent malt backbone holds it...
2° Below Winter Ale
12 oz bottle. Bottle with ridge on the neck reminiscent of the Westy 12 bottle. The appearance was a somewhat pedestrian, light amber but cloudy body, but the head and lace were very good. Some nice layered lace. A little light and clouded on the color but otherwise nice. Nose and tastes are a satisfying combo of biscuit malts and a quite dry, bitter finish. I wouldn't necessarily describe this an ESB that I would get terribly excited about, but what I would say is that this is an ESB that...
Lips Of Faith Dark Kriek
Thanks go out to my 2009 Secret Bunny, mday. 22 oz, screen printed bottle. Poured into the Duvel tulip, this beer has an appearance that leans more toward the wood than the cherry side of things. Dark and very rich garnet color, perhaps closer to brown, with a head that is only provoked by aggressive swirling. Having done that, the head is quite creamy but still short-lived. Minimal lace but I wasn't expecting much. Nose gives up some malt and a touch of tartness but not much else. As it...
Mothership Wit (Organic Wheat Beer)
22 oz bomber, $3.99 from Riverside in Chattanooga, TN, USA. Best before 6th March 2009. Love a good Wit, but the style walks a fine line for me. There are some things that must be avoided, and other points that it must hit. I like a really spicy note, and I love a heavy yeast presence, but perhaps most importantly it must avoid a watery mouthfeel. The mouthfeel is perhaps the most crucial thing since it can make or break the deal for me. The beer pours a typical, lemon based cloudy color but...
1554 Enlightened Black Ale
Dark, dark brown with plenty of ruby red highlights. Not much head and what little lacing there is, is fairly watery. Nice malt aroma with a very sweet, burned sugar type taste. Reminds me a lot of a brown ale crossed with a schwarzbier. Above average drinkability, but at the same time give me a well-crafted brown ale everytime instead.
Abbey Belgian Style Ale
Good looking deep brown pour with a quick fading head and a little bit of lacing. Aroma is a little bit of prune juice and some over-ripe bananas. Tastes reflect some alcohol and some mixed, soft, ripe, indistinguishable fruits. Nice warm alcohol in the finish too. Mouthfeel is soft and smooth, very quaffable. Drinkable, and another example of NBB producing a very good quality beer that is really authentic and a good example of the style.
Fat Tire Amber Ale
Golden, light amber pour that has exceptional clarity and looks like a tripel in the glass. Not much sustained head, but some decent lacing. There are some real earthy tones in the nose and in the taste. A real organic feel to the beer. The malts are bready with a little hop bitterness to add bite, freshness and crispness. I like the balance that this beer produces, and it is refeshing and a bit different. At this ABV I'd suggest this has a lot of potential as a session beer. Nice, with much...
Trippel Belgian Style Ale
I was absolutely amazed at the height of the % ABV for this beer, it drinks miles below that mark and for that reason alone this gives the impression of being a well crafted product. Poured into the NBB bulb, this looks great. Small, but perfectly formed rocky, white head sits a top the dense golden body. Perfect looking! Lovely alcohol and mild fruit aromas greet the nose. Tastes are definitely yeast-body based, and the Tripel style is well represented. Full bodied and stylish, this beer...