Monday Beer Revie of The Week: Leinenkugel’s Creamy Dark Lager

Ultra Malty Lager with enough hops to taste bitter, yet smooth. This beer is no where close to a stout, but that is OK with me; defined taste, great smell, and powerful after taste, this is my favorite Leine’s brew to date!

Tasty out of the bottle, but even better in a mug. This beer is better slightly cool rather than cold; the flavors get lost when the brew is held below 40 degrees.

Drinkability: 8 out of 10
Flavor: 7 out of 10
Refreshness: 6 out of 10!!!
Smell: 8 out of 10
Price: $6.99 for a 6-pack, right on par for this type of beer; 8 out of 10
Overall: 8 out of 10. My personal favorite Leine’s brew to date!

Monday Beer Review of The Week: Leinenkugel’s Classic Amber Lager

Very smooth and caramelly, the most notable tastes are the malts. Exceptionally smooth, especially when drank from a frosty mug. Very well developed flavors with caramel and malted barley as the primary tastes. This amber lager TASTES like an ale; slightly more hoppy than malty, this beer is not bitter at all, yet crisp enough to be smooth and balanced. Malt to hop ratio – 60:40 malt.

Drinkability: 8 out of 10
Flavor: 8 out of 10
Refreshness: 7 out of 10
Smell: 8 out of 10
Price: $6.99 for a 6-pack, right on par for this type of beer; 8 out of 10
Overall: 8 out of 10.

Monday Beer Review Of The Week: Leinenkugel’s Red Lager

Nice, crisp flavor with strong hoppy notes. This beer actually tastes better out of the 12-oz long neck than from a frosty mug; bitter, yet smooth.

I can really taste the “red” AND the “lager” in Leinenkugel’s Red Lager. The malts are dominated by wheat, with some barley notes. Very drinkable… Clearly this is a lager. The taste is powerful on the front, and have a very light after taste. Very balanced.

Drinkability: 7 out of 10
Flavor: 6 out of 10
Refreshness: 8 out of 10!!!
Smell: 5 out of 10
Price: $6.99 for a 6-pack, right on par for this type of beer; 8 out of 10
Overall: 7 out of 10. Very balanced lager. Great for football.

Monday Beer Review Of The Week: Leinenkugel’s Fireside Nut Brown Ale

Nut brown ales: somewhere between a pale ale, amber ale, and porter, this style of brew is nice and malty and perfect for chilly-to-cold weather. Leinenkugel’s Fireside Nut Brown Ale is no different: Distinguished hazelnut malty ale with tastes of chocolate and caramel, this is a great late fall ale.

Light brown in color, which is the first thing one will notice when Fireside is poured into a beer mug, this ale has lots of autumn flavors, especially hazelnut and chestnuts… “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire….” (Thanks Frank!) Highly recommended drinking for anyone who likes the maltiness of a porter and the clarity of an amber; unlike English Nut Brown Ales (Sammy Smith makes the ultimate!) this ale is lighter with more caramel flavors. Perfect for drinking while raking the leaves

Drinkability: 8 out of 10
Flavor: 7 out of 10
Refreshness: 7 out of 10!!!
Smell: 7 out of 10
Price: $6.99 for a 6-pack, right on par for this type of ale; 8 out of 10
Overall: 7 out of 10. Leine’s is great, but doesn’t hold a light to Sammy Smith, but what can one say to a twist-top 12-oz compared to an English pint? There really isn’t a comparison. This is a great American ale that doesn’t try to compete against the English, but rather to re-invent the Nut Brown Ale for the good ol’ US of A.

Monday Beer Review Of The Week: Fuller’s London Porter

This week I am digging into my backlog of beer reviews for a posting, I am pulling out a very memorable beer. Fuller’s London Porter is reminiscent in flavor to that of its well-known style cousin Guinness. Fuller’s has a much deeper and rich flavor of coffee with a dark hopps bitter after taste. Akin to Guinness when Fuller’s is poured is offers a very dark almost black color, whose denser and heavier brew gives a very sweet aroma while poured. This ale is an excellent example of a porter style beer, the depth dark flavor, distinct foamy head make this beer one to remember. Honestly this isn’t a beer I would drink on a daily basis, it is simply too heavy for that and not intended to be, it is meant to be a beer that you sit around a pub or your mancave with “The Boys” watching a game.

Rating:
• Drinkability - 4 out of 5
• Flavor - 5 out of 5
• Refreshness - 3 out of 5
• Overall – 12 out of 15

Beer As Window To The Soul

My wife sent me a link to this article, What Your Taste in Beer Says About You; to be honest when I first read the title I was pretty skeptical about the topic of the article. However as I read on I actually found myself nodding and agreeing with the information written in. As a beer connoisseur, I find it interesting how our personality traits can actually draw us to the various styles of beer. This makes perfect sense when you think about. I would recommend that everyone who likes beer, should at least skim through this article and see if you agree with it or not.

Monday Beer Review Of The Week: Leffe Blond

Leffe is an excellent winter beer, though to be honest I think that most of the Belgium and Winter style beers are excellent for this time of the year. There is something about how the spices of the beer work together with the foods and cold air that is blowing through that makes these beers suited to the colder weather. Inbev’s Leffe is an “Abbey” Belgium beer once associated with the Notre Dame de Leffe which was founded back in 1152 in southern Belgium and was the local wild fruits and spices that gave this ale it distinct and unique flavor profile. Currently Leffe is bottled by Anheuser-Busch in the United States, but is produced at the Stella Artois brewery in Leuven. Leffe has tones that can be found in most Belgium Winter ales such as Hoegaarden, but with slightly less spicy character and a smooth wheat flavor. When you pour Leffe into a glass you a get the sweet and fruit tones that give your palate a distinct preview of the flavors to come. In summation, this is a great ale to keep around in the fall and winter months, it would be paired well with bowl of hearty soup or pasta.

Rating:
• Drinkability - 5 out of 5
• Flavor - 5 out of 5
• Refreshness - 4 out of 5
• Overall – 14 out of 15

Fresh Faces

We are looking for a few new contributors here at Wisdom of Beer. Contributors can help build any of our content areas; terminology, events, recipes, etc. We are especially interested in our readers that would like to write their own beer reviews and send them in to us. Those interested can contact us via email.

Monday Beer Review Of The Week: Fat Tire Amber Ale

There are some beers that I have tried that I know right away that I either love or hate, there are beers that I have tried that I am on the fence about… all of this is just the world of beer tasting. However, every now and then you run across a beer that has such an interesting and unique flavor profile that it changes while you are drinking it. Fat Tire is one of those beers, it first starts out with a pungent spiced taste that is almost like a stout, but with the slight spice of a lambic. As your drink it over the next minutes the flavor changes to a more classic white belgium ale. Most of the flavor of this beer comes from a very rich hopps body, with the background flavors giving the beer its distinct and unique characteristics. Fat Tire is also a very refreshing beer with a medium foamy head that gives a very nice aroma from the spiced flavor. This is now one of the beers that I am keeping in my refrigerator, hands down it is one of the most unique beers this reviewer has tried in a very long time.

Rating:
• Drinkability - 4 out of 5
• Flavor - 4 out of 5
• Refreshness - 4 out of 5
• Overall – 12 out of 15

Monday Beer Review Of The Week: Wacko

Wacko beet beer is definitely an interesting brew by Magic Hat Brewing Company. I am pretty open minded to new and weird beers, but this one pushes the boundary too far. While Wacko pours clear, it does have a slightly pink color, however the background beet flavor does something strange to the overall flavor of the beer. The beet flavor was enhanced with malt undertones, but this left Wacko with a confused flavor overall.  I am really wasn’t a fan of this beer, so I am going to keep this post short and sweet.

Rating:
• Drinkability - 1 out of 5
• Flavor - 1 out of 5
• Refreshness - 1 out of 5
• Overall – 3 out of 15