Saturday, December 15, 2007

Young's Double Chocolate Stout and Peg Leg Imperial Stout

If you like the stouts featured last week, but are looking for more of an extreme experience, there are three stouts that I think are good for you. T tried an Oatmeal Stout, a Sweet Chocolate Stout, an Imperial Stout, and a recreation of a Scottish Seaweed Ale, while not technically a stout, fits in with these others quite nicely.

The oatmeal and chocolate stouts are both creations of Young & Co.'s Brewery in London. The Oatmeal Stout was brewed with oats to give in a nice, smooth feel and a slightly sweetened taste. Coming in at 5.4% ABV, the stout is a good one, but I'd rather have Young's Double Chocolate Stout.

This one clocks in at 5.2% ABV, and has a wonderful smooth and chocolate taste. The additional sugars counter the generally roasted malt character that gives stouts their signature taste, but not enough to eliminate it entirely.

I'll include the Peg Leg Russian Imperial Stout, brewed by Clipper City Brewery in Maryland. Right from the beginning, I could smells the malts and the alcohol. It tastes more smooth and with a more roasted malt flavor, the Peg Leg ends up being a very good stout. A good counterexample of what a stout can be; rather than sweet and chocolaty, it's malty and one can really taste the alcohol.

To wrap things up, I'm going to include a non-stout, but I think it is of the same family. When I saw a Kelpie Seaweed Ale at Beers of the World in Rochester, I knew that I had to try it, simply for the sake that it was made of seaweed. Upon further inspection, I learned that this Scottish Ale was brewed as the ancient Scottish brewed their ales, with their barley grown in seaweed beds. It gives it a distinctive, and hard to define, taste. It had a bitterness that resembled a good dark chocolate, but also some of the smooth and deep roasted malt flavors. Since it clocked in at 4.4% ABV, it is only fitting that it comes in a 500 mL bottle.

On a more pressing note for all microbrewery beer lovers, we will be facing a boost in prices for our microbrewery beers in the next couple of months. It is largely due to the fact that the recent increase in demand for corn ethanol is causing some farmers to grow corn rather than barley or hops, which in turn boosts the prices of these crops.

That means that there are less hops in the market, which means that some breweries may not be able to purchase the hops they have in the past, or at least not at the same prices as they have before. For us, the end result is a boost of about one dollar on a six pack of microbrewery beers. Now, that's not enough to cause massive disruption of our drinking habits. Those of us who like hoppy beers are not going to change our ways with a price boost like this. However, it does show how vulnerable our overall agricultural system is, and how a disruption in one sector has alter the prices and availability in another.

Next time: when skunked is good and when skunked is bad.

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