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.