Bottle Beer Tour #6: It's Fuggin Cold, Drink Beer.

 It is Mid-February here in Nebraska and, right now, the weather is doing it's best to make the joint uninhabitable.  It's the time of the year when a dip above thirty-two degrees is cause for running outside naked in sheer celebration of the fact that your bits won't turn blue and fall off.   It is the time of the year to sit inside and drink beer until it becomes warm enough to... well... I guess go outside and drink beer.

 It's also been a slow travel season for me.  On the upside, no white-knuckling it over some God-forsaken mountain pass.  On the downside, no weird brews to talk about.   So it's time, once again, to break open the beer fridge and root around inside for some goodies.

 
Victory Brewery, Hop Wallop: This has an absolutely wonderful
 orange blossom honey aroma to it.  Those flavors translate slightly into the flavor profile.   It kind of sits in the background while a massive herbal hop bill takes center stage.  Nice blend of flavors.  Given the nice sweet orange honey flavor I could be persuaded that fewer hops could be better, but a nice beer all around.

 Choc Beer, Last Laugh:  American White ale from Oklahoma
light banana lemon aroma.  The fruity esters are more pronounced in the flavor with that lemony flavor lingering in the background.  Clean and refreshing beer.




 New Holland, The Poet:  Deep charcoal, woody aroma on this oatmeal stout.  The aroma suggest that it might be on the bitter side, but it really isn't.  Not quite sweet either, just a nice full-bodied mellow beer with woody coffee notes.  An excellent beer for the winter months.

Three Floyds, Gumball Head: There is a light fruity citrus aroma on this eccentric wheat beer.  The flavor is hoppy.... but it's not.  The first thing you get in the flavor is a flash of citrus, floral hops and, just as you are waiting for the dry, herbal bitterness that should probably follow... it just blends away into this nice, slightly sour, bread and rye malt flavor.  I imagine it as a really good beer to use as a practical joke for a die-hard IPA fan as their beloved bitter hops remain just barely out of reach.

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!

Back for More: Detroit, Michigan

Well..., I'm back in the motor city again.  The good news is that fact that I find a new place to get a couple beers every time I come here.  So this week it's Fort Street Brewing.

Fort Street is actually a short drive south from Detroit proper in the town of Lincoln Park.  Last week we talked about Dhestil, a microbrewery with really good food and beer complete with an almost pretentious aura about themselves as evidence by their maverick spelling of a word that has nothing to do with what happens at the brewery.

This place is the opposite of that.

This place is more neighborhood bar and grill.  More relaxing, more kick back and throw back several beers with friends.  For example, I tend to gloss over the brewery descriptions of their beers.  It can be valuable information for more eccentric beers, but often it's just what the brewer wants be to think of his beers, and I may respectfully disagree.

Here, they are worth a look for the entertainment value alone.  For example:

"Supermassive Black Hole of Deliciousness (The name of the beer alone is pretty awesome): A rye stout made with Michigan tart cherries.  Now before you go go off and say, "I'm a man!  I don't drink fruit beer;" shush!  Don't speak!  Not all fruit beers are sweet.  This beer starts chocolaty, with just a hint of tartness in the finish.  So man up!"

They didn't actually have this one on tap when I was there, which is kind of a shame.  I really wanted to try it.

The downside... okay the beers aren't as good.  They are not bad.  One bordered on undrinkable, for me at least, but not bad.  The food is really good, fairly inexpensive and interesting. I had Pierogies & Bratwurst which, if you've never had pierogies before are like little cheesy potato dumplings.  Pretty awesome.  On to the beer:

American Style Lager:  It has a slight lemon aroma and a little more hoppiness throughout, but basically a Budweiser clone.

Doug's Turbo Sarsaparilla:  This is a root beer flavored beer.  I think someone once asked me if something like this is possible.  Well, now I have proof.  The aroma is pure root beer.  The flavor is not as good as I thought it would be.  Root beer flavor starts off strong with a fizzy mouthfeel but the it just vanishes.  I'm sitting there almost thinking, "Hey!  I wasn't done with that!"  Not a bad beer, just.... Meh.

Burning Leaf:  This is the breweries obligatory octoberfest beer.  No aroma to speak of, very bitter for the style.  There are some malts at the beginning, but it finishes very dry and bitter.  Slight herbal hops flavor but mostly just bitter.  No flavor just that heavy, back-of-the-throat feel.

Downriver:  Again, no aroma to speak of.  It starts off big and malty and then it just deflates.  Just like the root beer beer, the flavor hits and runs leaving a slight dry herbals bitter flavor in its wake.

Up North Rye Pilsner:  Toasted caramel aroma here.  For a pilsner, this beer is loaded with flavors.  I imagine that pilsner purist would probably scream and yell, but you can't argue with the results.   There is berry fruit flavors on top, then it slides in to caramel.  Ends with medicinal hop flavors.

Chocolate porter: Slight coffee aroma.  Smooth mouthfeel with lots of chocolate.  It was like a glass of hot cocoa... except not hot.  And some very slight roasted notes and hop flavors, but mostly like cocoa.

SIPA:  Starts with a very very light hop aroma. Remember the beer I said was near, undrinkable... here it is. Not a hop bomb as much as a hop flood.  Piney at times but is mostly strait up bitter.  A spoon full of alpha acids.   The flavor rises and rises, like biting into a hot pepper.   It's good at first, then it starts getting a little too bitter, you make a face and finally you swear never to drink this beer again.

Count Chocula : Very light chocolate in the aroma. In the flavor the chocolate malts mixes with some pretty powerful herbal and pine hops.  Different from most chocolate porters, but the flavors clash more then they compliment.

Backyard IPA:  This one was by far my favorite.  It has a very light wine aroma.  The flavor is like slightly sweet hoppy wine.  Piney, herbal hops kind of mix and enhance the citrusy sweet flavors present in the beer.  Apparently the flavor comes from a hop I must find.

Old Places, New Faces: Detroit MI

I am finding myself in Detroit with disturbing regularity.  For reasons that escape me it seems my destiny and that of this city are disturbingly intertwined.  I'm not sure what that implies, but it might not be all bad.

"There is something about relaxed places that generate good beer." said my server at Sherwood Brewery, comparing Oregon and Michigan beer culture.  It never occurred to me to describe Detroit as relaxed.  If it is, surely relaxation has been largely thrust upon this city.  

 

The overgrown remains of the Big Buck brewery.

And as the ruins of the Big Buck brewery point out, it strikes me as a tough place to survive.  Breweries thrive on expendable income, something that Detroit has not been known for lately. But, for whatever rhyme or reason, the Detroit area hides rare gems that keep appearing underfoot each time I kick up a bit of dust here.  Sherwood might be my new favorite.

It's located in the Northern Suburbs tucked away from a strip of chain restaurants and bars it an unassuming little strip mall.   It's the kind of place you're not likely to find unless you're looking for it, which probably makes it all the better.  It has the feel of a nice little neighborhood bar.  The kind of place you might only get to see if you know someone in the area.

The other cool thing about this place is their collection of mead.  And not just simple honey, water and yeast mead either, although that is a fantastic combination.  But we will get to that later.  Let's talk beer first.  I started off with a sampler of everything they happened to have on tap at the time which wasn't as much as they usually do.  My luck was at work here, and they were out of at least two of their regular beers.  What they did have was pretty good:

Hell road Hefewizen: This starts with a heavy clove and banana aroma which, in this case, says nothing about the flavor. 
It is more lemony and watery.   I picked up more spice and clove later on, but I got almost none in the first tastes for some reason.

Fuzzy weisen:This is the hef except finished with peaches slightly tropical herbal aroma.

Similar to the hef but sweeter with a bigger body.  I get peach but it is very subtle.  It strikes me as just the right blend, the peach just helps the lemony, grassy flavors along and never overpowers it.  Those that might steer clear of this beer because they fear something on par with Pyramid's Apricot Wheat, something that amounts to an apricot-flavored beer, need not worry.  This isn't it.

Longshanks mild ale:  Session beer for those who like drinkablity with a little boost.   Starts with a toasted aroma with nut brown sugar.  It has a slightly creamy mouthfeel.  As expected it's very light but I still pick up a decent amount of roasted grain, caramel and, for some reason, buttery popcorn came to mind.    It's slight, but it's very good all around.

Abbeyversary:  Anniversary ale celebrating the first time the Brewer yelled Gadzooks.  Just kidding, obviously.  I dig the hell out if this.  Pine aroma with dark fruit raisins.  Malty full bodied pine and citrus prevalent throughout but not overpowering.  Balanced just right with dark fruit malty flavors.   This one quickly became my favorite.

Nobel Benny:  9.75 and 66 IBUs 

Light fruity aroma,  I pick up strawberry alcohol malt caramel there.  I get a little of that in the flavor as well... Just before all the hops descend to kick my teeth in.  It has a hop profile reminiscent of Arrogant Bastard with as much subtlety.  With it's massive dose of hops and alcohol not to mention the body of a sumo wrestler, you are not likely to have more then about one of these, but it's a good one to have.

I promised mead, didn't I?  Yes I did.  They have some interesting flavors in their honey wine at this place. 

Mint Vanilla Wildflower:  Minty with notable honey aroma.   Mint is very much overpowering, but vanilla is there at the end, but you have to be looking for it.  Without the obvious hint in the name, I would assume it was just mint.

Rasberry dragon fruit: Very sweet.  It's got all the advertised fruit flavors there, a bit of berry and tropical fruit, but it's bordering on jolly rancher sweet. Too much for me.

Chocolate: This one was a surprise favorite of mine.  After the last one I more or less figured that I was about to quaff a double chocolate fudge sundae.  The aroma had lots of chocolate and a bit of leather in there. It's nowhere near as sweet as I thought it would be.  It had all the body I was expecting but it doesn't go overboard with the sweet.  Its actually just slightly bitter and more like unsweetened dark chocolate.

 

I'm taking the next week off.  I'm getting married next weekend and I'm guessing I probably won't have time to run off for a pint, and even less time to write about it after.  I'll be back in two weeks, though. 

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!

The Hub: Detroit, Michigan

Last time I visited the motor city I more or less confined myself to the outskirts of the city far away from the...er interesting parts of the city.  Royal Oaks is kind of a cool area, I remember it being fairly well hopping when I went there, but it isn't Detroit.  Even the tag I put on that post rang a little hollow, and the title was just showing off.  That wasn't Detroit.

This...[cue soundtrack from 8 Mile].... is Detroit.

Detroit is built on a hub road system.   The main roads spread out from the center like the spokes of a giant wheel.  It's like a giant hat tip to the history of transportation that Detroit is famous for.  And right in the center of the wheel, right where the car companies would have stamped their logo... is the Detroit opera house.

Across from that is the Detroit Beer Company. 

There is something about craft beer that engenders urban renewal and I'm not sure why that is.  Call it a love of local color, a culture that turns old industrial centers into thriving entertainment districts or necessity because dilapidated, rat infested ruins are cheap, but many breweries around the country are bringing new life to formally dead urban areas.  And since no city probably needs it more, it's more than fitting that the Detroit Beer Company occupies the old Hartz Building downtown.  Whatever the reason for it, it seems to work.  The area around the hub is about the only section of the city that doesn't look slated for demolition.  Whether the brewery is a cause of, or a product of that is a debate that should happen among people much smarter then myself.  I'm talking about beer... which I haven't done yet.  So, yeah... beer.

I sat down with a grilled salmon sandwich (pretty awesome) and a taster flight of their beers.

Hef:  Banana and clove aroma.  Flavor features banana off the top with light malty flavors finishing dry and slightly spicy.  Fizzy and a light for the style.

Amber: Fruity aroma that pretty much stays the same in the flavor.  Some cherry and caramel in the palate.  Hops start off very light and build up leading to a herbal hop flavor that really lingers.

Baltic Porter: Fan of dark, malty beer?  You'll want one of these and by one I mean all of them.  The flavor is sweet, creamy with hints of light berry fruit with some herbal notes mixed in.  There is some bitterness in the back, but it's far from intrusive and helps balance the heavy malt bill.

Local 1529 IPA: Keep in mind I was still more or less fresh from the Pacific Northwest when I was in Detroit.  Keeping that in mind, the flavor of malt in an IPA... it was strange.    This IPA was sweet, malty with some citrus notes and some spicy hops towards the back.  More malt than I typically like, but a nice change.

Amarillo IPA: Remember when I talked about the One Hop Wonder at Block 15 in Corvallis, Oregon? That part where I thought that no other brewery was doing something like that.  Yeah... about that...
Whereas Block 15 featured the Centennial hop, Detroit Beer company did the Amarillo.  It strikes me as a strange choice, the Amarillo is basically the Cascade hop's bigger, badder and dumber brother leaving some of the subtle floral qualities aside for a massive dose of bitterness.  Still, they managed to coax a lot of citrus and grapefruit flavors in the beer but it will leave with a very bitter aftertaste.

That's all for Detroit for now. 
Cheers!

Great Lakes Wine: Michigan Wine Country

Well... back to Detroit.  Last time I visited this city I found myself exploring a bit of the brewery culture in the outlying suburbs.   This time, due to time constraints I couldn't explore more of the Detroit area, but on my way out of town I found a great opportunity.  Driving east on I 94, I soon found myself in Michigan wine country.

Obviously this blog is about beer.  Beer is in the title, the vast majority of the posts have to do with beer and the word 'hops' probably ranks in the top 10 word count.  This is about all sorts of local drinking culture through this country.  So we will take a break from the industrial world of brewing and the vast urban decay of Detroit and head out to the serene countryside for the agricultural world of wine making.

Lawson Ridge Winery:

This was the first of two smaller wineries that I visited.  First, a word about the wine tasting experience in Michigan.  The wineries I visited allowed a free sample of up to six wines from their selection with some small costs for some of their special releases.  The staff at the tasting rooms were all friendly and made for a great afternoon out in the wilds of Eastern Michigan.

Out of the highlights I will start with the Cherry Red.  This is a fruit wine made from the local cherries.  It was perhaps a little sweeter than I normally like, but it was served with some dark chocolate.  When combined with chocolate, this wine provided just a hint of tart that cut through the chocolate and added layers to the flavor.

My personal favorite was the AZO semi-sweet red.  It was one of those wines that has an aroma that is as wonderful as the flavor itself.  It is just the right amount of sweet with dark cherry and strawberry flavors.  Their Two Handed Red was pretty good, but lacks the body and the dryness that draws me to red wines.  Their chardonnay is un-oaked, so it had a lot more light citrus and pear flavors, but lacked a lot of the smoothness.

Cody Kresta Winery: 

I drove deeper into the forests and farmlands of Michigan.  My next stop was a red farmhouse off a small country road.   As compared to Lawson Ridge, this winery featured a lot of drier, tart wines.  They have a selection of rose's that range from very sweet to almost bone dry.  I tried something in the middle of the road and really enjoyed it.  It had lots of light fruit flavors and a light honey dryness at the back of the palate that makes this a perfect drinking wine.   Also of note was a blueberry fruit wine.  It had just the right amount of berry sweetness that makes this really enjoyable.  Those that prefer a sweeter fruit wine probably wont enjoy this as much, it's surprisingly dry and complex.  Lastly, was introduced to the Traminette grape.  This is a varietal that grows only in this particular area of the country.  (There seems to be some debate on this.  The staff at my next stop claimed Traminette was a blend and not a grape in and of itself.)  The wine was something that I like to call a 'breakfast wine,'  slightly sweet with light citrus, grapefruit and light fruit that just seems like it would go really well with some toast and eggs.

Warner Vineyards:

As I drove back towards the Interstate on my way back onto the Road, I stopped in Paw paw, the unofficial capital of Southeast Michigan wine country.  This is the second-oldest winery in the state and probably one of the biggest.  Their selection of wines is so expansive that being forced to pick six out of the list is almost cruel.  I had their Traminette as well, it was similar to Cody Kresta's although I think it might have been just a little more tart.  

Throughout my tour I had a hard time trying to find a really nice, heavy red wine.  Michigan wines seems to stay on the lighter, sweeter side when it comes to their reds.  Warner came through, however, with a decent merlot and a blend they call Veritas.  Veritas has just the slightest hint of sweet, dark fruit that adds to the big body and spice of this wine.

One more wine I want to mention from Warner, the Grapes of Love.  This is one of those overly fruity sweet wines that, lets face it, is more or less tailor made for a girls night out.  I tried it for two reasons: First, it was their best selling wine, so I was curious.  Second, I think the winery's description says it all, "A silky smooth white wine with great legs and excellent body."

Things I admire in a.... er.... wine?

Cheers

Motor City Beer: Detroit MI

Back when I worked in news around the time of the economic collapse, Detroit was kind of the poster child for financial woes.
Sitting in my hotel looking for some local refreshments I came across another sad story in Detroit's anthology of misery. King Brewing just went under a couple of months ago. Oh King Brewing, we hardly knew ye... Okay I didn't know ye at all, but the sentiment is the same.

Though we raise a glass to a fallen soldier in the Craft Beer Revolution, the glass we raise is filled by another still fighting the good fight. I had to dive a few miles from where I was staying, but I found myself in Royal Oaks. On a Friday night the streets of this downtown area were packed, a far cry from the urban decay that surrounds it. It was the birthplace of everyone's favorite B-movie actor, Bruce Cambell and Tim Allen kicked off his career within the town's clubs and bars. It's also home to Royal Oaks Brewing Company.

Overall nothing especially noteworthy about this place; pretty much your typical local brewpub. I will say this, the food here was very good especially considering the price. There us a general mix if Asian, Italian and Cajun cuisine all for in and around $15.

Pretty standard beer selection. The one wild card was a cask aged version of their ESB. Their everyday version if this beer ended up as my favorite of their selection. It has a nice roasted malt flavor with just the right amount of pine and floral hop bitterness to make a wonderfully drinkable beer. Their cask version, however, is something else entirely. It has an aroma that smells just like peach yogurt. The flavor was similar and followed fast by bitter English hops that stick to the back if the throat. It was defiantly interesting, but I don't think I would order a full pint of it.
Their Red Ale was another stand-out. It was surprisingly full and malty with a touch of sharp roasted flavors and ends dry with bitter pine hops. Another very good, drinkable beer.
Cheers, see you on the road.