Great Taste Part 2 of 3

Imagine all that beer in only a few hours! Decisions, decisions. Plus, I knew I only had a small window of time before I would have had so much to drink the whole notebook thing would go out the window. So would my taste, that is the time when I can drink crap like PBR.

Onward!

As Florida (from whence we came) is full to the brim of scary tourist traps- the Mouse being the big one- we are used to the things coming out of tourist towns to suck. And be really expensive.

Moosejaw, out of the Dells, seemed to be better than the average beer. Maybe because even in Wisconsin we are not going to fuck around with beer? The apricot (style unsure) was spicy, cleansing, hoppy, and fruity up front. This was no Dogfish Head Aprihop, but it was a nice breath of fresh air on the warm day. The trippel I also tasted, damn I am a sucker for Belgies, was the usual yeasty, quaffable, big-avb. It was kinda "meh"- no real depth, a xerox copy. If we do get the urge to visit the Dells for some indoor water park, mini-golf, or Indian casino action- we'll stop by.

Not only am I a sucker for Belgies, but I'm also a sucker for odd ingredient beer. Seaweed, pine, heather, juniper, peppers....anywhoo Kuhnhenn was not originally on my list but one of the guys we were talking to in line told us to stop by. Holy crap I want to drive way the fuck out to Detriot and have more of their beer. They seemed to do alot of the "ancient" recipes with bizarro ingredients. The heather ale had the mulling spices, honey, almost wine taste to it. Coating mouthfeel, just on the good side of cloying. I like these guys at times, but it may be too sweet for others. Drew tried an interesting brew that he rushed over to have me taste too. I think it was called the 'Sahti' and it smelled strongly of juniper, clove, pine/spruce, and cardamom. All the crazy flavors seemed to work together, it was such an interesting taste (no hops so I'm pretty sure it was an ale) that I'm not sure I could pair it with food- nor do I think I could drink more than one. I get the feeling that they try odd beer flavors often, we missed their legendary creme brulee sadly.

For beer geeks out there, apparently Twin Cities brewer Surly has some sort of cult following or at least some beer geek cachet. Yep, we got Surly. At the booth itself we tried the Bender; a drinkable brown that had some malt, oatmeal, fruit and spice. Just my kind of drink for most of the year with its crisp mouthfeel. Also tried the Coffee Bender: are coffee beers done yet? This one was a typical example, decent but I think I'm over the coffee beer thing in general so if YOU like coffee beers- this is nice.

Next entry: The real ale tent and all its goodness. And a couple more beers with slightly slurred notes and a slightly slurred memory. I will also share in some non-beer related catty observations.