Nate loves Beer.
Sierra Nevada is perhaps the greatest brewery on the face of the planet. Not only do they make seven different brews regularly, but they now have six specialty drafts that can only be found at the brewery and in select locations throughout the country.
www.sierranevada.com
www.sierranevada.com
Here's the big list and my take on each beer:
The original. Excellent example of a true pale. Crisp, full and lots of hops. This beer is responsible for me learning to love the taste of beer. What beer did that for you? Best with typical BBQ items; cheesburgers and hot dogs.
This beer took me some time to get used to. Heavy barley flavor and creamy. Very good, but cannot be consumed in large quantities. Good with seafood or steak.
Simply put, in college, we purchased more kegs of Wheat than any other Sierra Nevada beer. It wasn't even close. Excellent flavor, unfiltered, easy to drink and a pleasant alcohol content. The coach really likes this beer. Best keg party beer ever.
As good as Guinness or better, depending on the year. Very nice alcohol content at 5.8%. Very rich and creamy. Also cannot be consumed in large quantities. Goes really nicely with typical deep fried pub food like jalepeno poppers or shrimp.
The greatest barleywine ale ever made. Head and shoulders above Hair of the Dog Fred, and I love Fred. SNB suggests like snack foods with Bigfoot, but I've found that eating anything along with Bigfoot is doing a disservice to the greatest 9.6% barleywine ale in history. The first time I tried this beer I almost gagged the flavor is so robust.There are two other regularly offered SNB beers that I will not go into much detail. Summerfest is a great light ale like Pale Ale but it is a Pilsner. It is pretty good. Celebration Ale is their traditional holiday beer with a very nice 6.8% alcohol level. Great for cold winter nights. Limited availabilty at Fred Meyer up here. I try to buy a six pack every year, but I have missed a couple years here and there from 1996 until now. You can't go wrong with it in any year.
I will not cover the six specialty drafts, because I have only tried three of them at the brewpub in Chico. Those were Crystal Wheat, Brown Ale and India Pale Ale. I certainly do not have enough experience with them to provide you, the avid beer drinker, with a legitimate opinion. They were all tasty, though. If they are ever released commercially, they will be successful and well received.
Happy drinking!
8 comments:
I disagree my friend. I believe that the greatest brewery in the world just so happens to be located in Portland a.k.a. Beertopia a.k.a. Beervana and goes by the name of McMenamin's. They have a great selection of very tasty brews and each one of their locations has an unique, distinct charm to them. Who's down for some McMenamin's on Friday???
Well Alex, I am guessing you are not a Coug since you had a lot of kegs of Sierra Nevada Wheat, or any Sierra Nevada kegs at all, or Sierra Nevada bottles for that matter. Spoiled bastard. The beer that taught me to love beer is hard to narrow down, but I think I have two choices 1) I was 8 years old and my dad gave me a sip of his Budweiser for getting it from the fridge for him or 2) I was 12 years old and got wasted my first time on MGD. (Not to mention, both types, Bud and MGD, are still better than any beer that I had a keg of in college. Were talking Busch or Keystone. When I wanted to treat myself, I'd get a Kokenee 12 pack or a sixer of Red Dog because the bottle cap had Batman eating out Catwoman. Awesome....
Alex puts us to shame with his excellent review of the beers offered by siera nevada. Anyone else up to the challange of doing a few other breweries?
I will get S.N. on the list.
and Dicko is right. One time we got a keg of something good (it might have been Kokanee, man we were poor and stupid) in Pullman, and it had gone bad because the hick bars didn't really sell too much of anything darker than piss, and we had to take it back and get something shitty. It would be fun to keep track of beers you drink at Wazzu while in college. 365 different beers a year wouldn't have been possible cause the stores had probably less than 150 varaties combined, but I bet me and dicko did our best to hit somewhere around 2,190 total beers a year.
I know, while 6 in a day might not sound like much, that is 42 a week, which sounds about right if you factor in an occasional day or few off, only drinking a few times a week during the summer (if you were home) and the occasional super bowl sunday or open to close where you lost count after 20...
It's so funny how some people here see Kokanee as a novelty import lager. Growing up in BC, it was just regular macro beer, like ordering an MGD or a Bud. Oddly enough, even as an import it's still cheaper in the US than it is in Canada.
I'm a Wildcat, Dicko. California State University, Chico. Techincally I graduated from Concordia in Portland, but my undergrad years were mostly spent in Chico where I grew up.
Much like Trout described Kokanee as a regular macro brew, SN was like that for us. Safeway always had $4.99 six packs of every SN brew available. Even the seasonals were on sale upon release, usually at $4.99. SN kegs were always like $15 more than your Bud, Miller or Henry's kegs, but when you were collecting funds to go buy a keg, an extra $15 to get a SN keg was easy to collect because everyone loved SN.
My point about Kokanee is that it is a macro brew and that is what we considered high class... $4.99 sixers isn't bad for SN, but when you can get 24 busch's for $8.99, Busch it is. Plus, at that point in my life, I needed a 24 pack to get a buzz.
Holy shit. The times when it took 10 cheap beers before you started feeling it...
Man am I glad that is over.
Wait, no I'm not.
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