One brewery that I haven’t ticked off my “to try” list is Crooked Stave of Fort Collins / Denver. And these two beers sound great.
YELLOW
With Red and Orange released this past fall, it’s time for more beers in the Wild Wild Brett Series from Crooked Stave. Yellow and Green will be making their way across the Colorado front range starting next week. Keeping up with the series, Wild Wild Brett Yellow is a full fledged experiment which took inspiration from the savory sweet culinary traditions of southern India. Yellow has a pronounced tropical fruit base character with a small amount of spice caring forward an aroma that is both subtle and inviting. Yellow was brewed with honey, turmeric, mango and coriander before receiving a very light spicing during months of conditioning in our oak foeder.
GREEN
Wild Wild Brett Green is our nod to absurdly hopped beers… Showcasing the Australian Galaxy hop, WWBG uses 4lbs of hops per barrel with dank, dark berry tropical fruit hop characteristics dominating the flavor and aroma. The Crooked Stave twist.. WWBG was fermented and conditioned in neutral oak which actually made it easier for us to dry hop the beer multiple times over the aging period. The result, an unfiltered “wild ale” with little wild character. The hops are so dominate like in an Imperial IPA that for now it’s hard to get any Brett character. Over time the hops will fade and our house Brett character will rouse the senses.
Consumer Reports needs better beer
I have been subscribed to Consumer Reports for years. It comes in handy more than you would expect. I chose my last digital camera based on their recommendation. And I totally agree with their aggressive approach to consumer protection and safeguards.
But where Consumer Reports is weak is quality food and beverages. They occasionally will review good chocolate, but in general, they only talk about mass marketed, available everywhere food. And normally, I just skip over it. I ain’t gonna base my spaghetti sauce purchases on their opinion of Ragu. Be it a best buy or not recommended.
But when this article appeared in the latest issue, all I could do was shake my head. (click on the photos to enlarge)
A) I want to know who drew the short straw and had to drink these crappy beers. And yes, they are crappy. The one that I had most recently was the Name Tag lager from Trader Joe’s. And it was thin, with no taste other than some sugar and cereal notes that you really had to look for to find.
B) Is there no store in New York that they could get a representative sample of actual beer? They could do a tasting of Firestone, Sierra Nevada, Anchor, Widmer and Stone at least.
C) How could they rate these as anything higher than adequate? And who thought they detected citrus in Coors?
Come on Consumer Reports! You can do better.
Terrible Two’s
Can you believe it? Eagle Rock has entered the terrible two’s! It is amazing to think of the L.A. beer scene before and after. So, you had better be on the eastside next week….
“Come join us for our 2-year anniversary celebration at the brewery! We’ll be celebrating another amazing year by featuring many of our special beers on tap in the taproom and an outdoor beer garden (Sorry, no pets or children permitted.). Grill Em’ All and Mandoline Grill will be at the brewery to celebrate with us and serving up some of our favorite eats.
Need more of a reason? It’s only $12 for admission and all attendees get a commemorative taster glass to take home (while supplies last)! Come out and celebrate with us!”
UPDATE
The celebration has been moved to the Verdugo Bar. Same time and food and beer and good times too.
Review – Hangar 24 Double IPA
I purchased this bottle on Christmas eve and it tasted better than the tap! Hangar 24 is a rapidly growing brewery that is doing some great stuff and has a wonderful airport location. I have also been impressed by their Helles and on the other end of the spectrum, the big Pugachev’s Cobra Imperial Stout.
On to the review:
North Carolina brewery # 2 – Pisgah Brewing
Our second stop in North Carolina is the hard to spell (for me) Pisgah. It is an organic brewery in Black Mountain (near the epicenter Asheville).
I found many beers that I would love to try but these two really stood out…..
Pisgah Pub Ale
“Brewed with local Haw Creek Wildflower honey, this blonde english style drought beer is pushed through a Nitro creamer fawcett creating the classic “whipped cream” foamy head and waterfall pour. A lighter 4% abv and lower carbonation produces the ultimate session beer. Treat yourself today! Draft only.”
Dancin’ Hobo
“The Hobo is a creation is now 23 month in the works. This beer was first brewed incorporating orange peel and thyme. Next, we added some charred oak and champagne yeast. And finally a healthy dose of raspberries. Much later, the Dancin’ Hobo was born. Hang on to your hat. If you don’t dance, you may after one of these. 13% ABV
Sorry folks, the Hobo has wandered off down the tracks. Will we ever see him again? Only the Hobo knows…”
Spontaneous Construction
Yazoo Fortuitous
I have had the pleasure of having a few Yazoo beers from Tennessee and I still keep track of their hop project beers as well. Then I heard about….
It is a smoked sour ale. Sounds very much like something the Bruery would do and it sounds intriguing.
Welcome to Canland!
Yesterday was a big day at the yellow building at Golden Road Brewery. Not only were the cans ready to be sold and taken back home to ‘fridges across the southland but four new beers made their debut yesterday.
But back to Canlandia for a moment.
These are really well designed. The first and most important part is that they hold a full 16ozs. You are getting your full pint. Second, these have a lovely design that really says Los Angeles on it in a James Cain’s “Paradise” sort of way. Wistful and evocative of an earlier time in L.A. And I love the personal note from Jon on each can. 
I am a sucker for a well designed label and these are great but it wouldn’t matter all that much and I certainly wouldn’t blog about it if the beer inside wasn’t worthy of it. It is. Point the Way is a great session IPA that doesn’t over bitter the senses and still makes room for a strong malt taste. I heathenly had one straight out of the can and it tasted great. Nice and fresh. The hefeweizen is strong too. Especially on the banana flavor side. You can get both at the brewery or later this month at Whole Foods down here.
On to the new. There was a wide spectrum of styles unveiled. The oft-overlooked brown ale was represented by Get Up Off that Brown and there was an alternate world IPA called Lost its Way. Both of which I will have to sample another day because I went with the cheekily named Either Side of the Hill Strong Ale and the El Hefe Anejo.
Either Side is like the hefeweizen in that it is very much on point style wise. It was strong with a raisin, plum and candi sugar swirl of flavors. And like the other Golden Road brews, isn’t at all harsh. Very controlled. A nice winter warmer. The El Hefe sounds like a weird idea. Put Hefeweizen into a tequila barrel. But it works. You get a strong vanilla flavor at first that blends into a banana taste. And then there is a hint of spice at the far back. It did not remind me of tequila but it was extremely tasty.
Thanks to Meg, Jon and Tony for throwing a great introductory party for the tallboys!
Beer Mixology
It looks like one of the beer trends to have legs is the Beer cocktail. And one way it will stay in the forefront is with the new….
You can check out recipes and the people behind the website HERE. And I would suggest starting with the Beer-mosa and working up from there.
Ruthless Rye
I have seen this new Sierra Nevada beer advertised in all of the beer-y magazines that I subscribe to and I cannot wait to give it a whirl in a pint glass.
Apparently this will replace Glissade which never won me over. It should be in SoCal markets now. Pick it up along with Bigfoot barleywine. If I find one in time, I will attempt to do a video review this month.