Hello all,
Just a short Beer Blurb for today. SB is actually back home visiting family, so it’s just me and the boys here at the homestead this weekend. Naturally this means that ample quantities of beer shall be flowing. Of course ample quantities of beer are always flowing in this household, but being alone for five days is just an added excuse to get more beer.
Deciding what beer to have for our “Bachelor Pad” weekend wasn’t much of a challenge, we’d been eyeing Tröegs for awhile now, and after SB brought home a six pack of the Sunshine Pils, we knew it was time to spring for the sampler pack.
The Tröegs Anthology Sampler Case
So a bit about the Tröegs brewery. It’s actually named after its founders, the Trogner brothers (John and Chris) and is currently located in Hershey, Pennsylvania (meaning that Hershey has both beer and chocolate and is therefore pretty much a mythical land of wonder and joy), though it actually started in Harrisburg, PA. So far I’ve really enjoyed what Tröegs has to offer. Sadly, they are a limited distribution brewery for freshness purposes so they don’t ship too far and wide, but they ship to me, so that is all that matters. 🙂
All beers are from the Tröegs Brewing Company.
Anyways, if you remember from my Restaurant Week 2015 post I actually one of the sampler beers already, the Sunshine Pils.
After having it again, I’d have to say that my opinion is pretty much unchanged. Not that that is a bad thing, as I liked it the first time. It’s definitely a clean beer, and the noble hops came out even more the second time around now that I know to look for them. The lacing was still crisp, but not quite as pronounced, that might either be a batch thing or just me focusing more on the hops, which is easier to do with the 4.5% ABV. I still recommend this one.
2. Dream Weaver
Ok, so taste aside, this is probably the best name for a wheat beer I’ve seen in awhile (if not ever). It was pretty much impossible not to sing Dream Weaver, while drinking it, or maybe that was just because this was my second beer, either way, it was a happy moment. As for the beer itself, it was a pretty good 4.8% ABV Hefeweizen, nothing super exceptional, but definitely on the better side. It is a bit hazy, typical of a wheat, but it’s more thin than it’s color would suggest, and the carbonation is higher than you might imagine. The typical hefeweizen notes of banana, clove, and lemon (or citrus in general) are all present, but none are overpowering. So definitely a good beer, but I’ll remember it more for its name than for being a “stand-out” wheat beer.
This was an interesting pale ale. I felt like it was some sort of hybrid cross between a pale, an amber, and a red. It has a clear light amber pour that is darker than a normal pale ale, at least slightly. Lacing and body are normal for a pale, but the flavor is fairly complex with elements of pine and spice alongside the typical pale bitterness. Still, the more amber-like sweetness lingers alongside the hop elements of the pale. Honestly I don’t think is a strong example of a purist pale ale, but that said, it is a good hybrid beer and I’d recommend it if you aren’t a stickler for true-to-form recipes.
So admittedly I don’t drink amber ales as much as I did about six or seven years ago. It’s rather weird, I was sort of indoctrinated in red and amber ales (alongside wheat ales), but I don’t drink them that often anymore. This isn’t because I don’t like them, but rather because there is a huge IPA fad right now. So, in light of that, Hopback plays to the strengths of both a traditional amber as well as the new “hop” craze that is sweeping microbreweries. There is a finely tuned balanced of hop and malts to this beer, in a way you’d not normally encounter with an amber ale. While this isn’t as much a hybrid at their pale ale is, it’s still not an entirely traditional amber, but again, they pull it off well. The malt-like sweetness didn’t sit as well with the other balanced tones, but still, it definitely would get my recommendation to anyone who likes amber ales.
So overall, I really think that the Sunshine Pils is probably my favorite beer of the bunch. Tröegs seems to like tweaking classic recipes, be it something as mild as extra carbonation (Dream Weaver) to a complete twist on the norm (Pale Ale). However, rather than failing at it, they seem to do quite a good job. I’ll need to drink more Tröegs to get a full opinion, but right now I find a hard reason not to recommend them, even if they are overly consistent in their flavor profiles.
And that wraps up this Beer Blurb. I’m now going to go back to procrastinating on all my assignments that are rolling in despite the start of the semester still being ten days away.
Until next time,
-Taco
P.S. – There is a wooden sculpture of what appears to be an eagle taking shape at the school near us, I noticed it during my run.
