Well it's been a minute or two, but I am back as owner of Intoxico.net.
Expect changes to the format and purpose of the site. Hopefully I will stick with it a bit more than I had previously.
In the meantime you can find me on Instagram as @popecrisco or on twitter as @deadspacemanbls
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Revolver Brewing Blood and Honey
Finding the right beer for the
moment or meal can sometimes be a well-executed plan, or can come together as
if by divine inspiration. While I would love to give credit to myself or a
craft beer deity, chance likely had more to do with the combination of Revolver
Brewing’s Blood and Honey with a late breakfast (that I refuse to call brunch.)
As I enjoyed a mélange of sausage, egg, cheese, and salsa, nestled in a
tortilla on my mid-week day off, I thirsted for fermentables, and rummaged my
decimated beer stores for a suitable ale. Hiding behind a carton of soy milk
sat a lone bottle of the first brew bottled by the Granbury, TX brewery, once lost, but not forgotten.
The beer pours out a light straw
hued color, cloudy and bursting with carbonation. A resilient, puffy, white
head forms, adhering to the side of the pint with each tip of the vessel.
The essence of the aroma stands
true to the ingredients of the brew. Sweet tones of honey, floral citrus, and
malt are prominent, and are augmented with clove, and a slight spiciness.
When consumed, the ale imparts a
light bodied, full flavored sweetness ranging from honey to a deeper brown
sugar, while a refreshing tartness and bitterness added by hops and citrus zest
balances the profile. On its own, the beer is really good, but the savoryness
of the eggs, cheese, and sausage accentuated a wonderful mimosa like essence of
this beer.
The closest beer I’ve had to this
ale is Shiner’s Ruby Redbird. While it has its fans, I have to say that the
execution of a unique citrus element in the brewing of the beer does not strike
better a balance, and isn’t nearly as
enjoyable as Revolver’s Blood and Honey.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Ranger Creek’s Mesquite Smoked Porter
Well it’s Tuesday, and being the predictable, domesticated man
boy that I am, I spent my mid-week day
off with some light cleaning, and heavy duty Sid Meyer’s Civilization playing,
peppered with a craft beer or two. Today’s review will look at bottle of Ranger
Creek’s Mesquite Smoked Porter that’s been sitting in a cool dark place for the
last twelve months.
Decanting a beer shouldn’t be too hard for me, being a
seasoned veteran of the sobriety wars, however this black as night ale created
copious amount of cappuccino colored carbonation (alliteration, motherfuckers!)
While in most beers I would give this a few jeers, this ale is bottle conditioned, and I think
helps give a beer a better mouth feel
than the standard forced carbonation most commercially produced beer goes
through, craft or not. A somewhat more difficult pour is an easy trade-off for
a better beer drinking experience.
On the nose there is a nice roasted coffee and dark
chocolate essence accentuated with a slight leather and floral aspect. Now, I
first had this beer at the first annual Dallas Winter Warmer (you might have
seen me use the taster in prior reviews), where I felt the smokiness was just
too much. Now I had it at the end of a brewfest, so suffice to say my taste
buds and level of inebriation might have caused an overworked palate, or perhaps
the year of bottle conditioning has tamed that tiger. But from this bottle,
while the smokiness is still upfront, it seems more in balance with the dark
roasted malt and subtle hoppiness. While I have had a few smoked porters, this
one has a unique, but not unpleasant, light sourness.
The finish of the
Mesquite Smoked Porter is dry and leaves a somewhat floral, dark roasted coffee
aftertaste. These flavors seem to concentrate the more this beer is consumed.
This beer would be perfect with a nice plate of chopped
brisket, as its smokiness would obviously pair well with the smoked meat, while
also standing up to the sweetness and tang of a good barbeque sauce.
Without the glory that is barbeque, it still holds its own
as an enjoyable ale. I would highly suggest this to the Texas craft beer
consumer.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Tramp Stamp by Clown Shoes
Howdy strangers.
Life continues on for Pope Crisco de Llamas. Personal
tragedy has kept me from turning attention to the blog, for I had to trade the
time spent in contemplation of consumables to my mother’s failing health. I
don’t know if I will go into more detail here, for the specifics can be found
as drunken ramblings on twitter (follow @theIntoxico). The good news is that
now I have time to give Intoxico.net the attention it and you deserve.
With the wife getting
ready for a new school year guiding young Catholics in writing and literature,
I have this Tuesday afternoon free, and a thirst only quenched by popping a top
off of a craft beer or two.
Brewed under contract by the Mercury Brewing Company out of
Massachusetts, today’s brew du jour is Clown Shoes’ Tramp Stamp, a Belgian
style India Pale Ale boasting Chambly yeast, Amarillo and Centennial hops, and
a bit of sweet orange peel.
Decanting the 24 ounce bomber into my 4 ounce tulip glass, a
burnt orange body appears, capped by a nice, just every so slightly off-white
head. Tiny, delicate bubbles of carbon
dioxide swim in a semi cloudy body of beer, a cloudiness that gets murkier the
more the bottle is emptied, and the yeast bed formed on the bottom of the
bottle is agitated. While already
visually enticing, the icing on the proverbial cake is a wonderful, tacky
lacing.
The nose on the beer is more IPA than Belgian. While there
is a definite fruitiness on the back end, front and center is a nice, sap-like,
pine essence.
This pine essence, paired with an aggressive bitterness, is
most apparent on the palate on the first wash of suds over my taste buds. Initially,
from this, I was expecting more IPA than Belgian, which isn’t in itself a bad
thing, for I love a great hoppy beer, and my track record enjoying the esters
of Belgian and Belgian style beers has historically been hit and miss.
Luckily for me, my taste buds, and those of anyone blessed
with a bottle of this beer, the hoppiness was not so extreme as I finished the
first snifter of ale. As my mouth acclimates to the tacky brew and hops, the
beer’s Belgian aspects really develop to a wonderfully complex play between the
citrus and pine aspects of the rhizomes and a nice apple and pear like
fruitiness of the yeast.
Prost!
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Real Ale Brewing Company’s Brewers’ Cut #1, Signature Hop Pale Ale
It’s been a nice, long, relaxing day here at Casa de Crisco.
A power outage thwarted my plans for getting stuff done around the house, and I
somehow took it easy despite having a few tasks on my plate. To reward my day of sloth, I am having a pre-dinner
cocktail and letting Pandora do its thing.
The station, Vampire Weekend, the beer, Real Ale Brewing
Company’s Brewers’ Cut #1, Signature Hop Pale Ale, featuring Hercules hops.
The American pale ale, when decanted into a pint glass, has
a nice burnt orange color to it with a very slight tint showing up in the
mostly white head. Carbonation is very active, and it takes an experienced hand
not to pour too aggressively and end up with four inches of cloudy foam atop
one’s beer. Once the beverage settles the head is about a finger thick, and as
fluffy as a cirrocumulus cloud.
The olfactory glands engaged, the beer exhibits a bready
aroma, accented by a fair amount of lemon zest.
With gusto I take my first sip of the ale, and I am greeted
with the hop forward presence of citrus zest and a sticky sweet mouthfeel. Pondering
and sipping further the flavors developing on my palate remind me of iced tea,
over brewed and cut with water, lightly sweetened, and then being adulterated
further with the lemon juice that comes from the plastic lemons in super market
produce aisles.
Now, this might suggest that I think the beer bad or
undrinkable, but that’s not the case. The beer is drinkable. More than anything
though, this beer feels like it falls short of the quality that Real Ale brings
out in their regular production, much less something labeled as their “Brewers’
Cut.”
Happy drinking!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)