South Shore Nut Brown Ale Review

Name: South Shore Nut Brown Ale
Style: Brown Ale
ABV: 5.25%

It's been a while since I've taken a look at anything from South Shore Brewery. My first impression of the brewery with their blonde ale was not what I would call favorable, but a few weeks ago I had today's beer on tap at Sir Ben's and was impressed with how it tasted. So I took it upon myself to seek this out in bottle form to do a proper review.

The beer pours a dark brown color with a thin white head. Lacing is pretty moderate but I'm not picking up on any visible carbonation.

The nose is chocolate malt and roasted barley forward. I'm also picking up on some floral hoppiness and some toffee maltiness as well.

The flavor is chocolate and toffee malt forward with a mild floral hoppiness and some light roastiness on the back end of the flavor. As for the aftertaste, it's a blend of bitter hops and roasted barley. The palate is moderate in terms of weight and the carbonation is also fairly moderate.

Overall it's a pretty good brown ale. It's by no means a complex beer but it's a good tasting beer. I'm not sure how widely available this is, but it's worth trying out if you ever see it.

South Shore Nut Brown Ale - 8/10

Tyranena Rocky's Revenge Review

Name: Tyranena Rocky's Revenge
Style: Brown Ale
ABV: 5.75%

For the final beer of the day, I'm taking a look at Rocky's Revenge from Tyranena Brewing Company, which is based out of Lake Mills, Wisconsin. This is a brown ale of which a portion of the beer is aged in bourbon barrels.

So why the name, you may be asking? Well I did some research and I found out it's half urban legend & half inside joke. According to local legend, Rocky is a Loch Ness Monster-like inhabitant of Rock Lake, which borders the town of Lake Mills. There's also something in there about Rocky being the protector of the local populace. If anyone who resides in Lake Mills happens to come across this blog, feel free to correct me to your hearts content.

Rocky's Revenge pours a dark brown color with a thin white head. Nothing really in terms of visible carbonation and the lacing is fairly sparse.

The aroma has a potent vanilla and caramel maltiness upfront. I'm also picking up on some chocolate notes along with some mild oakiness. As it warms up, the bourbon barrel-aged aspect really gains some momentum.

The flavor starts out with some roasty chocolate & caramel malts with some nice vanilla and oaky notes. There's also some mild floral hoppiness but it's eclipsed by the rest of the flavor profile.

The body is moderately weighted along with the carbonation, which is also moderate and gives the flavor a bit more depth.

My only complaint about this beer is that it's not completely barrel aged; I can only imagine how it taste if it were so. Perhaps as a limited release beer maybe? For the time being, it's still an excellent brown ale and worthy of your attention.

Tyranena Rocky's Revenge - 9/10

New Glarus Cran-Bic Review

Name: New Glarus Cran-Bic
Style: Lambic

ABV: 6%

It's been a couple of month since I've reviewed anything from New Glarus Brewing, so I think it's time to break that dry spell. For this review, I will be taking a look at Cran-Bic, their cranberry lambic which is aged in oak barrels. I've never had anything sour from New Glarus before and lambics are not exactly as mainstream as IPAs are.

Cran-Bic pours a clear pink color with a high amount of active carbonation. The head itself too, is a bright pink color but the retention is quite fizzy and disappears almost right after the pour. As expected there is no lacing retention here either. Looking at the beer, it kind of reminds me of a bubbly pink Moscato.

The nose has a strong cranberry scent with some equally strong lacto notes to back it up. I'm also picking on some oak notes, which no doubt comes from the barrels that were used to age this beer.

The flavor is surprisingly sweet upfront with some sweet cranberry notes with moderately tart lacto taste. The oak isn't as prevalent in the flavor but it does provide some dimension to the actual taste.

The palate has a pretty light body along with the carbonation, so this is a pretty easy drinker.

Anyone who is not a lambic fan will not be won over by this, but this is a nicely balanced and flavorful beer. Although I haven't had as many lambics as I've had say.....IPAs, I can safely say that you're getting your money's worth by checking this out.

New Glarus Cran-Bic - 9/10

Nick of the Northland

When I first started this blog last year, my intention was to make it an outlet for my thoughts about the different craft beers I tried out and nothing else. To me, there was nothing better than coming home from work, sitting down at my desk, cracking open a beer, and writing my thoughts about it.

A few months after my blog started, my job brought me to Duluth. It was when I moved here that I discovered that the craft beer scene in this area had a lot to offer and I tried covering it to the best of my abilities. However with all the writing that I was doing, I still considered it to be a hobby, went about my daily routine and gave it no second thought.

Then earlier this year, Dave Grandmaison from The Duluth Experience contacted me to help promote the North Shore Craft Beer Roundtable, to which I was more than happy to help with since I knew just how vibrant the craft beer scene in Duluth-Superior was. After the first Roundtable event, I drove home with my notebook full of notes sitting in the passenger's seat and was thinking of ways I was going to present my notes in a blog post. It was during this time I was hit with a realization that came out of nowhere: I wanted to make a living in the craft brewing industry.

Back in 2012, during my last semester in Augsburg College, I along with other seniors had to take a Keystone course prior to graduating and the purpose of the class was meant to make us reflect on our college experience as well as our respective career paths we had carved out for ourselves. Now when you take a bunch of graduating seniors and put them in a room once a week for 2-3 hours to talk about their college experience, chances are that their attention span will be like that of a five year old who just drank a can of Mountain Dew.

For all the times we brushed off the lectures, one of the professors talked about finding our personal vocation and how some of us will realize our calling when we least expect it. It took me two years after taking that course to figure out what exactly he meant by that, so perhaps he knew what he was talking about after all.

After this actualization, I began to take myself as a writer seriously. Suddenly my writing was no longer about beer reviews. As I continued to do more promotions for The Duluth Experience, I started conducting interviews with figures in the craft brewing industry. I was even taking time to attend craft beer-related events as well as visiting different breweries that were either well-established or that were just starting out.

Then this past June, I met a gentleman by the name of Lee Witte, who runs NorthlandBeer.com along with his partner, Marissa Sauer. I told him about my blog and offered to help promote events that Northland Beer was organizing, of which you have probably seen posts on this past summer.

Recently I was given the opportunity to become a major contributor for Northland Beer as a columnist called Nick of the Northland. It is a position that I am very honored to have and I'm excited to bring my knowledge and expertise to a wider audience. My duties will be mainly covering the craft beer and events in the Upper Midwest, as well as doing special interest posts (i.e. Seasonal recommendations, Q&As, etc.) as well as highlighted beers that I feel should be shared with readers.

Never in a million years would I have guessed that when I first started this blog that it would've taken me here! From all the awesome people I've met to all the fun times that I've had (as well as many more I'll have down the road), I cannot wait to see what the future holds for me.

Now before you start getting any ideas, I'm going to get this out of the way right now. This blog isn't going anywhere. I will still be posting on here as usual. After all, it has been good to me and I still feel there is tons of ground to cover both on the local and national level.

Thank you all for your support & remember.....

"Good people drink good beer."

- Hunter S. Thompson

Cheers!

- Nick

Ale Asylum Unshadowed Review

Name: Ale Asylum Unshadowed
Style: Hefeweizen
ABV: 5.5%

I have one more beer from Ale Asylum out of Madison, Wisconsin called Unshadowed. From my understanding, this is also one of their newest beers to be released and has been added to their year-round lineup. I also regret not snapping of a photo of the full label because I think the bottle artwork is extremely cool.

Picture courtesy of Beerpulse.com

Unshadowed pours a bright yet hazy orange color with a white soapy thin head. There is some mild visible carbonation and some soapy lacing.

The nose has a fairly sweet malted wheat and banana scent upfront. There is also some pale malts on the back end with just a light touch of floral hoppiness.

Flavor starts out with a banana sweetness which is followed up by some wheat & pale malts. Also much like the nose, there's also a light floral hoppiness on the back end of the palate.

The body is reasonably light and the carbonation is also very mild and quite manageable. I don't think anyone should have a problem drinking this.

Unshadowed is a fairly standard, albeit, good Hefeweizen and fans of the style will no doubt enjoy this. I would say that this is worth checking out if you aren't 100% sure what to get next time you go beer shopping.

Ale Asylum Unshadowed - 8/10

Weekly Duluth Beer Roundup for June 15, 2014

Since the my last post regarding the Duluth Craft Beer Scene received was mostly positive, I will continue doing these Roundup posts every week if I'm able to do so. This week was a busy one for me and I'm still in the process of getting everything unpacked and set up from my move a couple weeks back. Between work and all of that, I was only able to venture out to one brewpub this week and that was Thirsty Pagan Brewing over in Superior, WI.

Since I was last there they have added a ton of seasonal beers to their lineup. Around September of last year it was around maybe 3-4 seasonals but this time around I counted 9 and a couple of which caught my eye to the point where I just had to try it out.

Thirsty Pagan Rauchbier (5.5% ABV) - Finally, a Rauchbier (smoked beer) that is locally made and it has been a long time since I've had a good Rauchbier. It starts out with a solid smoked malt flavor followed up with some mild but nice hoppiness before ending with some lightly toasted barley. Definitely lighter in terms of appearance, body and even a little bit in the flavor than what I'm used to seeing in Rauchbiers but I would still highly recommend checking this out!

Thirsty Pagan India Pale Lager (6.7% ABV) - It's nice to see that the IPL-style is starting to gain traction amongst the craft beer crowd. This starts out with a nice citrus and piney hop profile with a solid pale malt base and a bitter resiny aftertaste. I usually see IPLs come out around the springtime so this makes for a very nice seasonal.

Thirsty Pagan The Patriot (4.8% ABV) - A Pilsner made with All-American malts and hops, hence it's name. This has a nice floral hop profile backed up by a Pilsner malt base with a hint of oakiness thanks to the hops used in this beer. The light body and relatively mild carbonation give this a nice crisp and clean finish.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this. Hopefully I will have inspired some of you to go out and try these beers out if you get the chance.

Cheers!

- Nick