One Hit Wonder: Dayton Ohio

Lock 27 is brand new on the Dayton Ohio scene.  As of this post it will have been open only a matter of months.

As such, this microbrewery has a lot of growing ahead of it.  I will say this for the place.  The owner was out tending bar and chatting up the customers and he is a man who truly loves beer in only the way only a long-time home brewer can.

It will be interesting to see how this joint evolves in the coming years.  It is a place that celebrates both good food and good beer.  That seems like a good start to me.

On my visit they only had one origional beer on tap.  They had a decent selection of good beers from out and around, but only one of their own at the moment.  So this is going to be a little different post as I will include a couple random beers they happened to have on tap... just to round things out a bit.

Kay?

Kay.

Beer?

Lock 27, Winston ESB: No aroma to speak of.  Nice, creamy mouthfeel.  A good deal of caramel malt sweetness balance a load of lemony, grassy hops.  Very nice, drinkable beer.

Southern Tier, Pumpking: Tis the season for those wonderful, spicy pumpkin ales.  This beer from upstate New York, was quite nice, with a sweet creamy quality to the normal bill of pumpkin spice.

Great Divide, Hoss: Rye lager from Denver Colorado.  This beer had a very light fruity aroma.  There was a sweeter, light berry flavor with a hint of pepper from the rye that gentelly turned to a floral hop back.

One last thing about Lock 27.  The curry is awesome.  That is all for this week.

College Town Quicky: Colombia, Missouri

Last week I stopped by one of the breweries in the college town of Columbia Missouri.  Things...er... could have been better.  One beer, in particular, could have been better.

I was able to quickly stop by another brewpub in the town... possibly to get the taste out of my mouth.  I didn't have a lot of time to spend, so I only had a very small cross section of their beers but, from what I could find, I should have stopped at Flat Branch Brewing instead.

It was a bigger joint.  The food wasn't quite up to the same level as Broadway, but I had a shrimp po' boy and was quite happy.  I was all the happier since I didn't have a beer that made be think of licking a... you know what.  Let's just get on to the beer.

Oil Change Stout: Charcoal chocolate aroma.  Nice full bodied stout with a smooth, unsweetened chocolate and roasted grain flavor.

Honey Wheat: Very, very light grassy aroma.  The sweet honey flavor is prominent here along with some slight grassy hop notes.  Extremely flavorful for the style and, I think, what most people might expect when the phrase 'Honey Wheat Beer' is thrown around.

Green Chile: I always love a nice pepper ale.  It doesn't have to be complex, and this one clearly isn't, but a good chili beer awesome in its own rite.  Light malt backs up and restrains the chilies here making for a nice refreshing lighter beer with a hint of spice.

ESB: Started with a fruity caramel aroma.  The fruit really hit up front and slid slowly into the 'B' in ESB.  The hops in back had some pine and herbal flavors that really stood up well to the sweet fruity malts at the top.  All in all a nice, flavorful beer.

Anyway, that's all from Missouri for now.  It's Ohio for the next couple weeks.

Cheers!

Into the Underground: Columbia Missouri.

There's going to be a moment in this post that is not going to be pleasant for anyone.  I've run into a few brewpubs that just don't click with me.  It happens.

None of those brewpubs had anything as bad as the Wee Heavy.  But we will get to that.  First, a positive note:

Broadway Brewery is a basement bar located right on the main drag of Columbia.  There's kind of a relaxed, coffeehouse, art house vibe about this place.

I doubt there is a better place in town for a burger... especially if one chooses to get a little esoteric with the meat.  They do have a basic beef hamburger for the purists, but on top of that they have a buffalo burger, a pork, spinach and goat cheese burger.  Personally I rocked the lamb burger and I was extremely happy that I did.  It along with their signature potatoes was awesome.

So that's good.  The beer, on the other hand, had a bit to be desired.  The food was great... the beer, not so much.

The majority of their beers had one of two major problems with them.  They were either watery or they just had strange off-flavors.  One off-flavor I hope to never encounter again... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Honey Wheat: Light floral aroma.  This one gets a pass because light flavor is kinda in the style.  It was just lightly sweet with a nice... well... honey and wheat flavor.  Pretty much as advertised.

Boone Dog Brown: There is something very sad about a watery brown ale and this is a good example of one of those.  Or a bad example as the case may be.  It had a slight coffee aroma but the flavor had a very light roasted flavor with a hint of coffee but, otherwise, was just fizzy and watery.

2011 Barley Wine: Okay this was one of the hits but, honestly, it's hard to miss with a nice barley wine.  This had a nice chocolate cherry aroma.  It had some big cherry and port wine flavors with some herbal bitterness in the back.

Blonde on Blonde: No aroma to speak of.  It had some light grassy flavors along with pretty intense herbal bitterness, but that's it.  It was watery, then very bitter.   Too bitter for the style.

American Pale Ale: This turned out to be the one I liked best (apart from the barley wine), although there was nothing all that special about it.  It featured a nice load of citrus hops that were flavorful without being overbearing, but it was pretty much exactly like most pale ales.

Cherry Saison: This one had a sour cherry aroma.  The sour flavors hit and clashed with the fruity clove and banana esters from the Belgian yeast.  It was really weird at first, but I have to admit that the combination kinda grew on me after a while.

Cream Ale: This seemed like a combination of styles more then anything else.  It started with a nice sweet caramel aroma but along with those sweet, creamy flavors there was some very intense woody, grassy hops.  It tasted like a cream IPA... and not in a terribly pleasant way.

Black IPA: The aroma and the flavor tell the same tale.  Bitter chocolate and coffee meet and make sweet love with bitter citrus hops.  Simple, but nice.  Neither flavor is overpowering and it makes for a nice dark beer.

Wee Heavy: I've run into precious few beers that I actively dislike.  There are many I thought could be better, but very few that I have a deep-seated loathing for.  I think that, in the history of this blog, this is the worst that I've tasted. The aroma was wonderful.  It had some light fruit and wood aroma that had all the promise of a good scotch ale.  The flavor... well... it had this leathery flavor.  It had a big leathery flavor.  It was like... and I apologize, this comparison is not going to be pleasant for anyone, including me... it was like licking a cowboy.

That is not a typo, I didn't mean to write liking, it wasn't like 'friending' a country singer on Facebook.  It was like giving a tongue bath to a professional bull rider. 

There are those who might enjoy licking a cowboy, but I do not.  The very fact that this beer made me think of that rather horrific idea is as good a reason as any to avoid it.

Lightning Hopkins: This in an ale brewed with sassafras.  I liked the idea, but the resulting sweet root beer flavor clashed heavily with the hops to the point that it just seemed out of place.

Bottom line.  Broadway Brewing, get the lamb burger.  Eat the living hell out of the lamb burger.  Enjoy a pale ale or maybe a cherry saison if it tickles your fancy.

Might keep a distance from the rest.

Great Nebraska Beer Fest: Part 3

Well folks, it that's time of the day.  It's the time in which where, after a day full of heavy drinking, people start getting touchy feely.  It's the time of day where it is not unusual to see two men walking arm in arm from tent to tent.  In the distance you can hear slurs of, "I love you man..."  So let's get through this before things get awkward.

 Plowshare Brewing, Rumbleseat Rhubarb Beer:  The gentleman running the tap poured me a glass and said, "You'll like this.  It's got the same sweet tart qualities as rhubarb."  That was a really accurate description.  The rhubarb is the most prominent flavor, but it's given a little sweetness from the malt.

Beach Wood, Pale Ale: One more out of towner from California and, to be honest, kind of a so-so representative.  Citrus hops on the nose, light caramel flavor with citrus hops... pretty much the quintessential pale ale.  Not bad but nothing special.

Confluence Brewing Company, Farmer Jon Multi Grain Ale: A Des Moines brewer proving that multi-grain isn't just for bread that helps you poop.  This is an ale brewed with wheat, barley, rye and oats.  That being said, this is a lighter ale there's not a lot of added quality to it.  It's a refreshing light beer with a bit of extra body.

Funkwerks, Tropic King: Belgian ale from Fort Collins.  Tones of fruity esters, banana, tropical fruit and a hint of pepper spice.  Comes out with a banana nut aroma.

Nectar Ales, IPA: A kind of Belgian, IPA cross from California.  I picked up some citrus aroma combined with some of those fruity esters on the nose.  The fruity flavors are very pronounced but there is a very distinct hop bit that comes on slowly but really lingers.

Schlafly, Pumpkin Ale: I finished the festival with, appropriately enough given the current season, a pumpkin ale.  This St. Louis ale comes out with a nose-full of pumpkin spice.  This is one of those pumpkin pies in a glass that some people absolutely cannot stand.  I quite liked it, though... although by this time, I doubt there was much I wouldn't like.

And that's the Great Nebraska Beer Fest.  I hope you enjoyed this whirlwind tour of what the Midwest has to offer.  We're back to the cross-country bar hopping next week.

Cheers!

Great Nebraska Beer Fest: Part 2

Continuing dispatches from my hometown beer festival. Let's get to it, shall we?

The thing I always find slightly amusing about these beer festivals is the lack of interest in the big breweries.   Budweiser, Miller and the like didn't show their faces at this gathering, but a couple of the biggest microbrewers (if they can be called that) like Sam Adams and Goose Island did have a little booth with taps and a couple of forlorn looking people manning them.

Meanwhile breweries like CIB can't pour them fast enough.

Brand recognition means nothing in this place, if anything it's detrimental.  This is a place where the people flock towards something different.  It's a beautiful thing, really.  This is the playing field for the little guys.  The big boys are welcome to play, but they are about to know what it's like to be picked last for a change.


Empyrean Brewing, Domino Effect: Another home-state beer I am sorta familiar with.   I've had their Burning Skyes at any rate.  This is a lighter beer that "celebrates the changing of the seasons". It has a vaguely unpleasant skunky aroma though.  The flavor isn't bad; it's refreshing with light malt and a kind of earthiness.

Little Apple, Brewing: Blueberry Ale: From Manhattan Kansas, a town I assume to be the exact opposite of Manhattan, New York though I confess I've not been either place.  The fruit flavor is in the aroma and the flavor and in just the right amount.  Its just slightly sweet and imparts more of the fruit tartness that mixes with the crisp lager flavor.  It was quite refreshing, a quality I started valuing highly in the heat.

Little Apple Brewing, Malbok: Started off with light roasted grain with a hint of peach in the aroma.  I picked up sweet, light fruit flavors off the top along with some subtle hop bitterness in the back that really helps balance the sweetness.

Lone Tree, Hop Wrangler: This another selection from a brewery I featured just a couple months back.  The aroma had some banana, clove notes to it which left me completely unprepared for what was about to happen to my poor palate.  All I tasted was bitter.  Pure, astringent, back-of-the-throat bitterness.  Clearly that's where this beer got it's name.  For a brewery I really enjoyed, I was kinda disappointed here.

Thunder Head, Dark Wheat: A strange beer from Kearney Nebraska.  Overall the effect of a dark wheat beer was similar to a dark lager.  There was no aroma to speak of and the flavor was a simple, roasted grain experience.  I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as I did, but it was very refreshing dark beer on a hot August day.

Blind Tiger Brewery, Java Porter: Back down in the wilds of Kansas where microbrewing has apparently taken off far more then I had ever expected.  Their coffee porter had the sweet mocha aroma but the flavor was more bitter with charcoal and roasted barley added to the sweet coffee.  Not bad but nothing special for a porter.

Infusions Brewing, Butcher Brown: The GMBF has a fair share of sneak previews.  I noted a couple I managed to stumble across already, but this is a bit different.  By the time I actually post this, Infusions will be open and, hopefully, slinging a lot of beer.  However, during the festival Infusions was still over a month away from opening.   Beer from a brewery that's not even open yet?  That's kinda cool.  This beer has the Belgian yeast aroma of clove, banana and esters.  A lot of browns want for flavor and this beer does not have that problem at all.  Not even in the slightest.  I picked up lots of black roasted grain with spicy, peppery hops bringing up the rear.  As I continued to enjoy this beer I began to suspect that the pepper was actually a product of actual pepper, but there was no one to confirm this.

Cathedral Square, Repent Rye: Interesting rye ale from St. Louis.  It started off with a dark port wine aroma.  It was more bitter then I would have predicted from the aroma; citrusy, spicy hops stand up very well against the light fruit flavors in the beer.

Iowa Brewers Union, Rye IPA: Okay, so not really a brewery in and of itself.  More like a really, really big homebrewers club from central Iowa.  But they came with beer, so they are awesome.  Their offering was a kind of mix of styles.  It started off with a wonderful spicy, dark fruit aroma.  I picked up lots of rich raisin, date and caramel flavors with just a hint of pepper from the rye.  Didn't get much in the way of hops though.  Good beer, but probably not a great representation of the two styles.

Chaser Bros, Raspberry Stout: If nothing else, I learned I need to get out of the house more.   Okay, let's refine that slightly... I need to get out of the house and then travel maybe... five miles as opposed to a thousand.  This is another brewery from a nearby Nebraska town that, sadly has escaped by notice until now.  Their stout had a wonderful dark chocolate berry aroma.  The flavor conveys pretty much the exact same idea, but with a little bit of coffee bitterness as well.

Goldenrod Brewing, Saison IPA: Another brewery coming soon to the Omaha area, but came to the festival with a preview of coming attractions.  This is a much better example of two styles making sweet love with each other.  The saison is well represented in the banana clove and fruity esters and which stand up to, and oddly compliment the citrus and pine in the hops.

One more marathon session before it's back to business as usual around here.