De Graal Tripel

Brouwerij DeGraal, Brakel, Belgium
25.4oz bottle, 9%abv

This is a great traditional Belgian Tripel. It pours quite pale in color, and very fizzy. The initially moderate head dissipates into a thin lingering foam that lasts the whole glass.

Nice mellow hop notes in the nose.

The appearance is deceiving, as it's quite rich and creamy, with lots of toasty biscuit flavors and some molasses-like notes I'm assuming come from some Belgian candi sugar.

Nice finish with a subtle lingering sweetness.

Another very tasty strong ale from the folks in Yurp. Highly recommended.

Hop Monkey IPA

Laurelwood Brewery, Portland, OR, USA
22oz bottle, abv not specified.

In an effort to purge the aroma and flavor that shall heretofore be referred to as "The brown ale that shant be named," I opened another birthday beer. Thankfully it's quite nice.

Aroma is initially intensely hoppy, but it dissipates quite quickly and settles down into "normally" hoppy.

Flavor is light and crisp, with subtle malt sweetness and nice hop flavor.

Finish is on the bitter side, but only slightly so. It's overall fairly balanced.

A very nice not-over-the-top IPA for the summer.

It's also quite good at purging horrible brown ale remnants from your palate, in case that's necessary.

Trader Joe's Mission Street Brown Ale

22oz bottle, 5.7%abv
Steinhaus Brewing, Paso Robles, CA. (I imagine on behalf of Trader Joe's).

This is not good.

I was hopeful that this would be decent, since I'm a huge Brown Ale fan, but this is just not good. Stay away from this beer.

It starts out really bad and gets slightly better as some of the nasty vegetable notes in the aroma dissipate, but that only brings it up to the "bad" standard.

Stay away.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that this was just a bad bottle that had been sitting around too long or something, but I'm not real hopeful. I'm also not willing to try it again to find out.

Ick.

I haven't dumped out a beer in a long time. I dumped about 20oz of this 22oz bottle down the drain. That should tell you all you need to know about this beer.

Have I mentioned that you should avoid this beer? Yes? Good.

Hopportunity Knocks

Caldera Brewing, Ashland, Oregon
Limited summer release, 22oz bottle, 6.8% abv

It was my birthday earlier this week and my mother-in-law got me a great selection of limited edition beers. This is the first of them. I've had a few beers from this brewery, but none in bottles -- they're one of the few good breweries that make beer in cans.
This one is a nice moderately strong hoppy ale.

Pours with very little head, and a reasonably potent hop nose.

Flavor is strongly hoppy which is no surprise considering the name. The variety of hops used do add an interesting spiciness.

Finish is solidly bitter, also no surprise.

Overall a good, strongly-hopped Northwest ale. Quite tasty and a nice refreshingly crisp beer for this nearly 100 degree summer day.

Pure Wit

Belgian style wheat beer brewed with spices.
4.5%abv
25.4oz bottle
Upright Brewing, Portland, Oregon

Pours straw colored with a big fluffy white head that lingers nicely before fading and leaving behind the appropriate "Belgian Lace" in the glass.

Aroma is subtle -- lightly sweet with very mild spice notes and no hop aroma.

Flavor is much more bold than the aroma, but is still light. A light sweetness is apparent along with a hint of fruit, but those are balanced by mild spice and some traditional Belgian funk and subtle sourness.

Mouthfeel is initially light and crisp, as expected from a beer of this strength, with a pleasant creaminess before the swallow. There is some noticeable astringency, and a pleasantly balanced finish with just the right amount of bitterness to refresh the palate and make you want another sip.

I'm not normally a wheat beer fan, but the Belgians, and their Oregon counterparts here, make Wit a very enjoyable style. An excellent summer beer from a local brewery I hadn't tried before.

Stone 14th Anniversary Imperial IPA

Stone Brewing, Escondido, CA
8.9%abv, 22oz bottle

This is pale gold in color, with a thick white head that dissipated fairly quickly.

Aroma is assertively hoppy, with some grassy notes.

Flavor is light and crisp, with subtle malt and lots of hops (which is not surprising from Stone).

Mouthfeel is quite light for the strength, with a strongly bitter finish.

The label says "Consume fresh or age in the hull of a seafaring vessel for a year or more." -- since I don't have a boat, I figured I'd stick with "consume fresh"... It's quite tasty now, but would likely mellow nicely if aged as suggested.

Drinking this while watching the DVRed British Formula One Grand Prix are my reward for running yet another half marathon this morning.

Both heads off

Now it's just a matter of cleaning everything up replacing all the gaskets and putting it all back together.

One head off

Driver's side head removed. Gasket was definitely unhappy.

Progress

Timing belt and intake manifold removed, can now proceed to the actual head removal.