Left Coast Redemption: Long Beach, CA

I first came into contact with Beachwood Brewing company here in Nebraska, strangely enough.  This Southern California brew pub was one of the few to brave the Great Planes and bring a couple of pints up.

And frankly, their appearance didn't make the best of impressions suffice to say, their pale ale... meh.

I am now convinced that whatever hell-brew they schlepped up to Nebraska was something they must save for out-of-towners because, not only did I not see this rather unexciting pale on their menu, but the beers they had on tap were much better.  Nothing that will make the beer acolyte rethink everything they know about hops and barley, but very good none-the less.

The cool thing about this place is the fact that this is a place where the local beer geeks gather.  To illustrate this point, there was one moment where the bartender discretely pulled a small bottle from behind the bar and passed it to a group of guys at the other end of the bar.  They all gasped and stared in a kind of reverence one only normally runs into in a religious setting.  I asked about the bottles and the bartender said, "Goose Island is coming out with a new line of sour beers.  There was only two available and I got both of them."

Yeah... it's that kind of place.

And speaking of beer:

Melrose IPA: Loved the floral citrus aroma on this beer.  This beer packs a lot of bitterness, but it's one of those beers that's got enough citrus and hops from the hops to really make this beer enjoyable.  It's a hop bomb, no doubt about it, but in that pleasant way.

James Brown Ale:  This brown ale has a deceiving coffee mocha aroma on it.   I say deceiving because it's got some serious hops for the style.  I pick up a heavy amount of herbal earthy hop character underneath a roasted malt back.   It's different but not terribly appealing to me personally.

Utter Love Stout: Nice big roasted aroma on this milk stout.  The flavor contains big bodied, sweet  coffee mocha notes. It makes for a wonderful winter beer in a part if the country that doesn't really have any winter to speak of. 

Hops of Brixton: A familiar floral citrus aroma on this ESB.  It has an interesting blend of citrus bitter hops with a kind of fruity malt background.  It's a remarkably good balance and leads to a wonderfully bitter drinkable ale.

Oat monster:  A lot of sharp roasted aroma with maybe a hit of licorice.  The flavor is very smooth, full bodied yet fairly dry with a bit of an herbal floral finish.

Hop Ninja: Okay, this double IPA frankly scared me a little. Their IPA had a massive dose of IBU's but they managed to get away with it.  But with a double?  The urge to go completely overboard was just too great.  They would end up with hop bomb that obliterate any taste sensations I had left.  The aroma is pure cascade hops.  It was like putting my face in a hop bag.  The taster wasn't bad but it tasted like cascade hops with some sugar added.  It was pretty good but I don't think I could finish an entire pint.

Ryeco Suave:  Belgian with a spicy clove and fruity esters aroma.  The flavor is mild, smooth and wonderful.  There are some spicy qualities with the banana and tropical fruit.  Pleasant beer all around.

I've got one more dispatch from Southern California before I leave this area of the country.  Until then, cheers!

Scrap Metal City: Detroit MI

More and more I feel a weird kind of affinity for Detroit.  There is no reason whatsoever for this ruined city to have as many microbreweries; good microbreweries mind, in a city that's almost become the icon of the kind of post-industrial economy desperation.  Yet, in my semi-frequent visits I always come across another brewery.

It is my theory (my highly uninformed theory but I have yet to hear a better one) that Detroit is filled with people who know damn well that no corporation or government is going to give a damn about them.  These people find their own way to try and survive.  They build, they create and more then a few of them brew.

My selection for this visit was Copper Canyon Brewery.  And after such a grandiose introduction, honestly, I was a little disappointed with the selection, although they were out of one of their regular beers and the seasonal was in the process of being rotated out, so it kinda is what it is. 

Alt Beer: Rich and malty with a hint of dark fruit and a touch of citrus in the finish.  Nice all around drinkable beer here.

IPA: Fairly typical citrus aroma.  There was an interesting, heavy floral quality to the flavor however.  It's a nice change, but it was far too much in this beer.  It had a bitterness that was off the charts but it wasn't the normal back-of-the-throat bitterness one gets from most hops.  This one you feel everywhere and it quickly overwhelms the palate.

Brown Ale: This beer had a nice fruity and sweet aroma. The flavor was full and very malty with some chocolate, dark cherry and toasty grain characters.  Sweet, but a nice beer overall.

Golden Ale: Wheat beer with a heavy clove tropical fruit flavor.  The Belgian yeast tropical fruit clove flavor is overwhelming and my pint had this metallic off flavor that made me fairly certain that I had a pint of a bad batch, despite the waitresses insistence that she didn't think it was.

On a side note, I am proud to announce that this little tale from Detroit is the 100th post of this blog.  Given the mortality rate in the killing fields of the blogosphere, making it to 100 posts is, I feel, a bit of a mile stone.  Blogspot is littered with the corpses of blogs that were sporadically updated ten times before the author became distracted by something else shiny.

So I'm kind of proud of that.  Thought about doing a 'Best Of' post in commemoration, but honestly, couldn't be buggered.  At the sheer number of brews this site boasts, any ranking would have been completely arbitrary at best.

Instead it's business as usual.  Thank you for reading.  And now I'm off to find another beer.

Cheers!

Southwest in the Southeast: Altanta, GA

Finding good beer in the South is a slightly different prospect, as I have mentioned in the past.  It involves putting the nose to the air and sniffing out those strange little bars where, among other things, specialize in brewery wierdness.  One such place is a Georgia chain known as Taco Macs.

On the surface, Taco Macs is every other massive sports bar you've ever visited in Anytown USA when there is a game on the television that your television provider refuses to provide without signing over children to be used as their little evil minions.

That's how they plan to take over the world, by the way.  Armies of displaced kids snatched from the ranks of Americans that just want to watch the Big Game in their undies.  You heard it here first.

....Anyhoo!!!....

Along with the hundreds of televisions broadcasting every concievable sporting event on the planet and plates full of hot wings, they have a respectable beer selection.  They have two sections to the establishment I visited in the Western hinterlands of Atlanta, downstairs for general pop and a strict over-21 section upstairs.  The trouble is the bulk of the awesome beer is only available downstairs, which kinda sucks for anyone who likes to sink down a few pints of something interesting without the defening din that was pretty much pervasive and ear-piercing.    During my visit, the waitressess were nice enough to leg it up and down the stairs to bring me the awesomness from down below, which was really, really nice of them.

I stuck to a bit of local color this time around.  Taco Macs had a fairly complete selection of the local Sweetwater Brewing Company so I more or less stuck to their brews... ... more or less.  I was able to sample their flagship brew several months back, so this post should more or less round them out a bit.

Sweetwater Motorboat ESB: This selection has a nice, spicy, floral aroma.  Those floral herbal hops meld almost perfectly with some light roasted malt.  Finishes just a tad heavy on the hops, but it a very nice beer overall.

Sweetwater Blue: Wheat beer with a lemony sweet fruity aroma.  A refreshing beer for a hot humid summer with a sweet lemongrass flavor.

Sweetwater IPA: This is one of those IPA's I dearly love.  Brewed with Northwest hops for the floral citrus quality but balanced just right with malt to make for an enjoyable bitter beer.  Nothing particularly fancy or complex, but citrusy and floral hops done right.

Sweetwater Crank Tank: Pilsner beer with a grassy light malt aroma.  They really try and pack a lot of flavor into this light beer.  Lemony and floral hops dominate the profile to the point that it's more akin to a pale ale withiout the body and malty backbone.  Hops are almost too much since they are the only thing with any flavor.

One additional brewer on this post (I did say mostly Sweetwater afterall) is an offering from O'Dempsey's Brewing Company.

O'Dempsey's Your Black Heart: This Russian Imperial Stout has an intense fruity, woody aroma.  That fruity malty flavor melds with a hint of herbal licorice and spicy hop character that finishes a little on the dry side of the spectrum. 

Southern Belles: Oklahoma City, OK

It is my experience, and forgive me if I am mistaken, but Oklahoma strikes me as the last hold-out when it comes to the fine art of microbrewing.

Not totally, mind.  As I am about to illustrate there is good beer to be found.  But it takes quite a bit of looking.   According to both google and Beeradvocate, there are two brewpubs in the whole state of Oklahoma.  This point was emphasized when I saw the 'craft beer' section of one of the local stores that included two fruit beers from Shocktop and Sam Adams Boston Lager.

But it is there, and one place to find it is Bells Isle Brewing.

They have a respectable selection of beers, and many of them are different enough to be interesting.  Food is fairly typical bar fare.  It's nice but nothing that really stands out about it apart from it's location in a city where locally brewed beer is still a kind of oddity.

Belles Blonde: This has a light wheat lemongrass aroma.  The flavor is dry and moderately bitter with herbal lemony hops.  For a style that can often flirt uncomfortably close with tasteless and watery, this is a nice representation of what the style can be.

Wild Mary's Hefenviesn: No aroma really stands out.  Lemony hops clash with tropical fruit from the yeast in a way that's a little jarring at first.  I got used to it as I finished my taster, but it still wasn't anything I was terribly exited about.

Raspberry Wheat: Raspberry is the operative word here; lots and lots of sweet fruit dominate the flavor profile.  The flavor has a slight floral quality to it that adds a bit of character for a refreshing sweet lighter beer.

Flannigans Amber: Again, no real aroma.  The flavor has roasted flavors with a hint if sweet fruity malt and herbal hoppy finish.  Standard amber character here.

Irish Stout: No aroma.  It has a full bodied character with intense roasted coffee woody flavors that dominate and kind of spread through the palate.  It's one of the more complex beers that's tough to nail down.

Power Plant Porter: The flavor has the typical roasted grain flavors with a hint of dark fruit sweetness that kind of clash with the sharp roasted barley flavor.  Not bad, but not something I personally like in a porter.

IPA: There is a very light citrus aroma here.  Lots of heavy herbal pine hops with a hint of citrus.  Not very well balanced, though, the bitterness hits the back of the throat pretty hard.

The Drunkard'ss Walk Across The Country: Everywhere and Nowhere

The time has come for another one of these posts.  This is the time of the year where I am whipped around the country like I'm involved in the worlds biggest version of the ice-skating game where children hold hands and experiment with centripetal force.  Inevitably I feel a like the poor bastard at the end of the line; dizzy, a little ill and questioning the sanity of my actions.

The following beers were sampled at three different places.  The first place was the Heorot Pub in Muncie, Indiana.  The second at Golden Valley Brewing Company in Portland and the third was at some sports bar in Oklahoma city that's really not worth discussing in detail; they didn't have much of a beer selection nor was the place particularly interesting.  So here's the two:

The Heorot Pub: Fun fact: When I asked Siri about the Heorot Pub, her response was, "Sorry Jeremy, I cannot find places in Afghanistan.  Seemed a bit harsh.   Muncie isn't the nicest or most interesting city in the country but I don't think it's quite as bad as Afghanistan.  For example, there is one place in the city where a lost soul can stumble into for a decent beer.  It's a small, dark, wood paneled paradise where every square inch of wall space seems dedicated to some oddity and the weird and wild beers flow.  I can't imagine a more quality place to sit and sink pints for hours on end.  Among their many offerings, I had:

People's Brewing; Mound Builder: Since we are in Indiana, I was able to get my hands on a cask aged version of this beauty.  It has a sweet, raisin, brown sugar aroma that are complimented by dark fruit and malty flavors.  All of the above work together to stand up to an impressive spicy and floral hop bill and the result is a well-balanced but complex brew.


New Albion; Community Dark: Among those that have a bit of an obsession with microbrewing in the United Sates, the name 'New Albion' is said with a certain reverence.  It is generally agreed to be the first microbrewery in the United States, that is to say the first small-scale brewer since Prohibition and the industrialization of brewing.  Problem is that, like most new ideas, it needed some tweaking and New Albion closed it's door nearly twenty years ago.  Which made seeing it on the beer menu a little shocking.

Information is a little spotty, but it seems that someone in the wilds of Ohio has resurrected the brewery, if in name only, and has recently begun brewing under the name.

The dark beer they are brewing has a nice roasted coffee and chocolate aroma with some nutty sweet caramel flavors to go with it.

New Albion; Hoptimis: Since the resurrected brewery (dare I say zombie brewery?) required a little more investigation, I went with one more.  Their IPA had a light hoppy aroma that left me completely unprepared for the assault that was to follow directly.  This is all spicy, herbal hops with the subtlety of a baseball bat to the head.  Didn't have any of the balance a good IPA should have.

And then I was in Portland, Oregon.

It's a shame that, while nestled deep in the the beer-filled bosoms of Portland, I didn't have time for a proper motorboat.  But that is the way of things lately.  I did stop by a Golden Valley located in a massive freaking building in Beaverton.  Nice place but crowded as all hell which, given the size, is quite a feat.  Food was good, beer was good, but nothing special to say about it.... well apparently there is a company in Portland that makes it's own ketchup and mustard, but that was the only thing that really stuck with me.  Caring about whether or not one's condiments are locally produced seems to be a very Portlandian thing.

Golden Valley; Red Thistle: Light caramel aroma with a hint of citrus.  It's kind of a typical amber with a little extra.  It's got that slight roasted flavor with a spicy hop background that demonstrates the city's love for the little green flower.

Golden Valley; Dundee Porter: Slight coffee aroma with a fairly heavy bitter character in the flavor along with some coffee and woody roasted flavors.  P-town loves them some hops.

One last beer thrown in.. kinda just because.  It was in my notes waiting for one of these random posts to appear.  I was in an typical sports pub in Oklahoma when this little nugget floated to the top.

Left Hand Brewing; Stranger American Pale: This has a citrusy sweet orange aroma.  The flavor is lighter with a dose of malty sweetness that barely helps reign in the dry, citrus, pine hop character.

Back to business as usual next week where I actually find an interesting place for a beer in Oklahoma.  Yes, they exist.

A sixpack of freestyle: O'so Brewing

I picked up a six pack from this eccentric Wisconsin brewery.  I've mentioned before my love for such things.  There is nothing that fills me with as much hope and joy as the thought of a barely-contained maniac standing over a brewpot with a handful of obscure ingredients and a gleam in his eye.  O'so seems to have that same love.  The self-proclaimed 'freestyle brewer' invites the world to 'join the fight against boring beer'.  This is a motto they hold quite well, all of their beers have a little something extra.  A strange, texture or a different flavor that keeps the beer snob on her toes.  

One thing that I found endlessly entertaining was the fact that they put descriptions of their beer on their labels.  They were, for the most part, a little grandiose, but one would not expect much less.  I had a bit of fun with them and they are reprinted in italics.

Night Train Roasty Chewy Robust Judicious Cream Bold Complex Immense: Lots of roasted coffee and chocolate with maybe a hint of cherry on the aroma.    This is one of those beers where you have to run to keep up with the flavors that are running across your tongue.  I picked up the aforementioned coffee and chocolate, cherry, vanilla and so on.  It all takes place on a kind of bitter background of roasted barley.  Very nice dark beer.

Hopdinger: Pungent Hoppy Crisp Floral Bitter Piney Resinous Engaging:  Yep, that's pretty much the available lexicon when it comes to IPA's... except maybe engaging.  Not sure if I've ever labeled a beer engaging... I mean ALL beer is engaging, I suppose.  Anyway I pick up a little bit of pine and citrus on the nose.  Lots more citrus on the palate with a kind of astringent herbal flavor just behind it.  It's not an overwhelming IPA the citrus, floral and herbal qualities are intense but they are not overly bitter.

The Big O, Zippy Crisp Tangy Luminous Subtle Unique Sunny Jubilant: This has a very light malty aroma.  Kind of a lemony pilsners.  It's got a little bit of body and starts with a sweet malt that's... kinda pushed aside by a hint of lemongrass.  Nice, light, refreshing but not without an interesting nuance.

DANK Imperial Red Ale.  Wonderful brown sugar cherry caramel aroma.  Not the malt bomb I kinda assumed it would be.  The above flavors are more or less tempered with a coffee and unsweetened chocolate bitterness.  The cherry peeks through a little more then the other flavors and there's some slight astringent hops character in there as well.

Memory Lane: A special pilsner brewed to raise money for Alzheimer's research.  Light grassy aroma.  O'so brewing proves they have, not only the will, but the ability to put their own unique spin on every style, though in this case I'm not sure it's a good one.  There is a very intense, lemony sour flavor.  It wasn't unlike another German beer from Wisconsin.  This wasn't as pleasant, though. 

Dominator Dopplebock:  Wonderful chocolate cherry aroma with maybe a hint of charcoal.  The flavor starts sweet with that chocolate cherry flavor.  Some bitter pine and woody flavors arrive a little later and help temper the malt and blend together nicely leaving a crisp, slightly dry aftertaste.

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.

The Great Nebraska Beer Fest: Part 1

It is my opinion that, cities like Milwaukee and Chicago notwithstanding, the Midwest was late to the microbrew revolution.

It's the fifth year of the Great Nebraska Beer Fest, my first year attending and proof that they are learning fast, boy.

The great thing about the Great Nebraska Beer Fest (hereafter known as the GNBF because I am freaking lazy, deal with it) is that they bring the Midwest beer out in force.  Besides the major cities in the area, the hinterlands of Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin and Nebraska are well represented.  Some of big breweries from elsewhere have a presence as well, but they are a minority.

It is a celebration of Midwest Brewing.

The other cool thing was the size.  I've been to beer fests in  Idaho and Oregon and they very much bring the crowds.  This means, however that one gets a beer and immediately jumps into the line again for the next one.  By the time they get to the front of the line, it will be time for another beer.

Here, this is not the case.  It's a smaller event then I've been to in the past, but there are more then enough breweries bringing strange and unusual beers to make it interesting and there are rarely any lines whatsoever.

The location has something to be desired.  I have no knowledge of what went into the process of finding a venue for the GNBF, but a strip mall parking lot?  For one it was one of the hottest weekends of the year in Nebraska that weekend and there was probably three square feet of shade, each crowded with pale drunks trying to keep from catching on fire in the direct sunlight.  The blacktop doesn't help.

Anyway, on to the avalanche of beers.

Nebraska Brewing Company, Fathead: A new selection from a brewery I've covered in a previous post.  Very new, actually.  Truth be told, it's not even available for another month, but this is a special occasion.  It has a nutty, dark fruit and red wine aroma.  I picked up licorice, vanilla, roasted nut and a surprising dash of bitter hops.  It reminds me of a bitter scotch ale.  The flavor combination was interesting, but they clashed a bit.

Big Wood Brewing, Morning Wood: Coffee stout, a beer style for those mornings when a drunken haze is the best way to approach a day.  It has a heavy sweet mocha, espresso aroma, but those qualities diminish slightly in the flavor.  It was lighter and watery.  Good but lacking some of the body I was hoping for, I think.

Big Wood Brewing, Bark Bite IPA: This, appropriately, had a woody, pine aroma with a hint of honey.  It was quite sweet and malty at first, and it helped temper the herbal pine hops that followed soon after.

Blue Blood Brewing, Blue Blood IPA: This is a brewery that I just recently became aware of, I found a couple of their brews at the supermarket and included them in the last bottle beer tour.  The aroma carried the promise of citrusy hops.  A promise that was kept, although not to the intensity I expected.  Like the Morning Wood, the flavor just wasn't there, especially for an IPA.  In that heat, it was a welcome and refreshing beer, but lacked something for the style.

Free State Brewing, Ad Astra: Though I had never had a chance to sample their beer until now, I've always had a soft spot for Free State Brewing.  Kansas is a state that gave up prohibition very, very grudgingly... which is strange because you'd thing people would be in favor of anything that makes the state more livable.  Anyway, until 1989, brewing was still illegal in Kansas.  Just to emphasise what we are dealing with, there was a time that Kansas even outlawed any liquor on aircraft crossing Kansas' airspace.  (So next time your flying over Kansas, feel free to raise your drink and a middle finger) When the law was finally repealed, Free State became the first legal brewery in Kansas in over 100 years.

Anyway, history lesson over.  Beer!  The Ad Astra has a very light aroma.  The flavor is nutty, fruity and contains hints of red wine.  Very nice, sweet, malty amber ale.

Free State Brewing, Storm Chaser: Seasonal offering from Free State.  Citrus hop aroma that pretty much follows in it's entirety to the flavor.  The hops are enough to produce a back-of-the-throat bitterness, but there's enough flavor that I didn't find it overpowering.

CIB: Yola: Here's the best description I can offer for CIB Brewing.  Somebody has gone out and started doing legally what Grandpa had been doing in the barn for years.  CIB specializes in 'high alcohol farmhouse ales', specifically beers fermented with wild yeast and bacteria.  That makes CIB the place to go for sour beers, a style so obscure that only Portland or a pack of lunatics in the wilds of Iowa could possible pull it of.   The Yola Artisnal Ale starts off with a fruity honey aroma.  The first thing I noticed on the flavor was a very sour citrus that was followed by some nutty dark fruit notes.  It was one of those beers that took me quite a while to decide whether I liked it or not.

CIB: Cherry: There was some considerable plum and cherry sweetness on the aroma here.  The flavor had much more sour cherry along with some very complex earthy flavors.  It was quite nice, but I don't know if I would drink a lot of it although the complexity of the flavor would have me reaching for another glass.

Left Coast Brewing: Voodoo: One of the few breweries from outside the neighboring states.   This had a roasted coffee aroma.  The flavor has a lot of that coffee along with some dark roasted grain.  There was a heavy dose of herbal hops that showed up and kinda clashed with the rest of the flavor.  I kinda enjoyed this beer right up to that point.

That's the end of part one.  More goodness from the Midwest to follow in the coming weeks.  Cheers until then.

Yes, they even put it in the Beer: Louisville Kentucky

I am, of course talking about bourbon.  Kentucky is kinda known for it.  There's more brewing going on in Kentucky then I think anyone who lives outside the state was wont to expect.  Of course the most popular brew in the area is anything that spent some time in an old bourbon barrel.  But more on that in a minute.

This week, a quick trip to Louisville brought me to Bluegrass Brewing Company where they insist that beer is food.  At least, that's the phrase they put on the shirts here.  Overall not a bad place for a pint or two.  On beers that featured hops, I think they tended to overdo it a tad, but overall not bad.

Summer Wheat: Light on aroma but it hides quite a lot of flavor in there.  It's just a little sweet with a little roasted quality in there as well.  I picked up a hint of citrus and it had a creamy, smooth feel to it.  Interesting body to a lighter beer, but the overall effect was really good.

Alt Beer: Maybe it was a shock to the system after the much sweeter wheat beer earlier, but this one struck be as increadibly bitter.  It was heavy on the medicinal hop flavor to the point I couldn't pick out much else in the flavor profile.  The bitterness faded a little as I went on, but I started picking up a skunky flavor at that point.  Not the best beer I've had recently.

Nut Brown: This beer had a lovely nutty caramel aroma.  The flavor was lighter but it managed to avoid the watery taste of some brown ales.  It's sweet, roasted with some dry, woody flavors to for blalance.

American Pale Ale: Light, spicy citrus aroma.  The citrus flavors on the palate are rather more intense.  Some floral notes follow towards the end that linger and it finishes rather dry.

Dark Star Porter: There was a pretty standard light, roasted aroma on this beer and it pretty much stayed the same in the flavor, although I picked up the same skunky flavor on this beer as it warmed as well.

Bourbon Stout: The smell is pretty much all bourbon and the flavor is dominated with that particular spirit, but it helped with some sweet roasted malty flavors.   Very drinkable for a beer with this kind of body and this kind of alcohol content.

Homewreaker IPA: The aroma is light, but this beer is the definition of a hop bomb.  Its that kind of bitterness that hides any characteristic except for the fact that, 'this is freaking bitter'.   Like punch right to the back of the throat bitter.

Bottle Beer Tour #5: The malted and the hoppy

 It's bottled beer tour time again... er because it's summer and I don't actually go that many places in the summer.  It's random sampling time so I present five beers that I drank.
...

...

That sounded more exiting in my head.  Anyway, here we are.

Shiner Brewery: Ruby Redbird: Summer beer featuring grapefruit.  Nice, citrusy aroma with a hint of herbs.  Light, refreshing taste like a light, sweet, carbonated orange juice.  I can see how this would be nice on a hot summer day, but not something I would make a habit of drinking a lot.  Pretty good though.

World Brews: Dieselpunk Porter: Okay, I confess, this is a beer I bought primarily for the label.  It's source is wierd.  The only indication of the brewery is a small note on the label indicating World Brews.  Trying to find any information on World Brews is a bit interesting.  I can't tell for sure, but they seem to be a brewery out of Rochester who's entire buisness centers around brewing microbrews for sale in grocery stores and similar markets.  However Beeradvocate.com has two different listings for this beer, one from California and one from Montana.  There are whispered words among the beer geeks of the Internets that this is actually one of the Evil Empires trying to stick a foot in the door of microbrewing.
There's probably a story in and of itself right there.
Anyway the aroma is very chocolatey.  The taste is has more bitterness with some sharp roasted flavors and coffee along with the chocolate.  The feel is smooth with a semi-sweet finish.  Not bad for a sweeter porter.  Overall, if this is Budwieser or Miller's attempt to try and run with the little guys... meh, okay.

Flying Dog Brewery: Gonzo Imperial Porter: Beer brewed in honor of the late, great Hunter S. Thompson who once said, "Good people drink good beer."  I don't often comment on the label, but this is my all time favorite because... well, Ralph Steadman is damn near the textbook definition of awesome.
Wonderful sweet nose with hints of cherry and rasberry against a kind of herbal backdrop.  The fruit flavors hit first, but softly meld into something more like caramel and chocolate which blends into one final layer of flavor that leaves a hint of liquorice, vanialla and earth notes.  It finishes dry for something that packs this kind of malt bill.

Now let's get the hell out of here.  This is bat country.

Blue Blood Bewery: 1327 Pod's ESB:  Running back to good 'ol Nebraska for the last two.   Blue blood is a beer I've seen pop up in the grocery store just recently.  It's one of the few (but increasing) microbrews that come in a can.  At first, I was skeptical of the can as a conveyer of microbrew, but I've got to say, I'm a heavy convert.  No skunky beer problems, it stays colder and there is a pretty high convenience factor.  I'm just saying...
Anyway the ESB has a piny grassy aroma.  The flavor is has some light malt with just the right amount of hops to add to a refeshing, flavor-filled beer.

834 Happy As Ale: Lighter beer with a grassy, lemony aroma.  It starts with a pretty massive hop bill with lots of grassy, pine and lemon flavors there.  On  the bitterness scale, it gets closer to an IPA then a pale.

New Glarus: A tour in five bottles.

Last time I was in Wisconsin, I brought a few friends back with me.  I've been aware of New Glarus for a while now.  I previously talked about one of their beers that came back with me during the first of these bottle beer tours.  I had the opportunity to acquire a few more of it's cousins for an unofficial family reunion. 

Two Women: A lager brewed in honor of the women of brewing as done by two companies run by women, New Galrus and Weyerrmann malting.  It has a slightly grassy aroma.  I picked up notes of peach and nectarine along with some grassiness from the hops.  I think I detected a touch of vanilla in there as well. 

Totally Naked: This is a beer brewed just as the label suggests.  Malted barley, hops, water and yeast. It is simplistic and it's suppose to be.  It has a light, grassy aroma.  The flavor is slightly malty with almost no detectable hops.  For a beer brewed to be a simple refreshing drink on a hot summer day, it hits the mark pretty well.

Dancing Man: Belgian wheat beer.  It has a heavy clove aroma.  At first, the flavor was really, really intense.  The tropical fruit, peach, clove and spice was almost too much at first, but as the beer warmed and my palate adjusted, I found it to be pretty enjoyable.

IIPA: I had to laugh at the label description for this beer, "More the 85 provocative IBUs reverberate cleanly through this Double IPA.  Local Wisconsin hop saturation from kettle boil to dry hop cellaring dominates this elegant and lustful sensory enchantment.  You hold a deceptively seductive Original Gravity of 20.9 Plato, following the always 100% natural bottle fermentation.  Luscious English Maris Otter malt is the essential heart of this voluptuous Double IPA.  Surrender is inevitable, so enjoy now!

I don't want to alarm anyone, but I think my beer might be hitting on me.

Apparently this a beer where they turn their brewer loose on whatever idea might be floating around his little mind.   This particular idea had citrus and herbs and spice apparent on the nose.  It's smooth, although those hops come on in force.  There's a moment where the malt holds them back, but they are there and they hit the palate hard with a dry, herbal grassy flavor that affect the back of the throat more then anything.  The finish is remarkably clean for a beer like this... though I don't think it's quite the 'lustful sensory enchantment' they claim.   Come to think of it, I don't know what a lustful sensory enchantment is, but I'll have to ask my wife if she's willing to do that.

Berliner Weiss: This is the second example of one of New Glarus' experimental beers.  This is a obscure style that charmed the likes of Napoleon in centuries past.  This pours very pale and clear from the bottle.  Has that wheaty, carbonated aroma of a light pilsner beer.  And the flavor... was not at all what I was expecting.  It is extremely tart.  The light color hides a lot of body, but it's still has a fizzy mouthfeel.  The flavor is refreshingly lemony, like a carbonated light lemonade.  Not bad, but I don't think I'd drink a lot of this.

The Random Acts of a Hopped up Drunk.

In my travels, I don't always end up in a microbrewery.  I mean I do.  I do a lot.  Just not all the time.  Sometimes I just find myself in some bar.  Sometimes that bar has a decent enough selection that I can find something interesting.  So, I write some notes and wait for a slow week to throw them all together in a erratic, random post.

So enjoy four random beers.

This is one of those.

Victory Brewery: Golden Monkey: A Belgian Tripple with the expected light bannana aroma.  Smooth, creamy, a little on the sweet side with a bannana nut flavor on the top.  Hops kick up in the back and leaves something woody and lightly floral.

Leinenkugles Brewery:  Leinies Honey Wiess:  Another lighter drinkable summer beer from The giant of Chippewa Falls Wisconsin.  It had a lemony aroma... but that was likely from the lemon wedge the bartender insisted on putting in.  The beer itself was lightly grassy, malty and... of course, lemony.  Very drinkable and it finished just slightly dry.  Not complex, it isn't suppose to be is it?

Wynkoop Brewery: Saision De Colfax: Found a beer from an old friend.  I visited Wynkoop brewery a couple years ago and was impressed overall.  What they failed to tell me when I first ordered this beer is that it's a little different from your normal saision.  For one, it's not usually as black as Guiness.   It had no aroma to speak of, but the flavor was rich with port wine, fruit and chocolate notes swirling around.  I'm not sure what this actually has in common with what is typcially a light, summer, farmhouse ale, but what the hell, I like it either way.

Dry Dock: Apricot Blonde: Another Colorado native.  The aproicot flavor is very pronounced.   It's quite sweet with lots of fruit.  Probably won't appeal to those who are dead set against fruit beers, but it was a nice refreshing drink either way.

Odell Breweries: Mycenary: Yet another from Colorado, guess what state I was in when I compiled this list,  It has lots of nice citrus hops in the aroma.  The army of bitterness is held at bay with a decent amount of malt.  The balance is very nice and it leaves the light, floral, citrus hop flavors in tact.

He's a Lumberjack and he's IPA: Flagstaff, Arizona

Sorry for the title.  I recently aquired "He's Not the Messiah, He's a Very Naughty Boy," and I'm afraid the image of an elderly Michael Palin performing the lumberjack song will both haunt  and amuse me for some time.

And it is related to this week's post.... because Flagstaff is a lumber town...  And there's kind of a lumber mill theme at Beaver Street Brewery... which I will be talking about soon...

Look I'm sorry about the pun, okay?  I just couldn't help myself.

Okay?

Okay.

Beer?

This is the last stop on the oddyessy that was my trip through the Southwest, and when it comes to the brewpub, we're getting back to basics.

Well, basics, but upped a notch all the way around.

The food is your basic pub fare... except well more so.  I went with their basic 'Beaver Street Burger' and I've got to say they push the limits of the awesome you can achieve with ground beef and a bun.
There was something, I dunno, quinteccential about their beer selection as well.  I can't pinpoint it and maybe it's a product of a mind that's spent entirely too much time watching little yellow dots go by, but they have two IPA, a couple wild cards and nothing even remotely resembling Budweiser.   That's a brewpub.  Or, at least, it's the kind of brewpub a city like Flagstaff should have.

Lumberyard Amber: This seasonal selection had a nice citrusy, earthy aroma to it.  The flavor packs a lot more hops then one traditionally finds in a amber but it's not right there in front ready to give you an alpha acid punch to the palate, it's sorta sneaks up on you.  It's like biting into a chile pepper.  There's a slow build-up of floral citrus hops until that's all you taste and you become afraid that it is all you will ever taste again.

Lumberjack Red: I didn't pick up an aroma on this beer as much.  The flavor was of light, roasted, earthy flavor.  It was very drinkable, but was flirting dangerously close to 'watery' in character.

Red Rock Rasberry: Some day I'm going to put all the rasberry beers I have tasted into two catagories.  One catagory for your typlical light, sweet, fruity, dare I say... 'chick' beers and another catagory for people who Don't Like Fruit Beers!  Then I will make those two groups fight.   Anyway this beer would be fighting for the latter group in this case.  The rasberry aroma is there and in force, but the melds into some dry grassy flavors.

Balgian Tripple: This Belgian comes with all the associated belgian flavors and aromas; clove trpolical fruit, bananna and the like.  They are not overpowering, as can so often happen when these kind of esters get heavily involved, and it remains highly drinkable.  One thing that I did notice was a dry, warm alcohol flavor dancing around in there informing the drinker of the punch that is hidden within the malt.  I think a few of these would put me on the floor before I knew what happened.

R&R Oatmeal Stout: Lost of rich coffee and mocha on the aroma with just a hint of either wood or leather... I couldn't really place it at the moment. The beer is very drinkable and contains dark chocolate and earthy notes and finishes just slightly dry.

Cascading IPA: This is an American-style IPA that gets close to 'hop bomb' territory.  The citrus, floral hops are intense at first, but they mellow considerably as it moves through the palate.  By the end, the hops linger just slightly and some light roasted malt peaks through.

Lumberjack IPA: This would be Cascading's smaller, quieter brother.  It shares a lot of the same qualities without the intense hop kick-to-the-teeth.

Old Santa Fe: New Mexico

I talked a little about Santa Fe in my last post, but it really is one of of the few truly unique places in America.  So one more stop before we venture farther down this Proud Highway.  This little microbrewery is located right smack dab in the middle of downtown, the Blue Corn Cafe and Brewery.  It's a cool place, tucked away into the Plaza Mercado building in the picture above. 

Honestly, I was more impressed with the food then the beer.  It wasn't bad, but no particular beer really had any terribly unique flavor.  They were all pretty standard; your standard wheat beer, standard blonde, standard brown, standard IPA... etc.   I guess what I am saying is that I'll remember the blue corn tacos (highly recommended, I might add) longer then I'll remember the Roadrunner IPA.   But, again, they weren't bad and this is a beer blog so here we go:

40K Wheat: I think this is what they give to those people who come in asking for a Budweiser.  It has that grassy, malty aroma.  It's a little sweeter, but it's a pretty basic light beer.

Atomic Blonde: I picked up some light fruit aroma here and it pretty much stayed in the flavor as well.  I picked up a hint of floral hops in the back, but very little else.

Czech your English: Similar to the blonde. A little darker and a little sweeter.  This one packs a bigger body and brings some caramel and strawberry sweetness to add to the flavor profile.

Atalaya Amber: I picked up a little citrus in the aroma.  The flavor is light, sweet and toasty with the same citrus floral hop character in the back.  It struck me as watery and a little bland.  I would have liked to see a little more  

End of the Trail Brown: Brown ales are almost terminally light and watery, in my experience.  They can be good, but there is something about the style that invites a kind of emptiness in the flavor profile.  This is a good example of that... well 'good' being a loosely used term there.  It had a nice chocolaty aroma.  The flavor was sweet at first with a little mocha character and it had a rather nice but surprising dry bitter finish.  Overall, though the flavors could have been ramped up quite a bit.

Gold Metal Stout: Light coffee aroma.  I picked up a lot of coffee, sharp roasted barley flavors and a hint of unsweetened chocolate.  It finished dry.

Oaked Swartzbier: The aroma and flavor were both very light.  I picked up the buttery oak flavor among the chocolate and caramel malty flavors that dominated this beer.  There were no detectable hops.

Roadrunner IPA: I picked up some citrus and floral qualities on the hops in the aroma, but those same characteristics were buried under an avalanche of alpha acids in the flavor.  In the great IPA battle that balances the delicate flavors of the hop with pure brutish bitterness... yeah flavor got it's ass kicked.

Blended Cultures and Blended Wine: Santa Fe, New Mexico

I don't understand Santa Fe, nor do I particularly want to. 

Before I arrived to kill a couple days, I had heard tell about this strange city in the mountains of New Mexico.  Okay, I heard it was a cool place to visit, but nobody ever really explained why.  It was always left rather vague.

Here is why Santa Fe is kind of a cool place: the culture.  Few cities in this country have a culture... or at least a culture that is anything other then American.  Most cities in this country look and act like every other city in this country, with a few exceptions:

New Orleans: .... trust me.  You know when you are in New Orleans.

Portland, Oregon: And you can smell when you're in Portland.

New York: ... Or so I am told.  Honestly I've not spent any time there.

I would add Santa Fe to this list.  There's something about this place.  It's not quite Mexican.  It's not quite Native American and it definitely isn't American.   .... It's just Santa Fe in all it's quiet glory.

 And that's the best way I can describe Estrella Del Notre Vineyard.  There is something at work here that couldn't really exist anywhere else.  And that is just kinda cool.

Vino De Manzanas:

A wine made from apples on the property.  This wine had a cidery taste that you would expect, but it was much cleaner and much drier.  It was fairly light, just a little sweet and quite refreshing.

Symphony:  So apparently, this is an actual varietal of grape.  Some mad scientist in California cross-bred a couple grape varietals over the course of a couple decades and finally came up with Symphony.  The result is a wine a that reminds me a little of muscat, but totally different.  It has the grapefruit and pear fruit inside, but there’s also a dry, floral quality to it especially at the end.  It’s a lighter refreshing wine that is truly awesome.

Pino Noir: When you drive up to the winery you see rows upon rows of grape vines.  These are the Pino grapes.  I picked up some black cherry, and some light floral qualities on the nose.  The palate contained some black cherry, and some raspberry.  It was light for a style, but nice.

Barbera: Another grape varietal that I had not heard of. This one apparently came with the first monks that established monasteries in the region almost 600 years ago.  Fun fact, New Mexico is actually the first American wine region.  It had a very light aroma, but it’s palate was earthy, woody with a generous helping of pepper spice and a slightly floral finish.

Rio Nambe: A blended wine.  The first thing I thought when I put my nose in was… it was hoppy.  I smelled northwest citrus hops.   It didn’t make sense, but there was a citrusy, floral quality about this wine.  The flavor had lots of floral earthy notes to it with just a hint of spice.

Tinto Del Soul: This was actually something they had from Santa Fe Vineyards, but what the hell.  This was noticeably sweeter then the previous wines I had up to that point.  I picked up some caramel and some raspberry among the pepper and spice that filled this one.

Holy Moly:  Here’s were, in my opinion, true Santa Fe culture begins to take hold.  It’s a zinfandel infused with chocolate, almonds and chili pepper.  The result is a wine that’s smokey and spicy on the nose.  The flavor has some chocolate covered cherry with a generous, but not overpowering spicy background that arrives and disappears like pepper in a beer.  

Pear Wine: We get a little into the desert category here, or as much as I am willing to go.  It was sweet just on the edge of being syrupy.  Pear and apple flavors were, of course, very very strong.  It was sweet but manageable and rather nice.

Tilting at Windmills: Los Alamos, New Mexico

There’s something kinda hidden about Los Alamos.  Over sixty years ago the greatest scientific minds were assembled here to work on the Manhattan project.  To this day Los Alamos has the National Lab and then there’s the Santa Fe Institute, a gathering of some of the greatest minds in the world that come together to try and figure out.. well..  everything.

What I am saying here is that there’s a lot of brain power in Northern New Mexico.  Sometimes, those great minds… they get bored.

The Ron is the head distiller for Don Quixote.  He first became interested in fermentation and distillation while a freshman in college.  He built his first still at the time which was quickly confiscated by campus police who didn’t believe his story that it was all for ‘reasearch purposes.’

On a trip to Ukraine, Ron met his wife, Olha.  She came from a proud distilling line.  Her father, a merchant marine couldn’t afford to pay his sailors so he offered them the best vodka and food as long as they sailed with him.

Ron’s engineering know how combined with Olha’s heritage and Don Quixote was born in the mountains of Northern New Mexico.

They have two locations in the area, one is Los Alamos and one outside Santa Fe. The downside is they only let you try five things at a time, which, given a really impressive selection is a bit torturous.  They had more then five… anything.  More then five red wines, more then five white wines and more then five liquors.  Hell, they have two grappas which I will get to later.  So I guess, what I am saying, there’s more to them then what I am about to say, but I really can’t say much.

Microdistillaries are a hard-to-find commodity in this world, so I stuck primarily with the spirits, although I did try a couple of the heavier reds.

Cabernet: The first thing I was told about their dry reds is that they were going to be sweeter then I was used to.  This was because the cuisine of the area tended on the spicy side.  Dry, peppery, oaky, these are great qualities in a red wine, but they just don’t go with the food in the area.  So, fair enough.

The cab had a port wine, raspberry and dark cherry aroma and I got a pretty much identical sensation in the flavor.  It was slightly sweeter then similar wines, but not overly so.  Dry red wines often leave a person wishing for a steak.  This is not the case here.  In a way the wine stands on its own.

Merlot: Very similar aroma to the cab.  I picked up a little more pepper on the palate and it was a little drier, but other then that I really couldn’t detect a huge difference between the two.

Okay enough with the wine.  It’s distillation time.

Bourbon: Made from blue corn and wheat.  Blue corn is used in a lot of cuisine here and has a slightly sweeter flavor.  I didn’t get that as much from the bourbon.  It was incredibly smooth, though.  There was some leathery, oaky notes.  It was slightly sweet but I don’t know if I could pick it out from any other high-quality bourbon.

Grappa: The story of grappa, as I was told, was that this was a peasant drink in old Italy.  As soon as the rich folk had used the grapes for their wines, the peasants would gather the rest, get what juice they could and distill it down.  They had two types at Don Quixote, aged and un-aged.  I went with the un-aged since I was told it wasn’t as sweet.  Light, semi neutral spirit.  I picked up some light port wine and cherry flavors along with a nice smooth character.

Gin: This was far and away my favorite.  Even those who consider gin, as one of my friends would put it, "pine trees and ass," would have to give this creation some props.  It’s made from blue corn again with New Mexico herbs and spices including juniper (of course) Pinon Chamisa Sage and lemons.  The result is this wonderful aroma like the desert after a rainstorm.  The astringent juniper berries are mellowed by the slightly spicy, slightly sweet concoction with just a hint of citrus in the back. Unlike the bourbon you can pick up quite a bit of the extra sweetness from the blue corn here.