This Is What I Drink 96

PEPSI KONA!!!

I've been waiting to unleash this one for a while.  Full review over at Serious Eats!

This Is What I Drink 95

Irish Moss Big Bamboo Peanut and Vanilla Drinks

So here is that big news, faster than I expected!

Head on over to SERIOUS EATS for my first review of which I hope there are many more!  Enjoy!

This Is What I Drink: 94

THE RETURN

Hello, hello.  Long time, long time.  Do you see that bottle of Yakima Glory that I reviewed last time?  And how I mentioned I spilled it on my laptop?  Well, it did put my computer out of commission for a while, and my computer still suffers from what I call "Yakima fatigue."  The wireless card randomly turns off.  It overheats.  It's got many problems probably not directly traceable to that incident, but anyway I'll use it as an excuse AGAIN for not updating.

BUT, I do have some cool news.  There should be at least a new review or two up per month from me, but it will be uploaded to a different website...A much more legit beverage blog than this one that people actually read!  I'll reveal it when it happens, but it's good to be back!

This Is What I Drink: 93

Beer Roundup Part 2

Victory Yakima Glory

This is an interesting one. Victory came out with a nearly identical beer last year except the name of the beer was "Yakima Twilight". Yakima is a region in Washington where the hops for this beer are grown. Now I wonder whether they'll have a different name for this beer every year, or was it just a switch for this year? I wonder if it's because of the recent success of the "Twilight" movie series and they were embarrassed to have that name in their title? I don't know, but anyway this beer is awesome. It weighs in at a hearty 8% alcohol and though it's not called an IPA, it tastes a lot like a very hoppy IPA. Super hoppy and super flavorful, definitely a good alternative to some of the other winter seasonals out there. I should also mention I spilled this beer on my laptop which I can partially blame for my lack of updates. Kind of. Whoops.

Weyerbacher Old Heathen Stout

Another day another stout review from Weyerbacher. This is kind of their "base" stout I'd assume where the "Fifteen" and "Heresy" that I reviewed before were based on this one. I don't know why, but I was just slightly disappointed in this one. I think the standard was set pretty high by the others and this one didn't quite live up to it. This stout comes across as a little bit too sweet despite it being highly drinkable at a solid 8% alcohol. I think it definitely misses the bourbon barrel aged flavor that Heresy gave it. Still a pretty tasty stout, but I think I'll stick with the other varieties.

RiverHorse Oatmeal Milk Stout

I've been enjoying trying out many of the offerings from NJ's RiverHorse brewery lately and I was glad to see that they tried out an oatmeal/milk stout. Though I was willing to give this a try, I think it made me realize that I don't enjoy sweet stouts all that much. Although I love a good, rich stout, I seem to be more taken with chocolate or coffee notes than vanilla or milky notes when it come to a stout. It just seems to distract from a nice bitter finish. This is still a pretty tasty beer, but I guess this is one kind of stout that I'm not that into.

Yard's Love Stout

These next three I had at the wonderful Johnny Brenda's which I have mentioned before. They always have a good rotating cast of local beers and I got to have a few more a few weeks ago starting with this stout from Yard's. This is a pretty mellow stout and I was surprised to be asked by the bartender if I was a vegetarian because this is an oyster stout! I've had a couple oyster stouts now and I can't say that I've ever really noticed the difference. I guess a really salty/fishy flavor would be kind of nasty, but I just feel like any of that flavor was nonexistant. The basic stout flavors were there, nice and malty and chocolatey, but yet again the promise of oyster has let me down. Still a fine English style stout though.

Sly Fox Chester County Bitter (Cask)

Johnny Brenda's always offers at least one of their beers in cask which is always a nice change. It comes out a little warmer and a little less carbonated and just feels appropriate for the season. I feel like a cask works well for this style of bitter. Nice and mild and hoppy this one left a good white tracing on the pint glass. Very English in flavor this one didn't blow me away with its taste, but I don't think it was supposed to. Most reviews I've seen of this one mention it served on cask which seems to be tailored to this beer. A good choice.

PBC Joe Porter

I've never been overly impressed with the offerings from Philadelphia Brewing Company, but this one was pretty nice. I guess I'm a sucker for coffee flavored beers, and of course the porter style fits that perfectly. The coffee hits you in a pretty bold way which is usually what I look for. It doesn't quite overpower the normal characteristics of a porter though which is good. Not the best coffee beer I've had by any means, but a pretty good option for a local coffee porter.

Great Divide Espresso Oak Aged Yeti

Great Divide makes another appearance on the blog and we get some back to back coffee related beers! I believe I had looked at this beer on the shelves for a long time, but had always turned my back because of the fairly high price (around $10 I think.) But, I ended up being in the mood for a nice big and bold coffee stout, and there's something that felt right about the yeti as the cover art. Anyway, the coffee isn't so intense here, but definitely strong enough. And at 9.5%, you definitely get an alcohol kick, but it still goes down pretty strong. Basically, it's rare I meet an imperial stout like this that I don't like.

21st Amendment Fireside Chat

Well, there's a lot to be said about the beautiful cover art of this beer. It's really one of the main reasons that I bought it to begin with. Who wouldn't want to sit down and have a beer with FDR during one of his "fireside chats"? Besides that, it was a little bit early in the season, but I was ready enough for a winter beer. I'm not sure about this one though. This had a weird sour frutiness to it, along with being terribly bitter. I appreciate the idea behind what's supposed to be a complex mix of flavors in this beer, but that doesn't necessarily matter if you aren't enjoying it while drinking. I'm not too displeased that I tried it, but I don't think I'll be buying it again to warm me up.

This Is What I Drink: 92

Beer Roundup Part 1


I've again been doing some serious slacking here at beverage HQ, but I'm going to try and do a quick rundown so we can get some newer and exciting beverages in this piece. Here we have some beers I had over the past little while...

Weyerbacher "Fifteen" Smoked Imperial Stout

Every year on their anniversary the Weyerbacher brewing company releases a new beer to celebrate another year in the industry. I actually don't know this for certain, but I did see a "14" on the shelf next to this one. Of course, maybe that means they've only done it for two years. I don't know, whatever. Anyway, after loving Weyerbacher's "Heresy" oak aged imperial stout, I would expect nothing else but another solid effort from this beer and I certainly got it. The base of this beer is imperial stout all the way. Dark, rich, and bitter. Then the smokiness sets in. "Smoke" flavor can certainly go either way, but this wasn't too much or too little. Another really good one from Weyerbacher.

Southern Tier Mokah Stout

I've run through many of these Southern Tier imperial series. Not sure if it's every single one yet, but I feel like I'm getting there. At first I thought I already had this one considering they make both a "chocolate" and "jah-va" stout, but I suppose this is the fusion of both of these. And just like those other one's, this one is extremely tasty. Combining both the sweet chocolate notes and the rich coffee flavors into a super dark beer, this is a mighty tasty beer. A basic combination for a strong stout that rarely fails for me.

Dragon Stout

This one was purchased slightly on a whim at a convenience store before heading into a BYOB restaurant. I wasn't sure where it was from before I just checked on the internet but this is an import from Jamaica. Unfortunately I wasn't super into this one. I found it a bit sweet and malty, and not quite as thick as I come to expect from a stout. I was pretty surprised that it weighed in at about 7.5% alcohol considering that it was pretty easy to drink down. However, there wasn't much in terms of the chocolate or coffee notes that I've come to expect. Not a bad stout, but non necessarily my favorite kind of flavors.

Evolution Rise Up Stout

Here's another one from the new brewer in town from Delaware that's been on my radar recently. I hadn't seen this particular style anywhere in the stores in the area, so I was excited to see that this was on draft at a local bar. This was advertised as a coffee stout (hence the "rise up" title) and it definitely delivered. It poured very dark with a nice tan head and the smell had me thinking about my morning cup of coffee. The taste did as well. Nice roasted malts, but the coffee especially hit you hard in a good way. Many times "coffee beers" don't live up to their proclamations, but this one did. Another great stout in this update, and another really good one from Evolution.

Dogfish Head Aprihop

Here is the more famous brewery from Delaware. I believe I had tasted this one before a while back but it had been a while. Being that the base of this beer is an IPA, there's pretty much no way I wasn't going to enjoy this one considering how good Dogfish's 60 Minute and 90 Minute offerings are there. This beer starts from that base but adds a nice tart frutiness to go along with the piney citrus notes of the hops. Basically this is a very well executed twist to Dogfish's regular IPA offerings and I don't think that the apricot flavor is very overwhelming in anyway. Very nice for the Spring seasonal that it is.

This Is What I Drink: 91

Dunkin' Pumpkin

This will be just a brief revisiting here. I've already given a thorough review on the base Dunkin Donuts iced coffee and I've also taken a stab at their "Dunkin Dark" variety as well. Anyway, this is just their coffee with some sweetened pumpkin flavor. Though I don't normally like my coffees sweetened, I actually thinks that this makes the coffee taste better. I'm obviously into pumpkin flavored things, and this one tasted pretty good to me. Again, not great coffee, but the pumpkin flavoring made it fairly tolerable for the day.

This Is What I Drink: 90

Cherry Cola Hookah

So can smoke be counted as a beverage? I suppose only if the tobacco is beverage related and that happened to be the case that very day. We had to add the cherry to create another soda flavor. I'm not much of a smoker at all, so I wasn't sure what to expect going into my first hookah experience, but it was actually kind of relaxing. The flavor wasn't exactly spot on, but I could tell what they were going for. I'm thinking that you could probably combine a few other flavors and maybe make some other soda flavors, but I'd have to take a look at the list again. Anyway, this was a fun experience and I'm glad I could tangentially relate it to this beverage blog!