Brought Home Some Random Beers

All this Homebrew hobby has really done for me is test my patience and increase my desire to try all types of beers. I usually drink the BMC stuff but I'm beginning to see the light, (unless I'm mowing the lawn, gotta have my Miller Lite) there are a lot of good beers out there. I am on business in Dallas/Ft. Worth this week, so I stopped in at Dr. Jekylls Beer Lab. I bought 6 random beers I've never had before to try out while I hang in the hotel. Here's what I got. Are any of them your favorites? Are they all crap? I'd be intersted to know what y'all think of these. So far, I can tell you that I am not a fan of barleywine or oatmeal stout.

Old Foghorn Barleywine Ale
Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout
" " Nut Brown Ale
Petes Strawberry Blonde (I've had this before I think, pretty decent I guess)
Victory Storm King Stout
Hobgoblin Dark Ale

I'm going to try not to drink all of these tonight. (oh hell, who am I kidding, I just ordered a pizza and nothing goes better with pizza than a beer!)

IMO if it wasn't for Barney Flats Samuel Smith's Oatmeal stout would be the best one.

Everything I've had from Victory has become my new favorite of that style. I bet that stout is great! They have great IPA's.

HSM said:

Everything I've had from Victory has become my new favorite of that style. I bet that stout is great! They have great IPA's.

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based on your rating, I'll crack that one next. I'm drinking the Hobgoblin now, and I really like it. 3 real beers and a light lunch later, I'm in typoland!

That's a damn fine list. The two Sam Smih beers are some of my favorites, Hobgoblin is usually great, and Old Foghorn is mighty tasty. Haven't had the other two, but you came away with a nice collection.

+1 on the Old Foghorn. Really good stuff!

good choice of brews. pat, the owner, is the 1 who got me into homebrewing.

Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout has got to be one of the most wildly overrated craft beers out there. A dry Irish stout is, to me, a much better daily drinker, and it's not like a big RIS that makes a tremendous slow evening dram. It's kind of too big to enjoy off the cuff but not complex or interesting enough to be an evening constitutional. Their nut brown ale is in a similar chasm for me, but it's also fighting an uphill battle as I hate nutty tastes in beer and am only lukewarm on brown ales in general (both of which are totally personal foibles with no applicability to others).

Barleywines need a couple of things:
1. Time. The longer you cellar them, the better they get; there are examples (e.g. Dogfish Head Immort Ale) that are terrible fresh but after a couple years of aging have lost their saccharine sweetness and become amazing brews.
2. Mood. They're sipping beers. To me, they're best on a cold winter''s night, but at a minimum you have to sit down and be ready to make sure it warms up to 45-50F before you drink it and sip it slowly. If you're in the mood for a quick quencher, they're the wrong beer to try.

They can be horrible or amazing depending on the mood, approach, and particular barleywine. Old Foghorn's pretty good young, but it ages beautifully.

I'm jealous.

That Victory Stout was pretty hardcore. I poured it into a glass, and I thought it was coffee...I guess I either wasn't in the right setting for it, or something, but try as I might, I just couldn't enjoy it.

The Dark Ale was delicious though, and I never did get to the Nut Brown or the Petes, but that'll be on the menu tonight. I'm still trying to get my tastedbuds to learn to like real beer. BMC has ruined them!

Storm King! That brings back Halloween 2008, where I brought a growler home from the brewery the week before. On Halloween night, my wife and I decided to go down and watch The Shining (I'd never seen it). I opened the growler of Storm King and realized she didn't like stouts and I'd have to drink the whole thing myself.

I did.

It wasn't until about the very end that I realized I was numb from about my nipples down.

The next morning was pretty bad. And the next afternoon.

But I still think Storm King is about the best stout I've ever had.

Conroe said:

IMO if it wasn't for Barney Flats Samuel Smith's Oatmeal stout would be the best one.

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i 110% agree with this statement. :rockin:

i also like to experiment with different syles at my local BevMo (read: adult candy shop). lately ive been really getting into scottish ales. Belhaven's Wee Heavy is awesome. As well as Moylan's Kilt Lifter. just throwing some suggestions out there for next time

Sounds like a hell of a night Jet! maybe if I havdn't had a Barleywine and a Dark Ale before the Victory, I would have liked it better. I'll have to try the "Oh well, I guess I have to drink it all" approach for next time.

MyNameIsPaul said:

Sounds like a hell of a night Jet! maybe if I havdn't had a Barleywine and a Dark Ale before the Victory, I would have liked it better. I'll have to try the "Oh well, I guess I have to drink it all" approach for next time.

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With the Barleywine and RIS you picked some tough styles to jump right into. I'm impressed by your willingness to stick with it. Keep trying different styles to figure out what you like (amber ales tend to be a good step for a lot of people) and you may find yourself drinking and loving that Victory Storm King a couple years from now.

Yeah, so was the barleywine the first one you cracked open?

If so, I'm sorry but that kinda made me chuckle.. talk about jumping in the deep end!

Is there anyway you can go back to that packie and trade that Pete's Strawaberry Blonde for something else???

Sam Smith's Nut Brown is one of my all-time favourites, and Hobgoblin isn't far behind. Though I far prefer Sam Smith's Imperial stout to their Oatmeal stout when I'm looking for something thick, rich and delicious