New Belgium Brewing - Mothership Wit

Tonight I'll be drinking a Mothership Wit from New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado.  This is the brewery's first venture into 'organically-produced' beer - a wheat beer brewed with lots of organic stuff, including organic orange peels, organic coriander, and organic lemon peels.  What classifies a food or ingredient as organic?  Organic refers to foods that are grown and processed without the use of pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, hormones, antibiotics, or cyber-genetic mutations.  Ok, I made that last one up.  But you get the picture, this stuff is all-natural.  Mothership Wit is a session brew with 4.8% alcohol, and classifies as a Belgian Witbier.

The beer is very light, pale straw color with lots of bubbles (as you can see in the picture).  Those bubbles help to maintain the half-inch of white head, never allows it to recede.  The aroma is dominated by spices and yeast-funk.  Coriander, some pale malt, and lemon sweetness also linger.  The flavor starts off with a tart lemony citrus.  Then comes a wave of bananas, which combine together with spices.  The spices are present but take back-seat role to the tart citrus, sweet wheat malts, and bananas.  The mouthfeel is very crisp, heavier carbonation, and the finish is dry.  The finish leaves a lingering banana flavor.

Overall Rating:  This was a really pleasant, simple, refreshing witbier.  Fantastic brew to enjoy during the summer months.  I don't have a lot of experience with this style, but I certainly enjoyed New Belgium's take on it!  A-

New Belgium - Trippel

Holy jumpin' Jesus balls its hot out today!  In MN our heat index is 111 degrees and the actual temperature is 97 last I checked.  The humidity index is somewhere in the 80s... if it weren't for my cars a/c I would have most likely turned into a melted, semi-congealed puddle during my commute home.  Its days like these where I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to swig down a cold craft beer at the end of the work day.

For our review this evening we are revisiting New Belgium Brewing.  Dunz and I have reviewed four of their other beers and have had mixed reviews thus far.  This brewery is most notably known for their Fat Tire Ale and 1554 Enlightened Black Ale.  Recently, within the past year or so, New Belgium released their Explorer series.  This series is a line-up of beer designed to take you across four completely different flavor profiles.  The other three within the series are the Ranger IPA, Morthership Wit and Abbey Ale.

New Belgium's Trippel is a very clear beer.  Side by side in a pint glass it could easily be mistaken for a slightly darker Pilsner.  However, the flavor profile couldn't be more different.  This 7.8% ABV Belgian brew starts off with a very floral aroma.  Lots of fruity esters with a hint of booze and lemongrass.  It certainly smells the part.  The flavors play right into the aroma with an additional malty sweetness and crisp mouthfeel.  The Belgian yeasty characteristics are present but not overdone.  A clean finish with a breath of soft alcohol finishes off the experience.

Overall - This is a good entry level brew for those who have yet to experience the wonderful world of Belgian beer.  The flavors are mild yet easy to discern.  Everything is clean and pleasant to drink.  A nice Belgian brew for beginners and aficionados alike!

New Belgium - Dunkelweiss

Tonight I'll be drinking a brew from New Belgium's Lips of Faith Series - the Dunkelweiss.  This is a hefty brew that comes in at 9%ABV.  This is primarily hopped with Target hops, along with Pale, Wheat, and Black Barley malts, and black pepper/clove additions.  New Belgium's goal is to take the German Wheat beer style, and create a mutant step-child brew that carries most of the same basic characteristics, and throws some twists in there.  Goes against the grain of the more traditional folk, but I enjoy going on these brewventures.

The beer is super dark brown, almost black color with a massive layer of tan head.  The aroma is full of fresh banana bread, peppery cloves, and caramel apples.  Also a yeast funk, and a hint of alcohol fumes in there.  The flavor is sweet, with toasted bread malt starting things off.  Then comes a wave of flavors that were apparent in the aroma - banana, wheat, cloves, and apple cider.  Even more apple flavors than the aroma let on, with black peppers and a sugary finish.  Where the hell is that 9% alcohol?  Aside from the campfire warmth in the back of my throat, it's hardly noticeable.

Overall Rating:  This was a nice brew - New Belgium took this german style and had some fun with it - they created a frankendunkel!  An easy-drinking brew and a must-try from the Lips of Faith Series.  A-

New Belgium - Abbey Belgian Style Ale

Today I'll be drinking New Belgium's Abbey Belgian.  Abbey is a belgian dubbel that has won plenty of awards over the years.  It's brewed with an 'authentic' belgian yeast strain, bottle-conditioned, and registers 7% on the alcohichter scale.  New Belgium includes some recommended food pairings for this beer on their website.

The beer is a dark, translucent mahogany with a frothy tan head.  The lace sticks to the glass nicely.  Aromas rise out of the glass in waves - banana and honeycrisp apples first come to mind.  There is also some caramel malts in there and some alcohol in the background.  The taste takes a turn away from the fruits, and features a toasty, bready flavor up front.  Then come spicy cloves and a little woody, cedar flavor.  Towards the end, the bananas sneak back in for a brief moment, and then disappear just as quickly, leaving a relatively dry finish.  The body is lighter than I expected, and carbonation is on the heavy side. 

Overall Rating:  (3.6 out of 6.0)  This beer brought some nice flavors to the table.  But the body was too light, almost watery, so that detracted from the experience.  If you like Belgian Dubbels, this is a nice, inexpensive US interpretation, take it or leave it!

New Belgium 1554 Enlightened Black Ale

Last night our good friend Schmidt was in town, so we went out to the local Tavern for some mugs and pool.  Steve, Schmidt and I are all Iowa State alums, so it was oddly appropriate when we were challenged to a game of doubles by a couple Iowa alums.  Our rivalry can be fierce, but not to the point of hatred, and it's easy to bridge that competitive gap when beer is involved!  They ended up beating us two games out of three....disappointing, but we got a shot of tequila out of it, so it wasn't a total loss.

Today I'll be drinking New Belgium 1554, a beer that I first tried (and enjoyed) last summer.  This is an interesting brew - according to the website, it's based on an old recipe that originated in Belgium, but was lost in a flood in Fort Collins in 1997.  To re-discover this brew style, the head brewers headed out to Belgium and studied up on ancient manuscripts and such.  It'd be interesting to travel back in time to 1500 and hit the tavern for a mug.  Beer back then was probably skunky and chunky.  Although, that may not have been the case with some of the monastery breweries.  But I digress...

The label on this bottle is quiant - it depicts a small table with a glass of beer and a paper that is likely showing the old recipe New Belgium based this brew on.  Pouring this into my snifter, it pours a blackish brown hue and lets just a tiny hint of light throw.  The head is egg-white and laces a thin layer on top of the beer.  The aroma brings roasted coffee and light toffee, along with some sugared dark fruits.  The drink brings an assault of flavors - wow!  It's hard to pick out individual flavors at first, everything swirls like a hurricane.  The one pillar that stands out is the roasted chocolate malts.  Those are complimented by a nutty texture and rich dark chocolate, and a welcome hint of sour cherry in the finish (especially as the beer warms).  The texture is smooth, and surprisingly light-bodied. 

Overall Rating:  (5.2 out of 6.0)  This is one of my favorites from New Belgium - it's a beer that can be enjoyed any time of the year.  Loaded with roasty goodness, but not lead in your stomach.  Although it's lighter than a porter, it's still not a beer you can drink quickly.  1554 is a good sipper at a great price.

New Belgium Vrienden Ale

It's been a long and busy week at work, so I'm looking forward to sitting back, drinking a beer, and writing about it.  Is anyone looking to hire a full-time, salaried beer writer?  Is there even such a thing?  If so, please contact me directly!  Oh and by the way, did you hear that Brett Favre is retiring?  Hilarious!

Now down to business.  Tonight I am drinking a bottle from the New Belgium Lips of Faith series, called Vrienden.  This one is brewed with Colorado-Grown Pale Malt and Caramel 80, Target and Cascade hops, and....hibiscus flower, and......Brettanomyces? and......Lactobacillus??????  Wikipedia, to the rescue!  Brettanomyces is a type of yeast that has historically been used in English ales.  As for Lactobacillus, I read the wikipedia description and I still don't know what the hell it is, so let's just move on.

The beer comes in a pint-sized bottle, which looks like it's been vandalized by graffiti.  There is a story and a little description written around the bottle, "Get a belgian brewmaster and a master of belgian brewing together and there's sure to be a spontaneous imagination that leads to micro-organisms mingling in fermentation ""Bliss"" ""Bliss"" ""Bliss"".  Allagash and New Belgium are pleased to offer you our collabeeration."  The front of the label says this is a beer brewed with hibiscus and endive. 

Pouring this into my snifter, it pours a clear, dark golden orange with an almost pure white head of over an inch.  The head receeds quickly and leaves a sticky lace.  The aroma is odd - it almost reminds me of Coors Light.  When I dig a little deeper I can find some sour apple and some floral notes.  But seriously, this beer smells like Coors Light.

The first sip definitely does not taste like Coors Light.  Right away there are some floral, sweetly bitter notes present, and then it gives way to a bunch of dark sour fruits.  Cherries, sour apples take the front seat.  Then a big wave of flavor really pounds my palate on the backend, which takes those same sour fruits to another level of zing, and adds in some bready malts.  That must be the yeast and the hibiscus playing nice together!  The 8.5% alcohol is nowhere to be found.  The texture of this beer is medium-bodied (although it tricks you into thinking it's light), with fairly heavy carbonation.

Overall Rating:  (4.0 out of 6.0)  For a beer that smells exactly like Coors Light, this beer isn't bad at all!  It has some unique flavors that I can honestly say I've never experienced before in a beer.  While there were some minor (barely noticeable) off-flavors, the combination of belgian influence, along with the hibiscus flower addition, made for an enjoyable fruity brew.  If you're in the mood for something new and unique, be sure to give this a try.