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Review: Community Beer Works “The Whale”

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By the time Community Beer Works opened for business this spring, hype surrounding Buffalo’s new nanobrewery had been building for months –– after all, not only would this be Buffalo’s first new brewery since 2000, but the CBW founders, particularly head brewer Rudy Watkins, are well known for their formidable skills and knowledge in the malt, yeast, and hop realm. Like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, the mysterious brick building on Lafayette Avenue practically begged onlookers to speculate about what wild and wonderful libations might flow forth once its doors opened. Belgian quadrupels? Extra-extra-double-double-India-to-the-Max IPAs? Sours to make you cry for…

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3 Heads “The Common Man”

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Craft breweries make their bones by marketing big, unique beers to big, unique individuals. High alcohol levels, forceful flavors and innovative ingredients put many great brews on the map, but remain the characteristics of a niche product. Most of the “great” American beers are a bit much for the casual beer drinker to have out on the porch with the sun beating down. Conversely, most “mainstream” craft beer styles, brown and pale ales come to mind, bore hardcore beer lovers to death. It’s hard for a brewer to win. Three Heads Brewing, however, thinks they’ve found the perfect formula, and…

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Shmaltz Hop Manna IPA

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Selecting a beer called “Hop Manna” is about as close as I’ve come in years to celebrating Passover/Easter, but it had been too long since I’d had a Shmaltz Brewing Company (Saratoga Springs, NY, and San Francisco) brew and I was feeling particularly like a chosen person. Hop Manna is a new IPA brewed with Citra, Warrior, Cascade, Centennial, Amarillo, and Crystal hops and dry hopped with Centennial, Citra, and Cascade. It’s the brewery’s first single IPA, released last year in four test batches and in distribution for the first time this year. It’s got a beautiful hop nose: fresh, with orange…

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Saranac White IPA

saranac

You never know what’s going to shine in a blind tasting. That’s why it’s so important. Big-name beers from lauded breweries may actually be lackluster in a lineup, without the pomp and circumstance their fame would normally require, while lesser-known or less respected breweries may surprise and force the drinker to reconsider relegating it to “party beer” status. The latter is exactly what happened the first time I tried Saranac’s new white IPA. I was blind-tasting Belgian styles with a group of experienced tasters, and after several samples that turned out to be from Ommegang, Dupont, and Lindeman’s we were…

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Flying Bison Brewing Brindle Porter

\A good porter feels like your favorite pair of jeans. It just fits — your tastes, the meal, the moment. I’m constantly in search of the perfect porter. It’s one of my favorite styles not least because brewing it correctly requires skillful composition and, I would argue, a sense of honor for the style’s history of comforting and sustaining the Industrial Revolution workforce. Flying Bison Brewing has produced such a beer. Brindle Porter, a limited release inspired by the classic English porter, pours a deep brown color with a one-finger head and wide, faint lacing. Hints of coffee, chocolate, and…

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Finalists Announced for NYCR 2011 New York Beers of the Year Tasting

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By Julia Burke, Beer Editor On behalf of the NYCR Beer Team, I’m proud to announce that our “Beers of the Year” program has grown to ten nominees this year.2011 was a huge year for growth and exciting change and we are thrilled to recognize these outstanding breweries, scattered all over the state, for crafting some amazing brews. The following beers represent numerous styles (and riffs on styles), brewing philosophies, techniques, and ingredients but all demonstrate a commitment to quality that makes us proud to say we’re from New York. Western New York breweries: Southern Tier Brewing Company XXIPA Southern…

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Sixpoint Craft Ales Diesel

By Julia Burke, Beer Editor A good winter stout in a can. I dig it — great packaging and I have to admit I like the visual and tactile experience of popping a can of stout. Diesel looks scrumptious in the glass: an eponymous black and pours a nice one-finger head with beautiful lacing. Like many stouts, this beer needs to warm up to cellar temperature to before any of its wonderful flavors wake up. After a few minutes, rich malty aromas of toffee, coffee, and licorice emerge, making for a welcoming, sumptuous nose suggesting a winter ale; the palate,…

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Southampton Publick House Double White

By Julia Burke, Beer Editor Long Island brewery Southampton Publick House has arrived in western New York and I can't think of a nicer way to ring in the holidays than with this consistently impressive brewery's lineup of interesting and varied styles. Double White pours a glowing sunrise-haze gold color and shows a brief one-finger head and beautiful bubbles. A clean, crisp nose with only a subtle whiff of cardamom and lemon and just a little bit of clementine give way as it opens to bready wheat character and citrusy Belgian yeast esters. The mouthfeel is excellent -smooth, bready, just a…

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Cellar Brews: Beer for Winemaking

By Julia Burke, Beer Editor I'd venture to say many of you are winemakers. I'd venture to say many others are home winemakers. And a fair number of you have undoubtedly spent some time in a cellar. So you're all too familiar with the necessity of beer during the winemaking process: to celebrate at the end of a long night of crushing; to sip while filtering (this may just be an intern thing); to enjoy in the lab while figuring out the next day's picking schedule; or just to cleanse the palate after hours of bench trials. Beer's vivacious carbonation,…

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Southern Tier 2XIPA

By Julia Burke, Beer Editor When beer enthusiasts rate a beer, they often talk about balance. Technical correctness. Drinkability. Good integration of flavors. Nothing out of place or over-the top. When hopheads rate a beer, they want one thing. Dank, sticky, resiny, more-bitter-than-a-tongue-scraper hops. Lupulin junkies don't necessarily want a "balanced" or "sessionable" brew. When the Brits learned that they could use hops as a preservative when shipping beer to the troops in India, the India Pale Ale was born. When the San Diegoans learned that they could take that idea and crank up the hop bill and alcohol past…

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