New Belgium Fat Tire, De Proef Signature Les Deux Brasseurs Ale (w/Jason Perkins), and Left Hand Oak Aged Imperial Stout
This would be my first beer from New Belgium. For a while now I’ve been looking forward to trying their beer. Fat Tire in particular. It’s pretty well known in the craft beer industry. But I’ve also heard from a few people that it’s really nothing special. Well that made me want to try it more honestly. So one day my girlfiend came home with a surprise. A bottle of Fat Tire. It’s not distributed here in Virginia but it is just one state away, North Carolina. She spotted it in a restaurant she was eating at. So later that night I vowed to solve the mystery that is Fat Tire! Ok so it really isn’t a mystery. Sadly the people were right, the beer just isn’t that great. But it’s not horrible either. What it is, is a easy drinking brew. First thing that came to my mind is that it’s a great beer to give to a person who wants to get into craft beers but isn’t quite ready to tackle those Imperial Stouts or Double IPAs.
Everything in this brew is small. The smell starts off with bready, biscuit like aromas followed by slight smell of floral citrus hops. Really nothing more. The taste is more of the same. Very small but enjoyable. Toasted bready malt with clean citrus hops. The mouthfeel is crisp and nicely carbonated. A great session beer. A beer you can really drink all night.
Found: Found in a restruant somewhere in North Carolina thanks to my girlfriend.
Price: No idea
Website: http://www.newbelgium.com
What the company says: Named in honor of our founder Jeff’s bike trip through Belgium, Fat Tire Amber Ale marks a turning point in the young electrical engineer’s home brewing. Belgian beers use a far broader palette of ingredients (fruits, spices, esoteric yeast strains) than German or English styles. Jeff found the Belgian approach freeing. Upon his return, Jeff created Fat Tire and Abbey Belgian Ale, (assuming Abbey would be his big gun). He and his wife, Kim traveled around sampling their homebrews to the public. Fat Tire’s appeal quickly became evident. People liked everything about it. Except the name. Fat Tire won fans is in its sense of balance: toasty, biscuit-like malt flavors coasting in equilibrium with hoppy freshness.
ABV%: 5.20%
Other beers to try from this brewery: First brew I’ve had from this brewery
Other beers to try within the same style: Troegs Nugget Nectar, Rogue Saint Rogue Red Ale
Rating: B-
For the second beer in this review we go to something a little more extreme. De Proef Signature Les Deux Brasseurs Ale. This is the second De Proef collabration beer I’ve had. The first one with Tomme Arthur from The Lost Abbey was amazing. This one is brewed with Jason Perkins from Allagash. This one matches the first collaboration beer and might be a tad bit better. Amazing stuff. The beer just pops with amazing taste and smell.
As soon as you pop the cork on this beer you’ll notice a little bit of a sourness to it. Not overpowering. This is followed by a good bit of funk. This would once again be the Brett doing its thing. But what really overtakes everything is the smell of green apples. I’m sure there are other fruits in this brew but the apples really made the smell for it. Put everything together and it’s just a lovely aroma. The taste is even better. What I didn’t pick up the smell was a nice woody, oak like smell but you do get that in the taste. There is also a nice small amount of tartness to go along with the sour vinegar like taste. The funk of the Brett also comes through nicely with the fantastic fruity taste. Once again the apples come through most. It’s a complex, fantastic taste. What also makes it so good is the mouthfeel. It’s smooth as silk and medium to full bodied. This brew is limited as it was brewed once but it’s totally worth the 17 dollars I paid for it and would easily put down the money again to have it.
Found: Grape and Gourmet, Virginia Beach, VA
Price: 17 dollars a bottle
Website: http://www.proefbrouwerij.com/
What the company says: Sorry folks, site is in a language I don’t understand.
ABV%: 8.50%
Other beers to try from this brewery: De Proef Reserve Signature Ale (w/ Tomme Aurthur), Allagash Odyssey
Other beers to try within the same style: Great Divide Hades Ale, Brooklyn Brewery Local 1
Rating: A+
I’ll get right to the point with this brew. If it wasn’t for those three little beers called Darkness, Darklord, and The Abyss, this stout would be in my top three favorite stouts out there. I thought it was that good. It’s a big, hearty beer and I wanted more of when the bottle was empty. At pour you get the smell of rich roasted malt, chocolate, vanilla, oak, and a good amount of hops. Very nice smell. The taste is just fantastic and gets even better as you let the beer warm up. The taste just becomes deeper. I noticed the hops in the smell but you’ll notice it even more in the taste. It gives a nice bitter taste to get along with the chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and roasted malt. The oaked taste comes through but is small. The bitterness of the hops overtakes it a bit. The beer is pitch black and pours a huge white head that leaves a ton of lacing. The mouthfeel is smooth and sticky. Medium bodied and goes down way to easy for a 10% abv beer. Dangerous and tasty.
Found: Grape and Gourmet, Virginia Beach, VA
Price: $10 dollars a bottle
Website: http://www.lefthandbrewing.com/
What the company says: Their site is in flash. No copy and paste here folks!
ABV%: 10.00%
Other beers to try from this brewery: Left Hand Deep Cover Brown Ale, Left Hand Oak Aged Widdershins Barleywine
Other beers to try within the same style: Founders Breakfast Stout, Dogfish Head World Wide Stout
Rating: A
“…a person who wants to get into craft beers but isn’t quite ready to tackle those Imperial Stouts or Double IPAs.”
Does everyone have to tackle them? Is it possible to like craft beer like Fat Tire and not like big black impies and whack-bitter DIPAs? You give a more fair review than many here, but judging the beer in the context of “everyone must love big beers” does it a separate injustice. I like me some big beers, but they aren’t for everyone, and they don’t need to be.
Lew,
I didn’t mean it that way. Maybe I worded it wrong. Never said I was a great writer. Heck I probably shouldn’t even have a blog =) Sure you can love a lot of craft beers that aren’t big, heck I do. I just meant it was a great way to get into craft beers. It has taste unlike alot of the crap out there.
Whoa, hey, no need to jump back that fast! Didn’t mean to smack ya. Just sensitive about that. My bro-in-law Curt, for instance, doesn’t like hops worth a damn. If I mention that, geeks practically condemn him as a pussy…but Curt likes hugely malty beers, lambics, sours, and always has Brooklyn Local One in his fridge (he had Brooklyn Black Ops in there the last time I visited, lucky bastard). It’s just…there are many kinds of craft beer, and many kinds of craft beer drinkes.
Drink on.
Hah I’m not snapping back at you at all. I totally agree there are tons of fantastic and different craft beer out there. Doesn’t need to a a big beer to be called a craft beer.
Yeah I think what dave is trying to say is that some people are afraid to try different craft beers because they think they are all really strong or “hop bombs”. I know that when I started getting into craft beers I absolutely hated hoppy beers, but now I LOVE them. It was a progression though and if it wasn’t for friends recommending beers for me to try I probably wouldn’t have the same appreciation for beer that I have today. So this would probably be one of those beers that would work well for those people that are timid to try something new.
That De Proef collaboration beer is great. However, it was with Jason Perkins of Allagash and your ‘other beers by this brewery’ lists Russian River beers! Just a nitpicky detail – I very much enjoyed the review.
Good catch Shea =) I copied and pasted from a templete. Doh going to change that right now.
I’m personally of the opinion that Fat Tire is generally over-rated. I think something about people not being able to get it in certain places makes them give it a higher status then it is worth. I’d probably put it where you did b-/c+. I don’t think it’s bad but they make much better stuff. Apropos to Lew’s comments, I think that people do get to the point that they want to tackle some of the bigger beers. Beer tastes, like any other tastes, change over time. But I do agree with the Lew that pushing people too hard too fast does nothing but ruin craft beer for them. God forbid we push someone back to Natural Light.
How does that Left Hand compare to the beer represented in the glass? I had that Stone’s Russian Imperial on tap at a place called the Rake in London about two weeks ago…wonderful.
Michael,
I really like Stones RIS. But I don’t know if it deserves all the hype it gets. A lot of people tell me the earlier versions were better. I wish I could go back and try. I still do like their stout though. Stone does nothing wrong in my book.
I heard so much with this beer.I haven’t taste this beer but it looks very good.Fat Tire won fans with its sense of balance toasty,biscuit-like malt flavors coasting in equilibrium with hoppy freshness.
If you will go to Belgium,you will always heard about fat tire beer.It really taste good and you will never forget how it was said to be an all around beer.
I love fat tire beer taste.A toasty,biscuit-like malt flavors coasting in equilibrium with hoppy freshness.I will never forget the first time i tasted this beer on the first vacation i had on Belgium last year.