Hops & Grain Tap Room, 3 beers.

I finally made it to the Hops & Grain tap room before it was about to close. The nice guy bartender greeted my pleasantly and showed me the ropes. The beer tickets were 4 for $10 and mostly good for a beer per ticket.  Four beer for ten bucks... not bad.

The tap room was mostly empty. There were a few beer folk and post work bar slouchers like myself warming bar stools and bench seats. The menu had too many goddam IPA's, but I've come to expect that kind of treachery from craft brewers.  Still, the place smelled like malt, and was decorated mostly with beer barrel, like a sad polka.

Scanning the menu, I'd had the Zoe and the AltEration before. I ogled the bourbon barrel aged Porter (it looked sexy, but I decided on the Belgian pale ale to start, because I'm a coward and chickened out of diving into their Dispensary selection ("aggressively dry hopped").  Somewhere a Molly mocks me.

I waddled my beer to one of the many ubiquitous wooden benches that is required seating at tap rooms, and sipped into my first beer.

Belgian pale ale:

It was pretty tasty actually. I wasn't expecting that.
Floral but not heavy handed. Light, but with plenty of substance. 

It had a weight to it, like drinking it in the sun and heat would definitely result in passing out in a pool of your own vomit. You know the kind of beer I'm talking about. 

It left a metallic hops flavor coating on the tongue. I like it less the more of it I drink. It settles heavy.

 
A hop head or other weirdo would certainly be in love with this beer, but I'm a decent person, who sympathizes with the plight of the under-malted beer drinker.  I believe there is more to drinking than what some dumb-ass beer blog has to say.

Still, I drank it all to fortify myself. I'm going for the big ugly hoppiness next.

Imperial IPA: 

I asked the goodly barman for the baddest of the bad. The hippity-est of the hops. The most depraved of the immoral IPA's. From the super dry hopped Dispensary line, he poured me the Imperial IPA.

I was expecting to look like Preacher comic's fan-favorite character, Ass-face, but the pucker-factor was minimal. I was confused. 

This beer is round. It's like drinking a beach ball. That kind of round. Sure, hops and some bitter notes. Some floral. Some lingering tongue-salad herbiness. Fuck me, though, I like this beer.

It's like when the nerdy chick in the teen movie takes off her glasses and let's her hair down and suddenly she has a great rack. And at 10% ABV... damn. This beer just shoved it's flute up my teen sex-comedy reference.

Bourbon Barrel Porter: 

 Holy shit monkeys. I paid two fukkin' tickets for this beer, and it tastes like someone left raisins, prunes, bitter cherries, and booze in my delicious beer. Which is awesome.

I suspect some kind of demon has just traded me for my shriveled soul. Demon-chump! This beer is great. I wanna dunk my head in this tiny glass and live as a beer-fish. Is that still legal?

This beer is far too vocal to be this enjoyable. It's yammering on about all sorts of flavors and crap, but what about the flavors?! Ooohhh, such many tasty flavors. 

Hey drinky! Get off your ass and find this beer. It's mellow yet lively! Like a mongoose in a smoking jacket. 

I give up. Screw you blog, I'm busy drinkin'!