Last Friday night, after some 30th birthday (not mine) revelry, a group of us went down to the Kirkwood Station Brewing Company in… (wait for it) Kirkwood.
Do have a beer flight? Damned straight. Let’s line ’em up.
Now that’s a flight of beers
Uh, these are 13 massive 4-5 ounce beers. The volume of beer blows away the portions in my earlier beer flights. They run the gamut from light to dark, with seasonals in between. I’m excited, even though I’ve already had dinner and a few drinks.
Here is the beer list, and I’ll review them in order:
That’s a lot of beers
Sugar Creek Lager – Meh… low carbonation for a light beer, mild and not very flavorful. Too watery for me.
Blackberry Wheat – Good blackberry flavors, but kind of flat. Fruitier than I typically care for in my berry beers. I’ll take a Framboise Lambic over this any day.
Belgian Witte – True Belgian beer flavors! Slightly bitter aftertaste lingers, but it’s a decent beer.
English Pale Ale – A nice English-style ale, with a strong hop aftertaste. The aroma and color are very appealing.
Altbier – Best beer so far. Nice fruity and spicy flavors and aromas, light and crisp with a good body. Smooth, enjoyable aftertaste. I want more of this one.
Brown Ale – Decent brown ale with strong (strong!) grain flavors, good color and aroma, clean taste. Nicely effervescent for a brown ale.
Pumpkin – Seriously major pumpkin pie aromas. Good mild effervescence and a nice appealing combination of color and aroma. I drink a lot of pumpkin beers, but this one is probably the closest thing I have ever drank (beer-wise) to a pumpkin pie.
Burst Hop Blonde – Very fruity aroma, very hoppy palate. This is a really good beer, certainly worth getting again as a stand alone pint.
Oatmeal Stout – Not good… not good at all. This beer tastes like horrifically charred BBQ. I don’t know what happened here. This may be, and I really hesitate to say this… the single worst beer I’ve ever had in my life. Some other people at the table took sips and I should have photographed their “Eww, Gross” faces.
IPA – A good choice to wash that nightmare Oatmeal Stout off of my palate. Super bitter, with a good hop aroma. Very heavy-handed on the hops. My taste buds are all messed up now, though, from that last beer.
Ryely Hoppy – In my notes for this beer, I wrote (at about 1:00 am after many beers) “SUPER HOPPY!”, blowing away the other hopped beers. I can’t pick up on any fruit or other flavors.
In summation, there were some stars (Burst Hop Blonde, Pumpkin, and Altbier), some less-than-stars (Ryely Hoppy, Sugar Creek Lager, and Blackberry Wheat), and a completely unmerciful abomination (Oatmeal Stout).
I didn’t get any food, since I had already eaten, it was midnight, and I was bloated from thirteen 4.5 oz beers and the drinks I had before getting to Kirkwood Station.
A solid brewery that has some good beers. I’ll be back for sure. Focus on kicking ass on the good beers, and improving the others. Scrap that bad one… I dare not speak its name again. Back to the ol’ drawing board on that one.
simpson bbq 