As an amazing summer of tasting great craft beer winds down, the folks at the “I Love Beer Show” ended their second season of Beer Shows by tasting some unique craft beers from a variety of different craft beer breweries. Filmed live at “Jimmy and Myrna’s Cantina” on August 21st, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada, each member of the panel selected 2 craft beers to feature, and the results were a total of 8 craft beer selections every craft beer drinker should be adding to their refrigerator arsenal.
Moving forward, we went with the “Chicken Killer” from the Santa Fe Brewing Company, which is New Mexico’s oldest microbrewery. This very sweet, well rounded Barley Wine came in at 10% alcohol and had a really great balance of bitterness and malts making for a selection that we found to be very pleasing to the tongue and palette. You can pair this well with a variety of foods, from cheese right down to steak. As this was the first craft beer from this brewer that we’ve featured on the show, perhaps we have uncovered another winner with Santa Fe Brewing?
Up next was “Hops of Wrath”, brewed bottled and cursed from the Dust Bowl Brewing Company in Turlock, California. (that’s what it says on the label). If you want to introduce the IPA style of craft beer to someone, this is it! At 6.6% alcohol, this IPA had a great light feel to it with a moderate bitterness and a solid malt backbone. It had a fruity, floral, herbal, citrus aroma, with a bright hop flavor and a clean finish making it a classic balanced, and easy to drink IPA. Nice job by Dust Bowl – we are all fans of this previously unheard of brewery!
Tricerahops Double IPA from Ninkasi Brewing in Eugene Oregon was next on the hit parade. Fans of the show know how much we love the craft beers from these guys at Ninkasi and their delicious 8% Tricerahops is no exception! Ninkasi – named for the Sumerian goddess of brewing and beer and fermentation – has created a big, bold, in-your-face, masterpiece with this double IPA! It had a superb hop aroma ranging from piney/resiny to citrusy and tropical fruit. The hops are supported by a big, complex malt body that balances out the 100 IBUs extremely well and provides an excellent backdrop to the strong and very nice grapefruit, grapefruit peel, and bitter hoppiness. This was a 100%, across the board, big time winner for the show!
That ended our first round of craft beers from everyone. Then it was time to double down on our selections!
Moving on, we featured Sneaky Pete from Laughing Dog Brewery in Ponderay, Idaho. This craft beer was referred to us from a Cicerone local to Las Vegas who said it was one of her favorite Imperial IPAs of all time! – and when a Cicerone tells you that, you have to take note! At 10% alcohol, Sneaky Pete is a blend of five hops: Simcoe, Glacier, Centennial, Vanguard and Hallertauer, with Simcoe playing the dominate role at 30%. In addition, three separate malts were used: Honey Malt, Rye Malt, and Munich Malt. The brew has a copious aroma of white grapefruit, citrus overtones, a complex rich middle and a finish featuring wild clover honey flavors that make for a world class craft beer selection! The moral: listen to your Cicerone!
Innis and Gunn’s “Limited Edition Oak Aged Highland Ale” was the next craft beer featured on the show. Innis and Gunn is located in Edinburgh, Scotland and is no stranger to the show. We loved the presentation of this golden Scotish Ale, and the actual taste made it all even better! With a fragrant aroma of spicy and rich toffee and notes of heather-honey, raisins, and marzipan on the taste, this rich and rounded 7.4% english strong ale.made for a beautifully balanced, great tasting beer with a surprisingly smooth caramel but complex finish, proving once again you can’t go wrong with anything from Innis and Gunn!
We then moved on with another IPA called “Southern Triangle IPA” from the Rough Draft Brewing Company in San Diego, California – a brewery we previously never even heard of! This 6.5% IPA is actually named for a combination of hops all from the Southern Hemisphere: Nelson, Sauvin, Moteuka, and Galaxy. We found it to be a solid light-to-medium bodied brew for the most part, maybe a good introductory IPA for those just starting to get used to that particular taste profile, but it didn’t knock our socks off like some of the previous craft beers we featured on the show.
At this point, we finished off the show one of our favorite selections of all-time: Asylum from Left Coast Brewing in San Clemente, California. We’ve showcased this beer and brewery in a number of previous shows, but it’s so delicious, there was no doubt that you can’t end a season of craft beer drinking without this particular 11.7% alcohol Belgian Tripel that hits hard and will stand up to just about any other similar style beers out there! Quite simply, there aren’t enough superlatives to describe how good this particular craft beer is. If you can find this locally, get it – it’s highly recommended!
All of us at the “I Love Beer Show” would like to thank all our fans and everyone who participated in Season 2. Remember when you attend a live show, you drink the same craft beers we sample, just like Key and Mal from the Open Bottle Society and others did during this show!
We assure you season 3 episodes are already in the works and will kick off again in late September 2015, and will feature the debut of our “Craft Beer Mob” app! This free app will bring craft beer drinking to a level that currently does not exist and we’re very excited about its future. As we close season 2, we remind you to please stay up to date with our latest videos by subscribing to our YouTube channel too! Enjoy!… and we’ll see you in Season 3!
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