Box O' Beer

Oh-em-gees where is all this beer coming from that has awesome design? If not for The Dieline I’d probably miss out on this stuff. This one is for Waitemata Sparkling Pale Ale in New Zealand and was designed by Designworks. What’s not to love about this design? It’s vintage inspired with bright-bold colors and just looks awesome.

From Designworks:

“DB breweries approached Designworks to create a ‘celebration pack,’ commemorating eighty years of brewing history, which was to be given as a Christmas gift to both their staff and clients. The idea was to bring back a cherished ‘pioneering beer’ – the Waitemata Sparkling Pale Ale – in mint condition with stories that evoked the ‘golden age.’ First brewed back in 1930, Waitemata was referred to as ‘The Prince of Ales’ and Today’s Great Drink.”

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Goddamn This Beer is Good!

I liked this beer so much I’m still drinking it as I write the review. Trader Joe’s Vintage Ale comes out once a year, just in time for the Christmas season, and man is it good. It’s brewed by the masters over at Unibroue in Chamblay, Quebec.

The bottle is also labeled “On Lees”, which means there’s a bottom layer of yeast sediment that allows the bottle to continue to condition. In fact the bottle suggests that you cellar some for a couple years and enjoy their evolving flavor.

This bad boy is super dark – coffee colored with a frothy beige head that lasts a long time. It’s very thick and super smooth with a good level of carbonation. The brew is sweet and spicy with some coffee notes, maybe some molasses, and just a little bit of nuttiness.

Basically this beer is bomb. Annnnnddd you need to get it.  If you’re a fan of Unibroue or Belgian-style beers in general, you should pick this up, especially at the low price of $5.

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Harley Boy Looks Intrigued

Since it’s the start of the Holiday season, I thought I’d review some tasty holiday beers, starting with the oh-so-tasty Santa’s Private Reserve Ale from Rogue.

This is a holiday staple, as Rogue puts out a new Santa’s Reserve every year, however it’s my first time actually trying one.

The beer pours a dark amber brown and is slightly hoppy. I was expecting a little more hops since the beer has about 65 IBUs. I think they managed to balance out the hops pretty well, even if the bitterness did tend to linger a bit.

There were definitely some spicy notes in there, as well as an underlying nutty taste. The one thing I wasn’t expecting was the watery mouthfeel and the overall lightness. The plus side is that it makes it a little easier to drink.

Overall this is a pretty good Winter ale, good for sharing a couple with some pals on a cold night. Not bad at all Rogue…not bad at all. I foresee only presents in your stocking!

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With the Holidays upon us and Thanksgiving in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to look forward to the old tradition of tasty holiday beers. These beers are typically spicier and heavier than normal year-round beers, perfect for enjoying with some good friends when it’s cold outside.

So why the change in style around the holidays?  There may be some historical significance from pre-refrigeration times, when brewers had to wait for the weather to get colder before they could start brewing, therefore making special beer to commemorate the beginning of the brewing season and the holidays.

The other reasons are more obvious: this time of the year has always been about enjoying warmth and good company while escaping the cold. Cookies, hot chocolate, apple cider, and gingerbread are traditional stalwarts of the season, so why not a beer that evokes the same warmth and good feelings?

Since there are so many great holiday and Christmas beers out, you usually can’t go wrong with whatever you choose. I’ve already managed to try some of Santa’s Private Reserve by Rogue, and am looking forward to getting my hands on some other great beers in the coming weeks.

Christmas Beer!

If you’re interested in learning more about the history of holiday and Christmas beers, and want to know some of the best beers imbibe this holiday season, check out
“Christmas Beer: The Cheeriest, Tastiest, and Most Unusual Holiday Brews” by Don Russell

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Since Sam Adams Infinium Ale is soon to be released, as well as it being the holiday season, I thought it would be good to highlight their stunning design. It’s vintage aesthetics mesh perfectly with modern sleekness, and creates a package design that is simply gorgeous. This awesome bottle was designed by the people over at Adam&Co.

Sexy

Sam Adams Infinium

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Shutdown ale at it's finest

Phew! This beer is a mouthful, literally and figuratively. The beer has an awesome back story – the brewery was shutdown for a few weeks due to a St. Patrick’s Day party, and this brew was made to commemorate the occasion.

The shutdown ale has a really nice red amber color, and a pretty big head. The head actually has a pretty sweet flavor, almost like cotton candy. The beer itself is initially very bitter, but has some really sweet malty undertones. There’s a lot of hops and a slight alcohol taste as well. It’s also a really strong at 9.75%. Overall this beer is really tasty, another great beer in Lagunitas’ fine line of beverages.

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Sam Adams Infinium

Available in Early December, This Two-Year Cross-Continent Collaboration Brew Gives Beer Lovers Another Reason to Celebrate This Holiday Season

(Boston, MA) – Over 60 percent of men would opt to toast with beer versus champagne, if given the choice.

Thanks to Infinium™, a crisp, new champagne-like beer that sets a new standard in brewing, men now have the ultimate drink with which to celebrate this holiday season. Debuting in early December, the premiere sparkling brew is the culmination of a two-year collaboration between Jim Koch, brewer and founder of Samuel Adams beers, and Dr. Josef Schradler, managing director of Germany’s Weihenstephan Brewery. The first new beer style created under the Reinheitsgebot in over a hundred years, Infinium unites 1,000 years of combined brewing knowledge and innovation between the two breweries.

Available for a limited time only, this innovative new beer style adheres to the rigorous standards of the Reinheitsgebot, the historic German beer purity law that states all beer must be brewed using only four ingredients: malt, hops, water and yeast. Infinium pours out a deep golden color with fine bubbles and has a fruity, elegant aroma. Its crisp acidity gives it a dryness and tartness on the palate that is balanced with a smooth malt body. Infinium is packaged in 750mL cork-finished bottles and contains 10.3 percent alcohol by volume, twice the amount of an average beer.

This crisp, vivacious brew is certain to make a palate-pleasing gift for food and beer connoisseurs and as a recent survey found, men are eager to celebrate with beer throughout the holiday season. Infinium’s light, sparkling character is a welcome complement to all festivities, allowing drinkers to enjoy the best of both worlds.

“Dr. Schradler and I are thrilled to uncork Infinium, and introduce not only a first-class beer, but a new standard in the art of brewing,” said Jim Koch, Samuel Adams founder and brewer. “When I brewed the first batch of Samuel Adams Boston Lager in my kitchen in 1984, it challenged America’s perception of what beer could be. At the time, beer drinkers weren’t used to bigger, more flavorful brews that used high-quality, traditional ingredients and followed the age-old Reinheitsgebot purity law. Infinium continues to challenge people’s perception of beer in a very different way, making this partnership unique. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the most talented brewers in the world during this project, and we’re all excited to finally share Infinium with drinkers this holiday season.”

Both breweries share great passion for the art and science of brewing, and pride themselves on using only the highest quality ingredients to produce award-winning, world-class beers. Weihenstephan was founded by Benedictine monks in 1040, and is the guardian of the original Reinheitsgebot law. Every batch of Weihenstephan’s beer is evaluated by a panel of experts for color, aroma, froth consistency and flavor.

“It was exciting to work with Jim and the brewers at Samuel Adams to stretch the limits of Reinheitsgebot during the creation of Infinium,” says Dr. Josef Schradler. “This beer is truly a marriage of the German brewing heritage that our brewery has upheld for almost a thousand years, combined with new, innovative brewing techniques that take beer beyond what anyone expected to be possible under the constraints of the purity law.”

Not only is Weihenstephan the oldest brewery in the world, it has upheld a tradition of being a center for research about brewing and brewing technology for hundreds of years. The Weihenstephan Science Center of the Technical University of Munich is one of the highest regarded brewing schools in the world, and was instrumental in the development and creation of Infinium with the Weihenstephan and Samuel Adams brewers.

Available at select locations worldwide for a limited time, Infinium, hits shelves in early December, for a suggested retail price of $19.99 per 750mL bottle.

*Survey conducted by Wakefield Research, an independent research provider. Demographic quotas were set to ensure that results are nationally representative of the survey audience. Results have a margin of error of 4.03%.

THE BOSTON BEER COMPANY BACKGROUND:
The Boston Beer Company began in 1984 with a generations-old family recipe that Founder and Brewer Jim Koch uncovered in his father’s attic. After bringing the recipe to life in his kitchen, Jim brought it to bars in Boston with the belief that drinkers would appreciate a complex, full-flavored beer, brewed fresh in America. That beer was Samuel Adams Boston Lager®, and it helped catalyze what became known as the American craft beer revolution.

Today, the Company brews more than 31 styles of beer. The Company uses the traditional four vessel brewing process and often takes extra steps like dry-hopping and a secondary fermentation known as krausening. It passionately pursues the development of new styles and the perfection of its classic beers by constantly searching for the world’s finest ingredients. While resurrecting traditional brewing methods, the Company has earned a reputation as a pioneer in another revolution, the “extreme beer” movement, where it seeks to challenge drinkers’ perceptions of what beer can be. The Boston Beer Company strives to elevate the image of American craft beer by entering festivals and competitions the world over, and in the past five years it has won more awards in international beer competitions than any other brewery in the world. The Company remains independent, and brewing quality beer remains its single focus. While Samuel Adams brand is the country’s largest-selling craft beer, it accounts for just under one percent of the U.S. beer market. For more information, please visit www.samueladams.com.

ABOUT WEIHENSTEPHAN:
The Bavarian State Brewery Weihenstephan. Nearly one thousand years ago it was the monastery brewery of the Benedictine monks, then the Royal Bavarian State Brewery. Today, as a regulated enterprise of the Freestate of Bavaria, it is a company run according to the precepts of private business. As the oldest existing brewery in the world, the brewery occupies an exalted site atop Weihenstephan Hill in the Bavarian city of Freising, surrounded by the comparatively still very young Weihenstephan science centre of the Technical University of Munich. Yet it is precisely this unique combination of tradition and custom, proven knowledge, and modern science, which gives the brewery its incomparable identity and permits it to brew beers of the highest quality. www.weihenstephaner.de.

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Sweet and hoppy

I was initially attracted to Denogginizer because of it’s cool sketch-based typographic design. Luckily good design seems to translate (so far) to good beer.

Denogginizer is an Imperial IPA, which makes it darker and hoppier than a standard IPA (this comes in at 90 IBUs.) It poured a dark bronze with a large, fluffy head. Like other imperial IPAs, it has an initial sweet taste which gets bitter at the end. I really like Denogginizer because it had at lot of flavor. It was slightly fruity and had a thick mouthfeel, which was good for sipping and getting a real flavor profile from the beer.

In terms of IPAs, I think this one is a winner. By not having that full bitterness throughout, it lets the drinker really enjoy the flavors without being overwhelmed. When the bitterness finally does come through, it’s a nice balance. The beer also does a good job of being flavorful and alcoholic. At 9.75% it’s strong, but without that boozy taste. Drake’s brews this once a year, so at $6.99 for a 22 oz bottle it’s not horribly expensive. Overall: A-

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My latest discovery on The Dieline comes from the Bogotá Beer Company. The large gothic typeface, and bold colors are right up my alley design-wise. This awesome design was done by Lucho Correa

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Mmmmm....hoppy

Gubna Imperial IPA is yet another example of a quality microbrew in a can, this time out of Colorado.. I liked this beer a lot. It poured an interesting orange color with a small head. There were some definite citrus notes coming through, and initially the beer was very sweet.

The hops didn’t come into play until the end. It wasn’t overwhelmingly hoppy, but the taste tended to linger. There also wasn’t a strong alcohol taste, even though this thing packs a punch at 10%. Overall I’d have to say that this is a pretty good IPA, worth a shot if you’re into these sort of beers.

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