A while ago I sent Code a small assortment of beers from Ca. There were some good ones and a couple unusual ones. I didn’t know what types of beer were available in Missouri and come to find out I made him a very happy guy.
After a while and several phone calls I knew I would be getting 4 Sam Adams special glasses and a few bottles to go along with it. I ended up getting the glassware along with a huge assortment of bottles from O’Fallon, Schlafly and Boulevard brewing.
After several conversations I was told that the beers were no were near balanced as west coast ales.
After carefully unwrapping each bottle and transferring to the fridge we started our testing. First styles we dove into were the Wheat beers. Schlafly seemed to be real thin with aromas light in clove, wheat, apple and some phenol. Body was light and the carbonation faded fast. Not much in the way of flavor, some baked bread and a little sweetness started to emerge. Hops seemed to be real low. Boulevard was a little better showing more character and the O’Fallon’s had some nice honey notes that stood out. Next on the list was boulevard Lunar. After reading an article about Boulevard and Schlafly I was curious. This was an unusual one. It had an unusual Artichoke DMS aroma. Wheat with a noble type hop. Musty aromas also came through. Flavor had DMS and diacetyl along with mineral that tasted like bad tap water. Some wheat was coming through and it took a while to figure out. I chalked this one up to a bad bottle. Next came Boulevard ZON. A Belgian Wit in style. Not bad. It had most flavors Id expect from a wit, seemed to be thin but a drinkable beer. The Pale Ale wasn’t too bad; it just didn’t have the hop presence I would expect. I wasn’t sure what I would drink next. My wife would comment on how they were not bad but so far they all seemed to lack any alcohol. I didn’t realize most of the beers sent were all about or under %5 In that case they were actually better than I would have thought being so low. Im sure they would be much better on tap.
Several notable ones were the Bully! Porter from Boulevard and the Saison from Schlafly. I am also saving the Smoked Porter from O’Fallon.
Interesting to see what is being made elsewhere. I had always thought IPA’s tasted like IPA’s and everyone had access to %6 and %7 beers.
Several weeks later I brought a good number of the bottles to Dano’s house. He was having a brewing get together at his house and several other club members were present. We sampled the IPA’s and Pale ales with friends the beers that were just ok all of a sudden became better. We discussed differences between east/west beers just how fortunate we are to have friends to exchange good beers and stories with.
