New Beer Friday 3/27/15

Remember the days when you could strap on some patent leathers, spark up a smoke and hang with your best chicken? Well those days are back my friends in this weeks New Beer Friday.

Shades of Pale - Cafe X Espresso Stout - Pours black as you'd expect. The nose has a huge roasted coffee aroma that is nice and inviting. The taste starts right-off with big coffee notes. Some slight roasted barley notes come next, but for the most part it's an all coffee beer. It basically tastes like cold presses coffee. It needs more malt to back up the coffee flavors which would help balance it out. It is a tad thin as well. If you love coffee, I think you'll find it to be right up your zip code. 4.0% ABV. This is a limited edition bottled brew, that is available at Shades of Pale's new brewery at 154 w. Utopia Ave in South Salt Lake. Open weekdays from 11-6pm. 

Wasatch Plum Wit - Pours a cloudy straw color with a finger of dense foam on top. The nose is mostly wheat and Belgian yeast. The taste starts like many witbiers with wheat and some grains of paradise flavors. I don't get plum flavors but there is some nice unripened tart fruit flavors that take over creating another dimension to the brew. Finishes somewhat dry and tart. Not your typical fruit ale. The tartness is clean and refreshing. 4.0% ABV. Available where Wasatch has seasonal taps.

Hive Apple Crumble Wine - Described as a delightfully sweet spiced apple wine. With a rich, warm cinnamon flavor perfectly complementing the mellow apple, this desert wine makes us think of warm baked apples on a cold autumn’s night. @ Hive Winery

Bonneville Second AnniversaRye - Described as a hoppy rye pale made with Chilean cara malts and Experimental 07270 hops all the way through. Lots of tangerine/orange rind flavor. Hoppiest beer Bonneville has done.

Annex Peppercorn Saison with Galaxy Hops - A collaborative beer made with input from from Flatbread Neapolitan Pizzeria. Have not had this one yet. 4.0% ABV @ Flatbread Neapolitan Pizzeria in Sugarhouse.

Avenues Proper Leisure Brau - A hybrid beer described as a combining the smooth malt body and cold aging of a Vienna Lager with the lust for hops of an American IPA. The rich Vienna and Munich malt base and long boil, create a slightly sweet body in this orange hued lager, which is a nice counterpoint to the bitterness derived from American Hopping techniques. They used Summit, Calypso, and Simcoe hops (all higher alpha acid hops) in the boil and dry hopping periods which have lent sharp notes of citrus pith and chive. We lagers the beer cold for over a month, and then quickly dry hopped for a fresh, smooth finish. 4.0% ABV @ Avenues Proper

Retuning Favorites

Bohemian Brewery Dunkelweizen. Brewed with yeast from the Bavarian monastery of Andechs. Dark wheat and Munich malts give this beer a rich, chocolate backbone while the yeast adds subtle flavors of banana and clove.

Cheers!

New "Big" Beer Friday

Quite a few "big" boozy beers for your New Beer Friday. Your tongues are in for a full frontal assault, so make sure your travel plans are in order before proceeding.

Firestone Walker §ucaba - Pours black with some dense brown foam. The nose is smooth with chocolate, caramel, toffee, candied fruit and char. The taste starts with a chocolate brownie character. A bit of fudge comes in next with Bourbon, oak, coconut and vanilla rounding out the end. It's one of the finest barleywines you'll find. So damn delicious! 12.50% ABV @ limited DABC stores

Sierra Nevada Barrel Aged Narwhal - Pours a viscous black with a thin cap of light brown foam. The nose  has dark chocolate. Lots of tart, dark fruit, vanilla and a hint of Bourbon. I think the best way to describe the taste of this beer is simply Bourbon soaked tiramisu. Big coffee, chocolate and vanilla notes with a bit of boozy burn. Complex and wonderful. 12.9% ABV @ Limited DABC, Beer Bar.

New Belgium Salted Chocolate Stout - Black in appaerance with a nose of phenolic Belgian yeast, banana, asphalt, vanilla and chocolate. The taste is similar to the nose...lots of belgian esters, roasted marshmallows, moderate roast with a touch of coffee, some oaky notes in the middle. The end has a slight herbal bitterness. A hint of sodium in the finish. 9.0% ABV @ Beer Bar, Bayou, Beerhive, Limited DABC stores

Sockeye High Lakes Session IPA - I haven't had this one yet. Sockeye describes it as a session-style IPA is crafted with the full flavors and aromas of its big brother (Dagger Falls IPA), but with a low alcohol by volume so as to increase drinkability without losing its signature full hop character. It has a fresh, piney hop aroma with a slight hint of caramel malt to balance the bite, and a hop forward flavor with citrus up front and a mild spiciness throughout. Comes in at a whopping 80 IBUs 4.0% ABV  @ Maverik C-stores, Smith’s Food stores, and Walmart Superstores.

Hive Preacher's Son Blueberry Honey Wine - This Melomel is described as having a silky smooth mouth feel and rich color, this pleasantly sweet wine will delight the senses. Rich, flavorful blueberry dominates the front flavor with delightful, delicate notes of clover honey. 13.3% ABV @ Hive Winery Note: this bottle features our friends Nate & Misti Cobb, steam'n up the label with a bit of "Romance de foncé".

The Annex's Firkin will be pouring their Annex Golden Ale with Haribo Gummi Bears. Yup! I said, Gummi Bears. I admit, I am curious. The Bayou has The Annex IPL in their firkin, it will be dosed with Swedish Fish. So If you feel your not not getting enough gelatin in your beer, today is your hoof smacking day. I guess it goes without saying these gummi beers are not Vegetarian/Vegan friendly. The Bayou taps at 3:30 - Annex at 4pm.

Cheers!

New-ish Beer Friday 5/3/13

The following are technically previously released beers, but have been modified for a special release or  have been reformulated for abv adjustments.

Let's start with Shades of Pale Brewing. Not often does this brewery make appearances on New Beer Friday. They make three beers and they do them very well. Now they're releasing beer number four, that some of you may have tried in early 2012.

Ready to Fly Amber Ale was originally brewed to help promote the documentary “Ready to Fly” and to help raise awareness and support for Women’s Ski jumping. I fell in love with the beer and begged for it to go in to full production.  I guess it sometimes pays to be a pain in the ass. Ready to Fly will debut tomorrow at the Tour de Brewtah & will be poured at the Gallivan Center.

Starts with spicy malts, hints of graham cracker. The hops are piney with citrus notes beneath. it has a really nice balance. It's Amber Ale, not trying to be a Pale Ale. Very nice. Bottles should be hitting the SOP bottle shop within the next couple of weeks, draft will be available at various locations starting next week.  Check the SOP website for details on where to find Ready to Fly.

Desert Edge Citra in Red: If your a fan of Citra hops this beer will make you squeal like a school girl at a Bieber sighting. The fruitiness from the malts pairs perfectly with the citrus bitterness in the hops. The result is a quenching full flavored red ale that's like fruit salad in a glass. Haas, I would be very happy to see this on the menu every day. @ Desert Edge, Beerhive.

The Hive Winery is releasing Stinger and Stinger Dry, Utah’s first hard ciders. Made entire with Utah grown apples custom pressed by Rowley’s Red Barn Cider in Santaguin and hand worked and aged in small batches. Stinger will be available to purchase tomorrow, Saturday May 4^th at The Hive Winery. Currently this cider is only available at the Winery or at MacCool's Starting May 5^th. Coming out in 22 oz bottles and carrying a 6.95% ABV.

Going Away: Squatters' Nitro Cream Ale will no longer be in their regular line-up. Look for rotating beer on their nitro tap handles.

Also, congrats go out to some of our local home brewers for placing in the first round of the National Homebrew Competition. Winners of this round qualify for entry into the NHC Final Round competition in June during the National Homebrewers Conference. Here are the local award winners. I hope I didn't miss anyone. Here's a link to all winners.

Category 2 : Pilsner
2nd Place: Travis Grimm of Sandy, UT - Zion Zymurgist Homebrew OPerative Society (ZZ HOPS)
3rd Place: Brian Coleman of Draper, UT

Category 14 : India Pale Ale (IPA)
2nd Place: Chris Detrick of Salt Lake City, UT with Shawn Margetts, Daniel Schulz  - The Brewing Network

Category 22 : Smoke-Flavored and Wood-Aged Beer
2nd Place: Chris Detrick of Salt Lake City, UT - The Brewing Network

Category 1 : Light Lager
1st Place: Michael Johnson of Salt Lake City, UT   Zion Zymurgist Homebrew OPerative Society (ZZ HOPS)
2nd Place: Michael Johnson of Salt Lake City, UT   Zion Zymurgist Homebrew OPerative Society (ZZ HOPS)

Category 15 : German Wheat and Rye Beer
2nd Place: Michael Johnson of Salt Lake City, UT   Zion Zymurgist Homebrew OPerative Society (ZZ HOPS)
3rd Place: Michael Johnson of Salt Lake City, UT   Zion Zymurgist Homebrew OPerative Society (ZZ HOPS)

Category 8 : English Pale Ale
2nd Place: Tracy Johancsik of Murray, UT

Category 9 : Scottish and Irish Ale
2nd Place: Mike Mirabella of Salt Lake City, UT
  
Category 13 : Stout

1st		Chris Detrick of Salt Lake City, UT	The Brewing Network
2nd		Chris Detrick of Salt Lake City, UT	The Brewing Network

In an added note: Chris Detrick's & Uinta's Pro/Am beer from last year's Great American Beer Festival is finally going into production soon. Cahoots Double Rye IPA will be part of the Uinta's Crooked Line & should hopefully be available sometime June.

Cheers!

The Hive Winery

With all that's going on up at the State Capitol in the realm of liquor condemnation, it's good to know that there are still a few bright spots on the horizon.

Utahans who strive for a bit of normalcy come from all walks of life and continue to create a little bit of normalcy in our sometimes backward world.

Take Jay & Lori Yahne of Layton. These two Geotechnical Engineers have a passion that extend beyond their chosen profession. They love wines. Fruit wines and meads to be exact. And they want to share their passion with you. So they started The Hive Winery.

For month now the Yahne's have been formulating various wines and meads for a hopeful July release. "If all goes as planned we anticipate our Utah Red Raspberry and Utah Black Currant wines will be ready around the first of July". Jay informed me last week. "Our current capacity is about 1100 gallons per run. once we get our legs we will increase that amount to 2500 gallons per run. Due to how we make our wines we can make 2 runs per year which should ultimately give us up to 5000 gallons per year. If the demand for our wines is there we have the ability to increase this amount, but we want to see what demand is before we ramp up production".

The Raspberry and Black Currant wines aren't the only labels The Hive plans to offer. There's a Utah Peach Wine, Strawberry Wine The earliest these will likely be ready in August or September.

Meads are also due to be produced. The Yahne's plan on creating Melomel Meads as a signature wine line. A Melomel Mead is when the fruit and honey are fermented together. Jay believes this process intensifies both the fruit and honey flavors, and make for a better all around mead.

Meads seem to be a natural progression for a lot of beer drinkers and home brewers, I have a feeling The hive Winery will have a cult following when their first bottles are released. Remember you can't buy them right now, we'll be sure and get the word out later this summer.

Cheers!

Photo: Standard Examiner