A Great Place to get Beer and an Okay Beer

The other day my buddy Jason picked out a couple of brews for me at our favorite local liquor store. Nikki’s Liquors is quite simply the best place to buy beer in Rhode Island. I know of no other place in the state, or anywhere else for that matter, with such a wide variety and such a helpful staff. On top of that, they do tastings on Fridays (something I need to take advantage of more often) and they let you mix your own six-pack and even give you a 10% discount when you do “mix-a-six.” Though I’ve never done it, you can also mix a case and they give you 20% off. Hands down, the best place around.

The first beer I tried was Flying Dog’s Tire Bite Golden Ale. Despite its name, this beer is actually a Kölsch and not a Golden Ale, the main difference being the origin of the ingredients and the prominence of the hops. Kölsches are a traditionally from the Cologne area in Germany and, while their not as hopped as an IPA, they certainly get more flavor from those wonderful flowers than their English cousin, which was originally brewed to compete with mass popularity of the always mild Pilsners.

Snobbish nit-picking aside, I was pretty excited to try this beer after some very nice encounters with the Flying Dog brewers at local beer festivals. The guys behind the taps were very friendly and eager to talk about their different brews. Unlike some other brewers I’ve met at those events, they didn’t get phased when I admited that I didn’t really like one of their options. Instead, they took it as constructive criticism and served up something they thought would be more to my liking. Really classy guys.

This brew is pretty solid but, honestly, nothing too special either. I love Kölsches and I’m dying for the chance to visit Cologne and get authentic experience of drinking with the locals and being served by a Köbes (for more info, read this) so maybe I’m unfairly setting the bar high whenever I have this fantastic beer variety.

Tire Bite is a light bordering on medium beer and, while on the hoppier end of the spectrum, it’s not overly bitter (plus, there’s just something about the taste of Hallertauer hops and I can’t get enough of). The toned down malts were a nice reprieve from all the malty beers I’ve been trying recently but, in general, I’d prefer if it if they were a bit more pronounced. There’s only an okay finish to this beer; you can taste a tiny bit of citrus but not enough to really make it interesting.

This is a good beer, but it just didn’t blow me out of the water. It’s smooth, it’s drinkable, it’s got a nice hop flavor, but I was still somehow left wanting. Maybe if I try it again with a traditional german dinner, I’ll feel better about it, but right now I can’t give it more than a B.

My next post will focus on the other brew we got from Nikki’s, which I’ve been repeatedly told is “one of the best beers on the planet.” We’ll see if it lives up to it’s rep.

PS – I didn’t bring the funny for this review but hopefully this will make up for it.