Cream Ale – The Tap Takeover

Beer Review: Better Maize Ahead by Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company

Name: Better Maize Ahead
Brewing Company: Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company
Location: Croydon & New Hope, PA
Style: Cream Ale
ABV: 4.4%

Happy Anniversary to Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company and cheers to a fantastic Cream Ale!

From Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company’s landing page for the beer:

The classic American Cream Ale is dear to our hearts and quite frankly, we miss having one around but we’re moving forward! Better Maize Ahead fills that void as a crisp and refreshing relative of the American Light Lager. Brewed with flaked maize and gently hopped with Hallertau for a delicate floral finish. You’ll find this to have a soft mouthfeel with a subtle, sweet cereal character and notes of corn pops. You’ll be feeling equally optimistic when you pour yourself one of these.

This year (2022), Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company celebrated 10 years of brewing and selling tasty beer. To honor the milestone, the brewery did a minor rebranding, slightly modifying the name stamp and upping their can art game.

I knew I wanted to highlight one of their beers here at the Tap Takeover, but with such an interesting and diverse portfolio, I wasn’t sure which beer it would be. As of this post, I’ve had 20 of their beers and I’ve enjoyed just about all of them. I visited the main brewery in Croydon a couple of times, too. I’d been pondering which of their beers to feature for a while especially since they hit the 10-year mark, actually, so when my wife and I took a quick drive down to New Hope, PA, where Neshaminy Creek has a tap room, I figured I’d give Better Maize Ahead a try. I’d been wanting to drink and feature an unfettered* Cream Ale for a while now, and the two thoughts converged with this beer and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

*unfettered in that there are no adjuncts, additional flavor elements, or barrel aging like the other Cream Ales I’ve reviewed

Cream Ales are one the few truly American styles of beer. Originating in the 1840s, the Cream Ale is an Ale that is very similar to a lager, it has the same kind of crispness, refreshing nature, mild sweetness and look. Although some Cream Ales may have lager yeast for cold conditioning, most Cream Ales are just that, Ales. Where this makes a Cream Ale perhaps more appealing to a brewer is the reduced fermentation time for an Ale (two to four weeks compared to the 6-8 weeks for a Lager). As the beer is an American style, Corn (specifically flaked corn) is often used as the grain to lighten the beer, which is where Neshaminy Creek drew inspiration for the name of this beer.

Enough of the history lesson on Cream Ales, let’s get on to Better Maize Ahead.

The day we visited the NCBC New Hope taproom, it was quite warm (as it has been for most of August this past summer) and my wife and I had walked up and down Main Street in New Hope so we both worked up a bit of a sweat. I follow the brewery on social media and I was intrigued about this beer and I wanted something light, refreshing and beer flavored and was hoping this beer would be on tap. Also, John Holl (of all the beer podcasts and one of the people behind Defend Pilsner) always extolls the virtues of the Cream Ale. Hell, his likeness adorns a can cream ale from his co-conspirator’s brewery.

I ordered a full pint of this beer (only $5!) and took my first sip and dammit if this beer wasn’t exactly what the doctor ordered, as the saying goes. Pure refreshment. It was all I could do not to chug the beer in two gulps, but I wanted to enjoy the beer in all its glory and get a sense of the full flavor profile.

There’s a sweet malt element that is extremely appealing with a very mild, barely noticeable hop element – that minimal, soft hoppiness is a feature, not a bug. There’s a hint of corn or sweet cereal on the finish that makes for a very well-rounded, balanced flavor profile on the beer.

Better Maize Ahead is elegant, simple, straight-forward and quite flavorful for a beer this low in ABV and under 5%. I was so impressed with the beer I looped back around to the brewery after a short jaunt through the indoor market and grabbed a six pack to put in my poolside cooler. Quite simply, this is a fun beer that will please most beer drinkers.

Recommended, link to 4/4.25 bottle cap untappd rating check in.

Untapped badges earned with this beer:

Cream of the Crop (Level 7)

A relative of the American light lager style, cream ales are crisp, golden brews, often finished with the addition of lager yeast for a lighter body. That’s 35 different beers with the style of Cream Ale.

Beer Review: Carton Brewing’s Cafe Revolver

Beer Review

Name: Cafe Revolver
Brewing Company: Carton Brewing Company
Location: Atlantic Highlands, NJ
Style: Cream Ale | Imperial Cream Ale
ABV: 12%

Another outstanding entry in Carton Brewing’s “Regular Coffee Game” – A Must Try

From Carton Brewing’s landing page for the beer:

Imperial Cream Ale Aged In Bourbon Barrels w/ Orange Bitters: 12% | IBU: 20 | SRM: 5

Café Revolver is a continuation of the Regular Coffee game. Our golden imperial coffee cream ale has been finished on Bourbon barrels with orange bitters. Much like Regular Coffee looks to evoke an amusing version of the acidic bitter coffee curbed by milk and sugar that starts a day in a paper cup, Cafe Revolver addresses it on the other end of the day. A beer rendition of a modern Revolver cocktail, sweet coffee and bourbon’s richness defined by a dash of aromatic orange bitters, lending a subtle brightness to the darker tones. Drink Cafe Revolver and take your best shot.

Carton Brewing becomes the first brewery with a 4th feature review here at the Tap Takeover with a version of one of their more highly sought after offerings. Every New Year’s Day (or thereabouts) Augie Carton and his crew release cans of an “Irregular Coffee,” a variant of their flagship cream ale, Regular Coffee. Regular Coffee is their interpretation of morning coffee in the form of a Cream Ale – milk sugar and coffee are added to the base beer of a cream ale. One of the 2021 versions of Irregular Coffee is Café Revolver, the beer interpretation of the Revolver cocktail, which is Bourbon, orange bitters, and coffee liqueur. For this beer, Carton aged Regular coffee in bourbon barrels along with orange bitters with the goal of evoking that evening, sipping cocktail. Or a “coffee on the other end of the day.”

I like bourbon quite a lot (my favorite spirit), I like the flavor of coffee, and I’ve enjoyed 7 versions of “Regular Coffee” including the original prior to Café Revolver, but this one is the first I’ve had that has a barrel aging element.

Pouring the beer into my Carton glass, I get some aromas of bourbon. The beer is a little murkier looking than other Irregular Coffee variants I’ve enjoyed, which is neither negative or positive. Just the way I see it. There are more flavor elements so the beer’s murkiness makes sense.

The first sip gives me the sweetness from the lactose, but the bourbon soon envelopes everything. The orange bitters are an assertive flavor component, but that element plays extremely well with the bourbon. As it should considering bitters are part of many, many bourbon-based cocktails. The coffee elements are the underlying flavor holding all the elements together. Halfway through the 12oz can, I’m thoroughly enjoying this fun and tasty beer, all those elements come together in a very cohesive, elegant fashion.

I’ve always been impressed by how many of Carton’s beers are inspired by food or other non-beer things like cocktails. What’s even more impressive is how despite this beer emulating a bourbon cocktail (or a doppelbock brewed with coffee beans substituting the hops, for another example) yet the beer remains undeniably, well, a beer.

Café Revolver does just that. It is undeniably a beer, but the elements of the cocktail play the base beer extremely well. Specifically, the elements of Regular Coffee are distinct and give the beer its dominant character. The cocktail elements are damned fine complement to what fans of Regular Coffee like myself, have come to expect. I can’t rank this one against the original, but my favorite variant is Café Y’ Churro. In speaking to Augie during our visit, he said a lot of people consider that their favorite, because people love cinnamon. He isn’t wrong. I’d say Cafe Revolver is in the top half of the Irregular Coffee beers I’ve had, but again, they are all spectacular beers.

To paraphrase the Carton motto that closes out the beer description on the cans of most of their beers, drink Cafe Revolver because it is a delicious, fun, and playful beer.

Highly Recommended, link to 4.25 bottle cap untappd rating check in.

Beer Review: Lexington Brewing & Distilling Co’s Kentucky Coffee Barrel Cream Ale

Beer Review

Name: Kentucky Coffee Barrel Cream Ale
Brewing Company: Lexington Brewing & Distilling Company
Location: Lexington, KY
Style: Cream Ale
ABV: 5.5%

An extremely interesting beer with a balance of complementary flavors.

From Lexington Brewing & Distilling Company’s page for the beer:

The brewers at Lexington Brewing Co. took a traditional cold-conditioned cream ale brewed with flaked corn and added our own Haitian coffee to the mix. After resting in fresh bourbon barrels from some of Kentucky’s premier distillers, Kentucky Coffee Barrel Cream Ale becomes a sessionable beer packed with flavor. Big, bold notes of coffee on the nose and palate give way to a smooth finish of bourbon grains and oak. Subtle notes of vanilla and caramel complement this beer from time spent in the barrel.

Some might say the “Cream Ale” is one of the few wholly American created styles of beer, a light, easy drinking style that has some lager characteristics. Generally, Cream Ales can be sweet and refreshing. Personally, I haven’t had very many Cream Ales (most are the Coffee variants from Carton Brewing), but I find the style fairly tasty. In other words, yet another style for me to explore, oh the horror!

As for this Cream Ale from Lexington Brewing it is a very interesting beer. When I did one of my regular beer swaps with my Dad, this beer really intrigued me. From what I’ve gathered, all the beers produced by Lexington Brewing are barrel-aged and they brew across multiple styles.

Enough preamble, time for the actual beer, right?

The beer looks golden with some slight amber hints, but the wood floor where the beer is placed in the photo above is probably reflecting in the beer. Additionally, I’m guessing those reddish/amber hints are from the coffee and aging in bourbon barrels. There’s definitely a coffee aroma wafting off the beer, a welcoming aroma.

I get an immediate hit of coffee intermingled with the beer, which makes for an impressively complex initiation into the beer. Lots of coffee throughout the beer, but it isn’t extremely dominant. Complementing the coffee is the sweetness the bourbon barrel aging lends to the beer. Since a Cream Ale is made with more corn than most beers, there’s a natural sweetness to the style. Coffee is a naturally bitter flavoring component, so the two elements can potentially work against each other but actually balance each other, while the bourbon barrel characteristics brings it all together.

There’s a slight bitterness at the end that was a slightly counter to the sweetness I was getting from most of the beer. That might be the only slightly negative element of the beer.

Aside from the complex flavors, what I appreciate most about the beer is the alcohol level – 5.5% ABV where most barrel aged beers are closer to 10%. I’ve only had a few beers from barrels that were even below 7%. Lexington’s ability to coax as much barrel sweetness into the beer, while also maintaining both the beer’s original flavor and the coffee hints while keeping this beer at a lower, “sessionable” ABV is very impressive.

Hard not to compare a Coffee Cream Ale to Carton’s Regular Coffee especially as I live in New Jersey, but I’ll just say even though the styles are the same, they are different beers completely. Lexington’s Kentucky Coffee Barrel Cream Ale is flavorful and worth a try.

Recommended.

Link to Untappd 4-Bottle Cap rating, – a push from 3.75 to 4 for the interesting nature of the beer.