Archive for the 'Uinta' category
Uinta Anglers Pale Ale
Next on our roster from the Beer of the Month Club is something from Uinta Brewery. I’ve had a generally good experience with these guys, despite the fact that I’ve only had a couple of their beers. This one is a pale ale – a fairly straightforward genre with much potential for success – so I’m hoping for a good showing!
The Anglers Pale pours a deep ruby-golden color with a thin but very persistent off-white head that sticks heavily to the sides of the glass. The aroma here is fabulous – it’s robust and sticky and full of fresh floral hops. The hop presence here is exceptional for a pale ale, and more akin to something I’d expect to find in an IPA. In the mouth, I’m instantly sold on this beer. It isn’t a typical pale ale in that hops are present here in much higher quantities, and they’re great floral and fresh hops – delicious. It also isn’t an IPA, as there are more pronounced deeper malt flavors, almost akin to a light amber. Finally, even though there is a lot of flavor here, the beer is rather light and doesn’t weigh heavily on the palate or belly. These characteristics work together to make a beer that is extraordinarily flavorful but washes away clean and refreshing. Apparently this was made to appeal to the outdoorsy sportsman crowd, and I think it has accomplished this goal – nothing sounds much nicer than a cooler full of this stuff and a nice day of fly fishing out on the river. However, if you’re more inclined to sit on the couch, I think you’ll still love this beer. I really wish I could buy this here in NC – I certainly would.
Uinta 15th Anniversary Barleywine Ale
This is a bittersweet review for me folks. I bought a sixer of this brew whilst in Columbia, SC to keep me company at the hotel room (hint – if staying at a hotel with no fridge, bigger darker beers such as barleywine ales are quite delicious at room temperature). I quite enjoyed this brew for the duration of my stay in Columbia, electing to bring one back to NC to review in the comfort of home. However, somehow this bottle seems to have lost its carbonation during the trip and is completely flat. So, we’re losing some of the essence of this beer. However, much of the value of a barleywine ale lies in its big flavor, and we can still capture a pretty good picture of this sans gas.
This barleywine pours a deep brownish-purple hue with lots of dirty debris floating around. This particular glass had zero head, due to the carbonation issue, but I recall a thick and rocky caramel head from my previous bottles. In the nose, this is full of rich caramel aromas, subdued by some more bitter aniseed notes. In the mouth, this beer full of rich, sweet flavors. Again, there is a ton of caramel here, coupled with some more decadent toffee flavors. However, there also exists some rich bitter flavors reminiscent of horehound candy with some more refined brown sugar essences. Altogether, these flavors combine to make a rather decadent brew that wouldn’t be out of place at the dessert table. This one doesn’t lean too far to either the bitter or sweet sides of the equation, but rather offers a well-balanced barleywine that is slightly skewed towards the sweet. Overall, it’s an excellent barleywine, and the best Uinta brew I’ve had to date.
Uinta Brewery King’s Peak Porter
This is the third installment from the November Beer of the Month Club pack. Like I said this box was chalked full of dark beers with the porter being the darkest of all. This brewery hails from Salt Lake City, Utah which is surprising to me because that city is 99.9% Mormon and they don’t drink beer. My question is who’s buying this stuff? Either they have a lot of non-mormon tourists or there are a lot of closet mormon beer drinkers. For those that care, this brewery is economically friendly as it is 100% wind powered which, according to their website, prevents “the release of 888,000 lbs (444 tons) of carbon dioxide a year. It is the equivalent of planting 174 acres of trees (87,180 trees) annually or not driving 951,270 miles.”
It’s a porter folks, I don’t need to tell you it looks like used motor oil. Furthermore, in true porter fashion is smells and tastes like dark chocolate. It’s mildly bitter and smokey and thus there isn’t anything surprising about this beer. It is “what we thought they were.” I don’t really know what else to say. It’s a porter, not a bad porter, but in my book just a porter. I’m not as familiar why this style so I can’t pick out the intricate characteristics but I can say it is drinkable. I anticipate getting hammered by the readers like I did in the past because I don’t “appreciate” this genre as much as others so bring it on, I’m ready. One thing I can say is it’s unique to me because we can’t get this particular brew on the east coast. All in all this is a decent beer but not outstanding to me.
