Talk About Tail

Welcome all for another edition of Good Brew Hunting!

Our brew today hails from the West Coast, brought to us by Mendicino Brewing Company. While the company's website leaves something to be desired as far as design, it is full of information on their beers. They have two breweries, one north of San Francisco and one at Saratoga Springs, NY.

Today our tasting from Mendicino is Red Tail Ale.  Red Tail is considered the brewery's flagship beer, brewed as an amber ale. Of note is the brewery's use of bottle conditioning their beers, whereby fermentation continues in the bottle after bottling by adding active yeast right before capping.  So what's behind the plumage of this Tail?

Poured, the beer has a nice light brown tone. Best way to think of this is your common acorn color. The beer's head is actively bubbling at the pour and is of similar consistency to your common amber ale. There's nothing of note regarding the beer's aroma, perhaps slightly floral but that may be a stretch.

The beer does shine on taste. First sips are a delicate balance of sweet and hoppy bitterness. You don't have to go too deep in the flavoring before sensing the caramel in the brew either. The carbonation is also perfectly blended for a beer with full flavor.

There isn't too much more to say about Red Tail Ale as it really isn't complex for an amber ale. But it strikes me as the perfect foundational beer for a brewery to stand upon. This is the flagship of Mendicino Brewing Company for all the right reasons. In closing, because it's such a solid performer as an amber ale, I give it a UK rating.

Copper Sinks with Saranac

Good Evening All! Time for another beer review in my quest to test some of the best out there.

Saranac is one of the more recognizable of the American craft brewers, owned by the FX Matt Brewing Company and is located in Utica, NY. Saranac and it's history is well described in the FAQ at the top of the Saranac website and I encourage those of us interested in the history of the brewery to turn there.

What we poured this evening from Saranac was their India Copper Ale. Described as taking India Ale to "the next level," Saranac didn't do anything particularly ingenious in this one. They state that this brew is the product of careful paring of malts with the traditional hoppiness of an India Ale. Well let's see what that actually means for our taste buds.

Here's the pour. You'll notice the beer has the typical medium copper tone, but isn't too shaded. The head on this one is light and bubbly, nothing too serious or complex. Taking my first sniff of the beer it gives off a mild aroma, again nothing too complex. If I could say anything about the aroma, it was slightly bitter but not unexpectedly in an India Ale.

When I took my first sip, I noticed a lot of flavor. A nice, hefty punch inside the mouth. As I finished my sip (or gulp, really), the beer left what could best be described as a slight metallic taste in my mouth. Reminded me of copper, really, but that's pretty much the style of the beer anyway. A note: if you take a bigger mouthful of this beer, I experienced a tangy or bitterness towards the back corners of my mouth. Really interesting when compared to a sip. Do both and see what you think.

The beer retained a delightful fizzy-ness with each swallow. It really felt like an end-of-autumn beer. What wasn't retained? My continuing interest in the brew's actually flavor with each continued taste. It just lost my interest. It didn't retain what I would have characterized as a flavorful beer after a third of the glass was empty.

As I stated, there was nothing particularly amazing with this beer. It targeted to India Ale category and hit all the marks. But it didn't do anything to separate itself from the pack. I was waiting for it, but it never came.  For that, the India Copper Ale from Saranac only stacks up to a US on the PINTRS. Till next time!

-JDM

Keeping Warm with Stegmaier

Our first tasting everyone!

And this was one I was looking forward to as soon as I opened the box. Stegmaier Winter Warmer is brewed by Lion Brewery.  After seeking advice from the big G (and I don't mean God, he takes too long to answer) I found Stegmaier Brewing Company, a gold medal winner in its own right and the original brewer of the Winter Warmer, was bought by Lion Brewery in 1974.  Lion Brewery, also brewer of the Lionshead label, brews its beers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.  Ok, our foundation is set, let's jump into the brew!

Here the brew is after the first pour. You'll notice the head is nothing huge and the beer itself has a deep copper tone to it. On my way to taking my first sip, a nice deep breath fills the nose with an aroma teetering on sweetness. The newsletter provided by Amazing Clubs, The Frosted Mug, made note of the fruity aroma and it's obviously there.

The first sip was impressive. The beer itself was full of flavor with a noticeable but not strong bite.  Behind a subtle strength, you can pick out the pleasant hop flavor that was, like the bite, not too strong but not too mild. Were Goldilocks a drinker, and whose to say she wasn't since she states bears were talking to her, this would be her selection for the just right winter beer in flavor.

 The frothy entry that is described for the beer is correct in some way, but could be interpreted wrongly. As it looks, the beer head itself is not what I would classify as frothy. However, it is bubbly and feisty for it's size. The flavors in the head perfectly match that initially aroma. The Frosted Mug describes the overall flavor as "a combination of spicy cinnamon raisin toast and peach pie crust." I don't think anyone will confuse this beer with the sweetness that is described, but if you can imagine a dry yet slightly sweet flavor with a lightly fruity aroma I can see how that description is appropriate. When finishing the swallow, Winter Warmer creates a fun fizz going in and down the hatch.

Lion Brewery says this beer is great in front of a warm fire on a frosty night. I'd have to agree. In fact, it's easily one of my favorites as a winter ale and were you to stack this against a well-known brew like Sam Adams Winter, I'd say Winter Warmer comes out the victor every time.

So, how does Winter Warmer stack against the Good Beer Hunting's Pint-tastic Rating System (PINTRS)? I think we have a solid Imperial in our mugs here. Till next time!

- JDM

First step into a much larger world...

To all those who have found their way to my blog:

Welcome. A little story about how this blog came into being. My wife, through her wisdom, decided that a great Christmas gift for me this year would be putting me in a Beer of the Month club (from AmazingClubs.com). When I unwrapped my gift (a piece of paper promising the delivery of said deliciousness)  I learned this club entailed not just one type of beer per month. It would be two different types of beers from two different breweries a month (4 total different beers a month).  After we talked about how excited I was for the beers to start pouring in (haha) she suggested "you should start a blog when you taste them." 

Truly brilliant, and here we are today.  The beers are on their way and the frosted mugs are ready. I'll be posting my tasting thoughts on the beers as they come in from the viewpoint of your regular, every-day beer drinking who sways to the microbrew. I'll be posting information about the beer and the brewery in my tasting posts, and will also try and learn a little bit about the American micro-brew and brew tasting in general along the way. Hop on for the ride.