Draught Diversions is the catchall label for mini-rants, think-pieces, and non-review posts here at The Tap Takeover. We hope you don’t grow too weary of the alcohol alliterative names we use…
New year, new beers! January 2019 turned out to be a big month for new beers here at the Tap Takeover. Multiple brewery visits and two business trips made or a great variety. So much that whittling down the new beers, about 30 altogether, I had in January to a six pack was more challenging than it has been in quite some time.
Nitro Regular Coffee (Carton Breweing Company) Cream Ale – 4.75 bottle Caps on untappd
Over the past couple of years, it has become a New Year’s / Early January NJ tradition (and one for me personally) to head down to visit Carton Brewing in the Atlantic Highlands to get whatever variant Augie and company release of their highly coveted Regular Coffee cream ale. This year, I met up with some friends to grab some of this beer. Carton has the best deal of any brewery in NJ in terms of tasters, and I knew I had to bring this one home. Regular Coffee is an “Imperial” Cream Ale made with coffee from local roasters. Put simply, Regular Coffee is the best Coffee beer I’ve ever had. I’ve realized I don’t care for Nitro beers over the past year, but this one bucks that recent trend. I can’t think of a beer that more perfectly utilizes Nitro and enhances all the flavor components, raising the bar on an already great beer to something sublime. This may end up being the best beer I have all year.
Sin-Tax Imperial Peanut Butter Stout (Mother Earth Brewing Company) Stout – American Imperial / Double – 3.75 bottle Caps on untappd
Mother Earth beers recently started appearing on NJ shelves…maybe within the last year? This is the first offering I’ve had from them, thanks to my wife getting me a Mix Six pack from Wegman’s. She’ll pour me the beer and I have to try to figure out what the beer is. I got the sweetness initially, but I thought it was a porter so I wasn’t too far off. Be that as it may, I was very pleasantly surprised by the beer. The amount of peanut butter in the beer was just right and not overpowering. This is a really nice dessert beer that doesn’t come across too boozy and spot on for a stout.
I’m a Pickle Gose!!! (Robot Brewing Company) Sour – Gose 4 Bottle Caps on untappd
Again, traveling for work allows for sampling different local beers. Case in point, this really tasty beer from Robot Brewing in Boca Raton, FL. Sometimes you take a chance on a beer that seems like it shouldn’t be good at all and you’re surprised. I like pickles and I like beer and this beer is the best of both worlds. The pickle flavor melds so good with the salty and sour aspects of the Gose. Like I say on untappd, I would *love* this one in the summer because it is such a surprisingly refreshing beer.
Hop Wallop IPA – Imperial / Double (Victory Brewing) – 3.75 bottle Caps on untappd
Been a while since a beer from Victory showed up here on the Tap Takeover and it took the re-release of an old favorite to make the cut. A little rebranding/relabeling and my growing enjoyment of IPAs leads to this beer showing up. This is a beer with a lot of Citra hops (one I like quite a bit) for a citrusy, yet bitter hop/flavor profile. I enjoyed the second beer from the six pack more than the first. This isn’t a blow-you-away IPA, but it is on-point for the style and represents the style of DIPA quite nicely.
Resilience Butte County IPA IPA – American (Sierra Nevada Brewing Company) 4.25 bottle Caps on untappd
Sierra Nevada is really the standard bearer for the full definition of what it means to be an American Craft Brewery. They make superb beers and are a fixture in their community. Those two ideals come together perfectly in this beer, 100% proceeds of which go to the Camp Fire Relief Fund for the disastrous Camp Fires in California late last year. It doesn’t hurt that this is a delicious IPA, an IPA the embodies everything a modern West Coast IPA should be. I can see myself grabbing multiple six packs of this beer.
Claymore Scotch Ale (Great Divid Brewing Company) Scotch Ale / Wee Heavy 4.25 bottle caps on untappd
Another beer from the business travels. In a great turn of events, the “networking event” for my second business trip was held at the Great Divide Barrel Bar in Denver. You’d think the marketing and event folks asked me where it should be held. Be that as it may, I had four different beers during the event and this beer was the standout. I like Scotch Ales and this is a damned good interpretation of the style. Everything – the sweetness from the malt was absolutely perfect. It was a perfect beer to start out the night after walking across a cold parking lot.
All in all, a really good month for new beers. Some months there aren’t enough good ones and I need to add a dud to this post. Not the case for January: More than enough good beers to whittle down to six.
The Tap Takeover 