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.