Six-Pack of News, Volume 4

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As I mentioned in Sunday's post, I noticed Highland Brewing Company was starting to get into the canning game. Turns out, they had been canning just one beer, but Beer Street Journal reports they will release their second canned beer later this month. BSJ is also reporting that fellow Asheville, North Carolina brewery Hi-Wire is also following suit, canning their new goze, while Longmont, Colorado's Left Hand Brewing just announced a canning initiative starting this winter.

Philadelphia recently played host to a charity "pop-up street pub" run out of a tractor trailer by Deschutes Brewery.

A North Carolina Native American tribe is suing Anheuser-Busch over use of their symbols in Budweiser advertising. If you look at the picture in the link, you can see the circular, multi-colored logo in the upper left hand corner, and the tribe slogan under "Bud Light".

The Travel Channel recently posted an article featuring 6 international hot spots of beer brewing, from Australia to Scotland.

Finally, DraftMag and others reported that Stone Brewing Brewmaster Mitch Steele is leaving Stone at the end of the month after a decade with the brewery. He plans to open his own brewery, calling it "a bucket list thing." Steele is responsible for many of Stone's top beers, including the Enjoy By series and others, and wrote a book on IPAs.

Beers in Review: Asheville-Best of Highland and Frog Level, plus Pour Taproom

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Today will conclude the Asheville series with some of the highlights from Highland Brewing Company and Frog Level Brewing.

But before that, there was one other location I wanted to mention again, and that's Pour Taproom. Pour has two locations in the Carolinas and one in California, and they have a concept that I absolutely love. You are given a pint glass and an radio frequency tracker. You touch the tracker to the beer label above any of 30-40 accessable taps, then fill your pint glass with as much or as little beer as you like--the RF tracker tallies how many ounces you pulled. Once you're done drinking, you turn in the tracker which has kept track of ounces pulled of each beer AND the price PER OUNCE per beer, and you pay your bill. It's a fantastic concept, because you can just try a couple of ounces of beer for a dollar or less, or just pour a half of something high gravity/high alcohol without wasting beer. They had a good mix of beers too: locals, domestic crafts, import crafts, Belgians, ciders.

Now, onto Highland Brewing Company.

 

One highlight of this visit was their Warrior Series Mosiac Rye IPL, about which I did a video review already. We had an additional beer from the Warrior Series, the Tasgall II Scotch Ale, which was sweet and mildly boozy (checking in at 8% ABV). There were cherry and dark fruit notes and a slight boozy aftertaste. We also checked out their summer seasonal, the Early's Hoppy Ale, which had a slight graininess followed by nice tropical hop notes, along with some pine and maybe a hint of citrus. This was a really nice summer beer. I had also noticed that Highland was starting to join the wave of breweries that are canning instead of bottling beer. I don't know if that will be for certain releases, or if they are doing a wholesale transition.

Finally, on Monday, before heading home, I stopped at Frog Level. After grabbing a sampler of beers I had never had before (we only tend to get their top core beers here in Columbia), I took my tray outside and treated myself to this view:

A porch in the woods overlooking a stream. Absolutely beautiful.

Some notables from Frog Level included their summer seasonal, a Raspberry Shandy with mild berry and some grainy notes. I found it to be very smooth to drink and mild overall (to the point that I could have used a little more raspberry fruitiness, and I tend to not be a fruit beer guy). It's a very solid summer beer, though.

They also had a unique brown ale called Smokin' Joe Brown. I had had their Nutty Brunette, which I believe is also supposed to be a brown. Smokin' Joe sets itself apart with its cherry wood-smoked hops. A smoky and roasty note comes through in this beer, along a hint of cocoa and some nice malty sweetness.

Another beer I had never had before was their Shell Back IPA. It was a hazy orange color, with tons of citrusy notes, including orange and assorted citrus rinds. I found it to have a pretty juicy mouthfeel with a mild hop kick at the very end and in the aftertaste. With so much juicy citrus and so little hoppiness, it almost played like a wheat beer.

Some other beers I tried there included a chile beer called Cinco Ranas Picante made with local peppers, including Carolina reapers. I just can't get in to chile beers. I also had their Catcher In The Rye Red, which was fairly light with a nice malt-hop balance, and the Tadpole Porter, which was solid and tasty, but I didn't drink much of, for assorted reasons.

So, this concludes my "brief" rundown of my trip to Asheville, NC. To be honest, it probably could have been another couple of installments, but we'll move on to some non-Asheville beers later this week. Also, coming tomorrow (Monday) will be a video review from Paulaner Brauhaus, who have been making beer for roughly 500 years!

Six-Pack of News, Volume 3

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We talk about big corporations, small craft breweries, and everything in-between in this week's six-pack. Let's do it!

In a union of two mega-corporations, Starbucks Coffee Company will be partnering with Anheuser-Busch to produce, bottle, and distribute ready-to-drink versions of Starbucks' high-end Teavana tea brand.

I fear this may go the way of my recent Black Sour Ale experience, but Schilling Hard Cider is creating a cold-brew coffee nitro hard cider, to debut later this month. I promise, if this makes it to my area, I will DEFINITELY give it a video review, if only so you call can see my reaction face to the apple/coffee combination. Wishing all the best on this for Schilling. Seriously.

Jester King Brewery just began farming on 58 recently-acquired acres near their Austin, Texas brewery. Jester King, producer of wild and farmhouse ales, along with sours, has planted "plum and peach trees, blackberry bushes, and a melon patch." They also are testing wheat on the plot. Eventually, Jester King hopes to utilize many of their own fruits, vegetables, and grains for future production.

Wal-Mart is getting into the craft beer game with beers brewed by Trouble Brewing being sold in 12-packs in Wal-Mart stores.

Rolling Stone reports on cast members of Lin-Manuel Miranda's firestorm of a Broadway musical "Hamilton" who have collaborated with beer experts The Happy Hour Guys to create the "Hamilton"-inspired Rise Up Rye, the first beer under the Broadway Brews Project charity banner.

Finally, if you'll pardon me some news of personal interest, Brewbound published a press release from the Jersey Shore's Cape May Brewing Company announcing the release of their new Mooncusser Pilsner. Cape May has a taproom in southern New Jersey, always pouring well over a dozen beers in addition to their own root beer and ginger ale. Congrats, guys, and see you this summer!

Beers in Review: Asheville-Wicked Weed Funkatorium and Asheville Brewing

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We continue the tour of Asheville tonight with three different breweries.

Our second-to-last stop on Saturday was at the Wicked Weed Funkatorium. Now, my parents and I had visited and had lunch at the Wicked Weed Brewery earlier in the day, but they have a separate facility a few blocks away known as The Funkatorium, their home for barrel-aged sour ales and other funky beers, serving up to a dozen at any given time. The barrels are quite prominent, as the storage area is right off the tasting room, and you can see rows of aging barrels stacked high full of maturing beer. Here, I had a pre-determined flight, starting with their La Bonte w/ pear. This was a fairly rich and slightly hazy yellow color, and starts as a Belgian-style farmhouse/Saison that is blended with Blonde sour ale and then flavored with French pears and bottle-aged. I found this to be fairly mild overall, and not necessarily my favorite, though I feel this is more a reflection on me: I need to be in the right mood for Saisons, and I'm not much of a pears guy, either.

Also in the flight were 3 of their barrel-aged sours, which were a little more up my alley, as much as my palate held up (again, we'd drank at least 10 different beers prior to this point). The Marina was a more pale yellow color, almost evoking white wine. The peaches and apricots used in the barrel-aging really came to the fore, flavor-wise, though, as expected, we got little to no sweetness out of them. Next was Amorous, which was a nice orange color, with citrusy flavor notes to match. Noted as a Sour IPA, to me, most of the hop characteristics were overtaken by the sour. The final sour was Recurrant, which was aged with Currants in cabernet barrels. I had hoped my parents, who are more winos than beer snobs, might take to this one a little more than the others, owing to the wine-barrel aging. My dad tolerated all of the sour ales, my mom wasn't a fan at all. They did enjoy our split dessert of vanilla ice cream with berry compote made with sour ale--the contrast of sweet ice cream and sour compote was quite delightful. I enjoyed the ales at the Funkatorium (probably the Amorous was my favorite), but, again, my palate was getting fatigued, so we had just one beer at one last stop.

At Asheville Brewing Company, I had their flagship IPA, called Shiva. Shiva has nice citrus notes, and a good amount of dank piney hops. There is also a good amount of bitterness. This was a well-executed IPA, and I need to head back here to give them more of a try.

Beers in Review: Asheville-Best of Bhramari and Twin Leaf

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Tonight continues the look back at the beers of Asheville, North Carolina. We'll be covering two different breweries in this entry.

Starting off is Bhramari Brewhouse, a newcomer to the Asheville scene that is essentially split in two: a standard restaurant and a much more stripped-down taproom and patio, where you can drink within feet of the tanks. Everything here was a little bit off the beaten path, in a good way. One of our drinking experiences was their Carolina Common Ale served both "as is" and infused with apples and star anise. The straight Common uses locally-sourced malt, just like the Highland IPL I tried in Monday's video review. It pours pretty orange color, and was fairly sweet (many of their beers were on the sweet side) with caramel notes and a bit of grain and toasted malt. The infused Common was also quite sweet and yielded a caramel apple flavor, along with a mild black licorice kick (from the anise). On my palate, the entire flavor profile kind of melded into cherries and strawberries at the very finish. Again, these beers were pretty sweet, but just stayed on the tolerable side.

The Night Sauce Stout was a big hit with both my parents and myself. Super tasty with lots of chocolate and a hint of coffee. I also caught notes of roastiness and caramel and just a bit of black pepper as well. Complex and tasty, this was a great stout.

We also tried their Lorelai American IPA. Sadly, I don't have a many notes on this beer, except that it was a bit of a tropical fruit bomb. I enjoyed it, but my dad, who is quite the hop-head, did not. There was also a Black Goze that combined the coffee notes of a porter or stout with the lemon-sourness of a Goze. It didn't work for my personal palate, but I expect they hit their own target perfectly.

Our next stop was Twin Leaf Brewery. They weren't doing flights, which was just fine, as after several beers each at Bhramari and Wicked Weed (discussed previously), we were more than happy to throttle back a bit. I spent most of the time teaching my mother about Cards Against Humanity, so I may have created a monster there. I had their White Noise Witbier. I found this to be a really well-executed wheat beer. It was crisp and clean, with clove, wheat, and even some spicy notes. There was also just a hint of citrus, probably orange. Again, really solid in style.

Six-Pack of News, Volume 2

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Hey! We made it to a second one of these! Great job, everybody!

I have the Mumford and Sons cranked, the articles picked, and I'm ready to write. Let's do this!

We'll start with the bad news first. Josh Weikert of beer-simple.com talks about what could happen if the craft beer bubble burst, with a hint of on-target bemoaning the lack of discussions on craft beer quality.

Hot on the heels of last week's article on the craft beer industry's massive valuation potential comes an article from Chris Furnari at Brewbound that says craft beer sales growth has slowed significantly to around 6.5% growth, down compared to last year (17% growth). There may be some cause for concern--nearly flat growth at grocery stores/drug stores/Wal-mart/etc.--but I doubt that the double digit growth seen in this and other sales avenues in 2015 was really sustainable. The Brewer's Association tries to pull out some of the so-called-but-not-really craft beer brands, specifically Blue Moon and Shock Top, to paint a better picture. Those two brands ARE DOWN (to the point of negative growth) significantly, but to cite them specifically without looking at other brands owned by Big Beer is unfair. In fact, some such brands, like Goose Island, Founders, and others are doing exceptionally well.

Onto happier news, Governor John Kasich of Ohio signed Sub H.B. 37 which, among other things, eliminated ABV caps on Ohio-produced beers. Prior to this, there was a limit of 12% on beers brewed in Ohio. Looks like this law may have also made some exceptions for taproom and brewery service.

Web-video service Vimeo has a roughly 20-minute documentary on the beer scene in Charleston, South Carolina, including how the city's culture influences that scene. The documentary is about two years old, but a lot of the spirit and sentiment remain relevant.

Chicago wrapped up their Craft Beer Week this past weekend, and Tribune reporter Josh Noel has some impressions on some possibly lesser-known Chicago breweries.

Finally, beer for dogs! Dogs struggle internally with some of the ingredients in human beers, but a U.K.-based company called Woof and Brew have created a dog-friendly "beer" made of "barley malt, dandelion, flax, and 'chicken flavoring'", aiming to create a common social ritual for both the dog and his/her owner.

 

 

Beers in Review: Asheville-Best of Wicked Weed

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If you've seen the two recent videos I released, you got an overview of my recent trip to Asheville, North Carolina, home of countless craft breweries and beer bars. The next few or several) Beers in Review posts will include more in-depth reviews or descriptions of some of the more notable beers from the trip. We'll start off with three from our first brewery stop, Wicked Weed Brewing.

First is Wicked Weed's flagship IPA, Pernicious. A recent medalist at the prestigious Great American Beer Festival, this beer brings forward a vast array of flavors. There were moderate tropical fruit and perhaps dark fruit notes (which may have all been running together), along with some pine and resin hints as well. There was also maybe just a little bit of dankness. This was a really tasty beer with a wide and wild variety of hop flavor notes.

Next is their beer tribute to Prince, an "experimental ale" called The Artist Formerly Known As. Owing to its experimental style designation, it is an ale brewed using purple rice, which can have a nutty taste, and assorted Indian spices. It pours a "turmeric orange" (their description--I expect turmeric is one of those Indian spices). Admittedly, I don't have an extensive knowledge of Indian cuisine, but the ale left me with an overall impression of curry powder. Some of the flavor notes include spiciness, woodiness, and a slight sweetness. A unique beer, unlike anything I've had before.

Finally from Wicked Weed, Hop Burglar, poured on Nitro. I've tried describing what this means before, but Wicked Weed gives a great description on their website:

“The addition of Nitrogren to a beer gives way to much smaller bubbles, creating a smoother, creamier experience. It also creates a beautiful cascading head that makes our brewers’ mouths water.”

It gets a tad flowery at the end, but the point is well-made. Pouring a pretty orange color, my overall impression of this beer was that it's a hybrid of a Pale Ale and an ESB, an English-style malty, bitter, ale. The Nitrogen use may be playing a role in this--occasionally you will see similar beers to this on Nitro. Fruity notes are present-a result of the use of blood orange and grapefruit. Most notably, this is a well-balanced beer, with both hop and malt notes shining through.

 

Six-Pack of News: Volume 1

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One of the things I always say when I tell people about how to improve this blog is "I want to write about news more." Well, I want to write about news more. I will try to go in-depth about some issues, but I thought this might be a fun way to throw some interesting stories out there, with just a bit of commentary or a witty quip on my part.

I give you...the Six-Pack of News.

My home state of Pennsylvania has finally started to get themselves out of the Stone Age, at least in terms of selling beer. PA Governor Tom Wolf advocated to and gained approval from the Liquor Control Board to allow six-packs of beer and malt beverages to be sold in gas stations, provided there is a separate point-of-sale for such transactions.

This is a couple of weeks old, but it's still frakking stupid: Budweiser is rebranding itself as "America" for most of 2016 in an obvious attempt to cash in on the upcoming Olympics and election season. I have a number of rebrandings I could suggest to A-B InBev, but I want to keep things kid-friendly here.

Speaking of A-B InBev, this blog some time ago noted their attempts to block out other craft brews from distributors' shelf space by offering financial incentives to distributors that stock a certain amount of A-B InBev products, including their ever-expanding "High End" group of former craft breweries (a group that includes Goose Island, Elysian, Devils Backbone, and many more. Well, this incentive program is being investigated by the Department of Justice over A-B InBev's attempted acquisition of SABMiller, though this particular point is not expected to derail the acquisition.

The awesomely-named Brew Studs found a report from the much-less-awesomely-named Research and Markets group that says the craft beer market could be valued at $45 BILLION dollars by 2019 owing to a growing consumer preference for craft beers. With well over 4000 craft breweries (and counting) in the United States alone, this number, while staggering in a vacuum, seems unsurprising.

While in Asheville over the weekend, I noticed a couple of breweries established East Coast operations there. New Belgium is located in the city's River Arts district, while Sierra Nevada is located outside of the city. North Carolina and Virginia seem to be the hotspots for East Coast operation set-ups, and Ballast Point is the latest to join this push, announcing their intent to establish a manufacturing and retail operation in Botetourt County, VA, near Roanoke.

Finally, the journal PNAS reports that Stanford University archaeologists working in China found a complete set of 5000 year-old brewing equipment, with beer remnants found within the equipment. Analysis of the beer remnants yielded a recipe of millet, barley, Job's tears (a tropical fruit from southeast Asia), and...potatoes???

 

Video: Reflections of Asheville, Part 1

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As previously mentioned, I spent the weekend in Asheville, NC, one of the country's craft beer meccas. Here is a brief recap of Saturday's activities:

I will recap Sunday and Monday later this week, and will write about many of the beers of this trip this week and next week!

Beers in Review: Another post where I have to spell "hazelnut"

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More from the weekend, plus a minor programming note at the end. Let's check out some beers.

The first two beers are some of the less-available beers from Lagunitas Brewing Company. First is their CitruSinensis, a Pale Ale brewed with blood oranges. The ale poured a gold color, had a light to medium body, and I found this beer to be really juicy in terms of a mouthfeel, almost as if biting into a perfectly ripe orange or other fruit, where the juices run down the corners of your mouth. There was a little bit of grape or white wine flavor initially, but this quickly gave way to plenty of citrus, most notably the blood orange, of course. Citrusy hops tended to make their presence felt as the ale warmed. This was a tasty beer with a unique mouthfeel.

Next from Lagunitas was their brand-new Aunt Sally, a hoppy sour ale. It pours a pale golden color, and this particular glass had lots of carbonation, almost making it look like champagne in the glass. The flavors in this beer are straight forward: citrusy hop notes combined with plenty of lemon and other sour flavors. The citrusy hops generate a bit of hop bitterness, especially towards the end of the sip.

To kind of stay on-style after the Aunt Sally, I had Kirsch Gose by Victory Brewing Company. A cherry gose, it represents those cherries visually by pouring a pretty rose color. Sour cherries with mild sweetness made up with flavor profile, and the gose had a crisp, dry mouthfeel and finish. A really tasty gose.

Finally, Hazelnut Brown Nectar from Rogue Ales. It pours a medium shade of brown, is a bit hazy, and has a medium body. Tasty and straight forward in flavor, one of the most notable things that came to my mind when I pursued flavors was "chocolate cake". It is nutty and chocolaty and sweet (but not too sweet) with tons of flavor. An enjoyable drinking experience.

As a programming note, I will be spending the weekend in Asheville, North Carolina, one of the major craft beer cities in the US. I will be tweeting throughout the trip on the blog Twitter account. Also expect multiple articles and maybe even a video on the breweries of Asheville next week!

Video Review: River Rat Hazelnut Brown Ale

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So, I sat down with my beer and my new HD webcam, and filmed my review of River Rat Brewery's Hazelnut Brown. Then, I went back and discovered I had no sound because I screwed up the webcam set-up. I went back and redid the review summary-style, so at least we all got something out of it. Enjoy! It really didn't turn out too bad, considering.

Also, I've had to write "Hazelnut" about 40 times in the last hour, and I've had to check the spelling every time.

Beers in Review: Best Beer Week Ever!

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Today I have three beers that are all over the place, style-wise, and are some of the most dynamic beers I've ever tried. This will include one of a few upcoming beers from Lagunitas, thanks to the magic of a local tap takeover.

But before we get into that, let's start with Fuego del Otono by Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales. It pours a deep, dark golden color, and while listed as a saison or beire de garde, at its soul this is a funky sour ale. Lemon notes are present, as is a hint of grapefruit. The root of this beer is a mighty Belgian funkiness that persists throughout the entire sip and even strengthens as it warms. I also got an aftertaste of lemon rind. I enjoyed this beer, but after about 3/4ths of a glass the warming funkiness combined with the sour notes overwhelmed me a bit.

Next up is Sumatra Mountain Brown from Founders Brewing Company. "Sumatra" is referring to the Indonesian island that provides a considerable amount of the coffee we drink today. Pouring a very dark brown with a light tan head, I drew a roasted coffee aroma (the descriptors that came to my mind were "mighty" or "hefty", reflecting how powerful that aroma was). This beer has plenty of roasty and earthy flavors along with straight up coffee, especially in the aftertaste and when breathing out after drinking. I also detected a mild amount of chocolate and some moderate coffee bitterness. A tremendous beer.

Finally, The Waldos' Special Ale by Lagunitas Brewing Company. This is a TRIPLE IPA that pours a deep gold leaning towards copper color and has a good amount of body. Lagunitas describes it as the "dankest and hoppiest beer" they brew, and it delivers. Powerful aromas of dank grapefruit and grapefruit rind. Flavors are similar, but also include a little bit of dark fruit, and a little bit of hop bite as well as a citrus hop aftertaste. Considering the ABV (11.5%), the booziness stays in the background fairly well, only pushing forward a little bit as it warms up.

It's a fairly rare occurrence to have such a trio of high quality and highly regarded beers in the span of a week. This may have been my best beer week ever.

Beer in Review: Church Street Scottish Redux

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It is never my intention to deliberately criticize beers and breweries without reason. I don't pretend to be a beer expert (there's a reason I named this blog "Pourly Reviewed"), but I call it as I see it. But I'm also not going to dismiss a beer or brewery out-of-hand after one bad beer--there are so many factors that are unintentional or out of a brewer's control that such quick judgment is unfair. Indeed, I've heard much more experienced beer drinkers/reviewers than I say they will give a beer 4 or 5 tries before rendering a truly final verdict on a beer.

All of this leads to Church Street Brewing Company's Tale of the Shony Scottish Ale, a beer I reviewed yesterday, only to be unfortunately plagued by a bad bottle. Out of respect to the brewery and what little audience I have, I felt it was important to retry this beer as quickly as possible to give it a fair shot a redemption--while I and others unfortunately do it, no brewery should be solely judged on one bottle of beer.

I'm starting to talk in circles, so let us revisit this Scottish Ale.

I am happy to say that today's bottle is FAR better than yesterday's, and I expect it is much more in line with Church Street's goal. The beer pours a nice, hazy brown color, and caramel dominates both the aroma and the initial flavors, along with a good bit of roasty malt. Further on, a good amount of sweetness of dark fruit and toffee and maybe a hint of cola, as well. The finish is quite dry, and leaves a little dark fruity aftertaste that dissipates quickly.

All in all, EVERY facet of this beer--aroma, beginning, middle, end of tasting, aftertaste--fared FAR BETTER with today's bottle than yesterday. I am glad to have a better representation of this Scottish Ale.

Beers in Review: Three at random

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I didn't have much of an intro for today's post, but that was before Squarespace (my web and blogging platform) deleted the first two beers from my in-progress post. I wrote the first two earlier tonight, and when I came back to write the 3rd, poof! I had already deleted my notes, so the Oasis and the RJ Rockers are both from memory. Please bare with me.

Leading off is the Pale Ale from Oasis Brewing Company. This Pale Ale pours a nearly crystal-clear gold color, and does a great job of malt/hop balance. The first half of the beer is quite malty and has some fruity notes, as well. This leads into a nice, citrus hop profile in the 2nd half of the beer. There is no bitterness from the hops whatsoever. Just citrusy goodness. This Pale Ale was a bit surprising in make-up and brings unique qualities to the style.

Next is the flagship beer from RJ Rockers Brewing Company that is well-made for South Carolina summers. Their Son of a Peach wheat ale pours exactly as advertised: peachy-orange and hazy. Similarly, the flavors overall are on point, with sweet, fruity notes leading the way throughout the sip. The sweet peach note is mild but prominent--they do a nice job of having the fruit notes present without overpowering the beer, as can be common in fruit beers. Additional notes include a hint of graininess as well as something a bit bitter or funky at the very end, though it's not really off-putting.

Finally, Tale of the Shony Scottish Ale from Church Street Brewing Company. I'm sorry to say that this beer was...problematic. It poured a pretty brown color with some red hues, but this beer, or at least this bottle, has issues. I'm typically not one to pull a ton of aroma, but in lifting the glass up to my nose, I got a ton of artificial butter to butterscotch notes, which suggests this beer is overrun by diacetyl. Now, diacetyl is a by-product of standard fermentation practices, and the buttery note can be considered an acceptable part of certain beer styles. But it should not overwhelm the beer, and I'm fairly certain that in this style, it should be minimal/non-existent. For example, Church Street themselves say the beer should have "notes of sweet caramel and mellow roast", and based on the style, I might also expect some other sweet food notes and a hint of alcohol/booziness. Unfortunately, except for a mild cola note, this beer is overrun by the buttery note and a pretty nasty aftertaste. I have a couple more bottles of this beer, as well as a couple of their Hefeweizen (though, none cold), and I hope they are better drinking experiences than this bottle was.

Beers in Review: Two from NoDa, one from Coast

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Let's dive right in.

A have a pair of beers from NoDa Brewing Company. First up is the Ramble on Red, pouring a reddish-copper hue. Leading off, flavor-wise, were some bready malts and some fruity notes. I also detected a little bit of funkiness and some mild hop bitterness. Overall, I found it quite straight-forward, flavor-wise.

Next up from NoDa is the Woody and Wilcox IPA. Similarly straight-forward in flavor, there were some pine hop notes at the start leading to some citrus and just a hint of dankness as well. A very hop-forward beer, it tends to bring a lot of hop bitterness that carries through the entire sip.

For the final beer of this post, I just poured Coast Brewing Company's Dead Arm APA (American Pale Ale). The Dead Arm pours a hazy lemon-gold color with a decent amount of fluffy, white head. The first sip yields a complex hop variety--dank and piney hops lead off but very quickly lead into juicy, fruity notes, most notably apricot. Some citrus notes are also hanging around, mostly orange and slight grapefruit. There's maybe a little bit of a white wine hit there, but it's very faint. The end brings some mild bitterness, nothing too off-putting, along with some spiciness. I was delightfully surprised by the flavor complexities in this beer. It is a well done APA.