Rogue Honey Kolsch

One of the best things about summertime is all of the kolsch brews that come out from breweries all over the country.  Over the weekend, i tried out a delicious take from Oregon's Rogue Ales, their sparkly and refreshing Honey Kolsch.  The beer pours a light, transparent gold with a fizzy and bubbly head, subtle aromas of bread and floral notes hitting the nose.  Light and crisp at 5% ABV, the beer is mildly sweet, the honey notes complimenting the hints of bread and slight bitterness well.  This is a great summer beer, and certainly one to take a few sips of before the weather (eventually) begins to cool.

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Who You Callin' Wussie Pilsner

The fine folks over at Stone's Arrogant Brewing division have used their know-how and arrogance to craft German-style pilsner...and it's a damn fine one too.  The wonderfully named Who You Callin' Wussie Pilsner comes in tallboy six-packs, just as God intended, and clocks in at 5.8% ABV.  The brew pours a light, crisp gold with a white and frothy head and smells of grassy, floral hops with hints of bread and lemon.  Tasting like a strong and classic pilsner, the beer finishes crisp and dry with some lingering hoppy spiciness on the tongue, and perfectly compliments a day at the ballpark or an evening cooling off after mowing the lawn.

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Figlet

Two of my favorite things in Austin are the beers from Jester King and BBQ from Franklin...and lo and behold, the two collaborated on a beer earlier this year.  The Figlet is a 6.2% ABV farmhouse ale refermented with smoked Texas figs caramelized with heat and cold smoked at Franklin Barbecue.  The beer pours a nice amber and smells slightly bready and sweet with subtle hints of smoke and fig.  Fairly light bodied, the beer is sweet, the smoke and fig flavors playing well with the brew's overall sourness, the result of the wild yeasts the brewers at Jester King are so fond of.  It's different and it's tasty and i actually bought this bottle earlier this year and forgot about it in the back of my refrigerator until Saturday.  Kids man.

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Strange Land Austinite Pilz

It's summer.  And here in central Texas, we've reached the unbearably hot stretch we have to contend with every August.  Hot.  Humid.  Sticky.  Miserable.  And so we drink beer.  It's what we have to do.  I recently tried to beat the heat with the recent Austinite Pilz.  Strange Land Brewery's proclaimed "postmodern take" on the pilsner is quite unlike any i've had before.  The beer pours a hazy gold with a nice frothy head, and carried aromas of bread and tart.  At first taste, the beer is almost citrus sweet and lightish bodied, but then it finishes a little more bitter on the back end.  In a lot of ways it had some wit characteristics to it, like some mad beer scientist combined a wit and a pilsner, and that's just fine with me.  This very sessionable 5% ABV brew did the trick on a hot summer day.

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Bourbon Street Rye Pale Ale

I'm pretty much going to be favorable towards anything aged in a bourbon barrel.  And for the longest time, breweries pretty much stuck to stouts and porters when choosing to age them in old liquor barrels.  Of late, i've noticed a upsurge in a wide variety of styles being aged this way...and i'm totally for it.  Abita Brewery out of Louisiana offers up their delicious Bourbon Street Rye Pale Ale, itself aged in small batch whiskey barrels to give it that extra oomph.  Pouring light brown, the brew smells kind of earthy, a mix of bread, dark sugars, and light alcohol.  The flavor is kind of nutty sweet with hints of vanilla and bourbon and just a smidge of citrus.  I really enjoyed this 9.5% ABV beer, and found myself somewhat disappointed when i had none left to drink.

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