The “I Love Beer Show” brought 2015 to a close on December 18th with an episode featuring some amazing craft beer selections from Worthy Brewing in Bend, Oregon and Burial Brewing in Asheville, North Carolina. How did we know to showcase these brewers for a season ending show? Research and word of mouth! As we’ve quickly learned from doing the show the last few seasons, you really can’t go wrong with any craft beer from Bend, and how can you argue with anything from “Beer City, USA”? (aka. Asheville, NC).
We opened the show with the Scythe Rye Pale Ale from Burial Brewing, a 7% great tasting IPA in a can. The deep amber pour resulted in a well headed caramel, nutty, and toasty grain profile. The rye provided that special bite that really accessorized the malt flavor beautifully and gave rise to the hoppy citrus aroma. The beer was very well balanced and the taste was crisp and refreshing with a great backend aftertaste that makes one wanting for more. The result: the bar was set high for this show, and Burial did not disappoint. In a word: delicious! It’s time to make a trip to Burial Brewing!
Up next from Burial Brewing was their Bolo Coconut Brown Ale, another canned beer we couldn’t wait to try! This 5.6% “food friendly” beer poured a nice deep reddish brown with a cream colored head, which started out with a slight nuttiness and mild roasted malt taste. But as the beer warmed, the coconut flavor appeared, along with a slight coffee chocolate roastiness that created a very enjoyable taste – not too sweet, but just right with a really nice aftertaste of coconut. Once again, another winner from Burial that should be tried for all the brown ale fans out there.
Then it was time to switch to craft beers from Worthy Brewing. We started out with their “Farm Out Saison” which was… phenomenal! This 7.3% farmhouse ale poured a yellow, hazy color with a thin and dissipating white head with decent lacing. We smelled a full aroma of malt, lemon, pepper, and some citrus sweetness leading to a taste that was spicy, tart, crisp, biting, and peppery. With moderate carbonation, the citrus mouthfeel yielded to an aftertaste that lingered nicely to create a complex really great tasting saison. Saison fans take note of this one!
Moving forward, we then tasted Worthy’s Powder Keg Winter Ale, a 7.1% American Ale that poured a clear hazelnut color with a small frothy white head with a lot of lacing on the glass. At 65 IBUs, the spruce, slight resin, and deep citrus peel aroma was balanced nicely by a nutty caramel malt and the taste was almost exactly as the aroma suggested. Besides the IPA like hoppiness, we also detected a slight coffee-like lingering aftertaste that was nice on the palate for an overall well balanced and drinkable winter craft beer. Worthy does it again with this one!
Worthy’s 4.5% alcohol “Easy Day Kolsch” was the next craft beer on the lineup. Kolsch’s are a great style of beer when brewed correctly and Worthy really hit the nail on the head with this one. Its bright gold pour with a nice white foam receded quickly dropping to a slim film with good lacing and steady carbonation. Along with a sweet smelling fruity aroma, we tasted a light crisp malt flavor with just the right amount of hops. The subtle hop bite and bready finish made this a very sessionalble beer that finishes sweet and refreshing that is far too easy to drink!
Up next from Worthy Brewing was their “Prefunk Pale Ale“, which poured from the can a mildly hazy amber color with slowly eroding lacing on the glass. With a juicy, fruity hop aroma, this 6% alcohol beer had a great bready taste where its fruitiness was balanced with a smooth creamy caramel malt profile, leaving a really delicate bitterness in the end. The mouthfeel finished off-dry making this craft beer selection a really pleasant IPA-adjacent type of pale ale, with just enough hoppiness to satisfy even an IPA drinker.
It was then time to taste the Worthy IPA, a 6.9% alcohol IPA poured once again from a can. The dark gold and amber color pour created a smorgasbord of faint aromas of citrus, pine, fresh-cut grass, and of course a good amount of malt. Then the flavor hits you with citrus and pine with a melon-like sweetness but also a bit of toast and bitterness on the backend resulting in a clean finish and an excellent balance that is very rare for a beer that combines a number of hop varieties such as Centennial, Crystal, Meridian, Horizon, and Nugget. This is a highly drinkable yet sophisticated IPA that Worthy should be proud of! Nice job!
We finished off the Worthy Brewing selections with their “Lights Out Stout“, an absolutely delicious 7.7% alcohol American Stout that totally knocked our socks off! The beer poured dark with a light creamy head as expected, and had a rich dark texture of chocolate and coffee notes that goes down really smoothly. Without even noticing, the vanilla taste has seemingly been infused into your taste buds along with bready notes with dark fruits and light roasted malt creating a smooth, creamy, dry finish. In a word: WOW! In two words: Get this!
Overall, we were more than impressed with the selections from both Worthy Brewing and Burial Brewing. We’d like to thank them both for their generosity in helping to make this such a great show!
As loyal “I Love Beer Show” fans know, we can never end a show without a “surprise” bonus beer to feature, and since we bid farewell to 2015, we took it up another notch with our last featured selection with “3 Philosophers” from Ommegang Brewing in Cooperstown, New York. Ommegang is perennially on our list of “Top 10 USA Breweries”, and as such, their 9.7% “3 Philosophers” Belgian Quadrupel can only be described as “World Class”. Enough said! From the minute we popped the cork and poured this outstanding beer, we knew it was the only way to celebrate the ending of a fantastic year.
We’re working to make 2016 even better! Everyone at the “I Love Beer Show” would like to wish you a “Happy New Year” and we hope to see at our upcoming events that we’ll be doing over the course of the new year. In the meantime, stay in contact with the show: like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and get with us on our new Instagram for the latest in the world of craft beer.
You guys are awesome! Thanks for the kind words. Let us know next time you’re in Bend. Cheers!