Milwaukee Craft Beer Exchange

Tasting Notes

Best of Fest

Getting straight to the point. Here’s a list of my favorite beers I tasted at The Great Taste of The Midwest, in no particular order.

Raspberry Katy

Dangerous Man – Sour Delores #7 Righteous Babe (watermelon)
Dangerous Man – Sour Dolores #2 Raspberry
Mikerphone – Special Sauce Batch #5
Mikerphone – Imperial Smells Like Bean Spirit
Bell’s – Traverse City Whiskey Barrel Aged Expedition Stout
2nd Shift – Raspberry Katy
Imperial Oak – Billy Dee’s Coconut Pecan Porter

Before GTMW I had only had a few beers from Dangerous Man. Granted they we’re their most popular chocolate peanut butter porter and another fantastic offering. But, I was unaware they were making sours and wow, they blew me away. The juiciness they were able to pull from the fruit and into the beer was fantastic. Very clean and refreshing sours. Give them a try any chance you get.

I’ve slowly been becoming a fan boy of Mikerphone due to my frequent stops in Chicago, and the fact that they made a farmhouse ale called Jibboo (see phish beer reference). NE style hops are all the rage, and Mikerphone is making some of the best. The nose and taste of these beers are immediately reminiscent of Trillium and Treehouse. So incredibly juicy without tasting like syrup. Solid hop bite, and insanely crushable. And wow, Imperial Smells Like Bean Spirit is worth the hype. Maple is a flavor I don’t always enjoy in a beer, it can be overwhelmingly sweet and overpowering. But this beer is well balanced. The coffee cuts back that maple flavor sweetness. Solid beer.

Traverse City Whiskey Barrel Aged Expedition Stout, is there really anything else I need to say?

2nd Shift, out of Missouri, is another brewery that has a good amount of hype and attraction behind it. They’re making sours. They’re making BA Stouts. So, yeah. I’ve tasted some of their stouts and they were fine. Nothing I’d write home about, but Katy and her variants have been all over the big trade boards and blogs, and I’d be damned if I didn’t get a taste. This was my first beer of the best, and probably the best. Hot damn! The aroma, color, taste and aftertaste were all amazing. Real fruit taste, multiple layers of flavor, and solid until the last drop. So the hype is real on this one… Shit.

Imperial Oak was on my short list of breweries to try that I’ve never had anything from, and they didn’t disappoint. This porter has some solid juncts in the trunk, but they don’t overpower the base porter. Both the pecan and coconut are relatively mild and simply add to the flavors of the base beer. Lots of chocolate, caramel, bitter bakers chocolate, some nuttiness from the pecan and a slight hint of toasted coconut. Really great beer and a brewery I’m definitely keeping on my radar.

 

 

 

My Favorite Milwaukee Shelf Beer

Most of us reading this are uber beer geeks who like to land big whales and generally have tried everything our local bottle shop has on the shelf… and in the back… and in the bottle shop owners cellar. We enjoy waking up at 7am to get in line for a 12 oz. bottle that’s going to cost $8.99 because we enjoy the thrill of the chase, but more importantly the taste and exclusivity of the beer. But, all too often we overlook those beers that are readily available because of that simple reason: we can get them whenever we want. Yes, beer is subjective and we all like what we like, but here is a short list of shelf beers I think are fantastic and if you haven’t had one in a while, give it another shot. Continue reading