New Year and New Beers!

New Year and New Beers!

Ahhh, where to begin after over a year of not blogging my adventures in the beer aisles.  

Over the past year I have not stopped drinking, that's for sure, and I have not stopped searching for the next amazing beer.  In fact, I started brewing more complex beers, improved my specialty martini making, and cooked some kick ass meals for my family.  

Even with all the brewing, cooking, and drinking I still felt like I was missing something.  Then it hit me like a 12% beer, well maybe two 12% beers.  I am a seasoned drinker ya know.  I needed to blog!! I needed to blog NOW damn it!  But what beer should I start with?  I have had countless beers in the past year!  I decided to give you not one review but two reviews.  Oh, and not just an 

'Hey check this beer out this week" review.  I decided to review my most memorable beers of 2014 which happened to be in one crazy night! 

 Avery Brewing - Pump(KY)n - 16.54% ABV

Evil Twin Brewing - I Love You With All My Stout - 12% ABV

When I first opened Pump(KY)n the aroma

drifting out of the bottle was that of bourbon and spices.  Both of which I expected and welcomed.  It poured a dreamy mahogany color with a minimal head that quickly dissipated back into the glass.

Pump(KY)n was very boozy, but not like OMG I just burned a hole in my throat boozy, but a dang that was boozy and I am going to be a hot mess soon.  Once I got past the initial burn, I was able to taste a few of the usual suspects in a bourbon barrel aged pumpkin porter.  The cinnamon, allspice, and bourbon were up front and well balanced.  Pump(KY)n finished with a smooth vanilla sweetness. 

Before I get into my review of I Love You With All My Stout I want to give you a little background info on the beer.  First of all this is brewed by an incredible gypsy brewer from Denmark named Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergso.  He brews his beers under the name of Evil Twin Brewing in 10 of the best breweries in the world.  Yes, you read that right folks!  Jeepe is a gypsy brewer that travels the globe to make the best and funkiest beers around.    

These are just a few of the beers I have had over the years.  

You can see all his beers online at eviltwin.dk.  

If you were lucky enough to have ANY of these gems you would appreciate the effort I took in photographing them so I could look back and sigh.  Sigh...

I Love You With All My Stout was brewed with the same recipe as Even More Jesus (totally lives up to it's name) so I just had to give this a try.  Besides we could always use a little more Love and Jesus in our life right?

The smell wafting from the glass did resemble EMJ but I think this had a little more of a sweeter cherry like aroma to it, which showed up in the flavor.  It was not an overwhelming cherry taste, in fact it was just in the back end of the sip.  Along with the cherry flavor I picked up some vanilla, coffee, and sweet malts.  I Love You rang up at a 12% ABV but did not show up on my palate.  It was smooth with absolutely no burn or overwhelming boozy taste. 

I highly recommend you contacting your local beer enabler to see if this beer is available in your area.  I am not lucky enough to live in an area that sells Evil Twin but I am lucky to have a brother that shares his prized bounties with me.  

Happy Beer Hunting my friends!

Cheers!

Kathleen

Jesus Hath Cometh

I know, you are all saying "where has my amazing beer blogger gone?" or you may be thinking WTF sister get to drinking!  Now, to put all the rumors to rest and the uncertainty you may have in my blogging abilities I am back to blogging and I brought my brother for the ride!  (If you have not heard the rumors they may have said I never came back from Vegas after winning $.20 and lost my mind).

Rumors.

Now, for the review...

Evil Twin Brewery
Even More Jesus - 12% ABV



My first encounter with this gem was a picture on Facebook and  I just had to find this to try it for myself.  I sent a picture to Ryan and we were on a quest to find the golden labeled treasure.  Unfortunately this beer was not available across the bridge but Ryan tracked it down for us to try and review.

Kath - This beer was amazing from start to finish. It had a strong aroma of vanilla, chocolate, and coffee.  All of which I expected and love.  Once poured the color was almost black and the head was a thin caramel color that seemed to float.

The taste, oh my LORD the taste.  It was rich, chocolaty, and bitter sweet.   The body on this beer was super rich and malty that the 12% ABV was not overwhelming. Even More Jesus may be Even  More than I can handle...Blah ha ha!

Ryan - What we have here is a wonderful bottle of "Even More Jesus" by Evil Twin brewing.  Evil Twin brewery is located in Denmark and to date I've not had a beer from them that I did not like.  It's a damn shame since their beers come with a high price tag as well as I don't think a whole lot of it gets imported to the U.S. and I believe I read somewhere that they have only been importing here since 2010.  On to the actual tasting.

This imperial stout pours pitch black and hardly has any head at all.  I can smell a little coffee maybe some fudge and roasted malts.  The body is real thick and not much carbonation.  You can taste the roasted malts and some bitter chocolate and finishes strong and sticky.  The 12% ABV is well hidden.  Overall this is a great Imperial Stout and if you can find it you need to get a couple.  While I hold this brew in high regards I prefer Evil Twin's Soft Dookie over this but hey, I'll take both if I can find it.

Since the name of this delectable brew is Even More Jesus I figured why not picture an AR15 M4 Carbine which our U.S. military has been using to send folks to meet the man himself for years.  The Ar15 M4 is a weapon patterned after the original Armalite AR-15 which was designed by Eugene Stoner in the late 1950's.  He is one of the most highly regarded U.S. military arms designers of the 20th century.  The Ar-15 platform is lightweight, air cooled, gas operated, magazine fed semi-automatic weapon.  This weapon sends a .223 caliber projectile down range at a stunning 2900 feet per second (that's really fast, FYI).  Also, not only does the U.S. Military use this weapon platform but many police departments do now as well especially since the infamous North Hollywood bank robbery shootout where the police were completely under armed.  

I hope you enjoyed my review as well as the bit of weapon history.  

Cheers!
K & R

A night with my Evil Twin

Evil Twin Brewery

Soft DK - 10% ABV

Spending time with my evil twin is usually a good time and sometimes involves possible illegal activity with poor judgement, but last night none of the above.  Sigh.  Instead I was sitting with an empty bottle of Soft DK brewed by Evil Twin Brewing. 

What?  Never heard of it? Uh, me either!!  My brother on the other hand has been drinking this brew for a few months even though the name Soft DK should have turned him off.  Evil Twin Brewing is a brewery from Denmark and just debuted in the US in April 2011.  A brewer by the name of Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø began his home brewing in 2003 but did not enter the commercial craft brew scene until 2005. Oh, and the name Evil Twin...hmmm.  Jeppe's brother is Mikkel Borg Bjergsø , who owns Mikkeller Brewery! Talk about sibling rivalry.  You may have heard of a few of his brews such as Beer Geek Brunch Weasel (made with weasel poo- true story), Beer Geek Breakfast. Big Worse, and many many more.

Some of the Evil Twin Lineup.

As you can see the name of the beers are a little off the wall and I believe one of them (not pictured) is called Cat Piss.  Yeah, not sure that is a crowd pleaser but whatever floats your boat, right?  The beer that I am reviewing is the the brew on the far left marketed as Soft DK because the US is all freaking uptight about being PC.  Whatever.

Soft DK 's color was dark as night with a beautiful caramel colored head.  Lacing and the carbonation looked amazing and I think it whispered...DRINK ME.  The aroma was that of chocolate, sweet coffee, and vanilla.  At this point, I was pretty sure I was going to totally fall in love with a beer named after poo!  My first sip was a total shock to my taste buds.  It was extremely bitter, almost like a hop bitter.  God I hate hops.  I did not see the IBU on the bottle but I went on Google and it was listed at 60 IBU's. Once the bitterness finished beating my tongue up it had a strong dark chocolate flavor with a dry finish.  After a few more sips I tasted a faint coffee undertone and some vanilla.  What I did not pick up was the alcohol taste.  With 10% ABV I was expecting to have a strong alcohol burn but it was not present. 

Overall,  my night with the Evil Twin was not as exciting or tasty as I hoped for but at 10% ABV it was all forgotten and forgiven.  

Cheers!

~K~