Recently in Mother Earth Category

Since I know all of you religiously check this blog and my Twitter feed looking for updates, I must apologize, as I've been absentee of late and unresponsive to your repeated pleas for new posts. You're probably also very astute and did some research and figured out that I have a tendency to enter an annual beer hibernation around this time of year, which at least partially explains my absence. That being said, my general laziness has generated a backlog of beer reviews that I can leverage during this downtime. I also plan to post the customary non-beer reviews of things like hot sauce or bourbon or tea or wine or whatever throughout the season, though perhaps not quite as much as in previous years. For now, though, let's take a look at one of those beer reviews I've been neglecting...

A few years ago, I stumbled on this Four Seasons of Mother Earth series of limited, usually-barrel-aged brews from a San Diego brewery that seemed popular enough. The Autumn 2015 brew was a barrel-aged quad, and it was quite nice. This time around, we celebrate the winter solstice with an imperial brown ale brewed with brown sugar and aged in bourbon barrels. I mean, it's not one of them pastry stouts that people get hot-and-bothered about, but I'll tell you, I was quite taken with this:

Four Seasons of Mother Earth - Winter 2017 - Pours a dark brown color with some amber when held up to the light and a finger of off white head. Smells great, sweet, vanilla, toffee, a little bourbon and oak too. Taste hits all those notes, rich toffee, a little caramel, plenty of bourbon, oak, and vanilla. Mouthfeel is full bodied, but leavened by a good amount of carbonation that makes this seem lighter than it really is (but not overcarbonated at all, it's actually very well balanced and enhances the beer), with a decent amount of pleasant booze. Overall, this is a fantastic, complex, uncommon style and I'm loving it. A little reminiscent of Firestone Walker's Bravo, but easily its equal if not even better. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 12% ABV bottled (22 ounce bomber). Drank out of a snifter glass on 1/26/18. Vintage: 2017.

So yes, I should probably seek out more of these Four Seasons of Mother Earth Beers. And maybe not wait another 3 years before trying another. Anywho, stay tuned, I have a few more beer reviews coming, with at least a couple of bourbons and one hot sauce in the pipeline as well.

According to my record-keeping gnomes, I have reviewed beers from 318 breweries (check them out over there on the right of the page), which sounds like a lot and also like I should seek professional, medical help, but given that the good ol' USA has surpassed 4000 craft breweries (not to mention non-craft and imports), I've barely scratched the surface. To the procurement department! These folks are always busy here at Kaedrin, such that we often collect too much beer, but they also keep their eye out for breweries that are new to me and that are putting out interesting stuff.

Enter Mother Earth Brew Co., a San Diego area brewery that friends have nice things to say about, but which I know almost nothing about. Everyone seems charmed by their IPAs, but we thought we'd check out their barrel program, because we're like that. Four Seasons of Mother Earth is a quarterly release roughly aligned with the various equinoxes and solstices, and every release is different. Last year's Autumn release was a BA stout, this year it's a Bourbon Barrel Aged Quadrupel. There's some florid description about "Johnny Law" on the back of the bottle, but barrel aged quad? Procurement department done good:

Mother Earth Four Seasons Of Mother Earth - Autumn: Johnny Law - Pours a murky amber brown color with a cap of head that is short for this world. Smells utterly fantastic, boozy bourbon and oak, rich caramel, toffee, dark fruit, vanilla. Taste feels a bit muted compared to the nose, but the flavor profile is similar. Caramel and toffee, but not nearly as rich or sweet as you'd expect from the nose. Not as much dark fruit either, but it's there. Bourbon, oak, and vanilla, but surprisingly balanced, maybe more booze emerges as it warms up. Mouthfeel is medium bodied and surprisingly dry, only a hint of stickiness in the finish along with a little boozy heat. Overall, quite an interesting brew, I usually think of dry belgian ales as not working so well with bourbon barrels, but this one bucks the trend, even if it's not necessarily top tier. A high B+

Beer Nerd Details: 12% ABV bottled (22 ounce bomber). Drank out of a tulip glass on 10/9/15. Vintage: Autumn 2015.

Certainly a good first impression, and clearly I need to try out more of their stuff. Also of note, a NC based brewery of basically the same name. I smell epic legal showdown in the future.