California Visit Beer Tastings

Hi all my buddies!

With my career moving forward I would like to update this blog to a more regularly, hopefully weekly, with my brewing and beer reviews making up at least half of the posts I'll write. Since I mostly buy make-your-own six packs I drink a lot of different beers and so build up quite the collection of beer experiences by that alone. I also try to brew once a month, so there will always be a post about that each month. I have a backlog of beer tastings from the fall as I wasn't doing anything brewing or blog related until I finished and defended my dissertation, and now that that's done I can spend some time crafting these posts, doing so regularly, and have them ready to publish on some sort of schedule. 

I was in California last September for a conference in Pacific Grove. After that I spent a weekend in Long Beach with an old friend and then a few days at home in Blythe, CA with my parents. Knowing my proclivity for quality craft beer my friend was keen on taking me to the Beachwood Brewery for dinner and beer, and I looked forward to the meal and brew. I ordered a flight of four samples and a pint of a fifth beer. I did not take photos of the beers, and my notes are a bit short, but I'll do my best to give you, my readers, a detailed experience. Instead of giving a "Label Message" for the brewery beers, you can find a brief description of each beer at the above link. The sixth beer in this review is of one I found and drank while home with my folks.

Beachwood Brewery

Beer: Tart Simpson  ABV 3%

Notes: This was my first sour beer. I've been reading about them for a while now, but never made the plunge. This low alcohol example was a good entry point and I enjoyed it. This is a wheat beer with a medium body and straw color. The aroma and tartness was light but not lacking. Its flavor was malty with a slight sour/tartness, so the sweetness was nicely balanced with the tartness. Definitely something I would try again.

Beer: Amalgamator  ABV 7.1%

Notes: This is a "west coast" IPA with a clear body with amber color that was obviously cold crashed or filtered to give it a water-like transparency. The aroma was citrusy with floral notes, and the hoppy bitterness was tight and piney. However, it was too much. I like IPAs, even though I've moved on from them as my go-to beers, but this was overpowering in its hoppy bitterness. By describing it as "tight" I meant that the bitter hoppiness was a strong punch that did not linger after it socked my palate. But it was a strong punch and the hop flavor drowned out any maltiness. It was not my favorite, and unless they dial it down a bit, I probably wouldn't want to drink this one again.

Beer: Mocha Machine  ABV 9.2%

Notes: This was a chocolate imperial porter, and as such had a wallop of alcoholic chocolatiness. It was bitter but malty with a full body. The sweet chocolate flavor lay under the aftertaste. The mocha/coffee came through mostly in the aroma with not much presence in the taste.  I liked it and this was one of the better beers I had that night.

Beer: Kilgore Stout  ABV 7.1%

Notes: An american stout, the Kilgore Stout (perhaps a reference to Kurt Vonnegut's literary alter ego?) was full and creamy in mouthfeel, but I was unsure what it was trying to do with the flavor. I wrote "meh..." in my notebook, and that ended the entry for this beer. I was not impressed.

Beer: Udder Love Milk Stout  ABV 5.9%

Notes: After drinking the flight for four 5-oz. tasters above I ordered a pint of this milk stout.  The body was full, but tasted thin at first. It was lightly sweet and foamy, but overall not super memorable. And that's that.

Overall I was not impressed by the beers this brewery peddles. I enjoyed the food and relished the opportunity to try new beers, but this place doesn't do it the way I like it. If I return to visit I'll definitely eat there again and try another handful of beers, maybe some of those I tried in this trip, to see what else they offer and if they've improved on what I tasted in September 2014.

This final review is of a bomber I bought for a dinner grilled bratwurst and potato salad dinner with my parents while I was home with them after my weekend in Long Beach. I wanted a good beer to enjoy during that meal and visited the only liquor store in Blythe, CA to see if they possibly carried any good beers. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they indeed had a small selection of craft beers and of everything there that day I chose the below beer because I had been wanting to try it since spying it at a World Market while buying Father's Day gifts in June 2013. I didn't buy it that time and the next time I was there they were no longer carrying it, so I thought my opportunity was lost until I found it while visiting my folks.

Waited, disappointed...

Beer: Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Chocolate, Banana & Peanut Butter Ale!  ABV 5.3%

Label Message: none that I took note of

Notes: This beer is a strange one. It's dark, as anything labeled chocolate is expected to be, but is labeled an "ale" and not as a porter, which is how I might classify it. It had good head formation and retention, was deep brown in color with a tan/brown foam, and it's aroma was sweet and doughy, like a doughnut! I was excited by the color, pour, and aroma, but the first taste brought the disappointment. This beer was bitter, and not in a good way you'd expect from something hoppy or roasty. I wrote that its flavors were both flat and complex. I think what I meant by that was that I couldn't differentiate what I was tasting, and the overall impression was that there was nothing positively distinct about the flavors. It did have flavors, and was rather full of them, but they weren't anything that impressed me. The body was kind of thin and by the end I nearly had to force myself to finish it since I spent $15 on it and have never poured a beer down the drain unless it's a wounded soldier left on the battlefield from the night before. Not all beers produced by quality brewers, and I generally like Rogue's offerings, are going to turn out good, and this is an example of that.

Has there been a beer you've been eagerly waiting to try only to have it turn out less than you expected? Do you think it was due to the hype you built up for it or was it objectively not great?

Until next time friends, happy brewing!