The Spring Beer Tourney: # 4 Vinyl vs # 5 Pandoras Bock

      The # 4 seed is Magic Hat's Vinyl, which has a stupid name and a bizarre bottle, but I liked it last year.  The # 5 seed is Breckenridge Pandora's Bock, which has a great name and a lovely bottle.  Both pour out a light brown amber.  Vinyl has a rich caramel, mocha and citrus nose.  Pandora has a slightly sour caramel and herb nose, kind of weak.  Vinyl has quite a bit of mocha to its caramel, with some tingly citrus herb.  It's good, but I remember it being better.  Pandora has caramel, mocha, honey and a nice rich mouth feel.  There's some hop tingle it's nice and creamy and very good.  The Vinyl seems to improve a bit it has some body and it's flavorful.  But Pandora has a full body and  big complex flavors.  I'll try some sip for sip action.  The Vinyl can't hold up here, Pandora is to strong.  Pandora's Bock moves on easily to the Elite Eight.

Breckenridge Remarkable Vanilla Porter

The next of our trio of porters is Breckenridge Remarkable Vanilla Porter. This porter pours out a medium brown and unsurprisingly has a strong vanilla and sugar nose. Wowza, there be vanilla here in spades.It has a cream soda flavor and a little hop bitter which fades in and out. The finish is vanilla extract in a big way. Now I love vanilla. To me it's superior to chocolate, but this is just too medicinal tasting. This is not your easy drinking party beer, this is a sipper. Now, I still kind of like this stuff, but it is dependent on your vanilla extract tolerance. I'll go get another one of these someday. Still, i liked the Kona Porter quite a bit more. On to the next porter from Flying Dog.