Boulevard Smokestack Collaboration #2 – White IPA

September 21, 2011September 21, 2011 ~ Ken Valley ~ Leave a comment

I had a chance to sample the Boulevard Smokestack Collaboration #2 – White IPA, a collaboration with the Deschutes Brewery in Oregon, over the weekend and I found it to be a great beer. Imagine a Belgian style wit beer with more hop bitterness.

At first sip, it definitely tasted like a witbier, with nice spicy fruitiness. As the beer hits the back of your tongue, it goes into more of the piney, herbal, stronger American hop flavor. The hop-forward flavor wasn’t overpowering, and balanced out nicely with the witbier spice and citrus notes.

Overall, I loved how the White IPA started like a wit but then finished with a nice and firm, but not overpowering, hop bitterness. It was a very good beer, and I hope this collaboration sticks around or happens again. It’s great to see breweries pushing styles out of the way to make a great beer.

Did you try the Collaboration #2? What did you think?

Deschutes Brewery Black Butte Porter

March 18, 2010April 16, 2010 ~ Ken Valley ~ Leave a comment

I recently had the pleasure of sampling the Black Butte Porter from Deschutes Brewery of Bend, Oregon. The Black Butte Porter is the flagship beer of the brewery, and after tasting, I can understand why.

It was a nice, smooth, rich porter with a nice chocolate flavor. There are usually two types of porters found in America: those that have a lot of hops, and those that don’t. The Black Butte is the latter, making it a delightful beer with low bitterness and smooth chocolaty goodness that I could see myself enjoying many of.

Have you tried Deschute’s Black Butte Porter? What did you think?