Beer reviews, news, commentary, and more from a guy who just likes to drink beer!
Well, it's nice to finally not write or talk about sales, acquisitions, or any of that crap. I shall apologize in advance, because some quality in this beer from Collusion Tap Works really impacted my speaking ability. Check out my thoughts on Good Trip:
In last week's Beers in Review post, I talked about a few of the beers I tried at Collusion Tap Works, a relatively new brewery in York, Pennsylvania. I have a handful more to discuss in varying levels of detail before reviewing what I thought was really the best beer of the visit.
I will note that over the course of the roughly couple of hours spent at Collusion, I tried virtually every style of beer, and sampled at least half of their two-dozen offerings. As a result, palate fatigue set in during the back half of this visit, and it came through in my impressions of a couple of the beers.
As an example, I chiefly point to their Alley Session IPA, which, at the time, I described as "just okay"-a descriptor that indicated I didn't note anything wrong with the beer, but I wasn't getting a whole lot out of it. That being said, this came after having multiple normal/non-session IPAs of varying varieties, among other styles of beer. To me, this screams "palate fatigue", so this session IPA is one I would need to give further consideration before judging. The same could be said for What Gose Around. Both of these beers need to be moved to the front of the line on the next visit to Collusion. One sample I had was Bumfuzzle, which is an English Dark Mild beer. To me, it kind of tasted like a cross of ESB and coffee. I didn't have too much, so I can't make much more of a judgment, but it seemed like a nice session option (4.2% ABV) for the stout/porter crowd.
Another which came late in the drinking session (because they initially thought they had run out) was one of two wheat IPAs made in honor of the movie Rogue One. All I could pull out of Light Side were some citrusy hop notes and a mild hop bitterness. I was disappointed I got this one so late, because its twin was one of the first beers I had there, and it was easily my favorite.
Dark Side is a BLACK wheat IPA, and we'll get to the the execution of that combination of words shortly. The beer poured a deep, deep brown, and was 7.5% ABV. The IPA had very little bitterness overall, but did a notable job of threading the needle of the compound style. The start of the tasting experience was grassy and grainy, while the end was citrusy. I also got spicy and herbal notes throughout the experience. The folks at Collusion did a worthwhile job combining the black (body, some of the more subtle flavor notes), wheat (nice grassy, grainy opening), and the IPA (citrus notes) with all three being fairly well-balanced, and no muddled cross flavors. Unfortunately, this seemed to be a limited release. But I found Dark Side to be their best-executed beer. I look forward to trying many more offerings from Collusion Tap Works.
As I've mentioned multiple times, I had the opportunity to check out a couple of breweries over the Christmas holiday, including Collusion Tap Works out of York, Pennsylvania. The brewery opened its doors earlier this year in a recently-renovated section of York, and has a nice though fairly typical tap/tasting room set-up: industrially-styled bar area with tables adjacent to the production area, with a small sales area for various apparel, sauces, and a few other items, and a small in-progress food set-up.
The most impressive aspect of Collusion's operation is the sheer quantity of beers they are making. The tap room has 24 taps, each holding a different offering, and we (my parents and I) overheard on the day we visited, a Monday, that they wanted to roll out 6 new beers by Friday. We had the opportunity to try roughly a dozen of their offerings, and with the exception of one non-traditional style, all were drinkable, at minimum, and most were good-to-great.
Enough prefacing. I want to get into some of their beers, starting with that non-traditional one I mentioned above. The beer's name is Kuytie Pie, and that name is a pun which includes the beer style: a kuyt (which you may also see spelled "kuit" or "koyt"). A kuyt is a Dutch-based grainy beer going back to the 15th century. It is somewhat similar to the gruit, in that it has little-to-no hop presence. (For reference, I found this kuyt to be less odd that the single gruit I had earlier this year.) Getting back to the beer itself, it poured a slightly hazy pale gold, and was quite light overall, including in ABV (4.8%). As mentioned before, it was grainy, with a corn note being most prominent to me. This graininess, with just a hint of hop, lead off the tasting experience, while the middle was so mild that I equated it to seltzer water or club soda. That corn note came to me in the back of the drinking experience. It's a mild beer, overall, and while I appreciate trying a new style, I didn't feel the need to try this again or go out pursuing kuyts on a regular basis. The most apt descriptor I found for this beer was "completely inoffensive".
Next up is a fruit-based IPA called Fuzzy Scrumpit. This is officially called a white peach pink guava IPA, and pours a very hazy yellow color. The ale is tangy, invoking plenty of the fruit in the flavor profile. I found a tartness throughout, along with a mild hop bite at the very end, and a little bit of a funky note back there, too. A mild tartness rounded out this solid IPA loaded with tropical fruits.
Finally, Dole, which is an Imperial cherry Berlinerweisse that pours a peachy-gold color. Coming in at 10% ABV, the flavor notes are fairly straight-forward, most notably tart cherry (of course) and lemonade. The beer is fairly dry overall, which, with some of the fruitier notes, helps evoke a feeling of sparkling wine or champange. I enjoyed this, but it was fairly late in the visit, so some palate fatigue was starting to set in. If it's a regular offering, this is one I'd want to check out again early on in a visit.
I still have a couple of Collusion beers to discuss in detail, including the best of my visit, and a few that I'll just talk about briefly. That will be coming later this week.
As a programming note, tomorrow I will be releasing the livestream from Sunday night as the Tuesday video. It does include a beer review of Stone Brewing's excellent Xocoveza stout, but I will discuss more detail about the video when it is released tomorrow. See you then!
Happy New Year!
I'm slowly getting back on track, and that includes the video release schedule. I don't have a review today, exactly, but I do discuss some of the places I checked out while I was up in Pennsylvania for the holidays, including Collusion Tap Works in York, PA and Troegs Independent Brewing in Hershey, PA. Check out my thoughts!
I'll see you soon with a Beers in Review blog post, and I'll resume video beer reviews on Tuesday, as scheduled. See you then!