Tasting Notes: Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale

Brewery: Atlantic Brewing Company
Style: Blueberry Ale
ABV: 5.2%
Date Poured: August 2008

I am not a fan of fruit in my beer. Yes, the traditional lambics and the occasional well-crafted cherry stout may please my palate on occasion but generally I find fruit in beer to be gimmicky and the results lackluster at best. This goes double for American craft brewers who seem to believe that the quickest way to convert a female drinker is to brew the blandest wheat beer possible and then drown it in some flavor of fruity (peach, raspberry, cherry...take your pick) extract so it's nice and sweet for the delicate ladies. They taste just as bad as they sound.

However, it can be done properly. The Atlantic Brewing Company in Bar Harbor, Maine makes one of my favorite American fruit beers. First, they use real Maine blueberry puree instead of extract in the brewing process. Second, they have avoided using a bland wheat ale as a base. Instead, it's a maltier amber ale that mixes nicely with the blueberry flavor.

It pours a very clear, very bubbly clear copper topped by a thin but persistent and creamy tan head. The nose is filled with very aromatic blueberry and a biscuity malt.

Tastes of bready and lightly nutty malt. Some muted, lightly tart but lightly sweet blueberry flavors but the blueberry is not the main thrust. It merely acts as an accompaniment to the crisp and nutty malt. Just a hint of hops in the finish. Crisp and clean finish with a light sweetness in the aftertaste. Very good stuff and never gets old.

Atlantic Brewing Company

Tasting Notes: 2008 Longshot Beers

Brewery: Boston Beer Company
Date Poured: March 2008


Some notes from last month on the Sam Adams 2009 Longshot beers. More on the Longshot homebrew contest can be found here.

(The Longshot box usually contains 2 bottles of each winning beer. However, one of the winners this year was a Double IPA and Boston Beer was unable to secure the hops during this year's shortage. So one of the winning beers was postponed and 3 bottles of each of the following beer was included.)


First up is a weizenbock brewed by Rodney Kibzey of Chicago.

It's a murky opaque mahogany with a dense and creamy brown head that leaves sheeting lace behind. Sweet strong aroma of ripe banana and cloves, rich maltiness and just a hint of lemon in the nose.


Tastes of rich malt, banana estery flavors, lemony and spicy, especially clove and pepper. Rounded body and not nearly as full and sticky as I expected. Fairly clean finish for a weizenbock but a light sticky malt finish and aftertaste lets you know the beer was there.

Really, really good beer. It's got to be right up there behind Aventinus as the second best weizenbock I've tasted and there's certainly no shame in finishing second to that beer.

The next beer is called a Grape Pale Ale by the winning brewer Lily Hess. As the name implies, it's a pale ale brewed with grapes.

Pours a pale orangey copper with a frothy ivory head. Smell is quite sweet and grapey with the faint aroma of pale malt.


I was expecting this ale to be sweet in my mouth but it's actually quite dry with just a touch of sweetness in the finish. It's crisp and light, subtle and bright.


I wasn't expecting much from the grape ale as I don't like fruit in my beer as a rule. However it was surprisingly tasty and refreshing. I won't put it on par with the excellent weizenbock but it was no slouch either.




Boston Beer Company

25 Beers of Christmas, Day 24: Samuel Adams Cranberry Lambic

I had to scuttle the original beer scheduled for tonight. It was a 2004 version of SweetWater Festive Ale. When fresh, this beer is a bit heavy on the spice so I thought it might age well. I was wrong. It was completely spoiled. Undrinkable.

So I dipped into the Samuel Adams Winter Mix yet again and snagged a bottle of Cranberry Lambic. I don't have the loathing for this beer that many "beer geeks" do but it does usually linger and I end up using it for cooking more often than not. Although it is not a true lambic, the Sam Adams website states that they do use a strain of wild yeast in the brewing process. It's a sessionable beer at 4.6% ABV.

It a pleasant orangey copper in the glass with a frothy but quickly dissipating ivory head. The smell is the unusual part. It sour but sweet. But not too sweet as the sweetness imparts a bit of tartness. There's a sour, bready wheat malt. But overall it is sweet. It's not puckering at all. But still...there's a tad of sourness. It's odd but not nearly as complex as I'm making it out.

That hint of sourness disappears in the taste. It's sweetish but not overpoweringly so. There's some tartness but it's certainly not sour. A bit of graininess or cereal like flavors from the malt. It finishes surprisingly clean, not a lot of residual stickiness in the mouth.

It's really not so bad but it's certainly not my style. But adding it to your chili? It adds a nice flavor and some body...

Boston Beer

Tasting Notes: O'Fallon Cherry Chocolate Ale

Brewery: O'Fallon Brewing Company

Date Poured: September 2007

ABV: 5.7%

Still more bottles from this summer's trips west of the Mississippi...

This one pours a deep reddish dark copper with a tan frothy head. Some light lacing. Smells like...black cherry soda. Let me try that again...(sniff, sniff)...yeah, black cherry soda mixed with a malty pale ale. That's what it smells like. I am shuddering to see what it tastes like.

It tastes a lot like a bizarre radler of black cherry soda and pale ale. There's lots of extracty cherry flavor with the weird underlying chocolate extract. The chocolate flavor is understated but is just odd in this beer (hell, maybe any beer). The cherry and chocolate flavors do not compliment or meld with the malt flavors (or even each other). They just sort of sit there on top like a plastic coating.

The mouth is surprisingly crisp with the light caramel malt. A bit sticky in the finish though. This is pretty much a mess. Take a pass.