Stone, Dogfish Head, Victory Saison Du Buff

It's unfair to label this beer as a Stone beer, although the label does bear their printing style and Bill's name is signed on the description.  It's actually a collaboration between Stone, Dogfish Head, and Victory.  The idea was to make a Saison that used floral and aromatic herbs for ultimate refreshment.  It pours a light straw color with a medium head and decent retention.  Nice bubbles and the aroma is a very clean and crisp malt. It's a Saison to perfection; Michael Jackson would be proud. 

Drinking this Buff in is a huge mouthful of flavor.  The body is light and extremely even.  The grains are big bready flavors, but very light on the tongue.  They mix with German style hops that bitter the back and sides of your tongue mixing with a bit of lemon and a lot of sage.  The sage is almost overwhelming, but mixes beautifully with the hops.  I'm not getting any of the rosemary that is promised on the bottle. 

The beer has a very smooth hop finish, although has little in the way of alpha acid's pine and citrus and tastes more like orange peel and pepper.  Ultimately, these brewers were able to achieve exactly what they set out for, a refreshing kickass Saison.  Drinkability is off the charts, and the beer is super refreshing and crisp.  My personal preference would be to have some more American hops in there to get a nicer piney finish, but the beer is still great as is.

Saison Du Buff: ****

Aprihop

Now now, before all you hop heads throw a fit over the brand and the name, let me make a case for this beer.  I've never been the hugest Dogfishead fan.  Some of you may be shocked, but I have two very good reasons.  1. Price.  They charge the same or more for a 4 pack that you'd pay for an expensive 6 pack.  2. They make incredibly interesting beverages, but I'm not always sure you classify them all as beer.  For example, to classify the Palo Santo as a porter does disservice to both the beer in question and the category of porters.  I think Dogfish makes some very interesting drinks though, and their 'beer,' is always worth trying.  So that being said, let's delve into this timely named Aprihop that I'm drinking in the month of April.

Not an incredible amount of head, smell is of citrusy dry hopping and strong apricots.  After a statement like that I'm sure there's cause for concern that this could end up being some sort of over sweetened travesty, tasting of syrupy fruit flavor like a framboise lambic.  But actually this beer surprises both in its maintaining of flavor and deliciousness.

The brew does a great job balancing the sweetness of the apricot flavor, which tastes like a real apricot, rather than some artificialness, with the strong alpha bitter hops.  It opens with hop flavor that quickly gives way to the light carbonation, but from there widens out into a great balance of hops, apricot and grains.  The apricot flavor meshes surprisingly well with the woody hop oils, leaving a slightly perfume-like bitter mix, neither overwhelming, nor absent.  The color is slightly more amber than you'd expect on this IPA, and the body is fairly light.

You'll want to drink this beer cold because as it starts to head towards room temperature the sweet flavors become overwhelming.  The lightness of the body and the sweet tones make this a great beer for hot days that is immensely drinkable, yet at 7% still packs enough alcohol to keep you satisfied that you're drinking a beer.

Aprihop: ****

My top 5 Porters

To continue a little series I've been doing on different ale styles, I've decided to highlight my favorite porters.

When I speak about porters, it's assumed that I'm referring to American style porters. Quite frankly there isn't much difference between english porters and american porters other than american style porters tend to use more interesting ingredients like smoked flavor, coffee beans, bourbon, but the process of making and the basic tasting scheme is the same.

First a little history of the beer from Beer Advocate: "Porter is said to have been popular with transportation workers of Central London, hence the name. Most traditional British brewing documentation from the 1700’s state that Porter was a blend of three different styles: an old ale (stale or soured), a new ale (brown or pale ale) and a weak one (mild ale), with various combinations of blending and staleness. The end result was also commonly known as "Entire Butt" or "Three Threads" and had a pleasing taste of neither new nor old. It was the first truly engineered beer, catering to the public's taste, playing a critical role in quenching the thirst of the UK’s Industrial Revolution and lending an arm in building the mega-breweries of today. Porter saw a comeback during the homebrewing and micro-brewery revolution of the late 1970’s and early 80’s, in the US. Modern-day Porters are typically brewed using a pale malt base with the addition of black malt, crystal, chocolate or smoked brown malt. The addition of roasted malt is uncommon, but used occasionally. Some brewers will also age their beers after inoculation with live bacteria to create an authentic taste. Hop bitterness is moderate on the whole and color ranges from brown to black. Overall they remain very complex and interesting beers."

These days with all the creative stouts being made, it can be tricky to distinguish a good porter as the two styles are very similar and often indistinguishable. But Porters are usually much lighter in flavor, alcohol content, and body. They are somewhere between a brown ale and stout, but tend to be much closer to a stout. Here are my favorites:

Deschutes Black Butte XXI - This is Deschutes anniversary batch of it's premiere and most popular brew. But those who have had the Black Butte will be pretty amazed by this creation. It's actually an Imperial Porter and it's amazing.

Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron - It's hard to classify Palo Santo as any traditional beer style, but probably closest to a Porter. It's a lot like drinking a thick wine, but it's really amazing. I have an older entry on this beer that you can read more about.

Rogue Mocha Porter - A mixture of chocolate and coffee tones from Rogue make up the third on my list, another well crafted beer worth trying.

Stone Smoked Porter - I sometimes shy away from smoked porters because they can be overly smokey, like putting out a cigar in your mouth. But Stone's version of this popular beer has it really nailed.

Stone Vanilla Bean Porter - This is a recent release that I just tried last week at the Daily Pint. Some might find it too sweet, but I think it mellows out as you drink it. A great mixture of chocolate and vanilla sweetness with just enough bitters to keep it worth drinking.

Others worth mentioning and trying: Deschuttes Black Butte Porter, Alaskan Smoked Porter, Anchor Porter, Ballast Point Victory at Sea Vanilla Imperial Porter, Russian River Porter,