Palate Calibration - Session 3 (Canada & USA!)

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Palate Calibration - Session 3 (Canada & USA!)

Postby Trough Lolly » Thursday Aug 20, 2009 9:53 pm

G'day all,
Well not all that long ago I returned from a 2 week work trip to Canada and the US...This time, the boss foolishly let me go on my own so I had total control over where I'd dine and drink!! Yippee! Anyway, I thought I'd share with you the places and beers that I enjoyed.

LA Airport
Who cares if it's 7:00am, my body clock is telling me it's beer o'clock so let's have some!!

Green Flash Brewing Company - Hop Head Red - A very nice amber ale that had a hell of a hop punch. Pity the keg died before the second glass, but I got the half filled pint for nicks, so I won't complain!

Denver, Colorado
Sure enough, I got re-routed through Denver instead of Chicago, so whilst United paid for my unplanned night at the Radisson Hotel, I availed myself of their bar and found a couple of nice beers;

Fat Tire on tap! Yum, yum! Cheap and very moorish - an excellent start to the night

Blue Moon Belgian White - another offering from Coors that's miles better than their standard swill - I actually found it quite ok, but not awe inspiring

Budweiser - I had to have one of their "King of beers" as I'm in country. Perhaps it was because it was so late at night but the icy cold bottle actually tasted ok!!

Ottawa, Canada
United Airlines decided to lose my luggage (and I didn't get it back until I returned to Oz, some two weeks later :evil: ), so I needed some moral boosting beers, and there are plenty in Ottawa!

At D'arcy McGees at the top of Elgin Street I enjoyed the following - all on tap!!;
Beau's All Natural Brewing - Lug Tread Lagered Ale - a very hoppy kolsch

Creemore Springs Premium Lager - a nice pale lager that was fresh, crisp and free of DMS - quite nice but not world class

Alexander Keith's Red Amber - good but a bit cloying - a high volume locally made commercial offering that's a good reminder of what Toohey's Old used to taste like

Erdinger Dunkel - yes! A perfect way to end the night - all on tap and beautifully presented in the real glassware and not too cold either. A great beer that's highly recommended if you like something malty...

An absolute gem of a basement pub, further down Elgin Street is The Manx. This place is a beer lover's paradise and despite being a bit pricey, they love serving and talking about the wonderful beer selection that they have on tap. Here's a short summary of what I had over two nights;
Lug Tread Lagered Ale - yeah, had to go another pint to be sure - it was still nice!!

Churchkey Brewing - West Coast Pale Ale - This was my favourite beer of the whole trip - an outstanding locally made (Ontario) big bold American IPA - generous malt, hops and it was a hophead's dream. Spicy, peppery, floral, citrus, caramel toasted malts - the way a beautifully crafted IPA should be! Grab it if you can and you'll know why I'm raving over this monsterously nice beer.

McAuslan Brewing make some excellent beers - I had their St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout - very nice and well structured. Strong but balanced and quite a big mouthfeel with tons of flaked barley in the mix.

The barmaid was well into things by now and insisted I have a free pint of their Mill Street Coffee Porter - and how could I possibly refuse! Very nice, dark almost opaque but a lovely tan tight head that persisted all the way down with nice belgian lacing in the glass. A complex porter with plenty of choc, coffee, raisin, plum notes and an excellent citrusy/floral hop profile that may not be to style but kept the beer flavour profile in check and avoided it becoming excessively cloying

The St. Ambroise Apricot Wheat was a bit of a surprise - light, strong apricot fruit flavours with a very nice aroma but not at all cloying - very pale and clear

The St. Ambroise Pale Ale was a nice clean crisp but slightly uninspiring APA - but to be honest, my taste buds were still recovering from the West Coast Pale hopbomb!!

Two beers were on tap from the Wellington Brewery - I had the Arkell Best Bitter which was nice, plenty of UK caramelly malt and the hop flavouring was a bit too subdued for my likeing but I did like the peppery aroma from the hops - the pale copper colour was quite inviting but it wasn't exactly world class stuff

Wellington's County ale was a quite respectable English Brown but I've had better out of a home brewer's keg...

The Manx is a must visit if you're ever in Ottawa - the beers are aplenty and they also have a kick ass range of malt whisky - including two different single malts from the Glenmorangie distillery from the Isle of Sky - beautiful...thank gawd the hotel was walking distance!! :D

I also visited a UK style pub in downtown Ottawa - the Brixton I think but it was a commercial pub with mainstream beers that I won't bore you with.

With Ottawa meetings done, it was time to get to Washington DC and get stuck into some serious sightseeing and drinking....oh, and work meetings too!

Plenty of excellent beer bars and brewpubs to be had. First stop was Capitol City Brewing in downtown DC. A massive rectangular bar that has a small but very nice selection of 7 beers and they do the beers in pints or smaller samplers if you want to try them all and not get wasted before tea time!

The pale ale, kolsch and smoked porter were all very nice. Dimly lit but with a great atmosphere, you found yourself very comfortable despite being in the heart of a very big city! Food here is excellent - even the el-cheapo nachos are way too big but they're fresh, just like the way you like to make them at home when the munchies hit! Bar staff and even the manager were happy to stop and have a chat - very friendly and a highly recommended boozer if you're ever in DC...

Just west of DC is Georgetown and this place is a bit like Chapel Street and Toorak road all rolled into one very big suburb - read trendy and expensive. They are very much the snob end of DC - they refused to have one of those smelly, nasty Metro subway stops in their suburb!! So whilst there's not much reason to go there unless you like to blow your money on rubbish, there is one place that's definitely worth the $1 busfare on the DC Circulator from Union Station.....Pizzeria Paradiso.

Easy to find on the main drag running through Georgetown, it's basically a very highly regarded pizza joint. What's really important though, is that this place has an outstanding range of very nice microbrews - a beer geek's paradise with great pizza to boot!! So, with the rain falling outside, I perched at the bar and worked my way through the following pints:

Hofbrau Munich Original - palate cleansing and very nice. Served a bit too cold but it was a great way to wash the dust out of the throat - it's hot and humid as hell in DC at this time of the year...

Three Floyds Brewing - Jinx Proof Pils - named after the seedy tattoo parlor across the street, it is a deceptively nice pils. Clean, straw pale and very crisp. Probably a bit too heavily hopped for the style nazi but an outstanding pils nonetheless

Weyerbacher Brewing - Double Simcoe IPA - ran a very close 2nd to the best beer of the trip. Simcoe heaven. Easily 100+ IBU with massive malt, alcohol notes. This is an American Double / Imperial IPA and is a massive beer. This is not a session beer unless you have a cast iron stomach! Outstanding IIPA...and dangerous at 9% ABV.

New Holland Brewing - Mad Hatter IPA - Looks like something straight out of a cask from the Old Dart....until you taste it! Wow! An excellent American IPA, golden copper, massive lacing and a lasting head in the glass. Loads of Centennial hops mask some seriously stong alcohol notes fighting to tear your nose and tongue off! A surprisingly good finish that makes it dangerously moorish.

Another pint of the Hofbrau Munich and the Jinx Proof Pils and that'll do me for the session!

With the DC summer at it's most furious, I had to have liquids on hand in the hotel room to slake my thirst after the sightseeing walks (the Capitol Hilton is just off Lafayette Square behind the White House so it's nice and central). I had to make do with the Clay Pipe Brewing's Hop-Opocalypse IPA (very nice), Firestone Walker's Pale 31 (an excellent and cheap APA - not unlike SNPA) and as luck would have it, the liqour store across the street from the Hilton had Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA for $9 a six pack, so that took care of after dinner drinks!! :D

After the business in DC was done, it was back on the plane and down southwest to the massively hot Phoenix, Arizona. Temps averaged 119 degrees during the day (and forget about it getting cool in the desert at night - it got down to 98 degrees one cold night!!). So, cold beer was the go here!

3 million people call Phoenix home and they don't mind a party! There are sushi bars everywhere with scantily clad ladies munching rice thingos and drinking Sake with Asahi chasers. It was fun watching them getting wasted!

A ten minute walk from the Scottsdale Hyatt is nirvana - it is also known as the Yard House.
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With over 200 beers on tap, you sit at a massive rectangular bar staring at a bewildering array of beers on tap that are mounted on a floor to ceiling stainless splashback. Looking up you see row after row of Yardglasses hanging invitingly from the ceiling! This is not a place for the light beer drinker!!

If you want to read the notes, get thee to Beer Advocate and look me up, but here's what I managed to knock off during my last night in Phoenix and the US for that matter:

Four Peaks Kolsch - locally made and very good but not terribly close to style
Big Sky Moose Drool - Nut brown ale with US hops
Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA - Stong, hop filled, strong, pale and oh god, strong!
Rogue Dead Guy - a classic beer - sweet and sour and approvingly phenolic all at once! The barman described it as "Sam Adams on crack" and I'd have to agree!
Spaten Oktoberfest - I had to get the palate back on line so lets get the malt goin...
JW Dundee's Honey Brown - yep a lightly carbonated brown ale with loads of honey
Sam Adams Cherry Wheat - insanely sweet but somehow not cloying with lots of, duh, Cherry flavour
Shiner Bock - I had to get something decent to wash away the cherries!
Sea Dog Bluepaw Wheat - A pretty awful beer - low in malt, hops and reminded me of what copier fluid would taste like in a glass!
Stone IPA - Ok, now we're back in business - very nice. Strong yet balanced - nice lacing too
Stone Arrogant Bastard - I missed this one on the 200+ beer list but once I found it, well that took care of the rest of the night, choice-wise! Sorry, but it was cold, cheap and on tap so who's gonna argue! A bloody good dark ale with tan head and amazing structure.

So, it was fun - the meetings went well, the luggage eventually returned to Australia and the beers were great!

Cheers,
TL
Last edited by Trough Lolly on Saturday Jun 19, 2010 12:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Palate Calibration - Session 3 (Canada & USA!)

Postby buzzkill » Friday Aug 21, 2009 4:14 am

"United Airlines decided to lose my luggage" Damn the luck!!,who needs clothes when the beer is flowing.

thats one hell of a 'tasting' you had man..Americans love people with accents so I bet you had a good time....I still have'nt got to try the S.N. Toredo..but soon. :D
beer me.
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Re: Palate Calibration - Session 3 (Canada & USA!)

Postby warra48 » Friday Aug 21, 2009 6:50 am

Very very nice TL.

How the hell did you find time to fit work into that heavy but inviting schedule?
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Re: Palate Calibration - Session 3 (Canada & USA!)

Postby wrighty » Friday Aug 21, 2009 8:47 am

Excellent review T.L.

Im guessing but is your job beer critic/reviewer. :wink:
How does one get a gig like this. :?: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Im not an alchoholic i dont go to the meetings !
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Re: Palate Calibration - Session 3 (Canada & USA!)

Postby Will » Friday Aug 21, 2009 12:29 pm

You've made a good case for a trip to North America. 8)
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Re: Palate Calibration - Session 3 (Canada & USA!)

Postby Trough Lolly » Monday Aug 31, 2009 6:02 pm

Cheers for that - it was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. Losing the luggage was a major PITA but the abundance of pubs in Canada and the US made it easy to spend the night after having way too much dinner! Food is still ridiculously cheap there - I could eat like a pig at lunch for less than $10 without any problems. Most, but alas not all, bars stock at least 2 locally made micro beers - it's really encouraging to see locally made produce on tap and I hope it's something that will be commonplace here in time.

The supermarkets also routinely stock an astoundingly good selection of beers - whilst in Phoenix, I needed to get some bits and pieces and went to your typical Woolies equivalent supermarket and found no less than two full aisles of two door fridges stacked with chilled six packs of beer that would blow you away - it was very hard trying to choose only two six packs from the stellar array of beers (I had to go home the next day so I couldn't stock up). Several different Sierra Nevada beers (including the Torpedo IPA), Stones, Red Hook, Rogue, Sam Adams of course, Fat Tire etc etc and most of the beers were under $10 a sixpack...

Cheers,
TL
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Re: Palate Calibration - Session 3 (Canada & USA!)

Postby Oliver » Monday Nov 15, 2010 11:47 am

moral boosting beers


I find that most beer has the opposite effect :D

Cheers,

Oliver
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