1001 Beers

Beer No: 42/1001
Page No: 93
Category: Amber

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!  For today's celebrations, I headed down to Total Wine & More and picked up all the Mexican beers I could find from 1001 Beers.  I was actually quite surprised to find 3 of the 7 Mexican beers at Total Wine.  I expected the Dos Equis XX Amber and Negra Modelo to be there, but not this one, the Cucapa Chupacabras.  Brewed down in Mexicali, master brewer Roberto Gonzales has taken his U.S. craft beer experience south of the border.  Unfortunately, with this pale, it doesn't really pay off.

1001 Beers mentions that he took a standard pale ale recipe and blended it with waters from the Colorado River, which are quite high in mineral content.  Supposedly, the water should help extract the sugars from the malt, but I just didn't taste it.  I found the beer slightly bitter with too many malts and just not the consistency I would expect from a pale ale.  But in the end, I think what put me off about this beer was just how basic it all seemed.  There was nothing special or redeeming about this pale.  It was drinkable, maybe even sessionable, but just bleh.

My review, cross-posted at RateBeer.com:

Cucapa Chupacabras Pale Ale from Cerveceria Cucapa

Aroma: 5/10
Appearance: 3/5
Taste: 5/10
Palate: 2/5
Overall: 9/20

Rating: 2.4 / 5.0

Had from bottle from Total Wine six-pack. Pours clear copper with good carbonation and frothy head. Lacing is minimal. Aroma of sugar, malt, and just a hint of hop citrus. Flavors are weak, mostly malty, metallic, and bitter. Hops definitely get lost in the malts in this one. Body is watery with good carbonation from start to finish. Too malty for a pale, bitter finish. I’ve had much better pales.

Beer No: 13/1001
Page No: 240
Category: Amber

For two days without work, it certainly has been hectic for me.  Yesterday, I had to cut a hole in a wall, call a plumber out, and then call the water department regarding our pressure.  Today, I took a class on QuickBooks (yay...), became a Certified Beer Server, baked some bread, and then went to our monthly poker game - a game which had to move because someone had to call the state licensing board and complain that we were playing poker in a pizza parlor.  At said game, I was unfortunately treated to Michelob Amber Bock (their tap selection sucks) and then after we moved, they collected money for beer and I had to drink a Bud Light.  But luckily, I knew I had a good beer in the fridge waiting for me when I returned home.

That beer comes from Japan - Baird Brewing's Rising Sun Pale Ale.  Brewed similar to a west-coast American Pale Ale, there really isn't much that is surprising about this beer.  But it is a good pale ale.  Malty with a bit of hops, nice head, good finish, but again, just nothing special.  Founded by Ohio-native Bryan Baird (Go Blue!), 1001 Beers points out that he started with just an 8-gallon brewing system.  He finally moved up to a two-barrel system and now has a lineup of seven regularly brewed ales.  Not bad for a small brewery two hours south of Tokyo.  And not bad that he gets distribution stateside.

My second Japanese beer review in a row, I can guarantee you tomorrow will not be #3.  I put a couple of different beers in the fridge from my 1001 Beers selection boxes, so I'll just see what I'm in the mood for.  I don't believe I'm doing anything special tomorrow, so it might just be a day to veg out after two days that had more work in them than I expected - especially when I could have used a nice day off on Monday to sleep in and do nothing while it rained outside.  Speaking of that...it was in the high 70's on Sunday, rained Monday, and then was again in the mid to high 70's.  Crazy weather.  I guess it's going to hit the 80's tomorrow and Thursday, so that should be nice...though I prefer it just a bit cooler as I would like some more Spring weather and save the heat for Summer.

My review, cross-posted at RateBeer.com:

Baird Rising Sun Pale Ale from Baird Brewing Co.

Aroma: 6/10
Appearance: 4/5
Flavor: 7/10
Palate: 3/5
Overall: 13/20

Rating: 3.3 / 5.0

Had from bottle. Pours with large head which lasts until the end. Lacing is adequate and carbonation good. A standard pale color of gold and copper with a white head. Malty aroma with a slight hint of hops - definitely not an imperial. Flavor again mostly of malts with a slight sweetness to the finish. A good pale, but nothing too special. Easy to drink, good flavors, just your standard pale.

Beer No: 2/1001
Page No: 491
Category: Blond

I had hoped for something a bit more exotic for beer #2 of my 1001 beers, but when you see one lone Sierra Nevada Pale Ale sitting in the fridge, it has to be imbibed.  This poor bottle was the sole survivor of last night's festivities.  During that time, 5 of his brothers perished and 6 of his cousins, the Torpedo Extra IPA also gave their lives.  But he survived, showed true grit, and almost made it to the weekend, but it was not meant to be...

So while this lone bottle might not be the most exotic or rarest beer in the book, when I started reading about it, I was happy about my selection.  The author calls it "one of the most important beers in th[e] book."  First brewed in 1980, this pale clocks in at just 5.6% ABV, but the true genius of the beer is the ability to perfectly balance the hops and malts.  And the true beauty of the Sierra Nevada lies in the hops.  Randy Mosher continues, "Sierra Nevada's founder Ken Grossman wanted to make a beer that didn't reference English pale ales, and that had a pronounced hop aroma - there weren't that many in those days."  It goes on to recount how he formulated the original recipe and used a new strain of hops for the time, Cascade.  It's hard these days to imagine a beer world in which Cascade hops don't exist.  They're a staple that first appeared in the late 1970's and are used in most every American pale, IPA, or any hoppy beer.

1001 Beers goes on to talk about how it is still brewed to this day with whole hop cones rather than hop pellets, a tradition that I hold near and dear.  Though I have recently converted to hop pellets for recent home brews, I do believe that some of our best beers (Arkh Brew is a collaboration between myself and a friend) contained whole cone hops.  I just believe there's something more "pure" about using the cones instead of the ground cones that make up the pellets.  I hope one day to return to whole cone hops and, hopefully, create something as amazing as Ken Grossman's quintessential pale ale.

A final note: this post is labeled with (Bottle) at the end because, and this was news to me, there is a draft version of this pale ale that is available on tap only at Sierra Nevada Brewing Company.  It's a long, 8.5 hour drive away for me, but one of these days I'll make it out there.

My review, cross-posted at RateBeer.com:

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (Bottle) from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company

Aroma: 8/10
Appearance: 4/5
Flavor: 7/10
Palate: 3/5
Overall: 14/20

Rating: 3.6 / 5.0

Had from bottle. Pours golden-amber with a slight, quickly dissipating head. I might be a little too used to the Torpedo, so the hops are a bit too disguised within the malts in this finely balanced pale ale. Aroma of hops, citrus, and sugars. Flavors are a nice balance of hops and malts. I have to just remind myself that this is a pale ale, and not an IPA or an extra IPA. It’s supposed to be balanced, not too hoppy, and not too bitter. In that case, Sierra Nevada does a great job here.