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By Scottie, March 26, 2010 7:39 am

I recently had the privilege of trying two phenomenal brews from Sixpoint Craft Ales, the Grand Crüe and their Russian Imperial Stout. From my understanding, both of these beers are somewhat difficult to come by if you don’t live in the New York area. For info on where to find these, and other great beers from Sixpoint, check out their website or find them on Facebook and Twitter.

Sixpoint Grand Crüe

Sixpoint's Grand Crüe

Appearance:

Copper in color with hints of ruby and a medium sized light tan head.

Smell:

This beer stinks of greatness from the first sniff. Rich caramel, dark fruits, figs, plums, and brown sugar emanate from the glass.

Taste:

Raisin, figs, honey, caramel, Belgian candy sugar, and roasted malt flavors perfectly complicate the aroma of the beer. This beer will make your taste buds party like it’s 1999!

Mouthfeel:

Medium bodied with average carbonation.

Drinkability:

A subtle alcohol presence (subtle for having 12.4% ABV) warms the body and soul. The bold and delicious flavoring make you not want to put the beer down. The only problem I had with this beer; I only had one bottle to enjoy.

Russian Imperial Stout

This specialty brew has been aged 5 years, is bottle conditioned and fermented with distiller’s yeast, and comes in a wax dipped bottle. According to Shane, Sixpoint’s President and Brewmaster, they initially hopped the “bejesus” out of the beer with a staggering 126 IBU’s. Fortunately, the hops have mellowed over time, making this one complex and delicious Russian Imperial Stout.

Sixpoint's Russian Imperial Stout:

Appearance:

Sixpoint’s Russian Imperial Stout pours out black-as-night. Millions of tiny bubbles dance to the top of the glass, creating a mountainous mocha-colored head.

Smell:

There is an overall sweet aroma to this beer. Chocolate, coffee, and alcohol aromas are complimented by the sweet smells of caramel, plums, raisins, and cherries.

Taste:

This is one hell of a complex and well-balanced stout. Like the smell, sweet dark fruits (raisins, plum, dark cherries, currants) are prominent upfront but are perfectly matched with flavors of dark chocolate, molasses, roasted coffee, and piney hops on the backend.

Mouthfeel:

This full bodied beer coats the mouth to perfection with every sip.

Drinkabiltiy:

According to Shane, the beer fermented-out to 12.4% ABV (no label on the beer to state otherwise). For being full bodied and having such a high alcohol content, this is a very drinkable stout.

Simply put, Sixpoint’s Grand Crüe and thier Russian Imperial Stout are perfect examples of what is possible with these particular styles of beer. I was completely blown away with the richness and complexity of both beers. If you haven’t yet, do yourself a favor and track down these two amazing brews.

CHEERS!

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By Scottie, March 17, 2010 5:59 am

Do you love to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day with a delicious Black & Tan as much as I do? If so, check out this video from the Hot Knivez showing how to pour the perfect (and also not so perfect) Black & Tan.

What’s your “must have” drink for Saint Patty’s Day (and please don’t say Bud Light with green food coloring!)? In my opinion, you can’t go wrong with plenty of Irish Car Bombs, Black & Tans, and good old fashion pints of Guinness.

CHEERS!

Perfect Black & Tan from Hot Knivez on Vimeo.

Comments (2)

By Scottie, March 11, 2010 7:57 am

Philly Craft Beer Fest

This past weekend I attended the fourth annual Philly Craft Beer Festival, one of the top beer festivals on the East Coast. An evening filled with exceptional craft beer and fellow beer lovers; this was a party I was not going to miss out on.

The festival doors didn’t open until 5:30pm, so I decided to hit up a local bar for a couple of pre-game refreshments. Luckily for me, this fine establishment happened to be serving Pliny the Elder on tap. Due to the beer raids that occurred last weekend, this hidden gem will remain nameless. After a couple of delicious Elders and a Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout, I reconvened with my fellow cohorts and headed off to the festival.

The Philly Craft Beer Festival was held at the Navy Yard in a massive cruise terminal. The venue was laid out well enough that the lines for samples rarely lasted longer than five minutes.

The only hiccup of the festival occurred when trying to enter the venue. A really intelligent rent-a-cop was basically herding a line of 500+ people around in circles. I’m still unsure of his intentions or if he even had any, but basically he led us to the front of the line. Obviously, I had no problem with this, but the hundreds of people that had been waiting for 30+ minutes in line were not going to stand-by and let this happen without a shout.

This is where it started to get comical. I do not condone line cutting, except when a rent-a-cop demands that you do it. Hell, I wasn’t trying to get pepper sprayed or hit with a Maglight. In true Philadelphia style, the crowd erupted into boos and screamed obscenities directed at the rent-a-cop who just forced us to cut everyone in line. One irate fellow yelled out to one of the women I was with, “Just cause you got legs hunny doesn’t make you special.”  Got to love Philadelphians!

I suppose all of the restrooms (men’s and women’s) being out-of-order could be considered a minor hiccup – considering it was a beer festival.  For the first 1-2 hours, all bathroom-goers were required to step outside and use a fresh Port-O-John, complements of Mr. John’s Potty Rentals. The only thing funny about this is the poor fools, myself included, that didn’t get the memo that the 8 large spacious restrooms had reopened, and therefore continued to wait for the plastic pissers, a dark corner, or an open section of fence.

Once inside we were ready to boogie. My goal was to hit up every table in the place (minus Michelob and a few others). Well, I know I didn’t make my goal but I did drink a lot of exceptional beers. Some from breweries that I have had before, some from breweries that I had never heard of.

Although beer is always my main focus at these sorts of events, I did enjoy sampling a variety of cheeses from Vermont, habenero spiced pretzels from who-knows-where, and hand-rolled Dominican cigars.

Other than having my Flip camera destroyed in a purse filled with water (yeah, I know that sounds odd), the festival went off without a hitch.

I have never been to a craft beer festival that I haven’t enjoyed, and the Philly Craft Beer Festival was no exception. With over 50 breweries serving 100+ beers there was something for everyone. If you have a chance to go next year, definitely consider checking it out.

Cheers to beer festivals and dumb rent-a-cops!

Full list of breweries and distributors:

*Allentown Bethlehem Brew Works
Appalachian Brewing Co.
Atomium Premier Grand Cru
*Ballast Point
*Bear Republic Brewing Co.
Beer Valley
Bitburger
Blue Point Brewing Co.
Boaks Brewery
Boulder Beer
Brew Dog
Butternuts Beer & Ale
Caldera Brewing Co.
*Cigar City Brewing
Cold Spring
Coronado
Cricket Hill Brewing Co
Dark Horse Brewing Co.
Doc’s Draft Hard Apple Cider
Earth Bread & Brewery
Eel River Brewing Co
*Furthermore Beer
General Lafayette Inn & Brewery
Gritty McDuff’s
High & Mighty Beer Co.
Hometown Beverages
*Hoppin’ Frog
Hoppy Brewing
*Intercourse Brewing Co.
Ipswich Ale
Ithaca Beer Co.
*Jolly Pumpkin
Keystone Homebrew Supply
Lancaster Brewing
Leinenkugel’s
Long Trail Brewing
Magic Hat Brewing Co.
Manayunk Brewery & Restaurant
Michelob Brewing Co
Middle Ages Brewing Co.
*New Holland Brewing
Old Dominion Brewing Co.
Original Sin
Peroni
Philadelphia Brewing Co.
Pilsner Urquell
Pretty Things Beer & Ale
*Prism Beer Co.
Ramstein
Reaper Ale
River Horse Brewery
*Rock Art Brewery
Rogue
Roy Pitz Brewing Company
*Six Point Craft Ales
Southampton Publick House
Sprecher
*Steamworks
Stone Brewing Company
Straub Premium & Light Beer
*The Bruery
Thomas Hooker Brewing Co.
Troegs
Twelve Percent
*Voodoo Brewery
*Weed Ales & Lagers
Yards
Yuengling

*Breweries I was most impressed with

Comments (4)

By Scottie, March 5, 2010 12:54 pm

Sixpoint Craft Ales

After fifty years of low quality beer, Americans are finally coming to their senses – and the craft beer industry is witnessing amazing growth! This should be wonderful news, right? Well, overall yes, but with an increasing number of impostor craft beers (those created by the mega-breweries of ABInBev, Coors, and Miller) popping up in supermarket aisles, many open-minded beer drinkers are left stumbling.

Impostor craft beer, as I call it, is a weak attempt at creating “craft beer” with low quality ingredients, lack of imagination, and massive marketing budget. Needless to say, another great venture brought to you by Anheuser-Busch. Thank you very little.

Fortunately, as we all know, there are many amazingly-new microbreweries opening all over the country. One microbrewery definitely worth checking out is Sixpoint Craft Ales out of Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY.

Background:

Sixpoint Craft Ales was founded in 2005 with limited funds in a small 800 square foot garage in Red Hook, Brooklyn. This small craft brewery is a prime example of the growing number of diverse and talented microbreweries across the country. They appreciate both the history of the beer industry and of their community in Brooklyn.

The Meaning Behind the Name:

Our logo – a unique combination of the brewer’s star and nautical star – combines the rich history of each and takes on an entirely new meaning. We pay homage to the ancient craft of brewing, but at the same time recognize our modern role and duty to interpret the art on our own terms. We remind you that we are from Brooklyn, and that we are proud to represent. Above all else, we help you to navigate through the endless ocean of various beers, bringing you back home to quality, back to Sixpoint Craft Ales.

Brewing: What’s their secret?

Sixpoint believes in using traditional brewing practices, such as using a hand-made hardwood mash paddle, yet have the creativity and forward thinking necessary to create amazing and unique brews.

Beer Mantra:

Sixpoint’s President and Brewmaster, Shane Welch, sees Sixpoint and its staff as more than simple producers of beer.

We are producers of beer, yes, but we are also scientists and philosophers and perhaps most important, educators. Teaching people about the science and the art of craft brewing the Sixpoint way is one of our most important tasks, and something we approach with honor and dedication.

Now those are some tasty looking beers!

Scottie’s Choice:

I’ve had the pleasure of trying several brews from Sixpoint (reviews to come) and I was thoroughly impressed. If you have the opportunity, look for their Russian Imperial Stout – it will blow your mind.

Sixpoint Craft Ales is a perfect example of how the craft beer industry is growing in America. If you haven’t had the opportunity of trying their beers, check out their site or follow them on Twitter to see if their beer is available in your area.

Cheers to Sixpoint Craft Ales!