Archive for the 'Starr Hill' category
Starr Hill “The Love” Wheat Beer
Starr Hill is a brewery out of Charlottesville, VA that I was able to enjoy only briefly before they were scooped up by Anheuser-Busch a few years ago. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem that AB has done too much to ruin a good thing, as I’m generally impressed with Starr Hill offerings today. This wheat ale, “The Love”, is one I haven’t had yet, but happened to run into in Wilmington, NC…
The pour of this is typical wheat ale – light golden and cloudy with a hefty cake of debris at the bottom of the bottle. The aroma is very yeasty with a bit of citrus to burn the nose, leading me to believe that this is likely of the Bavarian style. In the mouth, these suspicions are confirmed, with the flavor profile of this coming somewhere between a German hefeweizen and a Belgian witbier. There is an initial slight burn on the tip of the tongue, awakening the tastebuds and giving this an extra crisp taste. Through the mouth, the primary flavor component is sweet yeast, though the light wheat flavors are also prevalent. Helping out is again, some citrus flavor with a lemon rind sharpness and maybe just a hint of banana floating along in the back. All in all, it’s a great take on the genre – good for the summertime and fairly priced at $8 for a sixer. If they’d stick this stuff in a can, it might be the beach beer for the season!
Starr Hill “Darkstarr” Stout
One of the first, I think, in a series of signature brews from Charlottesville’s Starr Hill brewery, it pours an impenetrable black (meaning: I hold it up to the light, and like a black hole, it sucks it in). It’s a chocolaty head, medium sized bubbles, and its redolent of coffee and chocolate (a dark mocha, I suppose, though I’m not into the frufy coffee drinks). It’s smooth for a carbonated (rather than a nitrogenated) stout, though it does make the mouthfeel a nothing-special experience. But I prefer it to the other dark beers I’ve had from Starr Hill, and were a six-pack to come to my fridge, I would enjoy its presence. In other words, though I don’t usually pick up Starr Hill’s at the store, I might actually consider it in this case, largely for that color and the balance of the brew.
