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.

The Bounty Part 2: The Others

Okay, so I wasn't quite done with Layffette Brewing Company.  As I said last week, their beer is pretty much awesome and it is plentiful.  However, if for some reason some person were to glance up at their beer board and dismiss it with both a 'phooey' and maybe even a 'pesha' you do have options.

Oh so many options.

Since I already drank my way through what they had to offer, I went back to wade farther into Indiana beer. 

Sun King - Sunlight Cream Ale: This was the last of Sun King's regular brews I hadn't gotten my hands on.  I talked about the Osiris IPA and the Wee Mac in a previous post.  I picked up a sweet lemon grass aroma.  True to the nature of a cream ale, it had some extra body and a good dose of sweet cream flavor.  There was maybe a hint of citrus in the back, but mostly pretty much what you would expect from the style.  Not bad in any sense, but lacks a bit of complexity.

Triton Brewing Company - Rail Splitter: A flagship IPA from another Indianapolis brewery that appeared on my radar.  I picked up citrus hops on the aroma and really, really picked it up in the flavor.  The floral and citrus was pretty intense but is was tempered to a certain degree by some caramel malt.  Hoppy IPA, but not so much that it can only be enjoyed by someone who can check the IBU's in their bloodstream.

Flat 12 Bierwerks - Pogues Run Porter: A regular brew from another Indianapolis Brewery that appeared on my radar (The damn things must be breeding somehow). The name of this porter tips its hat to the British working-class origins of the style.  The name and label also appear to be a shout-out to Shane McGowen of the Pogues.   I'm not a hundred percent sure but I'll let you be the judge:

If nothing else, a reminder to floss regularly.

Anyway, I liked the licorice, coffee aroma on this beer.  Lots of that same bitter coffee as well as some chocolate make this a pretty typical porter.  A decent amount of wood and pine hops add just a hint of complexity that give it a something extra. A typical porter with a kick, you might say.

And with the above image forever burned into your brain, that's it for Indiana for now... I swear.  At least for a week.  Maybe more.  We will see.

Cheers.

Pure Louisiana: Abita Brewing

I've talked about them before.  Okay, I've talked about them once when I managed to spirit away a bottle of their special Marti Gras brew.   But given my semi periodic trips to the Crescent city, it's kind of surprising that I hadn't talked about Abita brewing at any length. Well I'm gonna now.  It's happening...
yep...
any moment now...

Here's the deal.  Abita is to the South as Boulevard is to the Midwest or New Belgium is to the West or what Sam Adams is to... well the entire freaking country.  You find it out and around and for good reason, it's pretty good.

Like the breweries mentioned above, they have a flagship beer that is the go-to for most microbrew lovers in the area.  The Abita Amber is a fairly typical, slightly malty light amber ale in the same spirit as a Fat Tire.  It's got some mild roasted, nutty notes with just a hint of hops in the back that makes for a decent beer to sink in large quantities.  Best of all, it's available at just about any bar in Louisiana and elsewhere in the South.   That being said, I had the chance to track down some of their other beers during my last visit and this is what I came up with.

Jockamo IPA: The quasi-masochistic hop-heads from the Pacific Northwest would probably make farty sounds towards this IPA.  It doesn't come at you with that intense bitter flavor that is associated with the style.  It's aroma actually has some fruit notes alongside the tell-tale citrus.  There is some spicy, citrus hops but they kind of float on a tide of heavy, fruity malt sweetness.  It's a little out of sorts for the style, but a pleasant beer anyway.

Purple Haze: Raspberry beer and pretty decidedly so.  Lots of sweet fruit on the aroma and even more packed into the flavor.  A little too much for my tastes.

Hop Gator: The bartender at Lagers Taproom didn't know what kind of beer this was.  BeerAdvocate even seems to fumble over itself when it comes time to classify this.  It starts off with a very, very light spicy aroma.  The flavor reminded me much more of a pepper beer then anything else.  The green chili is especially pronounced at first, but it slowly melds into a more herbal hoppy finish.

SOS: This is a beer brewed to help the continuing cleaning efforts on the gulf coast (yes... they are still at it.  Thank you BP, good work).  A sweet, fruity pear flavor dominates this beer right off the top.  The finish is a little on the dry side with the hops adding a woody, pine flavor.  The two different flavor profiles actually clash rather nicely in this beer.

Andygator: Finishing with a specialty brew.  This is a helles dopplebock with a very light roasted aroma.  It's a big-bodied smooth beer that has some light, sweet toasted flavors that leads to a very drinkable beer.  What it's really doing, however, is skillfully hiding the upwards of 8% alcohol.  It's one of those beers that can be classified as dangerous.  You can drink a lot, yes you can.  And you can wake up with an imprint of the bathroom floor on the side of your face.  That's how they do things in Louisiana... so I am told.

Okie Round-Up: Tulsa Oklahoma

If you're in Tulsa, Oklahoma and you're looking for a spot to grab a hold of some quality pints, there is really only one game in town, McNellies.

I talked about this beer bar way back in 2011 when I last visited this city.   On a side note, that post is still the most popular post on this whole blog by at least a factor of at least three.  I'm lead to believe that the title I selected, 'Bar Craw of Tulsa' has lead a few savage drunks astray.  Far from finding a guide to the local watering holes they came across my inane rantings... which is probably for the best.  At least they found out where the best beer was.

They actually have two locations in the city of Tulsa, and I highly recomend either.  Good food and, of course, good beer.

Since I am in Oklahoma, I focused on the far-flung local beers that, like many breweries in the southern part of the U.S. don't go in for all that brew-pub non-sense.

Mustang Brewing, Winter Lager: This has a sweet, fruity and caramelly aroma with warm toasty notes mixed in.  Mixes body with drinkability extreemly well.  Its malty with warm woody toasted flavors with just a hint of herbs to add to the complexity of this very nice winter beer.

Mustang Brewing, Mmmmhops: There is a slight hint of hops in a lightly sweet aroma.  The flavor is... well, different.  It's got a hefty malt bill that takes Northwest citrus hops and sweetens the citrus considerably.  Add a bit of light but dustinct flavor make this a sweet hoppy anomaly.

Mustang Brewing, 66: No real aroma in this light beer.  But for the style, it's actually quite nice.  The light malts support some peppery herbal hops.  It has some body to it and it's almost dangerously drinkable (who stole my pint?.... And where are my pants!)

Prairie Artisian Ales, Standard: A farmhouse ale with a heavy tropical fruit and clove aroma. Thankfully, the flavor doesn't sport quite the same punch.  It has this slightly sour homebrew flavor that's a little odd but not unpleasant. Finishes quite hoppy which arrive late as a bit of a surprise.  Overall a very nice rustic ale.

COOP Ale Works, Gran Sport Porter: I picked up some coffee and chocolate in the aroma.  It has a full-bodied and creamy flavor with some roasted coffee and unsweetened chocolate.  Standard porter qualities but still a nice cold weather beer.

COOP Ale Works, F5 IPA: This beer has an intense, citrusy herbal aroma.  There are some floral flavors in the flavor that almost go so far as to be soapy.  There is an intense bitterness that hits and sticks in the back of the throat.  Not the most pleasant IPA I've had recently.  

Dead Amradillo Brewing, Amber: Nice toasty creamy and caramelly aroma.  I picked up a toasted buttery biscuit flavor with peppery hops just peaking through. There may have been some light fruit sweetness in there as well.

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. 

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.

Astride Beer Nation

Today's post is one of those where I take a bunch of random beers I've sampled in my travels and pack them into one post.  In this case, it is beer from literally all over the country.  There a some beers from Maine to California... and New York and Utah and Louisiana.  What I'm trying to say is I've got six random beers from five random states.

All five were from a couple of beer bars stuck here and there.  First, Lager's Ale House in New Orleans, which I have already spoken of.  The other was The Brit in San Jose.

A few words about that bar, overall it was a lot of fun.  The staff there was just fun.  Besides keeping the beer flowing they would hang around and bullshit, which was kind of cool given it was slow there.  They had a free beer tasting on the night I was there and a strange act where a guy drug his guitar onto the stage and invited patrons to sing karaoke-style while he played.  Ironically, less irritating then actual karaoke.  I think the thought of playing with actual musical accompaniment keeps the more tone-deaf away.

Anyway, beer!

Brooklyn Brewing Company, Brown Ale:  This beer has a malty caramel coffee aroma.  The flavors start off sweet with some light dark cherry flavors.  It finishes moderately dry with slightly bitter black coffee.

Abita Brewing, Raspberry Wheat: Pretty much as advertised, a very sweet, fruity beer.  That's about as simple as it gets.  This is the type of beer people talk about when they say, "I don't like fruit beer."

Firestone DBA

Firestone Walker Brewing, Firestone DBA (Double Barrel Ale):  This English bitter has really no aroma to speak of.  Flavor has just a hint of fruit sweetness before spicy, lemony hops dominate the flavor.  On the hoppier side of a session beer, but still a good choice to pour back a few.

Allahash White Ale: Tons of clove and banana in the aroma of this wheat beer.  I picked up a similar profile in the flavor with maybe a little bit of cider flavor added.  Finishes with floral hops.

Hermitage Hoptopia

Hermitage Brewery, Hoptopia IPA: Local selection while I was on the West Coast.  I got citrus and a hint of caramel on the aroma.   I got a hint of caramel and maybe peach off the top just before it was plowed the hell down by citrus hops and a whole lot of heavy bitter herbal, back of the throat flavor that was going to be there for a while.

Unita Brewing Company, Hop Notch:  Just a little bit of floral citrus aroma.  The flavor was a slightly different combination of hops then normal.  I got lots of light grassy flavors off the top followed by intense pine, medicinal flavors shortly after.  Not terribly good, but, like I said, different.

Back to more of the regular format next week for another report from San Jose.

Cheers!

Big Easy Brew: New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans has been on my top ten list of cities to visit for a while.  Whereas elsewhere in the country cities seem to be slowly blending together, the Crescent City stands out with a drink in hand and a defiant middle finger raised.

Jackson Square, New Orleans

 The microbrew revolution has been slow spreading to the south as I have said before.  The idea of the brewpub, a staple among the Pacific Northwest is a rarity here.  Southern microbreweries tend to focus their efforts entirely on brewing and use local bars and ale houses to get their product to consumers.

Such is the case for NOLA (New Orleans Lager and Ale) Brewing.  It is possible to go to the brewery and check out the events that they host or tour the facilities, but to actually sit  and down a few pints you have to venture out and find them hidden among the tap handles in the bars and taverns that keep this city good and liquored up.

For this I found Lagers Ale House.  As beer bars go it has a fairly decent selection.  Not the best I have ever seen, not by a long shot, but something on par with the Old Chicago franchises peppered around the cities.  It has kind of an English pub ambiance and some pretty good Cajun fare.  All in all, it was a pretty nice place to hang out.  And here's what I found about NOLA.

NOLA Blonde: This is NOLA's flagship beer and the first beer they introduced when they started their business.  It's a pretty standard light ale, no aroma to speak of off the top.  The flavor is light with slightly more herbal bitterness then expected. Nothing all that exiting, but a pretty good, drinkable session beer.

Forground: NOLA Hopitoulus, Background: Hopzilla

NOLA Brown:  I liked this one because this brewery managed to pump quite a bit of flavor into a style that is unfortunately known for a lot of light, watery beers.  Chocolate, caramel and berry dominate the aroma. The flavor is very Malty with hints of chocolate, raspberry and a little roasted barley bite on the back and a creamy texture all the way down.   All in all a nice darkish beer.

NOLA Hopitoulus: We're getting into IPA territory now.  The Hopitoulus has a light citrus  hop aroma.  The flavor starts malty combined with a little citrus.  Pine and herbal hops eventually dominate and finish off the flavor profile.  Overall I like the balance on this beer, or at least I liked the balance a hell of a lot more then it's big brother...

NOLA Hopzilla: The aroma is slightly fruity aroma with hop overtones.  The flavor presents just lightly sweet off the top but, well... ever bite into a hot pepper?  You know that delay that happens where you take a bite and declare, "See?  It's not that hot!"?  You know, right before you frantically search for bread and milk?  This beer is like that with IBU's instead of capsaicin oil.  This beer is a  hop nuclear bomb.  By the end the flavor is nothing but intense spicy, herbal hop flavors that last almost until morning.  Approach with caution.

Next week I hop over to Florida for a few pints, it is my hope that I will have the taste of hops out of my mouth by then.  Seriously, it's freaking bitter, people.

Cheers!

Southern Hospitality: Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas

This is a slightly different post to start off the new year. Still on the road for a two-week long jaunt, and finding time to hammer something out is a challenge. Still found enough beer to talk about here in New Orleans and I wanted to get something written.

There's a specific brewery Ill talk about next week. For now here is a Southern Sampler from Lager's Ale House in New Orleans:

Parish Brewing, Canebreak Wheat: Parish is a fairly new brewery out of Broussard, Louisiana with only two beers currently available, their Canebreak Wheat Ale and their Grand Reserve Barleywine. Their wheat ale has a malty caramel aroma. The flavor is clean and very drinkable. Its fairly malty with a light hint of citrus.

Lazy Magnolia, Southern Pecan: The next beer is from Kiln Mississippi. Thier website claims this as the firs beer to use pecans in the brewing process; a hell if a claim in the eccentric microbrew culture if the United States, but a valid one. The South, the love them some pecans. They do things different in the South, and this is a good example of that. It has a nice sweet earthy aroma. The flavor is very different, it has a slightly malty start with a bitter woody flavor that ends very dry. A great beer for those who like the novelty of strange brews.

Saint Arnold Brewery, Fancy Lawnmower Kolch: Lastly, from Houston, Texas, we have a light, German style summer beer. It starts with a very very light lemon aroma. The flavor contains light malt sweetness with just a hint of lemon grass for a citrusy herbal feel. It's a very simple, but nice refreshing lighter beer.

Cheers for now. Stay tuned for a couple more dispatches from the American South.

Twelve, Twelve, Twelve: Indianapolis, IN

It's 12/12/12 today, s let us take a moment for the sake of all humanity to sit and marvel that we are living through the LAST TIME IN OUR LIVES that the date will consist of the same three numbers repeated.
...
...
...
Screw it, I can write three twelve's in a row anytime I jolly will please, let's drink beer.

In honor of the last of the numerically interesting dates, I had a few beers at Thr3e Wise Men breweries at Indianapolis, Indiana.

See it's in honor of 12/12/12 because the brewery is called Thr3e Wise Men and there's three twelve's in a row....clever huh?... Fine, you try and come up with these clever little introductions week after week.

They're brewpub is located in the Broad Ripple neighborhood, which... was clear on the other side of the town from where I was at the time.  It's a cool neighborhood, I highly recommend it.  I always have fun when I'm there, but anyone familiar with the eccentricities of Indianapolis traffic will forgive my laziness.  Seriously, what did they do?  Rip up every damn road at the SAME TIME?!

Sorry.

Thr3e Wise Men is somehow mysteriously affiliated with a chain called, Scotty's Brewhouse.  I suspect that they own it, but I'm not sure.  They have several restaurants around the Indianapolis area, and it seemed like a reasonable compromise.  Along with a complete collection of Thr3e Wise Men offerings, they have a decent assortment of other Midwest microbrews, so it's a decent place to go and try a few different beers.... kinda.    If you order a sampler flight of beer, they will ask you to choose three you would like to taste.  Three.

I counted thirteen interesting beers from Indiana and the surrounding area on tap and you can taste three at a time.

*Puts soap box on the ground*  Dear, brewpub owners:  As much as I would like to have a pint of each and every one of your beers, prudence dictate that I not drink all the beer and wind up passed out in the fountains of the Indianapolis Civil War Memorial.  Why?  Because it's December and it's cold outside.  And also other reasons, but that's the main one right now.

Ideally there should be a sample of each one of the featured beers.  In times when sheer selection make that impossible due to financial reasons or laws against public drunkenness, a decent cross-section will suffice.  Like say 60-80 percent.

But three?  Come on guys, you're better then that.

So this is three of the beers from Thr3e Wise Men, plus and extra pint because I'm a nice freaking guy.

Hubbard and Craven's Porter:  Pretty standard coffee caramel aroma.  Flavor has the sharp flavor of roasted barley along with sweet chocolate and coffee.  It's smooth and creamy with just a little bitterness in the back.  Overall a good, but pretty standard porter.

@Brewhouse Brown  #Awesomsauce: A tribute to tweeters everywhere, or a just a stupid name?  We report, you decide and drink it anyway because... it's actually pretty good.  The aroma has chocolate and caramel with just a slight hint of cherry there as well.  The light fruit aroma carries over to the flavor where it adds a little tartness to the bit malt flavors.  

Golden Zoe IPA: I have to say this is one of the best IPA's that I've had in a long time.  It contains in a dark-copper colored brew everything I like about the style.  The aroma is sweet, floral and citrusy.  It has a lot of hop flavors, but it doesn't smash you in the face with bitterness.  Instead it blends tons of floral and citrus flavors against just enough malt to make a very balanced, drinkable hoppy beer. 

Cenntenial Martyr Double IPA: Zoe's bigger badder brother.  The aroma is similar with a little added caramel.  This beer packs a much bigger body along with a hops profile that will knock you back a bit.  The herbal, citrus hops are still backed up with a large malt bill, but it still hits pretty hard.

And... that's it for 2012.

A short bit of down-time exists for the holidays, and I'm going to take the time to relax a bit.  I might have enough pints floating around for a third bottle beer tour... we'll see.

Thank you everyone who's dropped by to have beers with me over the past year and a half or so.  It's been fun for me to have something to search for while out on that Proud Highway.

I'll be back in three weeks at most with the first post of 2013, assuming that the Mayans were wrong and we aren't all dead or something.  Although even if some magical calendar actually ushers in an end to civilization, I encourage you all to try and find this blog because I'll still know where the good beer is.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.  Cheers!

Flailing About like a Drunken Monkey: Dayton OH

This week found me in the wilds of Ohio.  Not even a place particularly interesting in Ohio, just kind of... well in Ohio.  I was close to Dayton which basically means I wasn't even in Dayton, but farther in the endless suburbs to the South.  Pickens is slim. 
We did manage to find a pretty cool taproom by the name of Chappy's Tap Room.   

Overall, it's a place where there is good beer and good burgers to be had.  If that is your thing, and you find yourself in that part of Ohio, then you owe it to yourself, you might even owe it to America to go there.
The terrorist win otherwise.  At least that's what I've heard.

While I was there I had sips and pints of whatever happened to catch my fancy.  There was a lot to choose from here, so this is going to jump around a bit.  From brewery to brewery, state to state, this is a sampling of some of the goodness going on around the country.

First, from Denver Colorado is the Great Divide IPA.  It had a sweet citrus aroma.  The beer was well balanced overall.  The citrus hops were mixed with a bit of pine and medicinal flavors.  Overall a very good IPA for those that like the hops but also like enough malt to stand up to them in a fight.

Next, from Grand Rapids Michigan, is Founder Brewery's Dirty Bastard.  This runs screaming to the opposite side of the malt, hop spectrum.  The aroma is all chocolate and caramel.  It has a big creamy body with some sweet coffee and chocolate flavors with some subtle dark fruit flavors hidden somewhere in it's beefy folds.  It ends dry with a tiny hint of bitterness in the back of the throat.

From there it was a sample from an old friend in California.  Lagunitas brewing in Pentaluma is one of those breweries that has achieved almost legendary status from beer geeks.  At this taproom in Ohio they were still pouring their August seasonal beer, the Daytime IPA.  It's kind of billed as a low APV beer to drink during summer days without passing out in the bathtub before lunchtime.  It has a very lemony aroma almost to the point of being lemonade.  It doesn't pack that IPA punch to the palate that most do.  I suspect that it has enough hops to plant itself firmly in IPA territory, but the flavor is far from overpowering.  It is a very smooth, highly drinkable beer that seems perfect for it's intended purpose.  I could see myself drinking this all day although I couldn't because after a couple sips the guy across the table was already giving me that look that says, "Gimme my beer back you freak!"

Okay, it's back to Michigan, Kalamazoo (A city that exists purely so that people can say it's name.  Seriously that word is fun just to type) and Dark Horse brewing.  The word 'Dopplebock' evokes something primal in me.  There is something about that style that almost guarantees awesome is afoot.  When Dark Horse first made their dopplebock however, they weren't impressed.  It just seemed too... well... normal.

So they gave the middle finger to German Purity Laws and came up with the Perkulator Coffee Dopplebock.  The aroma and flavor are pretty self-explanatory, I feel.  It has a coffee with cream sensation all around with a slightly dry finish.

To finish up it's back Founders Brewing and their seasonal breakfast stout.  It's billed a the coffee lover's stout, but I didn't pick up the java bomb they were promising.  It might have been because of the Perkulator, I don't think mankind's palate is designed to handle that much bean after about 10am, but it just didn't have that big flavor.  It had the big body and a sharp roasted barley note with some bitter roasted coffee aromas, but it was basically just another stout.  A very, very good stout, but just a stout in the end.

That was all the flailing I am prepared to handle in one sitting.  Back to some more focused (or not) discussions later. 
Cheers!

Georgia Sampler: Atlanta, Georgia

Last week, (or whenever this actually gets published.  It's been a bit of a struggle as of late) I went on my little tirade about the difference in brewing culture here in the South.  For more details go to the last post but, suffice to say the idea of the brewpub hasn't really caught on here.  There are tons of local breweries, however, and the best place to find them is a put like the Midway Pub in East Atlanta.

The Midway pub has a lot to offer anyone that happens to find themselves thirsty in this part of Atlanta.  There is a large outdoor seating area, lots of good food and just a cool all-around atmosphere.  They do however cater heavily to beer lovers saying, "True beer lovers are not elitists. They know that all beers matter and they're all wonderful. There are Old Milwaukee Tall Boy days, Belgian-High-Gravity-in-a-Snifter days and all manners in between."
I've got old friends in Eugene that would disagree heavily with this statement, but I like the sentiment none-the-less.  
Their beer list is pretty extensive.  The vast majority are only available in bottles, and there are around 20 beers on tap at any given time, including a fairly large selection of local brews.  Listed below were the local beers they had on tap during my visit, over the course of two visits I managed to hit all of them, I think. 

Let there Be Light!

Wild Heaven Breweries
Let There Be Light.
Wild Heaven is a beer that specializes in full-bodied, high octane beer.  This particular beer is the exception and is listed as the only session beer from this particular brewery.  There is a light citrus flavor to accompany a medium body and malt profile.  The hops are fairly light and make for an extremely drinkable beer.

Sweetwater Brewery
420
An extra pale ale from this brewery, this beer comes out light gold with a citrusy aroma.  The malt is very light with a touch of lemongrass flavor.  The hops are mostly pine and floral hops.  The hops are well balanced by the malt and the beer finishes slightly sweet.


Red Brick Brewery
Hoplanta
This one comes out cloudy and kind of a dark yellow with a very light hoppy aroma.  There is not much in the way of malt here and the flavor is dominated by floral hops.

Terrapin Brewery
Hopsicutioner
A fairly well-balanced beer that still packs a lot of hop flavor.  It is light gold in color with a lemon aroma.  Lots of citrus and malt off the top.  The flavor profile gradually moves to more floral hops and ends dry with a kind of bitterness you can feel in the back of your throat.  On a side note it might be worth it to seek out a bottle if only for the label.  I'm not above buying a beer at least once for the label and I dare someone to argue that this one isn't cool. 



Dogfishhead
Aprihop
Okay not a local beer, but I honestly couldn't resist.  Those that follow beer culture have almost all heard of this Delaware brewery famous for the strange and unusual.  I stopped by one of their locations back in September.   This beer, following their standard operating procedure, is just slightly bizarre, but wonderful.  It's apricot aroma is very light, but it exists in there.  It starts sweet and fruity.  The apricot is obviously there, but not overpowering and it slowly gives way to floral hops.

Monks Mead.
Monks is currently Georgia's first and only producer of mead a style of alcohol that very slowly gaining in number around the country.  This particular example is slightly carbonated and closer to the dry side of the spectrum, but only just slightly.  It has a yeasty aftertaste that I didn't personally like as well as others, but it also wasn't overly sweet.

That's it from the American South.  As of now I'm back in the Midwest for a while, getting reacquainted with home.  In the next few I get to travel the back roads of Iowa.  There is no cellphone coverage, but there is beer and wine strangely enough.

Just a wee bit different: North Carolina

Just as the title suggests, I'm doing something kind of new in this post.  It seemed almost necissary given my regional subject matter as of late.  Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I am used to a different system of microbrew distribution; a brewpub model if you will.  By that I mean that most every brewery operates a bar that's primary function is to sell beer directly to the customers.  Many breweries also bottle beer and and a few even manage to get their beer on tap at other local bars and restraunts, but the epicenter of the operation is at the brewery itself. 

Well, as is so often the case, they do things differently down South.


As I mentioned a couple of posts back, New Liberty in Myrtle Beach offers tours through their facility, but don't sell a whole lot of beer on sight.  The vast majority of their sales come from bottled (or canned) beer sold to the customers through specialty shops and grocery stores and from a select group of restaurants and bars.

So once again I ventured to the Liberty Tap Room in Myrtle Beach, SC.  The Liberty Tap Room is part of a chain with several locations in South Carolina.  The specialize in regional and local fare and act as lightning rod for the resurgence of microbrewing in the area.  The result is large selection of beer from all over the South.  Their Myrtle Beach location became a favorite hangout of mine during my time there.  The food there was always excellent, the atmosphere was relaxing and the staff was extremely friendly. 

The downside to this system is the fact that the amount of beer they have from one particular brewery is rather limited.  For example, today I am throwing a spotlight on a little brewery in Asheville, North Carolina.  The Highlands Brewing Company's website boasts five different beers and five additional seasonal beers available.  Liberty had only two on tap.... so it will be a rather short post.

Gaelic Ale: Little to no aroma on this one, but the flavor really sneaks up on ya.  It's an amber ale with a body of a much bigger beer.  Lots of caramel and chocolate with a creamy mouthfeel to go with it.  It ends with just moderate bitterness. 

Oatmeal Porter: The very first thing I notice about this beer is the smoky aroma and flavor along with a slightly woody flavor.  As I continued a lot more of the malty sweetness, coffee and chocolate flavors started to become more apparent.  It ends with just a little floral hop flavor.

That's all from me for now.  I've got one more dispatch from the South before I return to Yankee territory this time from Atlanta, Georgia. 
Until then, Cheers!

Bending Tradition part 2: Baltimore Maryland.

I broke this piece up into two parts for a couple reasons. First, I really did spend an unusual amount of time at Pratt St. and it just seemed that one post would be too long. Second, my next stop was Palm Springs California. This is where old millionaires go to die. There is nothing in the way of craft booze. There's nothing in the way of craft anything. The whole place is filled with just enough entertainment to distract their elderly patrons from the grim reality of their own mortality. So... back to Baltimore.

3 Spires Ale: I very rarely find a beer that just doesn't click with me. This is one if them. The aroma was nice, it was sweet smelling with a fruity cider aroma. I went to take a drink, made a face and wondered aloud if they meant to do that. It was like a hoppy apple cider. In my mind the English herbal hops they used just didn't go with the slightly sour taste that comes from the malt. I am assuming here that they didn't have an infection in the keg.

Ironman Pale Ale
Time to go back to basics, and thus is about as strait forward as they come. Except for a slight citrus flavor at the top this is about as classic an English pale as exists. Clean with herbal, grassy hops. Fairly dry. Nothing special but good for a pale session beer.

Coventry Cream Ale: I think the best part of this beer was watching them pour it. It came out an opaque straw color with a rich foamy head that resembled a nitrous stout. It had a very light fruity aroma, but was way hoppier than I could have imagined. There was some slight sweetness that was quickly taken down by a whole lot of herbal hops.

Cask Aged Vanilla Oatmeal Stout: Pratt street offers selection of rotating cask aged ales. This was one of thier selections. It has a very strong chocolate and coffee aroma. The vanilla really comes out in the flavor to the point that it overpowers the rest of the beer. True to the nature of Oliver Brewing, it ended with a generous amount of English hops. It wasn't overpowering, but it did seem out of place.

Back to the Midwest next week. Cheers!

Bending Tradition part 1: Baltimore MA

There is something inherently authentic about Pratt St Ale house in downtown Baltimore. Partially it the location; the bar is in an old brick building just far enough away from the harbor to avoid a lot of tourist traffic, but close enough for convenience.
Its partly because of its unassuming nature. Their beer clearly follows a traditional English theme, but it doesn't beat you over the head with that fact.
Most of all it is a traditional bar for the same reason a dirty dive bar named McLeary's is more Irish than the big Irish-themed bars with Guinness cocktails and waitresses wearing plaid skirts. It's traditional, not because it tried to be. It just is.
I had the rare opportunity to make this bar my home for the better part of three days. Normally time constraints only allow me enough time to stop by for a single evening, have cross section of interesting beers and wrote up some pithy comments that make it sound like I know what I am talking about.
This time I a actually got to spend quite a but of time and, it should be noted, I still didn't have time to wade through all of their creations. Pratt Street Ale house is not a brewery per se, rather they serve beer from Oliver Brewing Ltd. The also pour a great deal of beers from other local breweries. What I am saying is that there is quite an extensive menu to get through. So grab a beer and let's get started.

Merry SOB

I started with a seasonal beer known lovingly as the Merry SOB. It's actually a cooperative brew with two other local breweries, the Brewers Art and Stillwater. This is a dark Belgian style holiday beer. It starts rich and malty with a lot of tropical fruit, citrus and raisin flavors. It tries to blend that with slightly spicy bitter hops. It finishes a little dry and the combination leaves a strange aftertaste. Not bad but I don't see myself drinking a lot of it.

Pagan Porter:
Not a lot to say about this one. Light roasted malt aroma. Malty and roasted off the top and finishes dry with bitter English hops. Very simple beer, but it's everything a porter needs to be.

3 Lions

3 Lions: In the porter they went for simplicity, in their English Brown Ale they... er... didn't. It had a very sweet,, nutty aroma. Flavor starts with caramel and light fruit, like apple or pear. The hops add a touch of balance with some pine, herbal and some liquorice flavors. Medium bodied drinkable beer. I liked this one.


Daft Punk: This ale is "American as it gets.". The idea is that they took an American IPA and, as Americans are want to do, made it bigger stronger and faster... or at least hoppier.  It has hops during the boil, hops added after and hops during fermentation.  Let it be known that while I enjoy IPA's, when brewers start adding hops as if it were an Olympic event, I usually have to bow out.  From the description provided by the bartender, I was pretty sure this was going to be one of those.  The aroma suggested something different.  There were, of course, Northwest hops in the aroma, but they were very slight.  The flavor was pretty well balanced.  Though I am not sure if this is the quintessential American IPA that they advertised that it was, it was pretty good.  It started off with Northwest citrus hops and slowly blended to spicier English hops towards the end.

I am going to leave this as it is for now.  More to come later.  Cheers.

Bar Crawl of Tulsa, Oklahoma

Back down in the Southwest this week, this time in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  The list of breweries in this part of the country is short, but distinguished.  Oklahoma City has a respectable brewing community, but that will have to wait for another day.  Today, we're in Tulsa and there is only one game in town; Marshall Brewing Company.

Now, I am used to and dearly love the quintessential American brewpubs that have sprung up in every town in this country.  This is not one of those.  If you go to the brewery at about 9:00pm at night, like I did you are simply going to find yourself in an industrial section of Tulsa in the middle of the night sitting outside an empty brewery.  If you go there during the day, I'm not sure it will be any different.  I couldn't find any information about tours or anything like that, so I imagine they would give you a list of the fine establishments that carry their beer before politely telling you to take a hike.

So where do you find the beer here?  The simple answer is, nearly everywhere in Tulsa.  After I had hit a dead end at the brewery, I retreated to a nearby Irish pub to have a pint and plan my next move.

Killkennys Irish Pub

Basic Irish theme bar located in downtown Tulsa.  The atmosphere is nice and quiet and the staff is really friendly  It was pretty packed while I was there, but they took what time they could.  It struck me a little pricey, two beers ran almost $12.

They have a pretty good beer selection including, to my surprise, Marshall's Atlas IPA on tap. It was a little like being an explorer looking for the Lost City of Gold, sitting down for a rest in the jungle and then getting up only to find that I had just put my butt on a block of solid gold.

The Atlas IPA:
A fairly average IPA in my opinion.  It had a lighter flavor than I typically like in and IPA.  It had a light, roasted malt flavor right off the top, then smoothed into herbal and pine hop flavors.  It was drinkable, but nothing I would run back to have again.

So that was one down, but Marshall's still had three more beers out there somewhere.  It could be said, in a very overly-dramatic fashion, that I had a mission.  It was getting increasingly late, however, so I had to find a short-cut.  Violating the Code of the Man, I asked the bartender for the best place to find the other three beers.  I had to hand over my Man Card, but I did manage to find this bar.

James E. McNellie's Public House.
This was the type of place I was looking for.  It is truly a beer-lovers bar in a place not typically known for having a lot of beer-lovers.  The atmosphere was nice and laid back.  The staff were good although not exceptionally knowledgeable, but they were very friendly and kept the beer glasses full.

They had a lot of Oklahoma beers available here, including the rest of the beers from Marshalls.



 
McNellie's Pub Ale:
I didn't actually make a connection between the name of the bar and this beer until I sat down a couple days later to write this, so I feel like my perceptive qualities are very much in question at the moment.  That being said, this was an okay beer.  It can probably be classified as a pale ale given the hop content.   Pretty simple beer, but it has a lingering aftertaste of the hops that I really didn't like.  I think this is the one beer that I wouldn't order again.



Pavillion Pilsner:
Nice light pilsner.  It had slight lemon flavor in the aroma and the flavor.  Like the rest of their beers they used herbal hops for this beer, and I think they added just a touch too much for the style.  There just wasn't enough malt in this to balance out the hops.

 Sundown Wheat:
I think this was my favorite of their offerings.  Like the rest of the beers by this brewery, it's all about simplicity and it really works for this beer.  The beer is such a pale yellow color that it borders on just being the color of cloudy water.  The aroma and flavor is almost exclusively citrus and lemon flavors.  Adding a lemon wedge to this beer would be redundant.  On a blazing hot weekend in Oklahoma this beer was blessedly refreshing and highly drinkable.


As it stands, I'm heading off to Chicago next week, and then I'll be spending some time in St. Paul.  I'll catch you all up then.
Jones out.

Beware, Falling Rocks: Denver, CO

Up until now, this blog has mostly been an excuse for me to bounce around the wineries and breweries I come across.  Now it's going to be an excuse to go to the bar.   


The Falling Rock Tap Room is truly a beer lovers bar.  Their on tap selection is pretty massive (Over 70 if I remember correctly) with a selection of bottled beer to match.   This is one of those places that has beer on tap that you can't get at any other bar in this country.  In addition, they move enough beer though this bar that running into a keg that has been on tap since the last presidential election is extremely unlikely.  The beer menu even comes with a warning that it was accurate at the time of printing and could change at a moment's notice.  If you run into an old beer, it is there on purpose, but I touch on that little nugget later.  Then there is the staff...

While sitting at the bar enjoying one of their fine brews, I noticed a young man and woman approach the bar.  I can't be sure, but from the way they were acting and the way they were talking I think they were on a date; if not their first date, than a pretty early one in the relationship.  As the girl scanned the seemingly endless row of taps, she had a look on her face that suggested that, to put it mildly, she was not prepared to render a decision at this time.  The bartender came by and the man ordered a dark beer of some kind.  Then he turned to the woman who paused for a while and then said, "Do you have anything like bud light?"  Now, like I said before, this is a true beer bar.  It's one of a few places you will see a lot of patrons sniffing their drinks before they start drinking.  So when that poor girl uttered the words, 'Bud Light' you could actually feel the room get a bit colder.  The bartender, however, simply looked behind him for a moment, found the lightest thing they had on tap and poured a small taster glass for her to see if she enjoyed it.  She drank it, decided that it was not at all like Bud Light, but was worth ordering a glass of anyway.  My point is the staff is friendly and approachable, so it's a good place for those new to the craft beer world.

Their offerings include beers from all over the world and often include multiple vintages of beer.  I first found this place about six months ago around Christmas time.  Then they had three years of an Danish Strong Ale called 'Santa's Little Helper."

The beer menu: Changes frequently without warning

I stopped in and had a few random selections:

The Avery White Rascal:
Nice Belgian white ale out of Colorado.  They use that infernal Belgian wheat yeast, but it is really well balanced with bitter hops and citrus overtones.  More beer like this and I will be forced to re-evaluate my stance on this particular strain of yeast.

Sierra Nevada Southern Harvest Fresh IPA ale:
This is like the Sierra Nevada pale ale's big hoppy brother.  Light sweetness off the top that moves quickly into bitter citrus and floral hops that lingers long on the palate.

Finally they had an apricot mead on tap from another local brewery.  Very good, slightly sweet for my tastes, but lots of fruit and a heavy honey nose.

Well that's all for now.  Jones out.