by Rajan | January 18th, 2010
This past Thursday was the aforementioned Smuttynose event at Barcade. I showed up and met some friends there for the evening, sampling three beers during the night. I started with the Big A IPA, which I’ve already mentioned here in the previous post. Sadly, Barcade didn’t have the oak-aged version, so I stuck with the regular one and liked it as well as I usually do.
After that I decided to try a couple of new (to me) beers. One was the Smuttynose Wheat Wine which was, as expected, very much like a Barleywine. As far as I could tell, the wheat didn’t add much to the flavor. A decent beer for the style, only I realized that despite liking barleywines and wheat wines in the past, I think I’m over the style at the present. There was nothing wrong with the beer – it was sweet and strong and fruity – but it just wasn’t what I wanted. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been leaning more heavily toward hops lately and the lack of a hop presence in the beer left me feeling that I’d made the wrong choice.
By that time I was feeling both beers and decided to go a little lighter and ended up with the Woodward Ale on the recommendation of one of the brewers from Smuttynose. This was light and crisp with the hint of orange in the taste. Unfortunately, my palate was already suffering from the first two beers and this one probably suffered because of it. Not that it was bad, it just was swallowed up in the overall experience. I would like to try this again on its own, or as a first beer.
The DIPA trend continued into the weekend. Before meeting some friends on Saturday night, I stopped by a new discovery for me – Cask Bar & Kitchen on 33rd and 2nd. A nice place – not too crowded, a little dark, welcoming. They had Southern Tier’s Unearthly DIPA on tap and so I ended up having that both before and after dinner (we returned there after eating). Ah, Double/Imperial IPAs, I wish I knew how to quit you. On second thought, no I don’t.