New Beer Friday the 13th - 9/19

Shades - Berry Pie Kveik: The flavors here are basically a berry medly. The fruits are semi sweet with some lactose for balance. Graham cracker comes in next to give it the full pie effect. Very drinkable and enjoyable. It won't last long, get it before it's gone. 6.5% - Available at Shades, also found at Craft by Proper and Bayou. 

Epic - Deep Pocket: This is Epic's first Helles and it's pretty solid. It offers a touch of sweetness with a good dose of spicy German hops. The malt character is soft and bready and the finish is slightly bitter. 5.0% - Available at Epic in growlers.

TF Brewing - Luckenbach: This American brown ale is mostly toasty and malty with some pine bitterness backing it up. It's on the edge of being dry, but the malts have enough sweetness to keep it balanced. 4.0% - Available at TF Brewing.

Level Crossing - Jazz Loon: Can you Spot the Easter egg on the can? This new lager is made with all German hops but it's not your typical German pils. Mild melon and clementine meld with a grassy hop character. The malts are toasty and sweet giving the hops something to play with. A nice change of pace pils. 5.3% - Available starting today at Level Crossing.

Wasatch/Level Crossing - Collaboration IPA: There's a real nice aroma here, starting with zesty citrus oils of lemon and tangerine. The hops get into an herbal spicy like component as well. The taste keeps it simple. Juiced flavor with slight malty sweetness accents; an excellent and somewhat varied fruity hop flavor. Nice qualities of grapefruit to orange citrus juice with a spritzy lemon oil mixed in. 7.0% - Available at most Wasatch locations. Coming soon to Level Crossing.

Toasted Barrel - Chardonnay Apricot Sour: Haven't tried this yet, it hits later today. 2 lbs of apricot puree per gallon in this barrel aged sour. Can't wait to try this one. 6.6%.

2 Row Feelin' Fruity: This is another apricot infused beer. This is Feelin' Hazy with apricot added. The fruit adds a lot of body and depth to this beer. A hint of tartness from the stone fruit provides a welcome zip to this NEIPA. Very Nice! 8.6% - Found at Bayou.

2 Row Dunkel: Smells quite dry. Once on the tongue it's much maltier. Flavor-wise it's dominated by notes of bread, nuts, and perhaps a touch of chocolate. An enjoyable lager. 6.6% - Available at 2 Row.

Bonneville - Pumpkin Ale: Made with real pumpkin, traditional spices and lactose for a nice round mouthfeel. One of the better pumpkin beers you'll try. Available at Bonneville, Soon to All Star Lanes. 

Dogfish Head - World Wide Stout: This beast of a beer generally dials in anywhere between 15 - 20% and is made with a massive amount of barley to get it there. The nose is super boozy with roasted malts and char. The flavor is fairly sweet with chocolate and espresso up front with hints of vanilla and more hot alcohol in the finish. It has a very thick and oily mouthfeel. Found at the Bayou and Beerhive.

Cheers!

New Brews Soon For You: Wasatch, UTOG, TF Brewing, and Red Rock

We haven't done a New Brews Soon for You feature in quite a while, and in that time a lot has come to pass; yet more seems to be steadily coming. This preview of beer seems to have a theme. See if you can figure it out.
 

Wasatch - Oktoberfest: This is another new beer that will be coming from Wasatch's Kick Back Series. These beers are all produced up in Park City at Wasatch's Original brewery. Oktoberfest lagers are mostly known to be Marzens - a generally malty beer with big caramel and vanilla undertones. The packaging on this doesn't state the the style so, we'll have to wait until I can ask Head Brewer, Nils (with out waking him up at 4am).

UTOG - Top Shelf: Now We Get into the IPA Portion of NBS4U. If you're not a fan of IPAs then this portion of the blog will bore you. Top Shelf looks to be a session IPA that is currently set to be 4.0% ABV. I'm guessing by the time it hits, it will likely be making the transition to 5.0% or at least close to that. This IPA will be packaged in 16 ounce cans.

TF - Jellyfish: When the Templin Family Brewing Co., debuted they're first Juicy IPA, called Squirrel a couple of months ago It was a huge hit; selling out in just over five hours. If Squirrel's popularity is any indication, TF's new Jellyfish "Hazy" should treat local beer nerds just fine. What is the difference between a Hazy and a Juicy IPA? Who the Hell knows! I'm guessing the Juicy IPAs are known for low/medium bitterness with a quality of hop derived juicy fruitiness. The Hazy IPAs are obviously dense and hazy in appearance with similar fruit-like profiles. So basically, Juicy IPAs don't necessarily have to be murky or turbid. Jellyfish with be in 16 ounce cans at dial in at 7.7% ABV.    

Red Rock Buffalo Point: (pictured above) If Hazy and Juicy IPAs are basically the same thing, then where the hell does the New England IPA thing fit in? Well, they all fall under the same umbrella of the NEIPA. People who don't nerd out on beers like we do are more likely to gravitate to descriptors like "hazy" and "juicy", versus "New England Style". Anyway, if the popularity of Red Rock's Elephino is any indication of  how their new Buffalo Point New England India Style Pale Ale will be received by beer lovers, it's destined for great things. Plus it has that NEIPA beer code that we nerds love to geek on. Look for it in 500 milliliter bottles and it will come in at  6.2%.

Stay close for more NBS4U in the coming days. And remember, these are previews, none of these beers are for sale as of yet. We'll fill you in when they hit.

Cheers!

All images found at Shipcompliant.com

New Beer Friday 9/6/19

Hoppers - Bungalow Kölsch: Missed this one. Look for toasty and fruity malts with a good dose noble hops. 4.0% - Available at Hoppers.

Heber Valley- Blackberry Saison: Missed this one too. Look for wheaty and spicy yeast base with blackberry accents. 4.0% - Available at Heber Valley.

Hopkins/Wasatch - Locals Only: This collaboration beer was made with 100% local ingredients. It's malty with fruity yeast esters and hops that lean to the citrusy part of the spectrum. 4.0% - Available at Hopkins and at Squatters 30th Anniversary party.

Dogfish Head - Punkin Ale: Smells and tastes of cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, pumpkin, brown sugar, malts and some vanilla. Medium to heavy body.  7.0% - Found at DABC

Returning 

RoHa's - Freshies Wet Hop: Made with wild hop from around the area; this special ale is different every year, due to the unpredictable nature of the hops. 4.0% - Available at RoHa.

Cheers!

And the Second Squatters Trivia Winner is...

Congrats to Eric Buehner for being the only one to know that Peter Burrell was the first Head Brewer employed at Squatters. Peter signed on for the first year to get things up and running before moving on the to the west coast.

Burrell was succeeded Dan Burrick, Jennifer Talley and Jason Stock. That's only four Head Brewers in 30 years; sounds like a pretty good gig to me. Thanks for participating, in the Squatters trivia, I hope to do more trivia giveaways in the future.

Cheers!

More Free Tickets for Squatters 30th Anniversary Party

I have two more general admission tickets to give away to this Sunday's Squatters 30th Anniversary Party. I thought last week's question was pretty tough, but the beer nerds of Utah proved me wrong, yet again.

In case you missed the answer to last week's question, "what was Squatters' first beer"? It was City Creek Pale Ale.

Now on to this week's Squatters trivia. Just answer this (hopefully) tougher trivia question.

Who was the first brewer at Squatters?

Email your answer to utahbeer@gmail.com - I'll announce the winner this evening, Tuesday 9/3. If you don't get a reply from me then you probably didn't win.

Cheers and good luck!

New Beer Friday 8/30/19

Proper - Purple Rain: This is a Helles with blackberry and lime added. Nice tasting beer but you don't get too much of the Helles nice blackberry and lime flavors. 4.0% - at Proper Brewing.

Proper - Boston Girl: Nice tropical flavors with a good dose of citrus peel. A solid NEPA. 4.0% - at Proper Brewing

Proper - Foe Hammer: Another NEPA, this one is dosed with blood orange. The fruit kinda takes over the flavor, but not enough to to mute the hops. Nice beer. 4.0% -  at Proper Brewing

Proper - Bier Rose: This one is kinds muddled. Strawberry, Pomegranate and Hibiscus. The hibiscus kinda steals the show from the fruits; muting their flavors. 4.0% - At Proper Brewing

Level Crossing - Three Oaks Uncommon: I thought putting this beer on three different types of oak would make it real papery. Not at all the oak adds nice toasty and sweet flavors that are subtle and balanced. Very nice. 4.0% - at Level Crossing.

Kiitos - Northeast Pale Ale + Raspberries: This a very limited batch beer made to support the UofU's football team in last nights game. The aroma is hoppy with raspberry. The taste is basically, raspberry smoothie. Very tasty if you like raspberry. 4.0% - at Kiitos

Surly - Todd-The Axe Man: Tangy citrus, tropical fruits, maybe a little melon with a bit of pine in the end. Malts are nice and sweet. Solid IPA. 7.2% found at Beerhive, Bayou 

Firestone Walker - Old Man Hatten: The aroma smells like a Manhattan cocktail with some musty German spices. Te taste starts syrupy with some nice gingerbread and some holiday fruit cake. I get what they were trying to do here, but it comes across as a dessert dresssed up like cocktail, trying to be a beer. Didn't quite work for me. 9.6% - found at Beerhive and Slackwater.

Cheers!

Win Tickets to Squatters 30th Anniversary Party

Thanks for your interest in the Squatters Trivia tickets for the 30th anniversary bash. We have our winner for this round. Congrats to Ally Aldrich for answering City Creek Pale Ale.

In an effort to say thank you to all of you Utah craft beer fans, I'd like to give you all a chance to win a couple of pairs of free general admission tickets to Squatters' 30th Anniversary Party that's happening on Sunday, September 8th from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM (MDT).

All ticket holders will also have the unique opportunity to sample limited edition collaboration beers from Squatters and 11 participating breweries. For example, a Smoked Helles with fresh peaches will be available from Uinta Head Brewer, Patrick Bourque, and Squatters Brewer, Ryan Stambaugh; alongside a Cucumber Kettle Sour from Roosters Brewer, Jacquie King, and Squatters Director of Quality, Dave McKean. Details on more collaborations will be coming soon.

Squatters will release a special Rum Barrel-Aged Doppelbock, clocking in at 12.3% ABV in a 750-mL bomber bottle, to mark the occasion. Gracing the label of this specialty beer is an original piece of art by nationally syndicated and locally revered political cartoonist, Pat Bagley. VIP ticket holders will receive a bottle of this limited run brew featuring “Lady Li-Beer-Ty” (shown above) at the 30th Anniversary Beer Festival.

Participating breweries include:

Fisher Brewing
Bohemian Brewery
Hopkins Brewing/Squattters Collaboration 100% Utah's Own Pale - an Ale made completely out of local Utah ingredients!
Red Rock Brewing/Squattters Collaboration ROSÉ SAISON
Hoppers Brew Pub/Squattters Collaboration a delicious German Dunkel Lager!
Level Crossing Brewing/Squattters Collaboration brew is an ESB
MTN WST Cider
Proper Brewing Co.
RoHa Brewing
Uinta Brewing/Squattters Collaboration Smoked Helles with fresh peaches
T.F. Brewing
Roosters Brewing Co./Squattters Collaboration Cucumber Kettle Sour

Okay, now that you've got the info on the party, let's get to the tickets. To try and keep the early  "googlers" from running away from the tickets, we'll make the Squatters trivia questions difficult, but not impossible. Trivia ends at 9pm 8/29 or until we have a winner. Here's the Question:

What was the name of the first beer that Squatters brewed back in 1989?

Please send your answer to utahbeer@gmail.com - I'll announce the winner for the first round of tickets on this week's New Beer Friday post. Good luck and cheers!