what beers are you drinking? (post-apocalypse)

[AaronS]

triple crossing falcon smash india pale ale - 7% abv. this is the flagship beer from a well regarded brewery from richmond, virginia that sends beer to new york occasionally. it uses the falconer's flight hop blend, which is an older mixture of c-hops that's used in some maine beer company beers as well as evil twin's falco. this is a pleasant mix between new and old - it's basically a ne ipa but there's a little bit of malt sweetness and a fair amount of bitterness. there's a fair amount of detail here - citrus, peach, some tropical stuff, a hint of weed - and this is really a pretty well made beer. recommended.

[AaronS]

wild east first down fresh hop pale ale - 5.4% abv. wild east is a gowanus brewer that I always want to like more. they make straight up the middle interpretations of classic styles that are almost always well made. they make beer for adults, it's all relatively drinkable, and so on, but I find all the lagers lacking and only like the hoppy beer sometimes. this is one of the better ones, there's a nice mixture of what taste like c hops (they're unspecified varieties grown in new york state) and malt. there's some pine, hard to pin down fruit notes, and diacetyl. I liked the first few sips of this a lot but as I have more I think I prefer the last couple west coast single IPAs I've had blah blah blah blah

[AaronS]

westbrook brewing company graveyard shift ddh india pale ale with citra and citra incognito - 7% abv. I used to drink a lot of westbrook when I used to drink more and was happy to come across a bunch of different kinds of their beer today. incognito is a liquid hop product that I've mostly had in other half beers. this looks like a typical hazy ipa but is really pretty bitter. there's a bunch of orange marmalade upfront that gives way to big notes of guava and mango, some sweetness, and more bitterness. recommended.

[AaronS]

westbrook brewing company costume party imperial stout with chocolate, peanuts, caramel, and candy bars - 11% abv. this is the kind of beer I associate westbrook with - a lot of their early imperial stouts blew me away at the time, and their versions of the evil twin stouts from the same time period were a lot better than almost anything else evil twin has done. this one was made with a ton of snickers bars, which makes the rest of the adjuncts make a sort of sense. this one doesn't really work for me, there's the light body that all their stouts have, but apparent alcohol shows up ahead of everything else and the finish doesn't fix things. all the adjuncts appear, even if the chocolate is more like fudge than a snickers bar, the peanuts and the caramel taste good, this isn't hard to drink, and so on, but this isn't as clever as mexican cake or their older beers.

[AaronS]

westbrook brewing company märzenbier octoberfest-style lager - 5.3% abv. märzens, specifically the one degroen's used to make in baltimore, are what got me into beer, as I must have mentioned ad naseum on the old site. I haven't come across another one with the same kind of yeast notes, but I do like the style a lot and this is definitely a good version of the maltier kind of octoberfest beers you usually see in the us. this has a pleasant set of caramel and bread malt notes with a little bit of lemon in the finish. this is clean and well made, there's no off notes and it's simple in a pleasant way. very mildly recommended.

[AaronS]

westbrook brewing company india pale ale - 6.8% abv. westbrook has had a beer with the same printed cans since I've been aware of them, even if a cursory googling says this didn't always have wheat in it. I'd bet the hop bill hasn't changed much - cascade, centennial, the ctz blend, simcoe, and amarillo, - and this still has the mixture of citrus, malt sweetness, stone fruit, and tea that the older ipas had. still one of the better examples of the older style ipas and so on. recommended blah blah blah. and blah.

[AaronS]

maine beer company fall coffee stout - 5.6% abv. this has a really phenomenal mixture of hops, roasted malt, and coffee flavors. there's a little bit of malt sweetness at first, which is followed by some mint, citrus, and milk chocolate mixed with the kind of delicate lightly roasted coffee you'd actually want to drink. this is really well made the way that all their stuff is - the flavors are all clean, well defined, and work together, and so on, and there's a reason they can charge so much for their beer. this is as good as any hoppy dark beer I've ever had. strongly recommended.