Miasmatic Review

Sand Creek English Style Special Ale.

It’s been a couple of weeks, and I have a ton of beers to review. I can’t believe I’m slacking as badly as I am. Actually, yes I can, I’ve been lazy and spending a lot of free times in bars drinking beer there. It’s summer, so I’m trying to avoid the heat! Yea, that’s it! Tonight’s beer is a first time donation by someone. Someone that wizened up and left Okla-farookin’-Homa. So tonight I’m reviewing Sand Creek’s English Style Special as donated by Rave. Sand Creek Brewing is in Black River Falls, WI.

Sand Creek uses a standard 12 oz brown bottle. The body label is a dark brownish red color. The company logo is at the top in yellow, the name of the beer is under it in a slightly orangish banner. There is a matching neck label that has the company logo on it as well.

The beer itself is a rich dark amber color with bronze highlights. There appears to be no haziness to it. Light passes through easily, however it is dark enough that you can’t see clearly through to the other side. When poured into the glass, an inch thick tan foamy head formed. It faded slowly and a good film and ring on the top of the beer was present until I finished what was in my glass.

The smell starts with a nice roasted malt scent. Caramel and Toffee is the most prominent malt scent that comes out. There is just a hint of nuttiness to it that should be present in an English Style ale, not as much as I would have expected, but it was still there. The taste was rather mild and unassuming. Mostly of caramel malts, a mild nuttiness, a faint hint of cocoa is what you notice at first. There is a slight hop backbone to it that rounds the flavor out.

This is a medium bodied beer; there is a good level of carbonation to it that is standard with the style.

Over all for an English Style ale, I was little disappointed. The flavor wasn’t as prominent as one would expect. It’s very unassuming. It is very easy to drink, and is something that I could see drinking on a hot summer night, Possibly while sitting around a campfire with some friends or even while playing a game at the local bar. I could also see someone sitting down and enjoying a nice platter of fish and chips while sipping on one. Overall I found it a decent beer to drink. I give it 5.5 out of 10.

How long would you survive?!

Harvey from Bad Example sent this to me, he knows I love zombies. It's interesting to note that a couple of my contingency plans seems like it will work out!

Source: Online Classes

New Glarus Unplugged Cherry Stout

At the third annual Miasmatic Review Beer Tasting, Harvey of Bad Example brought me a bottle of Unplugged Cherry Stout by the New Glarus Brewing Co in New Glarus, WI for me to review. It had been a while since I’d seen Harvey; it was good seeing him again. It was nicer that he brought me Beer!

We have our standard 12 oz brown bottle. There is a red foil covering over the cap and a neck label that states it is a Cherry Stout. The tan body label had the name of the beer at the top and, I kid you not, a picture that looks like Harvey holding a beer stein. In a red box is the word Unplugged. On the side of the label is a short story about how this is a limited edition beer.

It pours a dark brown color with a reddish tint to it. Light passes through easily enough, but the beer is dark enough that you can’t make out images through it. It reminds me of a cola when looking at it in the glass. As it is labeled a stout, I figured it would be a bit thicker and darker in than it was. A light tan head formed and faded rather quickly. There was barely a film on the top by the time I took my first sip. There is minimal lacing on the side of the glass.

The smell is an almost over powering scent of cherries, both sweet and tart. The cherry scent pretty much overpowers the rest of the scents. If you concentrate you can make out dark roasted malt and a hint of oak. The combination gives the hint of a vanilla scent. The scent is almost soft drink sweet. The taste is pretty much like the scent. The near overpowering flavor of both sweet candied cherries as well as the more tart pie cherries almost masks the rest of the flavors. As the beer warms closer to room temperature you can taste some chocolate malts and a hint of the oak barrel it was aged in.

This is a medium bodied beer with a light carbonation.

I really don’t know if I can call this beer a stout. Its body is too light and the flavors too sweet. The standard roasted malt flavor that is synonymous with stouts is lost behind the fruit flavor of this beer. It’s more of a light porter or a black ale. Really drinking this is like someone made a beer flavored cherry cola. I’ll be honest that it is a little bit sweeter than I normally prefer, but it isn’t bad. I don’t know if I could handle drinking more than one or two of them at a time, but they do go down easy. I don’t think it’s a good stout, but as a beer in general it’s okay. I give it 6 out of 10.