All posts by 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.
Brewery/Restaurant

Engine House No. 9 – Tacoma Washington

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Engine House Number 9 recently started brewing sours to add to their other lineup of house beers. I visited them during a trip out to Olympic National Park because we decided to start our trip in Tacoma. I had a flight of a few of their house beers and then simply ordered a full pour of the one sour they had on tap.

Their lager was fruity and delicious with a crisp biscuit malt finish. Their two IPAs were both lovely. The house IPA was juicy and soft with notes of mango and melon. It has a light bitterness and nice creamy mouthfeel. The Donna IPA was good but a bit more acidic with notes of grass and herb hops and light caramel on the finish. The Berry Manilow sour was jammy and had tons of berry notes with a light tart finish. It was super drinkable and not particularly acidic, making it approachable to even someone who isn’t into sours.

I left with a bottle of their rhubarb sour, Flanders style red and brett saison. The rhubarb was tart and funky and quite delicious. The Flanders style is bright and fruity with a tart finish that balances nicely with biscuit malts and notes of oak. If you see Engine House Number 9 sours around they are worth picking up in bottles if you would rather not make it down to Tacoma. They are a brewpub so expect it to get quite noisy inside.

You could order food to go with your beers here as well. I got a hummus appetizer the second time I visited when I was preparing to leave the area. If you like IPAs or sours, you will find quite a bit to enjoy at Engine House No. 9 though I did not see any house brewed stouts on tap when I visited.

Top 2:
House IPA
Berry Manilow Sour

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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KC MO Breweries Part 2 – Torn Label, Boulevard, and KC Bier Works

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Torn Label

Torn Label is one of the smaller breweries I visited. They had an interesting lineup of beers and solid impressive hoppy offerings. The Alpha Pale was delicious with tons of hop aroma and notes of tropical fruit and citrus that balanced nicely with a light acidic finish and low bitterness. This is an excellent pale. The house brew coffee brown was thin with bitter coffee notes and mild molasses. I would have gone for more coffee character. The Monk and Honey had notes of spice, citrus, and lemon peel with a mild honey sweetness.

The Hang Em High IPA was biter and resinous with notes of grapefruit on a sticky body with hints of lychee and an herbal hop bite at the finish. The 3 Heroes Wheat IPA was soft with notes of tangerine, tropical fruits, and candy orange. The beer showcased tons of hop aroma with minimal bitterness. The Shake Hands with Danger Imperial Brown was sweet with notes of caramel and light coconut. The beer hides its alcohol very well and despite being fairly thin packed tons of flavor.

 

Torn Label had some impressive IPAs and a tasty imperial brown that suggest to me that they will continue to brew lots of great beer.

Top 2:
Alpha Pale Ale
Shake Hands with Danger Imperial Brown

Boulevard

Boulevard is owned by Duvel. They have a massive beer hall area where they have 20-24 beers on tap on the second floor and a massive shop on the first floor. They have a limited food menu as well and depending on how busy it is they may limit you to certain pre-selected flights. I tried a ton of different beers at Boulevard but I will highlight some of my favorites rather than going through all of them.

One flight came with a mystery beer that turned out to be a cranberry sour. It had notes of cherry from the malts that blended nicely with cranberry notes and a light tart finish. The latest collaboration release available was an oak aged lager and it had a light sweetness with an oaky finish. I enjoyed this quite a bit. The IPAs I tried were all fairly herbal and didn’t really stand out to me. I wouldn’t recommend you visit just for the hoppy beers.

The berliner weisse had notes of ginger with light lemon notes and a crisp tart finish. The brett saison had a nice white cake saison base with mild citrus, funky brett, and a dry finish. I left with a bottle of this to try at home. The 2015 imperial stout from bottles was delicious with notes of caramel and molasses with a nice thick sticky body and light fudge on the finish.

It is worth taking the trek to the brewery to try various tap room exclusives and to try the various barrel-aged or collaboration offerings. I wouldn’t recommend that you visit for IPAs but they had delicious berliner weisse, Belgian styles, and various stouts.

KC Bier Company

KC Bier Company focuses almost exclusively on German styles. They have a large outdoor beer hall atmosphere and serve beers in full 1 liter steins if you feel so inclined. I only tried four beers there because I had already visited two previous breweries.

The Helles was crisp and light with mild herbal hops and a clean finish. Compared to the helles the pilsner had a bit more citrus notes and slightly more hop character and bitterness with a dry finish. I ended up ordering a liter of the pilsner to enjoy after my flight. In a full pour it had a nice fruit character I enjoyed.

The gose had a nice citrus forward taste with light tart on the finish. The dopple alt had a nice mix of caramel and toast with a soft dry finish. I enjoyed this style that is not often brewed. Typically an alt bier is 4% or so and this one was a double so it was over 7%.

KC Bier Company is worth a trip to enjoy their varied offerings at the source or if you are simply into a pilsner or hefeweizen they are easily available around Kansas City in six packs.

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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Serpentine Cider – Miramar Area San Diego

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Serpentine Cider is a new craft cider brewery right next to Thunderhawk Alements. They have a kitchen inside serving delicious food and will be adding a mead company in November. Though they had only been open for a week when I stopped by, they impressed me both with the overall feel of the place and the quality of the meads. The head brewer has been home-brewing cider for seven years and the quality shows. They had a good variety of meads available and I tasted five that seemed to be the most interesting.

Two that stood out from my flight were the Passion Fruit and Hopped ciders. Passion Fruit had a good balance between sweet apple and the a passion fruit kick. The hopped beer had tons of hop aroma with an emphasis on citrus flavors with a nice dry finish.

The raspberry blackberry had a mix of jammy black berry and acidic raspberry. The lemongrass and ginger had a mild citrus character and some light ginger on the finish. The guava had a fairly mild guava taste. They indicated this had to do with some fruits they got a bit too early in the season.

All of the ciders are made with beer yeast and this gives them a character closer to beer than the incredibly dry ciders you may find at other spots like Newtopia Cider. I thought the hops worked better with the cider here than they did at Newtopia. Though the cost of pours is higher than beer, the quality was there and I hope to return soon to see how the mead company that is joining them turns out.

Top 2:
Passion Fruit Cider
Hopped Cider

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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Breweries in KC MO – Crane, Cinder Block, and Calibration

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Crane Brewing

Crane made its name with a Berliner Weisse brewed with beets and since then they serve a number of different lacto-fermented sours, either Berliner Weisse or Gose showcasing various fruits. I came for the sours and would suggest that you do too, provided you can stomach the intense tartness that comes from a lot of lacto-sour character. Though they appear to be a far distance from downtown Kansas City on a map, it isn’t that much of a drive and they are near most of the big BBQ spots.

I started my tasting flight with the farmhouse IPA. It was bitter and resinous with notes of grapefruit and a light-malt base. The trailsmith farmhouse ale had strong ester and alcohol notes with flavors resembling dry white-wine. I didn’t care for this one myself. The azaca session farmhouse was crisp and dry with strong herbal hop notes and a bitter finish. I don’t care for azaca much and on its own the herbal notes were too much for me. Both the azaca session and farmhouse IPA were on the bitter side, a bit more than I am used to these days.

The apricot weiss had intense lacto-tartness with some prominent apricot notes that balanced it out. The orange gose was tart and puckering with notes of lemon, bitter orange-peel and reminded me of a lemon-drop candy. I didn’t care for this one as much. The kumquat weiss was the most tart of the bunch with tons of citrus character. The tea weiss had fruity notes resembling berries from the tea and a nice balance of tartness. I left with crowlers of the tea weiss, kumquat weiss, and apricot weiss. Though I enjoyed them on a flight I have a hard time drinking more than a pint of either of them with the intense acidity they present.

Crane is the only brewery in my visit that had any sours besides a couple at Boulevard. Though I generally prefer barrel-aged sours, there is something about the intense lacto-tartness in their beers that I enjoy.

Top 2:
Apricot Weiss
Tea Weiss

Cinder Block

I won’t be too harsh in my review of Cinder Block because I heard they tend to have some delicious sours or barrel aged beers and when I visited they only had a few of their core beers available. The pale ale was balanced and lightly bitter with notes of citrus and pine. The porter was smooth and roasty with a bitter chocolate finish. The IPA was soft and mildly bitter with notes of tropical fruit and lychee. The three beers I tasted were all done well but didn’t blow me away. Because I only had a few tasters, I ended up nearby at Calibration next.

Calibration

I almost skipped calibration but I would not recommend you skip it. I was impressed by the various beers I had when I visited. The IPA had a nice caramel malt base with a mild bitterness and notes of citrus and floral hops. The black IPA was roasty and bitter with hops more for bitterness than aroma. I enjoyed how it didn’t try to showcase aroma because it works nicely with the style.

The bartleywine was delicious with no bitterness and flavors of caramel, toffee, and light cherry. The beer hid its alcohol really nicely and had a solid sweetness. The coconut brown was smooth with notes of caramel and mild coconut. The flavors were all quite subtle. The coffee porter was a delicious mix of notes of marshmallow and caramel and light coffee on the finish. There is something about the quality of the malt character in all the beers I tried at calibration that was very impressive and made it stick out. Sadly they didn’t have bottles of the barleywine for me to bring home.

Top 2:
Barleywine
Coffee Porter

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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Wild Barrel Brewing – San Marcos San Diego

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Wild Barrel Brewing surprised me as I hadn’t heard a ton about the brewery until a short time before opening. With a brewer who used to work at stone and a keen eye for what the market wants, they launched out the gate with some IPAs, massively fruity kettle sours, and a coffee stout with barrel aged stuff to come in time. You can tell when you walk in that they spent a lot of time on the layout of the space including their choice for the acoustics because it doesn’t get as loud as many breweries do when crowded.

Wild Barrel serves tasters in larger glass to give room for aromas to come through. In the crowded San Diego brewery scene this is fairly uncommon but always welcomed. I was not really that excited when I saw three fruited Berliner Weiss style beers on the board (called here San Diego Vice) but was soon glad i tried them. San Diego breweries regularly make fruited versions of this style but often with minimal amounts of fruit. Not so here. All 3 of them, cherry, blackcurrent, and guava were massively fruity with a light tart bite on the back.

These may be the most fruit flavor I’ve had in any beer of this style, surpassing my previous favorite at Georgia based Creature Comforts. If their crowlers were available I might have left with a couple of crowlers. It is hard to pick a favorite of the three because they were all so delicious.

The two IPAs available were both in the modern style though staying away from the thick hazy style so far. The single IPA was nice and citrus forward with a light bitterness and a dry finish. The double IPA was a bit more dank and resinous with a slightly thicker body and still not a ton of bitterness. The IPAs remind me of the style brewed at Protector in many ways.

The coffee stout had notes of popcorn and coffee on the nose with a fairly thin body and a nice mix of light roast, smoke, and coffee notes. I found the coffee to be a bit more subdued than I tend to enjoy but it is a nice balanced beer.

I am looking forward to see how Wild Barrel develops over the coming months and expect I will be back again regularly to see what flavors of San Diego Vice come up next. They have excited me about a style that has generally been enjoyable but not particularly exciting for me before now.

Top 2:
Blackcurrent San Diego Vice
Cherry San Diego Vice

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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