A Few Beers in the Valley of the Sun

Hello and welcome all.  Pull up a bar stool and pour yourself a glass of fine brew.  We are hitting the road and finding the best craft beer, wine and spirits this country has to offer.  Feel free to add any comments, questions, etc.  
  For the first post, we are starting in the Southwest in Phoenix, AZ.... well not Phoenix exactly.  Just down a bit.... down a little more... okay now just a bit to your right... a bit more... there you are.
We start in Chandler and Tempe, AZ.

 One of the things I want to accomplish with this blog is to introduce friends to great craft beers in places that they never would imagine.  In that way it's somewhat fitting that I start this project in Phoenix, Arizona.   A year ago, I was looking for some craft beer in the area.  Long story short, after searching for quite a while, I ended with the address of a brewery that either never existed, or had closed down long ago.  Flash forward to today it took me a few minutes looking in the right place to discover that I had several microbreweries just a few blocks from where I was staying.  My point is, there are great beers out there.  It might take a little searching, but they are there.
I stopped by two breweries during my trip, SanTan in Chandler, AZ and Four Peaks in Tempe.

SanTan Brewing Co.

 SanTan Brewing is located in the restaurant and bar district of downtown Chandler, AZ.  Nice location if you happen to be in the Southeast Phoenix area near Tempe and Scottsdale.   If your more towards downtown Phoenix, than this is probably a bit of a drive to get to.   But if you do make it down, stop in.  There are some fine beers on tap at this location.

I stopped by during the last game of the NBA finals, and so had everyone else in the greater Phoenix area.  On a related note, it sounds like Dallas has a lot of supporters in the Phoenix area.  Either that, or Miami has some detractors here.  
It took a bit of effort to find myself a seat at the bar and a little bit of patience to finally get a beer.   Given the conditions, I probably can't fault them for taking a while.   When I finally did get the bartender's attention he was nice enough to spend a little time talking about the beers they had on tap, so they get points there.  Once the game was over and the place quieted down a little, it became a nice place to hang out.  They have a really nice outdoor seating area where you can still belly-up to the bar.  It's a nice place to sit on a warm evening in Southern Arizona with a cool pint.  This also strikes me as a place that takes the art of craft brew seriously.  All their beer comes in that rounded glass shape made famous by the Sam Adams brewery.  They also have three taps especially for their cask-aged beers.  If you haven't had a cask-aged beer, try them.   They are delicious.

They have a good selection of beers.  I had a taste of most of them.  Among them they have a niro-stout named the Gordo Stout.  It was good, like a Guiness with more roasted grain.  They also have a couple of Hefeweizen beers that they brew using that Belgian wheat beer yeast that brewers insist adds a 'bannana flavor' to the beer.  I have had a banana or two and I have had those beers.  I don't know what that flavor is, but it sure as hell ain't banana.  Some folks like it, I find it horrific.  It wasn't as bad at this particular brewery, but I still am not a fan, so I will leave that to those that enjoy it.   There were a couple of really good stand outs:

Epicenter Amber

This is SanTan's flagship American Amber ale.  It's available on tap at the brewery and also in cans around Arizona.  Sun Tan describes this beer thusly, "Deep garnet amber hue with a firm toasted malt character, lightly sweet with a crisp, dry finish."
 Fair enough, this beer is pretty much as advertised.  There are some light malts in the aroma.  The taste is slightly malty off the top and it ends with just a touch of bitterness.   All in all a nice, balanced amber ale.  




SanTan IWA and Hopshock IPA

 SanTan's seasonal addition during my visit was an Indian Wheat Ale.  I had their Hopshock IPA right after this beer and there wasn't a lot of difference.  The Hopshock had more malt flavor than this beer, but both were very approachable IPA style beers.  Perhaps I'm a bit spoiled on beers from the Pacific Northwest where the addition of Cascade hops is almost a competitive sport, but both of these surprised me.  Both had a lot of citrus hops in the aroma, but there was a lot of malt sweetness in the flavor.  If pressed, I am not sure I could tell the IWA and IPA apart, although I think the IWA had quite a bit less malt flavor.  Both good beers and very approachable.  Those who don't like those hop bombs that normally characterize an IPA may enjoy these.

 Sunspot Gold
On my trip, I spent some time listening to a podcast called 'Expert Drinking' with Steven and Dr. Bill.  One of them remarked that the skill of a brewer is not measured in their Imperial Stouts or Barleywines.  Instead  the mark of a great brewer lies in their ability to make a pilsner.  You can hide a lot of mistakes in the fullness of an imperial stout, but in a beer such as this you've got nowhere to hide.




Four Peaks Brewing Company

 Driving to the brewery I started looking suspiciously at my GPS device.  It apparently wanted me to turn off the main road and drive into, what looked like, a residential area.   Historically, my GPS has proven itself much smarter than myself so I heeded its advice.  Sure enough I soon found a line of parked cars by the side of the road that extended almost a quarter mile away from the brewery.
Again, the place was packed but it was a Saturday night afterall.  I found myself a spot to sit down and was greeted by Heather who was tending bar.  She immediately told me about their seasonal brew, a malt liquor.  In my mind the words 'malt liquor' are filed under the heading 'masochistic,' but we will get to that later.
The bar itself was pretty cool.  It was built into an old creamery at the edge of town, so they had plenty of space to work with.  The fermenters sit towards the back of the bar and apparently are subjected to the oppressive desert heat as the bar is temperature controlled with a swamp cooler alone.  I asked one of the other bartenders how hot it got in there and  if this had any effect on the beer in mid-summer.   He shrugged and said it gets in the upper 90's in the building, but as far as he knew, it didn't effect the beer at all.  
Nor did I taste any off flavors in the beer, so I figure we can go with that.  They had a good selection of some really wonderful beers, including the aforementioned malt liquor.  Most of the beers described to me as 'hoppy' really weren't.  Again this may be my experience with the hopheads in the Pacific Northwest.   Their flagship beer is a scottish ale they call the 'Kiltlifter.' It was a fantastic ale with hints of fruit and bourbon.  I didn't sit down and write a nice long review because I ended up talking to one of the locals sitting next to me.  But trust, me it's worth a taste.  Here are some other stand outs:
Four Peaks Malt Liquor

Like I said earlier, the term malt liquor usually reminds me of skunky tasting, urine colored swill that I ended up sucking down at college parties to stave of that retched, retched sobriety.   I also seem to recall a friend of mine at the University of Oregon claiming that he would rather be sodomized with a large, irregularly shaped vegetable than drink a 40 of Ol' English.  The Four Peaks Malt Liquor, on the other hand is surprisingly, even dangerously drinkable.  The aroma and taste are a nice combination of sweet malts and citrus hops.  The overall profile is very similar to an American pale ale.  Watch out, however; it does a good job of hiding it's 9% alcohol content and one could easily drink three or four of them before they realize that they have lost the ability to stand under their own power.

Raj IPA

This is a rare example of a true English style IPA.  I had a small taste of their Hop Knot American IPA right after this just to compare and contrast.  The difference is rather striking.  Whereas American IPAs are loaded down with citrus and floral hops for maximum hop flavor, this was much more subtle.   The English IPAs were brewed, not so much for the hop flavor, but to help the beer keep on the long trip to India.  It had a sweet, fruity nose of orange or maybe peach.  The taste had medium body with a mildly sweet start that finished with a dry bitterness you could feel in the back of your throat.  Probably not a beer for everyone, but I quite enjoyed it.



Sunbru Kolsch

  Traditional German style ale.  It's a very light ale with some light malty sweetness in the aroma.   It has a light body with mild carbonation.  The light malts and low hop bitterness make this an exceptionally drinkable beer.  Very refreshing in the desert heat.  




Well that's it for this week.  I'll try to get a post up once a week and see how it goes.  Next week I'll talk about my trip back through Arizona wine country.  This is the place to go if, like myself, you are a fan of dry red wines.  We will also talk about the lead singer of Tool, Maynard James Keenan and what, if anything, heavy metal alternative rock has to do with the art of wine making.


Cheers!