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Posts Tagged ‘Founders Brewing Company’

Founders Dirty Bastard

Posted in Beer, tagged , , , , on November 1, 2011 | 2 Comments »

In celebration of the perfect fall beer and the fact that KU’s basketball season starts tonight (nominally, anyway – ’tis the first exhibition game, during which my team will warm up by trouncing Pitt State*)(ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK, BABY), I’m forcing myself to find the energy to tell you all of a wonderful beer which many of you have had and many more of you should.

Basic Info:
Name: Dirty Bastard**
Origin: Founders Brewing, Grand Rapids, MI
Style: Scotch Ale/Wee Heavy
ABV: 8.5%
IBU: 50
I drank this: flopped at home. I like flopping.

The obligatory crap photo, which does not at all do justice to the color of the beer, which is a warm, coppery caramel color:

The beer has a caramelly-malty smell, heavy and rich and almost nutty. There’s almost a hint of dark fruits in the background. The alcohol is well-hidden in the nose – smelling it, I wouldn’t guess this was a high-octane beer.

Flavor-wise, it starts with a hit of dark, raisiny fruit, followed quickly by nutty malts, caramel, a bite of hops (without a particularly strong or bitter hop flavor), a touch of alcohol, and the slightest hint of yeast. The hops provide a balance to the strong maltiness without giving the beer a bitter taste – they prevent the beer from becoming overly sweet (despite the fact that the only words I can find to describe it should make it sound pretty sugary). It’s like the hops provide a structure for the malts to play around in, so that things stay balanced without straying from the character of a Wee Heavy (the way I appreciate malts in superhoppy beers for the backbone they provide the hops to stand on). The mouthfeel is rich and thick, more in a creamy way than a syrupy or velvety way.

For a Scotch Ale, this is just about perfect. The only beer in this style *possibly* more perfect is a Founders Backwoods Bastard, which clocks in closer to 10.5% and which is, for me at least, emphatically a one-beer type of thing (“one beer” as in “two would have me under the table and counting ceiling tiles). If you can find some near you, grab it. I had to trek to Missouri to get some. It was worth it.

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*for those of you not from Kansas, I want to make it clear that I’m not talking about the University of Pittsburgh (i.e., Pitt, i.e., my husband’s alma mater, i.e. a real basketball opponent. Pitt State is a tiny school in tinier Pittsburg, KS, and while it’s a lovely school and a lovely town filled with lovely people (I know a veritable shit ton of people who went there in pursuit of music degrees of varying types), their basketball team is going to lose. Badly.
**please note: whenever “bastard” appears in the name of a beer, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be flipping amazing. Just saying.

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Founders KBS

Posted in Beer, tagged , , , , , , on April 8, 2011 | 4 Comments »

I found it! *insert frolicking unicorns in a butterfly sunshine field of flowers here*

Seriously, I didn’t think KBS was going to happen for me until next year at the earliest. I was working on KBS release day, and the day after, and so on, meaning that there was no way I was going to be able to high-tail it into Missouri for any. This made me very sad, but what could I do? To be honest, I sort of figured I’d used up my Rare Beer Finding Power when I managed to get ahold of Boulevard Chocolate Ale.*

Anyway, yesterday was National Beer Day. I decided to drag husband and brother out to Waldo Pizza, since they’ve got A+ pizza and a fantastic tap and bottle selection. Plus, you know, it’s in Missouri instead of Kansas, so I figured I’d be able to get something fun. And I did – they had Founders Double Trouble on tap (review to come probably tomorrow), so I was happily slurping my way through that when I saw that they had bottles of KBS. I grabbed one before my brain could process what the combination of an Imperial IPA and an Imperial Stout would do to my ability to remain headache-free later in the evening. BUT IT WAS WORTH IT. I mean, it’s not like I was going to turn it down even had I processed the headache potential for later on.

Here it is. Isn’t it beautiful and inky black and lovely?

Basic Info:
Name: Kentucky Breakfast Stout – usually abbreviated to KBS
Origin: Founders Brewing Co., Grand Rapids, MI
Style: American Imperial/Double Stout (Barrel Aged)
ABV: 11.2%
IBU: 70
I drank this: bottle pour at Waldo Pizza, KCMO

I’ll start with the copy on the label. It proclaims:
“DOES NOT PROVIDE RELIEF FROM: rheumatism, neuralgia, sciatica, lame back, lumbago, contracted muscles, toothache, sprains, swellings, and all manner of distress.
IS GOOD FOR EVERYTHING A STOUT OUGHT TO BE GOOD FOR”

And it totally is good for everything a stout ought to be good for. It’s bloody amazing, it is. Proof: here is me when I got my first whiff of it:

Dude, I was happy.

Anyway. It smells like chocolate and bourbon and oak and roasted malts and oatmeal and other things that were summed up in my notes with a few choice swear words, because I couldn’t think clearly enough to come up with anything else. It’s beautiful. Like, rainbows poking around giant stormclouds beautiful.

The flavor is full and round and complex and so much more than mere barrel-aged Breakfast Stout. It’s filled with milk and bittersweet chocolate flavors, bourbon, black coffee, and oat, with touches floating around of bourbon, vanilla, smoke, and cream. The hops and the alcohol are slightly bitey, slightly sharp, but in a pleasant happy way that adds to the overall symphony. And it’s heavy, creamy, and smooth. Bonus: the aftertaste is like Hershey’s Kisses.

Most of my notes from then on out are profanity-laced exclamations of joy and rapture.

To sum up: if there is a heaven, KBS will be on tap there. This beer is Founders’ Crowning Moment of Awesome.

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*Note to non-Kansas Citians: the madness surrounding Boulevard Chocolate Ale out here is beyond anything I’ve ever seen in my life. Here’s my recap.
Note to Kansas Citians and anyone else not totally involved in the beer world: KBS has been, so far, the most highly anticipated beer this year. Quite a bit of madness surrounding it as well, but in the subdued, everyone’s cool-type way that beer folk generally have.

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Founders Breakfast Stout

Posted in Beer, tagged , , , , , , , on November 23, 2010 | 3 Comments »

People, this beer is one of the all-time greats. Founders has become one of my favorite breweries over the last year or so, and this stout is a major reason why. It’s flawless. Just. Flawless.

Basic Info:
Name: Breakfast Stout
Origin: Founders Brewing Company
Style: American Imperial Stout
ABV: 8.3%
IBU: not listed
I drank this: on tap at Waldo Pizza, Kansas City. If you live in the area and haven’t trucked on over there yet, GO. Good pizza, flipping phenomenal tap list with lots and lots of fun beers.

Q: So what makes Founders call this a Breakfast Stout, as though the concept of beer for breakfast could be a good idea even on days when one isn’t out tailgating?
A: It’s a coffee chocolate oatmeal stout. Like it’s the beer equivalent of a bowl of oatmeal and a mocha. But even better.

This beer is thick. Not like motor oil, Dark Truth/Old Rasputin-thick. But thick enough to warrant the description. It’s slightly foamy and creamy. It’s pitch ebony jet black with a mocha-colored head. PRETTY. It smells like coffee grounds – specifically, it’s that awesomesauce amazing smell that comes when you walk into a coffee specialty shop – warm and coffee-like and amazing and slightly sweet and all that good stuff. There’s a slight hint of chocolate in the background as well.

To really love this beer, you *really* need to like coffee. I do, so I’m good. The first taste is very strongly of espresso, followed immediately by a sweeter, thicker, more mocha-like coffee-chocolate flavor, followed by something that is best described as chocolate-oatmeal, followed by mocha. The aftertaste is pure mocha, like a mocha that’s been made with an extremely bittersweet, rich chocolate. Like the best mocha I’ve ever had.

It’s a warming beer as well, due to the alcohol content. I don’t notice the alcohol at all until after I’ve swallowed it – then I can feel it warming me up all the way through my digestive track. It’s a comforting happy feeling.

People, this beer. It’s amazing. Haul yourselves out and have some.

Note: if you are someone who has issues with being kept awake at night by caffeine, you may want to consider not drinking this stout past a certain time of day (whatever works for you). The coffee in this stout helped keep me up past 3am last night, a good solid hour/hour and a half later than my usual pass out time.

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Founders Black Biscuit

Posted in Beer, tagged , , , , , on September 16, 2010 | 2 Comments »

This is one of those beers that made me really excited when I got to have it.  Founders never lets me down.

Basic Info:
Name: Black Biscuit
Origin: Founder’s Brewing Company, Grand Rapids, MI
Style: Old Ale/Baltic Porter
ABV: 10.5%.  This beer is not messing around.
IBU: not given
I drank this: on tap at Flying Saucers, Kansas City, MO

This beer is as black as pitch with a thin layer of dense creamy foam.  It smells of chocolate and coffee and sweet, sweet alcohol. 

Given the really high ABV on this sucker, the alcohol note in the nose shouldn’t surprise me.  I have to say I was shocked by how high the alcohol level actually is in this beer – I was guessing high, but the alcohol flavor blends in so well with the others that I wouldn’t have thought it was over 8%.  Beers over 10% usually get overwhelmingly boozy.  The Black Biscuit wasn’t boozy-heavy.  It was just awesome.

In the world of flavor, this is a sweet, thick, honeyed milk chocolate malt flavor, with hints of dark bread and biscuits.  There’s a sweet alcohol burn in the aftertaste, the one moment when I should have been able to clue in how strong this beer is.  The aftertaste also has some hints of some kind of wood, maybe bourbon barrel or oak or something.  It’s complex, to say the least.

Founders has rapidly become one of my favorite breweries and has managed, thus far, not to disappoint me (the brewery motto should be “Founders: making life in Michigan more bearable with every beer).  This beer is no exception – thick, rich, dark, and complex.  Definitely a must-try.  And probably, given the almost-barleywine-level ABV, a must-have-only-one (per evening).  Good, good stuff.

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