I Feel Dirty

You read the title correctly, I feel dirty. I’m a guy who appreciates craft brews for their flavor and creativity. I can appreciate products from the macro breweries like Bud/Miller because of their history, their price, and how good they taste after a long day of hard work. Even when the batch doesn’t turn out all that well I still love drinking my own homebrew because of the effort I put into it.

So why do I feel dirty? I tried the Costco “Kirkland Signature” beer. That’s right, Costco beer. Not only did I try it, I kind of liked it. It was a situation akin to sitting down in a foreign restaurant and having some completely indistinguishable dish put in front of you. The kind that you look at and ask your waiter, “Is this meat?” You close your eyes, try to avoid breathing in through your nose and you take a bite. Then, marvelously, it isn’t half bad.

For the surprisingly low price of $18 (and a Costco membership) you too can get yourself a 24-pack of Kirkland Signature beer. The package includes four six-packs, a German lager, a pale ale, a hefeweizen, and an amber ale. All of the beer comes from the San Francisco brewery Gordon Beirsch.

Like I was saying, when you go into it expecting the beer to be terrible, it isn’t too bad. Just don’t come into this expecting too much. The hefeweizen is easily the best of the group, with the amber coming in second. Their amber ale tastes like Fat Tire if it were brewed by Schlitz. There is something to it, but it’s highly evident that it could be much better if they put some more time/effort into it.

The German lager was mediocre, but passable. The bottom of the barrel was easily their pale ale. It didn’t have a flavor that was very desirable in the least. It was a little bit like they got mixed up and instead of adding hops; they tossed in a few handfuls of grass clippings.

So here is how I would rate those beers on a scale of 1-10 with one being two month stale “Beer 30” and a ten being the hefeweizen fresh from the tap at the Erdinger Brewery outside of Munich.

Hefe: 6
Amber: 5
Lager: 4
Pale Ale: 2.5

I think all of those are pretty fair ratings, but you’re more than welcome to disagree if you too are curious enough to purchase Costco beer.

Red Rambler Ale

Okay, tonight’s beer is the Red Rambler Ale from Peace Tree Brewing. It gets its unique name from the fact that Peace Tree Brewing’s facility is located at an old Nash dealership in Knoxville,

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Iowa. It comes in a bottle similar to Red Stripe but all three of Peace Tree’s bottled beers have extremely unique and nifty-looking labels.

The beer is pretty good. You can really taste a caramel malt in the initial sip, but then it is followed pretty quickly by the hops which nicely balance it out. It seems to have slightly above average carbonation, but that might just be because I’ve been on a stout kick for the last week so most anything seems to be heavily carbonated.

There is one significant downside to the Red Rambler that really makes it harder for me to like. Although I enjoy it, I want to enjoy it more. I had the chance to try Peace Tree’s Blonde Fatale at Brewfest and was blown away. It isn’t currently available in stores so I’m probably not going to be able to get another taste of it until I schedule a visit to their brewery sometime. Red Rambler was good, but I spent a lot of time drinking it wishing I had a Blonde Fatale. It’s premature to say so after a single tasting at a brewfest, but Blonde Fatale has serious potential to join the exclusive ranks of my favorite Iowa-brewed beers.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to ramble on and on about another beer during a review of Red Rambler, but it happens sometimes. Since the best way to wrap up a beer review is to talk about the finish, here it is. Red Rambler finishes with a mildly bitter creamy flavor in the back of the mouth, very pleasant.

I liked Red Rambler a lot, but at $9.50/6-pack I’m not sure I would buy it again. I’m willing to pay a premium for either premium beer, or above average local brews, but not very often. Until it comes down in price slightly I think I’ll have to be satisfied with one six-pack of each of their bottled beers. I already got to the Hop Wrangler, I guess Rye Porter is up next!

Third Coast Beer

I’m trying to post more often than I have but the move and now work are really getting in the way of my beer drinking!

Today I’ll be talking to you about Third Coast Beer from Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Third Coast Beer is an American Blonde Ale not to be confused with Third Coast Old Ale, also from Bell’s. I can’t imagine why they

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would have wanted to name two of their beers extremely similar things, but they did.

I’m not exactly sure where Third Coast Beer is available because the Bell’s website obviously hasn’t updated that list recently. According to them it isn’t available in Iowa, where I bought this six pack. If you’re curious about its availability in your area you’re probably just going to have to hit the store and check it out.

I cracked open my first ever Third Coast Beer, took a big whiff, and was pretty disappointed. I haven’t homebrewed much but when I’ve tried a few of those batches have gone pretty horribly wrong. Third Coast Beer smelled exactly like one of those batches I managed to ruin somehow. It has pretty hoppy smell, but also a bit of a citrus scent to it. I know that actually sounds nice, but it wasn’t nearly as good as it sounds.

Then I poured it into a pint glass, just to be further disappointed. There was a bit more sediment floating around than I usually like. I’m not saying that I want my beer to all have Bud Light clarity with absolutely nothing floating; this was just a little much for me.

By the time I actually got around to trying the beer I was, needless to say, already a little sour on it. As usual, I was wrong. I’m not saying I was blown away by the flavor or anything, but it was pretty darn good! From now I should probably forget about putting any stock in how a beer looks or smells, the flavor is the only truly important thing to me.

At first taste the hops are absolutely in control, but they’re also balanced out pretty well by some wheat and some malt. The whole taste comes together pretty well and the end result is crisp and surprisingly refreshing. Even after you swallow the flavor hangs out on the tongue a bit longer most beers with a bitter, hoppy aftertaste.

I didn’t think this was going to fit in with the last two beers I reviewed but with an ABV (alcohol by volume) of just 4.8% and that refreshing taste I just mentioned it is another ideal summer beer!

Overall, this is better than the average grocery store beer, but wouldn’t be near the top of my list in a specialty store with a wider selection. I’ll probably buy it again but only after a decent amount of time passes and I get curious again.

Oh, and if it was driving you as crazy as it was driving me, the map on the label is of Losco County, Michigan on Lake Huron.

I’ve got a sampler six-pack from Schell Brewery in New Ulm, MN in the fridge downstairs so watch for that review sometime this weekend.

Schlafly Hefeweizen

First, a disclaimer: I’m really not a beer reviewer. I’ve tasted a lot of beers in my time but I’ve never tried my hand at a reviewing one outside of pointing to a six pack in the grocery store and saying “that’s tasty!” As a part of preparing for my big road trip and writing my book I’m attempting to purify my palate and familiarize myself (if I don’t already know) with the offerings from at least the breweries that I’ll be visiting and maybe a few others as well. Hopefully it will make me sound a little more intelligent when it comes time to sample beers along with the brewmasters responsible for their creation.

Here pretty soon I’m going to be moving from Champaign, IL to Des Moines, Iowa. There are a lot of great things about Des Moines; one of those is that it has a pretty unique set of micobrews available as compared to what I get in Champaign. I figured that since I’ll only be in Central Illinois a few more days I should spend that time enjoying the beers that I can’t get in Central Iowa.

Tonight I sat down for the evening with a couple bottles of hefeweizen from Schlafly in Saint Louis. The hefeweizen is one of Schlafly’s most popular and largest production beers, along with their American Wheat Ale. The upside of being one of their most popular beers is that the flavor is a bit more consistent than something you might find with the small batch micobrews. The downside is that it doesn’t have as much of the unique flavor and character I love so much about small breweries. It feels a lot more like a beer that would be produced by one of the big box breweries.

The Schlafly Hefeweizen tastes to me a little bit more like a wheat beer than it does a hefeweizen. That’s okay though, I’m more concerned with the fact that it has a solid taste and nice finish. It’s one of those beers that I’m more than happy to sit down with on a nice summer night and drink three or four of on the balcony with some good conversation. There aren’t too many better endorsements I can give a beer than that!

I’m not going to be giving beers I review a rating or number. I don’t think it is fair to rate an IPA and a pale lager on the same scale, they’re just too different. Instead I’ll just be giving brief review of what I think of the beer and if I would buy it again. When it comes to the Schlafly Hefeweizen my final word on it is to say that it is a slightly above average beer that was quite enjoyable and I would buy again in a heartbeat next time I’m in an area they distribute to. As with so many things in life, a good beer is significantly more special when you only occasionally have the chance to get it.