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.