Brava starts beer tasting series

The chances for local beer lovers to taste more great beer seem to expanding all the time.

To that vein, Brava, in Lenox, hosted its first beer tasting this week. The restaurant plans to continue to host tastings each Wednesday from 5-7 p.m.

The Brava tastings will each feature a style for all five of the tastings and the first event featured stouts.

Double Stout from Green Flash Brewing, Mean Old Tom of the Maine Beer Company, Mokah from Southern Tier Brewing, Crème Brulée by Southern Tier Brewing and B.O.R.I.S The Crusher, the big Russian Imperial stout, from Hoppin’ Frog.

One of the beers that comes out and shines is the Mokah. The brew is made with Jamaican coffee and Belgian chocolate and comes out as full and amazing beer. The beer can be a real flavor overload – it sure is good – but it is a true dessert beer and one is probably all that you need or your palate is wrecked.

Joining it in the dessert beer and palate-wrecking category is the Crème Brulée. Again, this is a great beer if you can handle the sweetness. The scent is a rich, sweet stout with a fantastic vanilla aroma. For me, a small tasting glass is all I need, but if you enjoy sweeter brews it is a total homerun.

The Double Stout may be my favorite of the stouts they chose to pour. It instantly looks like a killer stout as it pours out black as oil, and the head has a great dark tan color. The flavor starts with a smooth dark chocolate note and builds boozy finish, leaving a hint of roasted grain in the after-taste.

All-in-all, the selection gave a good look at the stout style for newcomers and was diverse enough to possibly give even an experienced taster something new.

Next week sour ales will be the featured drink. The complete list is not out yet, but if asked, I would lobby for my favorite sour Goudenband  by Brouwerij Liefmans in Belgium. No matter what is on tap for the tasters it should be a great chance to learn more about this emerging style.

Posted by Kameron Z. Spaulding on November 8, 2012. Filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry