Way to (ab)normal: Normal, Illinois

One of the cool things about my job is the fact that I find myself in places that I probably would never, ever conceive of going. Not even on a bet.

Take Normal, Illinois.  Maybe it's the name... okay it's definitely the name, but I had an image in my mind of a city comprised of nothing but tract housing and corner markets run by guys named 'James'. (You can call him Jimmy)  A place where paperboys say 'gee-willickers' and all the housewives had been replaced with subservient robots.

I am proud to report that Normal is pretty much like any other city in this country.  People give each other the finger and hardly any of the women are animatronic puppets.

And there are microbrews.   Well, two of them which I feel is pretty good for a Midwest city of this size.  The one I went to was based on a recommendation by a friend, who makes this a stop whenever he is in the area.  This week, it's off to Destihl Brew Works.

The name is admittedly pretentious.  "We are so creative and indie that we need not conform to your pedestrian spelling of actual words that mean things."  It reeks of the hipster crowd would sit in the corner of this highly art-deco restaurant, wearing a trucker hat, a Rod Stewart T-shirt from the 1984 tour, drink Bud-light and let everyone bask in the glow of his irony.

All that being said, I am willing to forgive all of the above since, well the beer is fantastic, the food is good and, despite the appearance of the joint, relatively inexpensive.  Their brick oven pizzas all run under $10, they are fantastic and they easily serve as a full meal and a afternoon snack the next day.   The package is wonderful even if the wrapping makes you sigh and shake your head.
With the exception of a couple standards, the beer menu rotates so vigorously that the beers you had three months ago may be replaced by an entirely new selection today.  Good for maverick boozetrafarians like myself, but a bit annoying for people who prefer to stick to things they like.  That being said, I think anyone who likes craft beer would find something for them here:

Angel Stout: If you're a militant stout fan, a die-hard supporter of dark, malty beers you might wanna slowly back away from the bar for this one, you'll just upset yourself.  This beer breaks the cardinal rule for stouts, a rule that sends a sub-set of beer snobs running for their BJCP style guides.  This stout is hoppy.  Very hoppy.  It's floral, pine hops are in the aroma along with the roasted barley and they are definitely there in the flavor profile.  It finishes very dry, more like an IPA.

Bela Imperial Pils: Those that feel alienated by the hoppy stout may find what they are looking for in the Bela.  It is marketed as a 'intensely hopped beer' but outside a lemony aroma and flavor, it really doesn't stand out very much.  What does stand out is the large malt bill that adds a surprising amount of body and sweetness to this beer. 

Vertex IPA: A west coast IPA with citrus, floral hop aroma of Cascade hops.  It is well balanced and surprisingly drinkable as I sorta found out by accident.

It's like this:  Me and about four other people stopped by the brewery after work.  As soon as I set foot inside for a bit of malty R and R, my phone rang.  It was my boss.  Against all my better judgements (why do they include call ID on all cellphones if not to facilitate the screening of annoying calls?) I answered.  We had to go back to work, all of us.  There was a minor emergency that needed to be sorted out.  Now. 
I screamed, cried and swore up a storm and went inside the bar to deliver the news.  I managed to catch everyone before they ordered except one man who was holding a freshly poured IPA in his hand and a fearful look on his face.  We had a choice to make.
Which alcohol sin would weigh on our souls more?  Leaving a beer behind abandoned and unloved, or slamming an IPA like a lost frat boy at the Great American Beer Festival.  I opted for option B.

Okay maybe not the most glowing review of a beer ever, but it says something.  Those who like a balanced IPA will like the Vertex.  It combines bitter with drinkable very well.

Ordinary Rye Bitter: One of their lighter offerings, the rye bitter has a light, lemon and pepper combined with light malts.  Pretty good session beer with enough flavors to keep it interesting.

Dampfbier

Dampfbier:  Apparently a obscure all-barley style beer unearthed by this brewery.  I'm a little confused about the all-barley reference.  Seriously aren't most beers all barley?  Maybe it's me, but if anyone has a proper translation for this, hit me up.  Is there something I am missing, or is this just more pretension?
Anyway, it has a soft, semi-spicy aroma.  The flavor is filled with banana and spice with a smooth mouthfeel. 

Blonde: Another lighter beer.   The thing I am finding that I do love about this place is that their light beers are by no means watery.  Here, light means subtle flavor as opposed to no flavor what-so-ever.  This beer had notes of sweet orange on top of it's light malt flavors.

Weisenheimer Hefeweisen: This beer has a distinct floral aroma on top of caramel.  It holds true in the flavor profile as well with some clove and coriander spice notes as well.

Once again I find myself in Detroit next week.  Not sure what motor-city tales I'll be coming back with, but a visit to Michigan wine country might not be out of the question. 
Cheers!

Microbrews in the brewery town: St. Louis, Missouri

I'm out in a true brewing town this week, St. Louis.  Birthplace of the beer that all beer snobs love to hate, Budweiser.  The self-proclaimed King of Beers.    Yeah, we aren't going to discuss that.   Here, I headed up to the Northern suburbs to the town of Ferguson and Ferguson Brewing Company.

I feel like I should discuss why I headed way up on the North side of town when there are several very good, well known breweries (and I am not talking the Brewery-That-Must-Not-Be-Named) downtown.  It's like this, I was there when there were two Cardinals games and a Rams game in the same weekend and downtown St. Louis, to put in nicely, was a freaking zoo.   What I found was a cool out-of-the-way beer gem.


There's nothing particularly special about Ferguson other then the fact it's just a nice place to kick back for a pint or two.   The menu is pretty typical pub fare with one or two exceptions.  Their beer menu is pretty extensive, so that's cool.   Lots to choose from.

One thing I do want to say.  When I go to breweries I often start with a tasters flight which, ideally a small pour of the majority if not all the beers.  This strikes me as a pretty obvious concept, but maybe not.  Ferguson only serves four of their 10+ beers on tap per taster.  The obvious solution, and the one I ended up going with, was to buy two tasters, but still...

That was my little princess tantrum.  And now... Beer!

Pilsner:  Most of the time this is a beer brewed to appease Bud drinkers who were dragged into the bar by beer snob buddies.   This one, on the other hand, is actually really good.  It has a slight herbal hop aroma.  It starts fairly sweet for a moment and then is hit with a decent dose of herbal hops.  Not IPA strength, but respectable for a pils.

Hefenweizen: Lemony clove aroma.  It has a creamy mouthfeel with a kind of banana nut flavor with clove spice on top.  Very smooth drinkable beer.

Blonde Ale: No aroma.  Slighty malty flavor with a kind of lemony sour flavor in the background.  No bitterness to speak of.  It's light, but manages to be that way without being watery.

It's Pumpkin Ale Season Again.

Pumpkin Ale:  It's that time of year again.  Personally I love the pumpkin ales that start taking up tap spaces in microbreweries all over this country, though I seem to be of the minority.  So I'm going to say this up front, if you don't like the pumpkin spice ale style stay the hell away from this.  It has no aroma to speak of.  The spices in the flavor are about as subtle as a 6:00am jackhammer outside your bedroom window.  Lots of cinnamon and nutmeg balanced on a malty foundation.  It's a pumpkin pie in a glass.  It rather liked it, but consider yourself warned.

IPA: This selection had a very light lemony aroma.  Lots of citrus, flowery hops balanced rather well on it's malty foundation.

Munich Dunkel:  No aroma again.  It has a spicy, malty flavor right of the top but it quickly turns surprisingly bitter for the style.  Lots of herbal, pine hops in this one.  The description the brewery gives is, "Hops come into play both in the aroma and slightly in the flavor."
Um... yeah.  No slightly about this one.

Pecan Nut Brown Ale: This is a brown ale brewed with actual nuts in the mash.  It manages to avoid the usual downfall of the brown ale style, i.e. watery and light.  This one is nutty on top of a fairly heavy malt bill.  Hops come to play at the end of the palate and linger unusually long.

Oatmeal Stout:  Again, I found aroma lacking.  The flavor is all sweet coffee and cream in flavor and mouthfeel. Again, I ran across a distinct hop flavor in the background.  At first I was afraid that I had some left on my palate from a previous beer, but even after water and a bit of food, I could taste hops in the background.  Still not sure how I feel about that.

Barleywine:  Light, fruity aroma here.  Notes of strawberry and raspberry peak out among the sea of malt and hops.  It has a very heavy dose of flowery, herbal hops.  This to is  limited offering by the brewery, but it's worth checking out.

Old Places, New Faces: Detroit MI

I am finding myself in Detroit with disturbing regularity.  For reasons that escape me it seems my destiny and that of this city are disturbingly intertwined.  I'm not sure what that implies, but it might not be all bad.

"There is something about relaxed places that generate good beer." said my server at Sherwood Brewery, comparing Oregon and Michigan beer culture.  It never occurred to me to describe Detroit as relaxed.  If it is, surely relaxation has been largely thrust upon this city.  

 

The overgrown remains of the Big Buck brewery.

And as the ruins of the Big Buck brewery point out, it strikes me as a tough place to survive.  Breweries thrive on expendable income, something that Detroit has not been known for lately. But, for whatever rhyme or reason, the Detroit area hides rare gems that keep appearing underfoot each time I kick up a bit of dust here.  Sherwood might be my new favorite.

It's located in the Northern Suburbs tucked away from a strip of chain restaurants and bars it an unassuming little strip mall.   It's the kind of place you're not likely to find unless you're looking for it, which probably makes it all the better.  It has the feel of a nice little neighborhood bar.  The kind of place you might only get to see if you know someone in the area.

The other cool thing about this place is their collection of mead.  And not just simple honey, water and yeast mead either, although that is a fantastic combination.  But we will get to that later.  Let's talk beer first.  I started off with a sampler of everything they happened to have on tap at the time which wasn't as much as they usually do.  My luck was at work here, and they were out of at least two of their regular beers.  What they did have was pretty good:

Hell road Hefewizen: This starts with a heavy clove and banana aroma which, in this case, says nothing about the flavor. 
It is more lemony and watery.   I picked up more spice and clove later on, but I got almost none in the first tastes for some reason.

Fuzzy weisen:This is the hef except finished with peaches slightly tropical herbal aroma.

Similar to the hef but sweeter with a bigger body.  I get peach but it is very subtle.  It strikes me as just the right blend, the peach just helps the lemony, grassy flavors along and never overpowers it.  Those that might steer clear of this beer because they fear something on par with Pyramid's Apricot Wheat, something that amounts to an apricot-flavored beer, need not worry.  This isn't it.

Longshanks mild ale:  Session beer for those who like drinkablity with a little boost.   Starts with a toasted aroma with nut brown sugar.  It has a slightly creamy mouthfeel.  As expected it's very light but I still pick up a decent amount of roasted grain, caramel and, for some reason, buttery popcorn came to mind.    It's slight, but it's very good all around.

Abbeyversary:  Anniversary ale celebrating the first time the Brewer yelled Gadzooks.  Just kidding, obviously.  I dig the hell out if this.  Pine aroma with dark fruit raisins.  Malty full bodied pine and citrus prevalent throughout but not overpowering.  Balanced just right with dark fruit malty flavors.   This one quickly became my favorite.

Nobel Benny:  9.75 and 66 IBUs 

Light fruity aroma,  I pick up strawberry alcohol malt caramel there.  I get a little of that in the flavor as well... Just before all the hops descend to kick my teeth in.  It has a hop profile reminiscent of Arrogant Bastard with as much subtlety.  With it's massive dose of hops and alcohol not to mention the body of a sumo wrestler, you are not likely to have more then about one of these, but it's a good one to have.

I promised mead, didn't I?  Yes I did.  They have some interesting flavors in their honey wine at this place. 

Mint Vanilla Wildflower:  Minty with notable honey aroma.   Mint is very much overpowering, but vanilla is there at the end, but you have to be looking for it.  Without the obvious hint in the name, I would assume it was just mint.

Rasberry dragon fruit: Very sweet.  It's got all the advertised fruit flavors there, a bit of berry and tropical fruit, but it's bordering on jolly rancher sweet. Too much for me.

Chocolate: This one was a surprise favorite of mine.  After the last one I more or less figured that I was about to quaff a double chocolate fudge sundae.  The aroma had lots of chocolate and a bit of leather in there. It's nowhere near as sweet as I thought it would be.  It had all the body I was expecting but it doesn't go overboard with the sweet.  Its actually just slightly bitter and more like unsweetened dark chocolate.

 

I'm taking the next week off.  I'm getting married next weekend and I'm guessing I probably won't have time to run off for a pint, and even less time to write about it after.  I'll be back in two weeks, though. 

Cheers!

Flailing About like a Drunken Monkey: Dayton OH

This week found me in the wilds of Ohio.  Not even a place particularly interesting in Ohio, just kind of... well in Ohio.  I was close to Dayton which basically means I wasn't even in Dayton, but farther in the endless suburbs to the South.  Pickens is slim. 
We did manage to find a pretty cool taproom by the name of Chappy's Tap Room.   

Overall, it's a place where there is good beer and good burgers to be had.  If that is your thing, and you find yourself in that part of Ohio, then you owe it to yourself, you might even owe it to America to go there.
The terrorist win otherwise.  At least that's what I've heard.

While I was there I had sips and pints of whatever happened to catch my fancy.  There was a lot to choose from here, so this is going to jump around a bit.  From brewery to brewery, state to state, this is a sampling of some of the goodness going on around the country.

First, from Denver Colorado is the Great Divide IPA.  It had a sweet citrus aroma.  The beer was well balanced overall.  The citrus hops were mixed with a bit of pine and medicinal flavors.  Overall a very good IPA for those that like the hops but also like enough malt to stand up to them in a fight.

Next, from Grand Rapids Michigan, is Founder Brewery's Dirty Bastard.  This runs screaming to the opposite side of the malt, hop spectrum.  The aroma is all chocolate and caramel.  It has a big creamy body with some sweet coffee and chocolate flavors with some subtle dark fruit flavors hidden somewhere in it's beefy folds.  It ends dry with a tiny hint of bitterness in the back of the throat.

From there it was a sample from an old friend in California.  Lagunitas brewing in Pentaluma is one of those breweries that has achieved almost legendary status from beer geeks.  At this taproom in Ohio they were still pouring their August seasonal beer, the Daytime IPA.  It's kind of billed as a low APV beer to drink during summer days without passing out in the bathtub before lunchtime.  It has a very lemony aroma almost to the point of being lemonade.  It doesn't pack that IPA punch to the palate that most do.  I suspect that it has enough hops to plant itself firmly in IPA territory, but the flavor is far from overpowering.  It is a very smooth, highly drinkable beer that seems perfect for it's intended purpose.  I could see myself drinking this all day although I couldn't because after a couple sips the guy across the table was already giving me that look that says, "Gimme my beer back you freak!"

Okay, it's back to Michigan, Kalamazoo (A city that exists purely so that people can say it's name.  Seriously that word is fun just to type) and Dark Horse brewing.  The word 'Dopplebock' evokes something primal in me.  There is something about that style that almost guarantees awesome is afoot.  When Dark Horse first made their dopplebock however, they weren't impressed.  It just seemed too... well... normal.

So they gave the middle finger to German Purity Laws and came up with the Perkulator Coffee Dopplebock.  The aroma and flavor are pretty self-explanatory, I feel.  It has a coffee with cream sensation all around with a slightly dry finish.

To finish up it's back Founders Brewing and their seasonal breakfast stout.  It's billed a the coffee lover's stout, but I didn't pick up the java bomb they were promising.  It might have been because of the Perkulator, I don't think mankind's palate is designed to handle that much bean after about 10am, but it just didn't have that big flavor.  It had the big body and a sharp roasted barley note with some bitter roasted coffee aromas, but it was basically just another stout.  A very, very good stout, but just a stout in the end.

That was all the flailing I am prepared to handle in one sitting.  Back to some more focused (or not) discussions later. 
Cheers!