O New Glarus, how I wish you would distribute to Iowa. Fortunately we don’t have to drive to far to get your wonderful brew. It would be nice to be able to drive to the local grocery store to grab a sixer though, but I could say that for many beers. Dan Carey continues to excel with New Glarus brewing, winning awards on a consistent basis as he continues to pump out fantastic brews. One of my favorites is their Fat Squirrel. Fat Squirrel is a nut brown ale using hazelnuts. All of the malt used in this brew come from Wisconsin. This state keeps pouring out wonderful beers and New Glarus might be the king of the hill for craft beer in Wisconsin.

Style: Seasonal/Nut Brown

ABV: 5.5%

Purchased at: Piggly Wiggly; Platteville, WI

REVIEW
Pour: Deep amber pour with a thick tan head.
Aroma: Smell is somewhat nutty, with maybe some brown sugar.
Taste: Nutty and sweet brown sugar rounded out nicely by the malts and hops.
Overall: B

Eastern Iowa Residents: Take a little road trip to Wisconsin and stop at the first gas station and I guarantee they will have it.
Would I Buy Again: This and all of New Glarus products.

The first thing you notice when pouring a Sam Adams Octoberfest is the color; a deep amber pour that goes perfect with the season. This may be the beer that is synonymous with Octoberfest beers for the new craft beer drinker and rightfully so as Sam Adams once again impresses with this fall seasonal. They may be big business for craft beer, but there is no denying that Sam Adams brings their best with 95% of their offerings. I was disappointed with their Blackberry Wit and maybe their Cranberry Lambic just isn’t for me, but for the most part they give top quality options to craft beer drinkers in every market.

Style: Octoberfest/Marzen

ABV: 5.3%

Purchased at: Found just about everywhere.

This beer is usually on tap at most bars/restaurants and is always a relief when I see that lined up save the day alongside your mass-produced domestics. A nice malty beer that gets rounded out nicely by the hop bitterness. Maybe Sam’s best seasonal brew? Or is Noble Pils on top?
REVIEW
Pour: Amber colored pour with a nice white head.
Aroma: Kind of a nutty smell/almost nut brown ale like with sweetness of the malt and a little hop presence.
Taste: You get all sweet malts first but then rounded out nicely by the hops.
Overall: B

Eastern Iowa Residents: Everywhere! If they don’t have Sam Adams products then walk right out of the store. Would I Buy Again: This is no doubter and an always eager fall purchase.

A few years ago it used to be pretty difficult to find a good beer made an Iowa unless you found some Millstream product somewhere. Now, with craft beer taking off and more and more breweries are starting to open and more restaurants and bars are FINALLY serving craft and imports, it isn’t so difficult to find a good local beer and we can partially thank the people at Peace Tree Brewing in Knoxville, IA (www.peacetreebrewing.com). They have come on the craft beer scene and could arguably be the face of Iowa Beer.?
Being infatuated with hoppy beers it took some searching to find one made in Iowa that could stand up to others around the country. Peace Tree’s Hop Wrangler does just that. Although it might not be the hop bomb people are looking for, it does pack a hop punch but also gets mellowed out by the malts in the brew. Not only is Peace Tree products available almost everywhere, they also have sweet looking apparel and their bottles come in the Red Stripe like stubbies which are sweet!

Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)

ABV: 6.2%

Purchased at: Foud just about everywhere.

Like I said above this beer is not your West Coast hop bomb but a classic take on the world scene of IPAs. Nice hop bitterness followed by sweetness of malts and sugars.

REVIEW
Pour: Orange amber pour with a medium sized white head.
Aroma: Smell of citrus, a little banana and biscuits.
Taste: Nice hop bitterness mellowed out by the malts.
Overall: B

Eastern Iowa Residents: Support your Iowa beers!!!! Starting to be available everywhere!
Would I Buy Again: A mainstay in my fridge.

Style: Sweet Stout

ABV: 4.4%

Purchased at: Woodmans Grocery in Madison, WI

This beer takes a well-known coffee from Milwaukee, Fuel Cafe coffee, and uses that along with roasted malts to create this brew.

Really had high hopes when I popped this beer open. Love coffee stouts. I think creamy, coffee flavored beer with some chocolate undertones. However, with this beer I wasn’t impressed. It seems that the balance wasn’t there with the beer and it was almost sharp like a porter instead of creamy like a stout. Don’t get me wrong, not a terrible beer by any means, I think I just had too high of hopes. You still get the roasted malt flavor along with barley, chocolate, and of course the coffee flavor is very present.

Maybe it was just that it wasn’t as smooth for me making it less than desirable to have another one. One was fine, but after that I’m going to be looking elsewhere for a stout.

REVIEW
Pour: Dark black pour with a tan head.
Aroma: Roasted malt and the dominate coffee smell.
Taste: All the flavors are there, they just don’t mesh well for some reason. Coffee, chocolate, malts, just not as smooth.
Overall: C

Eastern Iowa Residents: Pretty sure Lakefront does not distribute to Iowa anymore so Illinois or Wisconsin would be your best bet.
Would I Buy Again: Probably not. So many good stouts out there and this was just average.

I finally decided to give Points’ Horizon Wheat a try after walking by it many times at my local grocery store.  After being disappointed with their Belgian White I didn’t think I was going to be knocked coming into this beer….and after trying it…….. I was right. A flavorless wheat beer that did nothing for me. As much as I really wanted to like this, and in all honesty, I was really wanting to find a really good wheat beer to have around the house for hot summer days, this one just did nothing for me. Points’ products are readily available, even at my local grocery store in Mount Vernon but the two I’ve tried have missed the boat. Am I missing something, am I buying the wrong Point product? I’m not sure, I think maybe if I decide to go back to them I will go with their pale ale.  (http://pointbeer.com/point/)

STYLE: What Ale

ABV: 3.65%

Purchased At: Gary’s grocery in Mount Vernon, IA.

Wheat beers have been really hit and miss for me; I’m finding myself less enthused about American wheat beers and focusing more on German style hefeweizens which, if you get a good one, are packed with flavor; banana, bubble gum, clove, citrus, etc. all in a really good hefe/wheat.

REVIEW
Pour: Cloudy yellow with a nice white head.
Aroma: Grainy smell, and a somewhat off-putting skunky smell.
Taste: A watery wheat beer, mildly refreshing.
Overall: D

Eastern Iowa Residents: I’ve seen this all over.
Would I Buy Again: No. Maybe a good beer for someone who is starting out drinking craft beer; a training wheels craft brew.

With the craft beer scene in Iowa starting to make an effort to catch up with the rest of the country, we are starting to see some more of the “mainstream” style beers being released from our Iowa breweries. Peace Tree is doing great things in Knoxville, Toppling Goliath in Decorah, Madhouse in Newton, etc. but the oldest brewery in Iowa still stands in Amana and that is Millstream. Millstream to me is known for their John’s Generation White Ale, one of the better American White Ales you can find and I also used to love their Colony Oatmeal stout before it disappeared from the shelves.
The emergence of hoppy beers has led many breweries to go with IPAs, and Double IPAs. Millstream skipped the IPA section and went right into the Doubles.

STYLE: Imperial/Double IPA

ABV: 7.8%

Purchased At: Trade with a friend.

I really wanted this beer to be good and have Millstream put itself on the map for breweries with great Imperial IPAs, but it just didn’t stand up to most Double IPAs I’ve had. I think they started to feel pressure from other breweries in the area and the country where a lot of them are putting out wonderful IPAs. I think this hurried, maybe the wrong hops were used? Not sure, but hopefully they go back to the drawing board and try again.
REVIEW
Pour: Ruby red pour with an off-white head poured into a tulip glass.
Aroma: Different hop smell, some citrus; can’t place the aroma.
Taste: Got the sweetness and then it turned into some bizarre flavor citrus flavor.
Overall: D+

Eastern Iowa Residents: I’ve seen this at John’s Grocery and Hy-Vee.

Would I Buy Again: No. Maybe I got a bad bottle, maybe it really was as disappointing as I thought. If you’ve tried this please let me know your thoughts.