Saturday, February 11, 2012

Beer Review: NOLA Brewing/Stone Brewing Pour Me Somethin' Mistah


Hype Slang
n.

1. Excessive publicity and the ensuing commotion: the hype surrounding the murder trial.

2. Exaggerated or extravagant claims made especially in advertising or promotional material: "It is pure hype, a gigantic PR job" (Saturday Review).

Hype. It can be a really bad thing. We get so excited about something that we are chomping at the bit to get to it and no matter what we will always be let down. And it's our own fault. We are letting ourselves down.

I think that Pour Me Something Mistah has fallen prey to hype. My own to be exact. I think I went into this expecting WAY too much. It's not that this beer was bad but maybe my expectations were too high? Hell, when Jesus shows up to a beer release how do you NOT expect something to be mind blowing.


Jesus standing in line to get some Pour Me Somethin' Mistah

My first taste of the beer was just a kick to the taint. A friend standing behind me(not naming names)asked me my thoughts and I think I stammered a bit before just staring at him and shaking my head back and forth. I went outside and some other people(again no names) sampling the beer had the same reaction. We were all a little stunned. It just....wasn't that great. Not horrible mind you just not what we expected. Thankfully after the beer warmed up it DID get better. This is a beer that MUST be served at room temperature.

The Baton Rouge Krewe. Yes, that's Jay from Bite and Booze and Eric from Baton Rouge Beer Scene. And that dude with the mustache had the awesomest mustache ever.

But there is a moral(yes, a moral) to this story and it is to never expect too much. We can be excited about things but we need to remember that we can ruin shit by getting too excited. I think this clip from Tommy Boy sums up how we can get all excited and ruin shit.



We are all "blowing it" by letting hype overtake our senses. Perhaps if I had gone into drinking Abita's 25th Anniversary thinking it will taste like Budweiser I would have enjoyed it more. Maybe I should do that with all beers.

This is where being a blogger becomes difficult though. I know, I know, how can being a beer blogger be difficult. Free beer, free beer fest tickets, invites to celebrity only events, hanging with P. Diddy, threesomes with Victoria's Secret models. Yeah it can be awesome but it's tough too. I support ALL local craft breweries and I know a lot of the people that work for the breweries. It becomes personal then. I've hurt feelings and pissed people off. I hate it. I want to be everyones friend. And I will wrestle(just like I did with the Abita 25th Anniversary post)with the idea of not posting anything.

I know I'll catch some shit with this review. Some people will say I have a duty to craft beer and especially local craft beer to not be so opinionated and give people a break. I can't do that. I feel that I would be doing a disservice to not only my readers but the brewery themselves by lying. In the end it's just my opinion and my taste buds. You have to judge for yourself and not let me or even Jesus sway your opinion. Anyway my review is below:


Brewery: NOLA Brewing/ Stone Brewing

Beer: Pour Me Something Mistah

Style: Imperial Porter

ABV: ???

Louisiana Availability: VERY limited.

Appearance- Served in plastic cup(it's Mardi Gras). Poured a nice medium brown, ruby color. No head present(beer had been poured already and had been sitting due to how busy it was).

Smell- Slight smell of burnt malt, coffee, slight hoppiness(expected more since it is Stone) with hint of sweet molasses.

Taste- Very strong, sharp burnt malt flavor. Bordered on being acrid and astringent. I was not impressed after first taste. After letting it sit for about 10 minutes or so the flavors seem to balance out and the beer improved. The sweetness of the molasses balanced out the roasted malt flavor. Slight citric acidity from the satsuma peel. Hop presence seemed distant. I wanted(and expected) more hoppiness.

Mouthfeel- Medium body with medium carbonation.

Overall- I'll admit, although a good beer I was a little let down as were some others drinking it with me. Still awesome to have a collaboration brew with NOLA and Stone!!

Score: 3.5 out of 5 Buddhas Photobucket

Cheers!

The Beer Buddha

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I was wearing a pink bunny hat, did you see me? lol anyway, I agree with you about drinking it warm. You can taste the molasses and satsuma way better when it's warm and it's a lot less harsh. I'm excited about the next cask at Crown and Anchor, though! Sad I missed the Smoky Mary cask with bacon. :o(.

P.S. I loved the Vanilla Doubledog by Abita! Sad you didn't like it as much as I. I wanna try a float with it...

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the mustache shout out, it was nice to meet buddha and jesus in the same day.

Ryan.Tickle said...

Keep up the honest work. I was just reading in either Beer Advocate or Zymurgy that craft breweries too often receive ALL positive feedback. It's counterproductive and only encourages bad beer. The industry can't sacrifice quality for the sake of making everyone warm & fuzzy (or fizzy).

Unknown said...

Writing my review today and it'll be pretty similar. Kirk Coco said it was around 7.5% abv, FYI.

Anonymous said...

Haven't had a chance to sample yet but I am not expecting much. I love NOLA beers but Stone is one of those breweries that has a house flavor profile that pervades all their brews and creates a likeness. (Abita and Rogue are 2 others that suffer from this.)

Just hoping Stone hasn't ruined NOLA for me.

Anonymous said...

I still haven't had a chance to get to the Avenue to try this so I thought I'd check your blog to see if you reviewed it. Honestly, I was expecting you to glorify it as we all do with local beers. I'm glad you wrote something thoughtful and honest. Also, the pictures are nice for those of us who had to miss the release.