Review 197: Founders Sweet Repute

Review 197

1/6/14

Founders Sweet Repute: 12.6% abv

Background: We should all be familiar with Founders at this point, being one of the more prolific breweries in Michigan. Founders has had major success with their Backstage Series, which is a series of experimental beers which have been bottled in 750 mL bottles for public consumption. This is a great way to promote new beers and experimental styles. The last review we did of an experimental beer was Bolt Cutter, Founders’ 15^th Anniversary Barleywine. This time around, we are reviewing Sweet Repute, a wheatwine aged in ex-bourbon ex-maple syrup barrels. That sentence alone should raise your eyebrows. Needless to say, the combination sounds like a recipe for syrupy sweet disaster. There is only one way to find out!

Nose: The nose starts off with a strong presence of wheat, oak, and bourbon. That does a pretty good job of describing this beer. This definitely has some notes of fruitiness, with sweet orange citrus, melon, and tropical fruits right off the bat. There is a subtlety of raisons that comes across, with an even more compelling sense of dry vermouth. The nose is rather tangy. There was noticeable pineapple, with some hoppy bitterness as well. Honey adds some sweetness to the nose. As the beer warms up, the yeasty, bready character becomes more dominant. Overall, the nose is dominantly sweet and fruity, with a definite callout to its grassroots.

Arrival: The arrival is a great introduction into this beer, with a mixture of flavors which play as montage to the aforementioned nose. There is a large number of different sensations, including the bready, wheat-like character, along with a complex fruitiness as well. The arrival shows off a unique taste of lemon-lime soda, with a crisp refreshing mouth-feel.

Body: The body has a thicker mouth-feel, with a sense of honey and fruits dominating the body. The bourbon oak really comes through here. There is a lot of honey and sweetness in the body, in a very sugary, syrupy texture. There is a substantial amount of malt in the body as well.

Finish: The finish concludes with multiple complexities. There is a dry hoppiness that dominates, with a sweet bourbon and honey in the finish. There is a little bit maple in the finish, but it really doesn’t shine through, which we feel is a good thing. Instead, there is slightly more molasses to be found in the finish. There is a good amount of fruitiness in the finish, but it does not over-dominate the beer. There is also a strange taste of bubble gum noticeable from the body into the finish.

Final Comments:  Sweet Repute dances a line of sweetness and complexity, offering a ton of full, thick flavors, but never providing an over-dominance of sweet flavors. Between the wheat malt, the maple/bourbon barrels, and the high proof, it seemed inevitable that this would be overbearingly sweet. Instead, it mixes thick, sweet flavors with a balanced, interesting hoppiness and dryness. Don’t get us wrong, this is no IPA. It just handles itself in a very composed manner. KCM thoroughly enjoyed this beer, even though the maple got lost in the cluster of flavors for most of the event. It is also worth mentioning that although this and New Holland Pilgrim’s Dole (R #7) are distinctively different, you would not lose much by going with New Holland’s wheatwine.

Why you’d buy it: You like limited release beers of a sweeter style and high proof.

Why you wouldn’t: You can’t find it, and it is more expensive than Pilgrim’s Dole.

Score: 9.25/10

Review 125: Founders Bolt Cutter

Review 125

12/19/12

Founders Bolt Cutter: 15% abv

Well, it has been a while, Founders, but we’re back with another review, and hopefully it isn’t a roast. We have high expectations for Founders because they produce a high quality product consistently. This should be no different, and unfortunately for Founders, there has been a lot of hype around this particular beer. Almost to the point of it being annoying, we’ve heard about the 15th anniversary of Founders. We are happy for you, we baked you a cake, but my understanding was that there were TICKETS for buying this beer. TICKETS. This beer is not going to see the London Symphony Orchestra, here. Now it is time to see if Founders did it right for their 15th birthday, or if all the hype was just the usual marketing nonsense. 

Founders Bolt Cutter is a barleywine. As we have said in the past, barleywines are heavy in alcohol content, which gives them the “wine” designation, but they are definitely beers. Most barleywines will sit at about 10-15%, with beers rarely exceeding the 15% limit. This one certainly does its best to be up there at 15%. Don’t be afraid my friends. Just as Devil Dancer could be tamed, so too can the Bolt Cutter. Also, for your information, pouring this over any type of metal will effectively do nothing, despite the name. 

This beer, as soon as you start to smell it, will come off with big fruitiness and sweetness. Notes include honey, grapefruit, cantaloupe, strawberry, kiwi, pineapple, lime, green apple, barley, wheat, green grape, oak, and even some vegetal notes. This is a very sweet, complex nose, and gives us a huge variety of smells that you would expect and enjoy out of a barleywine style ale. 

When you taste the beer, the arrival contains a lot of the same sweet flavors that the nose has. This includes honey, vanilla, barley, molasses, toffee, lemon, melon, and some cream. It’s a relatively satisfactory arrival, which leads into a relatively satisfactory body. The body has more sweetness, with caramel, butterscotch, honey, maple, grain, barley, wheat, cream and melon. Finally, in the finish there is slightly more hoppy, piney bitterness that accompanies the sweetness. There is definitely grapefruit and pine, but there is also cream, honey, caramel, toffee, barley, orange, apple skins, and allspice. The finish is medium in length, but admittedly not totally impressive. 

This is not an unworthy beer. Let’s be honest though: if you don’t have this one by now, you’re probably never getting it. We were very excited to do this review, but paid a hefty price to try this beer. The end result is a good, enjoyable experience that will get you drunk, breaks the bank, and is virtually impossible to procure. We still think it is good quality and we will score it based off of our standard criteria. Nonetheless, if you want a good barleywine, visit some of the standards  first and see if they treat you better. 

Score: 8.75/10

Review 112: Founder's Backwoods Bastard

Review 112

12/6/12

Founder’s Backwoods Bastard: 10.2% abv

Here we go with another review. Backwoods Bastard. Might ring a bell, even if you haven’t heard of it. Why? Well, this is a bourbon-barrel aged Scotch Ale. I’ve done some small research on Scotch Ales, because there is a bit of contention about this term in our minds. If you go to Founder’s website, they will tell you Backwoods Bastard is reminiscent of a Single Malt. I will clarify to you that this is not the case. It contains malt flavors, but in this sense it reminds us of malted barley, as is a prominent flavor in TONS of beers. The problem we have with saying this is reminiscent of Single Malt Scotch is that it really won’t remind you of that, and eludes to some intrinsic quality in the beer. This beer has no real affiliation with the spirit itself, so far as we can tell. 

Anyway, now let’s talk about the beer itself. The nose has malt in it for sure, but you get the classic bourbon dominant flavors like caramel, oak, large butterscotch, toffee, vanilla, and wheat. There is even the presence of raisons, cream, plain yogurt, molasses, and slight starfruit. That makes this a fairly unique, interesting nose. The arrival reflects the smell pretty accurately, but with a little less to it. Prominent flavors include vanilla, butterscotch, caramel, and dried fruits. The body contains the same sort of flavors, with butterscotch, malt, vanilla, caramel, weak coffee, milk chocolate, creaminess, and even slight ginger. The finish contains cinnamon, malt, vanilla, butterscotch, caramel, slight grapefruit and apple. 

We can comment that is a pretty bourbon-dominated beer, and if you want to understand the influence bourbon has on beer, this is a great combination of two beers to try it out, with Dirty Bastard and Backwoods Bastard. On the other hand, we think this bourbon influence was a little overdone. A unique quality that bourbon brings out in beer is a creamy butterscotch flavor, which isn’t necessarily huge in bourbon itself, but time and time again we see it in these beers to varying degrees. Overall, the complexity wasn’t earth shattering, and neither was the balance. We like Dirty Bastard better and this could use a little less of its oak time. 

Score: 8.25/10

Review 86: Founders Frangelic Mountain

Review 86

7/26/12

Founders Frangelic Mountain Brown Ale: 9% abv

We’ve been trying some unique beers lately, and Founders rarely disappoints. This disappoints, but it only disappoints in the sense that there isn’t more left in the bottle. It is a winner, and it is worth getting before time runs out. Alright, since we’re running short on time tonight, we’ll make this one straight forward. I apologize to those who look forward to my witty commentary and interesting dialog. Oh well, you can live on. So here’s what we have out of this brown ale. It is a 9%er, so expect  some good flavor in this guy. 

The nose contains everything under the sun, including light coffee, caramel, strong hazelnut, buttery popcorn, chocolate, vanilla, mocha, wheat, fudge, anise, honey dew, good old fashion rice crispy treats, with earthy and creamy notes to boot. Forgive me for not being more graphic about this, but I’m just trying to get the facts out. 

The taste is fantastic, arriving with tart apple and orange flavor, with a balance of coffee and hazelnut, vanilla, caramel, mocha, molasses, orange, malt, earthiness, poppyseed muffins, nutmeg, and ginger. The finish is longer, with peanut butter, caramel, orange, coffee, molasses, malt, unripened banana, nutmeg and ginger all contributing to the finished product. We noted this beer as having a light flavor, but also being full bodied, with tartness on the arrival, and having a particularly excellent balance to it. Is it worth a try? Yes. Will you like it? You better. Next one will be better. 

Score: 9.5/10

Review 82: Founders Devil Dancers

Review 82

7/17/12

Founders Devil Dancer: 12% abv

It’s not often we report IBUs (International Bitterness Units) in our reviews, but for this one, I think you have to. This is why. Devil Dancer is one of Founders specialty beers, but it is not just some lame oak aged beer. It is a TRIPLE IPA. There is certainly some intimidation that goes along with drinking a beer called Devil Dancer that’s a Triple IPA and ranks 112 IBUs on a scale that you rarely ever see above 90. I won’t lie, after having had Double Crooked Tree, I wasn’t so much interested in trying this beer at all, but we have some IPA junkies over here, so we did it out of obligation to our audience. I will say, it does have a calmingly beautiful amber color to it. And then it eats you alive like Cerberus would on your decent to Hades. I exaggerate. 

So what can we say about this one? The nose is not like Cerberus eating you alive, frankly. It is actually quite fruity, with an immediate impression of pineapple, peach, ripe pear, apple, lemon, cantaloupe, and grapefruit. Yeah, that’s just the fruitiness behind it. It has those sweet flavors of caramel, molasses, honey, and malt to it, but you don’t miss out on the floral and piny flavors as well. The taste will surprise you. And no, it doesn’t start or end with BITTER!!!!! The taste isn’t very “IPA”. It is malty, with a full mouth-feel, meaning it’s a little thicker in texture. It’s certainly not a lager. The sweeter notes resemble caramel, milk chocolate, maple syrup and pineapple. Contrasting that are the grapefruit and pine notes that are strangely not overpowering. So this beer isn’t bitter? What was all this hype about Cerberus and triple headed dogs and what-not. Yeah, hold onto your shorts, impatient reader. 

The finish will hit you different ways different times. It happens now and again that the beer you’re drinking can be hugely impacted by HOW you drink it. Meaning, how much of a gulp did you take, which part of the back of your throat did it hit, etc. And the bitterness behind this beer is the same way. Also, it builds up, like the heat behind a ghost pepper would. Needless to say, the finish is long and bitter no matter what, but there is sweetness and some interesting stuff goes on here. Let’s start with the basics: pine and lemony citrus, and that’s the basics. From here, our tasters came up with orange rind, coffee bean, sugarcane, rock candy, and Meyer Dark rum mixed with tonic. These notes might be a little obscure, but there is some truth to each of them. Like I said, this beer’s bark is worse than it’s bite. Ha! See, I went back to that Cerberus thing one more time! It’s good, but maybe not having the depth and complexity, or the balance that we seek in ideal beer world. 

Score: 9.0/10