Saturday, November 23, 2013

A couple good beers, and cider

Rekorderlig Elderberry Cider. Did I spell that right? Okay, let's never mind that part. This cider is apparently quite the hit, and well, I think it's a good choice for the first drink I'm gonna look at in this article.

So why do I think it's a good first choice? Well, I don't know much about cider, or elderberry. And let's be honest here. It's not really my thing. However, my girlfriend loves it. It's a bit to sweet, and fruity for me. I like personality and depth in my drinks. While that can be interpreted a few ways, my interpretation of the depth of Rekorderlig is that it tastes like those various pricy juices that come in champagne bottles. Which are great in there own right. I guess in some sense, even greater if you add a decent ABV. 


So it's a 7% alcohol content variation of mock champagne. If that's your thing, try it out - you'll probably like it. As they say, it's apparently a hit.

Moving down the list to fruit flavoured craft ale is Longwood Breweries Berried Alive. It's a wheat ale, that's double fermented with raspberries. It's a nice touch from your typical flavoured beers, which are only fermented once, adding flavoured extract. This double fermentation is however, a return to older styles of brewing as craft beers start to make a nice dent in the beer market.

So I'll compare it to a more popular, and local microbrewery's raspberry ale: Granville Island. So the verdict is that it has a stronger raspberry flavour, but does it taste better? In a word. Yes. In a few words... Yes, yes, YES! In this barteder's opinion, Longwood found a better match in choosing a less hoppy blond ale to pair the tart flavor of raspberry with, than Granville Island's choice of using the hoppier, and maltier pale ale. The tart flavor works quite well with the less bitter blond, enabling more raspberry notes to come out for the overall flavour of the beer.


Then there's Ligjtouse's Dark Chocolate Porter. Oh, where to begin! Well, let's start with delightful. The flavor is indeed delightful, having a strong chocolate finish on top of a slightly bitter, crisp porter. The downside here, is that its likely not what you're expecting. The bitter flavor seems to be more of a derivative of the porter, than the cocoa of choice - the result is that it seems more like you had a drink of a regular porter with some chocolate in your mouth.

Okay okay, that description is perhaps a little unjustified, and perhaps makes it sound worse than it is. But I mean think about it. Don't you think you'd like the taste of a nice dark porter, followed with the taste of chocolate? Maybe not, but hopefully so. We've seen dark beers mix well with chocolate before (umm, Guinness cupcakes anyone? Hellooo). And out of the three drinks I tried this evening, I'd rank this as the best. And following the Berried Alive review, that's gotta mean something.

No comments:

Post a Comment

 
blogger widget