The First Sip, Hazelnut Brown Nectar, and Nigh Stalker

Bear Sorenson and myself holding up the Hazelnut Brown Nectar

 This is the first installment of the Barely Legal Beer Tasting. In this one I'm not very organized and barely have an idea of what I'm doing but we'll give it a shot. We didn't have any method to the two choices of beers that for this weeks tasting more than the bottles looked cool and I liked the companies.  I chose to try Rogue's Hazelnut Brown Nectar www.rogue.com/beers/hazelnut-brown.php  an English Brown Ale and a Imperial Stout by Goose Island appropriately called Night Stalker www.gooseisland.com/pages/night_stalker/94.php .

Hazelnut Brown Nectar

We started out with the Rogue first because we knew it would be lighter of the two beers. When tasting multiple beers especially of different styles its important to go from what you think would be the lighter of the beers to the darker ones. We poured the rogue into a couple of glasses that I had bought at Target for $13 that will serve as my beer glasses until I can afford something better. The color was typical of brown ales, hence the name it was a medium to dark brown in color with a light head that formed around the edge of the glass. The smell obviously had a very strong nutty smell, even more than previous browns that I had tried in the past. This could be from the actual use of hazelnut extract, where other browns just have nutty characteristics. The first sip doesn't really attack you with flavor just a calm sense of the maltiness and a slight bitterness. You can really taste the nuttiness or what we (my friend Bear and I) attributed to being nutty right in the middle of the tasting and it finishes with a strong malty flavor that lingers in the back of your pallet. Overall we enjoyed this beer and decided that it could be a beer we would drink regularly. It was fairly easy to drink although our two female friends sitting in with us Jenny Sorenson and Nella Thomas didn't quite think so. Maybe they aren't quite ready for craft beers yet.  

Night Stalker

The second beer was an imperial stout by Goose Island called Night Stalker. This was the first stout that Bear had ever tried and the definitely the first stout like this that I had tried. It like most stouts was very dark in color and a had a brown frothy head on it. We both decided that it smelled very chocolaty, like a dark German chocolate. The first sip was like a lightning bolt had came down and smacked us right in the mouth. As soon as this beer entered your mouth your pallet was assaulted with a bitter taste like not other. In the middle you get slight burnt taste and it finishes out sweet and smooth. This beer is a force to reckoned with, I was completely thrown back by this beer. It was more bitter than other stouts that I had tried before and definitely had a lot of different characteristics. Bear completely hated this beer, bad enough that he couldn't finish it. I didn't know how to take it, for me it was too bitter, but that is a matter of opinion. In all it was definitely not a beer you could drink on a Saturday night but one that would have to be appreciated like a fine wine with small tastings. See ya next time for the Barely Legal Beer Tasting [_]}