What's In My Glass: 9/4/11 and 9/5/11

After a night off on Saturday, I started my warm up for this weekend’s Beer Advocate Belgian Beer Fest on Sunday. First up was Sierra Nevada Ovila Saison. This is the second beer in their three beer run of Belgian abbey ales this year (with the possibility of other releases further on down the line). A few months ago they released a dubbel (which was a bit of a disappointment for me), and there will be a quad coming out before the end of the year. The saison, which served as my drink of choice during a fantasy football draft, was good, if not a bit rote. It was very dry, with herbal, lemon-citrus, and pepper notes. It was a well executed version of the style, but showed no imagination when the world of saison is fairly wide open. The word soulless is a bit harsh, but it was very paint by numbers.

Next up was a beer I was very much looking forward to, Deschutes Black Butte XXIII. Deschutes has a year round Black Butte Porter, and every year, starting with Black Butte XX, they’ve released a special imperial version as an anniversary ale. This year’s batch was brewed with cocoa nibs, orange peel, and chili peppers, and partially aged in bourbon barrels. I had the XXI version a few months ago, which was brewed with cocoa, and coffee, and underwent a similar partial barrel aged treatment, and loved it. This one was a bit of a miss for me though, at least right now. Fresh, everything went well together except for the orange peel, The citrusy, candied orange flavor both clashed with and covered over just about everything else. It was a case of a beer trying to do too much. With some age, the orange peel (along with the peppers) should fade, and I really liked the rest of this beer, so I may try to get some more to lay down for a while.

I led off tonight with a recent trade extra, Central Waters Bourbon Barrel Barleywine. I love a good barleywine, and aging it in barrels just kicks things up a notch. This one had the base beer shining through strong with notes of caramelized sugar and toffee, but the barrel influence was also apparent through vanilla and mild bourbon flavors. Beers like this are some of my favorite, full of flavor with a rich and luxuriant mouthfeel. This is the kind of beer I could settle into a chair with after dinner and just lose myself.

My nightcap tonight was my second bottle of Kern River Citra. I enjoyed my first bottle last week, but I think this one has a bigger impact since I haven’t had any other hoppy beers in the last couple days (whereas last week’s bottle came on the back end of a crazy hops run). Plenty of tropical fruit and citrus flavors, along with a nice hop bitterness bite in this one. This is just another IPA/Double IPA that makes me wish I lived in California.

There’ll probably be another post or two here during the week, but the blog will go dark for the weekend once I leave for Boston and the beer fest Friday morning. Expect the first bit of recap sometime on Monday, depending on exactly when I get home.