The Double Mocha Porter pours with a chocolatey head, deep brown color. It leaves serious lacing on the glass as you drink it.

There is a sweetness in the aroma – to the point that the bitterness in the flavor is quite surprising. There is plenty of chocolate malt, but its not nearly as sweet as that first whiff hits at.

You also won’t be surprised at the 8.2% – the alcohol is high enough that its flavor comes through fairly distinctly in the palate.

Also present is Pacman.

You may have noticed that there is often a distinct flavor that Rouge’s beers have. For years all of their beers have been brewed using exactly one strand of yeast. For its ability to continually devour malt sugars and sometimes create high-ABV beers (and perhaps for its friendly, lovable character), they dubbed it Pacman.

It strikes me as something that could very well be attributed to the water, but since Brian and I once brewed using Pacman and gained the very same character, I’m going to have to go ahead and attribute it to this fine strand of bacteria.

In that familiarity of flavor, this beer is no exception.

This is a really solid beer, worth a few bucks whether you find it in the bottle or on draft at your favorite beer bar.

8/10

What better way to get things rolling again is with a beer from Short’s Brewing. Joe Short is a guy not much older than us who makes incredible beers and seems to love trying new things.

Here we have Short’s Black Cherry Porter. Not sure if I’ve seen this at one of the Michigan Brewer’s Guild Festivals or not, but this is certainly the first time I’ve found it in a bottle.

It pours with a slightly reddish hugh to it, and you see a tint of that red color in the lacing on the glass. Not a lot of head in the pour.

Definitely a chocolate nose here. There is a bit of cherry in the aroma too – like a dark chocolate covered cherry.

It has the nice roasty flavor you expect from a porter to start with, but the cherry provides almost a sourish note up front. It finishes smooth and dark. This is one of those porters where you actually taste the grain of the chocolate malt. Its a nice rich barley flavor.

As you settle into it, the cherry presents itself a bit more, but not in the way you expect. Its not as if there is a sweet cherry flavor, but there is definitely a presence of it. A bit of tartness.

All in all, this is a great porter if you want something a little off the beaten path, but nothing too unfamiliar.

6/10

The Pour:  It poured considerably more cloudy than I had expected. It had a pretty dense, foamy head that stuck around through almost the whole glass.  It also left a fair amount of lacing on the side of the glass.

The smell:  A little sweet, a little astringent.  A bit of citrus hops, and a fair amount of grassy nose.

The Taste:  I was surprised.  It’s a little bitter, but not too much.  It’s tasty.  The one place I think this beer was perfect was in the mouthfeel.  It’s really nicely thin.  The sweetness is not over the top, especially when compared to the nose.  Not exactly perfect in my opinion, but not bad.  A little less quality than I’d expect from this price ($7.99)

7/10

-brian!

So, the fine fellows of Beer and Comics got together for the first time in a long, long time.  We have decided to provide you with a review of several beers, none of which we have pictures for.  The first of which will be the New Holland B.A.M.B.

At first, you may note that if you pronounce these letters together, it sounds like Bambi.  Strangely, this beer tastes absolutely nothing like deer.  Not even baby deer.  What it does taste like, however, is delicious.

There is a story behind how this beer came to be.  Something about how this was the beer that won in the employee homebrew contest.  Ian knows better than I do.

So, what does this limited beer have to offer you, the consumer, if you can somehow get your grubby little paws on it?  In one word: deliciousness.

This is a light, pale, belgian style beer.  It is actually considered a Pomegranate and Clove Tripel.  For the purposes of this review, we will disregard that this is supposed to be a tripel, because it is not… at all.

It pours a standard pale ale color, a light orange/tan color.  It pours with a decent head, even out of a growler.  Thick enough that it’ll stick to your moustaches, but it fades with some predictability.

The nose, is all clove and esters.  In fact, I would say the nose is the most standardly tripel in style (and that’s not exactly a truth).  If you love clove flavor, you can’t go wrong in the nose.

The taste, on the other hand, is dominated by the cloves.  Ian may claim there’s a hint of sourness imparted by the pomegranate, but it’s not something I’m noticing.  What I am noticing, is that this is fucking DELICIOUS.  The mouthfeel is considerably smaller than my brain is leading me to believe the alcohol content is.

I cannot in good conscience give this beer any less than a 7.5/10, but I am reluctant to lump it in with the greats.

7.5/10

Ian’s two cents:

So as I noted in my post about my trip to New Holland, this beer was indeed the winner of the employee homebrew contest at New Holland. Brian is pretty much dead-on in his description of the nose and flavor. I did notice a bit of tripel-ness in the nose (that sort of banana, rotten fruit smell), but Brian is more or less right in saying that its not the truest trippel in the world.

What I really liked was how the pomegranate came through. Just a little bit of sour, but not very fruity. The only sweetness it had could have been from the pomegranate, or it could have been plain ol’ Belgian candy sugar. Hard to tell.

It was nice and summery, though. I will concur with Brian’s rating of 7.5/10.

And despite what Brian said above, we do have a couple pictures now, although they are both blurry and shitty.

I’ve been to their pub before, and its usually busy. I always end up sitting at the bar. If I’m by myself, it makes more sense than waiting for a table, and its nice chatting with the bartenders. They have great food, good beer, and I always enjoy myself. This trip was no exception.

I started my visit out with a Smokin’ Hatter. Part of their series of Mad Hatter IPAs, Smokin’ Hatter is more or less what it sounds like: a smoky IPA. Is it good? Oh yes.

If you’re familiar with the original Mad Hatter, there’s not going to be a lot new going on in color. Or head for that matter. The pint had a bit of lacing around the glass, but not a ton of head.

The aroma sings of sweet malt and plenty of smoke. We’re talking smoke levels beyond what you see in porters and stouts. Kind of like a bonfire – its a distinctly wood smoke aroma, and flavor for that matter.

If you like IPA, and you like smoke, you can’t go wrong. 8/10

I ate dinner there, and ordered the Muffaletta. I’d never had this sandwich before. Muffaletta originates in New Orleans, and is made with several kinds of meats, cheese, and an olive spread. Its all pressed overnight to mingle the flavors, and served cold. Its fantastic, and I recommend it if you’re at New Holland.

After dinner I ordered another beer. My bartender, Erik, recommended it when I asked him about it, and how can you turn down your bartender’s advice?

This one was called B.A.M.B. and was the winner of the employee home brewing contest at the pub. Was it any good? Let’s just say I walked out with a growler of it. Brian and I will be drinking that tomorrow, and giving you a review then.

Key words for it though: pomegranate and clove…

Its not like any of us live here, or close to it. Far from it. But it was relatively central location (between Indiana, Ohio, Memphis TN, and Minnesota), and there is plenty to do. So here we are.

As you probably know, St Louis is the headquarters of Budweiser manufacturer, Anheuser-Busch. And I’m not exactly proud to say it, but we went on the tour. I dove in, right into the belly of the beast.

How was it? Did I end up finding anything else in St Louis actually worthing drinking?

First, was the tour great? Naw, nothing amazing, but it was okay. The right company (my family) made it fun, but if you want to see beer being made, go somewhere smaller (my favorite brewery tour was at Goose Island in Chicago).

On the plus side, I got one of these free at the end of the tour:

Other highlights include my brother and sister-in-law being dorks:

and some pretty cool old buildings and architecture in the A-B complex:

So due to flooding on the Mississippi River, our riverboat dinner cruise was cancelled, so we ended up hanging out at the hotel. After (a nap for me) dinner and a dip in the pool, everyone else was going to bed. And naturally, I wasn’t tired.

So I head down to the lobby, and order a beer at the bar. This is where I finally found a truly fantastic beer here in St Louis.
This is Schlafly Pale Ale. Nothing revolutionary by any means, but far more impressive than the beers they make at Anheuser-Busch, and solid by any hardened craft beer drinker’s standards.

Its refreshing, but hoppy, and bears a particular flavor, due to the pH and mineral content of the local water.

The only detractor is that there is smoking in the lobby, albeit on the other side. Its getting to my eyes, and to my sense of smell, and my enjoyment of the beer.

But get yourself a Schlafly if you’re in St Louis. You won’t regret it.

We will see what the next two days turn up, and I’ll keep you up to date on anything I might find.

Ian!

The can popped with almost no carbonation. It felt strange pouring a beer out of a can and into a glass, so I figured why not drink it straight out of the can?

The aroma is instantly hoppy, but with a nice sweetness to it. It doesn’t scream at you that its going to be terribly bitter, more that its going to have a nice nose and a more balanced flavor.

First drinking it, you can notice the alpha acids in the finish, but they’re not too present up front, making this surprisingly refreshing for an IIPA.

Subsequent drinks reveal a bit more of the bitterness, but its still really well balanced with the malt character. The malt is gently sweet, and a substantial mouthfeel that doesn’t overwhelm.

If we could get this in Michigan, I would absolutely be buying it. Probably the closest an Imperial IPA will ever get to a lawnmower beer – and in this case that’s a good thing.

8/10

So does it live up to the hype?

Sure, its tasty. A nice nuttiness to it. A highly drinkable brown.

But at $2.19/bottle? Not really worth it. Nothing too remarkable going on here.

5/10

What exactly is a Beer Mile, you ask?

1) Run a quarter mile.

2) Drink a beer (or cider if you can’t drink beer. I have at least one friend with celiac).

3) Repeat! (until you’ve run a full mile and drank four beers)

This may or may not be a good idea in the end, and someone will probably end up sick, but its a challenge (we like those), its beer (we like that), and its running (we… okay, Brian likes that).

If you’re in Lansing Michigan, love beer, don’t mind running, or simply want to come watch us make fools of ourselves, come on out! Shoot me a message for more information if you need it. Its at my house, at 5pm today.

Feel free to bring friends, just no jerks. And don’t be an idiot. You will probably not be driving after this. A DD is encouraged.

BYOB

But I still like to try some now and again.

That’s what I was thinking when I bought this. It’s something a but different for the Scots, so why not?

Really, it’s nothing special, but it’s not too bad. Pours with a huge, quickly-dissipating head.

It’s a lager. Plain, simple, but actually kind of tastey. I’d drink this again, especially for the right price, which this was. $1.89 for a bottle.

Don’t expect a revolution, but it was better than I expected.

6/10