By Greg B. Last week, I took my labmates down to the Perfect Pour in Elkridge MD for two separate events (Italian beer write-up already posted).  One was a Weyerbacher brewery tasting, where I really wanted to try their beers as well as get Gabi to try this double Simcoe, since I’ve slowly shifted her from tasteless beer to hoppy, flavorful beers.  I figured this would be the creme de la creme!  Below are the tasting reviews from me, as well as some comments from the girls.  I have to say right now,  Weyerbacher’s beer line I find to be absolutely excellent, right down the line.  We met with Bob Fauteux, their regional sales manager as he poured the beers.  He was extremely knowledgeable about the beers and happily answered any questions that we had about the brewery or the beer and ingredients.  If you get a chance to chat with him about beer, I’d say take it!

We started with the Merry Monks from Weyerbacher, a Belgian styled ale.  This beer has a lot of head on it, true to Belgian tradition.  It came with a very yeasty aroma which really opened up when you sip below the head on top.  It had a decent malt profile and was a bit sweet to the taste but not overly sweet, with a dry/alcohol flavor right at the end after you swallow.  This makes sense because the beer is 9.3% abv!  A very nice beer to sit down and enjoy one evening.

Next came the Blithering Idiot.   This is the Barley wine produced by Weyerbacher.  Normally, I am not a fan of barley wines, they tend to be too sweet and caramely and are just not enjoyable to sit down and drink.  This beer, however, has changed my tune.  It may not be my favorite beer, but this was one that I can really taste the complexity in.  11.1% abv, though it really hides the alcohol content and taste extremely well.  There was very minimal head on the pour but it had a beautiful reddish/ruby color.  I could taste malts but even some smokey-BBQ in there, which the girls agreed also was on the palate with a sweet finish.  A very interesting beer, one I wouldn’t drink all the time, but comes very recommended by me for you to give it a try!

We followed the blithering Idiot with Weyerbacher’s Pumpkin ale.   Let me also preface this by saying that I don’t like pumpkin ales.  Every year, they come out and they smell delicious, just like a pumpkin pie.  But upon sipping, they taste watery and none of the spice aroma converts to flavor.  Well, Weyerbacher has totally proven me wrong.  This beer has a very nice nutmeg aroma that emanated, with a small amount of head.  The flavor was excellent, I could taste pumpkin and spice at all points of contact with the beer.  The malts in the beer really helped balance out the excellent flavor with enough body to give it the uumph to say “hey, this is a pumpkin ale!” to my taste buds.  Small amount of head but a really great malt-nut-spice flavor after swallowing.. it just stays with you for a minute or two after each sip.  I highly recommend you go out and buy at least one of the 4-packs of this beer.  8.0% abv.

What could top such a great Pumpkin ale and a great beer?  I got lucky.  I next tried the Old Heathen.  Man what a beer!  This is my new favorite beer (until I try the Heresy… but I’ll get to that in a minute).  Coming in at 8.0% abv, this beer is one of the most versatile stouts I’ve come across in a long time.  It pairs great with just about any dessert you can think of… and now that I think of it, I cannot wait to try this beer with a cheesecake pairing.  With a very nice chocolatey aroma, not even chocolate malt but you get just straight up chocolate on the nose, a mild darker, almost oaky flavor with incredibly smooth taste and nice body with low carbonation… This beer goes extremely well by itself or paired with foods.  This beer comes extremely recommended by me, as I bought a 6-pack right there and finished it within a few days, using every excuse to pair it with a food item.  Go out and try it!  As for the Heresy… Weyerbacher takes the old Heathen and adds it to a bourbon barrel to age.  I look forward to trying this beer soon.  Very soon.

Whew.  Where can a brewery go from such high points?  We next tried their 13th anniversary ale, a Belgian stout a 13.6% abv imperial stout.  This was definitely enjoyable, but it is hard to follow up the old Heathen.  Yeasty aroma on the nose and on the taste, right at the finish, there is part of the taste of bananas!  Not real banana, but that creamy kind of flavor/texture.  Which make sense given the nice smooth body of this beer.  Low in carbonation, but still delicious.  Just be careful standing up after drinking a bottle of this, 13.6%  is nothing to sneeze at!

Now to the Hoppy beers, the reason I took Gabi and Mihyun down here.  We first tied their Hop Infusion, a beer which Weyerbacher ‘infuses’ 7 different types of hops!  This beer has a nice hoppy aroma, though not surprisingly I couldn’t smell any particular style of hop on the nose.  It was very refreshing to drink, slightly sweet mid taste with a mild bitter at the finish.  The refreshing aspect may also have been due in part to the extremely malty, dark beers we had just been trying.  I think Weyerbacher did a nice job balancing their malts with their hops in this case.

Finally, the piece de resistance: the Double Simcoe IPA.  I have saved this for last because I wanted Gabi to build up anticipation to it.  This beer has a really nice, strong Pine aroma emanating from the pour.  A good amount of head on top left me thinking when I buy a bottle for myself to try at home, it’ll keep the nice aroma intact for a while.  This beer also had a real malty mouthfeel, no doubt to balance the oils from the double simcoe hops!  Simcoe, for people new to hops, are basically a newer, uber-hop which produce just a ton of oils and alpha acids.  This beer was definitely more bitter than the Hop Infusion, had low carbonation in the mouth and a light bitter at the finish.  But that hoppy, pine aroma is hard to escape!  I have to say it is not my favorite IPA on the market, but I really like what they did with the hop/malt profiles.  It shows that they know what they are doing in crafting a beer.

Well, this unfortunately concluded my tasting of Weyerbacher’s beers.  I really look forward to trying different ones in the future, since I thoroughly enjoyed what they have produced.  And I really recommend their beers to just about anyone.  One criticism you may have if you are a hop-head or are a budding hop head (see the pun?) is that they do not focus on their hops enough in the pale ale or IPA.  That being said, I have to repeat that I really respect them for how they produce these beers, it shows a great understanding and knowledge of all of the ingredients being used and how they can and will work together.  Good work Weyerbacher!