We've said this before but it's worth saying again. One cool thing about this beer club is that it makes us try beers that we forget about. Otter Creek is brewed close to us but it's  not something we buy often. There's always so much new stuff coming out that we often forget about great things that we've tried before. The Otter Creek Pale ale and Porter are delicious, in fact after this review we went out and bought some more of them.

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Otter Creek Stovepipe Porter

Appearance: Dark dark dark dark ruby red. Nice tan head.

Smell: Coffee grounds and cocoa. Yum! Smells so nice on a cool New England night.

Taste: Mmmm... so good when it hits your lips. We just remarked on how we have to buy Otter Creek beer more! This is a great, dry porter. Lots of coffee in the taste with just a hint of sweetness to make it palatable. This is a dark beer you can easily enjoy summer or winter. Thanks to Gourmet Monthly Clubs for sending the delicious Otter Creek beer. If you're not from around New England, these are the beers that make this club totally worth it!

Tremont Mr Oktoberfest

Appearance: Dark Amber

Smell: Smells like a malty ocotberfest

Taste: Ok first off this is an oktoberfest ale, octoberfest is supposed to be a lager. That said we're actually cool with people messing with stuff like that it just means we need to shift our expectations. This beer is really clean, but too clean for what we want. We like the big malty backbones that most octoberfest beers have and this is just missing that. It's a nice crisp beer but in honestly we're having a hard time telling our brains to expect something different than the lager flavors we're used to. It's interesting and we're glad we tried it, but it's messing with our heads.

Otter Creek Pale Ale

Appearance: hazy orangish amber

Smell: nice hops

Taste: very crisp, very refreshing, you can definitely taste the cascade hops coming through. We always forget how good this beer is. We could drink this all the time, in fact we really should buy this more often.


Tremont Freedom Trail IPA

Appearance: Amber

Smell: Light hops and biscuity malt. The hops are a bit dank, even... definitely not light.

Taste: Good hop flavor! Must be lots of late hops added to the boil. It's not overly bitter, but the beer strikes a very nice balance. We wouldn't go to this when we wanted a tooth-kicking-in hop bomb, but we would definitely drink this again! This is much nicer than the old Tremont IPA. Approved!

This month's selection is actually really interesting for us. We're based out of Boston so a couple of these beers are very local to us. What makes them special though is that Buzzards Bay Brewing Co, is not longer making beer. So the beer we got is some of the last to leave the factory. This is great beer, really great beer and we're sad to see it go. For those who are already members of this club you got a nice treat here. For those who aren't this is a really good example of the type of cool beer you might get to try. 

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Tallgrass Brewing Company IPA

Appearance: Medium copper colored. Not too light, or too dark for an IPA. Fluffy white head.

Smell: Light hops, but not too many other strong aromas. Tropical fruit hops with just enough malt sweetness.

Taste: Oh wow! This is really good! Just enough bitterness to be a serious American IPA, but the real story is really great hop flavor! This is a really tasty IPA that you should check out!

Tallgrass Brewing Company Ale

Appearance: Brown with red hues, but definitely more towards brown. Bone colored head that quickly disappears.

Smell: Mild sweetness with a bit of malt aromas and just a hint of cocoa.

Taste: Sweet maltiness up front, but the beer ends in dry chocolate flavor. Definitely unexpected! This is a good, and quite drinkable, brown ale that we would be great to drink multiples of while out camping.

Buzzards Bay Alt Bier

Appearance: Deep copper color and white head. Everyone agreed that it looks like what people used to expect beer to look like. That's good!

Smell: Mild malt... not much else, it smells like beer.

Taste: Beer. This tastes just like a really good, smooth, easy drinking beer. We mean this in the best way possible. This is a great subtle lager that we would love to have more of! We're in luck that we live quite near to Buzzards Bay Brewery but, unfortunately, they are shutting down the brand. Buzzards Bay will be missed, but great selection by Gourmet Monthly Clubs in getting this lager out to the public!

Buzzards Bay Brewing Black Lager

Appearance: Dark, but clear, brown beer with a strangely white head.

Smell: Smells quite nutty! On top of the nuttiness you get some lightly roasted malt.

Taste: Crisp, light on the palette, but dark and roasty lager. Slight nuttiness in the flavor. Having this and the Alt Bier just makes us sad, though, because Buzzards Bay is shutting down. They made some of the best lagers in New England... actually, we'll go out on a limb and say they made some of the best lagers in the country! This was a great brewery and we'll be sad to see it go. Members of Gourmet Monthly Club are lucky to have tried this before they closed!

We're going to keep this months intro short. We were stoked to see 4 offerings from Colorado this go round, and from two of our favorite breweries Boulder Beer Co and Flying Dog. We told you a month ago how excited we were about our shipment of beers...we're way more excited this go round. This is a hop lovers dream shipment here. What's great is that for someone who isn't familar these beers provide a great range of flavors. Ok we really want to drink these now so lets get on to the good stuf...the beer. As always Click Here To Join the same clubs as us. 

Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden

Appearance: Light and Golden...who would have thought?

Smell: Surprising amount of hops with a nice biscuit malt back

Taste: Really balanced beer. Hoppier than most golden ales we can recal but not so much that it breaks style. This beer is just balanced all around. Last time we had this beer was a couple years ago, and it's better than we remember it. We're really glad we tried this again because we want to go out and buy some more now. If you want a nice crisp lighter beer that still has a bit of hops and great balanced flavor this beer is for you.

Flying Dog Kerberos Tripel

Appearance: Golden copper

Smell: Sweet belgian yeast, hint of alcohol and candy sugar

Taste: A bit sweet, reminds us of a sweet saison, with a dried apricot like finish. A bit of heat from the alcohol sneaks through as this beer warms. While this beer should be served ice cold, it needs to be cold or the alcohol comes through in a little bit of an unwelcome way. A cool take on a tripel though, can't think of another tripel like this, and that's fine with us. Brewing to style is way over rated in our book anyways.



Boulder Beer Co. Flashback Anniversary Ale

Appearance: Really pretty, what that isn't descriptive enough? It's a really tasty looking coppery red.

Smell: Lots of hops, lots of malt, lots of cascade hops goin on

Taste: Whoa, whats up cascade hops. This beer has 5 additions of cascade hops, and you can taste it! This beer is cool. So we'll ignore for a minute that Boulder Beer Co made up a style here. There's no such thing as an IBA, but the Boulder Beer Co looking glass series is one of the things that got us in to hoppy beers, and for that we'll let them make some things up now and then. The fact is this is a blend of brown ale flavors and IPA flavors, so the name isn't innacurate. Give this one a shot for sure. We somehow haven't tried this before now, so we're glad we did and we think you should too.

Boulder Beer Co Mojo IPA

Appearance: Golden

Smell: It's an IPA from Colorado...so hops...a bit of alcohol does come through as well though

Taste: Delicious delicious hops. We'll be clear though, this beer is hopped pretty heavily on the bittering end of things so if you don't care for bitter/hoppy beers this is likely not for you. Fortunately for us, and we hope many of you, we like lots of hops. While heavily hopped on the bittering side, the beer has a great hop profile through the drinking experience. Mmmmm hops...yum.

We're back with another month of beers from Gourmet Monthly Clubs. As always if you'd like to join the same clubs as us  click here

Millstream Brewing Company John's Grocery Generation's White Ale

Appearance: Hazy, light straw colored. White fluffy, thin head that starts out 2 inches thick and quickly dissipates to nothing.

Smell: Sweet wheat predominates the aroma, and then you get some banana from the yeast. It's a fairly pleasant smell.

Taste: This is a very flavorful beer! It starts out with some chalky wheat sweetness then moves into a good bit of coriander. It finishes much drier than we expected, especially based off how it started off. This is a good summer beer that would stand up to when the weather gets colder (which is apparently July, in Boston).

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