Season 2, Episode 9: Henderson… Las Vegas… what’s the difference as long as you have access to great tasting craft beer, and when you broadcast a show live at Hi Scores Bar Arcade, you can be assured that’s going to happen. The best part about tasting and reviewing craft beers is that we’re quickly finding out no two are exactly the same. We highlighted some brand new beers that make for a must-try craft beer drinking experience as well as some great selections for the upcoming spring and summer months!
The show started out with us tasting the Alien Amber Ale from the Sierra Blanca Brewing Company in Moriarty, New Mexico, specially selected by Freddie Delatorre of Hi Scores who knows a thing or two about finding out about great tasting new beers and breweries.
Alien beer? Really? Well, at 5.2% alcohol, we’d have to say this beer was a pleasant surprise from what you would expect by looking at the label and description to the quality taste of the beer. It looked like a stout, but tasted completely different. We saw a dark amber color, smelled a sweet light malt aroma and a decent amount of hops and tasted a great crisp, clean, medium bodied flavor with hints of honey and molasses for quite a refreshing sensation for those liking a slightly sweet tasting beer. For a first launch beer, Sierra Blanca has a sessionable craft beer winner here, which made us all believers in aliens.
Our next beer on the show was the Sierra Blanca Nut Brown, another sessionable craft beer that tastes nothing like you’d expect from the color of the pour. Just because a beer pours dark like a stout or a porter doesn’t mean it has to have a Guinness-type taste profile. We tasted cinnamon and brown sugar, with a great sweet finish that stays on your tongue and is really light going down. It’s not an overpowering beer, but serves as a great craft beer selection for those beer drinkers making their way into tasting the bolder varieties of craft beer. If you like drinking Newcastle, this beer takes that flavor to the next level, so give it a try. And once again, it’s brand new!
Then Lindsey from Hi Scores brought out the 5.2% alcohol Orange Avenue Wit from the Coronado Brewing Company which tasted simply amazing! Freddie described it as “Summer in your mouth”, similar to a Blue Moon, only you don’t have to put anything in it to get the entire taste sensation. We found it to be a very citrus, orange zesty, light-bodied craft beer with an overall orange blossom honey taste. The next time you have a spring/summer BBQ, add this beer to your required tasting – even though it’s available all year around!
But it got even more lighter and refreshing with the next beer we sampled, the Lemon Shandy from Leinenkugel – It was almost like drinking a sports drink, but yes, it’s a 4.2% alcohol beer! If you’re a lemonade drinker, this one’s a no-brainer. And it pairs well with so many food dishes as you can imagine. Right from the start we smelled a very fruity aroma with lots of lemon and berries, and the beer tasted sweet as expected with touches of tartness to a clean, dry finish – another great refreshing beer!
And what better way to close out the show than a “beer cocktail”? Take grapefruit and malt, mix it with vodka and add Himalayan pink sea salt around it and you’ll drink perhaps the most unique and flavorable beer concoction ever! What we’re doing here is taking craft beer to the next level by adding more sophistication to beer drinking. You have to taste it for yourself to believe it, and going down to Hi Scores is definitely your best bet!
Remember, they have Tap Tuesdays there were you can drink as much as you want for $12 or show up on Thursdays for “craft beer and a burger” night for $10. And don’t forget to attend the Brew’s Best Craft Beer Festival at Lake Las Vegas on March 9th where Freddie will be pouring the beers and the I Love Beer Show fans – like Rose Christopher from Legal Shield – will be drinking it, and Dameron will have no more hair.
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