Night Cat Hoppy Dark Wheat Beer

Hoppy is right, and right up my alley. Dark you can taste slightly, it is not a pale ale flavor, but this is no typical wheat beer. Roasty, hoppy, another great and unique pairing. Beer tasting just never gets old, with new concoctions being invented all the time. I love the creativity of craft brewers! MB

12oz can, 43.2 IBU, 5.8% ABV
Two Brothers Brewing Company
Warrenville, IL
purchased at Kenwood

Tweason'ale

Smooth, fruity, and very carbonated. A nice summer treat, perfect for this Fall warm up. Seems like a girly beer, but I think it is something anyone can enjoy. A gluten free beer even allergic folks can enjoy. Brewed with Sorghum syrup, whatever that is. ID

12oz bottle, 6% ABV
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Inc
Milton, DE
purchased at Kenwood

17 Mint Chocolate Stout

I've been waiting a long time to try this one. Not sure what makes tonight the night, but this is going down the hatch. There is a hint of mint on the whiff and then the slight sense of drinking a candy bar. Not sweet. The cacao and mint make it dry and a bit bitter. But this delivers booze and you'd never know it. I nice little treat, but not blowing my mind quite as I had hoped. Oh well, still, bottoms up to good beer! ID

25.4oz bottle, 10% ABV
Perennial Artisan Ales
St. Louis, MO
purchased at Kenwood

Stone Farking Wheaton w00tstout

Very sweet stout. Thick and heavy, not a frivolous drink. I think I can taste the pecans, and the blackout soon to follow! Yeah it had bitterness, would Stone do it any other way? But there is no way to mask the beast in this one. It is sweet, slightly alcoholic, then lights out! I give this ID which is slightly unfair, because this is beyond malt liquor, into wine territory. Actually, it is amazing that they found yeast that will live to brew beer this strong. So I'm gonna give an unprecedented double rating including MB for brewing the impossible! Slightly too sweet for me, but gonna go nighty night so this is an amazing concoction! Stone brewing with Star Trek's Will Wheaton and Fark.com's Drew Curtis.

22oz bottle, 13% ABV
The Stone Brewing Company
Escondido, San Diego County, CA
purchased at Kenwood

Paleooza Michigan Pale Ale

Slight grain flavor with tons of hop bitterness. That grain gives no sweetness up front, but leaves such a nice taste in the back of the mouth on the swallow. Really well put together, so I'll go MB

12oz bottle, no deets

New Holland Brewing Company Llc
Holland, MI
purchased at some liquor store in Hartland, MI

Hop Rocket Ale

Bitter and a bit hoppy. Nothing else notably amazing. ID

12oz bottle
Arcadia Brewing Company
Battle Creek, MI
purchased at some liquor store in Hartland, MI

Tres Blueberry Stout

You can definitely smell and taste the blueberries in this one. Much better than when I made my blueberry wheat beer years ago. I put the blueberries in the boil, and got just a sweetness with no blueberry flavor. Now I know that flavor elements should be added at the end or after the boil, so 10 years of drinking experience has payed off for me as a brewer, if I ever get myself up to brewing again. So this would be a great blueberry stout, even the tartness of blueberries is there, but this has some sort of smoky flavor to it that dominates, and makes me think of a bacon blueberry beer. Not that I don't like bacon, but I would really like to do without the smoke flavor here. Can't imagine that comes from dark grain, they had to have used liquid smoke, and I have just never been able to dig a smoked ale. I know this can pair right, because I had an excellent DFH stout involving blueberries before. I will use this as food for thought as I look to start brewing again, making beer flavors I love and just can't find. Blueberry stout, great idea. But this just doesn't realize my imagined version. ID 

12oz bottle, 7.5% ABV

Dark Horse Brewing Company

Marshall, MI

purchased at some liquor store in Hartland, MI

BeerHive Tripel

The label says this ale is brewed with honey and ginger, yum. The sniff is like I just opened a jar of honey. Very grainy. Like chewing a handful of honey covered grain. That flavor dominates. But the bitterness doesn't allow this brew to be sweet. Just grain flavor and bitterness. So I'll burp up bread in the morning, not booze. That's a plus. But I can't taste the ginger, which I was looking forward to. Still, this tastes and smells like the best part of a brewery, like when I get a couple cases from my local FFF and my basement smells like grain for a week. So awesome. And this is packing pretty good booze, but you wouldn't know it. Such flavor, and uniquely so, in the taste, I gotta go MB.

22oz bottle, 8.47% ABV
New Holland Brewing Company LLC
Holland, MI
purchased at Kenwood

Chasin' Freshies Fresh Hop IPA

Light color. And nice floral aroma and taste. I love me the IPAs but it is nice when they have hop flavor not just bitterness. Not sure I like this quite as much as their other fresh hop offering I previously rated, but it is still a good flavorful one. ID

22oz bottle, 7.4% ABV
Deschutes Brewery
Bend, OR
purchased at Kenwood

Hardcore IPA

Nice and smooth. European. Not too bitter and hides the booze perfectly. No indication you're drinking a strong ale. MB for that!

22.4oz bottle, 9.2% ABV
BrewDog PLC
(imported by Anchor Brewing)
Fraserburgh, Scotland
purchased at Kenwood

Stone 17th Anniversary Gotterdammerung IPA

Very bitter, and a bit buttery, but very, very bitter. Did I say that? Not sure there is anything else to say about this. Just good bitterness, almost too bitter. Bitter! ID

22oz bottle, 9.5% ABV
Stone Brewing Company
Escondido, San Diego County, CA
purchased at Kenwood

Red Skull Imperial Red Ale

Perfect look and feel for the day I decorated my house for Halloween. And I love me a good red. This is exceptionally hoppy which makes it great. Ample bitterness balances most of the malt sweetness. Just enough lingers with the heavier gravity so you know it's a red not an IPA. Anyway, I'm gonna give this an MB.

22oz bottle, 8.3% ABV
Revolution Beer, LLC
Chicago, IL
purchased at Kenwood

Punk IPA

Nearly flavorless on first sip. So light for an IPA. But this is a European-style IPA so it's pretty different from what I'm used to. A slight graininess up front, and bitterness on the swallow. If you know a Bud Light drinker that you want to turn toward an appreciation of better beers, this would absolutely be the perfect first step. Baby steps or a training bra for ales. Though I am not at all in need of an introduction to good beers, this still has its merits for me. I often switch to shitty light beers in the dog days of summer, but man would this beer be perfect on a 95 degree day. Was gonna rate this average, but it gets MB for its multiple uses as mentioned above. Use it!

22.4oz bottle, 5.6% ABV
BrewDog PLC.
Fraserburgh, Scotland
purchased at Kenwood

Kentucky Pumpkin Barrel Ale

The whiff and taste is all about pumpkin and spices, amazingly so. The taste is bitter enough to make an amazing easy drinking ale. Just a hint of booze, or whiskey barrels, and that is only a tiny hint of what this is packing! You'll be drunk on Fall flavor before you realize you're actually just plain drunk! Awesome for any Fall party! Long live Kentucky! MB

12oz bottle, 10% ABV
Alltech's Lexington Brewing Company
Lexington, KY
purchased at Kenwood

Big Leaf Maple Autumn Red

Sweet and fragrant on the whiff. Same on the taste, but the sweetness is put in place beautifully by the hops. More bitter than sweet, actually, which is right on for me! Maybe I taste the maple, maybe. Some funky cool flavor that I don't think of as maple, but it is good. All around, I could drink me loads of this. MB

12oz bottle, no other deets
Anchor Brewing
San Francisco, CA
purchased at Kenwood

Hop Trip Pale Ale

A "fresh hop" ale, one of two I picked up. Have been disappointed in others, since this style sounds like something I'd love, as a big fan of hop aroma and flavor. This one smells and tastes like, Zombie Dust!! That is my idea of the perfect hop flavor! And this gets it right. Otherwise a bit watery, but that just makes it easy to drink! A great beer, but perfection would be this same flavor, with the hop flavor dialed up by a factor, 2x, 3x, 10x hops! I'm seriously thinking of brewing again, and that is one recipe that I'm going to try to figure out. Until I do, this is MB.

12oz bottle, 5.4% ABV
Deschutes Brewery
Bend, OR
purchased at Kenwood

Caramel Apple Spiced Ale

This is smooth and flavorful. Sweet and spicy. A bit of crisp apple flavor and sugar (not malt) sweetness. Balanced well by hop bitterness. Weird flavor, but totally smooth and delicious! Must buy, might be a bit of a strong rating, but this is better than just getting by. For a Fall treat, MB.

12oz bottle, 5.8% ABV
Blue Moon Brewing Company
Golden, CO
purchased at Costco

Harvest Pumpkin Ale

Smells like a pumpkin pie, amazing! And tastes about the same. I would not expect a pumpkin of this quality from a big (as micro goes) brewer like this. But kudos to the Moon for getting this just right! Maybe should be a little less bitter and a little less carbonated, but I'm drinking this below ale temperature and these are merely academic complaints. This is a damn good pumpkin! MB

12oz bottle, 5.7% ABV
Blue Moon Brewing Company
Golden, CO
purchased at Costco

Urine Trouble

A nonproduction brew as you can see from the bottle. When searched for info online back before I bought it, "cat pee" was a common descriptor. I have no idea what that tastes like, but I get it, cause this is really complex, with conflicting flavors. Wow, it is very pleasant, but I really have to think about what I'm tasting. This is exactly what I am in the mood for, watching the old Brew Masters reality show about DFH on Netflix. This has almost the "farmhouse" smell, but that is a minor flavor. It's candy-sweet, not malt-sweet and almost tart simultaneously. A bit perfumey, so odd, but really, really good! Had been kind of bored by average beer lately, but this is exactly what the doctor ordered! MB if it's still around, and ignore all references to "cat pissing on pine tree". If that's accurate though, I think I'll start drinking cat pee, cause this is just great.

22oz bottle, 9% ABV (beeradvocate.com)
Three Floyds & Surly collaboration
Munster, IL
purchased at FFF Brewpub