Rambling Reviews 3.27.2017: New releases from Magnolia, Sapporo, and Alpine

Enjoying a can of Kalifornia Kolsch
on my back patio

This edition of Rambling Reviews features beers from three breweries who successfully persuaded me to sing the praises of their beer to the millions of readers of this blog tuning in breathlessly to learn what beers they should be drinking. That's right, today's reviews are all about free beers sent to me in hopes I would write nice things about them.

We'll start with long time San Francisco brewery Magnolia Brewing, who want you to know their Kalifornia Kolsch and Proving Ground IPA can now be bought in cans, as they roll out their distribution in the San Francisco, Portland, and Los Angeles areas. That's right, no longer do you need to venture into the Upper Haight neighborhood full of stores selling bongs and Grateful Dead T-shirts to get a fresh pint of Magnolia. I've enjoyed a few pints of Kalifornia Kolsch and rather than go into a detailed flavor decomposition of the brew, let me just tell you this: It's a damn good Kolsch. As for Proving Ground IPA, Brewmaster Dave McLean describes it in a press release as "showcasing a hybrid approach to IPA, marrying an aggressive, American hop profile with an English malt backbone built around our favorite malt, Marris Otter." And indeed this brew has the wonderful solid biscuit-like malt and subdued, leafy, grass hop character one finds in a good English IPA, with some citrus in the background to remind you it comes from California. Magnolia's website claims this IPA checks in at 100 ibu's, but it seems more like 60 in this refreshingly well balanced brew. At any rate, it's not the usual West Coast hops and alcohol explosion. Instead, Proving Ground is a creative yet traditional dimension to the IPA style.

Then there's Sapporo Premium Black Lager. Now I've enjoyed Sapporo's regular Lager with sushi a few times, but it's never really been one of my "go-to" beers. Unfortunately, lot's of other people feel the same way about Sapporo, and they've faced declining sales in the US as the brand is largely limited to Asian restaurants. Sapporo Black Lager, released last fall, is an effort to reverse that trend, which explains in part why Sapporo touts their Black Lager for pairing with "traditional German, Asian, Cajun and Latin cuisines and crème brûlée". One thing going for it is lots of nice chocolate aromas. It's crisp with very deep roasted flavors on a broad spectrum from a little toasty up until the point burnt notes are detectable.  This good news it's mostly bitter chocolate flavors that dominate in the light brew. Nice beer, but will people choose to drink Sapporo Premium Black Lager with Wienerschnitzel or enchiladas? That seems like kind of a stretch.

Finally, we end with Alpine Beer Company's Windows Up IPA, which debuted just this year.  "I am especially excited for our newest IPA addition, Windows Up, to hit the market," excudes Alpine Head Brewer Shawn McIlhenny in a press release.  "It's got big hop aromatic and a really bold flavor profile with very little bitterness; this beer is a home run." Given that Alpine has made their reputation on big hoppy beers, it's no surprise this one is a real dank monster. The good news is there's plenty of complexity and depth to round out all danky, cannabis-ness character, with as some fruity apricot, light tart cherries and piney finish also in the mix. All those big flavors get plenty of support on a solid malt substrate. It's not just a beer crammed with a bunch of big flavors, it's an impressive composition of all those flavors.  Yes, I do believe Alpine hit one out of the park.

Rambling Reviews 1.4.2017: Brews from Santa Clara Valley Brewing, Hermitage, and Discretion Brewing

Tasting flight of SCVB's Loma Prieta Oatmeal
Rye Imperial Stout at the SCVB taproom

Let's start off 2017 by rambling on about beers from some local breweries in and around San Jose.

We'll start with Loma Prieta Oatmeal Rye Imperial Stout from Santa Clara Valley Brewing (SCVB). The tallest mountain in the Santa Cruz mountain range, Loma Prieta is most associated with the legendary 1989 Northern California earthquake. Loma Prieta means "dark hill" in Spanish. As for the beer, it's a subdued, smokey, smooth, and slightly peppery stout, with the complex roastiness forming a nice substrate for the Bourbon and Rye barrel-aged infusions the folks at SCVB introduced into a couple version of the brew. My early beer blogging inspiration and SCVB Marketing Manager Peter Estaniel invited me over to the brewery for a four-sample tasting flight of Loma Prieta on nitroro, all by itself, and aged for ten months in Rye and Bourbon barrels. I would love to give you detailed tasting notes on all the different nuances and subtleties of Loma Prieta, but after a few sips of Loma Prieta, Peter and I started chatting away on sports and beery subjects that taking tasting notes seemed pointless. Loma Prieta facilitating all that engaging discussion is perhaps the best endorsement I could give.


Next up, Topaz Single Hop IPA from San Jose's Hermitage Brewing. Hermitage's single hop IPA series has long been a great way to experience new hops to understand the unique characteristics they impart into beers. That sounds like something only a hard core homebrewer could love, but strangely enough, hops like Topaz prove many hops work quite well all on their own without the usual blending brewers obsess over.  The high alpha acid content of Topaz makes this a rather straightforwardly bitter IPA, but its light tropical fruit and apricot notes save the day. Nice IPA.

Finally, we end with Uncle Dave's Rye IPA from Discretion Brewing, just over the hill from San Jose in Soquel. I enjoyed one of these last week on a family drive up the Pacific Coast when we stopped at the small seaside town of Davenport for lunch. Having many an IPA chock full of as much dankness, piney-ness, and grapefruity bitterness as the brewer could cram into the beer, it was rather refreshing to enjoy an IPA with some flavor and balance to it. It's light rye peppery flavors work well with the stone fruit flavors in this well composed IPA. There's probably a reason this brew has won a bunch of awards for Discretion including a Bronze medal in Rye Beer Category in the 2016 World Beer Cup. Instead of my usual blurry, out of focus beer picture, I'll leave you with a nice shot from Bonny Doon Beach just south of Davenport.

Rambling Reviews 12:06:2016 : A Turn to the Dark Side

It's that time of the year where the weather turns colder and the beers turn darker. So for this edition of rambling reviews, I'll take a turn to the dark side to ramble about three pitch- black winter brews.

Let's start with Drake's Brewing 2016 Release of Jolly Rodger, which the fine folks a Drake's Brewing sent over to sample. In a press release, Drake's Brewmaster John Gillooly describes the 2016 version of Jolly Rodger as a Transatlantic Winter Warmer, and he used "..a hearty concoction of specialty malts, candy sugar and an especially aromatic yeast strain to brew this big, tasty ale." How would I describe it? Very wintery. It's a little sweet, with plenty of clove-like aromatics, a hint of spruce, and lots of toffee.  At 10% abv, it'll warm you up, but the alcohol is well buried underneath all the savory flavors. A nifty winter sipping beer.

To my surprise, Drake's also slipped in a bottle of this year's Barrel Aged Jolly Rodger into the sample box. Drake's Barrel Aged Program Manager Travis Camacho took the 2015 version of Jolly Rodger, an Imperial Porter, and aged it in High West Rye Whiskey barrels. One taste of this, and all I could say was just "Wow!". It's just one big, thick, honkin' slab of flavor. The roasty coffee and bitter chocolate flavors really pop, with plenty of sturdy support from the wood-aging. Despite everything going on, it remains smooth with only the barest amount of sweetness. There's nothing really new about a barrel-aged Imperial Porters but this one is a real find.






We end with Dust Bowl Brewing's Black Blizzard Russian Imperial Stout. Dust Bowl Brewing arrived in the San Francisco Bay area just this year.  Located just down the road from Modesto, CA in Turlock, I've enjoyed a few stops at their brewpub a few years back when I had family living in Modesto. So I was glad to see a 22 ounce bottle of this at my local bottle shop in Campbell.  It hit's all the right notes: Bitter chocolate dominates with some lingering coffee, and while it's fairly smooth, there's some noticeable graininess but a pleasing alcohol burn enhances the whole decadent experience.

Rambling Reviews 11.14.2016:Long Root Ale, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale, and El Camino (Un) Real

Well, we survived the election. Sort of.

I suspect you, like me, have had enough of Hillary's e-mails, building walls, groping accusations, Russian hackers and all the other nonsense of this year's election. There was plenty of twists, turns, salacious details and wild accusations but precious little actual policy discussion. I try to avoid getting political on this site and just stick to beer. But as one of those environmentalists alarmed at President Trump's plans to roll back environmental regulations, slash alternative energy funding, and opening up previously protected federal land for coal mining, oil drilling, and fracking, I decided this latest round of reviews would feature beers from breweries which support environmental sustainability as an integral part of their business.

We'll start with Long Root Ale from Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland. Long Root Ale is brewed using Kernza, a little known grain that was likely never used for human consumption until very recently. Kernza has long roots that grow deep into the ground, and unlike most grains, grows perennially rather than annually. That means it's a net sink of carbon from the atmosphere, as annually grown crop like barley or wheat create a net carbon increase due to the energy required for plowing the soil each year. As for the beer itself, it's comforting. The soft, light earthy character feels like an old jacket. It's a little light in the body, maybe from the 15% Kernza in the mix.  There's a light savory coriander spiciness to the brew, with grapefruit notes emerging at the finish. I just love beers that are effortlessly unique and complex like this.

Next, we come to Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale, a collaboration between New Belgium Brewing and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. Now if you ask me, a chocolate chip cookie dough beer doesn't sound like such a good idea. But these guys pull it off. It's brewed with chocolate, vanilla and brown sugar with a Blonde Ale base. And yes, it does taste like a Blonde Ale with a barely noticeable cookie dough note, with the chocolate rather absent. Thankfully, there's not much sweetness, as I can imagine a beer like this could quickly deteriorate in a heavy syrupy monstrosity without the right balance. It's not a flavor explosion, but it does a good job of replicating cookie dough in liquid form in this light golden brown ale. New Belgium and Ben & Jerry's brewed it as part of a partnership with Protect our Winters, an outdoor sports organization devoted to raising awareness of climate change, which will receive a portion of the sales proceeds.

Finally, we'll end with El Camino (Un)Real, a collaboration release between 21st Amendment, Stone Brewing and Firestone Walker, three breweries that have long supported various environmental causes. It's a strong, dark ale brewed gobs of hops (75 ibu), dried mission figs, pink peppercorns, fennel, chia seeds and quite possibly the kitchen sink. I wasn't so sure about this one, there's always a risk with a long list of different ingredients that they don't play nice together. The idea behind this eclectic blend of ingredients is that they all grow along the El Camino Real, a historic mission trail that linked California's 21 Spanish Missions which became California's Highway 101.  But does it all work?  Mostly, yes.  It's a rich, dark complex beer, the figs complementing the dark malt nicely, with all those hops finding their voice under the heavy layers of malt to add their herbal earthiness, with peppery accent to the whole affair. Maybe they could've just stopped at the mission figs, but what's the fun of that?

Rambling Reviews 10.25.2016: Deschutes's Hopzeit, Mammoth Brewings Double Nut Brown Porter and Gordon-Biersch's Chum

Time again to ramble on about a three brews I've tried lately.

We'll start with Hopzeit from Deschutes, which they describe as an Autumn IPA as it's basically a cross between a Marzen and an IPA.  I first tried this at the original Deschutes brewpub in Bend, OR and was a bit underwhelmed. It came across more as an interesting and not entirely successful brewing experiment. The hops seemed a little harsh, overwhelming the restrained, underlying Marzen, with the flavors clashing more than harmonizing. But I decided to give this one a second chance when I saw a six-pack of it at my local grocery store and that turned out to be a wise decision. Maybe the extra time in the bottle allowed the hops to mellow down to the right level, as the light sweet caramel maltyness and the citrussy orange hops with a touch of resin were far better balanced and harmonizing than the brewpub version. Kudos to Deschutes for crafting an IPA which truly tastes like fall, at least when it's in the bottle.

Next up, Mammoth Brewing Company Double Nut Brown Porter. The annual family trip to Yosemite National Park is a time when we can all appreciate the surreal beauty John Muir popularized over a century ago and it's also the time to snag my annual fix of Mammoth brews. Porter is one of my favorite styles that's becoming an endangered species in the beer world. This one quickly jumped towards the top of my porter list with its complex coffee flavors which yield to more pecan nuttiness as the brew warms.  It's very roasty, almost but not quite to the point of near ashyness, with virtually no sweetness to let all its great complexity shine through.

Finally, we get a beer with one of the most unappetizing names ever.  I'm talking about CHUM Dry Hopped Red Ale from Gordon Biersch, a tribute of sorts to the San Jose Sharks with which Gordon-Biersch has maintained a long partnership. Thankfully, it tastes a lot better than its name. There's plenty of the toffee thing going on, with juicy, fruity esters suggesting apricot, and a soft earthy finish. It's really well done, one of those beers that's either very drinkable if that's all you want, or one to ponder deeply into all of it's flavor complexity if that's what you in the mood for. A lot more than you'd normally expect from a sports tie-in beer.

But be careful, chum has led people into perilous situations.

Rambling Reviews 8.19.2016: Dry Hopped Steam from Anchor, 10 Barrel's Cucumber Crush, and JC Flyer IPA from Iron Springs

Once again it's time to ramble about three notable beers I've tried over the past couple weeks.

We'll start out with Anchor's great twist on their iconic flagship. I'm talking about Anchor Dry Hopped Steam Beer. There's a little more to Dry Hopped Steam than just the dry hopping as Anchor Brewmaster Scott Ungermann also lightened the traditional Anchor Steam recipe for the dry hopped version. “We took our most popular, classic beer and gave it a contemporary twist by introducing a lighter body and an elevated, dynamic hop profile using new and classic hop varieties," states Ungermann in a press release. The dry hopped version is lighter and brighter than traditional Anchor Steam, with the floral hop aromas you'd expect from a dry hopped brew. It's still got the classic complex roasty and slightly woody character, it's just dialed down a bit to let the floral hops through. What's interesting is drinking the dry hopped version and the traditional one side by side to contrast the deeper, richer flavors of Achor's traditional Steam with the new, more contemporary version These days, a lot of the older craft breweries like Anchor struggle a bit to remain relevant in the fast moving brewing industry. Dry Hopped Steam shows Anchor has effortlessly overcome this challenge.

Next beer up is Cucumber Crush Sour from 10 Barrel Brewing. 10 Barrel takes a lot of flack from selling to corporate beer giant AB InBev , which reminds me of the time I was at an small coffee shop across the street from a Starbucks. On the coffee shop wall, there were all sorts of signs saying things like "Corporate coffee was evil", "Starbuck Sucks", and various other derision thrown at the Starbucks across the street. There was just one small problem: Their coffee was noticeably inferior to Starbucks. Say what you want about the evil diabolical plans of AB InBev, and while I likely agree with you, 10 Barrel is demonstrably one of America's better breweries, still going strong since the acquisition. Cucumber Crush is yet another example. There's light flavors of cucumber with a fruity, strawberry-like clean tartness. That's it.  Yet, this simple, straightforward uncluttered combination is just ridiculously refreshing.

Finally, we come to JC Flyer IPA from Iron Springs Brewing in Marin County's Fairfax. With family in Marin County, I drop by the Iron Springs Brewpub every so often and have enjoyed this West Coast style IPA. It's citrusy, with tangerine flavors dominating, with some piney notes and a little resiny stickiness. The malt basically stays out of the way. Just another in the long line of solid-to-great IPA's you find all over the place in California.

Rambling Reviews 7.28.2016: The New Mexico Edition

You may have noticed a great lull in posting in the early part of July. Of the many reasons for that, one was a family trip to Las Cruces, New Mexico last week to visit my parents in-law. During which, a quick trip to the grocery store turned up so New Mexico (New Mexican?) beer finds so let me ramble about them.

First up, Marble Brewery IPA. I've had this beer before on prior travels to New Mexico, and me thinks they've tinkered with the recipe. It's much brighter and floral than I recall, with some earthy and pineapple notes thrown into the mix. It seems rather malt forward with a creamy underlying malt base despite the 95 IBU's. Despite its slightly heavy malt character, the hop freshness wins the day to create a brew that did a good job quenching my thirst under the hot New Mexico sun.

Then there's the intriguing De La Vega's Pecan Beer. They grow a lot of pecans in New Mexico, so it figures someone would try putting some in a beer. De La Vega basically takes their Amber and adds pecan oils to it. And by golly, it works. It's not the most subtle beer, the pecan nuttiness is pretty front and center but the pecan blends well with the toasty malt.  The flavors are clean, the beer is uncluttered, and it all works.

Finally, every trip to Las Cruces includes a stop High Desert Brewing. It's interesting to see how the place how evolved over the past nine years since I've been coming here. When I first dropped by, it was a quirky locals joint, featuring one of the finest collections of Velvet Elvis paintings west of the Mississippi back by the restrooms. Then a few years later, the Velvet Elvis's disappeared and the place seemed dominated by a hipster college crowd from nearby New Mexico State University. Just last week, the gentrification of High Desert seemed nearly complete, with trendy art adorning the walls, but the Velvet Elvis painting were back!  As for the beer, it was solid as ever. Over onion rings I enjoyed their clear Hefeweizen, with a snappy wheat tang and light clove aromatics. Now a German Brewmaster might rightfully claim this isn't exactly the traditional, cloudy yeasty Hefeweizen we've grown to know and love. I'd have to agree, but the brew still tasted mighty fine.

This important archive of Velvet Elvis paintings can be found
back by the restrooms at High Desert Brewing

Rambling Reviews 5.17.2016 : Boulevard's Tell Tale Tart, Anderson Valley's Briney Melon Gose, and Coronado Brewing's Berry the Hatchet

It's the time again to ramble on about some new beers encountered on my travels, this time with a bit of fruit theme,

Let's start with Tell Tale Tart, from Boulevard Brewing. What a wonderfully balanced composition of simplicity this is. There's a little musty funk, a little sweetness, some fruity esters and some sourness that create an excellent warm afternoon sipping beer. I applaud Boulevard for resisting the temptation to dump boysenberries, tamarind or some other fruit or spice addition that just doesn't belong there. It's nearly perfect as it is.

And then there is Anderson Valley's Briney Melon Gose. As you might expect, there's noticeable melon flavors, barely detectable saltiness and almost no sour tang. Well, it's balanced. When the Gose style came on the scene a couple years ago as, a wonderful breath of fresh salty-sour air. Anderson Valley's Gose, and I mean just Gose without any fruit added, was one of the best. But it seems like the Gose has now become just a general purpose fruit beer. I was a bit on the fence about Anderson Valley's Blood Orange Gose and really under whelmed by Sierra Nevada's Otra Vez Gose.  Briney Melon Gose works as fruit beer and I enjoyed drinking it.  But I'm missing that yin-yang salty/sour balance that made the Gose style so enticing. Now, breweries are just dumping fruit and spices into their Gose and upsetting that balance. German brewers buried in Leipzig have every right to be spinning in their graves.

Finally, we come to Berry the Hatchet from Coronado Brewing, which sent me a sample of this beer to try. They take a light touch with the fruit and wisely brew this with little sweetness, lest this become syrupy tasting. There's a nice complexity to the berry flavors if you concentrate hard on them, and they end with a satisfying tartness. I suspect beer geeks will be a little underwhelmed, but the other 99% of the population will be just fine with this summer thirst quencher which at 4.6% abv, is rather sessionable.

Rambling Reviews 3.14.2016: Anchor Brewing's Go West!, Off Color Brewing's Le Wolf, and Almanac Farmer's Reserve Blueberry

Running a marathon, plus lots of work and family commitments have slowed down my beery explorations lately. However, I've still had time to sample some new brews to ramble about them in my little corner in the online world. So let's get to it!

We'll start with Anchor's new IPA foray, Go West!. Anchor has an interesting history with IPA's. Anchor arguably launched the whole IPA thing in America with their Liberty Ale.  Even though it was released in the 1970's, Liberty Ale still holds up today as a strong example of the style. A not so strong example of the IPA in my seldom humble opinion is Anchor's unnamed IPA, which I find rather timid  and underwhelming. There's no such problem here, Go West! hits all the classic West Coast IPA notes, full of punchy grapefruit and pine flavors, and a slightly resinous finish. Presumably, the marketing folks at Anchor hope an exclamation point does a lot more for this beer than it did for Jeb Bush.

Next up, Le Wolf Biere de Garde from Chicago's Off Color Brewing. I found this toasty, yeasty, estery concoction just a real pleasure to sip. It's a little on the sweet side, and at 7.3% abv, offers a real kick. Fruity esters dominate. I picked up some apricot and peach, but it was more one unique flavor not easily broken down into components.  A few folks on Beer Advocate noticed pear. It's one of those beers you can analyze for hours, or one you can enjoy without thinking about it at all.

Last, but hardly least is Almanac Farmer's Reserve Blueberry. Ho hum, Almanac put out another excellent barrel-aged brew. Almanac first brews their house sour ale, and then racks it to a secondary fermentation in wine barrels filled with Northern California blueberries. There it sits for a few months, picking up the blueberry flavors and a nice purply color. Sipping the result, the blueberries served as a light accent to the wine, oak and moderately strong sourness. It's balanced, all the flavors playing nicely together rather than popping out on their own. What else can I say, it's another example of the usual Almanac magic.

Rambling Reviews 11.17.2015: Sierra Nevada's Hop Harvest #3, Lucky Buddha, and Half Moon Bay's Calf-eine

One again, it's time to ramble on various beers I've had lately.

First up, none other than the 3rd batch of Sierra Nevada's Hop Harvest Series made with newly developed hops. In fact, they're so new, they're only known by the numbers 472, 05256, 431, and 06300. Hopefully someone will give these hops some sexy names, as they coalesce to create unique pear-like flavors, with some melon and pine for good measure. It's a wonderfully soft tasting IPA, which like others in this series, redefine what can be accomplished with hops.

This next review presents a serious challenge to maintaining my beer karma. It's Lucky Buddha, a beer from China (*) sold in cool looking green bottles shaped like the laughing Buddha. Only recently could you find this beer in the United States. The nice Lucky Buddha PR person offered me a sample for review and I said "yes". Without going into a long story, this remarkable persistent and determined PR person finally got a six-pack of Lucky Buddha delivered after weeks of effort and when anyone works that hard to get me some free beer, it would seriously damage my beer karma to say anything bad about the beer she represents.

But of course dear reader, it's also bad beer karma to going around saying great things about a beer just because someone gave me a free six-pack, hence the dilemma. Now it's a pretty safe bet the small segment of beer geekdom that reads this blog is probably not breathlessly awaiting the next lager from China sold in green bottles. And no, my expectations were not the greatest either. However, both my wife and I liked Lucky Buddha on it's own terms. Sneer all you want at the rice adjuncts, they gave the beer a clear freshness in between the initial light striked skunkiness and a slightly muddled grassy hop note at the finish. It's not one of those "nothing" lagers totally devoid of flavors, there's actually something going on in this brew. It's an easy drinking beer if I say so myself and works well with Asian food. OK, beer karma remains intact.

Finally, when it comes to beer karma, you can't go wrong drinking a beer that combats human trafficking. It's Calf-iene from Half Moon Bay Brewing, sales of which supports Not For Sale a charity fighting human trafficking. Calf-iene is a coffee, milk stout, that tastes like coffee and milk in a stout. Yes, that's the brilliant culinary commentary you've come to know and love from this blog. Seriously, the flavors really come together nicely, with a light sweetness and low level of carbonation. It's a little grainy going down with just a faint whisper of hops that stays out of the way of those wonderful roasty, creamy flavors. Packs a lot of flavors for just 6.3% abv. Just a really nifty sipping beer.

(*) OK, Lucky Buddha is actually brewed in Australia.

Rambling Reviews 10.12.2015 : Mammoth Brewing Wild Sierra Farmhouse Saison, Ninkasi Noir Milk Stout, and Cucapa Runaway IPA

Time once again to review some of the more intriguing brews which crossed my path.

First up, Wild Sierra Farmhouse Saison from Mammoth Brewing Company.  Our family's fall annual camping trip to Yosemite is not complete with picking up a few Mammoth brews at the Yosemite Valley store, since in and around Yosemite National Park is the only place you can find Mammoth's beers. In this one, the fruity esters with plenty of apricot character blend well with the moderately toasty malt. Mammoth Brewing adds local pine needles to the brew, literally injecting the piney breezes of Yosemite into the mix, creating a clean freshness in the brew to bring it all together. Be forewarned, packs a bit of a punch for the style at 7.5% abv, yet I found it wondrously stimulating and refreshing sipping this on my front porch.

For our next beer, we turn to the dark side. It's Ninkasi's Noir Milk Stout with Coffee, part of Ninkasi's Special Release series which the brewery sent over for a sample. Upon first sip, I detected the usual rich, creamy, and roasty characteristics of this style. But as the beer warmed and the flavors opened up, dark under currents began to emerge. Buried deep beneath the strong dark chocolate and coffee flavors, came the faint sounds of hops, scratching and clawing to break free. This is no easy sipper, it's a compelling conflict in a glass as the characters struggle for flavor dominance in the darkness. An arresting experience.

Finally, beer karma compels me to write some nice things about Cucapa Cerveza since they apparently sent me some of their beers to sample. I say "apparently" because one day coming home from work, I find this big box on my porch and inside are 20 bottles of their different beers. No one wrote me from the brewery ahead of time asking me to try a sample, nor was there any letter in the box. For the most part, I enjoyed all the different beers from this Mexican brewery, which all had their own soft earthy quality to them. Of the bunch, I found their Runaway IPA highly exotic in its unabashed malt-forwardness. You can tell it's an IPA with its noticeable floral, earthy bitterness poking through the slightly sweet malt background.  Maybe that's just the way they do IPA's south of the border, but I really appreciated how they resisted the temptation to smack you in the face with a bunch of hops like only 27 zillion other IPA's do. Refreshing in both its restraint and soft edges, while it's not mind blowing, this IPA's may well force you rethink the possibilities of the style.

Rambling Reviews 8.31.2015: The Fireman's Brews

These two firemen started Fireman's Brew
(photo from Fireman's Brew)

Fireman's Brew certainly has the feel good story. Back in 2000, two firemen stood exhausted on the Glendale Mountains in Southern California at midnight after putting out a brush fire looking into the night, wanting a cool beer to quench their thirst. They go on to create Fireman's Brew, a self described "craft brewery" with a portion of their profits going to the Fallen Firefighters Foundation, which support families of firefighters lost in the line of duty.

But look deeper and you'll find more corporate slant to the folksy tale. While the company is headquartered down in Los Angeles, the bottles read "Ukiah, CA" as the city where the beer was actually brewed.  So it figures the beer is brewed under contract at Mendocino Brewing's facility. Two years ago Fireman's hired industry veteran Don Lake, who's had stints at corporate brewing giants Anheuser-Busch, Coors, Labatt USA, and to run their North American Sales Force. Fireman's recently announced a private offering of up to 4 million shares of Common Stock, along with the declaration on their website of an "aggressive growth plans...focused on building Firemans Brew into a National Brand".

Apparently part of that "aggressive growth plan" is to provide beer samples to bloggers like me in hopes I'll write nice things about it. On that score, their investors should be happy as I'm here to say the beer of Firman's Brew tastes pretty good for the most part. The three bottle line-up of a Blonde (Pilsner), Redhead (Amber) and Brunette (Double Bock) is not wildly creative and nothing about any of these beers breaks new ground. None the less, Fireman's Brew has recently won awards with these beers and I can see why.

(Fireman's Brew product shot)

I enjoyed the Pilsner Blonde with its clean, sturdy, and slightly caramelized malt with a nice little spicy finish. Nothing fancy here, just a good Pilsner which is a highly underrated thing. It won Gold at the 2014 Los Angeles International Beer Competition.  Even better was the Redhead Amber, an unlikely malliard bomb with plenty of depth, running the roasty spectrum from light caramel to a barely noticeable ash. It's my favorite of the bunch and took Silver at the 2014 San Diego International Beer Festival.  Least successful of the three was the Brunette Double Bock.  It's got the malty and smooth thing down, but consisted of a bunch muddled roasty flavors without much depth and vibrance, resulting in a rather flabby beer. Someone must have liked it more than I did since it took Silver at the 2014 Los Angeles International Beer Competition.

With brewing's continual renaissance, some interesting animals can be found within our country's zoo of breweries.  Fireman's Brew is an interesting and often tasty animal.