Kim Tart Cherry Sour Lagrrr! | SingleCut Beersmiths | Astoria (Queens) NY | Berliner Weissbier | 3.8% ABV

Served on tap in a 16 oz pint glass. Pours a pinkish-orange color with a thin white foam head. The beer is extremely cloudy and hazy. Aroma is tart and vinegary, with hints of sour cherries. Taste is very sour and puckering up front, with the cherry flavor overpowering. The carbonation is moderate with a medium to light body. The aftertaste is one of the funkiest flavors I have tasted in a beer. The lingering aftertaste keeps you wanting more.

Overall an easy to drink beer, and perfect summertime selection from SingleCut. Some of my readers may remember my previous reviews by the brewery, including the Kim Hibiscus Sour Lagrrr! (98/100)I still like that one better, but this was a very nice Berliner Weiss.

91/100
87/100 Beer Advocate

Now that we are past Memorial Day, we are quickly entering Summer Beer Season. Actually summer beers have been released for several months, but now we can enjoy the beers during their appropriate seasons. I thought this would be an appropriate time to speak about some common beers everyone will find at their local store, and which ones are good to buy and which ones should be passed.

Summer beers are known for being lighter and typically a bit sweeter/fruitier. No one wants to drink a 12% ABV Bourbon aged coffee stout by the pool, especially for a whole afternoon. Therefore, the majority of summer beers will fall into the 4-6% range, with some going even lower than that. Wheat Beers, Hefeweizens, Sours (which I'll expand on) and session IPAs are quite popular during the summer. So which are good?

Most of my readers hail from the Boston or New York metro areas, so apologies to my Midwest, Southern and West Coast fans. I'll try not to forget about you. 

Sam Adams Summer: I don't mind this beer, but I like it a lot less than I used to. For a party, it is a great buy, and something that people will drink up quick. Now that they are in cans, it is even more cost effective.

Harpoon Summer Beer: This on is OK. I put it below Sam Summer

Narragansett Del's Shandy: This one came out last year, and flew off the shelves in Massachusetts. This year I saw it in huge quantities up in MA back in late April and mid-May. Compared to a Shock Top Shandy or Leinenkugel Shandy, the lemon flavor tastes much less fake. Plus the 16 oz cans are great by the pool

Goose Island Summer Ale: This is a sessionable pale ale that is actually quite tasty. 

Today is the first birthday of A Beer a Day! And what a year it has been. Let's reflect.

It all began on May 25, 2014, with the review of Jack's Abby Barrel Aged Framinghammer. This was the first of many reviews (too many for me to go back and count.) A few weeks later was my article Why Craft Beer? A Discussion About Price.  My brother build a pyramid of beer drinkers for me, which has spurred much debate among readers, friends, and other bloggers (people debated it wildly on the craft beer subreddit). My Facebook fan page began on August 17th, and is up to 178 followers (tell your friends!)

We added a team of writers, starting with Chet Maplewood on June 22nd. (Still waiting for that second post, Chet!) June 23rd was the premier for Chris H, with his Unibroue article Maudite vs. Trois Pistoles. Eric Talve had his first of many Week in Beer posts on June 24th, which many followers have come to love. Peter Modest wrote his first article July 22nd, and has advised Scott on his home brewing adventures.  Kevin Scott had his first post September 9th, and has become a fixture of the Beer a Day team. We are continuing to look for more writers, so please contact Scott if you'd like to write!

Scott began home brewing in October, and has done 5 batches. The first was a Brown Ale, which turned out quite good (especially for a first ever brew!) Next up was a Robust Honey Porter, brewed with nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice and spruce. I purposely left out the utter failure of this brew in the blog, but figure it's time to come clean. I wanted to brew a beer that was "Christmas in a bottle." What better ingredients then the ones just mentioned? Well, I had not yet perfected the art of understanding when fermentation was complete, as well as how much of an ingredient is too much. After removing the lid of the fermenter 4 weeks into the brew, it was clear that the cinnamon was too overpowering. We added a few branches of spruce, intending to keep it in for only a day or two. Two weeks later the branches were removed, and it literally smelled like a hundred car air fresheners liquified into a tank. We bottled a few bombers and then added coffee beans to mellow out the flavor. (Didn't work) After a month and a half I finally cracked open a bottle during a playoff game, and the beer gushed out of the bottle like a geyser. Clearly the beer had not yet finished fermenting, and we were only a few days away from the bottle exploding. Thank goodness we caught it when we did. Needless to say, there was no way I was getting a real Christmas tree after that disaster-the smell of spruce still makes me nauseous.  Home-brew number 3 was a Belgian Tripel, brewed with tangerine peel. Batch 4 was a sparkling pear cider, and batch 5 a clone of Pliny the Elder. Batch 5 was the clear winner, and batch 3 a close second.

Some other highlights for the year included (check the favorites section for links) Heady Topper, Lawson's Sip of Sunshine, various Bourbon County beers, Prairie Bomb, The Bruery sours and barrel aged beers, Parabola, Wormtown, KBS, Jack's Abby, and the entire Beer Camp series. There will be many more in the upcoming year.

My absolute favorite post was the Oktoberfest: Twas the Night. If you haven't read it yet, check it out!

Finally, on the statistics side, we had 16,800 unique visitors with 33,400 page views! Thanks to all the loyal readers who continue to support the site. 

Cheers!
Scott 

Ruination Double IPA 2.0 | Stone Brewing Company | Escondido, CA | 8.5% ABV

Served chilled from a 22 oz bomber and poured into a pint glass. Pours an orange amber color with a frothy white foam head. Smell is sweet and citrusy, with hints of pine, resin, orange, mango and pineapple. Carbonation is moderate to high with a medium body. Taste is piney and citrusy, and is extremely well balanced for a DIPA. The malt is sweet and crisp, and the hops taste of grapefruits and other bitter flavors.

Compared with the original Ruination recipe, I like this way more. The massive IBU bomb is still there, but in a concoction that is much more balanced, flavorful, and memorable. Definitely check this out-price isn't bad too.

97/100
$6-8/22 oz bomber
95/100 Beer Advocate

Bourbon Barrel Quad | Boulevard Brewing Company | Smokestack Series : Special Limited Release Ale| Belgian Style Quadrupel aged in Bourbon Barrels with Cherries | Kansas City, Missouri | 11.8% ABV

Served semi chilled from a 750 mL bottle and poured into a wine glass. Pours a reddish brown color with a huge tan foam head. It took me about 2 full minutes to pour the small amount for the picture above. Smell is sweet and oaky, with heavy hints of bourbon and cherries. Also hints of sweet caramel malt and sugar. Carbonation is high with a medium body. Taste is a combination of roasted malt, Belgian yeast (as a Belgian Quad should), vanilla, oak, bourbon, cherries and candy sugar. Aftertaste hinges mostly on the bourbon with hints of yeast.

Overall, a very nice beer from Boulevard. I had been holding onto this for several months before opening up (about a few weeks ago). The rest of the group who sampled all concurred this was a tremendous brew. Not a cheap beer, but a great one to buy in a group and share.

95/100
$15/750 mL bomber
97/100 Beer Advocate

This is always an exciting post for me. The chance to review my own beer!

Holbrook Homebrewed Pliny the Elder clone made with recipe kit from Northern Brewer in Minnesota | American Double IPA | 8.25% ABV

Served chilled from a 12 oz bottle and poured into a pint glass. Pours an incredibly murky and cloudy brownish amber color with a one and a half finger white foam head. (As I have had more bottles over the past few weeks the head has been thicker and creamier). Smell is sweet and citrusy, with hints of pineapple, mango and a bready malt. Carbonation is moderate with a medium body. Taste is a hop bomb, with grapefruit and bitter hops overwhelming the taster (in a good way). Finishes with a lingering bitterness.

This beer blew me away. I am still trying to find a way to get Pliny, as it is only sold out in CA. However, being regarded as a top 5 beer in the world, I had to buy the kit to see how it would taste. Compared to the other beers I have brewed in the past, this one used an incredibly 18 oz of hops throughout the boil and dry-hopping process (compared to 4.5 oz for the Belgian Tripel). Additionally, it took a 90 minute boil vs. 60, and had two stages of dry hopping 2-3 weeks after fermentation. Overall a much more difficult brew, but given the extract base of it still not as hard as an all grain. This definitely scores the highest out of my homebrews thus far, and some of my official tasters have also concurred with this. 

Up Next for the Homebrew: Looking for a summery beer to do. Most likely a wheat beer with some sort of fruit added. Stay tuned!

95/100

Lagunitas Equinox Ale | Lagunitas Brewing Company | Petaluma, California | American Pale Ale | 8% ABV

Served chilled from a 22 oz bomber and poured into an oversized goblet. Pours an orange amber color with a two finger frothy white foam head. Smell is sweet and malty, with hints of grapefruit, mango and peach. Carbonation is moderate with a medium body. Taste is sweet and malty, with the oats as the main backbone. It is sweet and delicious, bready, chewy, and citrusy all at the same time. The finish is just a touch bitter, but more oaty and malty.

This was a wonderful selection from Lagunitas, and the price tag on the bomber at $5 is always a good deal. I will highly likely go out and buy 2 or 3 more of these before they run out!

94/100
Beer Advocate 90/100