Liquid Double Fudge Imperial Stout

Not particularly fudgey, but a bit of chocolate taste and a boatload of booze in a thick but easily drinkable stout. Nuff said! ID especially at the sale price!

22oz bottle, 12% ABV
Evil Twin Brewing, Stanford, CAT
and
Twelve Percent LLC, Brooklyn, NY
Purchased at Maria's in Canton

Blueberry Pancake Milkshake Stout

Amazing blueberry aroma, and damn if it doesn't taste like blueberry pancakes! Smooth light stout, with a hint of roasty grain, and the rest is just truly blueberry pancakes. Completely unique! MB

16oz can, no deets, come on Michigan beers, get with it!
Rochester Mills Beer Company
Auburn Hills, MI
purchased at Maria's in Canton

Hoptown Brown IPA

Perfume, is what I think of. Brown grain sweetness mixes with some very, flowery, funky hops. So it is pretty cool. That's all I've got to say. ID

12oz bottle, no deets
Arbor Brewing Company
Ypsilanti, MI
purchased at Maria's in Canton

Sea Rose Tart Cherry Wheat Ale

A tiny bit sour, not much like a sour ale, but those tart cherries are making their presence known. This would be better with rev'd up carbonation, I think, but it is still quite good. Sharp and refreshing. The wheat is definitely buried, the way I do it in my own wheat brews. I don't remember thinking this was special on my first bottle, but damn now (and I've had more than a bit to drink already) I can't find an obvious flaw. A nice overall, not far from the mainstream, but definitely different and good brew. These guys keep cranking 'em out, and I like 'em. Ballast Point keeps working their way up my list of favorite brewers by producing solid and innovative offerings. Cheers to that! ID+

12oz bottle, : ( only 4% ABV
Ballast Point Brewing Company
San Diego CA
purchased at Maria's in Canton MI

Blow Your Face Out Double IPA

I'm so used to beers over promising on hop flavor, with wild adjectives on the label, and disappointment in the bottle. But this one, THIS one, WOW, it has copious amounts of crazy funky hop flavor! Otherwise, smooth, easy drinking for a double, but who cares about anything else when you have this flavor! My face IS blown off. MB

12oz bottle, over 100 IBU
Roak Brewing Company
Royal Oak, MI
purchased at Maria's in Canton

Ginger Big Eye IPA

Smells like a standard IPA, but the ginger is there on the taste. I LOVE ginger, so I expected great things out of this one, despite the sale price. And these guys mix great stuff with IPA: the pineapple Sculpin is to die for. But wow, it turns out ginger just doesn't mix with IPA, who knew? I mean it's not bad at all, but like oil and water, they just don't MIX. You get all IPA on the whiff and swallow, and then, poof, after the fact, a touch of ginger. So while I love both IPA and ginger, and I love that they thought to combine them, the combination just doesn't amount to anything beyond the sum of the parts. But I guess you don't know until you try it. So this fails. But I once thought IPA and pineapple sounded ridiculous, until I tried theirs, and it was fucking amazing! So ID on this, but keep experimenting guys, cause you never know what you'll discover! Still a champion brewer in my book.

22oz bottle, 7% ABV
Ballast Point Brewing Company
San Diego CA
purchased at Maria's in Canton MI

A Tout Le Monde Belgian Style Saison

As saisons go, this is a great one! "Belgian" and "saison" are two words I usually avoid when buying beer. I didn't buy this but drank, and got the remaining from my bud Gibby. The typical saison flavor is there, but it is beaten into the background by the copious dose of hops. The result is crisp and very drinkable, tasty even! I think it is hilarious that Megadeth is associated with a beer that boasts 4.5% ABV in font as large as the band name itself. I barely consider that level of booze to even be a beer! But this is a good beer, if you want to give an award for best of category, this could win, a far better example, taste-wise compared to other saisons than maybe the best IPA I've had, in comparison to all IPAs. So MB in that regard.

12oz bottle, 22 IBU, 4.5% ABV
Unibroue
Chambly, QC, Canada
Hand-off from Gibby, aka "Dr. Jack"

Reactor American IPA

The first couple cans of this I've had we're fine, but this one exploded like a nuke bomb, WTF?! Big bitterness, a hint of hop flavor and aroma. Grain flavor is substantial too. But nothing special. I thought I liked it better the other day. Maybe, considering the explosion, this can somehow went bad. ID

16oz can, no deets
Tapistry Brewing Company
Bridgman, MI
purchased at Maria's in Canton MI

The Brown Note American Brown Ale

You have to be confident in your brew to make the label a guy shitting his pants! And this IS a tasty brown! Well hopped, though no hop flavor, and smooth, with the a roasty caramel, tiny sweetness on the finish. Well crafted! But I gotta go ID+ rather than "must buy" because, as good as it is, the booze level is low, and it was WAY over priced at $15 a 4-pack.

16oz can, 5% ABV
Against The Grain Brewery
Louisville KY
purchased at Maria's in Canton, MI

Grass Monkey Hoppy Wheat Ale with Lemongrass

With every beer I drink, Sweetwater ascends the ranks of my favorite brewers! Top 10 now for sure, maybe top 5? I need to write out a list to know for sure. Bitterness, a bit of lemon, and just a hint of wheat. Hop flavor. Think "Gumballhead", only better?! Wow is all one can say when you put all of that together. It's funky and I love it! MB

12oz bottle, 5.4% ABV
Sweetwater Brewing Company
Atlanta, GA
purchased at Homewood Liquors