Salt Lake City

I just got home from my business trip to Salt Lake City. I did not enjoy this city which is why I have changed the name to Dumb Lake City, the weak beer was at least partially responsible for this name change, but not totally. Anyway, we have a lot of ground to cover so let's get to work on this multi-part series.

First the brewpubs;

Squatter's Brew Pub: I had a beer sampler here. Now, if you know me, you know I LOVE beer samplers, something about the tiny glasses and the number of beers I get to try makes me very excited. Now before I start bad mouthing this place I want to make sure you realize a few things, first I don't care what the percent alcohol of a beer is. If it tastes good it can be 4 or it can be 10, doesn't matter to me. I don't drink to get drunk. That being said, if you know anything about making beer you know that sugars and other compounds extracted from malted grain give beer both its flavor and it's alcohol. If you skimp on the malt you lower the alcohol content and flavor of your beer. With SLC's "no beer on tap above 4%" law that's what the brewers around here do, skimp. They do normal beers in bottles but we'll get to that later. My beer sampler contained a hefeweizen, an unfiltered ... thing, a pilsner, a pale ale, an amber and an oatmeal stout. Everything but the oatmeal stout sucked. They were all lacking flavor and tasted watered down, the hefe lacked any of the flavor characteristics I associate with the style (yeast, citrus, little bit of tartness) and had no aroma, the unfiltered thing was a hot mess that's all I can say. I don't normally care for pilsners, this one didn't make me want to change my opinion of them, it was fine I guess if you're into pilsners. The amber reminded me a little bit of Sweetwater's Georgia Brown ale, but once again watered down, the pale was ...... unremarkable since I can't remember drinking it. The stout was ok. Hints of coffee and a malt. Too sweet to get any toasty or burnt flavors from it. I would actually drink a whole pint of this, which is more than I can say about the rest of the bunch.

Someone at my table got a bottle of their double IPA Hop Rising. 9% alcohol trying to be a hop bomb. This thing tasted like hops, I've give them that. That's all it tasted like. It smelled like sticking my nose into a bag of hops pellets, which I do every time I brew, and tasted like a tea made of hops. There was no finesse here just straight up hoppiness. I enjoyed it and as a once and a while treat it would be great but I would never buy a 6-pack of this.

So this place was a total let down, which is odd because a lot of the bars in the area have huge signs up proclaiming they serve Squatter's beers on tap. To me that seems like the people around here give them way to much credit for what they are making which is mediocre beer. If they were able to take the limitations placed on them and make something remarkable then yeah yell it from the rooftops that you're selling it. But if you're a steakhouse and your window has a neon-sign telling everyone you proudly serve steak-ums you may want to rethink your business model.

Next time: Redrock Brew Pub (maybe I won't be as mean)

((I'm going to be just as mean))

Sherwood Forest

Things with disclaimers in the name usually aren't good; American Style cheese-food, Vegan jerky-style treat, Uncle Jeb's shrimp-esque product (now with less beaks!) for example. This is not always the case Morningstar farms used to make a burger-style cheese pocket that was awesome and truth be told I like American "cheese" for grilled cheese sandwiches. So it was with some trepidation that I tried one of my new beer of the month club beers, Sherwood Forest Belgian-style White. What does that mean exactly? It's Belgian-like that's what. That translates to we'll give it a try to emulate the style but we won't try very hard.

I love wheat beers. A lot of people don't. They either don't like the taste (fine), think they are "girl beers" (go die in a fire), or don't like how trendy they have become with even BMC dabbling in the style (don't be a baby). Label design on this one sucks (maybe I'll post a picture later) it's a half-hearted affair with a computer rendered friar Tuck I suppose we could call that foreshadowing. I cracked the friar open after a considerable amount of rolling on the floor, the beer not me, to suspend the large amount of sediment. Poured it into a tall glass, it was light yellow with little to no head. I drank it without a lemon not because I think the lemon is a moral failing like many beer snobs do, but because my wife was using our lemon for dinner and I didn't want to stand in the way of a very pregnant woman with a knife. Smelled like a good wheat beer, citrus, yeasty, little bit of spice. I was excited. Then I took a taste, and another and a third before I said "Where's the beef?" but you know with "flavor" substituted for "beef". The beer starts strong with all the tangy, citrusy flavors you expect from a wheat beer but then you swallow and it's done. The flavor is all up front and then dies. There is a lingering bitterness, almost like the pith of a citrus fruit after the swallow but it's not great and doesn't make up for what the beer lacks.

Overall it's not a bad beer it's just not great. I'll certainly finish the rest from this month's shipment with no problem I'll probably just never go out of my way to get more. I'd rather drink a franziskaner or a deathfish brewery wiess.

(PS Deathfish brewery is a local brewery I love)
((PPS by local I mean it's in my basement, but in all honesty my hefeweizen from last year was AMAZING))

Founders Breakfast Stout

The other night, Feb 11 to be exact I went out to the local Irish Pub-type establishment to celebrate the 21 st birthday of my sister, 21 being the legal age to drink in case you forgot. This particular Irish pub (Dublin Square in Bordentown) had a rather mediocre beer selection last time I was there so I resigned myself to drinking Smithwick's and Guinness...Guinnesss? Guinnessi? Multiple Guinness stouts for the evening. Lo and behold I discover they have seriously revamped their beer selection and now have some great choices!

I started with a Rogue Dead Guy, on tap mind you, which is approximately 6.4 % ABV. I enjoy Rogue's offerings as a rule (the exception being the American Amber) but their proprietary yeast strain (Pacman) does impart a sameness to their brews that I've noticed. Dead Guy, if you haven't had it, has a nice creamy full mouth feel, a good amount of maltiness and enough bitterness for balance but not the prominent punch you in the mouth bitterness, the good kind. I noticed on draft the flavors imparted by the pacman yeast were not nearly as prominent as in the bottle. A solid beer.

Then things got a little strange. I ordered a Left Hand Milk stout. I've had it before, it's dark but not heavy, sweet but not cloying. It's good. I will not go into any more detail than that because it's not what I got. They hadn't gotten the delivery in cause of the snow. What the waiter offered as a replacement was Founders Breakfast Stout. I had read about this stout on line and I love oatmeal stouts so I said sure. My friends there are 2 things wrong with this situation 1) Founders is not comparable to a sweet stout and 2) this waiter was trying to kill me.

I liked the Founders, don't get me wrong, I reeeeeeeealy liked it. My family hated it. It's reminiscent of very strong, black coffee, with some flavors of roasted and burnt malt. Light on the carbonation but there's a good reason for that, it's a double/imperial stout (8.3% alcohol). So now that I've think I've had 2 beers which puts me at about .02-.04 blood alcohol content I've really had .......well more. Trying to talk to my wife I noticed my usual eloquence was marred by impediments. the next morning I work up and my stomach hurt like I had gone out for a night of binge drinking and I couldn't figure out why. Until I checked beer advocate and realized I had more alcohol than I had intended.

So let that be a lesson to you all; waiters want to trick you into drinking high alcohol beers for some reason or another. Probably because they hate you, but that might just apply to me.

Another beer blog.

Here's another blog about beer to add to an already glutted internet. There are plenty of fine blogs about beer already out there. I don't write as well as those bloggers, I don't drink as much as them and I probably won't update as frequently as they do (I know this because I am the author of several failed blogs already). So why should you keep reading any further than this?

That's a good question.

Maybe because like me, and all the other people out there making beer, drinking beer, and writing about beer, you can't get enough of that wonderful stuff! So until I decide to give up on this blog too I will update periodically on what Jason is drinking, Jason being me in this case. Be it beer of the month club inclusions, stuff I come across at bars or the fare I brew up in my own kitchen.

Hopefully someone will find what I write entertaining even if it's only ironically.