My Favorite Harvest Ale

It has been a while since I made a post. After opening my last Founders Harvest Ale of the year, I thought it might be a good idea to make a quick one for it.

Founders is my favorite overall brewery and I think many people would agree with that sentiment these days. They have released a lineup of solid regular beers, great seasonals and stellar limited releases. I think I have reviewed around 30 Founders beers and really haven't given one a review close to bad. My top 50 beers contains Canadian Breakfast Stout (tied-3rd), Breakfast Stout (7th), Kentucky Breakfast Stout (14th), Backwoods Bastard (27th), Black Biscuit(28th, really need to try this again in a better setting, StoutFest 11AM ugh), Imperial Stout (37th). Most of these are stouts but still, 6/50 are Founders brews. Red's Rye received an A+ from me but is just outside of the top 50, you get the picture. I am not going to look but I can't imagine another brewery even coming close to that on my top 50, Russian River would be the only contender if I had to guess. Some day I hope to visit Founders pub but it isn't close to anything else I want to see. I guess spending a few days drinking all they have to offer wouldn't be a bad thing. I am very intrigued by the pub-only releases I see listed on their draft-list and BeerAdvocate.

Harvest Ale is a harvest ale, who would have guessed. That is my only real problem with the beer, I think that every beer should have some sort of unique moniker. Harvest ales are generally "wet-hopped" beers that brewed right when the hops are picked from the vine. The first hops to hit the truck and delivered to the brewery (or from the brewery gardens) are immediately put into a beer and it is usually their harvest ale. The thing that I like about Founders Harvest Ale is the tropical and pine hop mixture. It comes off very crisp and clean on the palate and has a unique feel to me. The beer has a smooth, silky feel in the mouth and flavors of peach, pine, grapefruit, orange, bread and light biscuit malts. I originally gave this a B+ (4) in 2010 but should have probably re-reviewed it with a mid-high A-, this year's batch was better. I think I might have just been in a lower scoring slump back then as well.

In conclusion, gotta give it up to Founders for putting out excellent beer after beer. They know how to brew great examples of many styles (stout, IPA, scotch ale, fruit beer, etc). I guess the only thing they have left to do is make a great wild ale, which I would buy without hesitation. Founders can be a few dollars more for a 4 or 6 pack in MA but it is always worth the money. Imperial Stout is right around the corner and I never fail to pick up 2-3 four-packs of that excellent ale. A blog post for is inevitable for that one, maybe even a 3 year vertical of it!