Thursday Night Drinking Club plus some Beer Reviews

Hit up my local Taco Mac last night. Thursday nights are pint glass night, you buy the beer of the month and get a nice pint glass to take home. November beer of the month was Terrapin India Style Brown Ale (review below), came with a pretty cool Terrapin glass. Also got to work on my Passport card a bit (a beer drinking list a Taco Mac, once you have had x number of unique beers you get free stuff ect.) and try a few new brew out, here are the reviews!

Terrapin India Style Brown Ale:
Ok, my love/hate relationship with Terrapin is well documented on this site. I find some of their beers absolutely amazing while others are just plain boring. So I really wasn't expecting much going into trying this beer. Pours a very dark brown with a small head. Good aroma, picked up a hint of hoppyness (a good thing, most of the Terrapin beers that I have really liked are the uber hopped ones). A very smooth mouth feel. The right amount of malt at the start, a hint of burnt toast and a nice slightly hoppy finish. Wow, I really liked this one. I guess my best comparisons would be if you took a Newcastle Brown Ale and mixed it with a Dogfish 60 min. A very nice brew, extremely drinkable and a definite change of pace. I can see picking up a sixer for a party. I'll give it 3 pints out of 5.

Weyerbacher Double Simcoe IPA:
First Weyerbacher brew I have tried. I have heard good things and this nice Double IPA meet my expectations. A very rich deep orange/copper beer with pretty good head retention. The hops hit you as soon as you stick your nose in the glass. Very smooth but kind of bland to start and then the hops hit hard. A bit overwhelming at first but by my second and third sip I was looking forward to the onslaught. Didn't really stand out from some of the other big doubles I have had, it did cover the 9% abv very well. A good IPA sure, but would I go out of my way to order it again? Maybe, but there are other doubles ahead of it that I prefer. 2.7 pints out of 5.

Terrapin Big Hoppy Monster:
Ok, just above I gushed a bit over my love for Terrapins India Style Brown Ale, unfortunately I also spoke of the love/hate I have come to find I have for Terrapin as a whole. Welp here is where the hate part comes in, although hate is a bit strong I was really more extremely disappointed in this brew. As a card carrying hop head (ok, no card but maybe I should make some....) I was expecting great things from a brew called "Big Hoppy Monster". In the past most brews that have used a form of the word "hops" in the title have please me quite well. Two of the best examples would be Victory's Hop Devil and Hop Wallop beers, both awesome brews with tons o' hops in them. Now, I knew something may be amiss when I got the beer and it was a very deep dark red/ruby color. I was expecting something closer to the deep orange/copper hue of most "hoppy" beers. It looked much more like an Octoberfest brew, a beer that repeat readers will know I am not that fond of. So, I put the beer to my lips and take a sip. Malt bomb up front, kind of rough really. So I tasted the malt, waiting for the hops to hit.....still waiting.....still waiting....Where the hell did the hops go? Maybe a hint at the end but the maltyness is so overwhelming that you don't notice any bitterness or floral notes from the hops that are supposedly in this beer. Again, a Terrapin beer that is not what it advertises its self as. I'll keep trying Terrapin beers because I know I'll find some great ones (Rye PA, Rye Squared, Gamma Ray, Golden Ale, Hop Shortage), but I also know I'll find some duds like this one (and the RoggenRauch, Oak Rye). I'll give it 1.8 pints out of 5.

Budweiser American Ale:
Yep, I tried it. It was my last beer of the night, I was driving and didn't want another 8%abv brew. My buddy that I was watching the football with said he had tried it and it wasn't bad, so I figured what the heck. Well, I knew something was amiss when our waitress (Tori, a very cool chick) asked if I was sure I really wanted to order it, never had a waitress chastise my choice of beer before. Looked pretty good in the glass and that was about it. Dear lord this brew is a mess. Yeah, it's an Ale with plenty of malt up front but what kind of grain bill are the brewers in St. Louis using? Very odd after taste that hung around, no hops at all could be smelled/tasted. The malt flavor was all over the range from kind of sweet to sour and almost rotten tasting. I would have rather had a standard Bud heavy than this swill. Ugh, not a good beer to end the night on. I struggled to finish it, chasing each gulp with a pull on the water glass and a mouth full of french fries. 0 pints out of 5, In my opinion this beer is almost undrinkable.

Those are the reviews for the day. Found two brews I liked, one that was disappointing but drinkable and one that I wouldn't recommend to anyone. I'm sure I'll have a few more after the weekend.

Happy Drinking!