2-4-T: Dogfish Head My Antonia & Terrapin Indiana Krunkles

1. Dogfish Head My Antonia

This beer was first brewed in Italy as a collaboration with Birra del Borgo, a partnership that's continued along with others and Mario Batali with the soon to open brewpub in Eataly NYC. The name of the beer is a literary reference and the style is a continually-hopped imperial pilsner, meaning this beer is a lager, a departure from Dogfish Head's norm. This beer has a great golden color and a hefty amount of carbonation. It has a nice balance of sweet, spicy and bitter flavors and it's not an overboard beer with it's 7.5% ABV. Even though a pilsner is often a pretty basic, boring style of beer, DFH found a way to make it extreme and exciting even without any unusual ingredients. It's exciting to see the poster child of extreme beer return to basic styles...and nail them.

Overall Rating: A-

2. Terrapin Indiana Krunkles

I think the name of this beer needs some explanation. But I have no idea what it means so we're out of luck. I can gather that Krunkles is some kind of inside joke that they've used in the names of previous beers and I can see where the "Indiana" came from with the image on the label. Anyway, this beer is part of Terrapin's Side Projects, which is in its 4th year, a project that puts out creative extreme beers. This beer style definitely fits the bill - call it a wheat-IPA hybrid. And that's exactly what it tastes like. It pours like a wheat beer and smells like a hoppy wheat beer. The initial taste is that banana-like wheat beer taste but then it transitions into a hoppy smooth, dry finish like an IPA would. The idea could easily have failed but this beer is very well balanced and smooth. And just like the above beer, this one won't knock you out at 6.8% ABV in a bomber.

Overall Rating: A-

2-4-T: Ommegang Gnomegang & Ovila Dubbel

1. Ommegang Gnomegang

Ommegang teamed up with d'Achouffe, an excellent Belgian brewery with a gnome as a mascot, thus the name "Gnomegang." Ommegang brews pretty damn good Belgian styles out of New York so it's interesting to taste a collaboration with brewers from the source. Especially because they used parts of both breweries: 'chouffe yeast for the primary fermenter and Ommegang yeast for the secondary fermentation when the beer was bottle conditioned. The result is a fantastic Belgian-style golden ale. Though I usually have to be in the right mood to drink Belgians due to their strong sweetness, I could drink this one in most situations. The sweetness on this beer wasn't overpowering but smooth and balanced with a lot of carbonation. Belgian beers may lose just a portion of their luster during shipment here to the U.S., so it's a comfort to know you can get comparable taste a state away. Also, gnomes are awesome.

Overall Rating: A-

2. Ovila Dubbel

Speaking of collaborations, this beer has an interesting story. Sierra Nevada teamed up with monks but didn't leave the country for it. They worked with monks from about 15 miles north of their brewery, in Vina, California. There lies the Abbey of New Clairvaux. Sierra Nevada is releasing seasonals, the first being this Dubbel, with a saison and quad coming later in the year, all with proceeds to help out the Abbey. It's interesting that Sierra Nevada, the poster child of the west coast hoppy beer mentality, decided to brew some Belgian styles, which typically aren't hop-focused. Again, this beer has easily comparable taste to beers from Belgium and it may be farther for me than NY, but it's still in the country. As I understand it, this is a one-off beer, so if you're a fan of Sierra Nevada AND Belgians, I definitely recommend finding a bottle and staying tuned to the saison next month and quad in the fall.

Overall Rating: A-

2-4-T: Mikkeller Breakfast Beers

1. Mikkeller Beer Hop Breakfast

Beer and breakfast are two words that you normally don't use in the same sentence...unless it's something like, "ughhh I drank too much beer last night, I don't think I can handle breakfast." Regardless, the social stigma of drinking alcohol in the morning/mid-afternoon does not stop us from an occasional libation for Sunday brunch. But why restrict it to a mimosa or bloody mary? Many beer styles are excellent for pairing with traditional breakfast food. Take this one, for example, a hoppy version of Mikkeller's Beer Geek Breakfast. This brewery has a wide array of beer geek breakfast/brunch beers, a couple of which I reviewed before with utter elation. Since the base beer is an oatmeal stout, I can't help but be reminded of the recent surge of black IPAs on the market. Also, since this is an imperial oatmeal stout, they had to successfully add a liberal amount of hops in order to create any balance with the dark, chocolate, roasty notes of the beer...and they did. This beer had some nice hop flavor and aroma to it. Great balance. Great way to start your day. I'd pair this one with an omelet.

Overall Rating: A

2. Mikkeller Rauch Beer Breakfast

Apparently this beer is an alias for Mikkeller's "Beer Geek Bacon." Why you would need an alias for a beer called "Beer Geek Bacon" is beyond me but I'll go with it. Either way, there's playful bacon-y word art on the label. I suppose THIS name, the alias, is more for the beer purists because "rauch" infers smoked beer, a genius style perfected by the Germans. Smoked beer often smells and tastes like bacon, thus me describing it as a "genius" style. So this is a great style for a breakfast/brunch beer. This beer takes that style to a new level though because it's a smoked oatmeal stout with coffee. I may be on more of an IPA kick lately but this beer is flat out delicious. Smoky chocolate with a hint of bitterness and a creamy head. This beer is part of a nutritional breakfast. I'd pair it with sausage and eggs.

Overall Rating: A+

2-4-T: Mikkeller 1000 IBU & Rogue 21 Ale

1. Mikkeller 1000 IBU

IBU stands for International Bittering Units, which, you guessed it, measures the bitterness of a beer. However, high malt quantity requires high bitterness for balance, so just because a beer has a high IBU does not necessarily mean that it's really bitter. A strong stout might have more IBUs than a pale ale, but the pale ale probably has more of an upfront bitter taste. You with me? So the scale (technically) stops at 100. So "1000 IBU" is like saying, let's give this 1000%! And there's some smack-you-in-the-face bitterness in this beer. I'm enjoying hoppy beers more and more but certain combinations and amounts of hops don't work for me. As excited as I was about this beer, I wasn't feeling the flavor. I could handle the extremity of the hops, but I didn't really enjoy the flavor they put forth. It was that biscuity grapefruit type of hop taste that I don't really enjoy. I still love you Mikkeller.

Overall Rating: B-

2. Rogue 21 Ale

At this point, I think I'm legally obligated to buy any Rogue beer I haven't tried before, if not for the fact that I love the brewery, then for the fact that I have a shelf full of bottles that I've saved from them. So I sucked up the $20 for this beer. The beer commemorates brewmaster John Maier's 21st in an annual series of different beers brewed for the Oregon Brewers Festival. The 21 Ale is an old ale, made with Rogue-grown hops among others, oats, molasses, licorice and a bevvy of other ingredients, resulting in a very bready, malty beer with a bitter aftertaste. Little earthy. Thick but not really carbonated. Definitely not my favorite from Rogue, and I don't think it's worth $20, but I'm not bummed for supporting a great brewery.

Overall Rating: B

2-4-T: Weyerbacher Oscar & Lancaster Rumspringa

1. Weyerbacher Oscar

Another selection from Weyerbacher's Brewers Select series, and over halfway through the series: Oscar. Again, I've mentioned before that I like these labels because they don't describe the beer and it turns into a sort of guessing game as to what kind of beer they made. Immediately from the pour, the light color and generous head narrowed the choices down. My initial taste of citrus made me think it was a saison, because it was zestier than what it actually was: a hefeweizen. It tasted too hoppy for a hefeweizen. Style aside, focusing on the flavor, the hops and zesty notes dominated the sweet banana, clove and pepper taste. Definitely an interesting hefeweizen but I would have liked some more balance - might be good to let this one sit for 6 months to a year so the hops subside a bit.

Overall Rating: B-

2. Lancaster Brewing Co. Rumspringa

Rumspringa!! For those that are not familiar with the term, rumspringa is a seminal period of an Amish youth's life in which they have a period of reflection in the prime of their adolescence in which they decide whether or not to join the Amish community. This period can result in rebellious behavior and if they decide against coming back and being baptized, they are shunned from the Amish community for life. So...of course a beer needs to be named after it. This beer from Lancaster Brewing Co. is a Golden Bock brewed with honey. I was pleasantly surprised by it. It was really refreshing and had just the right amount of honey taste - not too overpowering. If being Amish means you can't drink beer like this...well I'd say take a loooong Rumspringa.

Overall Rating: A-