Beer Tasting

I've been checking out some beers recently and I thought I would share my findings. In Boston, we had so many local breweries and it was fun discovering new good beers. Still checking out the SF/Oakland beer scene as well as some others from around the world.

 I have to start by saying that the viking on the bottle was my main reason for checking out these two beers. Einstok beer is brewed very close to the arctic circle near the town of Akureyri, Iceland. The brewery has a total of four beers they make: White Ale, Doppelbock, Pale Ale, and a Toasted Porter. One interesting note is that their beer is only available in Iceland, The United Kingdom and California. I could only find the two above.

Pale Ale: Huge let down! They say they use the purest water from glaciers and rainfall and that's pretty much what it tasted like: water with a couple of rusty pennies thrown in for good measure!

Toasted Porter: After starting off with such a terrible first beer, I had extremely low expectations for the Toasted Porter. However, I was shocked at how good it was! Lot's of toffee, chocolate, and caramel notes, slightly smokey, and not to heavy. They defiantly won me back with it and I'm going to try and seek out their other two beers.

These next set of five are all from the West Coast. 

Full Sail LTD Pale Bock: Full Sail Brewing Company is located in Hood River, Oregon. They have been around since 1987 and have a total of seven beers. The Full Sail LTD was a limited edition beer and only made in very small batches. I popped the top expecting a nice light beer and instead got a whiff of canned peas. It was gross!! Extremely flat, no flavor, and the smell of peas was very hard to get over.

Scarlett Red Rye Ale: Made by Speakeasy Brewery here in San Francisco, they are a very small brewing company but seem to dominate most of the area. Their Scarlett Red Rye Ale upon first sniff smelled very hoppy and I'm not a huge fan of hoppy beer(I tend to stay away from most IPA's). However, all was not as it seemed because it had a very smooth taste, not to heavy, with light caramel notes. Defiantly will try this again.

Prohibition Ale: Since their Scarlett Red Rye was so good, I checked out the Prohibition Ale. This one was classified as an amber ale but was very hoppy. If you like IPA's, you should enjoy this beer. 

Baba Black Lager: This next beer heads inland to Salt Lake City, Utah from Uinta Brewing Company. They have a huge range of beers to choose from with some pretty colorful labels. Baba black lager is just as it says, a pitch black beer that is quite smokey on the palate. It reminded me a lot of Guinness beer but without any taste. A little bit of a let down. I will however check out some of their other beers as their selection is quite vast and I'm sure I can find something I like. 

Full Sail Nut Brown Ale: I wasn't expecting much after such a poor performance from their LTD Pale Bock. The nut brown ale didn't have any real smell to it when I opened the bottle. The taste was light if not slightly bitter but very, very, sweet. They say they use a good amount of chocolate malts in making it and it shows. If your into sweet beers, it's not bad. Me on the other hand, I'm staying away from Full Sail. Just not the beer company for me.