Bolero Snort Round 3 Oak-Aged Longhop

Oak-Aged Longhop
Bolero Snort Brewery
Bergen County, New Jersey
IPA aged in Grand Marnier barrels
6.6% ABV
Tasted in my new IKEA brandy snifter

     I won't start this review by rehashing my comments of the original Bolero Snort Longhop.  You can read that review here.  What I will do is compare the two. 
     First, this is not just an oak-aged version of a beer that took on a little oak flavor.  This is an oak-aged version of a beer that morphed into an entirely unique beast.  In the adult fridge of OJ, some purple stuff, and Sunny D, this is what Sunny D wishes it could be.  This beer has a strong citrus flavor, which is not unique to beers.  Most West Coast IPA's are loaded with citrus.  The uniqueness of this beer comes from the citrus being overwhelmingly oranges.  Grand Marnier as we all know is an orange liqueur.  And if you didn't know that, you would after your first sip of Oak-Aged Longhop.  My nice big glass allowed all the hoppy orange aroma to swirl around and float right up my nostrils down the nasal cavity and right into my brain.  My sweet and bitter taste buds soon followed to confirm, "yes indeed the orange flavor is there and its here to stay." 
     The beer poured a slightly deeper, browner orange than the original and had a bit less head.  The aroma slapped me in the face as it was coming out and hasn't gone anywhere in the 10 minutes I've been savoring this beer.  Bob and Mel have done it again.  I can't wait for Oak-Aged Longhop to be a once yearly brew that is snatched off the shelves with such ferocity as Nugget Nectar or Kentucky Breakfast Stout.  Bolero Snort has swung for the fences and knocked this one well into the parking lot.  An emphatic 5 out of 5 for this beer and I can't wait to see Bolero Snort wedged in between Stone and Rogue on our shelves in the not too distant future. 

Copper Mine 12 x 12

     So in my mini-bio section of this site I mentioned that I completed the Andy's Corner Bar 100 Beer Club in 2007.  The premise of the club is drink 100 different beers over the course of the year and get your name on a plaque and some free swag.  It was more difficult than it sounds because Andy's only had 8 taps(10 if both beer engines are in use).  There were alot of bottles though so it helped.  In the past year I started the Copper Mine 12 x 12 Beer Club.  In order to succeed here you have to drink 12 different beers over the course of a month for 12 months.  The thing that helps with this challenge is that every month its basically a reset.  If you like a beer you can have it count towards your goal again as long as its in a different month.  So in theory you could drink 144 different beers(there's 20+ taps here so it's slightly easier) or you could drink the same 12 different beers each month for 12 months(just hypothetical because there's only 1 or 2 beers that Vito keeps in stock year round).  So I began my quest in March 2010 and as of today I'm 1 beer short of my 7th month.  The months don't have to be consecutive.  In this post I'm going to list the first month of my quest and each beer will be hyper-linked to its BeerAdvocate description.  I'll try to post a month each night.  And as I complete a new month I will also post that(I'm at 11 for January so I'll easily finish that at the Smuttynose event on 1/27.  Make sure you attend that).  And please comment on the site and on facebook.  I see the hit counter go up but I want to know who's actually reading. 

Copper Mine Pub 12x12 Beer Club
Month 1 - March 2010
1) Flying Fish Exit 16 Wild Rice Double IPA
2) River Horse Hop-a-lot-amus
3) Boulder Hazed & Infused
4) Smuttynose Old Brown Dog
5) Troegs Nugget Nectar
6) Avery/Russian River Collaboration Not Litigation Ale
7) Defiant Muddy Creek Lager
8) Ithaca Cascazilla
9) Ithaca White Gold
10) Ithaca Ground Break
11) Victory Prima Pils
12) Stone IPA

Bolero Snort Brewery

     I am pleased to have finally tasted 2 offerings from the Bolero Snort Brewery.  Bolero Snort is the homebrew label of Bob and Mel.  I went to school with Mel's sister and I frequent the same craft beer bar as the hoppy couple.  So with the disclaimer behind us let's talk about the beer.  Bob left 4 different beers for me at the Copper Mine and since this site has 2 contributors, I decided I would take 2 and give 2 to Josh.  So being the hophead I am, I chose the Longhop naturally and decided to give the Wee-Heifer's Fruitcake a try.  Since these beers aren't for sale I won't go into too much detail.

     The Longhop, at 6%ABV, is on the lighter side for an IPA.  There was an excellent hop aroma and flavor but it didn't blow out my taste-buds like some IPAs will.  It poured a dark orange/light brown, sorry the picture isn't too great, and it had a nice frothy head and laced on the glass beautifully.  The best beer I can compare it to is Smuttynose Shoal's Pale Ale.  If you want to taste a nice crisp, clean, smooth, easy to drink beer that still has a nice hop bite then that is the beer that will give you the same experience.  If they do become a production brewery, I think Longhop needs to be their frontline beer.

     The next beer I sampled was the Wee Heifer's Fruitcake.  I should have read the label before choosing because there's one ingredient in this beer that I've never enjoyed in beers.  CHERRIES.  It's really a personal preference.  I think they hit the flavor right on the head.  I'm sure the beer is excellent and I'm sure I'm the only one that didn't like it, but the disclaimer is I don't like beers with cherries or any overly sweet fruit flavor.  Troegs Mad Elf is a beloved beer to many, but I won't touch the stuff.  Ommegang Three Philosophers elicits the same feelings.  For Bob and Mel this is not a negative review.  Consider it an abstention due to a conflict of interest.  And don't hold it against me when Scotty Goes Bullnanas is ready for distribution because I really do like bananas.  So if any of you know Bob and Mel, please support their ambition and raise a pint to many more excellent brews in their future.  Longhop gets a solid 4.5 pints(that can easily become a 5 if some Oak-aged Longhop finds its way into my belly) and Wee Heifer's Fruitcake gets an abstention due to my personal preferences, but if you have a chance and you like cherries I do recommend the beer.

Stew Leonard's Wines - Paramus

Visited: 8/24/10

     Stew Leonard's is clearly a wine store first.  There is a nice beer selection, though, tucked into one corner of the store with a few beers scattered around in featured displays.  The first thing I noticed when going into the beer section was alot of Dogfish Head beers.  At least 25-30% of the craft beers available at the store were offerings from Dogfish Head.  They have pretty much everything Dogfish Head offers.  Dogfish Head beers are quadruple faced (in 4 separate locations) throughout the small beer section, as well as a fifth location up front with their featured items.  

     Despite the Dogfish Head overkill, yes there can be too much of a good thing, there are also some other very good beers in the store.  They have a nice collection of big bottles from Stone and Rogue.  Noticeably absent from their selection were beers from any New Jersey brewers or anything at all from Troegs.  There were 4 or 5 offerings from founders and a few scattered Belgians.  The cold case had several empty slots, which I would imagine are for Oktoberfest and other fall seasonal beers.  

    The staff was friendly and not pushy.  They were available to help me if I needed it.  i didn't get to ask any questions because I didn't really have any.  The next time I'm there maybe I'll ask why there's no Jersey or Troegs or some other fairly standard local beers.
    I'll go ahead and give it 3.5 pints because the prices were pretty good and I may have just caught them a day before a shipment.  Stew Leonard's Wines is worth a visit if its not that far out of your way.  There are locations scattered around New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.  I've posted a link to the website above.