Di Fara's Pizza and Beer 2/3/2010

Eitan: It was a pretty chill night last night with some Di Fara's square pie and two beers that we didn't get to in the last week. This was either the best idea or worst idea ever, Di Fara's and beer, it has potential to cause some damage. However, its been good so far.

The first beer we had was the Lagunitas Imperial Stout. I've had this many times on tap and 4th ave pub and it is one of my favorite stouts. This was the first time that we've had it from a bottle. It was a 22oz bottle that I got a few weeks ago, I get pretty excited to find a bottle like this because they are generally less then $5. It pours a very dark chocolate color with a thin layer of tan head. We divided it in to 4 glasses so I think maybe in 2 glasses we could get a bit more head. It had a smell of dark chocolate and coffee. Having a high abv it does also have a slight malt and alcohol scent. Its a good tasting stout, a good mix of coffee and chocolate at first and then some malty sweetness and light hop finish. It had low carbonation, it was very smooth and pretty easy to drink. Like I mentioned earlier, this is one of my favorite stouts, it is not very complex when it comes to imperial stouts; but, it is very tasty and easy to drink. I've read/heard people mention that it's too sweet, but I don't think so. I am not a big fan of sweet drinks and I've only had one glass of this beer which was slightly sweeter. Overall this is a good Imperial Stout that goes down easy.

The second beer was one that Greg got last week and we didn't get a chance to drink. It was the Pennichuck Pompier, it was a large swing top bottle. Greg was all excited about this beer "Oh, its soooo good, its an english barley wine with champagne yeast and aged in oak barrels" [I am just paraphrasing what Greg said, it was more than that but I stopped listening after barley wine.] When I first popped the top of the bottle it let of a pretty sour smell, it was like some corked sour wine, very off putting. I almost did not want to drink this at all. But I did anyway. It poured a dark sort of hazy copper color with some descent amount of white head. Like when I first opened the bottle it had the smell of funk, it is very off putting. It was pretty hard to smell anything other than the sour funk. At first it has a strong tart sour taste to it. After that it adds a bit of the malty sweetness you get in many barley wine. It had medium carbonation and a medium body with a crisp and smooth feel to it. After opening up for a bit in the glass it did finish with a bit of that syrupy feel to it. Overall the beer tasted a lot better than it smelled at first. It has a 12% abv and it tastes like it, but it was pretty easy to drink. Once you get past the initial smell this beer is not that bad.