Thomas Neeson's SMaSH IPA

A good friend of mine started homebrewing about a year and a half ago. I've tried some of his beer and it is quite good. He's a grad student up in Vermont studying Education and he is a talented musician as well. He doesn't have a brewing website yet but as soon as there is something I will put a link in here.

The most recent batch he gave me to try was an all-grain brew of an IPA that was dry hopped. This was his first all-grain brew and he had been doing extract brews before that. For those who don't know what that means: extract brewing means that you are brewing using prepackaged malt extract where as in all-grain brewing, you are creating the extract yourself by creating the extract yourself by mashing different grains to create the wort.

The beer poured a hazy, gold color with a thin white head. There wasn't very good retention of the head and very little lacing in the glass as the beer was consumed. The nose was surprisingly mild for a dry hopped IPA but there were still a few hop and citrus notes to be found. The beer was very much a full bodied IPA with a lot of good hop flavor with some nice, light lemon notes as well. The finish of the beer was a lingering of the hop bitterness which left you wanting more of the beer.

A great example of DIY in the beer industry, this was very much a successful homebrew.

Keegan Ales Brewery

So in honor of a good friend coming to visit me, we decided to visit a local brewery. She wants to get better at tasting beer and, well, I have a blog about beer so who was I to say no. This time we went up to Kingston, NY and visited Keegan Ales. The brewery was founded in 2003 and has garnered much acclaim over the past 8 years. I had already tried their Mother's Milk stout at a party over the summer so I was looking forward to this visit.

We didn't get to go on a tour but you could see the brew room to your right when you walk in so it wasn't a complete bust on that end of things. The brewery has a bar/restaurant attached so we found a table and ordered a sampler tray for each of us.

Sampler tray from lightest to darkest

There were five beers on tap that day and we were given them from lightest to darkest.That was the order we drank them in starting with Old Capital.

Old Capital

Old Capital is an American Blonde Ale and its color gives you just that. It was pale gold with a thin white head. There were a few citrus notes in the nose but was overall very muted. The taste was not dissimilar to a pilsner and was very refreshing. It was clean and crisp to drink with a nice finish. Very drinkable and accessible to anyone.

Hurricane Kitty IPA

Next up on this adventure was Hurricane Kitty's IPA. I'm still not the biggest fan of IPAs in general but this one was still very accessible. The color threw me off a bit seeing as I will probably always presume that an IPA will be pale gold but the copper red was a very pleasant surprise. The head was bright white and had a nice retention to it. The nose had a pleasantly mild hoppiness to it with some pine and citrus notes to it as well. The taste was much heavier on the hops giving the beer an almost pine tree like flavor to it. The flavor lingered in the mouth a bit but overall the beer had a very dry finish it.

Mother's Milk

Mother's Milk was the one I had tried previously so I knew I was going to enjoy this one. The beer was nearly black with a creamy head. The nose on this beer was full of rich chocolate and coffee notes. The beer itself was incredibly smooth to drink and had an almost creamy quality to it. There were plenty of chocolate and coffee notes mirrored from the nose into the flavor of the beer. The finish had a distinct milky flavor to it.

Joe Mama's Milk

Joe Mama's Milk is Keegan Ales' Imperial stout. They added brown sugar to Mother's Milk to increase the alcohol content and did so rather successfully as it weighs in around 8% ABV. This beer was almost nearly black in the pour with a cream colored head. The nose was very similar to that of Mother's Milk in that there was a good amount of chocolate but I found that the coffee notes were quite a bit stronger. I could also smell the brown sugar that had been added. The taste differences were almost undetectable as was the increased alcohol level in this beer from the original stout. The taste lingered a bit and finished with a a very malty flavor.

Oktoberfest

The final beer of the day was their seasonal Oktoberfest beer which was a traditional Märzen style. It was a very dark brown pour with a white head. The nose was malty but had a few brighter hoppy and floral notes to it. The flavor was more hoppy than malty to me despite the color of the beer though I am learning to be better about judging a beer by its color. It had a crisp finish with the floral notes lingering a bit at the end. 

This was undoubtedly a great brewery to go to and hang out. They hold events on the weekend and have bands play. The pricing is reasonable as well. It was $2 a sample putting the sampler at $10. Overall, it was a very enjoyable experience that I look forward repeating soon in the future.