Magnetic Brewing is currently in their soft opening phase and when I visited had only been open for two weeks and had five beers on tap. The head brewer is said to have some 8 years of home brewing experience and it certainly shows in the beers that he is pouring. The brewery has also been in development for quite some time and many have been eagerly awaiting its debut. I had heard a lot of praise from the few people who visited earlier and overall I was not disappointed. They are certainly doing a great job for such a new brewery.
In total I tasted the brown ale (8%), wit beer (8%), Amber, IPA, and pale ale. I mention the ABV of the first two because they are a bit higher than typical for the styles and it will help explain some flavors I noticed in them. To start with the brown ale is a deliciously smooth and medium sweet beer brewed with brown sugar added. The malts give it a tasty caramel flavor that blends nicely with the sugar to give it just the right amount of sweetness while remaining drinkable. Considering its strength it had only a fairly minor alcohol bite at the back end.
The wit beer really let the added spices shine through its higher alcohol that smooths everything out and gives it a much more chewy body. It almost tasted like a cake with the combination of sweetness and spices. The alcohol doesn’t hide here much and it has a medium boozy finish but I still thought it was overall very tasty. The amber has much the same caramel flavor as the brown from the malts with some mild earthy hops. I thought the hops blended well with the rest of the beer but it got out-shined by the more flavorful earlier beers.
The IPA first hit me as being a bit too piney but as it warmed up and I got through the taster I found it to have a great balance with a light malt body and flavors of resin and pine. The IPA drinks really nice and probably would have made a great pint. Comparatively, the pale was a bit strange to me. It smelled like sharp aged cheese and the flavor was overly sweet with a lot of pineapple and mango flavor. It seemed like a solid recipe behind it but it didn’t come out right. I talked to some brewers later who suggested that the strange scent I noticed has to do with old hops.
The disappointing pale aside, I thought the lineup at Magnetic was quite good and they have some serious talent in the brewer that will go on to do great things. Fans of sweeter stouts and porters will certainly enjoy the brown and it will be hard for a hop head to not enjoy the IPA. Because they only had five beers I will select a top 2 instead of the usual top 3.
Top two:
Brown Ale
IPA
Paul McGuire
Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.
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