163. Blue Moon Agave Nectar Ale

Chalk this up as another beer that needed to be consumed as I was transitioning to the new home.  I tend to like Blue Moon offerings, so I figured that this one wouldn't be too bad.  

The beer was poured into a pilsner glass.  It had a yellow-orange color to it and was able to get about two fingers of head with a vigorous pour.  Low retention, and not a lot of lacing on the glass.  From an aroma standpoint, I didn't really detect much except for some light hops and the familiar aroma of wheat, along with some spice.

Oh man, this beer is bad.  Awful.  Let me preface what I said in the first paragraph, I tend to like Blue Moon offerings.  I don't know what this is.  It doesn't taste like Blue Moon.  It just doesn't taste good at all.  Tastes artificial, the aftertaste is awful, just a bad beer all around.  I mean, I'd rather have a Bud Light than this.  Chalk this one up as a drain pour.  As far as body goes, it was light bodied, with moderate carbonation.  Nothing else to say about this except that it gets the grand prize of being my first ever F.  Do not buy.  Maybe I got a bad batch, I don't know, but I don't care to try another to find out.

Grade: F

Price Paid: $1.66 (12 oz bottle)

143. New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale

Could you believe that I've never had Fat Tire from New Belgium until now?  Better believe it..!  New Belgium (http://www.newbelgium.com) might be out of Colorado, but they're one of the bigger craft breweries out there.  The Raleigh area was celebrating Triangle Restaurant Week.  It's one of those deals where some of the better restaurants in town offer a 3 course prix fixe menu for $20 or $30.  I went with some buddies to Sullivan's, which was participating in the promotion.  Why not have a beer to go with my meal?  The beer list was actually quite disappointing, and this was the one of the best of the bunch.  For those of you wondering, I had some cheesesteak egg rolls, a caesar salad, filet mignon with horseradish mashed potatoes and zucchini, and a key lime pie (yeah..restaurant week rules).  

I was provided with a bottle and a nifty looking pilsner glass.  I poured most of the contents in there and was pleased to see the amount of retention in the head and the amount of lacing in the glass.  I didn't expect to get such a nice "look".  My friend's Yuengling shared similar characteristics.  With the lighting, it was hard to get the right color, but since it's called an amber ale, I figured the color was amber.  The head color was egg-white, for those of you that were wondering.  Aromas of malt, bread, and light citrus.

The beer is what you expect from an amber, malt, caramel, the light citrus.  It was a little sweeter than I'd like.  As expected, the beer was light bodied with moderate carbonation.  This is a decent brew, but not a standout.  Still, it beats a Miller or Coors or Bud.  With its wide availability, this is a great gateway beer to the craft world.

Grade: C

Price Paid: $6.00 (12 oz bottle) (Yeah, what a ripoff..)

120. Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro

Milk..milk..!  So I finally got around to getting over my need to avoid dark beers and decided to go with something on the light side, something like Left Hand's milk stout nitro.  Left Hand is a brewery based out of Colorado (http://www.lefthandbrewing.com) and I had heard great things about this particular beer.  It's why I picked it up a few months back.

The dark chocolate colored brew was poured lightly into a stemless glass.  There was about a finger of light tan, everlasting head that comes with a nitro.  The aroma isn't all that complex, just some roasted malt and some light sugar, probably from the lactose.  

The taste was a little unexpected.  I expected the beer to be a little sweeter, but I found it to be more bitter than sweet.  The roasted bitterness comes through at the end.  If I wasn't paying attention, I would have missed the sweet part.  I was curious if the fact that I took so long to drink the beer caused the lactose to break down.  I thought the beer was a little light bodied and watery, but with plenty of carbonation.  Without the lactose kick, I thought the beer was incredibly average.  Maybe I took too long to drink it up, I don't know.  Still, based on first impressions, this was just an okay beer.  Do you think I'm wrong?  Was I actually drinking what was expected?  Let me know!

Grade: C

Price Paid: $2.40 (12 oz bottle) 

83. Twisted Pine Big Shot Espresso Stout

Alright, I'm writing this review in live time, with the beer right in front of me.  I decided to go through a bomber for a change, and I'm on the back half of it.  Brought to you by the good folks of Twisted Pine Brewing Company (http://www.twistedpinebrewing.com), I was looking forward to drinking some combination of coffee and beer.  I'm pretty sure I picked this one up at Bottle Revolution in Raleigh.

The beer poured a very dark brown to almost near black, with a finger of mocha head into a pilsner glass.  Solid retention, leaves small uniform splotches of lacing on the sides of the glass.  Good looking beer.  Aromas of roasted malt and coffee.  The coffee/espresso aroma is strong in this one, and any subtle aromas would be pretty hard to pick out, but I'm sure there's someone out there that can come up with 4 or 5 different aromas.

Tastes of coffee dominate the beer, with the malt as the base and some light notes of dark chocolate.  The beer finishes with a light bitterness that's just about right.  If it didn't have any bitterness, I certainly wouldn't complain..any more and I probably would.  Carbonation is medium to high, although the carbonation isn't as high in the bottom half of the bottle in comparison to the first.  Medium bodied with a slightly creamy mouthfeel.  If you like coffee and not much else, then this is a very good coffee.  If you're looking for more complex aromas and flavors, you'll probably be disappointed.  However, the beer lives up to its name and billing, so if you know what you want, and that's coffee and beer put together, then this'll work just fine for you.

Grade: B+

Price Paid: $5.99 (22 oz bomber)

23. Breckenridge Vanilla Porter

#5 of the create-a-six-pack from Lowes Foods, I snagged it based on the premise that I would get a vanilla porter.  For those of you that don't know, I tend to favor porters and stouts.   I was a little surprised to come across a beer from Colorado (http://www.breckbrew.com); I mean, I know they exist, but usually in the Coors Light variety.  Not that I'm complaining or anything.  Breckenridge is a ski slope, I believe, and there's probably some sort of connection there.

I remember the porter being a deep brown color with a tan head, maybe about a finger's worth.  Little lacing, gave me the impression that this porter would be on the thin side.  My nose could detect the vanilla, which gave me something to anticipate.  From a taste perspective, I found the porter to be average and had a difficult time picking up the vanilla.  Maybe it was because of the carbonation..this porter did have some pop behind it, which could have kept the other flavors from coming through.  Based on my scores for this six-pack, I'm starting to see a trend that I'm either really good at picking crap/average beer, or the store folks are smart in only putting average brews out as singles.  I'm pretty sure grocery stores aren't that clever, and I just have terrible taste.  I'll work to correct this in the future.

Grade: C

Price Paid: $1.50 (12 oz bottle)

10. Blue Moon Belgian White Ale

Number 10!  Woot!  We've gone into double digits baby!  All right, that's enough excitement for today.  If you haven't tried more than ten different types of beers, and you call yourself a beer drinker, then you have bigger problems (or horrible taste..there is no gray area here).

Blue Moon is one of those psuedo-craft beers.  By that, it says that it comes from the Blue Moon Brewing Company, (http://www.bluemoonbrewingcompany.com) but is owned by MillerCoors (those names sound familiar, right?).  Created at Coors Field of all places, the Belgian White is described as a witbier and is usually served with an orange slice (If you're a man, you pass on the orange slice).

My last experience with Blue Moon, I was in a sports bar, getting a pint with some vendors.  The beer itself has this hazy orange color to it, which makes it a darker witbier.  The witbiers that I have consumed in the past were even lighter colors than that.  Nevertheless, this beer is pretty good.  It tastes great on a hot day, very refreshing.  I'm itching to try the varieties that come in their seasonal 12 packs.  

Grade: B-

Price paid: $3.50 (Pint)