Willoughby Brewing stout and dubbel

Timothy Ingalls — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:20:00 +0000

March 7th:

Most recently I had Willoughby Brewing (microbrew on the east side of Cleveland) http://willoughbybrewing.com/beer.htm Last Stop Stout.

What is interesting about this beer is that it a nitrogen charged. Most traditional brews are carbonated either naturally with CO2, or CO2 has been pumped in later to the kegs for carbonation. If done with nitrogen, the carbonation levels are similar, but the bubbles for the carbonation are much smaller. If you look, for instance, at Guinness which is nitrogen charged, the bubbles are really small, like beaten egg whites. This leads to a creamy texture on the beer and makes it nice and smooth. (On a side note, the twang taste in Guinness so I have heard from my boss who did a tour of the facility in Ireland was the addition of a small amount of spoiled milk).

I am not a fan of too many of their other beers because they are quite boring tasting, but Last Stop Stout is fairly inoffensive and overall quite nice.

Chim had a seasonal beer Abbey Road Belgium Dubbel from Willoughby. Normally I am not a fan of Belgium style beers. Mainly it is the bubble gum yeast they use. But this brew was an American-style Belgium and it wasn't too bad. The yeast was a Belgium strain so it smelled like Bubble Yum on the palate, but the rest of the flavors blended subtly so it masked the sweetness well. 8% but you could taste the alcohol burn a bit because the other flavors were so delicate. Overall enjoyable but as it got warmer, things started tasting more saccharin and artificial. Overall a nice effort by a brewing company that likes to stay conservative with their recipes and scope, but not outstanding. It was served in a traditional "shaker" style glass which is not at all the appropriate glass, a goblet should be used. This might have been part of the issue as well.

I will try to record more beer tastings and such later if this is interesting to others.

Feisty Fairy's Fumings

Willoughby Brewing stout and dubbel