CulturAle Press

Short Pump Weekend: Kindred Spirit Ain’t No Half Steppin” Triple PA

Date:  May 20, 2019

The Story—  Kindred Spirit Brewery in Goochland County is less than a 15 minute drive south from your hotel in Short Porch/Insbruck.   Well over a dozen beers are enough to make you happy if you have a designated driver.  Don’t miss the striking and unusual mash filter system in the brew house.  It’s a feature that we’ve seen occasionally in Europe and the United States in fairly large 19th century breweries.  The idea is to use less water to squeeze more malt sugars out of the grain saving on both the ingredients and the process, but it certainly looks far more complex than the more usual mash tun.  A handful of US craft breweries are bringing back the device as a money-saving, quality ensuring, upfront capital investment that should pay off in the long time.   A gutsy call, but we respect them

Kindred Spirits has a wide range of beers, most of them good — and far more than enough to meet the needs of anyone who is not counting on a ride share back.   We found they did their best work on pale ales.  We’ll look at their dy-no-mite Triple PA today and step back a bit tomorrow.

The Beer—   Their Kindred Spirit Ain’t No Half Steppin” Triple PA was a knee bending 10% big take on a pale ale theme.  It had exceptionally soft flavors for a 10% triple IPA.   Creamy and chalk and big pale malt starts with pine and tropical golden punch finishing.   Ellie thought it was unctuous and dangerous, but although I didn’t disagree, I would have wanted more oomph and pizzazz if I’m going to drink a 10% beer.  Still, a very professional beer with no evident flaws.

Value — Good.   We tasted this as part of a tasting rack – same price as the others and worth the money.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

May and early June are some of the best times to take a weekend and go brewery hunting.  Most rates haven’t reached their out-of-school peak, and the chances for good weather are … pretty good.  So for a few weeks, we’ll give you some Mid Atlantic suggestions for weekend excursions.

We’re including beers and breweries we’ve found in researching our guide to breweries and inns of the Mid Atlantic.  We won’t adhere to the “must be walkable” rule here, though.  Once again we present our standard caveat: only a few of the beers we describe will be at the brewery if you go there, but they’ll probably have a beer that’s close to the style and if they do one stout well, they’ll probably do others about as well.  We hope the “story” will be at least as valuable as the actual beer review.

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers,   and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”