The Bruery White Oak

Jo and I had dinner with some friends earlier in the week and I brought a bottle of The Bruery White Oak. I'd heard it was a sort of polarizing beer so I figured rather than drinking it by myself and hating it, I'd share it around and make my friends help me drink it. Okay that sounds hilariously selfish, like, I was bringing a beer I thought might be crappy and foisting it upon others, but I thought it had a chance to be good! I swear!

If you can't tell from the picture, it was super carbonated. Sort of smelled oaky with a spicy base that reminded me of a tripel though it's apparently a wheatwine. Light vanilla sweetness along with some bourbon came in the first sip with hints of alcohol in the finish. The flavors were okay and did grow into something interesting as I made my way through the glass, but the carbonation nearly ruined everything. For this style of beer, I just thought it was way too high and killed so much of flavor. Lower carbonation would let the vanilla and bourbon shine through so much more. Worth a try and not awful, but not super either.

Visiting Perch Pub

I've heard good things about the Perch Pub, located at Broad and Locust, and finally decided to visit last Friday night. The bar was already pretty busy when I got there around 5 as they have a decent happy hour with half off most of their drafts. Right now, they have 14 different draft lines with 2 being reserved for small batch stuff like Hill Farmstead, one-offs, things like that.

I started with a glass of Blue Point No Apologies, a double IPA.

Clean grapefruit nose. Started a little bitter up front, followed by a bit of grapefruit, and then finished with some malty sweetness. Decent enough double IPA although it may be a bit sweet for some people. Nice way to start off the night.