Dez's Brewz and Reviewz: New Albion

I should start by welcoming you all to the new home of Dez's Brewz Reviewz. A novice beer drinkers thoughts, observations and musings while tasting what's what in the world of beer...with an emphasis on Minnesota, Midwest craft beers.

Word seems to have spread quickly on the release of this remake. A quick check on google and twitter brings up not only hundreds of reviews but it seems like anyone who's anyone in the "craft beer" world has got their hands on a bottle of this if not only to take part in the seeming "nod" to New Albion founder Jack McAuliffe. History alone is enough to try this beer out. The story of someone who literally pieced together a brewery and made a go of it, unsuccessfully, but left such a lasting impression on the industry that 30 years later, Sam Adams reproduces your recipe. I'd say they did something right back then, and again with this one. Their New Albion is quite good. It pours clear, yellow-golden, light white head. A slight hoppy smell, just enough to taste, but never over powers your taste buds. I'm not a regular fan of pale ales. I'm not on the Hoppy train most of the craft beer world seems to love right now. But this beer I could drink. At a time of the beer year when I'm sick of winter, growing tired of dark, smokey, coffee infused everything, the timing of this was perfect. I read how Sam Adams was getting some negative feedback on the earlier release of their spring seasonal mixed sampler packs. To me, its perfect. I want to think about the winter turning to spring and the days getting longer and sipping beers like this, humming "oh its such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you" and watching the sun go down. Its hard to rate this one, only because Pale Ale's aren't my favorite, but this is quite good. Dare I say a beer history lesson in a bottle?  ** 1/2 GREAT
 

Beer Night in the 612

 

 

Wednesday seems like a pretty boring day. Too far removed from last weekend to fondly look back and relive the fun that was had and too far away from the up coming weekend to get excited about it. I found out last night though that Wednesday is the perfect night for some local beer fun!

 

 

I heard about 612Brew opening their new tap room, so after a long day at work I jumped in my car and headed to Northeast Minneapolis to check it out. The place is awesome! It was a mix of industrial, modern, and hipster. There is a huge beautiful mural painted on one wall and a good sized bar on another. Everything else was pretty much nice wood tables and brewery. They played some good tunes in the background instead of the usual elevator music b.s. some places force you to suffer through. It is a great place to have a beer with a great vibe to it.

 

 

There were four different beers on tap. Pints were 5 bucks and flights of the four were 11 bucks. I wanted to try them all, but since I had plans to go to another beer event after this one, I just went for a pint of 612’s Zero Hour. It was a hoppy black ale that was very tasty. One thing that I liked about it is how clean the mouth feel is on this beer. It seems like lots of times aggressively hopped beers have this thick lingering mouth coating feel. This one didn’t have that, but yet still had a good hoppy aftertaste that lingered for a while. I thought this was a pretty cool attribute to this beer that helped create a refreshing drinkability.

 

 

After finishing my pint of Zero Hour I headed over to the Nomad for Midweek Beer Geek. If you haven’t been, you should try to make it sometime. It is a weekly event put on by Andrew Schmitt, the MN Beer Activist, where one certain beer is spotlighted each week.

 

 

This week’s beer was Weyerbacher’s Insanity. It is their barley wine that they aged in oak bourbon casks. It was malty, boozy, and super cloudy with absolutely no clarity to it. After the bartender shook up the keg a little that did improve a bit. The cloudiness was attributed to the beer aging since 2011. Some settling has to be expected when a beer is sitting there for 2 years. All in all it was a good beer, but at 11.1% A.B.V. you should approach this beer with some caution.

 

 

No more middle of the week blahs. We live in a great area for great craft beer. You don’t have to break the bank or stay out too late on a work night to have fun. Just head out for a pint in a great setting or head to the Nomad to try something you have probably never had before.