Tasting Notes for Etchy Brewing’s 2014 Holiday Sampler pack
General Notes: These beers are not American Light Lagers (a.k.a. Coors, Budweiser, Miller) so I have a few recommendations. First, get a glass (there are suggestions below but really any glass will work). These are homebrewed beers and they have small amounts of live yeast in them so pouring them into a glass will make sure you don’t get an unexpected single-cell organism-heavy mouthful of beer. Second, chill the bottle well and pour slowly leaving a little liquid in the bottom of the bottle. This will help reduce the possibility of homebrew farts. Yeah, I’m not dancing around the term. Leave a bit of sludge in the bottom of the bottle and you have less of a chance of making the pets leave your bedroom in disgust. Now, on to the real tasting notes. (Nerd Note: I’m a huge Final Fantasy fan so my beers are themed accordingly. If you truly wish to peer into the depths of geekness log in to untapped and look these beers up. There are backstories.)
(Black Cap) Black Materia (Belgian Chocolate Stout): Despite being a Belgian Chocolate Stout there is only a single ingredient that actually came from Belgium. Otherwise it’s all American stuff. That being said it turned out pretty well. It runs 5.3% ABV and has lots of choclate-y notes (from the appropriately named Chocolate Malt… but it’s just barley) as well as some lighter fruity notes that “dance on the back of your tongue.” I put that in quotes because I read that on the back of another beer so I can’t claim it as my own. Drink this one cold. Very cold. And quickly. You will have to ask me why since the reason involves too much typing.
(White Cap) White Materia (Belgian Golden Ale): If you have this you are one of six people so I guess you could say you got a “limited release”. In beer snob world that means something else, but here it means that I drank the other 2+ cases of this stuff because it’s damn delicious and I had 6 left when I came up with the idea for a Christmas Sampler pack. So it’s a Belgian Golden Ale (this one has mostly Belgian ingredients) with an ABV of about 7.5%. It tastes good. So much so that I drank most of it. You get the full blast of Belgian yeast (all the crazy fruity flavors. Those are *supposed to be there* so the internet tells me) flavors and I hope you like them as much as I do. Pour this in a wide mouth glass if you’ve got one. The more foam the better.
(Orange Cap) Midgar Riveter (Rye Ale): Welcome to the science lab also known as “Etchy Brewing Grows Up and Starts Brewing Like a Big Boy”. This was made with the following ingredients: Barley, Rye, Water, Hops, and Yeast. That’s it. I bought a bunch of meth lab-ish stuff and decided to try my hand at brewing using the same process as the professionals. This was my first attempt and it doesn’t suck too bad so I’m sharing. It’s reddish in color. It tastes and smells like beer. According to some complicated math that my brewing software does for me I can tell you with some degree of confidence that this runs about 6.7% ABV. Pour it in a glass and drink it. Any glass. No need to get snooty about it because you’re literally drinking a rough draft.
(Green Cap) Shinra Mako (Dark Chocolate Cranberry Milk Stout): This was my second attempt at brewing like an adult so I threw away all semblance of common sense and tried all sorts of new techniques and ingredients. Cocoa Powder additions, Lactose sugar, chocolate extract, 2 pounds of cranberries in a reduction, as well as the normal complicated process of throwing barley into the proper temperature water for the right amount of time to science the sugar out of it so I can feed said sugar to the yeast creatures and mildly (and pleasantly) poison myself… yeah seems a little silly. Anyway, this is the result and it also doesn’t suck. In fact despite my best efforts this one turned out well. Whatever glass you pour it into (a large wine glass will accentuate the cranberry notes) pour it SLOWLY. Something about these grains made it foamy as all get out. It tastes strong but it’s not. ~4.5%
(Yellow Cap) Aerith’ Healing Water (Pale Ale): I stole this recipe from the internet. People said it’s a good pale ale but the only pale ales for which I hold any special affection are called India Pale Ales (translation: I’m a total snob and should be shunned) but this regular old pale ale is pretty good. Lots of Cascade Hops (Beer trivia point: Cascade Hops. I’m not telling you anything else) make it taste pretty good. I made some mistakes on this one but the large volume of hops (Cascade hops!) cover it up. Not a bad beer and it won’t curl your teeth. An hourglass-shaped glass is recommended but only pretentious beer fanboys own those. A plain old vintage Empire Strikes Back glass your parents got from Burger King the year the movie was released will work just fine. 5.6% ABV
(Hop Cone Cap) Jenova Juice (Rye Whiskey Barrel-aged Barleywine): We’re going back in time to last winter when I started this beer so there is none of that fancy “I made this from grains” kind of stuff. I made this as God intended: from mass-produced grain syrups I purchased from the local homebrew emporium. Then I threw it in a big glass container and let it sit for 6 weeks. Then I tossed some rye whiskey-soaked wood chunks and hid the same glass jug in the basement for 6 months. Then a few weeks before I bottled it up I dumped some more rye whiskey in there for “flavor”. So what was supposed to be about a 9% ABV Barleywine is probably closer to 11%. It also tastes of oak, rye whiskey, and rye whiskey. Put this in the back of your refrigerator until next Christmas and crack it open then. Or wait two years. Honestly the longer you wait to drink it the better/smoother it’s going to taste. Also, time heals old wounds and covers up amateur brewing mistakes. It’s a big bottle. It could get you very drunk. I think you’ll like it.
(Blue Cap) 7th Heaven ESB (Extra Special Bitter): This is a British Extra Special Bitter (ESB). That there type name is pure irony, though. This style of beer is neither special (it’s a normal pub ale found damn near everywhere), bitter (nope, none of the “cat-piss” flavors my dad claims to reside in more bitter beers), nor does it have “extra” of anything. But it’s good. This was my third attempt at this advanced style of brewing and I have unwittingly been learning and getting better at it. This is a good beer, especially if you happen to like British pub ales (which I do). I was honestly pretty proud of this one when I first tasted it since it tastes the way that this style is supposed to taste. There are no “surprise” homebrew flavors. It’s the right color, bitterness, strength (5.8% ABV), and even without carbonation it tasted good. You have the carbonated version in your hot little hand. Some time in January pour it into a glass of your choice and enjoy it.
