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.