A light, malty ale from North Coast Brewing Co. Lots of forward caramel and bread notes. Not much of a hop bite. Nice for a summer patio beer (perfect for the Argonaut patio!).
And mad props to the folks at the Argonaut. We were so happy to see people out on the patio and upstairs in the restaurant. We’re really looking forward to the reopening of the kitchen and bar!!
Filed under: Beer, Tasting notes on August 6th, 2010 | No Comments »
At Ethiopic on H st. Waiting at the bar for one of the cool little window tables. I ordered a Meta. Very malty. Reminds me of Tusker. Almost like a malt liquor in flavor. Tons of caramel with a little pilsner bitterness. I hope it goes well with the spicy Wot beef I just ordered.
Filed under: Beer, Tasting notes on July 2nd, 2010 | No Comments »
What a different beer! Definitely a West Coast IPA. Lots of grapefruit and lemon in the nose. A little malt and toast on the palate which is then totally taken over by the crisp hop bite. That fabulous bitterness hangs around for a good two or three minutes after (a beer afterglow?).
Many thanks to the staff at the Avenue for lending me the Streetcar Dining Guide for reading material. They recommended several great choices for dinner. Which to choose…
Filed under: Beer, Drink local, Tasting notes, Travel on June 12th, 2010 | No Comments »
I walked to the edge of the Garden District to find The Avenue pub recommended by beer geeks in the area. Sticking local I ordered the blonde from NOLA brewing company, a relatively new brewery in the New Orleans. It’s a very pretty beer: orange amber like the lollipops you got at the bank when you were a kid and your mom was getting a roll of quarters for laundry. It has a nice, bready nose (what I could smell over the cigarette smoke – grr). The flavor had tons of butter and toast with a great bitter finish that hung around for a while. I hope it goes well with the smoked havarti sandwich I just ordered.
It did! Actually, it paired even better with the creole caprese salad: smoked mozzarella, basil, lettuce, and a light balsamic vinaigrette. The blonde really pulled together the snap of the basil and smoke of the mozz!
Filed under: Beer, Drink local, Tasting notes, Travel on June 12th, 2010 | No Comments »
My Hoppy Place gifted Real Food Fans with a bottle of sorghum beer originally recommended by the Beermudgeon. While selecting the beers for our tasting (the write up is in the queue), we asked the Beermudgeon if he’d ever had any good gluten-free beers and he happily recommended St. Peters Sorghum Beer from the UK. Over at Real Food Fans, they’re livin’ relatively gluten free so, in the spirit of sharing, we shared. Courtney at Real Food Fans tells us more about it in a guest post.
Jess and Marlene gave me this beer to try because of my gluten sensitivities. It’s made from sorghum and comes up on “gluten free” beer lists, although it doesn’t claim to be completely gluten free.
I decided to give it a go with a dinner of liver with basil-anise butter and a side of kale, a meal calling for beer instead of wine. I haven’t a clue in the world what kind of glass one is supposed to use for sorghum beer, so I used a plain old pilsner glass (one with a dragon on it, for good luck).
St. Peters Sorghum Beer in a lovely pilsner glass.
OK, I’m not a professional beer taster. It looked like beer. It smelled like beer, with a nice sharp hoppy/citrus smell coming out of the bottle. But I forgot to wave it around under my nose to check for the subtleties, so I can’t tell you if it had hints of banana or chocolate or monkey sweat. Considering how flat a lot of gluten-free products are, just smelling like beer is a compliment.
The taste was very hoppy/bitter, like a strong IPA, but it didn’t have the astringent, mouth-drying aftertaste I associate with the style. I’ve read that sorghum has a fairly high sugar content. I’m not sure if that’s what changed the follow-on mouthfeel or if it was something else. The beer definitely stood up to and balanced the assertive liver and kale dinner. It left me feeling satisfying and refreshed and (probably because it didn’t leave an astringent aftertaste) I was perfectly fine with only one and didn’t feel like I needed a water chaser.
I’d be perfectly happy serving this to a crowd and would not feel the need to advertise that it was for special diets or anything. It’s a very good beer in its own right.
In short, thanks, Jess and Marlene, for letting me try the beer and for having fun posting the results! Feel free to pass another down the bar to me any time.
Filed under: Beer, Food, Tasting notes on May 13th, 2010 | No Comments »
This is one of my favorite new ales. I really love how balanced the hops and malt are. It drinks smooth while still having enough hoppy-ness to make my bitter-beer-lovin’-self very happy.
I apologize for the terrible picture, I think I had already had a few and I took it with my new blackberry camera – a surprisingly bad camera considering how expensive the phone is.
Bad picture, great beer!
Filed under: Beer, Drink local on April 12th, 2010 | No Comments »
We’re getting ready for a beer tasting here at My Hoppy Place. You may remember the custom beer tasting we offered as a raffle prize for Chez Pim’s fundraiser for the World Food Programme. Well, the time has come.
Alli and her friends will be joining us for a sampling of local beers. To get the best variety, we expanded “local” to mean Mid Atlantic region: Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, DC. We enlisted the help of Jon Brandt, official Beermudgeon at Rick’s Wine and Gourmet in Alexandria, VA. Together we picked out an awesome line up:
Not necessarily in that order.
Much to our shame, we somehow missed Tupper’s Hop Pocket. It was in the pile at Rick’s, we swear. But somehow it never made it to the counter. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
There is so much awesome beer in this area, but we couldn’t grab it all. We could have filled our growlers at DuClaw. We could have picked up some Flying Dog, Williamsburg Ale Werks, or Blue and Gray. So many great beers. But our guests must make it home at the end of the evening. And we have much to do on Sunday.
Check back for a report and (hopefully) some photos from the tasting.
Filed under: Beer, Drink local on April 10th, 2010 | No Comments »
This was another brew premiered at the “Bitch Session” at Policy in DC. This was my beer! It is an American IPA that is made with Belgian yeast – very inventive!
This was a typically hoppy beer that found both the fruit and the bitter of the hop in a balanced and tasty way. It also had just enough of the Belgian sweetness to keep it from being one of those beers that I love but all of my friends, including Jess, find toooooooo hoppy (as if there can be such a thing!).
I did like this one, but I won’t be running around to a bunch of stores looking for it. It’s worth having if I find it with no effort but I can’t see myself going out of my way to get it.
Filed under: Beer, Drink local on April 5th, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Flying dog recently had a lovely little “Bitch Session” at this very funky bar in Washington, DC called Policy. It was on a Thursday and it came at just the right time for myself and some work friends to let off a little steam from our work place woes.
The event was specifically to premiere this beer. It is their newest seasonal brew and I found it to be quite a drinkable Belgian (not one of my favorite styles, but I will try any beer once). I can picture it being an excellent beer served very cold and drunk outside on a very hot DC evening. It was supremely thirst quenching and, in typical Belgian style, not too hoppy. But I can’t say that it was hop-free.
This is going to be a very strange thing to say because this was a good beer, but it reminded me of the beer we drank in college – Hamms. The only reason I can think of for the taste-inspired memory is that this beer is so wonderfully drinkable without any strong flavors to offend anyone.
Can’t say I loved it or hated it. It just was.
Filed under: Beer, Drink local on April 2nd, 2010 | No Comments »
I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am to be going to this tasting event at National Geographic Headquarters (where I work) on May 18th! I am silly stupid excited!
Garret is going to be discussing the effects of the American Craft Beer Revolution on Scandinavia – did you know that they have had a Craft Beer Boom recently? I didn’t!
Here is how they describe the event:
“The American craft brewing movement has inspired similar developments all over the world, but perhaps nowhere has the rise been as striking as in Scandinavia. Home to five countries, 23 million people and several languages, Scandinavia is producing some of the most interesting and diverse beers on the planet. A frequent visitor to Scandinavia, brewmaster Garrett Oliver will take you on an exciting Nordic beer tour.”
How jealous are you?
Stay tuned for the tasting notes – coming soon to a blog near you.
Filed under: Beer on March 30th, 2010 | No Comments »