7 At One Throw

The bar next to my building is pretty fantastic; they have 24 constantly rotating taps, and very reasonably priced brews. The food's also pretty good, but you really go for the beer. It's pretty much THE hangout for folks in my program.

Anyway, they offer a sampler--four beers for $5.95. I'm not entirely sure how much each of their mini-glasses holds, but looking at a 2 oz. pour glass from the 2008 Extreme Beer Fest for comparison, I'd guess it's about 4-5 oz. per brew.

I was there recently with TheLadyFriend for dinner, and the rotating tap list looked, as always, INCREDIBLE. We both went for the sampler--she took the Long Trail Blackberry Wheat, Dogfish Head Aprihop, Allagash Tripel, and the Victory Abbey. I told her that the last two would taste very similar, and asked her if she was sure she liked Belgians. She asked me what a Belgian was, and I decided to let the matter drop.

For my first sampler, I ordered the Dogfish Head as well, along with a Clipper City Red Sky at Night Saison, an Ayinger Celebrator, and a Great Divide Titan IPA.

On to the beers:

The Dogfish Head was really interesting. I've had some truly great beers from Dogfish Head, but they also brewed one of the worst things I've ever tasted. (In fairness, the Raison D'Etre is usually reviewed as being a perfectly reasonable beer, so I might have caught a bad batch.) The Aprihop hits you with a cascade aroma pretty sharply, but there's clearly something else going on underneath--a clear hint of sweetness. The taste starts out with that sweetness--I don't think I've ever had an actual apricot, but if this is what they taste like, sign me up! It's an eminently drinkable beer, finishing with a citrus-tinged hop flavor... a great summer brew, and an excellent companion for my burger.

Saisons are apparently making a comeback, and the Clipper City made it clear why. The beer feels incredibly light--some interesting, subtle flavors, and a bit of spice on the finish. Nothing stunning, but a really tasty beer--the only possible downside is the stealthy 8% ABV--the alcohol is barely present in the taste, and I could imagine it sneaking up on someone mistaking this brew for a good session beer.

I'm not really an IPA-head, but I have been starting to drink more and more of them. The Great Divide was a better than average IPA--not nearly as good as the Boulder Mojo IPA or the scinitillatingly named Offshore IPA, but mildly interesting, very hoppy and unoffensive. I'd order it again if I were in the mood for an IPA--if nothing else, Great Divide has clearly missed the memo about the current hop shortage.

Lastly, the Ayinger. A quick search of the internet has revealed that this is one of the highest-rated beers on the face of the Earth--it's relatively easy to see why. The Celebrator is a pretty big dopplebock, packing an impressive flavor punch from the get-go: dark fruits, some slightly bitter caramel, and the tiniest hint of hops. The only downsides: I waited too damn long to drink the whole thing, and as it warmed up, the alcohol became a little too dominant for my tastes--it also developed the slightest oily feel as it became warmer and warmer. Still, my fault for ordering a dopplebock with a cheeseburger on a hot day.

TheLadyFriend didn't want a full beer after her sampler, but really wanted more of the Long Trail. For my second sampler, I got her a Long Trail, got one for myself, and added a Cape Ann Greenhorn Double IPA and a Southern Tier Uber Sun.

Probably my fault for drinking a blackberry wheat beer immediately after finishing the Celebrator, but I could taste almost nothing on this beer--I will absolutely try it fresh sometime, because TheLadyFriend really loved it. The other two, however, were really good.

I don't know anything about Cape Ann, and an internet search for the Greenhorn reveals only that it hasn't been reviewed widely, and that it's a limited release. I'm really bummed about that last part, because this was a hell of a beer. Hop punch like you can't believe--I think they were Simcoe hops, and Cape Ann made sure you could taste the difference. Some really faint citrus in the background of this one, but it was mostly just hopped up on hops.

Lastly, the Uber Sun. This puppy was basically an imperial wheat ale, at least according to the menu. It turned out to be so much more--all of the flavors you'd expect were there, kind of; the graininess just vanishes into the background, and fast--this beer has a ton of really tasty, complex, and surprising hops going on. I think that calling it an American Pale Wheat, (which the bar did,) is a huge mistake. It more or less defies any sort of classification in a single beer style. A pretty fantastic beer, though no less than I expected from Southern Tier, brewers of the greatest beer in the history of the world. At the rate this young brewery is going, they may well become my favorite brewery fairly soon.