4-star review – Page 7 – The Tap Takeover

Beer Review: Cape May Brewing’s Coastal Evacuation

Name: Coastal Evacuation
Brewing Company: Cape May Brewing Company
Location: Cape May, NJ
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8.0%

I usually try to go with on of my Garden State Brewfest glasses for NJ beers, but went with my alma mater this time.

From Cape May Brewing’s Web site:

“Coastal Evacuation:” a phrase common at the Jersey Shore. Hurricane season hits hard, and we’re hitting back with a Double IPA with copious amounts of centennial hops, able to withstand the storm. It’s time to evacuate – are you prepared?

Cape May Brewing has been brewing and selling beer since the brewer officially opened 2011. Cape May Brewing is (I think) the second largest craft brewery in New Jersey (Flying Fish being the largest) and offers the largest varieties of beers in New Jersey in its tasting room. Their beers are highly respected in the State of New Jersey, some sought after, and some have won awards – Topsail, (a barrel-aged sour) was named best beer of 2017 by Beer Connoisseur Magazine.

I had their Honey Porter last year, which was pretty good and I’d been eager to try more of their portfolio especially as I’ve come to appreciate hoppier beers/IPAs and the majority of what they brews lean heavily towards the IPA side of the shelf. One of their flagship / most well-received brews is Coastal Evacuation. Unfortunately, Cape May Brewing doesn’t distribute up to Somerset County, but fortunately, my dad and I recently did a bottle share and one Coastal Evacuation was one of the beers I received.

The first thing I noticed when pouring the beer was the color. It wasn’t as bright or golden as I expected from a Double IPA and the bubbles floating in the beer looked almost like particulates. I was a little nervous, but I shouldn’t have been.

My first impression/first sip of the beer was an assertive yet pleasing hop presence. Knowing the beer is a double IPA (80 IBU) set my expectations for a big hop bit and I got it, but I wasn’t bludgeoned with the hop bitterness. The second prominent flavor component is the citrus profile imparted by the generous centennial hops in the beer. The two flavor components blend quite nicely for a beer with a great taste.

Coastal Evacuation is a very drinkable IPA, the hop/sweet/citrus flavor profile is remarkably well-balanced given the alcohol level and the high IBU. In other words, this beer is a fine example of a Double IPA and I can definitely understand why so many people enjoy the beer.

Overall, this was an enjoyable beer that went down with the complex hop/citrus flavors one should expect from a Double IPA. Coastal Evacuation is another beer helping to put the Garden State on the Craft Beer map of America.

The label looks great here, but it looks even better on the beer with some foil/shiny highlights

Recommended, link to Untappd 4-star rating.

Untapped badges earned with this beer:

I Believe in IPA (Level 18)

We believe in IPA and you should too. You certainly have a taste for the hops! That’s 90 different IPAs.

Beer Review: Cigar City Brewing’s Maduro Brown

Beer Review

Name: Maduro Brown Ale
Brewing Company: Cigar City Brewing
Location: Tampa, FL
Style: Brown Ale – English
ABV: 5.5%

From Cigar City Brewing’s Landing Page for the beer:

Maduro is a Northern English-style Brown Ale with some American affectations. Maduro is higher in alcohol than the common English Brown Ale and features flaked oats in the malt bill which imparts a silky body and works to mesh the roasted, toasted and chocolate components together in Maduro’s complex malt profile. The end result is a remarkably full-flavored yet approachable Brown Ale that pairs well with mild to medium cigars.

Cigar City Brewing is one of the largest and more respected breweries out of the Southern United States. Their Jai Lai IPA is well-regarded and their Imperial Stout – Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout is such a big deal the brewery throws a huge party to celebrate its release, which happens to be the only place you can get the beer. While those two brews may get the flash, Maduro Brown is a tasty take on a classic style that deserves equal attention.

Brown ales are far from the sexiest style of beer on taps and shelves, but like Pilsners, the style – when done well like Maduro Brown – is the kind of “standard style” that many beer geeks and hop heads enjoy. I include myself.

In a shocking turn of events, the beer pours a deep brown out of the can. Almost a milk-chocolatey brown.

The smooth, easy drinking feel of the beer hit me first. Like the description suggests, there are very pleasing elements of chocolate and toffee sweetness. Chocolate is pretty common, especially in stouts, but what separates this brown ale is the lighter body and lowered roast components of the beer.

What makes this beer so good is just how elegant it is…it isn’t fancy, but it is quite delicious. Sure Cigar City makes some complex beers, but making a Brown Ale one of their flagship beers is a nice touch as the beer is very approachable, would likely pair well with many meals, or would be a great beer to enjoy on its own.

Like Happy Hour which I reviewed last week, Maduro Brown is a beer that is well balanced and deftly straddles the line between being a beer seasoned beer consumers can enjoy and a beer that is approachable for folks who don’t typically go for craft beer. This would be a great beer to bring to a party of a mixed crowd, in other words.

This beer proves that Brown Ales are good, far from boring, flavorful, and well worth trying.

Recommended, link to Untappd 4-star rating.

Beer Review: SingleCut’s Eric, More Cowbell!

Beer Review

Name: Eric More Cowbell! Chocolate Milk Stout
Brewing Company: SingleCut Beersmiths
Location: Astoria, NY
Style: Stout – Milk/Sweet
ABV: 6.6%

The beer’s description on SingleCut’s Landing Page for the beer:

WE’VE GOT A FEVER – And there is only one cure: a lusciously creamy, slightly sweet Stout that sits atop a roast malt base and huge cocoa infusion that will rock all night long.

It has been quite a few reviews since I wrote about a stout, specifically a Milk Stout. I’ve tried to vary up the styles in these reviews even if Milk Stout is one of my favorites sub-styles of stouts. A multi-repeat style beer would have to stand out (in the blog’s first year) if I was going to review it, and ERIC, More Cowbell! Milk Stout certainly stands out from most stouts and the other 46 Milk Stouts I’ve consumed over the past few years.

The beer pours a deep black, blotting out all light and any black text on the glass (like the word “Bedford’s” on the glass in the picture). I smelled a little bit of chocolate as it poured. The beer was very cold when I first poured it but it was so good I had a tough time waiting for it to warm up, as is proper for most stouts.

The thickness of the beer was perfect, some other milk stouts I’ve had are far too thin, but this one is substantial enough that I was very pleased taking my time with it. The chocolate is not as potent, as say Terrapin’s Moo-Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout, and that is welcome. If I wanted a Moo-Hoo (which I like quite a bit) I would have bought a six pack of that beer. This beer has enough going on aside from the chocolatey sweetness to set it apart.

The lactose sugars are really nice and balance out the bitterness some stouts can have. There’s also a touch of toasted/roasted chocolate/malts at the back-end of the beer that was really welcoming. The finish lacked the bittersweet characteristics present in many stouts and milk stouts, too. In other words, I wanted to drink more and more of the beer to get to that finishing flavor. However, I slowed a bit as I noticed how much better the beer was once the temperature moved from ice cold to closer to room temperature.

I picked this up as a 16.9oz bottle and would love to give this a try on draught. This beer is well worth the $7 I plunked down (minus the NJ Craft Beer discount) considering how well made it tastes and because of the amount of beer.

SingleCut is one of the growing number of breweries in the boroughs of New York City, and this is the first one I’ve had from them but hopefully it will not be the last.

Highly Recommended, link to Untappd 4-bottle cap rating.

Untapped badge earned with this beer

Heavy Weight (Level 51)

You like it thick and dark. Your beer! What did you think we were talking about? That’s 255 different beers with the style of Porter or Stout.

Beer Review: Carton Brewing’s This Town

Beer Review

Name: This Town
Brewing Company: Carton Brewing Company
Location: Atlantic Highlands, NJ
Style: Lager – Helles
ABV: 4.9%

The beer’s description on Carton’s Landing Page for the beer:

In a perfect world each town would have access to a fresh, straightforward lager beer. For our neighbors we built around a typically bready helles malt bill fermented with classic yeasts. Made unique by focusing on the defining bitterness and pleasant citric spice of Opal hops. Drink This Town because you’re almost home and deserve a beer from here.

It took a while before I repeated a brewery on one of my reviews, but I at least waited until the calendar flipped to a new year. I also figured if I was going to repeat breweries, it might as well be from (arguably) the best NJ brewery, Carton Brewing Company.

Carton Brewing is known for experimental brews, a series of IPAs (the 0-dub and Dubviant series of IPAs), and of course, Boat Beer. With This Town, Augie Carton and his cadre brewing wizards crafted something more straightforward with this Helles Lager. What is a Helles Lager, one might ask?

Essentially, a Helles Lager is the younger, jealous cousin to the Pilsner. A Helles Lager has a similar malt and hop profile as a Pilsner. This isn’t surprising since the Helles Lager was first brewed in Munich Germany as a reaction to the Czech/Bohemian Pilsner. The popularity of the Pilsner style (so named for the Plzeň (Pilsen) region of Bohemia in Czechoslovakia where it was first brewed) pushed brewers in Munich to come up with a comparable style so Germans would be more inclined to drink a beer from their own country and region. The designation of “Helles” means bright and once you look at the beer in the glass, the name makes sense.

For this beer, Carton went simple and elegant and it really, really paid off. The beer pours a bright inviting yellow and when poured correctly, with a fluffy white head. When most people think beer, an image of what comes out of a can of This Town is likely similar to what is in most people’s heads.

The aroma is pleasant and nearly as inviting as the look. A crisp refreshing taste of some breadiness, a nice bit of hops followed by a little bit of roasty malt/hops. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, considering the beer style’s roots, but I was very, very much reminded of Rothaus Pils / Tannen Zäpfle from Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus, one of the best German Pilsners I ever had.

I think the best compliment I can pay this beer is that I’d want it in regular rotation in my refrigerator as an everyday beer. If Boat is Carton Brewing’s flagship year-round beer, then This Town would make an excellent #2 beer.

Highly Recommended, link to Untappd 4-bottle cap rating.

Beer Review: Ballast Point’s Victory at Sea

Beer Review

Name: Victory at Sea
Brewing Company: Ballast Point Brewing Co.
Location: San Diego, California
Style: Imperial Porter with Coffee and Vanilla
ABV: 10%

From the beer’s description on Ballast Point Brewing Company’s Web site:

A big porter crafted to weather any storm.

Our Ballast Point Victory at Sea Imperial Porter is a bold, smooth brew with just the right amount of sweetness. We infused this robust porter with vanilla and San Diego’s own Caffe Calabria coffee beans. The subtle roasted notes and minimal acidity of the cold brewed coffee, balances perfectly with the sweet caramel undertones of the malt, creating a winning combination for your palate.

Ballast Point is one of the largest craft brewers in California, although no longer “independent” since the brewery was acquired by Constellation Brands (who also own Modela Negro, Corona, Funky Buddha in beer and Modavi wine and Svedka Vodka, among others) in 2015. Regardless of that, Ballast Point has been crafting popular and acclaimed beers since 1996. I’ve had a handful of their brews and liked about half of what I’ve had (especially their California Kölsch and Piper Down Scotch Ale) but of everything Ballast Point brews, this beer appeals to me the most.

Porters are one of my favorite styles and I’d wanted to give this well-regarded interpretation of the style a try for a while. I has a little hesitant to commit to full six pack at the price point, but fortunately, my favorite bottle shop (Gary’s in Hillsborough, NJ) sells some single bottles which is how I procured this one. Like most porters, this one pours a deep black and tops off with a slightly tan head. As a dark beer lover, it looks appealing and the aromas of coffee and vanilla are really inviting. The first taste gives off strong vanilla and coffee flavors with ample sweetness. The beer is relatively full bodied and definitely full of flavor. The flavor that lingers the most; however, is the vanilla. Even more than the coffee.

I’ve come to realize that vanilla, for all the suggestions and metaphors for vanilla being plain and boring, is a tough flavor component to pull off successfully. Especially in beer. I’ve had quite a few vanilla porters and stouts and more than one has given a really strong unpleasant aftertaste with few exhibiting a perfectly balanced vanilla component of the beer. Here with Victory at Sea, for my tastebuds, it is a nearly perfect execution of the vanilla. There’s only a slight lingering aftertaste from the vanilla, but the pleasant taste up front far outweighs the lingering at the end and kept my rating at a 4-bottle-cap review for untappd.

The ABV of 10% in this one isn’t too pronounced in the flavor profile. Then again, I took my time drinking the beer as a “dessert” so the alcohol didn’t affect me too much. However, that relatively high ABV should be taken into consideration if you’re having more than one or two of these dark, delicious beers.

At one point in Ballast Point’s brewing history, this beer was available only as a 22oz bomb and on draft, but a year or two ago, the beer became available in 6 packs.. It has since become an extremely popular seasonal favorite and I can see why. There are a few variants, including a barrel aged variant to help celebrate Victory at Sea Day making this an “Event Beer” for Ballast Point and folks who enjoy the beer around the country

Recommended, link to Untappd 4-star rating.

Untapped badges earned with this beer

Heavy Weight (Level 49)

You like it thick and dark. Your beer! What did you think we were talking about? That’s 245 different beers with the style of Porter or Stout.

Sky’s the Limit (Level 18)

You don’t always intend to go for beers with a double digit ABV, but when you do, you make it count! Cheers to you, but be careful, 10% and up can really pack a punch. That’s 90 different beers with an ABV of 10% and up.

Victory at Sea (Special/One Time Badge)

Prepare the ballast and hoist the sails. You’ve made a date with darkness, so you’re in for a decadent journey through notes of vanilla, roasted cold-brew coffee, and caramel. A bold and rewarding choice you’ve earned the “Victory at Sea Day” badge for your treasure chest!

Beer Review: 21st Amendment’s Fireside Chat

Beer Review

Name: Fireside Chat
Brewing Company: 21st Amendment Brewery
Location: San Francisco, CA
Style: Winter Ale
ABV: 7.9%

From the beer’s description on 21st Amendment’s Web site:

Like FDR’s Depression-era radio addresses, which were like a kick in the butt and a hug at the same time, our Fireside Chat is a subtle twist on the traditional seasonal brew. We begin with a rich, dark, English-style ale and then we improvise with spices until we know we have a beer worth sharing with the nation.

Fireside Chat is our early winter seasonal brew available from October through December in six pack cans and on draft. Brewed like a classic, warming Strong Ale but with a subtle blend of hand-selected spices for just the right festive flair.

I may have had a thing or two to say about Christmas / Winter beers. I’ve also mentioned the great “Craft Your Own 6 Pack” offering at Wegmans supermarkets. Conveniently, there’s a Wegman’s only a few miles from my house. So when I visited a couple of weeks ago in the hopes of grabbing six new beers to try, my goal was to find a few Winter/Christmas beers. Unfortunately, there weren’t many on the shelves of single brews I hadn’t had previously. The exception was this Winter Ale from ’s 21st Amendment in San Francisco, California.

Most Winter Ales are spiced up versions of Brown Ales and that’s pretty much what 21st Amendment has done with Fireside Chat. But that simplicity is what makes the beer such a nice drinking beer.

The beer pours a deep mahogany brown and is topped with a nice frothy head. A little spiciness wafts from the beer, giving a slight hint of what to expect, but nothing too overpowering. The first sip is full of comforting spices and malt. The more I kept drinking the beer, the more I was reminded of Christmas Cookies with all the spices working together.

It wasn’t until after I had the beer I realized exactly what Christmas Cookie the beer reminded me of: Pfeffernüsse, a German spice cookie popular at Christmas. My wife made some homemade Pfeffernüsse that were delicious and had a similar flavor profile to the Fireside Chat. I only added one can of the beer into my Craft-your-own, but this is a winter ale I can see myself picking up again. Well, considering the 7.9% ABV I’m not sure I’d throw back more than 2 or 3 in one sitting despite the relatively high alcohol level not making itself felt.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t remark on the packaging of the beer. Since the beer’s name is an homage to president FDR, the former president appears on the can in a lovely wrap-around image that covers the whole can.

Recommended, link to Untappd 4-star rating.

Badge Earned with this Beer:
Winter Wonderland (Level 10)

It’s cold outside – warm up with Winter beers.

Beer Review: Double Nickel Brewing Company Pilsner

Beer Review

Name: Double Nickel Pilsner
Brewing Company: Double Nickel Brewing Company
Location: Pennsauken, NJ
Style: Pilsner – German
ABV: 5.6%

From the beer’s description on the side of the can:

A classically styled clean and crisp option for the lite beer drinker and beer geek alike. Our modern take on a traditional German pilsner is golden in color and perfectly balanced.

Pilsners – one of the classic and most widespread styles of beer the world around. Popularly brewed in Czechoslovakia and Germany, as well as America, the style was popularized by a certain brewery based in Milwaukee. As a result, the style may have fallen slightly out of favor in some circles, though the style has gained some more respect in recent years starting with the landmark American interpretation from Victory Brewing: Prima Pils. That said, beer journalist and expert John Holl (among others) has said the mark of a good brewer is if that brewery can produce a good pilsner.

Which, of course, leads to the subject of this post. Double Nickel Brewing in Pennsauken has been part of the growth, some might say boom (or boon), of Craft Beer in New Jersey over the last few years. They brew straightforward, classic styles including this wonderful pilsner I recently tried.

Out of the can, the beer pours a lovely straw-golden yellow and when poured properly into a Pilsner glass, emits a perfect, frothy head. The beer fills the glass more hazy than I would expect for a pilsner, but still, it presents just as a pilsner should. There isn’t too strong of an aroma with this brew, but the underlying hops are definitely present.

The beer tastes, note for note, exactly like you’d expect a pilsner to taste minus the mass-produced elements from the Big Beer makers. There’s a little bit of citrus overtone throughout, too. The hops aren’t overpowering at all, but are present as an integral element of the beer. Balanced, crisp, refreshing.

Double Nickel’s Pilsner is an extremely approachable beer, especially for folks who just want their Budweisers and Miller Lites and are wary of of “that snooty craft beer the hipsters are drinking.” What makes the beer so good is how the beer hits all the notes a classic pilsner should hit and is just simply a delicious beer. While approachable to non-craft beer drinkers, this pilsner will also please seasoned craft beer drinkers who’ve been enjoying Victory’s Prima Pils, Two Roads’s Ol’Factory Pilsner, or Tröegs’ Sunshine Pils. Double Nickel Brewing has made a beer that easily sits in the fridge with those American Craft interpretations of the classic German style.

Although the brewery is just over two years old, they are already changing the labels on their core line-up of beers. The new label for the Pilsner is below (courtesy of reddit).

Highly Recommended, link to Untappd 4-star rating.

Badge Earned:

Crisp as Day (Level 8)

Light and crisp, a Pilsner is all you need to make your day great. Though, perhaps another one would make it even better.

Beer Review: Allagash Black

Beer Review

Name: Black
Brewing Company: Allagash Brewing Co.
Location: Portland, Maine
Style: Belgian Style Stout / Belgian Strong Dark Ale
ABV: 5.2%

From the beer’s description on Allagash Brewing Company’s Web site:

Technically, there is no such thing as a traditional Belgian stout, but we went ahead and made one anyway. In creating the beer, we took the aspects we loved in Belgian beers and used them to craft a stout. Allagash Black is brewed with 2-row barley, torrified wheat, oats, roasted barley, chocolate malt, black malt and hopped with Northern Brewer and Glacier. A generous portion of dark caramelized candi sugar produces a hint of raisin in the finished beer. The addition of oats lends Black a silky mouthfeel, which is enhanced by rich flavors of coffee and dark chocolate.

Allagash is another American Craft Beer pioneer located in the Northeast, and like Victory, because of their tenure and reputation in the industry, their beers are available throughout a majority of the United States. Their most famous beer is White, the standard bearer for the American interpretation of a Belgian Witbier (despite what you may hear under a blue moon). This beer is it’s opposite? Or cousin? However you would like to map the relationship between the two beers, the simply titled Black is a fantastic and unique brew in the American Craft Beer landscape.

But wait, aren’t there thousands of stouts (which is probably not too much of an exaggeration) on shelves? Aren’t Belgian beers and beers brewed with ingredients and in the Belgian style almost as prevalent? Sure, but as founder Rob Tod posited when he first brewed this beer, there really aren’t any Belgian stouts, so he created this mainstay masterpiece.

The beer pours, in a shocking turn of events, black. There’s a little lightening of the color as the head develops, but the cocoa and roasty aromas mingle in a very inviting way. There might be a hint of the Belgian yeast floating under current of at all in the aroma.

The first up front sip gives the classic stout flavors we’ve all come to expect, dark, roasted malt with a smooth mouthfeel. There’s a slight taste of cocoa and coffee that complement each other nicely; one doesn’t overpower the other.

At the back end of the taste; however, is where this beer stands apart from other stouts and dark, malty brews. The Belgian yeasts come into prominence, transforming those expected stout flavors into something more robust and unexpected.

I’ve been well aware of Allagash’s respected, Belgian-inspired output for years and now I’m kicking myself for not giving this one a try earlier. Although Black is part of Allagash’s year-round portfolio, this one will now be a stout return to regularly; a dependable, well-above average beer that is a nice outside-the-box stout.

The beer’s reputation precedes itself so my endorsement can be added to the many who count this among their favorites. There’s a bourbon barrel aged version of Black I *need* to try.

Recommended, link to Untappd 4-star rating.

Untapped badges earned with this beer:

Iron Man (Level 3):
You don’t have to be a superhero to enjoy a strong beer. Boasting a higher than average ABV, these styles really do pack a punch, so be ready for it. That’s 15 different beers with style of Strong Ale – American, Strong Ale – English, Belgian Strong Ale, Belgian Strong Dark Ale, Belgian Strong Golden Ale or Lager – Euro Strong.

The Dark Side (Level 5):
At first taste, dark ales can be overwhelming for even the most skilled of beer drinkers, but your will is weak and with time you will eventually turn to the dark side. That’s 25 different beers with the style of Dark Ale, Belgian Strong Dark Ale, Lager – Euro Dark, Lager – Dark or IPA – Black / Cascadian Dark Ale or IPA – Imperial / Double Black.

Beer Review: Two Roads Brewing Honeyspot IPA

Beer Review

Name:Honeyspot IPA
Brewing Company: Two Roads Brewing Company
Location: Stratford, CT
Style: IPA
ABV: 6.0% / IBU: 55

From the beer’s description on Two Roads’ Web site:

The Two Roads version of this traditional beer style takes a road less traveled. It’s unfiltered and uses wheat as the dominant malt backbone. The result is a slightly cloudy, pale IPA with a softer mouthfeel that accentuates the citrusy Pacific Northwest hop character.

IPA (India Pale Ale) is the most popular style in craft beer to the point people who aren’t beer drinkers sometimes think they are one and the same. There are quite a few breweries (at least here in NJ and many outside of NJ, I’m sure) that seem to brew -only- IPAs. That said, IPA is one of my least favorite styles, I usually won’t go out of my way for one and will usually avoid them if other styles are available. The hoppiness just doesn’t work for me nor does the grapefruit taste the hops evoke as I find grapefruits vile.

Sure I’ve had quite a few IPAs if you go by my untapped IPA badge count (of about 50 different IPAs over the past few years), but like I said, IPAs are unavoidable. I’ll drink a few IPAs voluntarily, like Founders All Day IPA, Demented’s Dementia or a couple of the popular IPAs with a fruit infusion, but that’s about it. I do enjoy Black IPAs, but that’s a beer of a different kettle, so to speak.

Then I tried Two Roads’ Honeyspot IPA; I was very impressed.

I thought I might like this one for two reasons.

I haven’t had a beer from Two Roads I’ve disliked. Most of their beers, for my palate, are at worst very good while others are great.
Honeyspot Road uses Wheat as the malt. As I have pointed out previously, I love me a wheat-based beer.

The beer pours a bright yellow from the 12oz bottle and maybe because of wheat base, it looks almost like a Witbier. The hop hits the nose, but not in an overpowering way and it continues through drinking the beer. But the unfiltered wheat is a perfect balance against the bitterness of the hops, it softens the character of the hop flower. The IBU on this is low to the middle of the road at 55 IBU. Put it this way, I’ve had IPAs with lower IBU that left more of a bitter, hop aftertaste. Maybe it is the wheat base that cuts the bitterness or makes it more palatable.

I kept thinking how balanced this beer is and how easily I could throw back a few of these over a warm afternoon or a long Sunday. Most IPAs have an ABV over 6, the Session IPAs are lower than 5%, like All Day IPA which is 4.7%. Honeyspot is exactly 6% so it isn’t quite a Session beer, but it won’t knock you out like a lot of other IPAs will, many of which are 7% and above.

Honeyspot IPA is a delicious beer and one that seems to be perfectly geared for beer drinkers like me who don’t typically gravitate to IPAs while also please IPA drinkers.

Recommended, link to Untappd 4.00-star rating.

Beer Review: Bell’s Brewery Oberon Ale

Beer Review

Name: Oberon Ale
Brewing Company: Bell’s Brewery
Location: Galesburg, MI
Style: Pale Wheat Ale
ABV: 5.8%

From the beer’s description on Bell’s Brewery’s Web site:

Oberon is a wheat ale fermented with our signature house ale yeast, mixing a spicy hop character with mildly fruity aromas. The addition of wheat malt lends a smooth mouthfeel, making it a classic summer beer. Made with only 4 ingredients, and without the use of any spices or fruit, Oberon is the color and scent of sunny afternoon.

There are Summer Beers and there are beers best suited to summer or associated with Summer. Bell’s Oberon Ale is one of the latter and one of the iconic craft beers in the industry. Oberon is the medieval Faerie King and is Consort of Queen Titania in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream which is (I’m assuming) where the fine folks of Bell’s Brewery drew the name for this light, delicious beer.

Some of my friends on untappd check this in throughout the summer months and I’ve been trying to get myself a bottle/can/pour of the beer for quite a while. Unfortunately for the New Jersey Craft Beer community, Bell’s isn’t yet distributed in New Jersey. Fortunately for me, a co-worker/friend who lives in Pennsylvania, where Bell’s is distributed, did a bottle-share with me and gave me two bottles.

The first thing that stands out to me is the color of the beer. Where the summer beers I’m accustomed to drinking pour a hazy yellow, Oberon pours more of an orange-yellow, a very inviting beer on looks alone but there’s not too much different in the aroma compared to other pale wheat ales like Sam’s Summer.

What is most striking in the flavor profile of the beer is the kick of spice towards the end of the beer. Not quite clove like a Hefeweizen, not quite the characteristic finish other Pale Wheat Ales, but something of its own almost-citrusy design. The bright color and bold spice set this one apart from most other summer beers. I can now see why this is such a landmark beer in the craft beer community. While not flashy like a high ABV bourbon barrel aged stout, or super hoppy like a New England IPA, Oberon Ale is a straight-forward, thirst-quenching beer that is very welcoming in color, balanced in taste, and low-enough in ABV that a couple of these won’t get you too silly.

My only complaint about this beer is one I will re-iterate: Bell’s doesn’t distribute into NJ. Over the past year or two, we’ve seen some of the larger craft breweries enter the NJ market like New Belgium, so hopefully Bell’s is on the way to the Garden State.

Recommended, link to Untappd 4-star rating.

(The book in the background is Staked by Kevin Hearne, the eighth book in his Iron Druid Chronicles series, which features a 2,000-year old Druid named Atticus who comes into conflict with all sorts of supernatural creatures. As fate would have it, my coworker gave me the bottles of Oberon while I was reading this book. The series features an Irish Wolfhound named Oberon as Atticuss’s best friend and companion. Obviously if I’ve made it to book 8 in the series I enjoy the books a great deal, so check out the first one, Hounded if you so choose.)