Heavy Seas brewing company's Holy Sheet.

This is a brewing company with a cute little gimmick/theme going on, much like Middle Ages Brewing Company. This company does pirate themed drinks. Their winter beer was pretty good, so I tried one of their bigger ones. In this case, Holy Sheet. They refer to it as an 'Uber Abbey style ale'. Its a piratey twist on a typical belgian abbey style ale. Strong abbey ale with interesting spiciness.

My first whiff of it when I opened it up surprised me. It has no fruit in it, yet it had an incredibly fruity nose to it. Over the course of the next minute or two it started developing a bit of a light colored foam head to it, which smelled almost nutty and tasted somewhat yeasty. That quickly subsided though, and I was able to get to the beer itself.

The fruitiness in the nose was replaced a bit by spiciness in both the scent and the flavor once the foam had subsided. There's still a hint of fruit and yeast, but most of what you taste and smell after that is the spice. They use a good balance of spices that aren't strong enough to overpower anything, but give you a nice tingle on your tongue. This, much like the Double Wench that I just reviewed, is a very strong beer in terms of alcohol content. 9%. This puts it within the range of some wines. I think that's why I like this one and the Double Wench so much, they're almost like a good quality wine, but in beer form.

And really, that's what makes beer interesting enough for me to keep coming back to it. It can come in such a wide variety that it starts to overlap with other kinds of drinks. That's also why I brew the meads that I brew. Most of the meads you find on store shelves is sticky-sweet crap. I try to make something different, something that's worth at least trying. And something that some people will like enough to keep coming back for more.

Middle Ages Brewing Company's Double Wench ale

I've had a few beers by Middle Ages Brewing Company, and so far I've liked them all. They make one called Wailing Wench, that's a very strong full-bodied ale with 8% alcohol.

When it was well received, they decided to up the ante and make an even stronger version, Double Wench. This one is even stronger and has 12% alcohol.

The smell of this one was... interesting. It didn't have the strength of the Mendocino Imperial Stout I had last night, but it still had a strong kick to it. It wasn't a strong scent,... just a pungent one. I'm not entirely sure what the scent is. Probably some variant of hops or some other bittering bud that I'm not familiar with. The taste was fairly similar. Strong for an ale, with an interesting pungent taste to it. No particularly strong aftertastes, whatever hops they used just added flavor rather than bitterness.

Just by drinking it you'd never guess that it has a higher than normal alcohol content. This beer is as strong as some of the strongest wines I've had, and yet it goes down as easily as a 4 or 5 percent beer.

I think this is a beer that you'll be able to tell if you'll like it or not by the first sip. I can honestly say I've never had an ale like it. This is definitely a 'try it at least once' kind of beer. If you don't like it, that'll be apparent right off the bat. Unfortunately since it comes in the larger bottles, it isn't cheap to try. So try it with a group of people who like strong and interesting beers, someone's bound to finish the bottle.

And make sure that someone has a designated driver. Because... well... it has 12% alcohol content by volume, and it doesn't taste like it.

Mendocino Imperial Stout

To start with, the smell just about knocked me on my rear end. It had one of the strongest, darkest smells I've ever encountered in a beer. For a moment I thought they'd added blackstrap molasses to the mix.

The taste, on the other hand, was fairly standard fare for an imperial stout. The aftertaste is very hoppy, rather than the non-descript bitterness that many of the darker stouts have. I suspect they achieved that one by just using one kind of hops and not trying too hard to add lots of flavors to it, like a lot of small brewers try to do. Some with more success than others.

It is an interesting mix of mild and strong, definitely worth buying again.

Sam Adams Chocolate Bock

I was a bit surprised by this one. Normally when you think of a dark, strong chocolate beer you think of a stout. And I'm a big fan of chocolate stouts. But I figured I'd give this one a try.

And it is just about what I expected, actually. When I opened the bottle I got the scent of a nice, dark, strong beer with chocolate undertones. It has the deep, dark flavor and chocolate aroma of a chocolate stout, but none of the typical stout flavor. It was very well crafted and very smooth, went down nicely, much like a good chocolate stout. It just had a flavor and aroma of bock instead of stout. Do I prefer it to a good chocolate stout? Well, no. But I like it for the same reasons that I like a good chocolate stout, and it's different enough to be worth at least trying, if not buying every now and then. The finish wasn't as 'velvety' as the label said, but it was still pretty damn good. I can't imagine it will be a staple for me, but its definitely worth trying and probably worth buying again.