Message to my readers and viewers...

Wassup everybody. Just wanted to let you guys know what was on the horizon. I will be settling into my new place in about 3 weeks and, hopefully, I will have a new HD camera so as to bring you kind folks better quality, beer related material. Expect a constant supply of new material to start showing up in mid-February.

I am now concentrating solely on video reviews but I plan to still post a text review every so often. I will, however, be posting every new video on this site as soon as it is uploaded. (You can thank the Google folks for that one, Blogger sites can now link automatically with youtube.)

As you may have noticed, I have re-vamped the site but it is still a work in progress, be patient, when I finish I will have all my reviews, video and text, accessible from the main page, along with whatever other quirky stuff I come up on.

I hope you all had a great holiday season and I wish you the best in 2011. As far as Hoggie is concerned, my goal is to keep bringing you guys quality beer reviews, info, recipes, and industry related news, as well as try to make youtube partner. So please, if you enjoy my videos make sure you subscribe to my channel on youtube.com, and make sure to comment and let me know if there is anything you would like to see.

I have about a dozen beers in the hopper just waiting to be reviewed, along with some other fun stuff (including another ice beer...), so stay tuned, there is a lot to come.

Thank you for your continued support. Take care and cheers!

Four Loko Cranberry Lemonade - Hoggie's Beer Review

After 130+ videos in 16 months of reviewing all kinds of beer, this, amazingly, is my most viewed review...

Harpoon Leviathan Imperial IPA

From the Harpoon Brewery comes this monstrous DIPA. 10% abv and it currently rates as an A- overall on beeradvocate.com. So, obviously, an IPA lover like myself had to check out Harpoon's latest offering.

I cracked it open and poured it into my new Palm tulip glass. It sure smells like a dipa...

The beer is a beautiful, clear amber color with a nice fingers worth of off-white ipa head. The nose is of fragrant piney, grassy hops over equally fragrant sweet malts with hints of caramel. There are also some ever so slight wiffs of alcohol in the nose.

The body is lighter than expected. The first sip goes down smoothly - a mild piney, and slightly citrusy, hop bite upfront followed by an almost light body of sweet malts. Upon swallowing, the hops make a return engagement and leave a floral, piney taste on the back of the tongue that is resinous but not overpowering. It is in the final swallow that one notices the 10% alcohol. It is not strong enough to distract from the taste or the overall enjoyment of the beer, but it is noticable to a seasoned palate.

I don't consider this beer exceptional but I do consider it very good. I will objectively call it a Glass FULL. I say objectively because I am not a fan of the bigger, and sweeter, imperial ipas. To me a malty ipa is a turn off. But this one, while having a strong malt presence, has a light enough body to make the malt sweetness and high alcohol seem less noticeable. As far as Harpoon beers go, this might be their best offering yet, in my humble opinion. Cheers!

Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse

I picked this up because I had heard a lot of great things about this beer. As the packaging clearly states, this is a Bavarian hefe-weisse imported from Munich. Even though Franziskaner is now part of the Spaten/Franziskaner/Louenbrau Group, which in turn is now owned by Inbev, Franziskaner's history dates back to the 1300's in Germany. Franziskaner means Franciscan and the name comes from the fact there was a monastary across the street from the original brewery.

This hefe pours a golden yellow color and it is hazy with a lot of carbonation. My pour gave me over an inch of fluffy, off-white hefe head. It had a very strong nose of spicy banana and clove, also earthy with hints of citrus.

The body is nearly medium with surprising effervescence. There is some carbonation up front, followed immediately by a sharp, hoppy bite from the noble hops. Hefes are light but the body of this beer has as much weight to it as a hefeweissen can have. The middle flows along the tongue bringing a in hints of wheat, fruit and a light sourness.

Easy to drink yet complex in flavor and character, this is not a hefe to take lightly. The combination of the lively natural carbonation and the tartness make it a very refreshing beer, yet the complexity of the flavors and the substantial body make this a beer than can be enjoyed anytime.

There is no freshness date and I can't help but wonder how fresh this beer is. I would love to try this beer fresh from the brewery someday. If it's this good like this then it must be amazing when fresh.

I have absolutely no reason not to call this beer a Glass FULL. Are there better hefes out there? Sure there are. But this is a great one and a classic from a very old brewery. A must for fans of the style. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Cheers!

Hercules Double IPA

I usually dont drink IPAs out of a snifter but I'm making an exception for this big brew from the Great Divide Brewing Co. in Colorado. The Hercules Double IPA is a 10% abv monster that currently rates an A- out of 1100 reviews on beeradvocate.com.

This bad boy pours a dark, orange-amber, almost copper color, with a big, frothy beige head.It is hazy and full of sediment.

The nose is a killer combo of aromatic citrus hops and caramel malt. The malt levels are up for this one. Malt sweetness mixes in with fruity notes from the hops - orange along with mango, pineapple and starfruit. Smells good.

When you taste it your tongue is greeted by an intense hop bite upfront followed by rich, malty sweetness across the middle. More hop bitterness appears in the finish- the oily, resinous kind.

This beer is almost as sweet as it is hoppy. I would say it's almost a 60/40 mix. Hercules is a hop-bomb with a sturdy malt backbone to make it incredibly balanced, almost too balanced for my taste. Although at 10% the alcohol is almost perfectly masked. If you didn't tell me this beer was 10% I would never guess a number so high. It drinks about as easy as a rich, high abv beer can. Yes, the complexity of the flavors and overall smoothness make it hard for me to complain.

Even though malty IPAs are not my cup of tea, I feel I would be cheating this Herculean brew if I gave it less than a Glass FULL. It is a tasty, solid, well made, strong-ass, hop bomb, and a MUST for any DIPA fan, even though I don't see myself picking it up again anytime soon.

In-Heat Wheat

Today we have the In-Heat Wheat, a Hefeweizen from the Flying Dog Brewing Company in Maryland and the second of four Flying Dog beers I will be reviewing. Of course, all four beers are courtesy of my friend Howard.

This one sure smells like a Hefe... hints of banana and clove with some vague hints of a spice I can't put my finger on. Typical of a Hefe, it is a hazy, unfiltered beer.

Surprisingly, it tastes hoppy. There are hints of lemon mixed in with those banana and clove notes from the nose. The banana sweetness from the yeast counteracts the citrus hop notes and gives it an odd flavor profile. I find it quite unbalanced. Refreshing, yes, but sharp and bitter and not very Hefe-like at all. More like a hoppy American wheat beer brewed with German yeast - the yeast gives it a slightly richer body but the combination is a bit off-putting.

Much like the Road Dog Porter, this is not a bad beer but it the flavors are not very balanced and it throws off the final product. Therefore, I consider this brew another weak Glass 1/2 FULL.

Road Dog Porter

The Road Dog Porter from the Flying Dog Brewery in Marland, one of four Flying Dog beers I was given by my buddy Howard.

It smells roasty. Subtle chocolate & roasted malt sweetness with hints of earthy hops underneath that remind me of a rain forest. It smells a bit light-bodied, though...

First taste impression is thin, bitter and sweet.

This beer is all over the place. It starts off thinner in the mouth than the color lets on, with mild, mellow roasted chocolate sweetness in the middle and a hoppy bitter finish. There are hints of cacao in the aftertaste along with a touch of hop resin.

This beer is confused. It wants to be hoppy but there isn't enough body to balance it out. It wants to be roasty and chocolaty but it is too thin and too hoppy. It's not a bad beer, it's tasty for sure, but I find it unbalanced. My significant other disagrees.

I'm not impressed. Weak Glass 1/2 FULL.