La Rulles + Brown's

Tried two new beers today.

At Nail Creek, I had a La Rulles seasonal (was it called summerfest?). La Rulles is a Belgian brewery about which I know precious little. Their website is charmingly translated, promising that the products will have "Passion, Quality, and Typicity." Good to know. There is no mention of this summer beer on their page or anywhere else I could find, but it's a delicious, quirky beer with very lively, vivid, lemon and pepper notes. I wonder if it's got grains of paradise or something in there. The lemoniness is striking, but not tart. A most enjoyable and offbeat beer. I should blog, before long, about Nail Creek's first batch of their own beer. Had a sample the other day and it was quite good, but I was without pen and paper. It's a big, malty dubbel, not too dark, with an interesting interplay of caramelly malt and a teasing little sourness. More anon.

The evening beer is less promising. Brown's Brewing in Troy, NY produces a whiskey barrel porter and I'm afraid I'm just not a fan. I had previously had one of their beers, at Nail Creek again, a fun, quaffable summer rye ale, or something like that. This porter is all out of whack though. The nose is full of vanilla from the barrels. The trouble is that the beer doesn't follow through. It's awfully light, closer to a deep brown ale than a porter, in my opinion. It'd be really interesting to transplant the whiskey nose onto a porter with some balls, say, Smuttynose Robust Porter. On this beer, it feels out of place. There's little body here at all and a base beer that might be alright on its own winds up feeling thin and mildly acrid. Oh well.

In other news, the brewery is a mess. Too many beers to make and not enough time. Will either brew something in a helter-skelter, messy environment tomorrow or will just keg a couple beers, specifically the Juniper Blonde and a Saison Framboise. Got shit to bottle too.

Still sipping: Seriously. Who the hell whiskey-barrels a light, session porter? It doesn't make sense...