L’Chaim!

Hanukkah ended this weekend, but we’re still celebrating. 8 Malty Nights is a rye chocolate porter with some ripe fruit on the nose and a nicely flavored grain mix — chocolate and a hint of rye, but a little watery, a little flat. Deep dark and smokey with coffee notes — interesting but disappointing. I can see how it scored well in the Drank blog guide to Christmas, but this bottle was a little weak for my tastes.

I last visited the old Old New Lompoc brewing last summer with Sarah and her brother Paul. I was not impressed. The waitress was a bit cold and the beers seemed a little lame. That one bad experience put me off the place. Since then they bulldozed the nearest location, but they started bottling their beers.

I picked up C-Note on the power of the label. A good looking label leads to a good looking beer right? There is nothing I hate as much as a good beer in shitty packaging. Respect the beer; make it look tasty. 

C-Note is labeled an imperial pale ale. Note the lack of an India there. I’m not sure what it means, but I like it. I am a little over IPAs at the moment. Too many summery, lemony, sweet, and light beers around. I want something a bit heavier, a lot more bitter. C-Note as all those things. They only used hops that begin with C: Centennial, cluster, Columbus, and others. And look at that color. This is an amber pale ale, an oxymoron, but exactly what I wanted. The nose had a nice citrus front, but the flavor was dominated by bitter, earthy hops, and a hint of pine. It hits all of the different hop flavors and follows them up with a slightly toasted malt flavor.