Archives for April 2016

April 13, 2016 by Tupper Leave a Comment

Goose Island Brewing (AKA AB InBev), Chicago? Fort Collins?

Goose IPA

20160413      Notice that this is Goose IPA and not Goose Island IPA.   This lightly feathered Goose is just 4% abv to comply with Utah’s “3.2” draft limit; the full flight version flaps up to a normal 5.9%.    There’s a tiff on the net between an AB brewer, who maintains that a different mashing process allows Goose to maintain the same hop rates as the Goose Island IPA and a beer “expert” who claims that’s just impossible.
—– I can see both sides of the debate.   It’s hard to imagine that you could put the same hops into a 4% beer without increasing the perceived bitterness, but there’s no doubt that brewers have learned a myriad of ways of boosting the body of a beer while still capping it at 4%.   The least professional of these beers are worty and unpleasantly sweet.   The best of them taste pretty much like…beer.
—–One thing we’re pretty sure of: if you’re going to drink a beer and a half of the “low point” 4% stuff for every one beer you usually drink of the regular, you’d better allocate some extra time at the gym.   Reducing alcohol does cut calories in some SIPAs, but in quite a few it appears that it actually raises caloric intake.
—— Goose IPA is one of the best draft beers available in Salt Lake City.   Some of the local products are quite good – and especially if you’re going to try a range of styles you’re better off with the locals.   But Goose manages to disguise the sweetness without the sharp bitter that characterizes some of the SIPAs that are popping up all over.   The hops taste – like Goose Island hops: west coasty and fruity.   If you’re watching a ball game, which we were, and not picking the beer apart sip by sip, which we often do, you can forget you’re having a Zion reduced experience.
—– The ball park staff swore the product was hand filled into sixtels in Chicago; we can’t help noting that the much more efficient AB plant in Fort Collins, Co. is also much closer.

April 12, 2016 by Tupper Leave a Comment

RedRock Brewery, Salt Lake City, Utah

Drioma Russian Imperial Stout

20160412 — We reviewed RedRock’s Bobcat Brown yesterday and chose it because it was an example of good craft beer in Salt Lake City. We were impressed with the range that RedRock brewed—almost every one was professional and enjoyable. The top of the line for us, though, was their top of the line – the Drioma Imperial Stout.
—-Ellie and I have a saying: “It’s Hard to Brew a Bad Stout” that we abbreviate to HTB on our tasting sheets. That said, it’s not easy to make one rise above the crowd, even by a bit. Drioma does, and it’s also staggering (sorry) to find a beer like this in the land of lightweights.
—Drioma presents rich deep dark chocolates, and some rich dark fruits, with a hint of fruit joining the festivities by the finish. The chocolates seem to grow darker as it drinks, but there are also flavors of dark roasts and dark sugars. It was desert for us, and a very welcome one.

April 11, 2016 by Tupper Leave a Comment

RedRock Brewery, Salt Lake City, Utah

Bobcat Nut Brown

20160411—-What would it be like if breweries in Utah could brew real beer like breweries almost everywhere else in the country? The answer is that Utah would be a lot like almost everywhere else in the country, which is to say, a pretty good place to drink. Strong bottled beer has been legal since the 2008 Olympics; if you go to a brewpub like RedRock, which does both bottles and drafts, you can get an idea what they’d be doing if they weren’t trapped behind the Zion Curtain.
_____Bobcat Nut Brown is a 6.1% brown ale—quite strong for a British Nut Brown, but not surprising in the high-test US of A. It’s chewy and malty with a dark biscuit maltiness and a few wandering dark sugars here and there. Into the aftertaste there’s a touch of toffee and a bit of fruit. Altogether, it’s an easy to drink brown ale without the leathery edge that some stronger brown ales get from some types of dark crystal malt.

April 10, 2016 by Tupper Leave a Comment

Moab Brewery, Moab, Utah

Black Imperial IPA

Black Imperial IPA
Moab is the only brewery in … Moab, Utah, so if you happen to be there, this is what you should drink.   If you’re on the east coast, it’s not as easy a call.   The 75cl. bottles are striking and holler “I’m going to be really good” but sometimes they lie.   We assume it’s the long trip across the country that created our several disappointments.
—–Sometimes, however, like a power hitting player off the bench, they hit a home run rather than striking out, even with a bottle you can find around the DC area.   They only distribute in 7 states plus DC. Maryland is one of the 7, go figure.
——Our beer of the day, the Black Imperial IPA, is one of the home runs.   We brought it to one of last year’s 6 ticket tastings at St. Dunstan’s church (see events for a similar tasting next week) and got a half dozen thumbs-ups. . It’s a husky roast ale with slight tropical fruit from hops and yeast.
The roast and fruit persist with a late near ashy bitter. The 8.59%abv is either a tongue in-cheek “precision” or a code to some group of insiders – no brewery measures alcohol accurately from batch to batch with that sort accuracy.

April 9, 2016 by Tupper Leave a Comment

Epic Brewing, Salt Lake City, Utah

Epic Straight up Saison

Epic started brewing in 2008 when Utah finally relented and allowed “high point” beers – those over 4% abv—to be brewed in bottles. They’ve never brewed a “low point” (4%) beer in all that time in this repressive republic.   The Epic Brewery and Tap Room in Denver is a different experience—plenty of “high point” draft beers there; of course it’s easier to get high in Denver in all sorts of ways.
——In Salt Lake City, you can go sample their beer in their “tapless” tap room as long as you buy food to go with it.   Otherwise the bottles you find around town might be a bit fresher, but they’re the same beer experience you’ll have if you pick up a bottle at the Wine Warehouse in Charlottesville, which is where we found this Beer of the Day.
——We featured a post about saisons early in this web adventure- you can find it in the blog archive.   They’re very difficult beers to do well and plenty of breweries miss the mark.   It’s been a coule of years since we had it, but we thought Epic really hit the target with its Straight Up.   Very very echt (German for authentic; we use the term everywhere). Fruity hops along with echoes of lemon and stone fruit. Yeast is tangy and slightly metallic.   It’s dangerous to think of a 7.1% beer as more-ish, but…   “Waiter—one more astonishingly legal 3/4th liter bottle, please.”