As I mentioned in my last post, Stone is one of my favorite breweries. The beers that they make are very distinct in flavor and are easily recognizable. Arrogant Bastard Ale is a regular favorite of mine. While I was San Diego a few weeks ago, I stopped by the brewery to take a tour. It was incredible to see how efficient a professional level brewery is. The entire space is primarily filled with giant fermenter tanks and a single station with a grain mill and brew tank where all 100,000+ barrels (1 barrel = 31 gallons) were brewed last year. Pipes line the ceiling connecting the brew pots to each other and to all the fermenters. If ever in the San Diego area (North County specifically) stop by the brewery. They have several free tours daily that each end in free samples of some of their beers!

People travel all over world to come to Vegas. The city tries hard to make these visitors feel welcome by having a little bit of their home somewhere in town. There are “mini-cities” amongst the hotels, there’s a buffet for nearly every ethnicity of food, and various attractions featuring animals from all around the world.
But what about beer? I’ve found a few shops and bars in town with large selections of beers so I presumed that this town had the beer scene covered. However, as I started following different out of state breweries on Twitter, as I regularly read other beer sites and as I’ve gone to bars in other states, I’m hearing of so many breweries that I have never heard of before. After a while I begin to wonder why it is I hear so much about a particular brewery, but have never seen it on tap or even for sale anywhere.
Recently, the Brewers Association released a list of the top 50 breweries of 2010 (based on volume of beer sold). Of this list of 50, only ~20 of the highest selling breweries distribute in Nevada. Looking through my Untappd profile, the only beers I’ve had that were not of the 20ish breweries that I’m referring to were either:
A: purchased while I was in another state
B: shipped to me from another state
C: from one of Las Vegas’ local breweries or
D: not an American brewery.
That being said, Las Vegas is not a destination for craft beer. The beer that is distributed here, is definitely very good. My 3 top breweries distribute here (Stone, Dogfish Head and New Belgium), but there is still so much more that this city is missing out on.

– George Takei

ALC/VOL: 7ish%? The bottle has the gravity listed in Plato and I don’t feel like doing to the math to convert it into alcohol by volume.

Color: Dark amber brown.

Smell: For lack of a better term, it smells like every other brown ale. Just a bit nuttier.

Feel: A bit more carbonation than most brown ales.

Taste:  It tastes a bit nutty!

Strong hazelnut taste. Do not drink too cold or the hazelnut flavor will be a bit hidden. It has a very basic brown ale base to it but the hazelnut extract makes this a very unique tasting beer.

Overall: Very unique, great tasting beer. I have yet to taste a bad beer from Rogue. That being said, this beer has a very distinct taste and as such, it might be a bit much to have more than one.

Lastly, I don’t think I have ever been disappointed by the artwork on Rogue’s labels.

Thumbs up.

ALC/VOL:7%

Color: Rich Amber

Smell: Grapefruit citrusy hop aroma

Feel: Pillowy soft head, medium mouthfeel, medium to low carbonation.

Taste: Hop bitterness is very present but not overpowering. Same with the hop aroma. Low level malt sweetness.

Overall: This is a definitive, west coast American IPA. Very strong, very present hop character.

One of the better IPAs that I’ve had from a small San Diego based brewery. Sadly they do not distribute to Nevada. The brewery is worth making a stop at if you are ever in San Diego. They often have one-off/unique beers on tap. When I was there I had a habanero version of this IPA that had a very spicy finish!

As I mentioned previously, no promises on how long this blog will last. Also as I had previously mentioned, school has kept me too busy to spend time here.
That said, I plan to continue this, but with a new focus:

Beer

I know, I know, this site already is a beer site. Here’s the difference though: this has been unintentional. I have been posting the things that I have been finding interesting. Unintentionally, this has been about beer. I am now intentionally planning on solely writing about beer.

The next obvious question, is why?

I like beer. Specifically craft beer. The stuff that consists of multiple types of grain and hops and the beers that actually taste like it came from plants. In my opinion, beer has a far wider span of taste qualities than any other alcohol. Yes even wine.

But more than that, I like drinking beer with friends and family. This is the way alcohol is meant to be enjoyed. It is meant to bring people together, to laugh and enjoy each others company. Yes, alcohol can be easily abused and can tear people apart. But when used in responsible moderation, it brings people together.

The craft beer community specifically is about bringing people together. Craft beer consists of only 5% of all beer sales. The other 95% go to only 2 companies: Anheuser-Bush InBev and SABMiller-Molson Coors (Yes only 2 companies and those are the actual company names after all the merging). Beer, one of the most quintessential American past times, is dominated in America by companies that are not even American (anymore). Because of this domination, craft beer companies solely focus on actual people, as opposed to advertising and money. Attend any beer festival or visit a brewery and you will see exactly what I mean. Having visited the Stone brewery this past week, I saw employees share their passion for the company in their tours and beer descriptions. I saw employees on their lunch break sharing a beers together in the Stone restaurant.

To that end, I want to people to come together and support real American companies. Companies that create art out of their passion as opposed to creating a product as cheap as possible to improve profit margins. When I had my beer tasting party last month, I loved seeing such a large group of people, gathered around 30+ beers and sharing them back and forth, recommending to each other their favorites, laughing and having fun together.

So what does this all mean for this site?

Living in Las Vegas I will primarily focus on craft beer that is distributed to Las Vegas. I will continue my reviews but add recommendations on where to find it for sale in town. When I go to a bar and restaurant in town, I will write about what their beer list looks like and recommend what to order. As I visit some of the local breweries, I will add posts about their beers. On a larger scale, I will write about the beers and breweries that I admire and recommend (did I mention that I visited Stone? I’m still excited about that). I will write about current events in the beer world and how it affects consumers. I often try to find ways to use beer as an ingredient in my cooking so I will add those recipes here too.

On top of all that, I have been planning to start brewing beer and will likely start in the next few months. There will definitely be quite a bit to write about once I start with that.

Eventually, I will change the domain name to something that makes a bit more sense. In the meantime, please give me your thoughts on what you like and don’t like. I don’t want to keep this up just for myself.

ALC/VOL: 7%

Color: Reddish Auburn

Smell: Very hoppy aroma

Feel: Medium body/average carbonation and mouthfeel

Taste:  Strong hop taste. Light citrus finish.

Overall: This is a very good beer. It tastes very similar to Dogfish’s 60 Minute IPA. There’s not a strong apricot taste. It’s present more so in the finish but not in aroma or body. Just lightly citrusy. Despite how good this beer is, I feel like there is little uniqueness compared to 60 Minute IPA to justify the price increase. A four pack of Aprihop costs the same as a six pack of 60 Minute. I might need another to get a definitive opinion. Either way, saying this tastes like 60 Minute is not a bad thing. 60 Minute IPA is the gold standard of IPAs.

ALC/VOL: 4.2%

Color: golden yellow

Smell: Broccoli

Feel: crisp and well carbonated

Taste:  The initial taste is some sort of vegetable. It’s not broccoli. I can’t put my finger on it. The finish is very pilsner like.

Overall: The brewery calls this an aroma hop ale. It definitely has some sort of flowery, vegetable like aromas to it. I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it. It’s not that it’s a bad beer. It is good, but I’m not exactly in the mood for something like this. The problem is, I’m not exactly sure when I’d be in the mood for this. I might be a bit generous with this brewery since I liked their Witty so much. I don’t want to say it’s bad, it’s just unique. And for that I want to commend them for taking a chance with something different. It may be a bit weird, but it’s still a good quality beer.

ALC/VOL: 10%

Color: Black

Smell: Dark chocolate, espresso, burnt toast

Feel: Big foamy head gives this beer a smooth feel. Little to no carbonation.

Taste: Tastes like it smells. The dark roasted malts give this beer a very coffee-like taste.

Overall: Sea Monster is a beer for people who love dark beer. This is a very dark beer. Darker beers are made with malted barley that is roasted longer than the barley used in lighter color beers. Much like the darker coffee roasts, Italian, French or espresso roasts, darker roast beer has a very defined smokey, bitter taste.

This beer is very similar to World Wide Stout that I reviewed earlier. The tastes are almost the same. The main difference being that this has almost half the alcohol content that World Wide Stout has. This gives the beer a less alcohol pungent taste, and a little bit more carbonation. All in all, this is a very good beer.