Oct
12
2011
Comments Off on Disappointment, and surprise.

I almost feel like Wilfred with all of these acridly titled posts. Nevertheless I digress.

What is the emotion that runs through your veins as your highly touted brew that you have been looking for surges across your palate… and you find it lackluster. What do you do when a beer that you wanted to be so good, just flat out isn’t. Do you finish it? Do you allow it a biased amount of time to change, and meld to better fit your preconceptions? Myself, I am guilty of that. When I find a beer that I have been scrounging to find for a good amount of time, I am rather disappointed when it comes to actually…. suck. I mean, if I am going to spend weeks, if not months looking for this brew… or maybe I have just been waiting for it (Cue Ovila‘s triology) for months at a time, I really want a high quality brew. I don’t want to be let down by something that did not live up to the expectations that I had for it. Now, my most recent example of this was Gravel Road by Rahr and Sons. I am not quite on the Rahr and Sons bandwagon, but I am quickly becoming a convert. I began with just a simple red that I bought while in Arlington,Texas visiting my brother at University. Rahr was not distributed in College Station at the time so this was my first experience with the brewery. I found it to be “alright” but nothing special. I then began to see more Rahr products in my own grocery store, and hear my friends begin to talk about them. Well, I couldn’t be that far behind the eight ball so I had to begin my own investigation into the beer. I started with their Blonde, their Black Lager, etc. I tried their Oktoberfest on a whim and was blown away. Well, I heard they had “Gravel Road” coming out. I didn’t know what kind of beer it was to be, but just the name and label had me hooked (more on beer labels later.). I looked for Gravel Road for weeks. I would get texts from friends who found it in a bar, or had it on draft and they would rave about how amazing it was. Well, the other day I finally came across a six pack and had to have it. Unfortunately it let me down. Now, I still have five more bottles, so I will give it a genuine second chance, and a honest to goodness proper review, but for the time being I am not terribly impressed with it.

In a stark contrast, a brewery that I was impressed with, and will be buying more of their products soon is Clown Shoe. I bought a bottle of their Tramp Stamp at Specs over the weekend. Now, I was not expecting a lot out of this brewery. They are from up on the north east seaboard, and I mean seriously… who names their brewery “Clown Shoe”? Well, the label on the bottle was intriguing, I mean who can really say no to a tramp stamp? It is a picture of the back of a lady with well, a medium sized tattoo on her lower back. I figured if nothing else, the bottle would look cool on my wall of bottles once I get it built. The beer itself is a mesh of IPA, and Belgian Trippel. A most intriguing culmination… Honestly, the beer was amazing. Well worth the six bucks or so that I spent on it, AND it came in a bomber (22oz bottle). I would certainly buy it again, but before I do I want to check out some of their other brews.

What are some of the beers that you have had high expectations for and they let you down? What are some brews that you didn’t expect much out of, but they blew you away? Any beers that on a second visit maybe disappointed? or a lackluster premier beer that just knocked it out of the ball park on a second tasting? I’d love to hear about them.

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