June Pick Six: 6 Beers for the Start of Summer

Empty Rowboat IPA – Lake Monster Brewing Company

• Brewery Location: St Paul, MN
• Style: American IPA
• ABV: 6.9%
• IBU: 80
• Availability: Year round

 

Lake Monster’s brewers go a little overboard with the intense hop character of Empty Rowboat. They have an over-the-top outlook on brewing and it definitely pays off. This beer is packed with flavor and its wallop will knock you right out of your seat. Sitting is no defense against the punch you in the mouth taste. None are safe from the clutches of the Lake Monster, but this is one monster whose clutches you want to be in.

It gains a strong citrus bitterness aroma from the American hops in the brew and bitterness in the taste. Beautifully amber in color this beer is as aesthetically pleasing as the art on the bottle. I’m a firm believer in great beer and great breweries and Lake Monster has a philosophy that’s easy to get behind. There is always more to discover and  it is worth the effort to venture beneath the surface in search of something unknown and extraordinary. Keep exploring and venture out in your beer tastes. You never know what you’ll find.

Purple Haze – Abita Brewing Company

• Brewery Location: Covington, LA
• Style: Fruit beer
• ABV: 4.2%
• IBU: 13
• Availability: Year round

Usually I steer clear of fruit beers after being conditioned to dislike their cloying sweetness and overpowering fruit flavors that mask any hint mingling malt and hops. One of my first experiences actually drinking beer was back before college making the transition from cheap flavored liquor to cheap flavored beer. My adolescent brain thought this was a pragmatic process, but the outcome wasn’t so great. Drinking sugary Summer Shandys and Berry Weiss’s made me write off fruit beers (Sorry Leinenkugels). So it’s been a long hiatus, but I have found the beer that has changed my mind on fruit beers.

Enter Purple Haze. This is a fruit beer that focuses on the beer first and then the fruit second, as opposed to the other way around. It’s a light lager that greets your nose with sweet raspberry and the taste is sweet, but not so much that it overpowers the other flavors that brewers toiled to include. The fruit shows the beers namesake by clouding the beer and giving it a tinge of a purple hue. Tartness from the raspberries lingers, but not too long which makes you want to go back for another drink.

It was a long explanation, but the gist of it is this: if you have written off fruit beers give them another try. You might be surprised with what you find. Another solid fruit beer that builds on a great wheat beer first is Hinterland’s Cherry Wheat. Crisp wheat with tart cherry. Delicious.

Milk Stache – O’so Brewing Company

• Brewery Location: Plover, WI
• Style: Nitro Milk Stout
• ABV: 6.9%
• IBU: 15
• Availability: Year-round

 

I apologize for sounding like a super hipster beer snob in advance. This milk stout is so new in O’so Brewing Co.’s lineup that it is not even listed on their website yet. I stumbled upon this gem at the Belgian beer inspired restaurant Bier Zot Beer Cafe in Door County, Wisconsin. Chock full with loons, whales, and other sought after brews Bier Zot has the atmosphere and beer menu that will make you want to stay all day. So if you are ever vacationing in Door County I highly recommend checking it out.

Milk Stache. The name makes you reminisce of younger days when taking a swig of milk gives you a faux mustache. Taking a swig of this lactose sweet stout coats your mouth with roasted flavors and the thick nitro head sticks to your lips giving you a more adult version of the traditional milk mustache.

Replacing Night Train (or Night Rain) as the dark and heavy brew this is a sweet milk stout best enjoyed on nitro. Delightfully creamy with coffee and caramel notes. Nitro gives the glass a thick head and the finish is smooth like it should be. Just downright tasty.