Oh yeah!!! (as "Macho Man" Randy Savage would say)

"A pint of bitter, please." This common request has been heard for decades, and will for plenty more. The panel tasted a collection of Bitters, ESB, and Amber ales, and despite some questionable looks about the combined tastings, there was little differentiation among the ales.



Ten entries came to compete, including one representative from England. Although those familiar with English brews may bristle at the representation of the entire country by Fullers' ESB alone, to be fair we included America's own questionable export, Budweiser's American Ale. Rogue had two entries, their Brutal Bitter & American Amber, along with another West Coaster, Stone's Levitation Ale. The East Coast presented the old standard, Red Hook ESB, the unknown Bitter End from Two Brothers of PA, and the green mountain state's Copper Ale from Otter Creek. Two homebrews came in to tangle with the big boys (and held their own thank you very much).



If nothing else, bitters did seem to loosen the panel's tongues, and they had plenty to say about what they tasted. A few gems were:

• Bitter End by Two Brothers: "Boring, like licking bread" Hmmm...so the win wasn't unanimous


• Budweiser American Ale received some praise: "Good, balanced, not bad," "Good, I like it!" (in the commenters' defence, it was a blind tasting). Another commented with "Mighty banana," which doesn't sound like a complement, but at that point in the tasting, it could have meant anything...


• Copper Ale:
  
  "Is this a beer?" Ouch.
  "English, need I say more?" Inaccurate, and yet not...


• Stone Levitation had the highest variance associated with it's scores, resulting in a panel that was...
  ...pleased "Hoppy! Yay! Finally, I'm home...",
  ...afraid "Fierce. The Tyra Banks of Beer",
  ...frugivorous "Holy Grapefruit, Batman!" For the record, we'll be tightening our screening process to prevent infiltration by non-Hominid tasters.

As shown below, Bitter End squeaked by the two Rogue entries to take the top spot and provide this post's title.



And for those goal-oriented folks waiting for their accolades:

• Rainbow is the biggest bitter lover (wow, that could be taken the wrong way), with an average score of 6.85. Although with one of his brews in the mix, does one have to wonder about his objectivity?
  
• Hater award is retained by Katy, who apparently does not like bitters (mean score of 4.35).
  
• Patrick's even-keel (variance of 1.67) is in contrast to Wild Man Chris' variance of 7.34 (how is that possible?).
  

Another round, please.

And now about the cauldron sing

The sweet embrace of roasted barley, caress of chocolate, and just a kiss of hops to finish the experience. Yes, we're tasting stouts. Dark & full-bodied (too much so, for some palettes), this old brew gained worldwide fame through a tall black can equipped with a widget. In this tasting, we challenge the old guard against the brash, sometimes unconventional, upstarts.


Who competed? Representing the old guard were Murphy's, Beamish, and Guinness, all dry Irish stouts. The young'uns came from all over. For imperials, we had Weyerbacher's Old Heathen, Great Divide's Yeti, and Southern Tier's Oat Imperial (yes, an imperial oatmeal stout). The pioneer reviver of the oatmeal stout style, Samuel Smith, represented England, and Rogue's Shakespeare Stout carried the weight of the West Coast on the Bard's shoulders. A local entry, 4BS from Dos Gueros, was dusted off from the basement and included in the mix. Finally, in an effort to redeem itself after the Porter Disaster of '10, Flying Dog's Gonzo Porter (labeled as an "American Stout") was allowed to compete).


A clear winner, Rogue's Shakespeare Stout, may bear such laurels by being the least offensive: of all ten beers, it had the lowest variance in scores.
An oatmeal stout hopped solely with Cascades, it pleased almost every palette (only two of 14 tasters gave it a score lower than 7.0).

By the same token, the cellar dweller oatmeal imperial showed the highest variance in scores. The proponents just couldn't overcome the majority of tasters who were less than impressed. Also of note are the old guard (indicated by tan points in graph above), which were not looked upon favorably.

• The Pants relinquished his stranglehold on the hater award; Katy took that mantle with an average score of 3.5.
  
• Chris, Michael, & Lani clearly like stouts. They all tied for highest average scores of 6.9.
  
• The Pants gets the fickle award, with a variance of 5.78 in scores; while Emrys is once again even-keeled with the only variance in tasting scores less than 2.
  
• Although he showed up halfway through the tastings, Lightnin' RC managed to run the table and taste all ten beers in half the time it took for the rest of the party!
  

Ambers & Bitters coming up next to bid farewell to winter...

Beerspace!

What happens when you combine a hearty appreciation for hops with unhealthy affection for quantitative analyses? The answer is beerspace, an attempt to visualize beer quality and personal tastes via principal components analyses. First, let it be known that many assumptions have been violated (they were pretty drunk, though), including missing data, non-independence among samples, and differing quantification conditions. The results are not too surprising:

24 beers included in the analyses, although only notables are indicated on the graph above. For those wondering where Road Dog Porter falls, forget it. The panel was so polarized against Road Dog it threw everyone into one crowded corner of beerspace. It was deemed an outlier and properly dealt with. Eugenia & Chris are trying their best to be outliers as well...

The "Hop Cluster" is a jumble-muck of many hop-heads. Let's take a closer look:

Not that this focus helped much.

The landscape of this space will surely change with future tastings; additionally, the accuracy of the space representation would be greatly improved by filling in values for missing data. Perhaps we'll have to do more tastings to fill in those holes...

But first, stouts!

This old train is puffin' smoke

On the heels of the unresolved ambiguity of "Winter Ales" we go after porters. A "working man's stout" as some have called this brew, the panel was ready for the smooth flavors in a rich, dark beer (although not all our entries were aware of this definition).


Before the results are presented, let your fears of tasting order be allayed. It turns out the panel is equally fair (or harsh), regardless of the order in which a beer is tasted. As shown below, the relationship between order & score is non-significant. With a measly R² of 0.035, you can all sleep a little easier.


There was considerable excitement about the porters. While the Sierra Nevada - Flying Dog rivalry was being watched, few believed either would best the elixr of Anchor's Porter. Others competing (from East to West): London Porter, Coal Porter (Atlantic Brewing), Robust Porter (Smuttynose), Mocha Porter (Rogue), and Pipeline Porter (Kona Brewing).


Turns out, there are really only two kinds of porters, as far as the panel is concerned: porters we like, and porters that aren't porters. Thankfully, we only had one of the latter. The frontrunners were unexpected: Coal Porter took first, followed by London Porter. The favored Anchor came in at third. It was the perennial competitor Flying Dog (which, interestingly, has moved to Frederick, MD) that was effectively disqualified for being out of category (the panel had additional reasons to believe Flying Dog is confused about the darker ales, but more about that later).


Overheard:

• "Put this in your mouth and swallow." -Brandon's comment to Becca after tasting the Coal Porter. At least, I hope that's what he was talking about...
  
• "I can see Jeff's ugly mug through this beer. One should never have to see that." -Rainbow, with his first exposure to Road Dog.
  

Two other brews showed up, but were excluded from the tasting for being out of category:

• Smuttynose's Baltic Porter. A very rich, very good Baltic porter, part of Smuttynose's Big Beer series. A bomber to sip & share.
  
• Flying Dog's Gonzo Imperial Porter. Another great beer, despite the dissociative identity disorder evident by the description on the bottle: it's apparently an American-Style Imperial Stout. Who knows? Maybe they also say potahto in Colorado Maryland.

Regardless of the Gonzo's identity, it provides an excellent lead in to our next category. Stouts are on tap.

Stop the bus, I'm getting off here.

What, exactly, is a "Winter Ale"? Is it a brew of specialty malts, low-to-moderate hop profiles, and a secret blend of herbs & spices, painstakingly crafted to ward off the chills on blustery winter nights? Or is it merely a beer brewed once a year, released in late fall, adhering to no particular style or ingredient list? Our panel tasted nine such winter brews, to explore the winter ale landscape, with a hope of solving this holiday mystery.

Actually, that goal was abandoned early on, and we just focused on trying as much great ale as possible.

Local favorites included Harpoon Winter Warmer, Smuttynose Winter Ale, and Magic Hat's Howl (technically a lager, but the administration ruled it acceptable). Blue Point's Winter Ale crossed the Sound, and Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome made it across the pond. Coming in from parts the west were Santa's Private Reserve (Rogue Brewing) and the powerhouse Flying Dog's K-9. Perennial favorites from California, Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale and Anchor Christmas, rounded out the competition.

It became clear early on that an exact definition of "Winter Ale" would elude us, as would a consensus of favorites. Some in the panel preferred the malty, complex brews that many would identify as Winter Ale, while others, hopheads to the core, were starry-eyed over Cascade and Millenium hops present in the winter IPAs. The latter were in the majority, as reflected by the results. Coming in at third place was Magic Hat's Howl, an excellent dark black lager that goes down smooth without overwhelming malt & spice.


Celtics & Lakers, Burr & Hamilton, Eddie Van Halen & David Lee Roth, and once again the burgeoning rivalry between Sierra Nevada and Flying Dog came to a head. Both are seasonally brewed ales, but that's about the only thing putting them in this category, as both are pretty clearly IPAs (Celebration is unabashedly IPA). Although K-9 made a good showing, barely edging out Howl for the number 2 spot (6.5 to 6.43, respectively), it was easily bested by Celebration Ale. The IPA from California had an average score of 7.88, and garnered five number one votes from the panel.

A couple of bon mots for the concentration-deprived:

1. Rachel was the most consistent, with a variance of 2.25.
2. The Pants remains the harshest critic, with an average score of 4.89.
3. Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale, prompted Rona to provide the title of this tasting's post, "Stop the bus, I'm getting off here."

So no consensus on the "Winter Ale" definition was reached, but I think most in the panel will be reaching for some newly tasted winter brews next time they head into the package store.

Porters, anyone?

Love in a Bottle

Continuing our tasting series, we tackled India Pale Ales.




Is it just malt liquor for yuppies, or can the refined palette discern the subtle nuances of the varied hop profiles offered by the sages of west coast microbreweries? Well, we decided to find out. We tasted 11 offerings of IPA (well, actually only 9, but more on that later), and a panel of 12 tasters rated the brews. In attendance were Rainbow, Angela, The Tall Ones, Rona, The Pants, Syd, Jeffica, Dornburgler, Rachel, Emrys.

The Atlantic seaboard was represented by three contestants (Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, Dogfish Head Squall IPA, Berkshire Extra Pale Ale), the West Coast, which may be credited with sparking recent interest in IPAs with their high-hop high-gravity influence, had five entries (Stone IPA, Lagunitas IPA, Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA, Acme IPA, Anchor Liberty Ale), and rounding out the competition were a few dark horses straddling the continental divide (Great Divide Titan, Flying Dog Snake Dog, Avery IPA).



Almost immediately upon tasting, two brews were (politely?) disqualified for being out of category (Squall IPA & Berkshire's Extra Pale Ale). Of those that remained, some were piney, some were smooth, but all nine were delightfully hoppy. As a surprise to most (but not you dear reader, who has picked up on my allusions), the Colorado brews took the top three spots, Great Divide's Titan barely edging out Flying Dog, 8.6 to 8.17. Although some found the Flying Dog to have a weak (or non-existent) aroma, it was good enough to take second place, ahead of Avery's IPA.



The top three brews & average scores:

1. Great Divide Titan IPA (8.6): "This is love in a bottle" -Rainbow
2. Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA (8.17): Demonstrating the variety in palettes, our panel described this ale as "Smooth", "High hop", "Average", "Too bitter", or "Boo!"
3. Avery IPA (7.79): "Bittah! Yum" -Rona

A couple noteworthy bits about some individuals' scoring:

• Dornburgler was most consistent, with a variance of only 2.65.
• The "Hater" award goes to The Pants, who gave an average rating of 4.64 (on a scale of 0-10).
• Emrys was the most accurate, coming, on average, within 0.89 points of the average score for each beer.

In general, the panel found Torpedo to be very strong and the pine flavor was too intense for some people's taste. The top three California representatives (Stone, Lagunitas, & Sierra Nevada's Torpedo) were almost tied score-wise, and the eastern seaboard didn't show up until seventh place (Dogfish Head's 60 minute IPA). A few important brews were missing (most notably, Nectar IPA & Green Flash's West Coast IPA), and given some strong opinions about the order of the top three IPAs, it is likely this will not be the last journey with the East India Trading Company.

Coming soon, Winter Ales!