North Peak Wanderer

Don't forget to follow up on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Sorry for the lack of presence online lately; today was the first day in nearly a month I'd been on the computer. My father was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and as his caregiver, I've had my hands full. It's not all doom and gloom, though, never fear. We have good beer, a welcome break from caregiving duties tomorrow night with tickets to Frank Turner's appearance at the Nelsonville Music Festival, and tomorrow is the last day of school for Peanut. He's excited about the start of summer break. Let's blow the dust off the keyboard and see if my fingers remember how to operate it.

To continue on the somber note, the world lost two great and influential people today; Maya Angelou was a wonderful soul who I've had the honor of meeting a couple of times. She always came off as so kind and worldly and wise. Jack Joyce, one of the founders of Rogue Brewing, also passed away today. We wish we had one of his beers on hand to enjoy, but instead, I'll highly recommend the 7-Hop IPA, which is fantastic. Please pause for a moment and lift your pint in memory of these wonderful people.

Let's get to what's in my pint. Apparently it's been awhile since we purchased this. This is a session IPA from a fantastic brewery with a small distribution footprint. It's a beautiful clear medium orange color, and the considerable white head dissipated faster than my interest in the latest hipster fad. The aroma is.... ah crap, I hope we didn't sit on this for too long. There are a lot of caramel and toffee notes, with just the faintest hint of pine and maybe a tinge of grapefruit, but those last two are so barely discernible that I'm questioning my own sanity right now. Let's be honest, there wasn't a lot to start. Of my sanity, that is. As I take a sip, it's become clear to me that this is a drink-me-NOW kind of beer. The malts completely overwhelm any hop presence, and for a session IPA, it should be quite the opposite. There are faint notes of citrus and earthiness. There's a vague soapy note toward the back of it, like my mom caught me lying a couple of hours ago. At least the malty notes fade out quickly. It's as appropriately light-bodied for a session IPA, weighing in at 4% ABV should be.

I'm more disappointed in ourselves for sitting on this too long, rather than drinking it fresh. And yes, my fingers did kind of forget how to work a keyboard.

3.8/5 caps, but don't blame the brewery, blame us.


-Jennie

Well, Jennie has perfectly written part of Nathan's story. I figure this is part of the coping process. The day The Phil went to the ER over pain, I was coming back from the funeral of a dear friend (Dan Haley). Two days later, I learned that my mentor at work had passed away. That was all at the beginning of May. This year has been shitty. What the fuck 2014, you were supposed to be better than 2013. Your false hope brings sorrow and tragedy. A few good things that have happened this month- 1) our 3 different hop varieties are growing 2) Jennie won free passes to Nelsonville Music Fest, where we will be seeing Frank Turner 3) we've decided to do a new segment for Behind The Tap of Drinking with the Stars. It will involve us sitting down with a musician over beer and discussing beer (still hashing out details, we have at least one on board, we figure this will spread like hot cakes).

So, apparently there is a beer that needs reviewed. We're sitting on roughly 30 beers in need of reviewing. Fuck. We've sat on some for too long. This would be one. The Wanderer from North Peak. Harder to find (due to limited distribution), and I feel like the asshole for sitting on this for so damn long. This pours a nice amber color, with decent amount of white head that doesn't hang around for long, like the black sheep relative that felt obligated to show up to the family reunion. The aroma on this is malty... sweet caramel.. fuck... no hops. We sat on this for too long. FUCK! The taste of grapefruit and pine are faint on this malty palate. The back of the tongue receive more of a hop blast than the flavor. Sigh. Hops are a finicky beast. Their characteristics dies off after time, and apparently we're the biggest assholes in the world. We shouldn't honestly be reviewing this at this point. We will do another review on this (once we work on thinning out our stock), as this should be enjoyed fresh.

3.9/5 caps (read previous comments)

-Nathan-

Listen to this song... This review will make sense. No food or cheese pairings as we can fuck up anything, anything.
Music pairing: "Plain Sailing Weather" by Frank Turner