The nose has an element of toasted rice to it. It’s super clean, hinting at the malt within.
The beer itself is just on this side of sweet for me. I don’t dislike this beer; it’s even got some complexity to it, with some extra malt flavor and a dry finish.
The sweetness doesn’t have a counter though so it’s just a little unbalanced. I’m giving this a good but not great.
The nose has a candy orange sweetness, and that…just feels off. Like an orange gummy.
The middle of the beer confuses me. It brings in some pine qualities but they quickly give way to a bitterness that is long lasting and rather intense.
This beer just isn’t landing right. It’s unusual for Sierra Nevada to miss like this for me, but I can’t recommend this one.
This milk stout’s nose has a cocoa vibe with an undercurrent of dark fruit sweetness. It’s subtle and I have to reach for it, but I can pick it up.
The odd part is that this beer feels thin on the palate. It has a pleasant toasted milk flavor, coupled with chocolate, offering a nice candy-like toffee flavor. I don’t hate it!
At the same time, I have to admit there’s something that isn’t quite pulling the whole beer together, and I’m not quite sure what it is. It’s good but it isn’t great, and I cannot pin down why.
So, there’s been a rebrand…
Fat Tire was the beer that got my friend Kim into craft beer. That means she’s got a connection to the beer, so when I suggested trying the new vs the old, she was in for that!
Drinking them together, we notice something immediately: only the old version has the term “Amber Ale” on it. The new bottle just says “ale” and that could be anything.
The description of the new beer from the brewer notes that Fat Tire isn’t an amber ale anymore! So this starts to explain why the beers look different.
Kim doesn’t like the new version: it reminded her of Budweiser-it seems less craft beer to her. It seems commercialized and bland. It’s not terrible but she wouldn’t put money towards it.
The amber is trying to BE something and the new Fat Tire is just an ale-and that distinction is really important.
While I think there’s some nostalgia glasses being worn by my friend, she has a point! The new beer is just beer. Fat Tire was an amber.
And it makes me think of all those connections we have to the things we love: the new Fat Tire might be a perfectly cromulent beer but who’s going to love it?
Purchased as part of the collection of IPAs my friend brought to Thanksgiving, I thought this would be an excellent time to review a more commercial ale.
What’s notably odd is that the Space Dust is remarkable lack of nose. Even after I agitate the liquid, I can’t pick up anything. Poor hop use or a unlucky match between what I can smell and the hops they used?
And this beer is all finish. The bitterness is evident, but Space Dust just doesn’t have anything else going on. The malt doesn’t stand up in the middle, so there’s just carbonation and bitterness left for my experience. The beer isn’t well balanced. I don’t hate it, but I can’t recommend it either: Space Dust is just too one-dimensional to enjoy.
The nose has a very interesting scent; it’s like toast, which isn’t something I expected. I’ve gotten sourdough and uncooked bready qualities before, but toast is a nice changeup.
Really beautiful amber color, too. So the first impressions are quite good.
There’s an interesting dryness that appears at the end of this beer. It isn’t quite like white wine, although I want to make the comparison. But there’s something between the hop character and the effervescence that really gives this beer a very clean finish overall that still tickles the white wine sense.
I feel like the fest beir could stand up to some very heavy dishes. It’s got a malt backbone you could build a house on, and a strong enough nose to whisk away any other strong flavors. A really good drink for a lot of different meals.
As this Festbier has warmed up, sweeter qualities have become more apparent. Nothing overwhelming but more of that malty warmth is appearing. Good stuff.
This has a great nose, with the Chinook and Idaho 7 hops coming out in a foresty but not dank manner.
In the middle the two row malts are holding up nicely, with a pleasant golden color and baseline sweetness, without offering any caramel flavors.
The finish is a liiiiiiittle harsh though: it’s not out of style, by any means. But it does impact the drinkability a little. I think you want some food with this one.
Here we go again! (Just because it’s always good to review a classic).
I’m noticing a bit of sweetness in the nose-the kind that comes off a fermenting beer; a little yeast, a little malt-mixed in with the hop character. Which I cannot pin down, but definitely gives me fresh cut grass memories.
The middle offers a nugget of caramel malt but nothing that wants to linger.
The finish is more effervescent than hoppy: the bubbly quality of this pale really clears the palate. That’s not entirely a positive though, since I don’t feel like the hops get much spotlight.
But all in all this is still a damn fine beer to settle into.
The Dope Days is a brown ale from Away Days and I do likes me a brown, so I have high hopes!
This has a great coffee scent, just a little sweet. Toffee is probably another good word for this beer.
And that is how the beer goes too: light, but with coffee and a little caramel going on. The roasted elements hold fast against anything too sweet, but there’s just enough chocolate to keep this from getting acrid.
Another winner from Away Days.
The nose for this lager has that prominent corn scent, not quite creamed corn but definitely sweet in the sense of summer kernel corn sweet, instead of sugary.
The beer itself carries this out: it’s sweet in the same way, and the finish is quite clean.
Visually, the beer isn’t quite as bright as I would expect-there is a haze that just does not match up. It isn’t offputting it’s just not correct.
Also, despite my terrible pour, I feel like the finish should be a bit more cleansing on the palate. This beer doesn’t do that, not quite. It’s still quite good and I’d absolutely recommend it for any summer picnic.
The real knock on it is the price: a 4 pack of pints was a dollar more than a comparable beer, and I’d go for saving the buck.
A pint for Dionysus 