Now, I am used to and dearly love the quintessential American brewpubs that have sprung up in every town in this country. This is not one of those. If you go to the brewery at about 9:00pm at night, like I did you are simply going to find yourself in an industrial section of Tulsa in the middle of the night sitting outside an empty brewery. If you go there during the day, I'm not sure it will be any different. I couldn't find any information about tours or anything like that, so I imagine they would give you a list of the fine establishments that carry their beer before politely telling you to take a hike.
So where do you find the beer here? The simple answer is, nearly everywhere in Tulsa. After I had hit a dead end at the brewery, I retreated to a nearby Irish pub to have a pint and plan my next move.
Killkennys Irish Pub
They have a pretty good beer selection including, to my surprise, Marshall's Atlas IPA on tap. It was a little like being an explorer looking for the Lost City of Gold, sitting down for a rest in the jungle and then getting up only to find that I had just put my butt on a block of solid gold.
The Atlas IPA:
A fairly average IPA in my opinion. It had a lighter flavor than I typically like in and IPA. It had a light, roasted malt flavor right off the top, then smoothed into herbal and pine hop flavors. It was drinkable, but nothing I would run back to have again.
So that was one down, but Marshall's still had three more beers out there somewhere. It could be said, in a very overly-dramatic fashion, that I had a mission. It was getting increasingly late, however, so I had to find a short-cut. Violating the Code of the Man, I asked the bartender for the best place to find the other three beers. I had to hand over my Man Card, but I did manage to find this bar.
James E. McNellie's Public House.
This was the type of place I was looking for. It is truly a beer-lovers bar in a place not typically known for having a lot of beer-lovers. The atmosphere was nice and laid back. The staff were good although not exceptionally knowledgeable, but they were very friendly and kept the beer glasses full. They had a lot of Oklahoma beers available here, including the rest of the beers from Marshalls.
McNellie's Pub Ale:
I didn't actually make a connection between the name of the bar and this beer until I sat down a couple days later to write this, so I feel like my perceptive qualities are very much in question at the moment. That being said, this was an okay beer. It can probably be classified as a pale ale given the hop content. Pretty simple beer, but it has a lingering aftertaste of the hops that I really didn't like. I think this is the one beer that I wouldn't order again.
Pavillion Pilsner:
Nice light pilsner. It had slight lemon flavor in the aroma and the flavor. Like the rest of their beers they used herbal hops for this beer, and I think they added just a touch too much for the style. There just wasn't enough malt in this to balance out the hops.
Sundown Wheat:
I think this was my favorite of their offerings. Like the rest of the beers by this brewery, it's all about simplicity and it really works for this beer. The beer is such a pale yellow color that it borders on just being the color of cloudy water. The aroma and flavor is almost exclusively citrus and lemon flavors. Adding a lemon wedge to this beer would be redundant. On a blazing hot weekend in Oklahoma this beer was blessedly refreshing and highly drinkable.
As it stands, I'm heading off to Chicago next week, and then I'll be spending some time in St. Paul. I'll catch you all up then.
Jones out.
No comments:
Post a Comment