Beer Review: Lagunitas Maximus

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: 8.2 percent

Appearance: Maximus had a chroma of a very vivid orange/amber color. There was also a bit of sediment that stirred up as soon as I poured it. So, I'm not sure how long this sat in the cooler where I purchased the bottle. There also wasn't much carbonation at this point, but the bubbles did appear and slowly rise a little while after. The head was a bit volatile at first because the foam funneled over the rim of the glass, but once it settled it was fluffy and bright white. It was also quite sticky.

Smell: In the aroma department, this beer seemed very potent. There were generous amounts of both pine and resin. These two aspects seemed to drown out anything else that might have been present. The scents were on levels of sinus destruction for me, but this is a double IPA.

Taste: I was once again bombarded with the pine and resin flavors. Both of these were really intense for me. I thought for a second that a touch of sweetness was on the front tip of my tongue, but once again I couldn't tell entirely due to the intensity of the piney hop bitterness. This all lead to an intensely bitter aftertaste.  Still, everything did ease a bit as the beer warmed. The resin flavor actually drove itself to the forefront at this point which I enjoyed. This brew was also a very sticky experience. Lips, fingers and table top. Kind of like that annoying syrup bottle that we all have somewhere in our kitchen.

Overall Rating: 

I love the regular lineup by Lagfunitas, but I've been severely disappointed with two of their bolder offererings. It doesn't help that I'm not Mr. Imperial/Double either. Not exactly my thing. I don't want all hops. I want multiple aspects in a good beer. The stickiness of this also just made it more of an annoyance. This might be a hop head's delight, but I'll stick to the regular Lagunitas IPA.

Beer Review: Lagunitas Lucky 13

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: 8.65 percent

Appearance: Lucky 13 looked very much like a lucky beer (no pun intended) to have a vivid red color as this one did. It also had some orange-like highlights on the outer portions of the body. Overall, the body had a certain glisten to it. There was a foamy beige head of about two and a half inches that had amazing retention and web-like lacing. It eventually settled and remained at a quarter-inch layer of foam fueled by a ton of slowly rising carbonation bubbles.

Smell: I caught just a dash of caramel malt and that was the extent of what I got. Whatever else was present was heavily disguised by the intense hop aroma.

Taste: The taste profile sort of went in the same direction of the aroma. There was (once again) that dash of sweet caramel up front before a solid roasty profile. The hop bitterness seemed to dilute anything else that wanted to join in on the flavor party. This tasted more like an IPA than anything. This is supposed to be an imperial amber/red ale.

Overall Rating: 

I've become a big fan of the brews that come from this brewery. I was a bit disappointed with this. Just too many hops. Just intensely bitter. Not floral or citrusy. It's a beautiful-looking beer, though. Color glistened and the head was nice and foamy.

Beer Review: Lagunitas Undercover Investigation Shutdown Ale

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: 9.6 percent

Appearance: This oddly-named ale poured a reddish amber with darker mahogany highlights. I'm pretty sure that this is the first time I've typed mahogany in the appearance section on this blog. There was a decent amount of visible carbonation. Enough to give me an impression that I'd get a nice texture. The bubbles led to a white/beige colored head that left some solid web-like lacing inside the glass. There weren't any breaks in the lacing in the entirety of the way around the glass. This really fits the bill for a beer that looks like it belongs in the Lagunitas mason jar glass.

Smell: This was very sweet and sugary. It also seemed very deep and complex. I was surprised to not be picking up any of the high ABV as of this point. The layers seemed to hide it. The sweetness did seem to be a bit overbearing after a few sniffs. I get a bit queasy when things are as sweet as this was.

Taste: It wasn't a great start for me with this one. Two things I could initially tell you is that this was very hoppy and boozy. I had high hopes that the sweetness would balance this out, but that wasn't the case. The finish was very bold and bitter. The alcohol in the beer gave me a little stomach burn in addition to the heat it provided on the way down. Not too sure how I felt about each of those. A pretty intense flavor.

Overall Rating:

This was a bit of a struggle for me. I love how this beer looked. I'm still getting myself acquainted with strong ales and the intricacies of the style. I really think this is a case of me not knowing what to expect instead of the beer being bad. People do tend to enjoy this one from what I've read.

Beer Review: Lagunitas Pils

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: 6.20

Appearance: This beer had a golden color that was vivid and radiant. There was a finger's width of white and foamy head that appeared to have some slight sturdiness (and was almost soda-like), but eventually collapsed in on itself. Still an attractive site. Very fluffy and soft. Average lacing was left on the inside of the glass. Tons of bubbles danced around in this brew.

Smell: Just like a sweet Czech Pilsner should smell. It was very sweet and malty. There wasn't much hop presence, which I liked especially!

Taste: The flavor of the beer went much like the aroma began. It was very sweet on the front which eventually transpired into that biscuit and bitter finish. This was clean, crisp and amazingly refreshing. Still, there was a little bit of a hop bite on the finish that surprised me.

Overall Rating: 

This is definitely a winner. This adheres to the Czech style for he most part. Since this is from a west coast brewery, I wasn't totally surprised that a little hop bite was present. Even though I prefer the German style pilsners or a German Helles Lager, I think the Czech brews should be squarely focused on sweetness. I love Lagunitas, though!

Beer Review: Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: 7.5 percent

Appearance: This brew has a deep golden color with some blonde highlights. There was a ton of rising carbonation towards the top of the glass. It was almost as if the bubbles were fighting each other for space within the concoction. That assisted the tall, thick and frothy head that was a bright white color and left very thick lacing inside the glass. Let me say again that the lacing was quite thick just to emphasize the thickness. The bubbles in both the head and the lacing were pretty big and defining.

Smell: I didn't pick up anything too exotic. Mainly just hints of a citrusy orange and a large helping of floral hop notes.

Taste: The front half of my tongue was saturated with some pleasant citrus, wheat and yeast. That combination gave me tastes of both sweet and pale. The floral hops hit me on the finish. They were quite intense and made swallowing the beer a bit of a struggle, but thankfully it didn't linger in the aftertaste. The booziness of the beer also kicked in at this point. It was a few shades above that warm feeling you get and is sometimes enjoyable. It had a slight burning sensation to it.

Overall Rating: 

This is a quality beer and it comes from a quality brewer. Apologies for not having it in the Lagunitas mason jar glass. I only came into possessing the glass some time after drinking this beer. Everything went quite well for me with this except for the harshness of the hops and the alcohol content. This seemed to be hoppier and more boozy than the Lagunitas IPA which I love. I love the label on the bottle of this, too. I'm a big history geek. So, I love that Lagunitas sometimes haspin-up style images on its labels. Ones just like those painted on fuselages of World War II bombers.

The More You Know

There's just some things about craft breweries we follow and drink beer from. Take Lagunitas Brewing in Petaluma, California for example. I love the beer. I might even love the mason jar glass I got in a local trade a bit more.

Still, there's something about the brewery's sarcastic attitude. I'm not saying it's wrong. The brewery is free to portray itself in any way it feels fit. I used to follow it on Twitter, but  it got to the point that to where I was feeling that the tweets were in some kind of code. Not much of it made sense to me for whatever reason. I didn't have my decoder ring to get my Ovaltine ad. So, I just simply unfollowed. Not a big deal.

I get the same vibe from quite a few other breweries. I think that many craft breweries are a microcosm of a good portion of their following. It's just a generational thing. I think a lot of the generation that got into the craft movement is really outspoken. Again. not saying that's wrong. That's just what I've observed. Something like Twitter makes it easy for the outspoken ones to be...well, outspoken.

I guess sometimes things just boil over and get taken too far. That certainly isn't that first time that's happened in this country. If you don't have time to click and read the link, Rogue Ales had a very odd career posting to say the least.

I understand that the thing to do in craft beer is to go all-out with your brewing. In some cases, that makes the beer just taste odd to me. I've had a few instances with Rogue brews in my limited experience with beer. Really, really odd brews.

Beer Review: Lagunitas IPA

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: 6.2 percent

Appearance: Lagunitas IPA has a body that can be classified as anywhere between a darker blonde and a gold. There was a plethora of fizzy carbonation present. The bubbles seemed to rush towards the crown of the glass with speed close to that of a DeLorean reaching 88 MPH. The head of the brew had a thickness of approximately three inches, but it was soft and had many large bubbles that could be popped easily. The head did end up leaving lacing that was really thick inside my glass.

Smell: The most prevalent scent in the aroma that I picked up was sweet and sourness of grapefruit. There was also some malt present that was on par in terms of sweetness with the grapefruit. A noticeable hop character also found its way into my nostrils.

Taste: The malt and grapefruit somewhat dominated the taste of this beer. Both gave me a great combination of sweetness. The grapefruit didn't give off too sour of a taste. There was an actual fruity essence. It was just right. The finish was the explanation point on this one. There was a slight hop kick that was followed by a crackery taste. Surprisingly, the hops did not dominate this brew.

Overall Rating: 

I absolutely loved this. Lagunitas IPA might be the best IPA I've had. It wasn't completely full of hops, In fact, the hops worked well with all of the other fabulous flavors of this beer. I never once said to myself that I'd eventually want to purchase a case of an IPA. That changed the second I started drinking this one.

A Long Time Ago in a Brewery Far, Far Away

I sure hope you get the reference in the title I chose for this post. If you don't, we might have to have a sit down and watch a few of my favorite movies. It wasn't that long ago that Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Owner Sam Calagione went off on a few Beer Advocate message board geeks about overrated breweries.

Well, we have yet another edition of angry craft brewers as Lagunitas Brewing owner/founder Tony Magee had a bit of a Twitter tirade towards Miller Coors and A-B InBev earlier this week. You can read all about it over at Beer Pulse.

I love it when someone in a higher position makes their voices be heard sometimes, but I'm not totally sure Magee has anything to stand on with this one. Maybe it's just my opinion. Who knows?

I'm not totally sure the big-time American brewing corporations are completely against the smaller craft brewers anymore. I think that they are fully aware of how fast some of these breweries are growing in size and popularity and that they know they need to maintain somewhat of a good relationship with them. It could be that or you could say that maybe all of the recent purchases of breweries by the big boys might mean the exact opposite.

I'm certainly not an economic expert on the beer industry. That's for sure.

Seasonal Brews: Should They Be Year-Round Sellers?

An interesting link I came across over at Beer Street Journal announced an interesting anecdote as well as striking a chord in my mind. Beer Street Journal's news is that Lagunitas Brewing Company plans to implement its seasonal Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale into the year-round rotation.

The chord that was struck was a thought that maybe some other breweries should take the same approach with some of their own popular seasonal beers. I think that it's an interesting question. How would some of you hop heads out there enjoy having Bells Hopslam or Troegs Nugget Nectar all year long at your local drinking tavern?

I'm also interested in knowing if certain brewers have at least thought about a proposition as such. Would in be beneficial financially or would it make them take a hit?

I'm the type that appreciates and enjoys the wait for said beers. There's nothing like having a pumpkin ale during the fall or around Thanksgiving dinner. I'm sure some of you enjoy a good number of winter warmers aside the fireplace on nippy evenings. The problem in my eyes is that drinking either of those two styles on a hot day after work in the summer is somewhat pointless.

I can understand that some brewers are forced to only produce certain beers at certain times of the year due to ingredients such as ingredients, etc., but it's definitely an interesting proposition to consider.

I don't know of any other breweries in particular that decided to convert a popular seasonal beer into one that sells all year long, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a slight domino effect after reading this Lagunitas news.