
tráthnóna maith
Good afternoon! What started as a late afternoon intention to have a quick beer before going out for some yummy Thai food, became a fun and drawn out brew tasting / review opportunity. Friends, let me me start by apologizing that this write-up took so long… sorry but not sorry!
So the beers that we’re looking at today. Let’s call them Sweet Ol’ GBS and Big Head Red! Both recipes are somewhat Irish in origin, just in time for St. Paddy’s Day, just like the last time we did a write-up on the Red.
First on tap Sweet Ol’ GBS aka Ginger Bread Stout. I still haven’t fulfilled my life goal of getting my BJCP certification so I’m gonna keep these reviews simple and will try my best to keep it as Irish as possible.
Sweet Ol’ GBS: The beer’s body and appearance is similar to the Imperial Stout that we did not too long ago, black in color with a toasty dark tan head. The body is a bit thick, not a pounder but I would place this beer into two categories:
- Not to be confused with Guinness Chocolate Cake Beer The after dinner drink that subs for a dessert, not quite an aperitif or digestifs, more like liquid graham candy and not to be confused with the special chocolates that some of us like to secretly indulge in every now and again.
- Pre-Game Sláinte: The start of the night hard hitting cocktail, like an old fashioned or martini, this is a quintessential Irish American appetizer. A few of these lasses and you’ll be singing Danny Boy at the local pub in no time.
Sum it up yo! Sweet Ol’ is quirky, sweet, smooth, the body is thick and strong. It sounds as appealing as it tastes and the sweetness takes everything – that’s it. i
I WOULD DRINK THIS WITH… Yes, that too.
As for the Irish Red… Not much changed over the past year on Fairgate..
“This brew is dedicated to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their quest of the Super Bowl LVII Championship. Aside from the Bucs, this is an Irish Style Red Ale and we brewed it just in time for St. Paddy’s Day .!
Let’s start with:
COLOR: Ironically, this beer is Tampa Bay Buccaneer RED. I am of the belief that this beer is the perfect color RED. Not strikingly RED like a Killian’s or a deep dark RED like a Smithwick’s but somewhere in between. The color itself has an appeal when it’s sitting in the glass. It’s beautiful and so RED. Actually it’s more like a dark amber pale with a RED hue. I don’t know how we pulled the color off so nicely but well done Fairgate!”
Yes, that’s directly from last year’s RED review and the same applies here. The color is a lovely RED and the head is generally foamy and retains quite well. Spot on in appearance and body. Adding a bit more descriptiveness – Big Head has a BIG head, plain and simple. It’s a lovely head, full, creamy and flush, floating ever so gently atop a sea of red hoppy wonderful yummers. As you can see in some of the snaps below, I’m totally obsessed with her beauty.. *sigh*



HOP PROFILE: BITTERNESS AND AROMA: Now this is a good story! We (Fairgate peeps) were having a conversation about how most of the beers that we brew are not as bitter as we’d like them to be and they typically lack that hop forward aroma that you’ll find in modern American ales. For the most part, this was generally accepted and understood, mainly because we used this dry hopper filter for most of our brews. This helped in terms of beer clarity and cleanup but resulted in a modest hop impact. So this time around, simply eliminating the dry hopper from the equation and tossing the hops directly into the boil resulted in a RED with a lovely strong hop profile. I wasn’t prepared to write about hops, don’t know where they came from, when they were placed in the boil, what the hop palette is like but all I know is compared to the last red that we did, this one has a nice bitter roll on the tongue and hits your nose with a lovely hoppy-fun aroma. To date, I would say this is the hoppiest and happiest Fairgate beer brewed yet. Having a big head has it’s benefits!
FLAVA: Described by some as slightly sweet on the intake, then bitterness from the hops with a complex and toasty finish. This is an outstanding beer, well done overall.
END OF STORY..
Finishing out this dual review, both of these Irish beers tick the good beer that I would drink over and over again boxes. I feel really good after drinking them and I’m excited that both were tremendous successes. My preference of the two is the Red because of the interesting strength of the hops, toasty finish and lovely Red head. I’m also hoping that inadvertently creating a Hoppy Red will be the start of new and exciting hop forward experimentation on Fairgate. Sláinte!