Community Beer Company Public Ale

Brewed By: Community Beer Company in Dallas, Texas  

Purchased: 12oz bottle generously gifted to me; 2015 

Style/ABV: English-style Bitter/ESB, 5.5%

Reported IBUs: 38

Tonight's beer was generously gifted to me to be reviewed. This beer represents a simpler, more accessible style in the ESB -- making it a potential candidate to be representative of Dallas' so-called regular staples, much like a Spotted Cow or Shiner Bock. As always, I like to give a shout out to the brewery. The Community Beer Company is a brewery based out of Dallas, Texas. The brewery was founded in January 2013 by Kevin Carr, head brewer Jamie Fulton, and brewer/microbiologist Aric Hulsey. With a state-of-the-art brewhouse located near downtown Dallas, and an in-house yeast lab, the Community Beer Company has worked hard to become a staple of Dallas craft beer. For more info, you can check out their website or Facebook page. 

The Public Ale, is an Extra Special/Premium Bitter brewed with 100% Maris Otter English pale malt and English crystal malt, a blend of English, German, and American hops, and in-house English ale yeast. The bottle reads: "Inspired by the warm and joyful spirit of British public houses, or "pubs", this beer was created to share with your mates! Brewed with heirloom English Maris Otter malt, a blend of international hops and a distinct English yeast strain, this ale is a study of balance and subtle complexities. The intricate malt character is balanced by a beautiful blend of herbal, spicy and fruity hops, all in perfect harmony with the gentle fruitiness contributed by our yeast during fermentation. An easy drink to comfort any occasion, welcome to our favorite year-round session beer: Public Ale."

Community Beer Company Public Ale

The Pubic Ale pours into a hazy, unfiltered, orange body. It's almost reddish in certain lights, and orange/yellow in others. The beer has lazy, mid-sized carbonation, and a couple of fingers of caramel-tinged head. It's a fine looking beer with sustaining head retention, lacing, and carbonation. Kudos to Public Ale keeping it unfiltered and conditioned.

Bitters are not an inherently bold style...they are subtle beers, if not simple and eloquent. This has a lot of nice aromatics, with bready malts hinting at something between white and whole grain bread. There's a lot of caramel and toffee sweetness, with a hint of toast...it's very much in line with other sweet, malt-forward English/German styles of beer. What I really like about the aroma of this is the nice grassy hop notes, and the subtle berry sweetness. The aroma on this beer is less sweet and more hop-forward than something like Goose Island's Honker's Ale. With that said...

Wow. I see why this has won a gold medal in 2013 and 2014. This is fantastic, for the style. Again, using Goose Island's Honker's Ale as a baseline; this blows that away. This has an intense malt body, with lots of caramel, honey, toffee, and sweet bread. The malt sweetness gives way to some really nice hops, but more importantly, the malt sweetness gives way to this hint of minerality. It really does finish nicely, and without any overt or fake sweetness. The hops in here hint towards grassy bitterness, berry and toffee sweetness, and some crisp bitterness.

For 5.5%, this has a medium-body with fantastic palate depth, good duration, and lots of complexity. I'm really impressed with the depth of malt, yeast, and hop character in this beer. The other thing I'm really enjoying is how this never gets overly sweet or astringent. The Honker's Ale tilts towards being too sweet from time to time, which is a serious bummer. This hits bready malts, toffee, honey, and sweet caramel up front; that gives way to grassy hops, berries, toffee; and the back end has some nice yeast character, nice water bite, and a clean not-too-sweet finish. I'm not a huge ESB guy, but if this was available in my area I would consider making it a regular part of my fridge stash. 

Rating: Divine Brew (4.5/5.0 Untappd)

I'm feeling a Light Divine Brew on this. This is a really good American-style ESB. Or, to be more accurate, this is a really good English-style ESB brewed in America. Dallas. Think about that. If you are in Dallas and have access to this beer, you should pick it up. This is a beer (and a style of beer) that has a pretty large appeal. It's not overly hoppy, it's not overly boozy...perfect for sharing with casual or serious beer drinkers and certainly okay to pair with some fish and chips or whatever. I don't know. This does make me want to write a scathing review for the Honker's Ale. 

Random Thought: Spotted Cow is another amazing, underrated beer. It's not underrated by the thousands of people that drink it regularly, but it is underrated by beer geeks who have dismissed the style as being simple. It's not. So there is something to these simple styles of beer, and they are hard to do well. 

Pipeworks Scotty's Weirdo Pear Pale Ale

Brewed By: Pipeworks Brewing in Chicago, IL  

Purchased: 22oz bottle (Batch #453/454) bought at Binny's in IL; 2014 (bottled 07.11.2014)

Style/ABV: Fruit Beer/Pale Ale, 9.0%
Reported IBUs: ?

I had the pleasure of trying tonight's beer at the Naperville Ale Fest, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. This one is an "English inspired Pale Ale brewed with cinnamon and pears." Okay then. About Pipeworks:

Pipeworks has humble roots. The brewery was founded in Chicago in 2011 by Beejay Oslon and Gerrit Lewis. The duo were both homebrewers that met while while working at West Lakeview Liquors. In 2011, they began to raise money for their brewery using the online Internet site, Kickstarter. Olson and Lewis were both educated at De Struise Brewery in Oostvleteren, Belgium. With that knowledge, and the money from their kickstarter, Olson and Lewis created a unique brewery that is smaller in size, and intended to brew smaller batches of beer. The company's motto is "small batches, big beers." And indeed, since the brewery has been around, they've been releasing a lot of one-offs and small batch releases. The goal is to release a new beer every week. You can read more about the brewery at their website HERE.

The back of the bottle of Scotty's Weirdo Pear Pale Ale reads:

"There once was a scooper named Scott
Who liked the pairing of pears and cinnamon a lot
He put spice in the brew
And all of the pears too
The result is an ale sure to hit the spot"

Pipeworks Scotty's Weirdo Pear Pale Ale

This one pours into a super cloudy, super juicy, non-descript, orange-yellow color. I did get a finger of gold-tinged head, and there's a nice sea foam/cauldron effect hazing of head hanging around. There is also some lacing....and alcohol legs, because this is punching in at 9.0% for some reason. The beer looks very similar in bright light, with some streams of carbonation visible courtesy of the glass.

On the aroma: not a whole lot. I'm getting faint pear juice and some hops, but what I'm really getting is cardamom, cinnamon, and some malty caramel/vanilla. This veers into super floral and fruity, with honeysuckle, straight up honey, and some notes that give off a Middle Eastern or Indian vibe. It is an interesting aroma, to say the least.

I'm not entirely sure why this is being called a Pale Ale...this is boozy and malty, with intense honey notes, cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla, and pear juiciness. This veers into notes of honeysuckle and saffron...with an almost, cider-like or mead-like quality. I'm definitely getting pear, apple, and white grape notes...it's in the realm of wine or mead though, with an interesting dryness on the back end.

This is definitely a weird beer. This is some boozy, intense, full-bodied stuff. I don't even know why? I'm not complaining, but the 9.0% puts this in that American Double category. It's not hard to drink...in fact, this is well-carbonated, and cleans up nicely. This has substantial palate depth with good duration, but the complexity is kind of like "eh." Some people are reporting that this is a cinnamon bomb...I don't agree. I think the cinnamon in this can stand out sharply at times in tandem with the booze, dryness, and vinous qualities...but in context I think this works. For me, I'm getting a lot of sweetness, honey, and vanilla sugars up front; that rolls into vanilla, cardamon, sage, more honey, almost tannin-like astringency, white grapes; the back end drops the apple and pear juice, and then it gets weirdly hoppy and dry. To me, this tastes similar to a Doppelweizen or a strong Bock. 

Rating: Average (3.5/5.0 Untappd)

I'm feeling a Light Average on this beer. I don't want to shit all over it for being weird...it's not bad. It seems to be in the realm of a Doppelweizen or an Imperial Witbier. I'm just not seeing the connection to a Pale Ale...I mean, it does dry out towards the back, but an English Pale Ale? For what it's worth, I'm belching up pear juice which is quite nice. And this really isn't a cinnamon bomb. I'd call this a strong candidate for food pairings....again, I would go with Indian or Middle Eastern food...maybe couscous...you could even go Greek/Mediterranean here. This is vinous and mead/wine-like. I'd revisit this again, but they should dial up the pear juice.

Random Thought: Time to catch up on my Untappd backlog. 

Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp 2014: There and Back English-Style Bitter (brewed with New Glarus Brewing in New Glarus, Wisconsin)

Brewed By: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, California 
Purchased: Single 12oz bottle from the 2014 Beer Camp bought at Jewel-Osco in Chicago, IL; 2014 (PKG 05/22/14)
Style/ABV: English-Style Bitter, 5.6%

Reported IBUs: 40

What is Beer Camp? It is Sierra Nevada's celebration of craft beer and the numerous breweries across America that make that craft beer. For 2014, Sierra Nevada collaborated with 12 different breweries to make 12 different beers. They also have a Beer Camp Across America Beer Festival, which will stop at seven different cities and feature many different breweries and beers.

About Sierra Nevada:

Sierra Nevada are one of the big players in craft brewing, and one of the first craft breweries to arrive on the craft beer scene. If you check out their history page, you will see that founder Ken Grossman began his quest to build a brewery in 1976. In 1980, Ken Grossman and co-founder Paul Camusi brewed their first batch of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. According to Wikipedia, Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale is the second best selling craft beer behind Boston Lager. Sierra Nevada is the sixth largest brewing company in the United States as well, cranking out over 750,000 barrels in 2010. For more info, check out their website.

The There and Back English-Style Bitter is a collaboration with everyone's favorite cow-sodomizers, New Glarus. My bottle reads: "For beer folks, Chico, CA, and New Glarus, WI, are bucket-list pins on the U.S. brewing map, but it's no simple feat seeing both. There and Back is named for the planes, trains, and zeal that connect them. This classic English-style Bitter is a complex mix of toasty malt and fruity, herbal hops."

There and Back English-Style Bitter

This one pours out a hazy orange color with a finger of orange/caramel-tinted head. There is nice lacing, moderate streams of mid sized carb, and bells and whistles that might impress the UK but good lord show me some implants in bikinis thank you 'Merica.

New Glarus knows a thing or two about German-style Lagers, so it doesn't shock me that they also know a thing or two about English beer. This aroma is really nice, with deep toast and toasty notes, Lager-like cleanness, and fruit notes. This smells very much like one of New Glarus' German-Style or English-Style Ales/Lagers. If you've had any of New Glarus' beers that aren't Spotted Cow or the fruit beers, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. There are some fruity notes here: berries, apples, pears, sweet grain. The nose is ultimately on the mild, sweet, and toasty side.

At cooler temps this is quite toasty with pear/apple/berry fruitiness and raw grains. As the beer warms up, floral English-Style hops emerge with great floral notes and fruitiness. There's lots of toast and caramel notes here, balanced and cleaned up nicely by grassy hops and clean yeast.

This is clean, Lager-like, light-bodied, and quaffable. You don't get any booze here, and my only regret is that this isn't in a 16oz can. Palate depth is top notch, and complexity is also very good for the style. This definitely reminds me of early Autumn and English pubs. You could drink this at a fish fry or with fish and chips. Up front: toasty notes, caramel, berry fruit notes; apple, pear, and bitter floral hops in the mids; the back end cleans up with grain, lingering fruity notes, and mild bitterness. The finish is toasty and round.

Rating: Above-Average (3.5/5.0 Untappd)

I'm feeling a Light Above-Average on this beer. This definitely skirts by being just average...it's memorable and really well-made. Kind of like everything that New Glarus puts out. I know I'm holding them to an impossibly high standard, but they generally nail all the beers they make (and there's a lot of them). Still....this is like a busty English BBW. Refined, but the teeth are still janky.

Random Thought: Ignoring my snide attack above...I actually really adore this style, and I wish more American breweries would make this type of beer.