New Belgium Oakspire 2019

Last year, when I tried New Belgium's Oakspire I was a bit underwhelmed. With the market heavily saturated in quality barrel aged beers at the time of its release last fall, I felt my money was better spent elsewhere after trying a single bottle.

I was going to let it pass by this year, but a friend's palate I trust asked me to give it another try. Rarely do I turn a free beer down, so I decided to bring it home and give it a try the first chance I got. I went into this year's New Belgium Knob Creek collaboration with a positive attitude and decided to write about it. It was that positive attitude that gave me hope that this year's batch of Oakspire is better than last year's. That being said, I still was not crazy about it.

Oakspire's appearance is a gorgeous deep amber with a creamy white head. The aroma is full of caramel, vanilla and oak. Hints of corn, toffee, brown sugar, dark fruit, smoke and a touch of bourbon round out the aroma. Caramel and vanilla flooded my palate on the first sip. A strong corn note also came through as well. There were hints of smoke, raisin before a very tannic, bitter finish. This finish lingers and accumulates. By the end of the glass, it is a touch overwhelming. This was by far my biggest complaint when it came to this beer. Another one, since this is a review blog is, it is a bit too thin. A beer like this should have more body to it.

Oakspire is an interesting beer. I definitely think, New Belgium & Knob Creek improved this beer. I am not saying it is going to blow your socks off, but as the weather cools, this is a solid beer to have around before stout season gets into full swing. I hope next year, this beer is even better. A bit more body and a touch more bourbon could earn this beer a regular place in my fridge. A positive thing to come out of me revisiting Oakspire is next year, I will definitely buy a bottle. I might not buy another this year but I am very open to trying next year’s batch. That is progress.


Overall rating: 3.25/5

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Thanks for reading. Sláinte!

New Belgium Brut IPA

For a New Year's blog a champagne-like beer seemed appropriate, so I decided to take a look at New Belgium's Brut IPA. The Brut IPA puts a fun champagne-like spin on the style. It's wonderfully effervescent, super dry, light on hop bitterness and very refreshing. After some deliberation while beer shopping, I decided to purchase New Belgium's Brut IPA for this blog. As a fan of New Belgium, I was particularly excited to see their take on the style.

As I started pouring Brut IPA, I found myself enjoying the sight of a light golden, clear IPA. I am by no means tired of hazy NE-IPAs but this was a nice change of pace. The aroma is tropical, citrusy(zesty lemon, grapefruit & orange), and a touch white wine-like, with herbal tea notes. The first bubbly sip was enjoyable with grapefruit, lemon, white grape, pineapple, grass and herbal tea. The hops are a dialed back a bit as expected with the style but what is there is really nice. The finish is where things took a turn for me. While a dry finish it is what you should expect from the style, in New Belgium's Brut IPA's case it is extremely dry & astringent, to the point I felt I needed a tall glass of water once I finished it.

New Belgium's take on a Brut IPA is not all bad but one bottle goes a very long way. As I mentioned earlier, I really enjoyed the hop flavor. There was a nice touch of grain in there as well, it just all fell apart in the finish. This is a beer I would love to revisit down the line to see if the recipe gets tweaked slightly. The potential for something great is there. In its current state, it would work for a toast at midnight on New Year's if options are limited. As a session beer, I advise you to look elsewhere.

As far as the style of Brut IPA goes, I am excited to see how big this style gets. Brut IPAs are growing in popularity by the day with more and more breweries attempting them. I look forward to trying and writing about many more.

Overall rating: 2.5/5


Rating Scale:
1. Repugnant and undrinkable
2. Acceptable but forgettable
3. Good, worth a purchase
4. Excellent, a step above the norm
5. Truly Exceptional. Drop everything, BUY IT NOW!

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Happy New Year!

New Belgium + Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale

This past week, my wife and I traveled to Burlington, Vermont for our annual Beercation. We pick Burlington for several reasons. The town is beautiful, the food is fantastic and some of the best beers I have ever had are readily available. This year we enjoyed Lawson's Sip of Sunshine, Hill Farmstead's Sumner, Edward, and George, Fiddlehead's Mastermind Double IPA and The Alchemist's Heady Topper, Focal Banger, and The Crusher. While I could write a review on all of those beers, I am not sure it would be appropriate. I say that because I feel I love those beers so much, my blog would sound more like a commercial for them than a critical review. I will say this though, if you get a chance to try any of those beers, do it. They are all incredible and will not disappoint.

We also love Vermont for more than just beer. We love to walk through their state parks. We love to stop at their Farm Stores. We love their maple syrup and cheddar cheese. We also love Ben & Jerry's. For us there were two big goals on this most recent trip: go to The Alchemist's Visitors Center and go to Ben & Jerry's. For Ben & Jerry's, it did not have to be the factory tour(we've done that), we just had to go to one of their locations. Our visits to both of those were absolutely fantastic. So at this point you are probably wondering just where this blog is going. Well instead of reviewing a Vermont beer (because everything I had with the exception of my flight from Vermont Pub & Brewery was fantastic), I decided to review a beer with a taste of Vermont. That beer is New Belgium's latest collaboration with Ben & Jerry's, a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale.

Before I continue with the review portion of this blog, I think it is important to mention that I think this beer sounds gross. I've drank a lot of beers with ridiculous flavoring in my time but none in recent memory seemed as ridiculous as cookie dough ice cream. That being said, I really wanted it to be good. I really like Ben & Jerry's and I hope they would not put their name on something terrible. My gut just told me the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale was going to be an artificially flavored mess of a beer that I was most likely going to pour down the drain.

I watched the fizzy white head dissipate on this golden yellow ale and tried to work up the courage to take my first sip. The aroma was light but sweet with chocolate, vanilla with some grainy malt sweetness. Frankly, the aroma reminded me more of Cocoa Puffs than anything else. I do like Cocoa Puffs so I began to feel a bit of optimism. This feeling was fleeting as I took my first sip. The flavor is not as gross as I first feared, but it is just not that good either. There is a light, almost cereal-like chocolate taste in the beginning that lingers with some vanilla creaminess and doughy malt. The finish brings in the hop bitterness that stays longer than it needs to on the palate. I was fairly lukewarm on this beer until the finish where I think it completely fell apart. To the beer's credit, the flavors are not overwhelming here. This could easily have been overwhelmingly artificial and sweet. Fortunately it's not, but unfortunately it's just not that good. This is just another example of a bland base beer with some flavoring to cover it up. All New Belgium's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale really did was make me want to forget about the beer and grab a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough Ice Cream. It certainly would taste better.

Overall I would rate New Belgium's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale a 1.5/5. To sum everything up, go to Vermont, drink the beer and enjoy some ice cream. Just don't combine the two.


Rating Scale:
1 - Repugnant and undrinkable
2 - Acceptable but forgettable
3 - Good, worth a purchase
4 - Excellent, a step above the norm
5 - Truly exceptional　

To discuss this blog or all things beer follow me on Twitter, Instagram & Untappd at @ACraftyLook

For more beer reviews go to: http://www.acraftylook.com

Until next time Vermont...

Thanks for reading. Sláinte!