Abita Brewing Company - Peach Lager

by Daver!

Hey all, Daver here. I finally crawled out from under my rock and picked up the keyboard to tell you all about a new harvest (to me) beer. Sorry for the long gap between entries; that's the thing about blogging for fun, on one hand I have no deadlines, on the other hand no content to keep an audience. Let's fix that.

What do we have on tap today? Well, it's a summer harvest release from my favorite Louisiana based brewery, the Abita Brewing Company Peach Lager. Yes, summer release. Another advantage of doing this for fun, the sheer randomness of the selections!

On first pour, this beer has a mostly clear and golden color typical to most other lagers. The head is thin and quickly disperses, though it leaves a white ring clinging along the glass. The locally-grown peaches come through the bouquet with the subtlety of a chainsaw. How many peaches did they pick, a million? Millions of peaches, peaches for me (to drink). It's certainly peachy-keen, both in aroma and flavor. The sweetness is muted, but the overall fruit flavor remains with the pale malt of the brew lending a dry almost effervescent crispness in the finish. It's light on the tongue, strong with flavor without being sweet, and easy to drink. With an ABV of 4.5%, it's an excellent beer to relax with on a hot day. Or even a chilly evening, since we're well into fall as I write this.

Here's the thing, would I recommend it? Yes, but with a caveat. It's good, you won't be disappointed 

by trying this, and you won't get tired of drinking it. But personally, it's not the best peach beer I've ever had. I'll tell you more about that one another time. Till then, this is Daver, closing taps and signing off. 

Unita Brewery - Hop Nosh Tangerine IPA

by Daver!

Hidee-ho, beer campers. Yeah, long time no see, right?

As some of you may have noticed, summer is here. And that means swimming pools, popsicles, vacations and campouts to keep cool. And cold beer. The colder the better, especially here in Arizona. I have here a couple of beers with a strong citrus ingredient in their brewing, to make them more refreshing in these scorching months. Today, we have the Hop Nosh Tangerine IPA from Utah's Uinta Brewing Company, a citrus variant of their mainstay IPA.

Named for the Uinta mountains, this Utah-based brewery began brewing pale ales, porters and hefeweizens out of a former mechanics garage in 1993. They've expanded since then to add brown ales, barleywines and IPAs, selling 77,000 barrels as recently as 2014 with distribution to 32 states and the District of Columbia. Uinta stresses their green attitude, being the first Utah company to be 100% wind powered, adding solar power to their operations in 2011, and promoting on their website that "GREAT beer is brewed with environmental stewardship, support for community and a whole lot of passion."

But how's the beer?

Fun fact, the bottle's label suggests that this be served in a tulip glass. Luckily, I happened to have such a glass! For wine, but that's not my usual choice of beverage. On first pour, the head is pillowy but thin, and fades out fast while the remnants cling lace-like to the glass. The body crosses from the typical IPA amber straight on to a semi-clear orange color. The bouquet is clearly, obviously infused with citrus notes, with the pungent hops and sugary malt notes hovering in the background. The citrus is, for me, an exciting change from the usual caramel sweetness you find with most IPAs.

The tangerine flavors stand out, especially on the sides of the tongue, and overpowers the malt sweetness. The hops' bite is reduced, but kicks in to give this IPA a dry, pine-y, bitter finish. Overall, the mouthfeel is somewhat dry from both the acidity of the citrus and the bitterness of the hops.
Long story short, I liked it! It's more broadly drinkable IPA because of the citrus balancing out the hops, and the tangerine essence is especially refreshing when served cold. With an ABV of 7.3% it's not a beer to take lightly either. I would recommend it, but in moderation. The same easy drinkability makes it really easy to miss that higher ABV till it's too late.

That's all for today, next time I'll cover another citrus-brewed craft beer. Till then, this is your humble beer blogger signing off.

A Day at Mesa Beerfest!: Three Local Craft Brews

Desert Eagle Brewing Co.'s beer tent. You could wait in line, or walk down the block to the brewery.

I love beerfests. You get to sample a decent range of craft brews among a huge crowd of fellow beer aficionados for the whole day. Great way to chill! Unless some drunk fifty-something trips and spills his pint of dark ale down your back as you try to record your notes, I mean come the fuck on... but anyway. Mesa Beerfest just off of Main Street had a fair range of breweries out, including Desert Eagle Brewery which makes sense because it's also on Main. I'll be going into further detail about their brews later. Instead, let's sample a few that were new to me.

4216 N Brown Ave, Scottsdale AZ 85251

Based out of Scottsdale, Bad Water Brewery was established in 2012 with a farmhouse ale as its first batch on tap. They brought their inaugural ale to the beerfest, and I was happy to give it a chance. The body was a deep amber with thin foam that clung to the sides, even for a plastic cup. The body was cloudy with yeast, typical of a saison. Its bouquet was balanced with wheat and sugary floral notes, and a light fruity note like bananas. It reminded me of some hefeweizens, really. But the taste was definitely not that of a wheat beer, there was a mild hoppy bite that deepened the body through to the finish. It was crisp but not all that clean of a finish, with a nutty quality to it like that I've tasted in brown ales. It was good, and with an ABV of 6% it was overall a quality brew. But in all honesty there was very little to set it apart from saisons that I've tasted before.

1641 S Stapley Dr, Mesa AZ 85204

Next was the 480G IPA from the Beer Research Institute. Opened in 2014, this Mesa brewery specializes in Belgian-style ales and IPAs with a love for hops that borders on obsession. I myself have a passion for the hoppier brews, and with an ABV of 7.4% this one seemed to be the right choice. At first glance this "Best Coast"-style IPA had almost zero head on a semi-clear amber body, though the head may be due to BRI's keg running low by the time I reached them. The bouquet was clearly hoppy, with floral notes with a slightly sweet malt edge that's common to IPAs. The taste is incredibly hoppy, with woodsy notes like you'd find in a taste of scotch, and you can freely pick up notes of citrus zest in the finish. Several, ranging from orange to lemon to grapefruit. It's a broad range, circulating in sensation from the bitter hops to the sweeter malt and orange to the bitter grapefruit and back to hops. It's certainly unique in that regard from other IPAs, and had I gotten to it earlier in the event it would have been better, I'm sure. As it is, I can call it satisfying.

232 S Wall St, Chandler AZ 85225

And then we have The Perch Pub and Brewery, and their Uncommon Good Session IPA. While I do enjoy IPAs, sessions are the exception. They're lighter with the hops and the ABV, and frankly at that point I'd be better off with a simple lager. The Perch is based out of Chandler, and a glance at their beer menu will leave a beer drinker begging for flights. It's huge! Not only with their own brews, but also those from other breweries, totally over 40 at any given time, though at the time I'm posting this they do not have Uncommon Good on tap. The name of the pub comes from their hosting dozens of tropical rescue birds at their establishment. On first pour this IPA had a head that looked, well, so bubbly that it was more like a batch of fish eggs than a meringue. Again, this has to be because it was from a nearly-empty keg. The body was a cloudy amber, and the bouquet was hoppy but the malt makes it overall lighter and cleaner than with standard IPAs. The same goes for the taste, it's hoppy but much more modestly and with almost no bite in the finish. It's alright, and at a 4.9% ABV it's a little stronger than most other sessions. But it doesn't stand out enough to make me change my mind about choosing this over a summer ale or a true IPA.

All told, if you're inclined to try these yourself, you can't go wrong with a visit to these particular breweries around the East Valley. These brews are good quality, though they don't stand out as something to, say, request your local pub to stock in. There's a lot of craft brews out there, and they're all worth sampling, but it takes a little something special to go beyond sampling and into regular drinking. These three don't quite reach that level.

So many brewfests to come, so many new releases, and so many great beers out there to try out. More to come, my friends!

Uncle Bear's Grill &  Tap, from Chandler, was also serving, though I didn't get to sample from them this time.

Cartel Brewery Bière de Garde Farmhouse Ale

by Daver!

I'll be honest, I thought Cartel was just a coffee house.

Cartel comes in two forms, Cartel Coffee Lab and Cartel Brewery in Tempe, AZ. I've seen the coffee houses in a couple places around the Valley, the brewery escaped notice. I'll have to rectify that with a full out visit to the brewery, but that's for another time.

Cartel began its beer brewing in 2013 after already establishing its reputation for amazing caffeinated goodness in a college town. Fact is, the brewery is a couple doors down from their University Drive coffee house, on Ash Avenue. Hey, that's where my old comic book store was! Awww man, Ash Avenue Comics closed? Now I feel old. Anyway. Per their website at www.cartelbrewery.com they have several regular brews, but they do enjoy changing things up with a seasonal batch. Their wheat beer Bière de Garde is one such off-brand creation, available at establishments with an eye for quality on tap.

Pulled this off of Google Street, I had to make sure.
Man, I liked that comic book store too.

On this occasion, Bière de Garde was served me at Angel's Trumpet Ale House in downtown Phoenix. I consider it a great sign when the beer menu is on a huge slate board, constantly changing as the kegs run empty. Angel's Trumpet keeps theirs mounted over their line of taps, the very first thing you see on walking into the establishment.

The Bière de Garde is a French farmhouse ale, the name translates to "beer for keeping." Like a saison, it's brewed in the cooler months for summertime consumption. Traditionally, this was because in the years before refrigeration the cold would keep the batch from spoiling as it ferments. Now it's not yet really even spring, but in Arizona our late winters hit 80 degrees so there's not much cause to wait one season more.

At first glance you have a golden orange color to the body with a light foamy head. It's cloudy as well, from the yeast left over from fermentation. The foam clings to the edges as the head dissipates. The wheat-y bouquet is effervescent with notes of clove, citrus, bananas, and a light natural sweetness from the fresh malts used in the brew. The remnants of yeast gives it an almost nutty quality as well. On the tongue, that citrus is clearly grapefruit-y, and you have a more floral sensation as you roll it around. There's a slight hoppy bite as well, a bitter tingle. The brew has a 7.2% ABV, higher than most wheat beers but average for a farmhouse ale. That higher alcohol content gives you a warming sensation as it goes down, though the finish is not really clean or dry, in my opinion. And the taste lingers on the tongue, till the next drink. But would you want to take another drink?

Hark! A herald angel's wings! Glory to the beer and things!
Pulled from reviewthebrew.wordpress.com.

Yep! This Bière de Garde has a significant degree of depth to its consumption. It's stimulating and refreshing, starting off light but going down strong without being overwhelming. If you see this beer written on a chalkboard at the next bar you frequent, give it a try. Or better yet, head to Tempe for a flight of whatever they've got on tap. I know I will! I have to, to toast to the memory of my old comic book store.