Scaldis Amber

Name: Scaldis Amber (A.K.A. Bush Ambree')
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Owner: Brasserie Dubuisson Frères sprl
Courtesy of: Insop Song

BeerAdvocate Rating: 87 (Very Good)
RateBeer Rating: 90,81
ABV: 12%

Around about the time America was about to be a place, almost exactly nothing was really going on in Belgium.  A farmer named Joseph Leroy decided his farm would be a much better place if he made some beer to keep the workers and the residents of a little town called Pipax happy.  Brasserie Bubuisson is the oldest brewery in Wallonia, but I'm not sure how much of a distinction that is.  Time marched on and the brewery is now run by the Dubuisson Brothers, and we find it today producing several brews and some franken-fruit-flavored atrocities.

The beer we're having today is an amber-colored Strong Ale, which is what they're known for.  Here in the States it's sold as Scaldis amber, but in Europe you'll find it called "Bush."  Since that name doesn't exactly mean "high quality" in America, it's no surprise they re-brand it here.

Serving:
Heartily poured from a 330ml brown bottle into my favorite Steady-Temp double-wall beer glass.  The glass giggled a bit.

Appearance:
This ale pours a deep, cloudy amber with virtually no head, no matter how hard you throw it into the glass.  It's so cloudy that you absolutely cannot see anything at all through it... not even light.  Lacing is "barely there," which is really surprising considering the full-body one would expect of a Strong Ale.

Smell:
You're immediately greeted by a heady mix of orange peel, peach, banana and lightly roasted malt.  Ale yeast comes flying through, lending a bready after aroma.  There's the slightest tinge of clean alcohol, but it's certainly not overpowering.

Taste:
The brew comes on strong with the taste of citrus and white wine.  Through the middle there's very juicy mixed fruit, like a punch almost.  You're left with a prominent alcohol aftertaste, once again reminiscent of white wine cooler.

Mouthfeel:
The body full and satisfying, you're never really sure if you're drinking a beverage or chewing bread.  The tail is slick and pleasant; you definitely know you've been drinking.

Overall:
Taken in totality, I find this one to be just a little better than okay.  It's quite good and I would happily drink it, but it's not one I would drive all over town looking for.  If you see it while you're out and about, give it a shot.

Allagash Tripel Reserve Ale

Name: Allagash Tripel Reserve Ale
Style: Belgian-Syle Tripel Ale
Owner: Independent
Courtesy of: Insop Song

BeerAdvocate Rating: 92 (Outstanding)
RateBeer Rating: 99,100
ABV: 9%

Back in the dark ages of 1995, a hipster named Rob Tod (yes, with one "D" - his ancestors were minimalists, evidently) heard that all of the cool kids were moving to the Pacific Northwest to make beer.  So, not to be outdone, he jumped in his Jetta and told his GPS to take him to Portland.  GPS technology being what it was in 1995, he ended up in Portland, Maine at which time he asked a grizzled old man that looked suspiciously like Phil Hartman how to get to the other Portland.  The codger replied: "You cahn't get theah from heah."

So, as hipsters aren't really known for their adventurism, he figured one Portland was as good as any other Portland, and decided to stay and make beer right there.  At the time, German- and British-style beers were fairly popular in the U.S., and being a hipster he could have none of that, he decided to brew beer like they do in a country no one had ever heard of before: Belgium.  For you Americans that really aren't up on European geography, that's like saying "I'm going to make it like they do in Maryland."

He started off with a Belgian White, which later would become popular in the U.S.  because Coors started a fake craft brewery called "Blue Moon" and started making quite possibly the worst Belgian White in the world.  Fortunately for them, we Americans really aren't particularly known for our taste in beer, so of course it became wildly popular.  But I digress... on to the review:

Serving:
Delicately poured from a dark huge bottle capped with a champagne-style cork into my trusty Steady-Temp double-wall beer glass.  The glass screamed with girlish delight.

Appearance:
This ale pours cloudy amber with one finger of creamy white head that slowly regresses to a wispy covering over the majority of the glass.  Lacing is present but not prominent, which really belies the body of the beer described below.

Smell:
The nose is a symphony of ale-related aromas - exactly where you'd want it to be.  The banana typical of the style is there, but it's not overpowering as it is in many ales, like Leffe for instance.  Fresh malt and citrus follow, and the smell does not really present the fact that this is a Tripel, with a stiff ABV of 9%.  There is no heavy alcohol smell to it; I'm quite surprised.

Taste:
Fully flavored sweet malts with the same citrus that was on the nose, with just enough hops to keep it from tasting like syrup.  Somewhere in the middle there's a flash of grapefruit soda, so much so that it reminds me of drinking "Bubble Up" as a child.  The alcohol is evident for a second in the tail, just enough to let you know that you're drinking a man's beer.

Mouthfeel:
The body is remarkably full and substantial, it's slick on the tongue and in the mouth, and lingers... in a good way.  It is constantly reminding you that it means fucking business here and that you shouldn't be fucking around.

Overall:
This is an excellent introduction to the Belgian style of making Ale.  I'd be tempted to recommend this as an introduction to the style, but I wouldn't want to ruin you for all of the substandard ones out there.  It's a pleasure to drink, and even for a lager guy like me, I'll have no problem finishing the ginormous bottle it comes in.  An excellent quaff, for sure.

Trappistes Rochefort 10

Name: Trappistes Rochefort 10
Style: Belgian Trappist (Quadrupel) Ale
Owner: Independent / Abbey
Courtesy of: Insop Song

BeerAdvocate Rating: 100 (World-Class)
RateBeer Rating: 100,100
ABV: 11.3%

Established around 1230 as Abbey of Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy, what is now known as Rochefort Abbey is a Trappist Monastery in Namur Province in Belgium.  They've been making beer in the abbey since 1535, but have only been able to produce enough to sell since 1952.  They obtain the water from a well on the grounds and they maintain their own strain of yeast which has mutated over the years, which gives their Ale a very distinct character.

Having never tried this style, I was initially unsure as to whether I'd like it.  I've had Leffe (the most popular Belgian Ale) and wasn't really that keen on it.  It had an overpowering smell and taste of banana esters which I frankly can't stand.


Serving:
Delicately poured from a dark 330ml bottle into my Steady-Temp double-wall beer glass.  The glass shivered with antici............pation.

Appearance:
This ale pours a beautiful, deep chocolate brown with a three fingers of dark tan head that slowly fades to a thick film over the top of the whole glass.  There is plenty of lacing, demonstrating exactly what that term was invented to describe.  It's as if someone left a garter around my glass.

Smell:
It presents a heady aroma of sweet malt, chocolate, plum, date and other dried fruit.  In the background the alcohol slips through, but it's not the fusel alcohol of cheap malt liquor, but rather the clean, complex smell reminiscent of a fine wine.  On the tail is an oaky hint of a gentleman's malt whiskey that makes you want to inhale deeply and hold your breath.

Taste:
This beer is a fucking flavor explosion.  All of the notes on the nose don't even begin to describe the delights that come through on the tongue.  The sweetness of the malt is there, for sure, but is nicely balanced with the noblest of the noble hops.  In addition to the malty and fruity flavors one would expect, floral notes sing through.  It's as if they were able to take every flavor profile ever found in beer, orchestrate them like Mickey in Fantasia, and stuff them in to a tiny bottle.  Unlike some other brews, this one only gets better as it warms - the complexity you note on your first sip gets deeper and more interesting as the glass progresses.

Mouthfeel:
A very full-bodied quaff without being "chewy"; an excellent complement to the end of a heavy meal when you've settled in to your easy chair and don't plan on moving.

Overall:
I really can't say enough about how good this is.  When I saw the perfect scores on beeradvocate and ratebeer I was very skeptical at first;  I've never drank a "perfect" beer.  After getting through the glass, I know what they're talking about.  There's nothing about this I think could be improved.  It's well-balanced, tasty and smells like a dream... what else could you ask?

If you take my word for nothing else, take this away:  If you can find this, buy it.

Saison Dupont

Name: Saison Dupont Vieille Provision
Style: Belgian Farmhouse Ale
Owner: Independent / Family Owned
Courtesy of: Insop Song

BeerAdvocate Rating: 94 (Outstanding)
RateBeer Rating: 99,99
ABV: 6.5%

The current incarnation of the Dupont brewery was founded in 1920 and is located in Tourpes, in West-Hainaut, Belgium.  As best I can tell with my rudimentary French skills and a healthy helping of Google Translate, a guy named Louis Dupont was considering moving to Canada to buy a farm.  Louis' father, not wanting his son to grow up to be a filthy Canadian, convinced him to stay in Belgium by buying him the Alfred Dupont farm, which had a long brewing tradition stretching back into the mid-18th century and famous for its seasonal and honey brews.

As good as he was at brewing ale, he wasn't that good with the ladies because he died childless in 1945, leaving the brewery to his nephew, a brewing engineer named Sylva Rosier.  The brewery was passed on to Sylva's children and grandchildren, and today Louis' father is responsible for keeping 4 generations of his family from becoming Canadian.

Serving:
Reverentially poured from a champagne-style bottle into my Steady-Temp double-wall beer glass.  The glass breathed a soft sigh.

Appearance:
This ale pours a beautiful, cloudy light-amber color with a massive eggshell-white head that just keeps hanging around.  There is copious lacing left on the glass.  Actually it's more than lacing; it's almost a coating.

Smell:
It presents a nice, rich aroma of malt and an unusual yeast that imparts the impression of spicy herbs and lemon with a peppery undertone.

Taste:
Wow.  Very different from the smell.  Sweet pale malt with banana esters on the front, following through with a grassy, earthy tail.  It leaves you with a wonderful, slightly-bitter hop taste after the sweetness of the malts fade gently away.

Mouthfeel:
A very rich and robust beverage, but not so heavy as to be "chewy."  For an ale it has a significant level of carbonation, but not so much as to be distracting.

Overall:
While Ales are not my normal style of beverage, I quite enjoyed this one.  I, for one, am very happy Louis stayed in Belgium to make this excellent representative of a Farmhouse Ale.  This would be an excellent choice on a cold winter's night with a fire in the hearth and a book in the hand.

Miller Fortune

Name: Miller Fortune
Style: American Amber/Red Lager
Owner: MillerCoors
Slogan: "Your Fortune Awaits"

BeerAdvocate Rating: 61 (Poor)
RateBeer Rating: 8, 83ABV: 6.9%

Miller Fortune is MillerCoors' answer to Bud Light Platinum.  It's the second in the BMC triad to put out what essentially is a malt liquor under one of their "Premium" marques.  It comes with a hip, snappy website produced in conjunction with urbandaddy.com to help you find hip, snappy places to drink malt liquor.

It's so good they have to "shout" on their website:

YOU MIGHT CHOOSE A REGULAR BEER.  

BUT THEN YOU MIGHT GET A REGULAR NIGHT. 

MILLER FORTUNE IS A PREMIUM GOLDEN LAGER UNDISTILLED AT 6.9% ABV. IT BOASTS A RICH, MALTY AROMA, A LIGHT BODY, AND A CRISP, CLEAN FINISH. BALANCED, YET UNEXPECTEDLY BOLD.

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  Damn... I'd better get going!

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The packaging design is nice; the dark brown bottles and the Ace of Spades logo appeals to me.  On the bottles they have a Heads or Tails beer cap, an obvious tip of the hat to (or blatant ripoff of) Full Sail's "Rock-Paper-Scissors" bottle caps.  Everything about the packaging reeks quality, which I'm thinking may be a bad omen to what's really in the can.

Serving:
Aggressively poured from a 25oz can into a Wine Enthusiast Steady-Temp Double Wall Beer Glass. The glass insisted that he's had quite enough of this nonsense.

Appearance:
Pours a light amber color with just a tinge of read.  It has a two-finger pale cream-colored head that was gone in a couple of minutes, leaving a thin film on top, and a little lace.  It had an audible fizz to it, just like when you pour a soda into a warm glass.

Smell:
The smell is the first indication that you're going to be in for a disappointment.  Fusel notes and sweet malt comes charging through, and although they say that Cascade hops are used in the production, I can smell none of it.

Taste:
The taste has little to do with any other Miller product that I've tried.  It's a sweet, malty prominence with a sour undertone that gives way to a flat and slightly off-putting alcoholic trail where a normal person would want a "kiss of the hops."

Mouthfeel:
It has decent body; far better than your average BMC swill - but that's to be expected for the type.  It's slick and wet, like the first rain after a long dry spell.

Overall:
On the whole, this beer quite poor.  It's less of a refined Jason Statham hip and cool, and more of an Andy Capp boozy and downtrodden.I'd highly recommend this for folks who want the Colt 45 experience but don't want to be seen with one in your hand.  However, if you're looking for high alcohol content and better drinkability, I'd rather go with Billy Dee Williams, because "It Works Every Time."

Michelob Ultra

Name: Michelob Ultra
Style: American Adjunct Lager (Light)
Owner: AB-InBev
Slogan: "Lose the carbs. Not the taste."

BeerAdvocate Rating: 46 (Awful)
RateBeer Rating: N/A, 0
ABV: 4.2%

Michelob has always been A-B's "superpremium" line, and a few years ago, it was spun off into it's own little corner, presumably so that it wouldn't be associated with A-B's other swill.  Their new site looks like a craft-brew site, but something is missing... ahh, it's Michelob Ultra.  I think that the folks at Michelob are trying to distance themselves from this brew.

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I have six pack abs, but they don't look like those.

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Michelob Ultra was created during the low-carb craze of the late 2000s, catering to anorexic women and body building men.  Essentially it's a plain 'ol light beer, it's specs being more or less equal to Bud Light, but with a much nicer label.  Supposedly this allows you to drink something that resembles beer without developing something that resembles a beer belly.  

To be fair, I'm not a big fan of this style, but I will try to give this a fair shake because I do find regular Michelob to be a decent beer.  Light beers, and low-carb beers in general sacrifice not only alcohol and body in their quest to reduce calories, but for some reason they leave out any semblance of flavor too, I guess hops add too many calories.

Serving:
Aggressively poured from a 25oz can into a Wine Enthusiast Steady-Temp Double Wall Beer Glass. The glass had the urge to go to the gym.

Appearance:
I've never seen a beer with this color before.  Saying that it's "pale" is a vast understatement.  It's the color of dead, bleached grass - there's only the very slightest bit of color in the glass.

Smell:
Smells like fresh air with a very faint hint of banana.

Taste:
It tastes like Perrier poured through wet corn.  The banana detected in the nose carries through in the finish.

Mouthfeel:
Very, very light.  The medium carbonation is the most specific thing that can be said about the mouthfeel; there's really nothing else that could be described about it.

Overall:
This beer isn't fucking close to water... it is water.  I suppose if you're an anorexic figure skater and you don't want to be seen drinking fruity cocktails this would be acceptable.  If it's 100+ outside and you want something you can chug right down, it could be used for that too.  However, if you want a beer that tastes like beer, I recommend you skip this one.  Just pick up a Pelligrino water and be done with it.

On second thought, this is probably cheaper than Pelligrino...

Bud Light Platinum

Name: Bud Light Platinum
Style: American Adjunct Lager (Light)
Owner: AB-InBev
Slogan: "#makeitplatinum"

BeerAdvocate Rating: 54 (Awful)
RateBeer Rating: 1, 18
ABV: 6%

Supposedly a "bolder" version of Bud Light, Platinum doesn't seem to fit anywhere.  It's supposed to be a "Light" beer, but has a hefty 6% ABV and only 8 fewer calories than regular Budweiser.  With this potent alcohol content, I guess you could say that it could best be described as "Bud Light Malt Liquor," for those who wanna get crunk but are too discerning to be seen with a King Cobra in their hand.

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  God I hate electronic music.

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Let me say this right off the bat: the bottle is beautiful.  A deep, translucent cobalt blue bottle with minimalist labeling really makes Platinum stand out on the shelf.  I don't know who the guy was that designed the packaging, but he deserves a medal and a raise because he nailed this one.  Unfortunately, what they put inside the bottle is a little less exciting.

I'm not sure who the target demographic is for this product is, either.  The commercials I've seen so far look to be targeting the 20-somethings in clubs, since most of the ones I've seen feature young, hip folks and DJs.

There's not much interesting history behind this beer to give you because it's so new, so I guess I'd better just get on with the review.


Serving:
Aggressively poured from a 22oz bottle into a Wine Enthusiast Steady-Temp Double Wall Beer Glass.  The glass rolled its eyes and mumbled "not again..."

Appearance:
Pours a pale straw color with a fizzy head that left the tiniest bit of soapy lacing in the glass.

Smell:
No malt or hops that I can detect.  Smells like sugar and alcohol, with a fusel undertone.

Taste:
Tastes like Bud Light with a hair more flavor, almost all of the increase being sugar, with a distinct alcohol undertone.  Just a kiss of pale malt and sugar - like right out of the bag sugar.

Mouthfeel:
Watery with the slightest bit of slickness on the finish.

Overall:
This is another one of those "alcohol delivery mechanism" beers.  There's nothing about it that makes it stand out from a regular American Macro aside from the sweetness and the increased alcohol content.  It's bland and tasteless, which is evidently what a lot of people like when it comes to beer.   I wouldn't really recommend it, but it's not a drain pour which makes it infinitely better than Coors.

My suggestion for a new slogan would be: "Bud Light Platinum: It'll get you drunk and at least it's not Coors."