Review: New Belgium Shift

 
I had this beer for the first time straight out of the can at Jake’s in Omaha.  Beer Ranger Ron Nelson had a release party last week at the main bar.  The beer is only available in 16 fl. oz. cans at this time, and there are no plans to release it on tap.  My initial impression out of the can was good, but for the purpose of this review I had it out of a New Belgium globe glass a couple of days ago.

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The beer pours a gold to amber color, with a head consisting of larger bubbles, which dissipate quickly.

The initial aroma is big on citrus, possibly due to an addition of Cascade hops at the end of the boil.  After that, the smell changes to orange blossoms.

The mouth-feel is right in the middle.  It starts out a little sweet, and finishes a little dry.  A really nice experience, in my humble opinion.

A simple grain flavor dominates with a hint of hay and lightly roasted nuts (hazelnuts mostly).  The profile is similar to the Cream Ale style of beer.

Overall, the beer has little bit of everything: sweet, dry, floral, citrus, nuts, and grain.  I would recommend this as a spring or summer beer.  Also, I would like to see this slowly replace the PBR tall-boy cans, which are all the rage lately.
 

Review: Footprint from Odell Brewing Company

The blog was fortunate enough to receive a bottle of Footprint from Odell Brewing Company to review. With it's recent release in Omaha, we thought it would be good to get our review out there for our readers. Keep in mind, we aren't experts or even certified judges. We are just guys that have had more than our fair share of quality craft beer. We will do our best to tell you what we tasted, and try and reserve judgement for you the readers on the beer itself.

Oh, and by the way...we didn't review this together, nor did we consult each other before writing the review. It was funny to see how we both picked out the pineapple and tropical fruit.

From Odell Brewing Company's website....

There are ten states that make up what we call our ‘distribution footprint.’ Each state made a unique contribution to Footprint. This artful ale is our tribute to these states in which our beer is available. The result is a crafty collective of regional flavors:

Colorado - Hops & Barley
Arizona - Prickly Pear
Idaho - Barley & Hops
Kansas - Wheat
Minnesota - Wild Rice
Missouri - Oak Barrels
Nebraska - Corn
New Mexico – Green Chilies
South Dakota – Barley & Honey
Wyoming - Wheat

9.5% Alc. by Vol.

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Nate's review:

I cracked this open last night for my celebratory beer on my birthday. I knew the premise behind the beer and knew that Nebraska was represented by corn but I forgot what most of the other ingredients were on purpose. I wanted to go into this pretty clean of head.

It pours with a nice white head and a cloudy light pale color. A little lighter then your standard pale ale but pretty close. It was pretty cloudy, though I am guessing that is due to many of the ingredients in the beer including wheat.

It's aroma was pretty crazy full of tropical fruits and mainly pineapple. I also noticed another flavor I couldn't pinpoint right away, but after looking at the bottle later I knew it to be the prickly pear. I am starting to really have a nose for cactus in my beer and honestly I am not finding it pleasant, to each their own.

I had my wife taste along with me and she has a super palate and nose. She pulled out orange, lemon-lime, kumquat and of course pineapple. She loved this beer. The taste closely mimicked the aroma, which is great, no surprises. I did notice the prickly pear a little bit more in the flavor then the aroma, it has a sort of tart flavor to it that is hard for me to explain. I found the beer pretty balanced and it finished pretty dry. I didn't detect much alcohol warmth, which is great considering it's high ABV.

Overall, the aroma is killer and the flavor does a good job matching it. I was not able to pull out the oak barrels or green chili which I kind of expected to notice. My wife loved this beer and would drink a lot of it, myself, I am put off by prickly pear so much that it started to over power the beer for me, which is unfortunate, because it has a lot of great stuff going on. So goes my palate and why it is mine. Go give it a shot and tell us what you think.

Nick's review:

Out of the bottle, the beer is very effervescent with some large bubbles in the head. Great head retention with an “ice cream” look to it as it settles. It’s a gold to light amber color. There was a little sediment at the bottom of the bottle, but not that much. Leads me to believe it may not be bottle conditioned.

The aroma smells of pineapple and other tropical fruit. The tastes is dry and crisp on the palate, with some astringency. The taste is very similar to the DuPont beers in my opinion…maybe they ferment this at high temperatures too. Overall I like the beer, however it’s not very session-able considering it’s dry quality and the fact it’s 9.5% ABV. Also, I really like the “footprint” concept…using ingredients from each of the states they distribute in.

Recalled Boulevard Chocolate Ale Review

Wednesday I learned that the special bottle of Chocolate Ale I got for my wife for Valentines Day was in fact part of the batches that Boulevard was going to refund because it didn't meet their standards. I found that super cool that they are willing to stand by their product and refund the price of the purchase. Normally I would be more then ok with this solution but because it was this beer, it was hard for me to get anyway (had to have a runner do it for me), it was my Valentines gift for my wife and I can't get another one I was still disappointed. I was also very curious as to what could be wrong. Boulevard just said it didn't meet their standards, so was it infected, what was wrong? I convinced my wife we had to drink it last night so I could get the info out to you and satisfy my curiosity.

So we poured ourselves a couple glasses last night. Now I have only had this beer at Extreme Beerfest last year on tap and I have no way to do a side by side so this is purely from memory, so it won't be a perfect comparison but I will try and be fair. The beer poured a murky milk chocolate brown with a light brown head. The head did not stick around long but given I don't take the best care of my glassware, not sure who is to blame here. I don't recall the aroma at all from last year but this one was very light in the chocolate, had to strain a bit to pull the cocoa aroma, not what I expected. We finally took a sip and I know what my wife and I were expecting and that was a almost liquid Hersey kiss, great chocolate flavor with a lot of body and small alcohol warmth from the 9% beer. That is not what we got, we got a very subdued cocoa flavor, much thinner then expected and significant alcohol warmth. The beer was not bad and it definitely improved as it warmed up near room temp, but clearly not what we expected or wanted. I would expect this are the reasons they have offered the refund. I don't think it is infected I just don't think the cocoa came through in this batch as they wanted it too. It may be infected, but time will tell on that one. The other issue was, because of the recall, I was automatically being very critical of this beer where I may not have had I opened it not knowing. My guess is I still would have noticed but you never know how your judgement would be clouded. I would be interested to hear from those that have done side by sides with a on tap version and a bottle version and see if what I tasted is accurate.

In the end, I still applaud Boulevard for refunding the money and I will be pursuing that mainly because of the sentimental part of my purchase and the rarity of the purchase, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered if it was one of their regular lineup beers. This one just hurts more because I can't go buy a good bottle to enjoy with my wife.