Thursday, September 30, 2010
Denver Pale Ale
Bright & balanced, it promises, and it delivers. Nicely balanced malty middle and hoppy finish. Not overwhelming in either part, but good all around. Although I normally pour my beers into a glass, I drank this one from the bottle at our picnic, and therefore didn't get to see the color.
Oktoberfest
This is one of the tastier traditional German-style lagers I've had. Really good beer. Nice color. A better-than-average product from Left Hand.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
duganA
A bomber on a Tuesday? Now we're getting wild. Seriously, this is a really good beer, if you like hops, as I do. According to its label, it strives to do what St. Lupulin does, tease out the essence of hoppy flavor via its distilled oil, but it doesn't succeed quite as well. While it's easy to get strong hops in a beer with bitterness, it's a lot harder to get the kind of flavor that St. Lupulin does with remarkably little bitter aftertaste. That doesn't mean duganA is not a great beer. Still highly recommended.
Sam Adams Octoberfest
In contrast to a couple of other Eastern Breweries I have mentioned, Sam Adams generally provides a consistently good product. This is no exception, a really tasty amber lager. If Shipyard and Sarnac represent the competition, no wonder Sam Adams was able to get the lion's share of the beer market in the East.
Octoberfest Lager
Kind of gross--I almost didn't finish this one. Sarnac, like Shipyard, made a really good pumpkin beer. Is that all these Eastern Breweries can make, or does my taste just not mesh with them for some reason?
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Hoptober
Not bad. Not as hoppy as one would expect, but pleasantly so. If I were a real connoisseur, I'd start learning the names of the different strains of hops, because it's getting pretty normal for brewers to put them on the bottle.
Shipyard IPA
Blech--this is another disgusting Shipyard product with a really horrid aftertaste that just doesn't go away. Apparently, they only know how to make pumpkin beers.
Colorado Native Lager
Pretty nasty. Everyone I know who's tried this has had the same opinion, so it's not really recommended. And guess what, it's actually a MillerCoors product, trying to masquerade as a craft beer, or actually is a craft beer, financed and managed by the megacorp. I didn't know that until now, but I think it explains a lot about the beer.
Hop Rod Rye
This was just an awesome beer. Totally delicious. A strong, full flavor, but not overwhelmingly bitter. Probably one of my top ten beers at this point--renews my faith in rye beers. Kind of strong (8% abv), but you don't taste the alcohol at all, just the delicious hops and rye. Not too pricey, and it's pretty, to boot.
Pumpkinhead
Another really good pumpkin beer, probably the best of the three I've tried--Highly recommended. And really a delightful surprise after the terrible Export Ale
Pumpkin Ale
This is more like it--a really tasty beer, not too squashy, a little spicy, but still mostly a tasty ale.
St. Bridget's Porter
A pretty good porter. Middle-of-the-road beer for Great Divide. One of St. Bridget's miracles, apparently, was turning her bathwater into beer. When Tracy heard the story, she said, I can believe she turned her bathwater into something, but I don't think it's beer.
Pumpkin Lager
Being as how it's getting on toward autumn, there were a number of seasonal beers out last time I went to the liquor store, and having gotten a recommendation for a pumpkin beer, I decided to try a few different ones. This one was disgusting. You pretty much have to keep at it to take the edge of the squashy taste, and any time you stop it comes back.
Imperial Russian Stout
This is another really strong beer--over 10% abv. Not very tasty, and makes me think that I just don't like beers with this level of alcohol--they don't taste like beers, more like hard liquor, which isn't what I want when I drink a beer.
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