No-Li, Spokane, Washington

Poser

 

•     * Skip It
•    ** Good Craft Beer
•   *** Well Above Average
•  **** Exceptional
• ***** Top 1%

Rating: ***  Value: ****

 

A 4.8% 25 IBU session pale ale.   This is clearly a session beer, but it has some good flavor.   It feels a bit watery, but the flavors are clean.  The 25IBUs don’t overwhelm the clean light malt, but bring fruity flavors of pineapple and other citrus fruits.  The English would say this verges on being an IPA, but over here it’s the epitome of restraint.   The Li in No-Li, by the way, rhymes with lie; the brewery’s original name was Northern Lights, but a Virginia company took issue and forced a renaming.

No-Li, Spokane, Washington

Poser

 

•     * Skip It
•    ** Good Craft Beer
•   *** Well Above Average
•  **** Exceptional
• ***** Top 1%

Rating: ***  Value: ****

A 4.8% 25 IBU session pale ale.   This is clearly a session beer, but it has some good flavor.   It feels a bit watery, but the flavors are clean.  The 25IBUs don’t overwhelm the clean light malt, but bring fruity flavors of pineapple and other citrus fruits.  The English would say this verges on being an IPA, but over here it’s the epitome of restraint.   The Li in No-Li, by the way, rhymes with lie; the brewery’s original name was Northern Lights, but a Virginia company took issue and forced a renaming.

Smuttynose, Hampton, New Hampshire

Finestkind IPA

 

•     * Skip It
•    ** Good Craft Beer
•   *** Well Above Average
•  **** Exceptional
• ***** Top 1%

Rating: ***  Value: *****

 

A 6.9% brassy-golden American IPA.  Smuttynose produces reliably good beer from its relatively new facility in Hampton, New Hampshire.   We hadn’t had the Finestkind since the move, but a recent sample showed they haven’t lost their touch.   It’s spicy and fruity and almost sticky with hops, but it finishes drier than the aroma suggests. The name Smuttynose comes from an island off New Hampshire’s coast that is actually in the state of Maine.

To Øl at De Proef, Lochristie, Belgium

Dangerously Close to Stupid

 

•     * Skip It
•    ** Good Craft Beer
•   *** Well Above Average
•  **** Exceptional
• ***** Top 1%

Rating: ****+  Value: ***

 

A 9.3% Imperial IPA with more hops than sense.   Pours with chunky yeast that is a bit disconcerting, but probably helps make the huge hops manageable.   Lots of fruit flavors frolic as it drinks – pineapple and lots of golden berries and even a breath of banana.  It’s not going to win any beauty contest, but it’s a really tasty beer.  To Øl is a gypsy brewery operated by a couple of former students of Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, the founder of the Mikkeller beers.  Both Mikkeller and To Øl produce many of their beers at de Proef which has brewed literally hundreds of high quality contract beers.