Archive for the 'Odell' category
Odell IPA
So, I’m not going to spend a ton of time reviewing this beer from Odell, because I think my past reviews will indicate how I feel about this. I’ve never had a bad beer from the folks at Odell, I think their label art is swell, and I reach for IPAs about 75% of the time. Therefore, it stands to reason that I’m going to like this. A lot.
And I do. Frankly, I’m surprised by the pour, as it is much lighter than expected, coming out looking more like a pale ale or a lager than a full-bodied IPA. It is really quite clear, but I’d wager unfiltered – just a hint of cloudiness presents itself. The head is stark white, fluffing up quickly but then dying down to a thin ring around the glass. A substantial effervescence remains, with tiny bubbles rising to the top of the glass throughout the session. The aroma here is full of fresh hop – very flowery with a substantial citrus hint. In the mouth, this is an IPA by the book, and one of the better IPAs I can recall having. There is a ton of sticky fresh hop flavor with a bit of pineapple citrus throughout the mouth. I wouldn’t call this very complicated – it presents it’s flavor at the front of the mouth, and that flavor remains all the way through to the aftertaste. Perhaps the citrus flares up a bit in the middle of the tongue, relaxing into more of a hop aftertaste.
All in all, I’d rank this up there with the old standards of IPA-dom, like a Dogfish Head 60-minute or a Bell’s Two Hearted. It’s an incredibly tasty beer, mildly sessionable, and impressive value for the cost. Odell’s remains one of my favorite breweries…
Odell – Fort Collins, CO
If you folks have been keeping up with SevenPack the last week or so, then you know I’ve recently found myself a little obsessed with this brewery. They don’t distribute to NC, so I had never heard of them before seeing them on shelves in Colorado. Since then, we’ve had a fiery tryst, and I’ve been on a tear to try as many of their beers as humanly possible. And thus I bring an unexpected stop into the Colorado Beer Tour fold…
After a stop at New Belgium, Odell is a short 2
minute drive (or stumble) to another nondescript road, ending at a nondescript building. Just a small warehouse of a building with a cozy tasting room built into the side and a sign proclaiming “Odell Brewery” at the road. Once inside, you can tell you’re dealing with one of the currently-smaller breweries in town (Fort Collins Brewery is also down the road). The tasting room is small but cozy, with lots of wood grain, a short bar, and a blackboard behind listing the regular and special-edition brews currently on tap. Whilst waiting for the tour to begin, I availed myself of a flight of their current special beers. Here’s what I tried:
Isolation Ale: A dark winter ale. Not too different from most of the winter warmers out there. Dark malt with some spice, a decent hop profile, and some herbal, almost medicinal flavors peaking out. Pretty good
Extra Special Red: This was tasty. More or less an amber with some imperial aspirations. A very grainy amber ale with some maple flavors providing added richness and a slightly syrupy mouthfeel.
Cutthroat Porter: This one was on Nitro when I was there, which was its saving grace. I’m not a huge porter fan, and this one is pretty typical – smoky and rich, with some pork tints to it. However, the creaminess lent by the Nitrogen set it apart.
Buffalo Bourbon Stout: Now THIS is what they came to see. This is an imperial stout aged in Buffalo Trace Distillery bourbon barrels. A huge beer with lots of caramel and chocolate hints. Thick, syrupy feel with tons of bourbon flavor and richness. The hands-down winner of the brewery visit.
After the flight, I grabbed a pint of Easy Street Wheat to join the tour. This tour was, unfortunately, super crowded with a bunch of goons that had obviously been drinking quite a lot already. The crowd was loud and rather rude, but the tour guide was excellent, showing patience throughout the tour, and sassing the loud folks when they got out of line. This was, again, a quaint tour and not too lengthy or impressive. However, these facilities feel a lot more ‘used’ than New Belgium, giving us a better look at the actual brewing process. In addition, the tour guide was very knowledgeable and seemed un-stumpable when it came to questions. Overall, fairly informative, if short. Nothing standout-ish about the brew facilities, but a worthwhile destination for the beer and information, if you’re not familiar with the brewing process…
Odell “5 Barrel” Pale Ale
It’s my 3rd date with Odell’s – this time they’re treating me (okay, well, I picked up the tab, but hopefully the beer will be a treat) to their flagship pale ale.
The 5 Barrel pours about as beautiful as any pale ale I’ve seen. It’s a medium and almost luminescent golden color that is just slightly hazy and has a lovely ruby in the hue that only comes out deep in the center of the beer, giving just a light redness to the golden that seems to emanate from the heart of the beer. On top of this is a fluffy, thick white head that, while starting thick, slowly fizzles down, leaving it’s mark all down the sides of the glass as it dissipates. The scent of this beer is fairly sweet for a pale ale, being full of light malt. There isn’t a lot of hoppiness to the aroma, but there are definite floral hints that most obviously come from the hop oils, and it adds to the balance. In the mouth, there is an initial carbonation burn on the tongue that shocks the tastebuds a bit and seems to overtake any flavor complement. However, as soon as this burn subsides, we’re immediately hit with a light hoppy bitterness. This is joined by a malt complement that is richer than I would’ve expected, given the aroma. The malt is rich and full and, when combined with what is a rather full mouthfeel, gives this beer a great richness. The malt never loses its pizzazz, and the hops seem to dance around it through the mouth, starting bitter and becoming more floral and fresh towards the back of the mouth, eventually ending with an aftertaste that is lightly bitter with hints of caramel. Again, the full mouthfeel sticks around, making this a bit syrupy around the tongue and walls of the mouth. This certainly isn’t my favorite of my Odell’s offerings so far, but it’s very good. It is much bigger and richer than a Sierra Nevada, and in some respects it almost becomes a hoppy amber ale. However, Odell’s also makes an amber ale all it’s own. So, perhaps I’d better try it out before trying to rename Odell’s brews. Again, a quality beer from this new (to me) brewery – can’t wait to try some more…
Odell “Easy Street” Wheat Beer
So, after yesterday’s run-in with the Odell “90 Shilling” Ale, I must confess I have a bit of a man-crush on this brewery. They have a great portfolio of beer offerings, I love their bottle art and even the quality of paper used on their labels is superb – altogether, they offer a fabulous presentation. So, I’ve made some moves. I went ahead and got my hands on a couple more of their flagship offerings to review, and I’ve added them to my weekend “tour de force” of local Colorado breweries – with any luck, I’ll have something to write up about that, as well.
The Easy Street is an authentic American style, including a thick layer of yeast debris at the bottom of the bottle. In the case of this beer, like most wheat beers, you’ll want to be careful to agitate the bottle to get all of that tasty yeast into the glass. It also make the beer much prettier, trust me. Once properly poured, the Easy Street is medium golden and very cloudy, with a wispy white head that blows up and then quickly deflates to nearly nothing. In the nose, this beer is fairly unassuming. There isn’t anything pungent to the scent. However, if you really stick your nose in there, you’ll catch mostly hints of yeast, with some peripheral bits of wheaty malt. In the mouth, this beer starts at 1 and then turns the volume up to 11 as it travels through the mouth. Initially, it’s just light and mildly sweet on the tongue. However, as the beer slides down the tongue, the power of the yeast flavor expands greatly, being joined by some lemony flavors around the middle of the tongue and eventually, around the back of the tongue, presenting a quick shot of citrus sourness before sliding down the throat. In the aftertaste, the flavors on the tongue are simply remnants of the citrus and yeast, but the mouthfeel and flavor around the mouth indicates some remnants from the grain. Frankly, I like this beer more than I expected. I figured Odell’s would make a good beer, but I always lean heavily to the Bavarian hefeweizens and less towards the American counterparts. However, I feel that this represents an excellent hybrid of the two. It is lighter and a bit less yeasty than a Bavarian, with a bit less banana presence. However, it’s less metallic and more lemony than most American versions. Somehow, it falls right in the middle, being tasty and flavorful while maintaining a reasonable lightness in texture. And, thus, my man-crush with Odell’s continues…
Odell “90 Shilling” Ale
Be still my beating heart! Finally, FINALLY, someone in this cold, cold world has heard my cries, and they have broken ground with a ‘shilling’ beer here in the US. A bit of background – I spent a year of my brief life living in Scotland. During that time, I absolutely fell in love with a beer that you could find in any bar on any corner in any town in Scotland – that was “80 shilling”. I have no idea how many breweries made such a beer (I wasn’t yet a true beer nerd), but I know that any place I went, I could saddle up to the bar and ask for a pint of 80 shilling, and I’d get a tasty, malty, dark brown ale, and I knew that I wouldn’t pay more than a pound and a half for said beer. This was my bread and butter, on my tight student budget, for an entire year. There did exist 70 and 90 shilling varieties on tap most places, too, but I always fell for the middle-of-the-road 80 shilling variety – it seemed middle class, like myself, and just well enough balanced for my developing palate. So, while this may be 10 shilling greater than I would prefer, I’m so so excited that Odell’s has given us this gem…
The 90 shilling pours an interesting hue that is a blend of dark brown and medium golden, with just a hint of ruby thrown in. The head is course and barely off-white, staying thick around the sides of the glass and thin in the center. In the nose, this beer is again interesting – there is a combination of processed sweetness with richer dark malt aromas. Finally, the flavor. This thing isn’t quite a brown ale, it’s a bit too light for that. But, it’s certainly not a light ale. What we end up with is a beer that contains lots of sweetness, but not a terribly rich sweetness. Rather, it’s light and fleeting, but carries flavors of a darker malt richness without the corresponding big mouthfeel and complexity. The beer washes across the tongue with mostly this light sweetness. There is just the lightest hint of bitterness at the middle of the tongue, but this quickly disappears as the beer washes down the throat, leaving a relatively clean mouth with just some light bready flavors on the tongue. This is a pretty good beer – one of the best brown session beers you’ll find. Honestly, it’s been so long since I’ve had a legit 80 or 90 shilling beer, that I can’t tell you how it stacks up to Scottish norms. But, I can say it’s good, and I like it, and I’m still ecstatic that this exists. This brewery happens to be located in Ft. Collins, CO and, thanks to this beer, I’m going to make a point to visit this place in the coming weekend when I’m in the area. I’ll try to share my thoughts on the experience, and I’m hoping for the best!
