Tonight was beer club! For the uninitiated, beer club is a gathering of beer-minded individuals from my workplace who get together once a month for beer and revelry at a local BYOB. This time around, we returned to an Indian/Thai restaurant and despite a medium turnout, had much in the way of fun.
For the sake of posterity, I’m documenting my nearly incoherent thoughts on each beer below, which is my way of saying that you should not trust any of these ratings because as we’ve established recently, I’m the worst. In order of drinking (not necessarily the order pictured above):
- Red Star Zingerbuch Kombucha – So the first beer of the night… was not beer! This is some sort of bizarre fermented tea concoction with ginger and hibiscus. It was very aromatic, flowery, and ginger aley. It was not exactly my bag, but this is the perfect setting for weird crap like this. No rating because I don’t even really know what this is.
- Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale – Basically a palate cleanser, and a beer I’ve already covered before. B+
- Founders All Day IPA – So the new trend is to call pale ales a “session IPA” or something like that? Ok, whatever, this is a pretty solid example, and I could probably drink a bunch of these with no complaints. Nice hop presence, but light and quaffable. B+
- Surly Furious – Ah, now this is an IPA! Surly does not distribute to PA… except during Philly Beer Week. One of our attendees tonight was fortunate enough to attend a Surly event and snag a few cans, and generous enough to share with the rest of us. I’ve heard so many great things about Surly that I was afraid they wouldn’t live up to the hype, but this is indeed a really fantastic IPA. Citrus and lots of pine and resinous hops, but exceedingly well balanced stuff, lots of hops and enough crystal malts that it didn’t feel super bitter despite being 99 IBU. Probably the best beer of the night. I’ll leave it at A- territory for now, but I definitely want to get some more of this (it could warrant an upgrade).
- Kaedrôme Saison – Dammit, this still has not carbonated as much as I’d like, but it is still a tasty beer, light on the funk, but still a nice peppery saison flavor. I’m guessing that if it hasn’t carbonated much by now, it’s not going to get much better… which is fine, since I probably only have 6-12 bottles of the stuff left. B
- Ken’s Homebrewed Chile Beer – Made with chile peppers and smoked malt, this sucker was spicy but flavorful. Not really my thing, but it’s an interesting beer, and certainly not the abomination that Cave Creek Chili Beer was…
- Lost Abbey Carnevale – A Brett does saison? Sign me up, this was one of my favorites of the night. Nice fruity, earthy funk pervading the whole thing, a pleasure to drink. It’s no Logsdon or anything, but it’s really nice. A high B+
- Southern Tier Compass – Perhaps it was just because we opened it towards the end of the night, but this felt exceedingly bland to me, with the only real dominant note being the flowery aromas and flavors. Not really my thing. C
- Brooklyn Wild Streak – A belgian strong pale aged in Bourbon barrels with Brett? Well ok then. The Brett has a minimal, but still detectable presence. But the taste is more dominated by that pale ale aged in bourbon barrel character that never really works as well for me as it does for stouts or barleywines. It’s fine for what it is, but it’s not really my thing. B-
- Kaedrin Bomb & Grapnel (Blend) – The imperial stout is doing quite well. This blend has faint hints of the bourbon and oak, but nothing like a BBA stout. That being said, it’s delicious and only getting better over time. I’ll still leave it at a B+
And that is all for now. We will probably return to regular blogging next week, so stay tuned.