Liquid Solutions

I have some good news and some not so good news. Good News: The Russian River beers are finally in. Not So Good News: There is little to go around and the availability of these beers will bounce up and down as we receive short shipments until all of their production issues are worked out. Sorry for the out of stocks that I’m sure many of you are going to see but I figured something is better than nothing and if I can show more demand on this end it might help increase our shipment size in the future.

Deep golden with a bit of haze. The head pours thick and foamy. Its persistence is good and there is even a touch of lace. The aroma is of floral and resinous hops. The flavor has an oily, fruity hop note that is nectarine and pine with a tickle of caramel and nut in the malt. The finish has a good lingering bitterness but the main focus of this beer is the hop flavor. Not as bitter as many double IPAs but more flavorful than most. This is one of the heist rated double IPAs out there. I whish I had more of these to offer you so please bare with the inevitable “Out Of Stock”s we will see.

The “Blind Pig” is R.R.’s standard IPA. Even though it is aggressively bitter there is more than enough flavor to tie it all together very well. It pours a clear golden with a big dense head. The aroma is all out hops with enormous lemon, pine and tangy fruit. The flavor is bitter up front with a big pine and lemon flavor with some apricot, bergamot, and grapefruit thrown in. The finish is big, lingering hop bitter. This is an aggressive IPA but like I said the flavors tie together very well and make it a damn fine IPA.

This Belgian Pale pours a bright yellow with an enormous head that falls very slowly. The aroma is bread/cake in malt with a fruity banana ester. The flavor comes across a bit doughy up front with plenty of fruity pear, spicy pepper, with a light, bright tart hop finish. A very tasty, easy to drink Belgian style.

The “Earth Monk” is on its way!!!!!
After working very closely with the guys down at Shelton Brother’s Imports the De Struise Earth Monk will be shipping from Liquid Solutions as “THE” online retailer. We have a known quantity coming in so we are going to start taking orders now and will ship as soon as it hits the warehouse floor.

The product we are able to offer is a bottle of Earth Monk and a bottle Pannepot at a price of $22.00 for the pair. So if you enter a quantity of one in the cart will have one of the Earth Monk and one of the Pannepot. Due to the scarcity of both products there is a limit quantity of 3 per order.

“Earth Monk”
The Earth Monk being an Oud Bruin that pours a brownish red with a medium size head that has some good staying power. The aroma is woody with fruity cherry and a good spicy clove. The flavor is very tart and fruity with hit of grape, oak, cherries, vanilla, and it has malt of caramel and nut. The finish is of light hop and a dry tart lactic.

“Pannepot”
The Pannepot being a rich, strong, dark, Belgian style that pours with a massive meringue like head. Sweet fruity aromas that come across fig, pear with spicy notes of cinnamon and a whiff of licorice. The flavor is malty with a touch of sweetness; fig is a major flavor with brown sugar, and hints of chocolate and clove. Great creamy mouth feel and the 10% does not get in the way.

This premium offering is the first of what I hope is many to come from the collaboration between Liquid Solutions and Shelton Brothers Imports.

Cheers!!
Matt Maples

This smoked lager pours an amber yellow color with a thin but creamy head. The aroma is predominately smokey with an underlying pale malt. The flavor is lightly malt sweet with that great rauch malt smoke and a spicy herbal hop. The body is on the light side (which is nice) and the carbonation gives it a pillowy texture. So cook up some snitzel or a nice weissewurst and nock it back with this quite authentic German style Rauch.

This Weizen Bock is cloudy brown with a medium bubbly head. The aroma is chocolaty malt with yeasty banana and clove notes. The flavor is of roasty caramel, cherries, and wheat graininess. The lower carbonation gives it a smooth medium body.

Deep brown / mahogany in color with a thin tan head. This 9.5% Rauch Doppelbock comes with whiffs of fruit and a light roasted malt that is hidden behind the large rolling smoke aroma. The flavor has a grape plum hit up front with a chocolate and smoke finish.

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Its very dark amber color makes for a tan brownish head that is creamy and long lasting. The aroma is sweet with a fruity component along with a spicy citrus hop. The flavor is fruity with dark crystal and biscuit malts. The hops are there is a light drying giger quality.

Pours a very dark brown with three finger of rocky head. Huge roasted coffee, nuts and a trace of smoke in aroma Coffee and chocolate are in the flavor with an easy hop hit at the end. The body is smooth a touch slick. A great porter.

This beer has a deep brown with red highlights and a sticky, lacey head. The aroms is malty sweet with dried fruit and floral hops. The flavor is roasty with creamy chocolate and a tart fruity hop finish.

Hazy orange in color, this bottle conditioned pale pours with a dense off white head. The aroma wafts up hoppy with orange and flowers. A petite bready caramel malt flavor swims along side of a torrent of fruity hops that are tangerine, cumquat and a yeast ether of cherry. This is both unique and intriguing it is not your typical pale. A+

This beer is an American take on the Belgian Wit style. Golden in color with a fizzy head this beer has the orange coriander spiciness but without the free floating yeast (read filtered) or the cloudy unmalted wheat. What Kristal Weisse is to a Hefe Weisse; White Lighting is to a Wit. That is, all of the flavors are there and with it being filtered it makes the body light and the finish crisper and more refreshing. Not a classic Wit but it is even more refreshing on these warm summer days.

This Belgian Pale pours a peachy orange color with a massive foamy head. The aroma is candy sugar sweet with a massive, complex fruity character that is plum, ginger, peach, banana, and clove. The flavor is also fruity and spicy as above along with some caramel, cardamom, grapefruit hops and a rummy fruity finish.

This aromatic saison style brew pours a honey gold with a good head. The aroma is fruity pear with candy sugar, jasmine and spice. The flavor is of sweet ripe apple, dry earthiness and a peppery cinnamon finish. A very well put together saison.

[From the Importer]
With joy, and a little bit of mischief, Fantôme brewer Dany Prignon dedicates this very bitter beer to all of the many varieties of brise-bonbons - literally, ball-breakers - in the world. Specifically, this beer is meant for wise-guys, braggarts, pains-in-the-ass, muck-rakers, trouble-makers, know-it-alls, stuffed-shirts, blow-hards, and bores, as well as nut-cracking, wind-bag, prattling-on, self-appointed experts on every-thing, and nose-in-the-air snobs, convinced they can do anything better than you. Dany intended to make a beer too bitter for a normal person to enjoy. The problem is, everyone loves it! Guess we"re all just a bunch of brises-bonbons sometimes.
[From Me]
Ok this is one BITTER Belgian. Sure it is bitter for a Belgian beer but MY GOD it is bitter even for a NW beer. Over the top IPA style this baby has a bitterness that does not compare to anything else. I’m not too sure I can honestly say that it was enjoyable but it was one of those beers that you just keep sipping at and sipping at because it is so different and fascinating. One that keeps your attention and will not let you pull away. One that at least for me required sip after sip in order to analyze it as to what they did, what they put into it and where they were trying to go.

*** Pre-Sell ***
We will receive these in early September. We will not be receiving a lot of them so if the computer will not let you order it is because they are already spoken for. Maximum 6 per customer please. Below is the press release from the brewery.

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Deschutes Brewery Releases Wildest Brew Yet
(August 5, 2008 – Bend, OR) After much anticipation, Deschutes Brewery is proud to introduce its wildest brew yet – The Dissident. Arguing for more time in the cellar, this Reserve Series beer is anything but conventional. Fermented for more than 18 months in isolation from the rest of the beers, The Dissident is a distinctive Oud Bruin, Flanders-style brown ale, with a fruity aroma and flavor, the first wild yeast beer made by the award-winning Deschutes Brewery.
To give The Dissident its characteristic sour taste the brewery used a wild yeast strain called Brettanomyces (also known as Brett) during fermentation. Known throughout the wine world for creating earthy undertones found in many European wines, Brett is used in the beer fermentation process to create strong flavors typically associated with Belgian beers. Unlike English varieties that use traditional inoculated yeasts in the fermentation process, beers made with Brett take much longer to ferment and require additional barrel finishing time to balance the sour flavoring. In the Dissident’s case, this
meant aging a portion of it in pinot and cabernet barrels for over 3 months. Another key flavor component comes from the Central Washington cherries that were added twelve months ago.
Due to the wild yeast , The Dissident required special treatment and was held in isolation under lock and key apart from the rest of the brewery’s beers to avoid any cross-contamination. A secondary bottling line was also brought in from an outside contractor to facilitate The Dissident’s bottling and insure the beer and wild yeast never touched the brewery’s machinery.
With a beer this wild and truly unique, Deschutes needed a special label to alert consumers to what lay inside. The resulting image immediately sets The Dissident apart from the other Deschutes Brewery beers, even the Reserve Series beers.
The fruit and acidity in The Dissident make it ideal for pairing with a wide variety of dishes - the high acidity is perfect for cutting creamy dishes or cooling spicy ones. Because of the fruity characteristics derived from the cherries, the beer also pairs well with chocolate. Deschutes Brewery President and Founder Gary Fish recommends pairing the Dissident with “anything chocolate, the darker the better, soft cheeses like Brie and creamy dishes like spaghetti carbonara, or macaroni and cheese.”
A very limited amount of The Dissident will be available September 1st as part of the brewery’s Reserve Series in hand-waxed 22-ounce bottles...
11% Alcohol by Volume (ABV)
30 International Bitterness Units (IBU)

I’ll admit it is not the parting of the Red Sea, not the Seven Loaves and Fishes, it’s not even water into wine but it is a miracle none the less…. We have just received 10 more cases of Deschutes Black Butte Porter XX. I’m just as surprised as you are.
Cheers!!!!
Matt


Here is what the brewery has to say about it......

Black Butte XX is a tribute to Black Butte Porter, the revolutionary Deschutes Brewery beer that has excited beer enthusiasts since its release in 1988. This special Reserve Series brew is an extreme version of Black Butte Porter that the Deschutes brewers enhanced with several pounds Bellatazza coffee, Theo’s Chocolate cocoa nibs and by aging parts in Stranahan’s whiskey barrels. These regional partners from Bend, Seattle and Denver, respectively, each provide quality artisan ingredients that give this commemorative beer a truly handcrafted complexity.

This 12% wood aged brown ale pours a chocolate brown color with mahogany edges and a stick light brown head that falls to thin layer. The aroma is fig/prune with hints of wood and vanilla. The flavor is lightly roasty with chocolate, dark fruit, vanilla and a small earthy wood. I could see this beer aging well into the 5 to 10 year range. There are not many beers out there that I can say that about but this has the power, complexity and the aggressive malt profile that will stand the test of time. If you have the fortitude, wax dip a few of these and forget about them for 5 or 6 years, and see if I’m right. I know that’s what I plan to do. Below is the description from Dogfish Head…..

An unfiltered, unfettered, unprecedented brown ale aged in handmade wooden brewing vessels. The caramel and vanilla complexity unique to this beer comes from the exotic Paraguayan Palo Santo wood from which these tanks were crafted. Palo Santo means "holy tree" and it"s wood has been used in South American wine-making communities.

This beer is a 12% abv, highly roasty, and malty brown ale aged on the Palo Santo wood.

Whoa Mamma!!! This is everything a Belgian grand cru should be, that is strong - 11%, sweet, and a massive fruity ester. Tasting of figs, dark cherries and candied fruit. If you are a Belgo-phile like me you absolutely must get this one.

Wow!!!! Hops, hops, hops, hop, hops and more hops. This imperial IPA pours a rich gold with a touch of copper. The head is small and tight. The aroma is of floral and fruity hops. The flavor is of citrus and berry hop with a bitter mid pallet and a finish that is dry and MASSIVELY bitter. Needless to say it is all about the hops and all about the bitter. It is aptly named “Hop Czar” also see “Hop Emperor”, “Hop tyrant”, and “Hop Suzerian”.

This inky black brew pours brown around the edges with a tan head. The aroma is of dark roasted grain with licorice, espresso and dry dark cocoa. The flavor has coffee, creamy chocolate, and molasses. The mouthfeel is full and the finish is long and roasty with a touch of hop bitter.

This melomel pours a beautiful pink / purple color. The flavor is crisp lightly sweet and honey and fruity. The boysenberry is tasty but not overdone as the honey flavor is well balanced with the fruit. The body is lighter than many fruit meads, which makes it a highly refreshing melomel.

Hello to one and all!!!! The website is now routing correctly and in fact the performance is better than ever (knock on wood) so I do appreciate everyone’s patients and any orders placed should go smoothly. Things had turned around just in time to start taking order for the Stone “Vertical Epic 8.8.08”. I am hoping to get my shipment on 8.7.08 but it may turn out to be 8.14.08. Either way I will still get the same amount of product so we are going to start taking orders now and we will ship when it arrives. Product details are below.

Matt

Now taking orders for Stone’s “Vertical Epic 8.8.08” These should start shipping to you the second week in August. Below is the breweries description of this years offering.

The Stone 08.08.08 Vertical Epic Ale is a Strong Golden Belgian style ale highly hopped with American hops (Ahtanum, Amarillo and Simcoe). The beer pours pale golden with a thick and creamy white head of foam. The aroma is full of depth: nuances of pepper, clove, and banana from the Belgian yeast strain, and the resiny citrus notes from the American hops blend together nicely to provide a complex aromatic character. The taste is spicy, hoppy and fruity, with a very dry and a pleasant bitter end. The bitterness lingers nicely, and provides a refreshing finish that leads you to want to drink more and more of this beer!

Sorry folks but there seems to be some major routing issues at the company that hosts our website. The site has been up and down for the last couple of days and is still really flaky. Please hold tight and I will post another message when the issues have been resolved. I have done what I can (which only involved a lot of shouting and exclamation points) so now all we can do is wait.

Existing orders are being processes as normal and in fact they are getting an extra pair of hands back in shipping due to the fact that all of my job revolves around the website.

Hoping to be back up and running soon.

Matt Maples
President
Liquid Solutions Inc.