Tag Archives: Double IPA

Brewery/Restaurant

Beer in Prague, a Delicious Surprise

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In Prague, I visited two breweries, one of them that has been brewing since 1499. I also found some interesting craft beers at a restaurant including a double IPA and an imperial stout. I avoided visiting any breweries that only make a pilsner but I was quite impressed by the rest of the beers I tried.

St. Norbert brewing offered only three beers but each one was quite delicious. They served an amber ale, black ale, and an IPA. The amber was so smooth and delicious that I now have a new standard by which to judge San Diego ambers. The black lager was surprisingly smooth and quite a tasty beer that my husband enjoyed as well. This is a style of beer that I hope a San Diego brewery will explore properly soon. I’ve had a few black lagers but most of them were much higher in alcohol. The IPA was quite tasty and again well-balanced. Still I liked the malts used enough that it did not bother me being so balanced.

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The next day I went to U Fleku, a brewery that has been open since 1499 and only serves a single black lager. The black lager was also quite smooth and really made me wonder why we don’t see more of this style in he states. Because they only serve one beer, they go around the tables with a tray of beer and offer them to whoever is sitting there and mark a paper at your table to keep track of how much you drank.

U Fleku Black Lager
U Fleku Black Lager

I could have just stuck to U Fleku for the rest of my trip and been satisfied, but I knew there were some stronger beers around so I had to search them out. I was going to visit one bar to get my fix but they were not serving any food and I happened to stop by when I was really needing some food. Thankfully, the restaurant I visited had a few nice selections, including a double IPA, and an imperial stout.

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The double IPA was very much in the style of the previous IPAs I had in my trip. I actually started to grow fond of this balanced IPA flavor. The Imperial stout was unexpectedly strong with a heavy flavor of peat. It was a combination of a strong Scotch, and some licorice flavor. Thankfully the peat did not get too much and I really enjoyed this one. I would recommend that you drink plenty of black lager if you make your way to Prague, especially if you don’t really like pilsners.

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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Craft Beer

Craft Beer in Milan, Italy and Surrounding Areas

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When you think of Italy, you tend to think of wine. Italian wines are quite good and well-known for quality. However, there is also a growing group of Italian craft beer. I didn’t spend much time searching out the craft beer while there because you still have to go out of your way to find it. What I did try was quite delicious and showed that the Italian brewers know what quality beer tastes like and strive to produce the best.

The first place I had Italian craft beer was a small beer bar called Pub 38 about half a mile from the hotel where I stayed in Malgrate, an area south of Lecco, a small industrial town about an hour north-east of Milan. I expected to see some Belgian beers and was surprised to see two beers from The Wall, an Italian craft brewery in Varese not too far from where I was, on tap. They had both an IPA and a barley wine. The IPA was well-balanced and yet had some nice grapefruit and citrus flavors that reminded me of home.

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I later returned to the same bar to try the barley wine. I was surprised that the flavors I tasted in the barley wine were more on the Belgian style. If I had to compare it to something more well-known, I would say it reminded me of a Duvel but with some added hops. The flavors worked very nicely together. I was also quite glad that the bar I got these at was very careful about giving proper glassware and cleaning everything properly.

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I got to try a few more Italian beers in a bar in Milan after we decided to spend our last day in Italy exploring Milan. It seemed as if most of the craft beer bars were some distance away from the tourist areas so I ended up taking a metro to cut down my trip length a little bit. The bar I visited, called Bere Buona Birra, only had four beers on tap but tons of bottles. I was glad that the bartender and most of the people I met inside spoke  quite good English. I ended up having some interesting chats with them about the San Diego craft beer scene.

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The only beer that jumped out to me on tap was an imperial saison dry-hopped with citra. Despite generally not liking saisons, I was quite impressed by the flavors of this one. The higher alcohol made it more smooth and the hops added a nice citrus bite. After trying this one, I was offered a lighter extra-pale but since my palate was likely shot I had a local bottle of double IPA from Brewfist instead. The double IPA was also quite malty but had plenty of hop flavors going. I learned later in Prague that this is the style that Europe tends to brew IPAs. The San Diego style of lighter colored IPA doesn’t seem to have obtained popularity there yet.

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Thankfully Italy is easy enough to get around that finding some of the out-of-the-way beer bars isn’t too difficult, though you may end up walking a decent amount.

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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Tasting Room

Quantum Brewing, San Diego CA

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Quantum Brewing Company has been open for a little bit as a test but just recently opened officially. I stopped by on September 19, 2014 for a few tasters to see what it was like. I had already gone to Council Brewing before hand so I had to limit my tasters. I decided to try the Uncertainty red, Antimater IPA, Yellowcake double IPA, and Singularity stout.

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The uncertainty red was an interesting combination of floral and fruity flavors that I don’t normally taste in a red. These flavors were most likely from added hops, though they didn’t bring any heavy bitterness. The Antimater IPA was a bright tropical fruit beer with a light amount of citrus and medium bitterness. Yellowcake double IPA was again strongly floral and had a solid bitterness that didn’t taste like what the board said. So far the beers were solid but not particularly exciting.

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Then I tried the stout and I was quite happy. Though it is only 5% and quite mellow it has a good amount of flavor and was served on Nitro. Flavors in the stout were a nice combination of roasted malts and light coffee. I ended up ordering a pint after the tasters and enjoyed it quite a bit. The brewer happened to be wearing a Guinness shirt that day so I expect he was trying to create the proper Irish experience of Guinness which everyone says is better in Ireland. Though I haven’t been to Ireland yet I expect he did a pretty good job here. It hit all the right points.

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Quantum is still in the early stages and so still exploring new beer styles. Others have been more excited about the IPA than I was because everyone has different preferences for hop flavors. Quantum is off to a good start with a solid stout as their standout and should hopefully start to nail down a few of their core beers soon.

Have you been out to Quantum yet? Let me know what you think in the comments.

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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Tasting Room

On the Tracks Brewing, Carlsbad California

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In Carlsbad there are two small breweries very close together. In this post I will write about the beers at On the Tracks. In the next post I will write about Arcana Brewing.

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The two breweries are so close together that you could park in the middle of the two and walk to both without moving your car. On the Tracks has four regular beers on tap, a ginger beer, an ESB, a double IPA, and a porter made with black pepper. Though they have been open since October of 2011, the tasting room has remained small.

Taster flight at On the Rails.
Taster flight at On the Rails.

The Ginger Beer is an interesting way to do the lighter style of beer that most breweries have. The flavor is light enough that the ginger doesn’t get offensive. I mostly enjoyed the ginger beer as a palate cleanser in between the other beers. The ESB is quite balanced and has a light sweetness and a light bitterness, just as it should be.

The double IPA was very surprising because it was well-balanced and also very enjoyable. I tend to not like overly malt-heavy IPAs but this was the perfect balance of tropical fruit and citrus flavors from the hops and a light sweetness from the malts. My husband found this one to be drinkable as well.

Tap handles at On the Tracks, using those giant iron nails from train tracks.
Tap handles at On the Tracks, using those giant iron nails from train tracks.

To end things off we tried the black pepper porter. This is certainly to be a polarizing beer as the owner indicated. There is a serious back-of-throat burn that you get as soon as you take a sip, reminiscent of habanero beers. The owner said that we should get some chocolate and roasted malt flavors once we get past the pepper but my husband and I both had a hard time getting past the pepper.

On the Tracks has some solid beers and would be worth stopping in once if you are in the area. Plus, you can easily hit Arcana in the same trip, where you will also find some different beers. Have you gotten out to On the Rails? Do you like their beers? Let me know in the comments.

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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Beer Reviews

Live Blogging on Twitter

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One of the interesting things about the Beer Bloggers’ Conference was getting us to write about beers as we taste them. But for those of you who weren’t following along on Twitter, lets take a look at how this looked to someone following the feed.

One thing I enjoy doing is comparing a beer on tap vs the bottle. Even though I had already tried the Citra Session from Green Flash, I hadn’t had it in the bottle.

I say that the flavors are balanced here because so many sours to me are a little too intensely sour.

I found it a bit hard to jump between styles as you can see from the two tweets about pilsners. The lack of consistency between beers shared made it hard to truly try everything.

The Lost Abbey Deliverance was an amazingly delicious beer. It combined two different styles of beers and had one of them aged in bourbon barrels. If you want a chance to drink those bourbon-barrel-aged beers at home this might be worth the extra high price.

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I have been asking the servers at Rough Draft for quite some time when six packs of the session IPA would come out so this was very exciting for me.

The Mexican Hot Chocolate style stout really tasted very different than all the other stouts Stone has put out so far. Stone brought this for us in their modern-looking growlers you can now get at the tasting room. This collaboration beer will be available in 22oz bottles in stores starting September 8, 2014.

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We were blessed with so many breweries showing off their bourbon barrel aged beers. I have seen this becoming popular lately but I am not sure that you can easily go back to more subtly flavored beers after something so strong.

If you enjoyed my post about live blogging, consider following me on Twitter where you can see all the photos I take on Instagram and possibly catch my next live blogging attempt.

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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