{"id":20302,"date":"2016-06-14T10:15:35","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T15:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.guysdrinkingbeer.com\/?p=20302"},"modified":"2021-08-31T11:47:26","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T16:47:26","slug":"hot-takes-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guysdrinkingbeer.com\/hot-takes-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot Takes, Quick Tastes – Leinie’s, Bells, Rev\/Upland, Scorched Earth, Lagunitas"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/p>\nN<\/span>ot every beer\u00a0needs a chapter-length description of its many attributes. We could give you 1000+ words on each of the latest hopped-up pilsners and radler riffs (and we probably will!) but\u00a0not today.<\/p>\n So here, without further exposition\u00a0on our part, are some quick snapshots of beers we’ve recently been sippin’ on.\u00a0The internet would call these Hot Takes, or something like that. Maybe we’ll give you something new to try. Maybe we’ll save you $10 on that sixer you were considering. Either way, as always — drink at your own risk.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BEKoCZwrwh-\/<\/p>\n Put aside the insane amount of marketing material\u00a0they put behind this. Is it a good beer? Sure, it’s a good beer. But good enough to enter the pantheon of “year round Bells option”? I dunno. In summer, I imagine there to be two camps of Bells drinkers — Oberon<\/a>, and everything else. And everything else includes their Midwestern Pale Ale, their Amber, their Oarsman (totally underrated, btw) and of course, Two MF’ing Hearted IPA.<\/p>\n So, where does Oatsmobile fit in there? I guess it wedges itself in somehow, but I’m still not sure where. As session pales go — and I’ve had a few<\/a> — it’s firmly\u00a0above average. Nice lightly creamy\u00a0body from the oats but not massively slick, and an okay hop bouquet — but I was promised “stone fruit and tropical”\u00a0and I got pine\/vegetal. Weird, but not a death knell, and thankfully more than the usual boring hop-water that most usual session pales offer up.\u00a0Definitely worth a revisit, hopefully on a nice hot Michigan summer day sometime soon.\u00a0(This beer, as you probably have figured out by the above photo, was provided gratis.)<\/em><\/p>\n I’ll admit it – I judged the shit<\/em> out of this as soon as I saw the label. A sour? From hop-frenzied Lagunitas? The brewery that hops up their beers like they smoke joints and vice versa? How could it be any good?* Well, guess what — it’s pretty good. I had imagined that the dryhopping and the souring would battle each other out for supremacy but they actually compliment each other just fine. It’s not a mindblower, but go figure, Lagunitas made a decent sour. I’d love to see the process for souring a batch of one of those 250bbl monsters they’ve got down there on the South Side.<\/p>\n *I’ll admit — I have the same bias about the idea of Half Acre sours. It’s like, you guys make some of the greatest hop-forward beers in town. I hate to tell anyone to stay in their lane, so I’ll shut up and note again that\u00a0Aunt Sally has got me considering that maybe hop-happy breweries can also sour a beer too.<\/em><\/p>\n https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BF42SN_Lwmk\/?taken-by=guysdrinkingbeer<\/p>\n One of my many stops during Chicago Craft Beer Week was the self-distributed array of beers at Kaiser Tiger (the menu of which is pictured above), at\u00a0which I enjoyed the\u00a0cream ale from Scorched Earth called Hickster (also pictured above), made with (gasp<\/em>!) corn. We’ve talked a while ago<\/a> about how corn doesn’t need to be endlessly derided\u00a0as an adjunct, and\u00a0sooner or later\u00a0more good brewers will catch up to it — but right now, I’m happy to have Hickster around when I can find it. It’s just a good goddamn beer. It’s hearty, flavorful, a little sweet but also a bit bready with a little nip of some grassy bitterness at the finish and it’d be awesome in a tallboy can all summer.<\/p>\n A while ago I opined on Twitter that I wouldn’t be mad if cream ales were the new trend. Well, I’ve been seeing more and more, and I’m pretty happy about it — cans of Outboard by Milwaukee Brewing Company are another front runner — but even if Hickster were the only one around, I’d be just as happy. It’s a treat.<\/p>\n At this moment, anything other than a coffee pale ale is kinda revolutionary all over again, so kudos to Rev and Upland for bucking this minute’s trend. And not even a stout! A brown ale! Man, I love brown ales.<\/p>\n Anyways.<\/p>\n It’s quite good but I’m not completely<\/em> bowled over by this coffee brown — it’s got real good flavor but I found the body a little wispy. The coffee is decently present throughout and there’s an earthy, dirty finish like coffee grounds and English hops along with a sticky, lingering tail that I’ll assume\u00a0was done on purpose.\u00a0\u00a0Daring to release it in April\/May. Would love another go at it in early October.<\/p>\n
<\/h5>\nBell’s Oatsmobile Session Pale\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Lagunitas Aunt Sally Dry-Hopped Sour<\/h4>\n
Scorched Earth’s Hickster Cream Ale<\/h4>\n
Revolution\/Upland’s Revved Up Coffee Brown<\/h4>\n
Leinenkugel’s Beergarden Tart<\/h4>\n