4 hands prunus saison

Prunus is a sour cherry saison by 4 Hands. This year's version of Prunus by 4 Hands uses a different recipe to last year. Most notably, the addition on Brettanomyces C yeast. Before, this was a nice saison with flavors from the cherries coming through. With the addition of brett, this has rounded the beer out nicely. The cherry is still very present, but not overwhelming and the brett seems to have dried it out a bit in the finish. It's definitely worth seeking out and I'll be getting more of this in the future.

ode to berliner weisse

Ah, berliner weisse. This might be my favorite beer style of all in the summer. The other night, while grilling, I opened a Bayerischer Bahnhof Berliner Style Weisse. It's the first time I've had this one, but it definitely won't be the last. It's probably the most tart berliner that I've had to date, which is something I really enjoy. They aren't 'sours', but are tart enough, extremely refreshing and generally have low ABV's, making them perfect for the summer.
4 Hands released their Berliner last week, Prussia and I picked up a bottle at the brewery. Again, this is a great, refreshing beer at 3.5% ABV. It's not as tart as I would have hoped, but still a good representation of the style. They will be brewing a ruby red grapefruit version soon, which I am seriously looking forward to.
Two other St Louis breweries have also recently made Berliner's. Perennial's Tart Hopfentea is a collaboration with Hopleaf in Chicago and is brewed with a special tea blend. I had this a few weeks ago at their tap room. Refreshing, slightly tart with some tropical fruit flavors. I realize that with these descriptions I'm a bit of a broken record, but they hold true.
Ku'Damm by Urban Chestnut is another, more traditional Berliner. I won't describe it again, but you know the drill. The one thing all the local Berliners do have in common is that I wish they were more tart, like the Bayerischer. I'm very happy to be living in a place where local breweries are making beers outside of the normal realm.

stone ruinten ipa

RuinTen IPA is Stone's Ruination 10th Anniversary beer from last year brought back by popular demand. Stone holds a special place in my heart because their beers are such good value for money. Any one of their special releases would sell at twice the price and this is no exception. Having recently had Enjoy By a couple of times over the last few months, this is a very different animal. Enjoy By has a very vegetal hop  aroma and flavor, where as RuinTen has citrus in spades. It's pretty malty and a little as well, but that is offset by the sheer amount of hops used. I am a sucker for Citra hops and you can tell that they used them generously in the dry hopping of this beer. At 10.5% it's not something you want every day, but this is my third time having it from this years release and I love it. 

founders rübæus

Fruit beers that aren't sour aren't usually something I enjoy. This, however is an exception. Excellent raspberry flavors, a little sweet, but it finishes dry. A great, refreshing summer beer that at 5.7%, would be easy to have a few. It's a little on the pricey side and only comes in a four pack, but I'm guessing this is to offset the cost of the raspberry's in production. Definitely a beer worth trying.

sierra nevada bigfoot ale '09-'13 vertical

July 4th I opened the '09-'13 Bigfoot Ales. I have enough left to do a few more and was thinking of expanding it to 10 years, eventually. I'm not sure it's worth it, though. Between the 5 years there is enough variation that I don't think it would gain all the much form the extra time. It did provide a very nice gradient of flavors.
Starting with  the '09 there were a lot of raisin and toffee flavors, with just a hint of hops still peeking through. Trying the '13 immediately after this was a shock, the piney hops heavily contrasted with the almost non existent hops of the '09. The '11 fell right in the middle and the '10 and '12 did the same. Nothing unexpected, just a great example of how a beer can change with time.
At the end there was about an inch left in each bottle, so we made a cuvée of them all. This was really fantastic. The malt forward properties of the older vintages really shone through, but was tempered by the fresh hops of the later years. It was a great experiment and I can't wait until the next one.

4 hands bona fide elijah craig

I'm making an effort tom actually update this in a timely fashion and improve the quality of photographs used on here. This is the first post since I've had my tripod. There will undoubtedly be some shitty cell phone pics, but I'll try and keep those to a minimum.

Now to the beer. The Wine & Cheese Place has been selecting their own barrels from various whiskey distilleries for a while and have been passing them along to local St Louis breweries to age special release beers in. I have been lucky enough to try most of these so far and will definitely miss them when we move. This particular beer is from last year and was 4 Hands first foray into the program. They have since aged more Bona Fide in a Dry Fly Whiskey barrel, which I will write about as soon as I open it.
The first batch of Bona Fide (2012) was an extremely hoppy coffee and vanilla imperial stout, a combination that I really enjoyed. The barrel aged version gives it an extra dimension, again. Even after a year in the bottle, there is still a significant hop bite, with the coffee and barrel flavors following close behind. The vanilla comes out at the very end. This is a great beer, I just wish it wasn't so limited. This years Dry Fly version and the non-barrel aged version should be up here soon.