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Beer Review: Winter Harvest DIPA and Windhook IPA from Väsen Brewing

Winter Harvest DIPA, Väsen Brewing (Richmond, VA)

Double IPA, 8.0% ABV, 25 IBU

Presentation: Draft pour into a stemmed glass

Appearance: Golden/bronze/orange color, medium head

Taste: Notes of bitterness at first then vanilla-like sweetness at the back-end. The sweetness was pronounced in this DIPA than any I have tasted before.

Mouthfeel: Super smooth

Overall: The vanilla/dried fruit sweetness was a bit much for my liking but I could drink every now and again.

Score: 3.8

Windhook IPA, Väsen Brewing (Richmond, VA)

IPA, 6.0% ABV, 35 IBU

Presentation: Draft pour into a stemmed glass

Appearance: Golden, straw-like, medium head

Taste: Smells of pine and a hint of citrus (lemon perhaps)

Mouthfeel: Super smooth

Overall: Prototypical West Coast IPA. Smells of pine but could not taste it. Slight lemon taste.

Score: 4.1

Defying winter's cold with a delicious tropical sour IPA

Firstly, my apologies for the delay in getting the next reviews up. I had some issues come up with our new house that required urgent attention.

This week, I'm trying a fruited sour IPA from Canon and Draw Brewing in downtown Richmond, and a blackberry cider from Back Bay's Farmhouse Brewing in Virginia Beach.

The sour IPA (Corrosive Haze) is 6.5% ABV. It pours like your typical hazy IPA, hazy yellow with a modest head. The flavor profile is quite tropical...strong pineapple and mango notes with your typical IPA bitterness at the very end. I know a lot of folks don't like their beers (particularly IPAs) overly sweet and this still stays safely out of gose territory. This was a great beer to take my mind off the impending winter chill.

  
I wasn't quite as high on the farmhouse-style blackberry cider from Back Bay Brewing (6.7% ABV). Heavily aromatic, the cider pours crisp and bubbly with a dark red/purple color as you'd expect if you crushed fresh blackberries. The favor profile is quite balanced, not leaning too far apple or too far blackberry; it is slightly dry and tart, not overly sweet like other fruited ciders I've tried. It was decent but didn't really stand out.

 

Final ratings:

Canon and Draw Corrosive Haze IPA: 4.5 pints

Back Bay Brewing Blackberry Cider: 3.5 pints

This week in brew reviews: Three Notch'd Blackberry Gose, Courthouse Creek Cider

Before I dig in to this week's reviews, I want to give a shout-out to my favorite bottle shop in the Richmond area, De Fles Winkle (aka, "The Wink"). Located next to the Food Lion off of Nuckols Road in Glen Allen (on the north side of 295), The Wink has quite an expansive variety of beers, ciders, mead, and wines, and they do a great job of rotating in new product. Everyone there is deeply knowledgeable about what they're selling and super helpful. I was just in there the other day and asked the owner if they'd be getting in other flavors of Coyote Hole Cider, and he got on the phone right away and ordered more! Now that's customer service!

Two more notes before we dig into this week's reviews. My wife Shelly will be joining this blog shortly, to bring some balance to my predilection for sweet, funky sours, ciders, and stouts/porters. She'll be contributing her enthusiasm for IPAs, which with few exceptions I don't particularly care for. Additionally, we'll be implementing a rating system ("pints" instead of stars) for each beer and cider we review, and we'll be going out to breweries and sharing pics/video of the experience. 

Ok, enough of that. On to the reviews!

This week features Three Notch'd Brewing's blackberry gose and two ciders from Courthouse Creek: "Gigi's Kiss" and "Easy Breezy".

Three Notch'd Blackberry Gose

• Actually tastes like real blackberries used rather than some artificial blackberry flavored syrup
• Slight tartness, not too sweet
• ABV: 5.1%

 Courthouse Creek Cider "Gigi's Kiss"

• Crisp, slight carbonation
• Slightly dry, subtle pineapple and blackberry notes in the background 
• ABV: 6.9%

Courthouse Creek Cider "Easy Breezy"

• Crisp, slight carbonation
• Dry with pronounced floral and hop notes; highly aromatic
• ABV: 7.5%

 Ratings:

 Three Notch'd Blackberry gose: 4/5 pints
Courthouse Creek "Gigi's Kiss": 4/5 pints
Courthouse Creek "Easy Breezy": 3.5/5 pints

Stay tuned for ratings and reviews of a few DIPAs from Commonwealth Brewing!
 

Best brews of 2019

With the year drawing to a close, I thought it would be fun to do a "best of" list of some great beers and ciders from 2019. This was NOT an easy list to compile but a decision has to be made at some point. By all means, share your favorites in the comments!

1. Sister Sangria cider (Coytote Hole Ciderworks)
2. Botanicallia Berliner Weisse (Commonwealth Brewing)
3. Notorious P.O.G. Berliner Weisse (Stone Brewing)
4. Villuminati fruited gose (Commonwealth Brewing)
5. Merrang Berliner Weisse (Crooked Run Brewing)
6. Velvet Walrus Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout (Vasen Brewing)
7. Black Forest imperial stout (Alewerks Brewing)
8. Smoked Blood Peach sour (Vasen Brewing)
9. Cuffing Season Chocolate Pommegranate gose (Oozlefinch Brewing)
10. Marmalada sour IPA (Commonwealth Brewing)
11. Blueberry Pancake cider (Buskey Cider)
12. Paper Umbrellas sour Berliner Weisse (Commonwealth Brewing)
13. The Clobbler Berliner Weisse (Crooked Run Brewing)
14. Pavlova sour IPA (Commonwealth Brewing)
15. Proud To Partake imperial pecan pie stout (Oozlefinch Brewing)
16. Babysitter's Dead fruited sour (Precarious Beer Project)
17. Boom Choc-O-Lotta chocolate lager (Strangeways Brewing)
18. Mamaw's Mean Cobbler Belgian tripel (Hardywood Park Brewing)
19. 522 Black Currant cider (Winchester Ciderworks)
20. Ambrosia Berliner Weisse (Crooked Run Brewing)

Have a safe and "hoppy" new year!

This stout is "liquid dessert"; a fun Sangria cider

As much as I enjoy indulging my sweet tooth on fruity and funky sours, goses, and Berliner weisses during the warmer months, I always look forward to the dark roasty tones of brown ales, stouts, and porters to get me through the cold drab of winter.

This past week, during my normal craft beer run to my favorite bottle shop, The Wink, I took home two imperial stouts from Commonwealth Brewing, both from the same series: Marvoloso 2019: V05 (rated and reviewed in my last post) and Marvoloso 2019: V06, which boasts Ghiradelli chocolate, maple syrup, praline, and toasted coconut; 12.6% ABV. It boasts the same smoothness and thickness of your typical stout, with very pronounced chocolate notes, and subtle maple and coconut in the background. The maple does boost the sweetness of this one a little bit beyond your usual stout, so be forewarned if you're not into overly sweet beers. That being said, the flavor was outstanding, as I've come to expect from Commonwealth. Perfect way to end a hearty holiday meal! I gave it 4.5 stars on Untappd.

My second pick-up this week was a new cider from Coyote Hole Cidery near Mineral, VA called "Sister Sangria." Coyote Hole Cider Works describes it as a blend of green apple hard cider, cranberry, blackberry, cabernet franc, and tangerines and you definitely pick up on the wine flavor both in the aroma and in the cider itself. It's definitely a sweeter cider and a bit more carbonated; a comparable cider would be Rekkorderlig. I thoroughly enjoyed it as I will admit to having a bit of a sweet tooth. 5.6% ABV.

More reviews next week! Oh, and you can follow and friend me on Untappd!

Christmas week: A "meh" gose and two sweet, sweet stouts

Firstly, Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Hope you managed to minimize exposure to the shopping insanity and got in some good chill time with friends and family around good food and drink!

This week's beer pick up was a four pack of "Grammy's Favorite", a gose from BenchTop Brewing in Norfolk, VA that features...get this...sweet potato, marshmallows and orange zest (6% ABV).

As usual I found this at my default bottle shop, De Fles Winkle (aka "The Wink") in the Food Lion shopping center off Nuckols Road in Glen Allen. This particular one was a little underwhelming, as I only picked up on the orange zest and didn't really taste anything else. It was mostly a run of the mill gose...a little sweet, mostly tart. But not bad, just didn't really stand out. I gave it 3.5 stars on Untappd.

Also in the beer fridge from earlier in the week I had two versions of Marvolosa from Commomwealth Brewing, an imperial stout. Both had Ghiradelli chocolate but one featured maple syrup, coconut and praline, and the other featured banana, coffee, and vanilla beans. I tried the second one last night and found it to be like your typical imperial stout...very roasty, smooth and thick, slight sweetness from the chocolate but a subtle yet still evident twist from the banana. As you might expect, it was a high ABV (12.6%) and the sweetness made it a good "slow sipper" beer to enjoy over the course of an hour.

Stay tuned for the next brew reviews, most likely this weekend.