Last week, I kicked off my two weeks of beer events with my second trip to Barcade, located in Fishtown. The point of Barcade is the ability to drink great beer while playing old school arcade games. Of course, I sat down and then never got up to play any of those games, but the option is there if you want it. I went because they were having Cisco Brewing in the house with them taking over quite a few of their taps. I was excited to be able to try the sours without committing to spending $20-$30 on bottles.
Not knowing what to try first, I decided on the Monomoy Kriek, a barrel aged sour with cherries.
Solid nose on it with a real big tart cherry component. Pretty thick mouthfeel though which was a little odd for a sour. It wasn't too off-putting but I do like my sours a little more bubbly or effervescent if I want to use fancy language. Body started off with some acetic vinegar, a little caramel, and tart cherry. The only negative to it was in the finish where I got a slightly odd flavor, tasting a little like acetone, sort of like nail polish smells. Still, the tart cherry and vinegar mostly made up for it.
Up next, I went with the Lady of the Woods. This is a chardonnay barrel aged blonde or something.
This one I liked quite a bit right from the nose. Big and oaky with a little earthy brett, very inviting. More bubbly mouthfeel compared to Monomoy which was nice and lightened the body a ton. Big oak flavors followed with an earthy and haylike bitterness in the finish. Some light spiciness too. All in all, I thought this was a solid golden sour with a ton of refreshing flavors.
Last, and unfortunately least, I got a Blueblerry Bleer, a, uh, blueberry beer. Not sure on the base style though.
If my intro didn't make it clear, I wasn't terribly impressed with this but other than one beer, I've never been impressed with blueberry beers so it wasn't unexpected. The nose was clean with a decent amount of blueberry vanilla and the body was the same, but other than the blueberry there wasn't anything else going on here. I didn't find the base of the beer particularly tasty either. Just wasn't impressed with this though it wasn't undrinkable or anything. Oh well, two out of three isn't bad.
There were a whole bunch of other Cisco beers available but I kept with the sours and headed out after trying them. Seemed like a great variety from them though. Fun night and great event to start things off.
Lady of the Woods was so fantastic that I'm really looking forward to trying some of their other barreled stuff, like that Kriek. Some of their regular reserve series stuff sound pretty good too. Usually, all I ever see from them is the Whale's Tale pale ale, but occasionally their good stuff makes its way down here...
ReplyDeleteThe one thing you can say about their prices is the beers sit on the shelves for a bit.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the kriek, I think it would be better with more carbonation. I don't know if the keg had low carb on purpose or if that's how it is though.