Saturday, March 15, 2008

A Couple Surprises

I found myself scratching my head last December, wondering how North Coast's Old Rasputin Imperial Stout was rated so high by beer lovers. The bottle I had was a drain pour. I had it fresh from the tap a couple days ago and it was a great beer, one of the best Imperial Russian Stouts I've had. My apologies to North Coast, I don't know what was wrong with my palate a few months ago.

A new beer I got to try was the Craftsman Heavenly Hefeweizen. Not very many people know about Craftsman but they make some very good beers close to home here in Pasadena. It's taken me a while to try most of their offerings so I decided to bite the bullet and order the hefe even though it's not particularly my favorite style of beer. Of the two basic flavors that generally come from the hefe yeast this one was tilted more towards the clove, and not so much the banana. The wheat provided a great backbone and it was overall a very good hefeweizen.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I think I'm the only one who thinks this beer has a distinct bubble gum flavor to it. Haven't had it in a year or two, maybe its different now.

Interestingly enough, this is one of the first beers I tried at Father's Office, back when I had just turned 21. It really opened up my eyes to the whole craft beer movement. Up to that point I mostly drank High Life and Pacifico. Weird, huh?

Anonymous said...

Talking about the Heavenly Hef, not the Stout.

Hmmm, bubble gum stout...

Steve said...

I forgot to include that... one friend I was with who tasted it said bubble gum I believe. My taste buds get pretty overwhelmed with any amount of clove so it's hard for me to detect anything else (except banana and wheat) in a hefe.