Dusted-Off Reviews, circa January

These ales came my way a long time ago, when I still bothered to attach letter grades to beers. But I found the reviews and felt like sharing. The fact that they were good made them worth posting at this late date.

Samuel Adams Coastal Wheat
Sampled: Jan. 10, 2010

How this ended up in the Holiday Classics 12-pack, butting up against Old Fezziwig, Crnberry Lambic and Holiday Porter, I don’t know.

The nose is rich lemon, with the wheat malt bouquet running a strong second. I have never tasted a wheat beer with so strong a lemon flavor. It dominates, and that is great. Usually, it’s the domain of Belgian-style wit beers, but with a heft lacking in those ales. Coastal Wheat has a mighty lemon, nothing false or flavored about it.

The “coastal” factor comes not from the brewery’s East Coast home, but from the Lisbon and Eureka lemons from California. They deliver in spades, producing a wheat beer far different from a garden-variety hefeweizen. The lemon is inescapable, and in this case, that works splendidly. There is a rich turn on the finish, a tightly packed blast of malt and hops.

Jim Koch, please deliver this beer in the heat of summer. I’ll raise the grade by at least a full point.
Rating: 7/10

Don’t Dare Rhyme It With ‘Rotten’: Grotten Brown
750 mL corked bottle
7.5 percent ABV
Sampled: Jan. 10, 2010

After sitting for more than a year, this Pierre Celis creation has definitely seen its creaminess grow somewhat subdued, but lost none of its potency. At 6.7 percent alcohol, Grotten Brown treads nowhere near extreme beer,

Malt assaults in the nose, with stiff fingers of molasses, chocolate and toffee quick to strike. Any heaviness is the body is quickly mitigated by an efficient effervescence unusual for a brown ale. It almost tastes light for its alcohol content and style. But that owes to Celis’ unorthodox techniques of aging the ale deep beneath the earth.

A little caramel and sugar sweetness emerges as it warms, with a slight burst of bitterness near the finale. The effervescence holds on until the end, cruising into a closing that doesn’t stick with you. That gentle sweetness at the front end could be unique. Aging this for a year in my beer cave enhanced the flavors that begsan developing deep underneath Belgium.

Possibly the best Belgium brown I have tasted.

Rating: 9.5/10