Any excuse to buy a six pack of Keepers Stout is a good one. A dead easy beer and cheese pairing is blue and stout. This weeks choice was Cabrales blue from Spain. This Spanish cheese is a mix of raw cow, goat and sheep milk. It is aged in naturally occuring limestone caves for two to four months. In this moist envirmonment, the naturally occuring penicillium mold goes to work. Unlike other blue cheeses, this mould is not injected into the cheese, but allowed to work naturally from the outside in. The result is a pungent aroma that is caracteristaclly blue. Cabrales is a creamy and crumbly cheese which can be somewhat spreadable. If you love that eye watering tart, funky and acidic blue flavours, then this is the cheese for you.


When you add the dry and sweet flavours of an Irish stout, good things happen. The sweet flavours balanced the tart and sour notes of the blue cheese. While the dryness of the stout and bright carbonation worked to lift the heavy creaminess and fat off the tongue. This accentuated the richness of the 45% milk fat blue. A slice of sweet apple brought out more of this stouts chocolate sweetness. Yup, it's an easy pairing and I'm OK with that.

meeting in 2012. In this study a handful of 21-30 year olds were paid $150 bucks to drink either beer or caffeinated beer, then their hangover score was determined in the morning. Apparently between 3-17% of students believe caffeinated prevent hangovers. I guess a slap to the back of the head is not scientific reasoning. So these lucky kids were given Hurricane High Gravity, with or without a whack of caffeine, until their blood alcohol hit 0.12 g% BrAC. In other words, nicely liquored on the cheap. DISCLOSURE: I have drank Hurricane before, but not in this quantity. My drinking buddies have this inside joke about drinking cheap gas station beer; but that is another story. So the result after waking up has no surprise. Over 60% of these lucky kids had hangovers. Shocking. Caffeine also had no affect on hangover severity. Despite the caffeinated beer delivering about 383mg caffeine, sleep onset and duration was not affected. Although these wired kids thought they slept better and were more alert in the morning. The researchers felt this study dispelled the misinformation that caffeinated alcoholic beverages prevented hangovers. I could have done the same with a bullhorn and a case of Redbull.

Taste +3
Aftertaste 0
Alcohol Content 0 5%
Value +1 (a simple tasty porter)
Appearance +1 (Growlers always get top marks)

It has been a while since the Hoyners have released anything new. I believe the last truly new one was the Entre Nous in July. Come to think of it, it has been rather quiet in the new release category for most breweries. That is if you ignore Phillips and Spinnakers. I tried four new beers at Spinnakers last week that did not have any press releases, all quite good. The Rainforest Logger was very nice, for a lager that is. But today I open the cap on a double IPA from Hoyne. Lots of hops going on including a new one called cytra? Perhaps it was a typo by either Hoyne or Canadian Beer News. Anyways double IPA means double everything: double hops, double malts, double flavour and usually double cost. How did the Hard Rain double up?

Hard Rain = 3/10


Is it just me or does this beer smell like it has been dry hopped beyond all recognition? Perhaps it is all the nugget hop giving off that grassy herbal aroma. Certainly some spicy pine too. This beer is all about the hops: spicy, herbal, pine, cedar and bitter orange. But there are no malts to back it up. The malts of a DIPA should be apparent and syrupy, to barely balance the hops. Even just compare the colour with the Twenty Pounder from Driftwood. The Hard Rain just looks thin in comparison (Matty has much better lighting than I do and the Pounder still looks dark). When I hear DIPA, I expect certain things. Call it a extra/double pale ale and then I know what to expect. This beer is drinkable if you dig your hop bombs. Perhaps I am just being overly critical and jerk-like in my old age? You decide.

Taste +2
Aftertaste 0
Alcohol Content +1
Value +1
Appearance 0 (usual fun Hoyne poetry but no real description of how beer will taste)

Glassware: Definitely a fancy IPA glass. If no, then anything clean will do

Food Pairings: Lots of cedar and pine going on here with sweetness. Should enhance flavours of cedar plank salmon. For cheese something robust like a aged cheddar or Beemster.

Cellar: nope