A Bit of Southern Hospitality: Raleigh NC

So I had to rush South for the weekend recently.  Time was short and, as I've bemoaned to the point of becoming a theme on this blog, brewpubs just aren't how they do things in the South.  They just don't.  The brewers brew.  The restaurateurs... er... restaurant?

So one has to go looking.  I looked and I found the Carolina Ale House.  It's a family restaurant / sports bar and grill that basically has a lot of beer.  Nothing special, but nothing to complain about either.

I focused on beers from North Carolina and this is the sample I came up with:

Big Boss Brewing - Bad Penny: This is a dark ale from a local Raleigh brewery.  There was a light, sweet caramel aroma.  The flavors were on the light side.  A kind of bitter, woody flavor mixed with a bit of roasted malt and caramel sweetness.  Herbal, floral hops came in toward the end and gave this beer a dry finish.

Red Oak Brewing: Red Oak Lager: Red Oak is all about simplicity.  There are breweries that churn out a multitude of different beers that leaves malt heads staring at beer menu like a child that's been told he can have all the candy.  Red Oak has two.  One of those is their German Lager.  I  picked up a very light fruit aroma.  The fruit sweetness continued on the top of the flavor with a tiny hint of noble hops in the back.  Very refreshing session beer.

Foothills Brewing Company - Foothills Torch Pilsner:  A light lager from the next town over.  This beer was surprisingly heavy on the hops for a style that tends to favor the light flavors.  There seemed to be very little malt here so the lemongrass, herbal flavor from the hops were kind of allowed to run the show.  I liked it for the fact that it had a decent amount of flavor, but the hops could be scaled back a tad.