Our Tastes-- Peppermint Victory at Sea

 Peppermint VAS is BP's Imperial Porter on a touch of peppermint for that festive time of year. Still a solid 10% with their Caffee Calabria connection. Pours a great dark brown-ness topped with a marshmellow tan that gives way to a sweet malt nose tainted by mint. The swill is a perfect up front sweet malt followed by a peppermint coffee roast balance finishing on a roasted bitterness. Though now a buyout, I am a BP fan in that it doesn't seem to have lost any of it's QC. DFH, on the other hand, (of which I was a champion and still am to a certain degree) missed the QC part on initial sellout with regards to canning fo sho'! Brew on BP, I'll be looking for Barmy.

Our Tastes-- Rocket Republic Cosmic Cookie Oatmeal Brown Ale

Another Alfalfa Train "leg" from north of here. Cosmic Cookie did not disappoint. A 5.4% clear brown ale with a relatively basic composition to it's base recipe but the spices and flavoring are truly a work of art. For me the cinnamon was a more "true" cinnamon type of Cassia that seemed to be overdone to the point of almost metallic, but then the sugary oat flavors with a touch of raisin kicked in. No doubt a flavored beer but done so with a great first attempt and the right time of year as we close in on the 20s at night for the next week. Got a howler, but could've shared and killed a growler! Well done.

Our Tastes-- CandyBar Pinstripe Stout

Blue Pants makes an impressive coffee stout that they keep in production year round for the stout monster in you. However, CandyBar Pinstripe, much like their other flavored stouts is a quaffable year round dessert beer that boggled my mind! A decent malt bill in the stout itself followed by a wicked flavoring that makes you feel as though you're drinking a liquid Baby Ruth. At 8% and only in bombers this is a 2 pint deal and moving on. Nonetheless, I pick up a bottle occasionally just to have on hand;)

Our Tastes-- Lucille

Coming through for me once again, Junk provides a superb libation in Lucille! The scent of dark sugar and vanilla jumps all over your nose. A nice imperial stout in and of itself with a thinner body than I'd like but the hickory wood notes on this one make it truly excellent to me. Of course this is stout mouth season and I may have felt differently about it's profile during a sweltering August Hot Balls finish but this is almost perfection at 9.4% for me. I know part of the story behind this beer is the wood aging process where hickory, white ash and maple were all used (the woods from which bats are birthed plus birch and hickory fell out of favor a long time ago due to it's inherent weight). My only regret on this brew is not having a couple to age to see how well the wood aging transitions.

Brew Batch #88 Sittin' Session IPA

Wanting to revisit this recipe post-Siebel, I cranked it up on a sleet (snow in bound?) kind of day. The last batch just didn't have the profile I expected, so armed with better brewing and yeast pitch knowledge I hope to have this as a freshie in about 28 days. OG 1.052+0.000 @62F

Brew Batch #87 Pill Roller Pils

Into a keg for at least 3 weeks of cold conditioning today with FG 1.010+0.001 @67F to give a perfect 4.7%. Should be ready about first week of January for some deer pulling hydration. The swill is awesome with it's distinct Saaz notes. Been a long time since I had a Saaz heavy brew, really looking forward to this one.

Walk the Line on Barleywine 2017

Judging was this past Saturday and though Ikigai attained a 31.5 average, no medal was given. I knew this would be a tough one since only barleywines were being judged but I was looking more for the tasting notes. I did however notice a pattern, only 2 medals were given per category and much like Badger Brew a lot of either the sponsoring homebrew club members won or locals. But as a buddy told me, "eff" the mini BOS's if you get a medal great it's the commonality in the feedback you want. So overall, Ikigai sits at a solid 32. Time to tweak it a little and maybe enter the same ones next year? I'll sip on the QC bottles and let you know.....

Badger Brew 2017

Took place on 11/4 and Ikigai didn't fair as well as it did in the 2 previous comps. 169 total entries and I ended up with an average 26 from a Cicerone and a Recognized judge? The BJCP guy gave the higher score but the notes however were relatively the same and that's what I'm looking for. Alas, Walk the Line on Barleywine through the Dunnedin Brewer's Guild is the last one I'm entering before tweaking the recipe a bit. Those results should post in a few days.