• The Best Beers Overall for 2010
• The Best Beers by Style for 2010
• The Best Beers of the United States for 2010

There are more lists than the ones above, those are just the most interesting ones to us. Check out the entire 2010 Best Beers page for all the other lists (by brewer, by other countries, etc).

By contrast and for those interested here are the BeerAdvocate.com lists of top beers:

• Top Beers on Planet Earth
• Top American Beers
• Top Session Beers

The session beers list is of particular interest. We’ve done lots of the ones on this list – no surprise to see one of our all-time favorite session beers – Young’s Double Chocolate – in the top 15.

Here’s to good beers!

Technically, the bottle reads Widmer Brothers Brrr Seasonal Ale. It obviously comes to us from Widmer Brothers Brewing, which is located up in Portland, Oregon – one of the two most highly regarded craft beer states in the U.S. (along with Colorado). We used a pint glass for our review of this 12 oz bottle of free beery goodness. The IBU comes in at 50, the ABV comes in at 7.2% and our starting beer temperature was 55.4 F.

Our pour yielded a good sized 2″ frothy off-white head that left a good amount of lacing as it dissipated slowly. A really good start! There is a soft amount of carbonation in the sparkling clear perfectly amber colored body. It looks well crafted.

Giving the beer the old sniffy sniff test got us a good amount of citrus, including grapefruit and pine. We also got a note of spices and a possible aroma of toasted malts. That’s it. It almost smells like a cleaner you’d find under your sink to mop the floor (some people are into that!). The lack of aroma complexity follows suit in the taste – grapefruit, pine and orange are the predominant tastes we pulled out. A little disappointing to be honest – our heart was set on a good spicy, caramely winter warmer of a beer and it didn’t really deliver on that front.

The initial flavor notes are a light sweet and heavy bitter that stay the course through the finish but add a slight metallic taste. The finish hangs in there for a good amount of time and the mouthfeel is dry. The tongue hit is in the back, where all your bittererers are. There’s a fair amount of body lacing and on the patented BeerFathers malt to hop scale it comes in 3 clicks to the right of balanced on the hoppy side. One click away from as hoppy as you can get.

For our bottom line notes we got a no to drinkable, no to repeatable, no to harmony, no to memorable, no to wow factor and no to buy again. The only thing we could say was there was “some” balance in the taste with the elements, but not much. We even put a no to “receive for free again.”

Of course you know The BeerFathers are not hopheads – we love the malts. This beer comes in almost IPA-like, but not in a good way for us. We can get into some hoppy beers and have rated some IPAs as high as a 7/10 on this very site (see Dogfish Head, 90). But even those highly rated beers had some good malt backbone to balance out the hop shock. This one just doesn’t do that. The press release states that it “embodies the notable ‘Pacific Northwest style’ citrus hop aromas and flavor.” Makes us somewhat glad we don’t live in the Pacific Northwest, though we’d love to visit someday. As long as our hotel isn’t on a cascade hop farm, we should be in good shape.

If you’re a hophead get it and try it – you’ll probably love it. Don’t expect complexity though because it’s just not there. It does have a good alcohol content at 7.2% – what we’d call the low side of high, so there’s that going for it. The press release also states that “caramel and chocolate malts provide flavor complexity” but we just couldn’t find them. If they had ramped those up a good bit it could have balanced it out and made an ultimately much more interesting and enjoyable beer for us.

It would probably be much better with food, perhaps some holiday meals with lots of ham and various other accoutrement. By itself, which is how we rate all our beers, it’s just too hoppy for The BeerFathers. We think maybe a beer needs vowels to be good and the Brrr falls just a little short there.

Widmer Brrr Rating: 1 out of 10

The actual name of the beer on the bottle is Panil Barriquee Oak Aged Sour Red Ale, which will be the last time we write that out completely. It’s brewed by Birrificio Torrechiara, which makes about 9 different beers with the name Panil attached to all of them. Our bottle is from 2005 and at $15.99 per bottle, it’s probably one of the most expensive beers you’ll buy that doesn’t have the word “Utopia” attached to it. For our 1 pint, 9.4 oz bottle you get a per ounce price of about 63 cents per ounce. Worth it? Yep.

Panil Barriquee is 8% ABV, triple fermented, matured in cognac barrels from Bordeaux and ours was bottled in 2005. We used a tulip glass for our review and got an initial beer temperature of 60 F. It’s worth noting that Panil Barriquee, though technically a beer, doesn’t drink like any beer you’ve ever had.

Our initial pour yielded no head whatsoever, just bubbles. This means there’s no rating for head appearance, color, lacing or duration. This brings up the bigger, more probing question – is it really a beer if it doesn’t have a head?

There is no carbonation in the body at all that we could find. The body itself is a hazy, translucent red with deep amber tones to it. For our aromas we picked up caramel, floral, earth (an earthy musky smell), alcohol, brown sugar, sour cherry, oak, plum, raisin, white wine and chardonnay. There’s loads of dark fruits in the smell and it smells suspiciously wine-like. Did they mislabel a bottle of wine as beer?

For our tastes we got brown sugar, sour cherry, oak, plum, raisin, white wine and chardonnay. Much like the smell there’s loads of dark fruits in the taste – sour cherry really jumping to the top of the pile. Again it reminds you of wine with the taste. The initial flavor notes are a moderate to heavy sweet and light sour. The finish flavor notes are a light sweet and moderate sour. Is it really a beer if it tastes like wine?

The finish length is short, the mouthfeel is dry and the tongue hit is in the front. The dry mouthfeel really works with this beer – it’s quite nice and the dryness is really reminiscent of a good dry red wine. Towards the bottom of bottle we got a lot of cloudiness and a darker color – more towards ruby brown than the earlier red amber tones we were getting.

There’s no body lacing as you drink it and it’s just impossible to rate on our patented malt to hop scale – it feels balanced but there’s really no malts and no hops to judge balance on. It’s so very totally different from a normal beer. Is it really a beer if it doesn’t have readily discernible malts and hops?

For our bottom line notes we got Yes to everything we rate – drinkable, repeatable, balance, harmony, memorable, wow factor and buy again. Wow.

This is just an amazingly unbelievable beer that you’ve got to try. Get a big fistful of money to go buy it, nay, invest in it. Even at $16 a bottle you’ll be glad you did. It’s hard to believe it’s a beer, it’s absolutely remarkable and one of the most unique beer experiences you’ll ever have. Share it with a loved one who also enjoys good beer and you’ll have a great beer adventure together.

Panil Barriquee Rating: 8 out of 10

The Sam Adams seasonal lineup goes like this, starting in the spring: Sam Adams White Ale, Sam Adams Summer Ale, Sam Adams Octoberfest and Sam Adams Winter Lager. All Sam Adams beers are brewed by the Boston Beer Company, which makes lots of good craft beers – seemingly a new beer every few months now – that cover a broad range of styles, alcohol contents and price points.

For our review we used a British pint glass and got a starting beer temperature of 44 F. The White Ale weighs in with a 5.2% ABV and our traditional brown 12 oz bottle yielded a generous initial pour where we got a large 2 inch creamy white head that dissipated slowly and left virtually no head lacing. There was a lively amount of carbonation in the gold colored, hazy body of our delicious looking brew.

For the aromas we got honey, wheat, floral, orange, coriander, spices, light grapefruit and a light ginger. There’s enough spices in it that they muddle together a bit and make it hard to pull out the individual notes.

For the tastes we got wheat, floral, grapefruit, orange, clove, coriander, pepper, spices and a light ginger. Our initial flavor notes were a moderate sweet and very light bitter that evolve in the finish to a light sweet, light bitter and light tart. You’d expect a little bit more hop presence, but even at the end it’s a subdued bitterness that is very light by Sam Adams standards (I’ve heard Sam Adams has a wall of tongues at their headquarters that have fallen directly out of people’s mouths from bitter hop shock caused by some of their other brews).

The finish length is short to average, the mouthfeel is dry and the tongue hit is in the back. There was no body lacing to speak of as we gulped it down. On the malt to hop scale it comes in one click to the right of balanced on the hoppy side – slightly hoppy, but not in the danger zone.

For our bottom line notes we got a yes to drinkable, repeatable, balance and buy again. We got a no for harmony, memorable and wow factor.

Overall it’s good for the season – it would probably be better for slightly cooler temperatures – think a New England spring season more so than a Louisiana spring season. But as a seasonal it hits the mark. Beer temperature-wise, cold is good – probably around 45 to 50 F. We wouldn’t let it get up to or past 60 F, as it does hop up a little bit more as it warms. We don’t think that will be much of a problem though as it’s a good, drinkable, sessionable beer that you could easily have a few of, especially at a restaurant with a good meal. Our hat’s off to Sam Adams for their excellence of execution in their seasonal lineup.

Sam Adams White Ale Rating: 5 out of 10

Holiday Cheer weighs in at 5.4% ABV in it’s 12 oz glory. It comes in with an IBU of 22, very mild on the bitterness scale. We got a starting beer temperature of 43.9 F.

Our initial pour gave us an average 2″ frothy light brown head that left no head lacing as it dissipated quickly in our English pint glass. There was a  soft amount of carbonation to the clear amber red body.

For the aromas we got a bouquet of peach, nutty, toffee, grapefruit, dough, vanilla and what we could only call a general melon smell. The peach smell dominates, almost overpowers, the beer. There’s also a bitter tinge reminiscent of a pecan not quite shelled all the way. Not that this is bad by any means, it is an interestingly nice smelling beer.

For the tastes we got peach, nutty (specifically pecan), toffee, grapefruit and again with the general melon. There is a nice pecan action to the taste that we dig. The initial flavor notes are moderately sweet, light bitter and a light to moderate tart. The finish flavor notes are a light sweet, moderate bitter and light tart.

The finish length is average, the mouthfeel is oily and the tongue hit is in the middle. There’s really no body lacing to speak of. It comes in perfectly balanced on our patented malt to hop scale.

For our bottom line notes we got a yes to drinkable, repeatable, balance, harmony and buy again. No to memorable and wow factor.

We feel like this one is positioned all wrong. It would be a good late summer beer, in the same vain as the Dogfish Head Aprihop, but it isn’t a great “Christmas” beer for us. It would be great for when it’s cool to warm out, not when it’s 30 degrees. It’s a good seasonal stuck in the wrong season.

Of course, in Shiner, TX it may be 65 degrees at Christmas, so touche.

Shiner Holiday Cheer Rating: 5 out of 10

Why, you ask? Well, it’s a long story but here goes…

Back on November 13, 2009, we got an email from Jay Hersh, who politely said we may be infringing on a trademark he owns for the name “Dr Beer.” It was nice enough and essentially said “Hey you’re probably unaware of the trademark, but I’ve had it since 1997 and I use it in conjunction with my beer tasting classes. Dr Beer Love and Dr Beer could be confusingly similar to someone so please be cool and stop using the name.” We appreciated his courteous approach and the fact that he came to us directly himself instead of through his lawyers.

So we emailed back and forth a few times to try to work things out in a way where we could keep the name and the web site address, but Jay felt strongly that if we said something that was libelous it could come back to him somehow. Rather than go to court or fight it out we agreed to change the name. Getting lawyers involved is rarely the right answer and on top of that we had been wanting to move the site from it’s Movable Type backend to Wordpress for a while anyway, so it gave us a good opportunity to do that.

So we worked with Jay to come to a compromise of terms that benefited both sides. On our end we:

• Offered to put some text on the top of every page of the Dr Beer Love site that said “Note: Dr. Beer® is a registered trademark of Jay Hersh. We are currently working together to rectify any confusion over the name.” This linked over to his site and was our short term transition plan.
• Offered to design a logo for him to use for “Dr Beer” as he didn’t currently have one.
• Asked for a few months to find a new name, move the site into the new system and remove references of “Dr Beer” from the site.

On Jay’s end he:

• Offered to let us redirect the Dr Beer Love site to the new site once we had transitioned it over.
• Offered to write some guest blog spots for us on the new site.
• Offered to let us work with his wife to do trade name research for whatever new name we used.

We didn’t wind up taking him up on his offer for the trade name research (too generous on his part really) but we did do the research ourselves and are clean and clear. Everything else we did. We thank Jay for working with us and it goes to show that you can really think win-win and work things out together if you just treat each other kindly and respectfully. It’s kind of refreshing in our sue-happy culture that things can still be worked out without legal involvement and both sides can come away feeling better for it. I think the fact that we’re both good beer lovers was a common ground that we both connected through. I’ve always said craft beer lovers are some of the easiest going people you’d want to meet and this whole interaction just proves that crafties are good people.

Now how did we come up with the new name? We put together a list of a few good ones following the same criteria for the old one – we wanted it beer focused, yet somehow related to classic movies. You may or may not have known that Dr Beer Love was named for the movie Dr Strange Love and you may or may not know that we love the classic movies (so much that Son Beer Love is working on watching every one the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Films of all-time – 57 down, 43 left to watch). We also, as an added bonus, wanted to give a nod to our status as fathers, since Son Beer Love became a father last March. So when we started working on putting the names together (Citizen Beer Love, BeerFellas, etc) one immediately jumped to the top of the list – The BeerFathers (for the movie The Godfather).

We wanted some input on it so we asked a few of our favorite beer bloggers (The Beer Babe and The Beer Wench) for some input on the list of names and they all voted on the same one – The BeerFathers. They said it really fit our personality and niche in the beer space. Who could argue? We checked to make sure there were no possible trademark conflicts and registered the domain name. We had our brand.

Then we spent what little free time we had in December and January working on transitioning the site over – we designed a new logo with an actual font called “The Godfather” and figured out all the programming challenges of getting the site moved from Movable Type to Wordpress (we have always been happy with the site we designed so we wanted it to look the same). Once we got all the challenges figured out we exported the Dr Beer Love site (175 posts, 77 categories and 346 comments) and imported it into Wordpress (the easiest step, actually), did a search and replace on all the names and then set up every page of the old Dr Beer Love site to find the appropriate new page on The BeerFathers site (so if someone tried to go to the Abita Turbodog review on Dr Beer Love, say through a Google search, they would immediately get redirected to the Abita Turbodog review on The BeerFathers, instead of having to search for it – it’s a good courtesy for all the search users out there). Once we felt confident everything was set up correctly we “flipped the switch” so to speak and started sending all the traffic to the new site.

So in a little over two months we were able to rebrand and completely move the site over. And that’s how we became The BeerFathers. We’ve got a backlog of about 50 reviews to get on the site and we’ll be working on that with a lot of new content planned for 2010. We also added a few features to the site that we’ll write more about soon that we think you’ll really like. In the meantime we say “Cheers and good beers!”

1. Start up for under $15.00.
2. Requires no expensive equipment or membership dues.
3. It’s no impact and no stress on the joints. Except for an occasional bar fight between the malt mad-men and the hopheads.
4. It can be done with or without clothes. In public always wear clothes.
5. You can expand your circle of friends, many of whom may be able to stand up without assistance.
6. Makes others seem more attractive. See Beer Goggles.
7. You get to keep a Beer Journal. While others keep their life in a journal, you don’t need no stinking life – you’ve got something better: BEER.
8. You can reduce the effects or even cure FBS, Flat Belly Syndrome, so that when you bend over to tie your shoes you get light headed like a real adult.
9. You can be every bit as snotty as a wine snot.
10. When you meet a fellow craftie you will be able to talk for hours about beer, thereby boring anybody in ear shot to death.

This time we decided to work on nutrition. We thought the nutrition guidelines were way too complicated and confusing and had the wrong priorities. Our first priority was of course BEER. Another food group that deserves its own designation was of course BBQ. We thought this was pretty complete but it left out a lot of other stuff. We thought we would group everything else together.

While discussing this with a friend at work a lady customer suggested that we had left out something very basic that deserved its own category so I have included her suggestion in the final legislation. Thanks from us.

NEW NUTRITION GUIDELINES 2009

1. BEER AND BEER RELATED SNACKS
2. BBQ AND ALL SIDE DISHES RELATED TO BBQ
3. CHOCOLATE
4. OTHER (everything else)

Covers everything don’t it? What will we pass next year during the August recess? Damned if we know but at least it will make sense.

While taking a break, I reached way back in the Beer Love larder and found a bottle of McEwans Scotch Ale. I actually bought it 1 year and 10 days ago at CPWM for $1.89 and held it maybe too long, we will see.

This style is scotch ale also called a wee heavy and brewed by Scottish Courage LTD in Edinburg, Scotland. It has an ABV of 8%. I used a pint glass and got a starting temp. of 55.0F-12.9C. I got a 2 1/2 inch large foamy light brown head that dissipated slowly with fair head lacing. There was little carbonation, the color was ruby brown that was a clear dark. Aromas were light caramel, cereal, light alcohol, light brown sugar, light smoke and light soy sauce (7). Tastes were barley, light caramel, cereal, light chocolate, light coffee, light honey, light nutty, light toasted, light brown sugar, light sherry, smoke and soy sauce (12). Initial flavors were a moderate sweet, finish flavors were a moderate to heavy sweet, a very light bitter and a light salty. Finish length was short, mouthfeel was oily and tongue hit was front to middle. It had fair body lacing and on our malt to hop scale I gave it a 2 which is almost all the way to the malt side. For the bottom line I got a yes to drinkable, so-so to repeatable due to the ABV, balance, harmony, memorable and buy again all got a yes. Wow factor got a so-so.

This beer is a malt lovers delight. The light bitterness at the finish may not have even been hops (many scotch ales use other botanicals for bitterness like heather). By mid glass I was at 62F and think this is really a 65-70 degree beer as it just keeps getting better as it warms. I also gave it The BeerFathers “Best Buy Award” for combining quality and price.

I have to check up on the interns now. The reason that the skin on your palm is torn and your hand hurts is that it is a crown cap, not a twist off. We issue you an opener and hang it on a chain around your neck (just like Cool Hand Luke) so use it. What do you mean you never heard of Cool Hand Luke? What kind of education have you had? It’s going to be a long night.

Note: In July 2008 some troll in Heineken, which bought Scottish Courage LTD and also Newcastle, “delisted” this fine ale. It is no longer available in this country. DAMM!!!!

McEwans Scotch Ale Rating: 8 out of 10

Round 1, Beer Battle 2

Ayinger Brau-Weisse comes in as the number two seed in the hefeweizen tournament, thanks to it’s “A-” rating at BeerAdvocate.com and overall 92 rating at RateBeer.com. The 500 mL bottles cost $3.49/each.

Flying Dog In-Heat Wheat comes in as the number seven seed in the hefeweizen tournament, thanks to it’s “B-” rating at BeerAdvocate.com and overall 36 rating at RateBeer.com. The 12 oz bottles cost $1.79/each.

This should be a pretty good matchup, despite the difference in the seeds, I’ve always liked the Flying Dog In-Heat Wheat – a very drinkable treat from Flying Dog, who makes so much good brew.

(7) Flying Dog In-Heat Wheat

The In-Heat Wheat gave us an average 1″ inch frothy white head that left no head lacing as it dissipated quickly. There was a medium amount of carbonation and the yellow/gold body was slightly murky – hefes shouldn’t be clear so this is a good thing.

The aromas came in with citrus – specifically lemon, banana and pepper. The flavors came in with a non-descript citrus, a light grassiness, light banana and pepper. The finish gave us a light bitter and a light sour. For our bottom line notes we got a yes to repeatable, drinkable, balance and buy again. We got a no for harmony, memorable and wow factor.

There is more citrus than banana in the taste of this one. It’s smooth and fairly well balanced but there’s no notes of distinction. Perfectly acceptable as a hefe, but as it warms it’s not quite as good as it was – it gets a little chalky the warmer it gets.

Overall score for the In-Heat Wheat: 5 out of 10

(2) Ayinger Brau-Weisse

The Brau-Weisse pour gave us a huge 3″ foamy white head the left no head lacing as it dissipated slowly. It has a medium to lively carbonation to it and there was a nice haziness to the straw to yellow colored body.

The aromas came in with citrus – specifically grapefruit, yeast, apple, banana and pear. Nice light fruit tones really present a great bouquet. The flavors were pretty true to the aromas and also added a pepperiness that was nice. Initial flavors were lightly sweet and finish flavors stayed lightly sweet with a light tartness. There was no body lacing to speak of as we drank it down. Bottom line notes gave us a yes to repeatable, drinkable, balance, harmony and buy again. We got a no for memorable and wow factor.

Notes were fairly straightforward – heavy on fruits – apples, bananas and citrus – like a good fruit cocktail salad. Nice peppery taste and a smooth appealing mouthfeel.

Overall score for the Brau-Weisse: 7 out of 10

Winner: (2) Ayinger Brau-Weisse

Updated bracket:

Next time: (3) Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse vs. (7) Arcobrau Weissbier.

Round 1, Beer Battle 1

Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier comes in as the number one seed in the hefeweizen tournament, thanks to it’s “A” rating at BeerAdvocate.com and overall 95 rating at RateBeer.com. The 12 oz bottles cost $1.99/each.

Pyramid Hefe Weizen comes in as the number eight seed in the hefeweizen tournament, thanks to it’s “C+” at BeerAdvocate.com and overall 32 rating at RateBeer.com. The 12 oz bottles cost $1.49/each.

(8) Pyramid Hefe Weizen

The Pyramid pour gave us a large 2″ foamy white head that left no head lacing as it dissipated slowly. There was little carbonation and the yellow/gold body had a slight murkiness to it.

The aromas came in with wheat, citrus, lemon and yeast. The flavors came in with an orange taste that kind of overpowered the beer. The Pyramid comes in in pretty far to the right on the malt to hop scale – 3 clicks to the right of balanced on the hoppy side. We got a yes to repeatable and drinkable and a no to memorable, wow factor and buy again.

Our notes were that it had a good, crisp taste, but that it was somewhat bland and muddled relative to the traditional hefe notes. There was also a tart/bitter edge to it that didn’t sit well. The aftertaste lingers in a bad way and the “X” factor is not impressive. It’s better cold – it doesn’t hold together well at all as it warms up.

Overall score for Pyramid: 3 out of 10

(1) Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier

The Weihenstephaner pour gave us a large 2 1/2″ white head that laced fairly well as it dissipated slowly. It had a soft carbonation and a nice cloudy haziness to the yellow/gold body.

The aromas came in with wheat, citrus, lemon, yeast, banana, clove and spices. A nice bouquet overall. The flavors came in with lemon, banana and clove. The Weihenstephaner came in just about perfectly balanced on our patented malt to hop scale and got a yes to repeatable, drinkable, memorable and buy again. The only no was for wow factor.

Our notes were that it was quite refreshing and much more complex than the Pyramid. The banana flavors really popped as it warmed up and overall it had a great harmony and balance to it.

Overall score for Weihenstephaner : 8 out of 10

Winner: (1) Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier

Updated bracket:

Next time: (2) Ayinger Brau-Weisse vs. (7) Flying Dog In-Heat Wheat.

Well, we love the hefes here at The BeerFathers, so much that we made a rule about it – so why not put a bunch of hefes head-to-head and figure out who the real champ is? And so we declare the official start of the first ever The BeerFathers Hefeweizen tournament.

Hefe Madness

Let’s meet the contestants:

#1 seed: Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier

Coming in with an “A” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 95 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $1.99/each.

#2 seed: Ayinger Brau-Weisse

Coming in with an “A-” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 92 rating at RateBeer.com. 500 mL bottles at $3.49/each.

#3 seed: Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse

Coming in with an “A-” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 90 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $1.49/each. Though it has the same overall rating on both sites at the Paulaner Hefe-Weizen, the higher seed went to Franziskaner based on more reviews at BeerAdvocate.com – 793 reviews vs. 634 reviews. Also, the price tag was 50 cents less per bottle. Better bargain means a higher seed, with all things considered.

#4 seed: Paulaner Hefe-Weizen

Coming in with an “A-” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 90 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $1.99/each. See notes on Franziskaner above for seed justification.

#5 seed: Erdinger Weissbier

Coming in with a “B” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 53 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $2.39/each.

#6 seed: Arcobrau Weissbier
Coming in with a “B” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 49 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $1.99/each.

#7 seed: Flying Dog In-Heat Wheat

Coming in with a “B-” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 36 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $1.79/each.

#8 seed: Pyramid Hefe Weizen

Coming in with a “C+” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 32 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $1.49/each.

So all told we’ve got $54.23 worth of beer from Total Wine. Six German (Bavarian) beers and two American beers. We bought 3 of each beer as well so any beer could make it to the finals. And to help us through it all we recruited one Beer Love neighbor – Josh – to help us drink and rate and drink some more.

So if you want to play along at home go and get these beers and tune in over the next few weeks as we work our way through each pairing until we declare the official Hefe Champion.

That’s when we were approached by a young lady in a Charlotte Knights jersey who asked “Do you want to be the PBR fan of the game?” Beer Love neighbor Josh and I had a quick consultation and asked “Will we have to actually drink PBR?” to which she responded “No.” “Then we’re in!” we retorted.

For those not in the know, PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) is not exactly the kind of beer one would usually associate with Beer Love Headquarters – it’s an American lager and though it’s arguably better than any of the big 3 American lagers, it’s not exactly what The BeerFathers order when they’re writing their beer prescriptions out on their beer RX pad. It’s much more “macro” than the microbrews we tend to seek out. In fact, PBR currently rates a 3 out of 100 over at RateBeer.com.

So yes, The BeerFather himself, purveyor of good beers, champion of stouts and porters everywhere, lover of Bells and Dogfish Heads and Duck Rabbits and Three Floyds and Founders and Great Divides, was the PBR Fan of the Game:

Many thanks to Beer Love neighbor Josh for the grainy, 1.3 mega pixel photos he snapped from his cell phone. Without that we would have no photo documentation that there was a PBR, a fan, or even a game.

As a beer reviewer, I’m always a bit picky about the restaurants and bars that I seek out. I love trying out new places, but nothing ruins a night out for me more than finding out a new bar’s tap list consists of what I could find crumpled on the ground of my college campus after an all night frat party. Only slightly above that, in my opinion, is a bar in which they have a bigger craft beer selection – including the “macro” craft brews like Sam Adams – but nothing local despite the presence of some wonderful brewings in the neighborhood.

So I set out to define what, to me, would make up the perfect craft beer list at a bar. I have considered this long and hard (while visiting restaurants and drinking beer, of course) and come up with the following criteria. Most of these steps don’t take too much time or even money, only some conscious thought to consider the beer drinker.

1. Manageable Quantity
   Sure, if you had an unlimited budget, you could put more than 50 tap lines in and import the most amazing brews that the world has to offer all in once place. These places are shrines that I make semi-annual pilgrimages to, but wouldn’t qualify as my perfect beer list. What matters more to me than having everything at my fingertips is having a good small selection that makes sense. Humans become paralyzed when given too many options. If I had to pick a perfect number for craft brews on tap I’d probably ask for between 8 and 10.
2. Local Beer
   If you live in the United States, there’s a good chance there’s a craft brewer less than 50 miles from your doorstep. While having choices that you wouldn’t normally be able to find is exciting, I have seen bars that have totally ignored higher quality local brews at the expense of the hard-to-find imports or big time breweries. The key is balance – represent your local brewers if they make good beer, and offer up something that a regular beer lover wouldn’t be able to buy at Hannaford.
3. Casked Beer
   Having a cask engine in a bar is expensive, and is certainly an investment. But any bar that is serious about beer should consider this. The customer with a high level knowledge of beer will travel miles for an interesting selection on cask, and there are more and more beer geeks joining the rank every day. I’m usually surprised when I find casked beer at a restaurant or bar, and I usually return periodically to see what they’ve put on cask.
4. Balance of Styles
   Would you want to come to a bar every week if they only had one or two styles of beer? If a bar picks mostly pale ales and lagers, or ales, there’s little discernible difference between them. I love to go to bars with lots of styles, so if I’m educating someone about craft beer, I can feel out their particular tastes. A key indicator for me is if a bar has a porter or stout other than Guinness on tap.
5. The Details
   Providing information about each beer and brewery as well as serving the beers appropriately (throw out the frosty mugs, okay?) all add something special to one of my favorite beer bars. Have matching glassware for a brewery? Use it. Have lots of styles? Explain them on the menu. Also, keeping your beer list up to date is important. I have often been disappointed by seeing something on a list only to be told that it was either tapped out or hadn’t been tapped yet! Also any bar or restaurant that takes the time to suggest beer pairings, or hosts beer dinners is a step above all else.

Every time I go out to a bar I look for the criteria. Someday I know I will find my perfect beer list. I’d love to hear if you’ve found yours!

Thanks, The Beer Babe

Comments can be emailed to askthebeerbabe@gmail.com or posted below!

Editor’s Note: Many thanks to The Beer Babe for guest lecturing here at Beer Love University. Be sure to check her out – one of the best beer sites on the Internet today.

Being a Lefty myself, and also a lover of good Milk Stouts, I am really looking forward to trying this Milk Stout from Left hand Brewing Company out of Longmont, Colorado. This Milk Stout has some serious recognition for its goodness! It won the 2006 and 2008 World Beer Cup Gold Medal in the Sweet Stout category, and a Silver Medal at the 2008 GABF for Milk Stout. Not bad!

If you’ve been following The Brew Club for any time, you’ll know that I’ve really taken a liking to these Milk Stouts lately, and I hope that maybe you’ll give one a try as well. For some reason, every time I tell someone about a Milk Stout – they get the impression that there is literal milk mixed into the beer. That would be gross. This is not the case! With Milk Stouts, or Sweet Stouts, lactose is added to the mix to give the beer some sweetness. Lactose is milk sugar and it doesn’t ferment in the brewing process. People with lactose intolerance don’t know that they’re missing with these beers! So that’s the story, loosely, of what a Milk Stout is.

So far, I’ve tried four other milk stouts, and this Left Hand Milk Stout will be number 5. I’d also like to say Thanks! to The BeerFathers who are responsible for hooking me up with this beer to try for you! He’s another Milk Stout fan, and I hope to see what he thinks of the Keegan Ales Mother’s Milk and Lancaster Milk Stout soon! Let’s get on to the beer, shall we?

First, I apologize for the Ice Tea glass that I had to use for this tasting. Remember folks, its not about looks, and all my ‘real’ beer glasses are in the dishwasher so this vessel will have to do! Getting on to looks, this 5.8% ABV stout beer poured into my glass in the typical dark way expected form Milk Stouts. Dark, dark, dark. Let’s just say this beer is basically black, OK? It created a smallish head with a nice beige color, also typical, and in short order the head reduced to a thin beige coating on the beer. Swirling this milk stout in my glass a bit, there was a little bit of bubbly lacing – but it wasn’t clingy.

Smell. Well what can I say? The Left Hand Milk Stout smells like a Milk Stout should! Roasty malt flavors infused with the unmistakable sweetness of the lactose sugar. Nothing surprising here but I think the Left Hand might have a slightly stronger coffee or chocolate smell than the previous milk stouts I’ve had.

Let’s give this beer a taste now eh? It has a big roasted malt flavor, and much like the scent you can pick up on the sweetness in the taste quite easily, but it is not overdone. There is more of that coffee flavor in the taste, as there was in the smell, more so I think than the other milk stouts I’ve had. The body is medium to heavy – there’s some body to this beer! Still, this ale is very smooth, and very drinkable. There’s just the slightest hop bite and no alcohol sting – this beer could be the definition of smooth and creamy! I also found that as I sipped this Milk Stout, the flavors became even more pronounced, so I would suggest you let this one warm up a bit to get the fullness of the flavors.

There is a lightly bitter aftertaste that is agreeable, and the beer leaves a bit of a sticky coating in your mouth, but this isn’t a bad thing considering the type of beer it is.

Overall, I’m going to give the Left Hand Milk Stout a solid 4 star rating. I think as a Milk Stout, its one of the best I’ve had, but I still think the Lancaster Milk Stout is just a touch better overall. Still, if you are a fan of Milk Stouts, I don’t see how you can go wrong trying one of these from Left Hand Brewing.

Editor’s Note: TheBrewClub.com uses a five star rating system while The BeerFathers use a 10 point rating system. Their 4 turns into our 8, simple as that.

Guest Post: Left Hand Milk Stout Rating: 8 out of 10

So – we’re taking a bit of a breather from the site while we’re working on getting used to this whole first baby thing. Have faith that Father Beer Love has gotten to come visit his first grandbaby – and that he’s also noted that Son Beer Love is now also a Father Beer Love. It’s true what they say – having a baby changes everything – it kinds of turns the sound down on everything else going on in your life, including your beloved beer site.

Many thanks to Beer Love pal Scott from The Brew Club who sent a terrific care package and also dropped a note saying that maybe I should let the world know that we had a good excuse for the lack of updates. Fear not we’ll be back soon, and many thanks to all of you who have sent your best wishes.

The Sam Adams seasonal lineup looks like this, starting in the spring: Sam Adams White Ale, Sam Adams Summer Ale, Sam Adams Octoberfest and Sam Adams Winter Lager. We’re hitting all the Sam Adams seasonals and this is stop three of four on our incredible journey. Sam Adams of course, is brewed by the Boston Beer Company, which makes lots of fine beers – probably 10 to 20 different beers total – that cover a broad range of styles, alcohol contents and price points.

Our Sam Adams Winter Lager registered an initial temperature of 47.5 F and our 12 oz bottle sported a nice 5.8% ABV. We used an English pint glass for our review.

The initial pour gave us a large 2 1/4″ foamy off-white head that dissipated slowly and left us some good head lacing en route. There were no discernible carbonation bubbles to speak of. The body was clear with a textbook amber color.

For the aromas we were able to pull our a very light caramel, nutty, floral, orange, resin, cinnamon, ginger and some miscellaneous spices. It’s really a great sniffer of a beer. For the tastes there were fewer notes, which gave us biscuit, light caramel, floral, ginger and some more miscellaneous spices.

The initial flavor notes were a moderate to heavy sweet and a very light bitter. The finish flavor notes were a light sweet and light to moderate bitter. The moderation in the hops and bitterness in this and other Sam Adams Seasonals is one of the biggest selling points for us.

The finish length is short, the mouthfeel is nice and creamy (not like a Guinness, but still creamy nonetheless), and the tongue hit is in the middle of the tongue. There’s no body lacing as we lower the beer levels in the glass.

On The BeerFathers patented malt to hop scale it comes in one click to the right of balanced on the hoppy side (a 6 for those keeping score at home, and we know you are). For our bottom line notes we get a yes to drinkable, repeatable, balance and buy again. We get a no to harmony, memorable and wow factor.

This is a good beer, a fine beer really. There is a nice malt sweetness that hits you immediately and makes you take notice, along with the wonderfully smooth mouthfeel. It really shows you what Sam Adams can do when they put a restraining order on the hops.

This is a beer that really fits the time of year that it’s available – winter. It matches up beautifully with what the body craves during the cold winter months. The Winter Lager could also go well with dessert – the spices would play beautifully with just about any final course.

The price is good and it’s a good value at the price. This is a great beer for repeatability – you could and should do more than one. It’s terrific on tap (Son Beer Love had a lot of this on tap during the winter months) and it’s a nice introduction to winter/Christmas style beers for the craft beer newbie. It’s also a perfect conversion beer for those wanting to get into craft beers or for those you want to get into good beer.

As a test I gave this out at a Panthers tailgate party to a pure Bud Light drinker (who had told me not to bring any fancy stuff) and he wound up having 3 of them. Then he called me the next week to tell me he bought a six pack to have that weekend. Mission accomplished and you’re welcome.

Sam Adams Winter Lager Rating: 5 out of 10

• Best New Beer Style of 2008: Milk Stout
  The BeerFathers had their first milk stout in 2008 and man oh man was he impressed. Where had this been all our life? The malty, coffee, roasty flavors gripped our palate and left us wanting more. The new rule in the Beer Love household is “When you find a milk stout you must buy it” (and yes that should be sung to the tune of Devo’s “Whip It”). We’ve got several milk stouts in the queue for ratings in 2009, in case you’re wondering why we have so few on the site.
• Best Beer of 2008: Foothills Sexual Chocolate
  2008 gave us a beer that delivered both in name and in experience – the Foothills Sexual Chocolate Stout. On tap, in the bottle and any other way we could get it – we got it and made sweet chocolaty love to it. It’s a terrific beer that you should get while you can, because it’s pretty limited in release. As a matter of fact it comes out this month (February)!
• Best Non-Stout of 2008: Aventinus Doppelbock
  “Non-stout” seemed like a much more elegant way of saying “lager” so we went with that. The reason this category exists is because we love stouts – more malts, more flavors, heartier – whatever the reason we really prefer them over lagers. We know that’s a sweeping generalization to make but we feel it’s important to note our bias. That said, the Aventinus Doppelbock was by far our favorite non-stout of the year – one we’d put head to head with any stout in terms of sheer enjoyment.
• Best Fruited Beer of 2008: Abita Strawberry Harvest
  We went a little nuts with the strawberry beers this past year, but no matter what the Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager continued to rise to the occasion. We labeled it perhaps the most perfect spring beer on the market today.
• Best IPA of 2008: Dogfish Head 90 Minute
  We’re admittedly not big hopheads, but when we found this IPA we knew it was special. And that’s just what the Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA is – special. It’s got wonderful balance to it – plenty of malts to balance out the hops, and a nice strong 9% ABV to boot. We would never turn this beer down.
• Best Beer Review of 2008: Michelob Amber Bock
  The review for Michelob Amber Bock will always be special to us for several reasons – it was a review of the breakout beer that got us into good beer, it was our 100th beer review and it was one that we put a lot of time into (we started writing this months before we posted it). It embodies everything we wanted to do with our beer reviews – namely documenting the “experience” of the beer above and beyond the beer itself. We only wish we had the time to do this with all the beers we try.

Looking back on 2008 it’s easy to see it was a good year for beer for The BeerFathers. It was also an epic year for the The BeerFathers web site – we had all of 444 unique visitors in the month of January 2008 and we set a goal of breaking 1,000 visitors a month over the year. Well, for the month of January 2009 we had 4,175 unique visitors. That’s an 840% increase in beer loving visitors. That’s a lot of beer love! Thanks to everyone for loving the beer with us – here’s to beer in 2009!

Though technically an InterBrew (now InBev) beer, it’s brewed by the Boston Beer Company in Cincinnati. It’s said that the recipe for Mackeson has been around since 1801, but that refers to the British version of the beer known simply as Mackeson’s Stout. The American version gets the XXX distinction because it’s so obscene, like you can see everything, including, oh wait. It’s called XXX because it’s got a 4.9% ABV as opposed to the 3.75% ABV of the UK edition.

For our rigorous testing purposes we procured a 12 oz bottle that was, as we said, 4.9% ABV. The beer temperature for the rating was 56.5 F and we used an British pint glass.

Our initial pour gave us a large 2 1/4″ rocky dark brown head that yielded a good amount of head lacing as it dissipated slowly. There was little to no carbonation and the color was an opaque black.

A few good whiffs gave us a nice arrangement of smells – chocolate, coffee, molasses, roasted malts, black licorice, cream and soy sauce. A few good tastes gave us a lot of the same with a little bit less and a little bit more: chocolate, coffee, roasted malts, earth, black licorice, cream and soy sauce.

Our initial flavor notes were a moderate sweet that stays constant into the finish but rounds out with a light bitter and light saltiness as well. The finish length is average, the mouthfeel is creamy and the tongue hit is in the front. There’s really no body lacing to speak of. On the patented malt to hop scale it comes in 3.5 clicks to the left of balanced on the malty side – one of the more malty beers we’ve done.

For our bottom line notes we get a yes to drinkable, repeatable, balance, harmony, memorable and buy again. Our only no is for wow factor (we’re just not as easily wowed as we once were).

It’s very similar to a milk stout, especially in mouthfeel. Some review sites actually classify it as a milk stout (some classify it as a sweet stout and some show a milk/sweet stout). Whatever it is it’s very smooth and nice. It’s got a strong sweetness to it though – stronger than a Young’s Double Chocolate Stout, and that may be off-putting to some of you who don’t like them super sweet. The sweetness really hangs around on this one.

The good news is it seems to be pretty readily available and relatively inexpensive – you can probably pick it up for less than $2 a bottle in a single. It’s a really good session beer if you like the sweet stuff and would go really well with some cheese and crackers. This one is definitely BeerFather approved.

Mackeson XXX Stout Rating: 7 out of 10

So this time I paid attention and what did I find? Not surprisingly, the focus of the beer scene on Bourbon Street is much like that of the hard liquor scene – the debilitating effects of the drink rather than the notes, flavors and variety.

There are a few good places off Bourbon Street (d.b.a. and Crescent City Brewhouse come to mind), but Bourbon Street offers a unique focus on beer in a way that is noble in it’s own right. Something you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else in the continental United States. What can I say? Take a look at the photo above and tell me they don’t know their target market.