Oskar Blues, Ten Fidy Imperial Stout

Oskar Blues Brewery

Ten Fidy

10.5% ABV

Imperial Stout

4 pack 12 oz. cans

www.oskarblues.com

Personal Rating: 9.3/10

Style Rating: 9.7/10

Availability: Seasonal

The guys that brought you the famous Dale’s Pale Ale, Old Chub, and Yella Pils also have devised this delicious, complex imperial stout entitled Ten Fidy.  This is an absolute must have for your craft beer collection and puts many other stouts I have had in the past to shame.  

Classified as a Russian Imperial Stout, it was inspired by the recipe used by brewers back in the late 1700’s.  Its history traces back to London, England and was created as a strong, dark beer used for export to the Russia Czars.  Among its other notable characteristics, its classification is mostly due to the high alcohol content.  Packed with enormous amounts of chocolate and roasted malts, the Ten Fidy boasts a bold malt character, high ABV rating, and almost a fruity or cherry finish on the tail end.  

Oskar Blues Brewery is a Colorado based operation that started roughly 10 years ago and has recently expanded their company into North Carolina allowing for 2 locations in which to produce high quality craft beer and also meet the demand of the public.  Owner/founder Dale Katechis runs an organic farm on premises where he harvests his own hop farm annually for use in his diverse collection.  The popularly known Dale’s Pale Ale is their staple beer and certainly has made quite an impact on the general public and craft beer consumers.  The Ten Fidy is only a seasonal beer from their repertoire (as stouts are mostly a fall/winter beer) but if you can find it out of season, it is absolutely worth a spin on the palate and promises not to disappoint.  

I did not find this pours with a big, thick, creamy head like one would expect from a stout even when aggressively poured, but its low level of carbonation is most likely the correlation between the two.  Either way, it did not affect the drinkability or overall presentation of this beer.  I am very fond of their commitment to canning over bottling.  I think their choice to stick to cans and shy away from flashy labeling on bottles allows the beer and recipe to speak for itself.  Though sold in 4 packs of 12 ounce cans, I would not suggest finishing them in one sitting.  I put the Ten Fidy in my personal category of dessert beers; to be enjoyed slowly after a meal.  

Be sure to try the Ten Fidy for all you stout lovers out there!  I thoroughly enjoyed the roasted malts and complexity of chocolate and cherries.  Cheers!

Wanna try it now? Order it online at whitehorsewine.com

Finch's Beer Company, Secret Stash Stout

From a local craft brewery out of Chicago, IL comes Finch’s Beer Co. with their Secret Stache Stout. The chocolate malts used to brew this beer are quite prominent, whereas the vanilla bean wasn't as detectable. Indeed, this is a very robust stout, dark in color with a cherry, reddish hue to its black, chocolate appearance. It does not provide a creamy, thick head like I expected, but an aggressive pour will provide a head like it would out of a keg. Either way, it made no difference in my overall opinion and/or evaluation of this delicious stout.

American stouts differ from English and Irish stouts in that some are highly hopped or complemented with coffee or chocolate to add to the roasted flavors often associated with this style of beer. This addition is certainly a significantly noticeable method used in Finch’s Beer Company’s method of brewing this flavorful stout.

Finch’s Secret Stache Stout would send Sir Arthur Guinness running for the hills in hopes of reinventing the wheel! A US Beer Open Championship Gold Medal Winner and also a Gold Medal Winner at the 2013 World Expo of Beer and the 2013 United States Open Beer Championship, this stout confidently and proudly lives up to its world renown reputation.

For the stout lovers out there (myself included), this one is a home run! Their stout is a very easy drinking, medium-bodied stout with chocolate and coffee notes followed by a smooth, rounded out finish. Yes I would purchase this beer again and I would absolutely recommend this to anyone looking for a new stout to try. It was definitely a great session beer and thoroughly enjoyed. Cheers!

5.3% ABV

Personal Rating: 9.8/10

Wanna try it now? Order it online at: 

https://www.whitehorsewine.com/proddetail.php?prod=854992003149

DuClaw, Naked Fish Raspberry Chocolate Porter

Here is one of the newest brews to grace our line up at White Horse Wine and Spirits. This brewery just started to come in to our fine state of New Jersey. Unlike other breweries who trickle in with a few beers to start with, DuClaw has been hot and heavy with new beers almost every few weeks. They quickly hit a home run with our customers with their outrageous Sweet Baby Jesus, a chocolate peanut butter stout, that everybody seems to love! Given the popularity (and the fact that my wife goes nuts for chocolate and raspberries) I decided to try this latest brew.

The interesting facts about this beer are (if you look at the fine print on the six pack) that it is also brewed with coffee (which adds extra points in my book). It is also a session beer clocking in at only 4.6% alcohol, which is odd considering most brewers making a coffee stout or a chocolate stout would opt for a heavy ABV (perhaps 7 to 9 percent).

When I first opened this beer, I was hit by a nice sweet raspberry aromas followed by just a hint of dark chocolate. The opening blast gave me a good opinion of this beer from the start. I then poured it into a pint glass to see how the aromas developed. It lost a little bit of the intensity in the glass. The mouthfeel of this beer is very light (almost Guiness like). A very easy drinking beer that was quickly finished and replaced by another throughout the night.

Overall, this is a really easy drinking beer that has the aromas to satisfy and the body to go down very smooth. A very good combo of raspberry and chocolate. If your looking for a rich, full stout with a nice bitter finish, look somewhere else. However, if your looking for a great kickback beer that pairs well with chocolates for lets Valentines Day, then this is your beer! Cheers!

Personal Rating: 6/10
Style Rating: 8/10
Wanna try it now? Order it online at: https://www.whitehorsewine.com/proddetail.php?prod=641455110298 

Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale

A Black IPA that actually delivers on its promise to be the best of both an IPA and a Stout! I was very skeptical before first trying this beer as every single Black IPA I have had was a complete disappointment (and I have had 12 beers of this style)

Stone is known for their focus on Hops and extreme beers. This was originally brewed as their 11th anniversary ale, but was so popular that they brought it back as a year round bomber.

When you first crack the cap a rush of hops hits your nose. It reminds me of Port Brewings Wipeout or Lagunitas Maximus IPA. It pours a nice two finger head with a black as night body. The taste is a perfect mix of hoppy IPA bitter citrus flavors and dark cocoa flavors that meld like a dissonant chord in a bittersweet symphony. A perfect beer for any season, it is light and refreshing enough for the hot summer weather but rich enough for the cold winter weather. Perfect for us hop heads looking for something slight different but still hoppy and delicious. Definitely the beat of both worlds! A must try!!

9/10 Personal Score
9/10 Style Score (Black IPA)

Port Brewing | Old Viscosity

Port Brewing's Old Viscosity, an "American Dark Strong Ale," that "blurs the boundaries of Porter, Stout, Old Ale, and Barleywines." This beer is brewed, and then there is a 20% addition of the same beer that has been aged in bourbon barrels.

For all intensive purposes, I consider this beer an Imperial Stout more than anything else… maybe a strong ale. But let's keep things simple, it's a stout!

Poured into a pint glass, Old Viscosity has a thick opaque black color with a huge four inches of caramel colored head. This stuff looks super thick, beads of beer are sliding through the foam on the sides of my glass. After the head recedes some, there is a lot of sticky lacing left.

The aroma is chock full of sweet boozy alcohol, dark fruit, and a nice whiff of bourbon. Dark chocolate, vanilla, leather, and hints of coffee also make their presence known.

The taste is boozy alcohol up front, sweet figs and plums, followed by a smoothing oak character (leather, cocoa, vanilla, charred wood). The finish has a noticeable hop bite with a roasted coffee flavor that lingers for quite a bit.

My god this is an insanely smooth beer. Sweet and boozy, full bodied and syrupy with a somewhat bitter finish. Port is really proving their worth as the new hot beer in town. They make great IPA's, as a San Diego brewer should, but Old Viscosity shows they aren't a one trick pony. My fridge is full of stouts right now, and this one blows them all away.

Personal 8.5/10
Style 9.5/10

Great Divide | Espresso Oak Aged Yeti

Espresso Oak Aged Yeti

Ahhh, the latest incarnation of Great Divide's famed creature, the YETI! Great Divide loves the Yeti, and rightfully so, has made the Yeti their claim to fame. There are currently six different versions of this beer, most being seasonal, and some being quite rare. Lets get a beanful of this one, the espresso oak aged variation. (yep, I really just said "beanful")

Poured into a pint glass from a 22oz bottle, this Yeti has got to be the thickest beer I've ever poured. It looks like melted chocolate flowing into my glass. Jet black in color with two fingers of brown foamy head. Excellent head retention, and lots of lacing are left after each sip.

The aroma is loaded with coffee/espresso, dark roasty malt, wet oak, and hints of alcohol. A good swirl releases moderate amounts of alcohol sweetness ranging from chocolate, dark fruit, and licorice.

The flavor is of smooth velvety chocolate and coffee with undertones of vanilla, oak, and sweet fruit. The finish has a lingering dark chocolate bitterness and perhaps a bitter hop character. It's baffling how smooth and rich this beer is. Definitely way too drinkable for it's own good; but I guess having the consistency of spent engine oil is only helping the cause. It's so sludgy that I bet it would cure a sore throat.

Granted, I haven't had KBS, CBS, or BCBS, regardless of that, this is definitely the best stout I've ever had. The regular Yeti is phenomenal on it's own, but the espresso and oak aging give it some serious oomph. Good lord is it delicious, and man is it squatchy.

Personal 10/10, for an Imperial Stout 10/10.

Terrapin Beer Company | Wake-n-Bake Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

Back to back Terrapin Beer Co. offerings tonight as we do another winter seasonal,  Wake-n-Bake Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout this one being part of the Monster Beer Tour.  The tour consists of four Imperial versions of various styles for each season.  Tons of hops, lots of flavor, and high alcohol content is the norm for these truly huge beers.  This is definitely my favorite out of the four.  Although there is one that I haven't tried, Hopzilla Imperial IPA, which will be joining the tour for 2012.  I'll be looking forward to that one...hopefully we will get it.

Wake-n-Bake was poured from a 12oz bottle into a Sam Adams Perfect Pint Glass.  It's black as night and a good inch of brown creamy head recedes quickly down to a thin layer.  More retention here than I saw from the Moo-Hoo.  That plume of effervescence is once again rising up to the top in the center of my glass.  As I swirl the beer there is a good amount of creamy lacing that sticks to the side rather than ooze down like it did with the Moo-Hoo.  

Wow, the aroma here is pretty much all dark roast coffee.  Alcohol is just slightly detectible as it is masked from the coffee smell.  They suggest jokingly that this would make a great beer to have with breakfast.  After smelling it I'm not sure that was actually a joke.  W-n-B is brewed with Jittery Joe's Coffee, a local Athens, Georgia gourmet Coffee company.  Wow, the intense coffee aromas make me wish Jittery Joe's was available in Jersey...guess I'll just have to settle for Wawa. 

As the first sip is taken, it is overwhelmingly coffee.  The coffee is almost so robust it could be compared to espresso with some alcohol taste.  Even though you can taste the alcohol,(this brew is 8.1%), it is hidden quite well by the intense coffee flavors.  On the back end you can taste the roasted malts and a slight dark chocolate taste as they complement the coffee taste quite well. This is a rich full bodied stout.  Very creamy and luscious as is goes down.  Great after taste as well.  An almost perfect representation of an Imperial Coffee Stout.  Don't miss this one as it will go fast!  Personal 9.0/10 and style 9.5/10.

Terrapin Beer Company | Moo-Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout

Terrapin Beer Company out of Athens, Georgia brings us a winter seasonal treat that for many of us is truly a favorite.  Moo-Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout is another sweet stout offering.  What sets this one apart from other brews such as Riverhorse Milk Stout and Southern Tier Double Milk Stout is that Moo-Hoo, as the name suggests, is brewed with chocolate nibs.  (Get it?  Moo-Hoo...Yoo-Hoo?)  Terrapin uses Olive and Sinclare gourmet chocolate nibs and shells along with lactose sugars to achieve a truly tasty treat.

Before we get into the beer review, just a quick word on Terrapin.  If you are a fan of Terrapin products you may have noticed for quite a while that the line has been pretty much non-existent in our area for quite some time.  Terrapin has been going through some financial issues that have actually led to part-ownership rights being sold to, cough cough, Miller-Coors brewing company.  A division of the mega brewer named Tenth and Blake Beer Co. has purchased less than 25% ownership of Terrapin.  This sounds bad but actually it will be quite beneficial to the growth of Terrapin.  Under the guidelines they will remain an independent brewery and will be bailed out of an all-encompassing debt that has kept them from brewing many of their specialty beers as well as over-all distribution.  A vast majority of Terrapin's production in recent months has only made it to the localized region around the brewery.  Now that they have been bailed out they will be able to expand their production capacity and hopefully their beers will be more readily available in our area.

 Ok, lets get started...Moo-Hoo (Poured into a Sam Adams perfect pint glass from a 12oz bottle), as you would expect from any quality stout pours a jet black color with half finger brownish head that quickly disappeared with a decent hazing left behind.  Nothing too special here but there is a small plume of bubbles still rising up in the center of my glass after about ten minutes...this is a good sign.  Good creamy lacing creeps down the sides of the glass.

The aromas rising trough the middle of my glass are of strong coffee and dark cocoa.  There is no alcohol content listed on the bottle, but it is slightly detectible in the smell.  Chocolatey roasted malts are also at the forefront here.  Just an over-all very pleasant aroma.

The taste is of sweet dark chocolate and robust coffee.  The lactose sugars and cocoa nibs blend together well with one offsetting the other to provide a balanced taste...not too sweet yet not too bitter either.  This works quite well.  The alcohol is detectible but not over-powering.  The roasted malts are there but are somewhat hidden behind the cocoa and the sugar.  Decent carbonation remains even though the head has completely disappeared by now.  With the mouth feel being on the lighter side, this is an easy-drinker compared to many other stouts.  This is a great stout that I always look forward to this time of year...and now that Terrapin has expansion plans I wont have to worry about not ever seeing it again.  Pick this one up before it's gone for another year.  Personal 8.5/10 and style 8/10.

Southern Tier | 2X Stout

Southern Tier 2X Stout...When we heard about this one we were definitely excited! Considering how good the Blackwater series is (Java Stout, Chokolat Stout, Oat Stout, ect.) it was probably a given that this brew would be another winner from Southern Tier Brewing. Where as the previously mentioned brews are only available in bombers, this new offering is in six packs.

This double stout is actually a milk stout or a cream\sweet stout. Milk stouts are brewed with lactose sugar which as you guessed is derived from milk. These sugars are unfermentable so during fermentation they remain in tact and add a sweetness and body to the finished product. Mmm sounds delicious.

So onto the beer. Poured from a 12 oz bottle into a pint glass. Dark as night as I can't see through it as I hold it up in front of the computer screen...just like it should be. After the pour about a half inch of brown froth was left behind which quickly disappeared after a short time with minimal lacing. I was really expecting more from the pour as the sides of my glass are pretty much clean.

What the pour lacks the aromas make up for...dark roasted malts, coffee, espresso and dark semi-sweet chocolate are easily detectible here. They do a good job of masking the higher alcohol content as this one comes in at 8%. Things are already looking up: even though the head didn't stick around for long, the aromas are still very strong and inviting.

As you would expect from a milk stout, this one is definitely on the sweet side but not too sweet. Think coffee with milk and a couple spoon fulls of sugar. The chocolatey roasted malts also shine through and are not over powered by the lactose sugar. For a double stout I find this one to be rather smooth and easy to drink. Not too thick but thick enough. Sweet but not too sweet. Although if you are looking for any bitterness as some stouts do have, you will not find it here as the lactose sugars hide any hints of bitterness quite well.

Out of curiosity I looked up the score on Beer Advocate and was surprised to see that it didn't score as high as I thought it would. I am most definitely enjoying this one a lot and feel that this is a more than solid representation of a milk stout. If you like stouts, regardless of the style, Southern Tier 2X Stout is a must try! Personal 9/10 and for a milk stout 8.5/10

River Horse | Oatmeal Milk Stout

River Horse Oatmeal Milk Stout... you might be saying to yourself right now, "what makes an oatmeal milk stout different from just a stout, or an imperial stout?" Well, (obviously) it's as simple as, this beer contains... you guessed it, OATMEAL. Brewers add oatmeal to the grain bill because it is known for creating a silky smooth mouthfeel and mild hints of sweetness. Next the "milk", which is an addition of unfermentable sugars, namely, lactose. Since the lactose sugars can't be fermented by the yeast, they essentially go straight to the bottle, making your stout nice and sweet. Now, lets drink this thing!

Poured into a pint glass from a 12oz. bottle, this stout is an opaque black color with a foamy tan colored head. Not much head on this beer, just about a cm or so, and tiny bits of lacing. The aroma is of dark roasted malts, with scents of sweet milk chocolate, lactose, oats, and the slightest hint of coffee.

The flavor starts smooth, sweet, and chocolatey. Hops start to kick in and add some bitterness to the flavors, giving it more of a dark chocolate taste. There is a lingering milk sugar sweetness from the lactose in the finish.

Wow, this is one smooth beer. Medium-full bodied with mild carbonation, and a full on silk mouthfeel. When you see those lame commercials about over-priced chocolate or yogurt or whatever and they keep saying "smooth, rich decadence" ooolala. Well.... River Horse Oatmeal Milk Stout is like that. Personal 8.5/10 For the style 9/10.

New Holland | The Poet Oatmeal Stout

New Holland The Poet, poured into a pint glass from a 12oz bottle, this stout is pitch black with a frothy, one-finger tan head. Chunky bits of lacing are stuck all around the glass. Excellent head retention.

The aroma is full of toasted oats, semi-sweet chocolate, coffee; all things typical of a well made stout. Chocolate and oats are the most dominant in the aroma, but hints of very slight alcohol and roasted dark malts are also present.

The flavor starts out slightly dry with coffee and chocolate mixing together, followed by a mellow toasted oat and sweeter chocolate finish. This is a great, and highly drinkable representation of an oatmeal stout. Slightly lower ABV and smooth/complex dark malts add to the mystique of "The Poet." This is a beer Edgar Allen Poe would appreciate. If you're looking for a good stout, without venturing into the high alcohol content of Imperial Stouts, do not pass this one up. We give this an 8 out of 10, based on the style, 8/10.