It’s going to be very difficult to follow up last night’s beer, so instead, I’ll continue with the review that I interrupted before embarking on that particular Expedition – tonight, I bring the Dogfish Head Aprihop to the table. There’s a soft spot in my heart for Dogfish Head, and there really isn’t one that I don’t like (well, maybe one…). Will this one meet or exceed my expectations? Let’s find out!

Dogfish Head Aprihop IPA - Hope you like the glass from the Double IPA festival!

The first whiff of this beer is different, but nothing spectacular. Dogfish Head certainly doesn’t leave much to the imagination with the title – you smell apricots and you smell hops, but not much else. It looks like a darker IPA, but thicker, oranger, murkier, and keeps an actual head on it. For a beer with “hop” in the name, I expect hops and a lot of them – this beer is particularly mediocre in that regard, especially for DFH. The taste, unsurprisingly, is primarily fermented apricots, but it also combines the alcoholic taste of cooking sherry with the delightfully medicinal taste of Flintstones chewable vitamin pellets, a flavor which I can confidently say is unique to the Aprihop. The main nose is more apricot than hops, though it’s tough to knock them for telling you exactly what to expect! Aprihop has a silky smooth texture reminiscent of canned peaches – it’s smooth, viscous, refreshing, and pleasantly chewy.

Aprihop is a fun beer, and is yet another fine product worthy of the Dogfish Head moniker, although it’s certainly not their best. With its many descriptive nouns and adjectives, the Aprihop is a great beer to pre-party with. It’s not strong, it’s very easy to enjoy, and it will certainly relax you before before you move on to beer pong and kegstands. I would definitely prefer a hop aroma to the apricots, but I’ll take what I can get – you can’t win them all!  Great job, Dogfish Head, and keep up the great work! I had to go out of my way to find this one  – I picked this one up at the Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa, CA during my last beer run, and they had crates of it for about $7 a 6-pack.

Update: Dogfish Head contacted me about this review and informed me that the bottle I reviewed was very likely skunked – DFH only releases the Aprihop once per year, usually in March. Since I purchased this bottle before their usual release date, I probably got a bottle of the 2009 batch. I recently picked up a 4-pack of the recent batch, and it has definitely redeemed itself. My review is pretty spot on – the beer is hoppy and candy-like, with peach and apricot flavors. It is very fruity, and most assuredly does not taste like vitamins! I’ve also seen this one everywhere, and it’s readily available at most liquor stores.

I’ve had a lot of beer in my life.  I’ve traveled to four countries, thirty-three US states, and countless cities, and I appear to have found one of the finest beers I’ve ever tasted in my own backyard, Phoenix. Bell’s Brewery hails from Kalamazoo, Michigan, but one of Phoenix’s legendary local breweries, Papago Brewery (recently ranked 13th best beer bar in the world by RateBeer), had several of their beers chilling in their fridge waiting for a new owner. After marveling in the wonder that was HopSlam, Beersurfing was curious about their other beers and Papago certainly delivered.

Bell Brewery's Expedition Stout

On the recommendation of a couple of friends from Michigan, we picked out a bottle of Expedition Stout. It turned out to be a fantastic choice. The Expedition Stout’s nose initially hits you with intonations of beef stock and summer sausage and absolutely no indication that it’s even a beer. I poured half a glass for my roommate, noting that it poured pitch black with the consistency of ink, with a very thick and creamy looking head. This beer only got better as I evaluated its finer points – as noted above, the beer imparts aromas of sausage and beef, along with subtler hints of celery and even some soy sauce. Its flavor profile is exceedingly complex, so complex that you’ll never quite identify every member of the party that just arrived on your taste buds – cloves, concentrated beer malt, and even salt dominate the taste along with a plethora of others. You don’t even notice the 10.5% of alcohol that is there – it’s masked that well. The Expedition Stout is buttery smooth, barely bubbly, and exceptionally sippable even for a stout.  You definitely don’t want to drink this in gulps – the Expedition Stout wants and deserves to be sipped, and you’ll enjoy every last savory morsel of it. I made sure to suck the bottle dry!

Expedition Stout

The Expedition Stout is among the finest stouts in the world and is rated exceptionally high on most websites, including Beer Advocate and Rate Beer. The crème de la crème of beefy beers, the Expedition Stout is sophisticated, overwhelmingly complex, and just plain incredible.  I’m simply at a loss of words to describe it any better, and like most of Bell’s beers, it’s not terribly uncommon the closer you get to Michigan. For such an outstanding beer, the price point was very reasonable – while I can’t speak for the rest of the world, Phoenicians can find the Expedition Stout for about $3 for a 12oz bottle at Papago Brewery in Scottsdale. Thanks to Sarah and Andrew for the tip!

Lagunitas Brewhouse - The Hairy Eyeball

Tonight’s Thirsty Thursday featured beer is The Hairy Eyeball from Lagunitas Brewery in Petaluma, California. Despite the curiously creative name, it isn’t bad! If eyeballs taste like this, eyeballs are tasty. My first impressions: it’s a lager, similar to Dogfish Head’s Pangaea, with a nose of moist bread and dry timber. In the glass, it looks like liquid cherrywood with a brown but brilliant ruby-like finish. \The Hairy Eyeball has an intense and spicy flavor profile and is really all over the board – my tongue got hints of grape juice, licorice, Robotussin, and Buckley’s cough syrup with slight chocolate overtones.  Despite having 56 IBU’s, there’s practically zero hoppiness in this beer. I would call this a turnoff, but I’ve spent the last month drinking single, double, and triple IPA’s so I’ll let it slide! The Eyeball tickles your nose but it’s hardly pungent – in addition to the smells above, you’ll catch aromas of anise, licorice, and hot metal.

The Hairy Eyeball is stale and prickly in your mouth, and pretty difficult to swallow, yet leaves you feeling pleasantly numb on that sweet road to inebriation. Overall, this was a decent beer – while it is a flavorful lager, it was way too bitter and not in a good way. It tasted too much like medicine for me to drink it all the time, but some days, I’m just in one of those moods. My roommate had a more favorable view of it, and wished I could get more; unfortunately, I had to travel to Petalumas for this beer and purchase it directly from the brewery. It’s pretty reasonable at the brewery – they were selling 12oz bottles of any given beer for $3 a piece at the bar.

This morning, I woke up bright and early to make my way over to Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, California. I was expecting a fairly small crowd, but as soon as I got there I was quite surprised!  I got in before the crowd got too crazy, but later in the day the line for the brewery was out the door about about half a mile long.  Glad I got my growlers when I did!

From the patio at Russian River Brewing Co

While picking up the growlers, I treated myself to a couple pours of Russian River’s best known beers, Pliny the Elder and his nephew, the Younger. Younger pours out a brilliant yet clear yellow-orange, and has no apparent head until you swirl it around a little bit.  Where the beer starts to get interesting is the smell – by itself, PTY offers the smell of citrus and pine needles. However, when you serve it in an enclosed space with hundreds of people drinking the same thing, your nostrils will be overwhelmed by the hoppy goodness.  Indeed, before I was able to pick up my growlers and my glasses, people all around me were drinking their Pliny – it was unadulterated torture!  The taste was also impressive, with an intense flavor profile consisting of extremely bitter hops and pine. One the flavor finishes destroying your taste buds, I found my mouth was left with a stickiness that made me feel like I just drank a pint of pine sap. The Younger is thick, yet smooth, and was very easy to swallow.  Overall, this one was definitely worth the 800 mile trip – this is an excellent reason to be in Santa Rosa in early February.

Two Pliny's - Elder on the left and Younger on the right

Next up was the Elder.  Pliny the Elder appeared to be the “original” version of Pliny the Elder, as the two beers share a similar flavor but there are many obvious differences.  First one was the color – as noted in the picture above, the Elder pours out bright yellow and is very cloudy. It has a head that seriously never disappears – it was there for the 45 minutes or so that the beer was in the glass, and coated the entirety of the glass by the time I finished the beer! The aroma this beer gives off is similar, though less intense, than the Younger; it seems to use some different hops. Indeed, the Elder gives off odors of malt liquor, citrus rinds, sugarcane, and freshly picked hops. The flavor profile was… different, but I won’t call it better than the Younger. While this one was also very hoppy, it was incredibly malty, very sweet, and almost had a solvent taste to it. The texture was foamy yet thin, and numbs your tongue very well as you swallow it. Overall, this beer was also excellent, though it has one big advantage over the Younger – it’s bottled and sold in local grocery stores, and I definitely picked up a couple of bottles to take to my friends!

The everlasting head of Pliny the Elder

While both of these beers were excellent, the camaraderie of the crowd of fellow craft beer drinkers who knew exactly what they were drinking really made these beers fantastic. Thanks, Russian River, for creating such an awesome pair of beers for Hopheads – your produce alone was worth the trip 

The crowd outside went out the door, down the street, and around the corner

What the hell? There’s a brewpub named Squatter’s in Terminal C of the Utah airport! Since when did Utah become so awesome? Will definitely have to pick up some beer (and some bottles) on my way back home from San Francisco.

In light of my upcoming epic beer run, I was surprised that I had not yet reviewed one of the tastiest beers that has ever been in my mouth. A few weeks ago, fellow “Twitter”-er Hoptopia pointed me in the direction of Bell’s Hopslam, a famously hopped and very popular IPA from Bell’s Brewery in Michigan.

HopSlam from Bell's Brewery

I was so blown away by this beer I can barely describe it.  I always take an immediate whiff of a bottle as soon as I pop the top, and my first impression of Hopslam was “wow, this is incredible”. The aroma will literally slam your nose with fresh hops, ripe fruit, and freshly cut grass, and it has the unmistakable amber appearance of tree sap. The flavor profile of this beer is full-bodied and complete, although it seems more hoppy and the botanical taste much more evident.  It’s marketed as being brewed with honey – while that may contribute to the texture, it barely affects the taste as far as I can tell – there’s so much else here overwhelming your taste buds that you won’t even notice that it’s missing. The 10% alcohol content is masked very well by the flavor, and you won’t realize why you’re feeling groovy until you get to the bottom of the bottle. The texture of this beer when hits your mouth can best be compared to maple syrup.  It’s thick but still watery, has zero head, is somewhat sticky when you swallow it, and leaves your mouth feeling papery when all is said and done.  I found it to be very similar to Dogfish Head’s 120 Minute IPA that I reviewed a few months ago, with quite a few major differences – it’s less intense, drinkable on a daily basis, a third of the price, and far more available. For example, if you can find a bottle of DFH120, look around for Hopslam – I found several cases of it nearby. It also contained everything that I loved about Stone’s Ruination – the grapefruit, assorted citrus, and wonderful hoppy goodness – without all the temperamental crap one has to go through with Ruination to really enjoy it and avoid the extreme bitterness.

HopSlam in the Glass

Overall, this IPA is beyond excellent and is definitely one of the best beers that I have reviewed to date. If you spot a bottle, or even a case, of this beer at your local store, stock up with as many as you can because it’s well worth whatever you pay for it – it apparently ages very well under the right conditions. I found Hopslam at my local Total Wine for about $3 a bottle, and it was available in 6-packs or by the caseload. On that note it’s time for bed – I’m starting my weekend early and flying to San Francisco in the morning to start my 800-mile beer run.  First on the list (straight from the plane, actually) is 21st Amendment, which was one of the original inspirations for Beersurfing. There’s a pint of Hop Crisis waiting there with my name on it, and I don’t want to keep a good beer waiting!

Pliny the Younger is being released at Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, California on 2/5/2010 at 11AM.  Santa Rosa is 800 miles from me.  PTY is BeerAdvocate’s second highest rated beer on the planet (and I just can’t swing a weekend trip to Belgium for the first), so this can mean only one thing – road trip!

After some quick planning, I found one awesome beersurfer willing to come along for the ride, but at the last minute I ended up finding a cheapish ticket out of Phoenix that was less than the cost of renting a car and fueling for a 1600 mile round trip. The plan is to fly out of Phoenix on Thursday morning, land in San Francisco in the afternoon and hang out with my amazing friends in the Bay, crash on someone’s couch, then drive up to Santa Rosa to get my day-drink on in Santa Rosa.

I will, of course, be visiting as many tasty breweries in the San Francisco area as possible. Know of a place I need to check out?  Leave a comment below, or send an email to elliot at beersurfing dot com with details!