The Brew Basement

Hello everyone!
Lisa and I spent the past weekend celebrating our anniversary with a couple of friends up in the wilds of the Adirondack mountains. The reason I’m mentioning it here is that we stumbled on a newly opened restaurant in the sleepy little town of North Creek. It’s named BarVino, and despite it being a [...]

Name: Ommegeddon
Brewer: Ommegang
Style: American Wild Ale
Vintage: 2008
Cellared On: July 7th, 2008
Original Tasting: August 28th, 2008
I have to admit I was a bit disappointed last year when I first tried Ommegeddon from brewery Ommegang. I found the flavors a bit muted, almost like the beer was deliberately brewed mildly hoping for the Brett flavors to fly [...]

It sounds incredible, but that’s what entrepreneur and inventor Casey Jones claims to be able to do! His device, the “Ultrasonic Wine Ager” claims to be able to take any alcohol that tastes better aged and give it a vintage-like taste in under an hour.
After just a half hour or so, a seven dollar bottle [...]

Hello everyone!
Hey, I’m only a month late with my August tasting updates - that’s not TOO bad, right? It’s hard to believe that as long as I get September’s tastings up within a week or two I might actually get caught up with my notes.
Anyway, check out my August tastings below. There were a lot [...]

Name: The Vermonster
Brewer: Rock Art Brewing
Style: Barleywine (Double IPA?)
Vintage: 2008
Cellared On: September 1st, 2008
Original Tasting: September 8th, 2008
Hi folks. I’m still struggling to work through my backlog of reviews here. I know, I know, what a tough hobby I have! Drinking is hard work!
This was my first beer from Rock Art Brewing [...]

Name: Hennepin
Brewer: Ommegang
Style: Saison
Vintage: 2008

Cellared On: July 18th, 2008
Original Tasting: August 19th, 2008
Hennepin was one of the first brews I reviewed for the Brew Basement. I liked it so much that this summer I decided to bring it back for another try. Going back and examining my previous review, I saw that it really [...]

Hello folks! I’d like to share a little email exchange I had with Brew Basement reader Mark the other day. Maybe one of you can help him out!
Jason,
Great site. I’m just getting started in cellaring beer and am eager to try some aged beer NOW, rather than wait years for my collection to pay [...]

Name: Burton Baton
Brewer: Dogfish Head
Style: Blend of a English Strong Ale and a Double IPA
Vintage: 2008

Cellared On: August 28th, 2008
Original Tasting: August 28th, 2008
Big surprise, Jason’s cellaring another Dogfish Head brew. As you can see from my cellaring/tasting dates, I waited about an hour or so after I bought this beer before I did [...]

I’m so far behind on my tasting updates I had to break this into two parts to get through ‘em all!
As always, my results were a bit of a mixed bag….
Smuttynose Scotch Ale (Six Month) - The sweet malt flavors have started to pull back letting the peat smoke really come to the forefront. It’s [...]

I’ve been asked a few times recently about the Brew Basement beer cellar and how it’s looking these days. Always eager to please, I took a bunch of pics and I thought I’d bore you to death with a few of them.

Here’s where all the magic happens. OK, so it’s a bit nondescript, but it’s [...]