Football, Maui CoCoNut Porter, and New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red

Another glorious day of college football was upon us and as I'm studying in my room my sister shouts to me, "Get a good beer ready so we can do our toast." Since she always calls up our friend in Florida to do a pre-USC game toast, for games that we are not at I must have a good (and preferably strong for her tastes) beer ready for action. Today I went for taste above potency and reached for a Maui CoCoNut Porter, a silver medal winner at this year's Great American Beer Fest in the specialty beer category. Having tasted it only once in a small sample I was pretty excited to get a larger glass of this. It comes in a 12oz can with live yeast, pours as a clear Coca Cola color though looks very dark in the glass. The smell is mostly roasty but has a certain creamy sweetness to it that I would not guess is coconut if I didn't know. The taste is much better if you let it warm up. If you attempt to drink it straight from the fridge it will be very roasty and mildly sweet with the coconut coming in only in the lingering aftertaste. As it warms up it all sort of blends together and becomes a sweet porter. Not too bad, but I actually prefer the Stone Smoked Porter w/ Vanilla more for a flavored porter. 3.9 on BA for the Coconut.

With USC wrapping up a 38-0 victory of Notre Dame in South Bend I decided to bring out a special beer for the family to celebrate with. That beer would be the New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red that I've been holding onto since summer. I poured this into champagne flutes and it received a "WOW" from everyone. My Dad said things like that ought to be illegal it was so good. It pours a dark red but shines vibrantly around the edges and when hit by light. The head makes a brief appearance and then leaves without a trace. This might be the easiest beer to describe of all time. The smell is sour cherry and the taste is sweet cherry pie filling with a very faint tartness to it. Not complicated but damn tasty. I scored it a 4.6 on BA.

(Family enjoying the last few minutes of the USC game with some New Glarus beer)