Beers in Review: Pre-Thanksgiving Edition

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Leading off today's BiR is Yeoman's Brown Ale from Greenville, South Carolina's Brewery 85. It checks in at 7% ABV (UPDATE: Current batches are 6.4% ABV. I got 7% from the Brewery 85 website.) and 16 IBU, and the beer pours a medium brown color with maybe just a hint of haze. Yeoman's has a decent malt backbone, and a very slight sweetness with caramel notes and a hint of cola in there, as well. I also detected a roasted coffee note, as well as something I couldn't QUITE place. I wanted to say it was something like coconut, or dare I say, artificial coconut. I'm in no way certain that that is what I tasted, and the tasting notes make no mention of coconut, but that is how I'm best interpreting that last flavor note. Despite that last bit, I found this to be a decent brown ale.

(UPDATE, 9:30pm: The folks at Brewery 85 were kind enough to reach out to me via Twitter regarding what I was perceiving as coconut. They pointed out, as is indicated on their website, that additional chocolate and rum flavor notes are typically found in this brown ale, and that may be what I was interpreting as the coconut flavor, somehow. Heck, I may also have been misinterpreting the cola note, as well. -J)

Next up is Service Brewing Company, a Savannah, Georgia-based brewery owned by veterans. Ground Pounder is their year-round core Pale Ale, and named in honor of the infantry soldiers of the Army. Sessionable at 4.6% ABV, the beer pours a nice, hazy orange, and had a solid roughly 2 fingers of head coming out of the can. A massive, bright citrus note was obvious at the start of the drinking experience, though it shortly gave way to peppery notes and just a hint of pine. While there are plenty of flavors generated by the hops, there is almost no bite--just a slight kick at the VERY END of the drinking experience. This is not shocking, given the relatively low 37 IBU (I find that most pales and IPAs tend to clock in at a bare minimum of 40 IBU, though there are exceptions). Just a hint of maltiness rounds out the flavor profile, though both the actual malt and hop presence are both mild enough that I can't really comment on a balance between the two. Still, those hops are creating plenty of nice flavor notes that result in a tasty pale ale.

News/Beers in Review: Asheville's Burial Beer invades South Carolina!

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This week, Asheville, NC-based Burial Beer Company is celebrating its invasion of South Carolina by holding several events across three of South Carolina's key markets. I'm glad to say the invasion began right here in Columbia, with tap takeovers at local bottle shop Craft and Draft and downtown bar The Whig, with additional availability in the Columbia area.

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Last night's Columbia events are being followed by similar takeovers starting tonight in Greenville and Charleston, where events will continue through the weekend.

Having visited Burial Beer in Asheville, I took the opportunity to check out the takeover going on at Craft and Draft. Their tap line-up included 5 Burial beers.

 

I took the opportunity to check out the two IPAs Burial had on tap, starting with the session IPA (number 3 on the big board).

Burial's Ceremonial Session IPA checks the ABV box for "sessionable" at just 4%. This particular version of Ceremonial was brewed with Eureka hops--it seems they produce various batches using different hop varietals--and pours a hazy straw color, and musters a powerful pine hop aroma. This pine note carries through into the taste, though it's not quite as strong, and blends with some dank notes and a hint of citrus. There is almost no hop bite, just a slight bite in the aftertaste, and the flavors linger for only a brief time after the drinking experience.

The second Burial beer I had at the takeover was the Tuskhorn IPA. This Tuskhorn clocks in at 7.5% ABV, and was made using Citra, Centennial, and Blonde Ella hops. The beer poured an orange-gold color, and was somewhat hazy with just under a finger's worth of lingering pillowy head. Despite being an American IPA, this beer had a powerful hop bite throughout the entire tasting experience, along with tons of pine and citrus notes, including a bit of a lemon and/or lemon candy hint. These massive flavors dissipated fairly quickly in the aftertaste, which I found surprising, given how bold those flavors were.

My congratulations to Burial Beer Company on a successful initial foray into the state of South Carolina. I hope that success carries through for this week's and weekend's events, and long into the future!

Beers in Review: Latest Quartet

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It's halftime in the South Carolina/Florida game, and I want to finish this post I started last night, so there's no time for dilly-dallying. Let's get to it!

Boulevard Brewing Company opens up this edition of BiR with their Tropical Pale Ale. Pouring an orange-to-gold color, with a ton of carbonation, this beer features massive tropical fruit aromas, including mango and papaya, along with some citrus fruit hints, as well. These major fruit notes continue into the flavor profile, which also features a mild hop bit at the very end of the drinking experience and almost pushing into the aftertaste. The mouthfeel of this beer is remarkable. The fruits used create a bright and slightly juicy feeling the mouth that is very enjoyable. Along with the carbonation, these notes from the mouthfeel give a powerful and refreshing liveliness to the beer.

Next up is Sweet Josie Brown from Lonerider Brewing Company. I find Lowrider to be a generally very solid, if unspectacular, beer producer, and the brown falls into this category quite well. It pours a deep brown color with some copper highlights, while the flavor profile brings plenty of caramel malts and some mild biscuity notes. Caramel and toffee also lead into a hint of smokiness, or some sort of burnt note. For me all of these flavors came together into a mild but noticeable French (very dark) roast coffee note for me--while I generally enjoy such coffee notes, this one went a little too far in the overroast/burnt direction. Again, very solid for the style, though I wouldn't mind a hair less of that burnt note.

Next up is Brown Ryed Girl from Unknown Brewing Company. It also pours a very dark brown color, and features nice roast (not as dark or burnt as the Lonerider) and cocoa and burnt sugar notes that bring an almost perfect level of sweetness. A slight spicy rye note is also present, and the beer has a nice malt backbone and just a bit of creaminess in the mouthfeel. This brown seemed to hit near-bullseyes for certain parts of my palate--not overly roasty, not overly sweet, nice mild spice note.

Finally, Southern Tier Brewing Company's Cherry Gose, which is officially an Imperial Gose (8.3% ABV) brewed with tart cherry juice. Beer is a pretty lightish red, but not pink, color, and I found the flavor notes to generally be on the mild side. Of course, there are cherry and berry notes throughout, though the gose has barely any sweetness, and there is a sour bite that pushes up at the end of the drinking experience. I found this gose to be straight forward. The beer hits its notes (mild sourness, very slight sweetness, cherry notes) well, and it all works out fine. I've had better goses in the past, though.

Beers in Review: They can't all be winners

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This BiR brings a wide range of emotions to this blog. Beers will be liked. Beers will be disliked. Let's find out which is which together.

The folks at Craft and Draft had a fun little tasting last week, pairing assorted beers from River Rat Brewery with specific types of candy. I tried River Rat's Broad River Red with a Kit Kat, and this initially generated a bit of a mental "taste" already, as the aromas of the beer matched the sweet cocoa and wheaty, biscuity notes from the Kit Kat. At least, they did in my head. Overall, the Kit Kat matched well with the Red ale and it's solid malt backbone with some spicy sweetness, and perhaps a dark cocoa hint...or was that the candy doing its job. Regardless, the Red is one of my favorites from River Rat.

Next up is Fandom Ale from Lagunitas Brewing Company. Fandom is a hoppy ale being brewed for the Buffalo Wild Wings sports bar chain. Now, perhaps that fact should have been the first red flag when it came to this beer. Pouring a straight-up yellow, I got tons of piney and vegetal aromatics before even taking a sip. These notes carried through to the taste. Flavor notes included assorted grains, vegetal notes, and hoppy pine. There was a mild hop bitterness that tended to carry through a dry finish into the aftertaste. These flavors, though were shoved in your face quite harshly during the drinking experience, and I found the flavor combination to be not very appealing. This was a serious miss by Lagunitas. Or a major cleaning problem on the part of my local BWW.

On a much more positive note, we move to a brewery that has rarely, if ever, disappointed, Bell's Brewery. Roundhouse is an India Red Ale brewed with honey, and is a fall seasonal with availability in September and October ONLY, per their website. It pours a reddish color, and is quite bold in both hop and especially malt flavors. Sweet honey blends well with a sweet maltiness along with mild crackery notes. This is balanced by a mild hop bite, with just a hint of pine present. I found this beer to be a quick drinker--highly drinkable and highly enjoyable.

Six-Pack of News, Volume 14

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Game 7 of the World Series is starting any minute now, but I had a full rack of stories for the news round-up, so let's get to it!

Anheuser-Busch and Otto, developers of self-driving truck technology, recently completed the first successful commercial shipment by self-driving truck when they sent a tractor-trailer full of beer on I-25 from Fort Collins, CO to Colorado Springs. The 120-plus mile trip was monitored by a truck driver observing the entire trip from inside the truck.

Vinepair likes their lists, and their latest is to consult "The Beer Goddess", nickname of a Portland-area bottle shop manager, about the 9 beers SHE likes to drink herself.

Vinepair's Nick Hines also documented the history of the Beer Mile, one of mankind's absolute best and absolute worst ideas.

In a recent interview, food personality Anthony Bourdain decided to be a little bit grumpy about the craft beer scene as a whole, and "beer snobs" in general. Bourdain insisted "(a) bar is to go to get a little bit buzzed, and pleasantly derange the senses, and have a good time...(it's) not to sit there f---ing analyzing beer." Now, I really don't see why bars can't be both, or at least fall into either category. I frequent a number of different types of bars, and some of them I specifically go to to "analyze craft beer". But there are also plenty of places where I don't want to spend a lot of money, or, to Bourdain's point, I just want to loosen up a little bit or not use my brain for awhile. I reasonably understand few bars could pull off both vibes. But I fail to understand why the "beer snob" place is not a place worth visiting. The full Bourdain interview from the website Thrillist can be found here.

I tend to not point out breweries' new releases, just due to the sheer volume of those releases. But any baseball fan will be very interested in an upcoming release from Samuel Adams. They will be honoring recently-retired Boston Red Sox designated hitter David "Big Papi" Ortiz with Big Hapi Double IPA brewed with mango. Sam Adams will release 541 bottles (matching Ortiz' career home run total) of Big Hapi on Friday.

Finally, the Great American Beer Festival recently wrapped up in Denver, Colorado, and the Huffington Post's Ryan Grenoble documented some of the oddest beers he found at the festival. Some of the more adventurous beers utilized ingredients such as pickles, birch tree sap, and scrapple (a meat-scraps delicacy most popular in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey).

Beers in Review: Giving "The High End" a try

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For today's BiR, I unintentionally have two members of AB-InBev's High End series lined up for review. Which is fine--despite my near-constant criticism of Budweiser & Friends, there is absolutely some worthwhile stuff in that High End line up.

But before we get to them, I have another 21st Amendment Brewery beer to check out. Brew Free or Die pours a clear golden color. Brew Free brings piney hop flavors and a bright, slightly juicy mouthfeel, and a very slight hop bite that blends with a mild maltiness. Flavor-wise, the beer almost plays like a session beer; everything is present and well-balanced, but on the milder side overall. The ABV is certainly not sessionable, though, clocking in at 7%.

Next is one of the long-time standard wheat beers, Hoegaarden. And "standard" feels like an apt overall descriptor of this beer. It's hazy and pale yellow in the glass, and got served with a lemon, which I immediately dumped. Hoegaarden has a generally mild flavor profile, with typical spice notes--cloves, coriander--along with some wheat notes and graininess. A hint of citrus and citrus peel is also present. There's nothing earth-shattering about Hoegaarden, but it does a fine job hitting all of the notes expected out of a wheat beer.

Finally, I felt the responsibility to try a real pumpkin beer before Halloween passed, so a couple weekends ago, I ordered a Night Owl Pumpkin Ale from Elysian Brewing Company. Now, my aversion to pumpkin beers is well documented (keep in mind, this was before Monday's Warlock tasting), but I just wanted to see if my palate had changed at all. Needless to say it hasn't. Night Owl pours a rich reddish-brown to bronze color, and reminded me of straight-up pumpkin pie. I detected tons of cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice, and other spices. I found it to be quite sweet, pushing towards the boundary of sickly sweet, to me. Now I'm sure this is exactly what the folks at Elysian were shooting for with this beer, but it is absolutely not for me.