A quick AZ moment.

So here's the thing.  The last week or so I've embarked on a pretty major tour through the West.  Specifically Denver, Santa Fe and Phoenix.  During that week there's been some minor sampling of beer.  And by minor, I mean I've been enough places I think I can keep this blog regularly updated during the off-season.

Trouble is, I'm still in the middle of it.  So just a quick entry today where I say high to and old friend.  

Four Peaks Brewing was featured in post número uno of this blog.  I stopped by there a couple years ago, drank some beer, and it felt like a good time to check up with them.

Short Hop Session IPA:  This was their seasonal beer this time around.    Light citrus hop aroma here.  Built as a lighter beer for summer with a little extra kick.  Lots of hop flavor here but it remains very drinkable.

Hefeweizen:  Very pale cloudy beer.  Slight lemon tropical fruit aroma.  The combination of tropical fruit and lemon is a bit odd, but not unpleasant.  The citrus adds a refreshing touch.

Kilt Lifter: Light aroma.  Heavy malty beer with burbon oak cherry flavors.  No hops to speak of.  A malt bomb, but pretty good, though I can't see myself having more then a few of these.

Like I said, lots to get through over the next few weeks.  Until then, cheers!

Short Hop IPA

Shut Up and Fill Your Beer Hole: Rockport, Illinois

Okay, it's been a while but we're leaving the state of Wisconsin... for now.  I brought back some bottled friends with me and there will be a sampling and a discussion and all of that.

In the meantime, I made a stop on the way back in Rockport, Illinois.  Why there?  ... ... ... There's no good reason, none.  Just one of those places that I randomly end up and that's it.  Now do as the title of this blog suggests.

Shut Up and Fill Your Beer Hole is not only the new title of my autobiography, but it's kinda the motto around the Carlyle Brewing Company... or at least they put it on T-shirts that you can buy, or on drink coasters that you can steal... preferably once you've finished the beer.

Besides a lovable tagline, the brewery boasts a kind of international flair.   The beer menu is fairly extensive and, like a taproom that boasts a horde of import brews, it lists the varieties by nation of origin.  Although since the beer is brewed on site, Area of Influence, is probably a more fitting term.

That being said, there isn't much you wouldn't find at most breweries.  They cover a cross-section of German styles, muck about with some styles from the British Isles but aside from a light Mexican-style beer, that's pretty much the end of it.  So nothing too Earth-shattering from an International perspective.  The beer itself is pretty good and the IPA, although unpronounceable, is one of the best I've had.  

Like I said, their beer menu is pretty extensive, although there's no really good way to get a sip of all their beers.  They do offer samplers, but at about half the cost of a full beer for each one... yeah, no thanks.   They are generous samples, to be sure, but basic economics starts taking hold.

So I picked a few that seemed like the most interesting from the menu and it represents a little less then half of everything they had available for my visit.

Vanilla Cream Ale:  This is pretty much as advertised.  The aroma is light but the vanilla is there.  On the malty side of the spectrum with a creamy mouth-feel and... yes, vanilla.  Not a lot of complexity, but it's pretty good.

Sampler of the Dopplebock

Dopple Bock:  Lots of dark fruit, raisin and toasted aromas on this beer.  True to style, a lot of malty flavors along with some dark cherry, raisin and caramel flavors against a backdrop of charcoal and roasted barley. 

Irish Red: This had a light, caramel aroma. The pine, herbal hops hit right at the top of the palate here, blended with the toasty malt flavors. 

Humulus Lupulus: Remember the bit about the unpronounceable IPA?  You've probably guess, and yes that is the scientific name for the hop.   The aroma is heavy with citrusy hops.  In the flavor, the hop character is prominent but not overpowering.  There's hint of malt with floral notes and a hint of peppery spice in the background.  The balance with the malt and the complexity of the flavors they managed to coax from the hops is pretty fantastic.  

Scottish Ale: Lots of nice, toasted aromas.  Even more roasty, toasty flavors mixed with a dry woody flavor.  It lacks the malt and fruit characteristics of most of the Scottish Ales I've had in the past, but it's very nice just the same.

Wee pint o' scottish.

Old Milwaukee: Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Okay I promised a new joint this week and here it is.  The thing about the Milwaukee Brewing Company is that it has a kind of weird untold history with me and this blog.  See, this is not actually the first time I've been here.  It's just the first time I've managed to get in, get a seat at the bar and get beer.  Every other time I've been here, this place has been packed full.  I'm talking nowhere at the bar, not tables... hell people were standing three-deep at the bar the last time I was here.

 Maybe it's because it's in the middle of the week, maybe it's because I'm here in summer for a change and the denizens of Wisconsin are enjoying the few months of the year when they can be outside without pieces of them freezing and dropping off... whatever, it was finally empty enough that I could get in and grab a pint or two.

I guess what I am saying is, if you're going to seek out this little watering hole in downtown Milwaukee, go early, go during odd times or be prepared to fight a crowd for bar space.  Be warned, this place seems to have more then it's share of regulars and I'm guessing they don't fight fair.

So I got a tasters flight during my visit here.  They have a pretty extensive beer menu and so they break up their flights between a regular beer flight and a seasonal.  I went for the former, although due to some shortages, a few seasonals made it on.

Outboard: The beweries light beer offering. It has a lemony grassy aroma,  Pretty simple, light slightly lemony but your basic light beer.

Ulao: A belgian whit beer. No aroma to speak of.  Lots of tropical friut spice and kind of a skunky flavor.  I have to say this one wasn't my favorite, the Belgian yeast seemed to put some pretty odd flavors here.

Louie's Demise: This is the flagship beer of the brewery, an amber ale  with a fruity, cherry aroma. It starts slightly sweet and fruity right off the top.  Quickly moves to woody, herbal flavors.  The beer finishes suprisingly dry for its aroma.  As far as amber ales go, this one was very nice and complex.

Polish Moon: A sweet stout with light roasted aroma.  The flavor contains rich chocolate and coffee notes off the top.  There's a slight charcoal bitter flavor that follows but overall a very nice sweet stout.

O-Gii: Something from the seasonal list and something a little different, a tea beer. No aroma to speak of, but I get a huge blast of floral  lavander and herbal notes right off the top.  Finishes appropriatly bitter, the hops compliment the herbal flavors from the tea extremely well.  This monster packs a 9.2% alcohol and it hides it dangerously well.  It's one of those beers you could sit and drink a few of before realzing that you can't stand up anymore.

Hop happy: Pretty standard IPA style.  The aroma contains malt and herbal notes.   Citrus, floral hops hit hard and fast but are somewhat tempered by a high malt bill.

Black Iron: Rather hoppy aroma for a black ale.  The flavor has lots of the coffee and chocolate flavor you would expect from a beer like this.  The brewery claims it lacks the bitter roastiness that you would find in a normal black beer due to the use of dehusked German malt but.... I can't taste it.  It starts sweet and ends with bitter roastiness just like you would expect.

And that's officially it.  I am pretty confident that I have hit all the breweries in the Milwaukee area.  If anyone goes through the archives and finds one I missed, let me know.  Otherwise, mark Milwaukee off the list, been there done that.... for now.

An Annual Visit: Milwuakee Wisconsin

Still on my Wisconsin tour, particularly the area around Milwaukee.  I've been here enough times that I think I've more or less covered all the breweries near the city.  There are more in Wisconsin scattered among the towns and hinterlands, but Milwaukee is more or less canvased, with the exception of the Milwaukee Brewing Company which I will get to next week.

In the meantime, I stopped by a few of my past favorites to see what they've been up to.  Last year about this time I visited Delafield Brewhaus.  This place is to a bar what Yankee stadium is to a baseball diamond in the park, same basic function, huge difference in capacity and scale.  I think I covered in last year to some degree, but really... wow.

They had three beers on tap that they either didn't have last year, or wasn't part of the sampler I had.   On a related note I must have had the wrong beers or they have done something different.  I remember being a little... ambivalent about some of the beers last year, but the few I had this year were actually pretty awesome.  So we'll make this a quick post and talk about them:

Einhorn Bock:  This beer has a wonderful sweet, fruity aroma.  The fruit translates in the flavor with hints of cherry and strawberry with a kind of woody, earthy flavor mixed in.  It finishes very clean leaving almost nothing on the palate when it's gone.

Delooz-n-it: A very intense banana and floral aroma here. The most striking part of the flavor was the floral, almost lavender qualities right off the top that were followed by some fruity esters and a dry herbal spicy finish.  Different in flavor and fairly awesome beer here.

Strawberry Ale:  So it's like this...I was sipping one of my beers when an older couple sat down next to me.  The woman looked at the menu a minute and asked the bartender about the strawberry ale.  He told her about it using many of the same terms that I'm about to use.  The woman got quiet, looked back at the menu and turned to her husband, "I think I'll have that.  But you don't have to get it.  It's a chick beer."

The bartender smiled and poured the pint.  With it's light pink color and strawberry fruit aroma... yeah there's a certain femininity about it.

The bartender set the pint down and said, "Might be a chick beer, but you'll be surprised at the kind of guys that order it regularly."

The aroma is just what you would imagine, all sweet strawberry  The flavor is very sweet, but what is striking is the amount of flavor they pack into this beer.  I find that a lot of these tend on the light, watery side of the spectrum, but this was actually fairly robust for the style.

But...yeah... the woman was right.  If you're a man drinking this beer with any regularity then you're probably the guy at the bar who's friends give him a hard time because all your drinks come with a little umbrella.

Anyway, see you all next week when, yes, I break some new ground for the first time in a couple weeks.  Until then, cheers!

Grumpy Again: Wisconsin

Back again in the wilds of Wisconsin.  I'm going to be in and out for a while.  Luckily if one thing can be said about the good people of Wisconsin, its that the like a beer or two.  So, yeah lots to talk about.  So long as you like talking about beer.

I visited the Grumpy troll earlier this year, but I had to kind of run through and they have a pretty impressive selection.  So it was worth going back and spending a little more time.  The change of the seasons had a few new additions to the beer menu, mostly in the form of lighter summer ales.  But their style remains very much the same.  They favor the hops here, even their dark beers have a generous sprinkle of bitterness caught in their malty web.

Belsconsin: An IPA from the brewery who, as I said before, like their hops loud and waking up the neighbors. The aroma is light with citrusy floral hops.  The flavor starts slightly malty before the hops hit with the subtlety of a freight train.  It was a little too intense for my tastes, someone tell those damn hops to keep the noise down.

Captain Fred: This brewery's version of a light lager.  The aroma is pretty much standard, light, grassy, a hint of hops but nothing all that different from the typical American Lager.  The flavor packs a little extra punch, though.  It's got just a hint of citrus on top of the typical character.  For a style that never really interests me, it's pretty good.

Sunflower:  This is a farmfouse ale with honey finish.  No aroma there, but it has a sight floral flavor off the top with some citrus buried just below.  Finishes a little bitter and dry, but a nice lighter beer overall.

Hopsburger:  This beer has kind of a strange aroma that made me think of milk.  .As far as pilsners go, this one has fallen off the hoppy end of the scale. There's a bit of grassy herberbal hops that grow and grow until its nothing but dry and bitter.

Malbock: I got a light fruity citrus aroma off of this beer.  There was some light malty flavors at the very beginning before citrus spicy hops finish off the palate.

Liberty Pole Pale: There's no aroma to speak of.  It's very bitter with floral slightly spicy notes.  It has a long lingering bitter aftertaste.  Again with a style that is typically hoppy by nature, this went a little far for my tastes.

Trailside Wheat: Very light bannana coconut aroma. Lots of tropical fruit with a very distict coconut flavor in there.  It sets it a little apart from the typical German wheat beer.