REVIEW: MadTree The Great PumpCan

So apparently brewers love Charlie Brown puns. This isn't even the last one you'll see on the blog this year. I've got another one waiting in the fridge. I suppose if you're going to go with a derivative name you could do a lot worse than referencing Charlie Brown. Plus, at least MadTree is putting their own spin on it. The great PumpCan is only available on draft as of yet, but cans will be coming at some point down the road. It's brewed with molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice and clocks in at 7.9% ABV and 18 IBUs. Let's get to it. To the beer!

REVIEW: Rhinegeist Franz

So last Friday I looked at an Oktoberfest that's about as traditional as you can get. Today, I'm checking out an Oktoberfest that's at the opposite end of the spectrum. I was taking with Bryant from Rhinegeist a while ago and asked him what they were cooking up in the coming months and he told me to be on the lookout for an Oktoberfest come this time of year. But how do you a brew an Oktoberfest, a beer that is traditionally lagered since March when you've only been open and brewing for a few short months. Well, apparently you stretch the rules a bit. When I grabbed this growler I asked how the beer was fermented since I knew they weren't going the traditional lager route. It turns out that it's brewed with an Scottish ale yeast which, as I was informed, acts sort of like a lager yeast when fermented at lower temperatures. I'm always in favor of bucking style guidelines. Let's see how this one stacks up. To the beer!

REVIEW: Rhinegeist Fiction

Today's post is a bit bittersweet. On the one hand it's awesome. I finally made the trip down to Over the Rhine last night to Rhinegeist for the tapping of their newest rarity, a Belgian style extra pale ale called Fiction. Man, If you haven't been down to Rhinegeist yet, get on it. The place is awesome. Big, open, bright, beautiful architecture, and fabulous beer obviously. It's exactly what I like to see in a brewery. Rhinegeist's brews are currently only available in draft so to get your hands on them you'll have to hit up a bar or head down to the brewery to do so. I highly recommend it, the beers are tremendous. So, today I'm taking a look at Rhingeist's second rarity, Fiction. To the beer!

REVIEW: Jackie O's Chomo-Lung-Ma

More beer from Jackie O's! This one has a pretty cool story behind it. Chomolungma is the Tibetan name for Mt. Everest. The brother of Jackie O's owner summited the unforgiving peak as part of an effort to raise money and awareness for lung cancer, hence Jackie O's unique hyphenated version of the name. But anyway, Chomo-Lung-Ma is a 6.5% ABV brown ale. Let's get to it. To the beer!

REVIEW: Jackie O's Firefly Amber

This post is going up awfully late in the day. If you've been just sitting on your computer hitting refresh all day waiting for my thoughts on beer I apologize. Wait, no I don't. That would be ridiculous. And you deserve the reaming you're bound to receive from your boss tomorrow for skipping that big presentation to stay home and wait on me. What was I talking about? Yes. Beer. That's it. Jackie O's has been around  in Athens, Ohio for years but has only recently begun canning their beers and even more recently have those beers become available in Cincinnati. What better beer of their's to start with than what they refer to as their "gateway ale," Firefly Amber. To the beer!

REVIEW: Christian Moerlein Saengerfest

It's been a good long time since I've taken a look at a Moerlein beer. Today's is one of my favorites. I remember fondly getting all inebriated drinking this particular beer at my friend David's wedding. I love a wedding with good beer. In fact, the reception was at the very building depicted on this label. Anyway, Sangerfest. It's a german style maibock, one of my favorite lager styles. Let's get to it. To the beer!

REVIEW: Columbus Summer Teeth

Today brings us the last of the beers from the Columbus trip. We're wrapping up with a beer from another brewery that frustratingly, does not distribute to Cincinnati. I was first exposed to Columbus Brewing's offerings at last year's Beerfest where I had the exceptional Bodhi and the unbelievably good Creeper. Neither of those today though. Instead I'm taking a look at Summer Teeth, their summer seasonal, a kellerbier. Which is an old German style of unfiltered lager that, heretofore I was unaware of. Let's get to it. To the beer!

Rockmill Dubbel

We're wrapping up the week with another of the beers procured in my trip to Columbus. The dubbel from Lancaster, Ohio's Rockmill Brewing. I don't know much about these guys other than this beer is certified organic. Also, I love a dubbel. So without further ado, to the beer!

REVIEW: Indigo Imp Firebrand

So the other weekend I found myself up in Columbus for a graduation party. As I am wont to do when I travel, I took the opportunity to grab a handful of beers that I can't get at home. We have one of those beers today. Firebrand, a Belgian style IPA from Cleveland's Indigo Imp Brewing. And how great is that label with that Mike Mignola-esque little demon? I checked around online just to double check that Indigo Imp's logo wasn't actually drawn by Mignola himself. It's clear that the artist responsible is a big fan. The use of shadow, the harsh, stark, angular linework, the deceptive simplicity. Beautiful stuff. If you dig the art on this label you will undoubtedly enjoy the art of Mike Mignola, one of my all time favorite comic book artists. He's the guy that created Hellboy. Hellboy, and it's sister book B.P.R.D are some of the best comics you'll ever read. Seriously, go check them out. Enough comics talk. To the beer!

REVIEW: MadTree PsycHOPathy

So the first two MadTree beers I've looked at this week have both been pretty great. The hearty, robust Gnarly Brown and the interesting and tasty Happy Amber. That just leaves us with PsycHOPathy. A 6.9% ABV India pale ale, which has quickly become my go to beer down at Great American Ball Park. Let's not waste any more time. To the beer!

REVIEW: MadTree Happy Amber

More MadTree! Hooray! I'm continuing my looks at the canned beers from Cincinnati's own MadTree with the beer we have here today. Happy Amber, a 6.0% ABV dry hopped amber ale. Amber's have never really been my favorite style. I realize the appeal and I get why breweries want them to have them in their lineup. Everybody's got to have a simple, approachable beer to appeal to the folks who aren't quite ready for IPAs and big stouts and this and that. But I dig what the guys ad MadTree do, so let's give it a shot. To the beer!

REVIEW: MadTree Gnarly Brown

I'm pretty pumped to finally be getting to some beers from the newest kid on Cincinnati's craft brewing block. I've enjoyed all of their beers on draught at various bars around town but only in the past couple of weeks have I been able to drink these beers at home. And in cans no less! I love it. And how about those cans? I'm getting a strong Entish vibe from this one. I can't imagine this brew will make me any taller though, which is kind of a shame. Although, perhaps those effects are limited to hobbits. But Gnarly Brown, a 7% ABV American brown ale, is surely a beer that would make Treebeard proud. To the beer!

REVIEW: Triple Digit Gravitator

So Bockfest was this weekend. I went and had a great time, but I didn't really feel like there was enough there to warrant a blog post. But I didn't want to let the weekend pass without taking a look at one of my favorite beer styles, the venerable doppelbock. The biggest and maltiest of all of the lagers. This one is from Cincinnati's own Triple Digit Brewing whose beers I have been on the hunt for since being blown away by Chickow! Let's not waste any more time. To the beer!

Cincinnati Winter Beerfest 2013

Beerfest is back! I've been looking forward to this for quite some time. With this year's beerfest I made a concerted effort to only drink beers that I had never had before. There were a ton of great brewers there, all pushing a ton of great beer, so I had options. I also made an attempt to take some quick notes on each beer. As is understandable, those notes became less verbose and eventually disappeared as the evening wore on. It happens. I made an effort! To the beers!

REVIEW: Mt. Carmel Stout

So with Cincinnati Beer Week coming to an end and Beerfest on the immediate horizon I wanted to do one last Cincinnati beer for the time being. And with that, My thoughts shifted to Mt. Carmel. I've looked at each of their seasonals, the Snapshot Series Third Shift Imperial Coffee Stout, but never any one of their core offerings. I was at Jungle Jim's and I saw a bottle of their stout sitting on the shelf. I believe this is the only one of their beers that I've never even tried, let alone featured on the blog. Time to rectify that. To the beer!

REVIEW: Fifty West Armadillo Crossing

More Fifty West goodness! I mentioned a handful of the beers that I tried in my visit to Fifty West, A bourbon barrel aged stout, a big American IPA, but the beer that really stood out to me was this one here. A session brown ale brewed with local maple syrup called Armadillo Crossing. A year ago, I probably may not have even ordered this beer, but as I've mentioned in recent weeks I have come to appreciate a good session beer. It takes some real finesse to make a beer low in alcohol but full in flavor. And as we will soon see, the brewers at Fifty West have that Finesse in spades. Armadillo crossing checks in at a scant 4.2% ABV and 35 IBUs. To the beer!

Fifty West Taproom

With Cincinnati Beer week in full swing I thought this would be the perfect excuse to get out there and check out some of the things that I've always been meaning to, but for whatever reason haven't yet. Namely, Fifty West. Now, I've had a few of their beers. I had their hefeweizen at the Cincinnati Craft Beer Oktoberfest, and I had their Coast to Coast IPA at the Cock & Bull in Hyde Park a few weeks ago. Both were quite good and definitely left me wanting more. To get more I would have to go to the source. So this past Saturday my girlfriend Meredith, and my friends Devon, Brian, Courtney, and I headed out past Mariemont on 50 (appropriately) to drink some beer. To the beer!

As soon as we walked in the door I could tell it was going to be a good night. Not because of the great beer, or the awesome location, or the good crowd, or the friendly bartenders. Not that any of those were lacking. But really, Thickfreakness on vinyl blasting as soon as I walked in. Talk about setting a tone. At Fifty West, rather that hooking up an iPod there's a record played behind the bar and a couple cartons full of records. The bartenders were taking requests from the crowd. In addition to The Black Keys we also heard some Led Zeppelin, some blues, good stuff all around.

Time to get down to what we came for. The beer menu was written on three big chalkboards. There's a good varitey, IPAs, stouts, brown ales, wheats. Something for everybody. I decided to go with the Armadillo Crossing, a session brown ale brewed with local maple syrup. Meredith went with a tasting flight that ran the gamut of their styles. Everything from a very light, approachable kolsch, to a big bitter IPA. The beer is excellent. The brown ale is absolutely delicious, but we'll get to more about that later in the week. Among the other beers I tried was their Coast to Coast IPA on nitro which was wonderful as well. I love seeing brewers experiment with more than just stouts on nitro. There's no reason why the roasted malts are the only beers that should be able to enjoy the decadent creamy smoothness that only nitro can provide. I would love to see a brewer experiment with a nitro barleywine or a nitro Belgian dubbel. I bet those would be amazing! 

The brewing facilities are right there on site, around the corner from the taproom. I'm definitely going to have to try and get back there another week to get a tour and talk to some of the brewers. 

The taproom is a great place to hang out. Low, wide beamed ceilings, plenty of comfortable high top tables and a lower room with booths and a fireplce, walls of plaster and exposed brick, tasty bar snacks. It's a downright cozy place to be! The crowd on Saturday was large and lively but I never felt like I had to shout to talk to my friends and it never took too long to get a beer at the bar. Fifty West is a great place to get a beer. In fact, after just one visit, i'm quite confident in saying that the Fifty West taproom is one of the best places in the city to get a beer. I can't wait to go back. This place is great.

If you needed any more convincing that this place is cool, check out their delivery vehicle.

I mean, come on!

EDIT: I was extremely remiss in failing to mention two huge things that I enjoyed about my visit to the tap room. One was the delicious Loneliest Bourbon Road. A lovely stout aged in Buffalo Trace barrels. This one definitely had all if those fabulous bourbony aromas and flavors that were so sorely lacking in the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Stout I looked at the other week

Another thing I appreciated about Fifty West was the quality of their glassware. Most of the beers were poured into standard shaker pints, but when appropriate the beers were poured into tulips, like you can see above holding Coast to Coast Nitro, snifters, and an absolutely gorgeous tall weizen glass. I'm glad to see Fifty West takes as much care with their glasses as they do with what goes into them.

REVIEW: Cincinnati Beer Week 2013 Embree's Northern Dark Baltic Porter

My friends! Beer Week is once again finally upon us! That reminds me, with Beer Week here, I'm reminded that a few of my earliest posts dealt with last year's goings on. I totally glossed right past my one year anniversary! So let me take this opportunity to belatedly thank each and every person who has checked in here every other day over the past year. It's so cool and totally gratifying that people get a kick out of this stuff. It's also cool because it makes that 'est. 2012' up in the masthead look slightly less preposterous. Stay tuned, because I have zero plans of shutting this thing down any time soon. There's way too much beer that I haven't had. Anyway, now that that's out of the way, back to Beer Week and more importantly, this beer. Last year to celebrate the inaugural Beer Week all of the local brewers got together at Mt. Carmel to produce a big, monstrously hopped barleywine. A beer that I was able to try and thoroughly enjoy. But also a beer that I am kicking myself to this day for not grabbing a six pack of. I imagine it would've aged amazingly. If anybody was forward thinking enough to lay a few bottles of that down let me know how they turned out! For this year's version Rivertown handled the brewing and bottling. There were also a few more cooks in the kitchen on this one. But in this case, that is categorically an advantage, as it just means that there are more Cincinnati breweries throwing their two cents in. Collaborating on Embree's Northern Dark Baltic Porter are Blank Slate, Christian Moerlein, 50 West, Great Crescent, Listermann, Moerlein Lager House, Mt. Carmel, Rivertown, Rock Bottom, Samuel Adams, and Triple Digit. Phew! I can't imagine there are too may cities in America that can boast too many more great craft breweries than that. OK, I've rambled enough. Let's see what we've got here. To the beer!

REVIEW: Hudepohl Classic Porter

Right up front, I have to give you guys a disclaimer. I have been fighting off a bit of a cold lately and am a bit stopped up. So my senses may not be up to their usual acuity. Sorry if this review suffers at all as a result. All right, that's out of the way. Today's beer is the newest offering from Hudepohl. I'm excited to see them trying these seasonal releases, I enjoy their Festival Bock, and for the price, their Summer Pils isn't half bad either. I'm a big fan of a good porter so I'm excited to see what's in store with their Classic Porter. To the beer!

REVIEW: Triple Digit Chickow!

Well, 2012 is nearly at an end. It certainly has been fun. Many delicious (and a handful not quite so delicious) beers have been drank. And now, on December 31st I have one more to add to those ranks. And 2012's last beer is a cool one. It's from Cincinnati's own, Triple Digit Brewing. The beer is Chickow! A 10% ABV double hazelnut brown ale that, if you remember, I had for the first time at the Cincinnati Craft Beer Oktoberfest.  When I had it then I likened it to an alcoholic Yoo-Hoo. Lets see if that comparison hold up at home. To the beer!