Southern Tier Brewing Company - Phin & Matt's Extraordinary Ale

Tonight we're venturing to the southwestern corner of Upstate, to the town of Lakewood, NY.  This is the home of Southern Tier Brewing Company, a microbrewery that's been with us since 2002 and produces a wide variety of beer styles.  In addition to their year-round offerings, they produce seasonal beers such as a wheat beer, ESB, an Old Ale named 'Old Man Winter' and 'Pumking', an extra-strong pumpkin ale which I'll have to review when the time comes.  (I tried it last year and it's damn fine, let me tell you.)

This is the time of year when all those lovely, fresh springtime beers really come into their own.  The microbreweries start to release their Summer Wheat varieties and the world starts to shake off the burdens of wintertime.  American-style Pale Ales are a great style to complement the season, and Upstate has some really good ones for you to try.  Starting off with tonight's review, Phin and Matt's Extraordinary Ale.

Appearance is light golden - fairly clear, perhaps a slight chill haze but it has an impressive clarity.  Head was not initially apparent, but upon agitation a moderate white head developed with decent lacing. 


Aroma was great for a Pale Ale - clear, fresh hops with some biscuity specialty malt discernible underneath.  Some apricot-like fruit scent was detectable as well.  Surprisingly complex for such a light beer - and I do mean that in a positive way.  The freshness of the hop aroma suggests that the brew might have been dry-hopped.

Flavour - the hop bitterness is definitely present, but it's not overpowering and is excellently balanced by the malts used (including, as I mentioned above, a definite biscuity malt flavour).  Some fruity esters discernible, and the finish is a delightful mix of bitter hops and good, clean malts.

Mouthfeel - the beer's got a medium-light body, with moderate carbonation, and finishes very smoothly.  It definitely leaves you wanting more.

Overall, this was a really good Pale Ale.  The brewers boast that this beer uses 3 types of hops and 3 types of malts - they've obviously worked hard to choose varieties that complement each other well, and the result is a thoroughly enjoyable, eminently drinkable brew. 

Now for the scores:


Appearance - 4/5
Aroma - 4/5
Flavour - 4/5
Mouthfeel - 4.5/5

Overall, 4.125/5.  A great session beer for the season!

Hogan's Hideaway Custom Brews

I like Rochester in the spring.  The evenings are lighter, the weather is just starting to turn, and all the greenery is slowly returning to the city.  Walking around in this weather, you feel like a weight's been lifted off of you and you can finally enjoy the natural beauty around you without fear of freezing to death.  The local farms are gearing up to sell their wares (I recommend signing up for a local CSA if you want to support Upstate NY's farming industry and get delicious fruit and veg throughout the summer), and the world feels like it's coming alive again.  It's wonderful. 

As the weather was so nice out this afternoon, my wife and I decided to go to Hogan's Hideaway on Park Avenue for a quick drink and a snack.  It's a decent place (though I have to say that the food portions were incredibly meagre for the prices we paid - around $8 for a small plate of nachos, and $2.50 for a cup of fries). The quality was decent enough, but I felt we'd have been better off making our own snacks for cheaper. Maybe I'm being unfair to the place - it's really popular, so we should probably go back for a full meal.

Anyway, this isn't about the food.  It's about the beers they serve - specifically the two custom beers brewed locally by Custom Brewcrafters, who've been featured on this blog before.  There are two brews currently on the menu - Hogan's Pale Ale and Park Avenue Ale.

Let's start with the Pale Ale. It was a light golden colour, with very little head.  Lightly carbonated, with a medium body and mouthfeel.  Wonderful floral hops in the aroma - reminded me of a less aggressive version of CB's Caged Alpha Monkey, which I briefly mentioned in an earlier entry.  A definite hoppy taste, with some malty flavour behind it, but not overpowering.  A good choice for a springtime beer - I can imagine myself sitting on the terrace at Hogan's on a warmer evening enjoying a few of these.  I'm going to give it a 4 out of 5.

The Park Avenue Ale is a dark ale, again with little head.  It had plenty of body, but it was nowhere near a stout.  You could clearly taste the roasted barley in this brew - the flavour profile emphasised the malt and toast over hoppy character, and was very pleasant (if dark ale's your thing).  This was definitely more of a winter brew.  It actually reminded me a lot of my first batch of homebrew, about which I'll soon be publishing my writeup.

In case you're interested, Homebrew Batch #2 is a Belgian Ale currently weighing in at around 7% ABV.  I'm really excited about this one...

Custom Brewcrafters Canandaigua Lake Ale

I think I've said before that I appreciate ales which don't rely overmuch on extreme, bitter hopping.  There's a certain class of beer drinker, particularly in this country it seems, that believes that complex, highly hoppy beer is the only craft beer worth drinking.  Any other kind of craft beer is a bit of an anomaly to these people - they don't know what to make of it.  A sweet, malty brew with plenty of fruity or citrus notes?  Well, it's not Bud Light but it's not IPA either, and it's suspiciously easy to drink, so it can't be Good Beer.  Can it?

Needless to say, I don't subscribe to this view.  I have the utmost respect for brewers who make IPA, it's a craft which I hope one day I'll be able to emulate in my own small way with my homebrew kit (for which I'm saving my pennies).  However, as I've said before, some of my favourite ales are less bitter, and thus open themselves up to a whole range of other flavour profiles. 

CB's Canandaigua Lake Ale really did the trick for me.  The hops are evident, but used in such a way that the bitterness isn't overpowering; a lemon-citrus flavour pervades it, giving it a fresh springtime quality; and the overall feel was very much like an English Real Ale, which I really enjoyed. 

Aroma - This beer smells of springtime.  Citrus notes blend with a hop aroma which is fresh and not at all bitter. 


Appearance - Light golden colour, it poured with a modest head which dissipated fairly quickly.  This doesn't bother me too much as it's ale, not lager.  I did notice a significant amount of sediment floating around - as I've mentioned a few times before, this is due to bottle-conditioning and isn't anything to worry about.  It's just evidence of the freshness of the beer and a pleasant reminder that you're drinking a hand-made brew.  I'll happily admit to having a nostalgic moment on seeing the sediment; it's been a while since I saw a beer that could so easily be English Real Ale.  I mean that as a real compliment.


Taste - This really is a springtime beer!  I love how the hops are evident, but their character is much less bitter than with most American craft beer.  This is fruity, light, with a great citrus bite as it goes down.  It reminds me somewhat of the Witbiers the Belgians are known for.  Obviously it's rather out of season (as I write, there are at least 6 inches of snow outside, and more is probably on its way), but it can be nice to drink this kind of brew in the cold as a reminder that the thaw will come eventually. 


Mouthfeel - Very little carbonation is evident.  Although you see the sediment in your glass, you really don't feel it while you're drinking.  It's not entirely smooth, though - it does effervesce slightly in your mouth with a delightful lemony quality.


Finish - Definite citrus taste, with a lingering, slight bitterness which is just subtle enough to be pleasant.


I think this beer deserves a 4.5 out of 5 - clever and subtle use of hops created a nice, fresh ale which I'll be drinking plenty more of in the springtime.  And I really appreciated seeing the bottle-conditioning in evidence again.

Custom Brewcrafters English Pale Ale (EPA)

Fresh from my first foray into the world of Custom Brewcrafters beers, I decided to crack open the second variety in my sampler pack.  This one declares itself an 'English-style Pale Ale' - given the fact that I'm a limey myself, I had very high expectations for this one.

As I've explained elsewhere, British ale is a different beast from American beer - it's not carbonated to the same extent, and it has to be pumped from the cask - in fact, if you go to an authentic British pub you'll see the bartender literally 'pulling pints' into your glass.  Ale also tends to be slightly sweet or malty, and in my favourite examples the hops are less prominent, giving way to a whole variety of fruity, spicy or otherwise unusual additions. 

Aroma - Fruit and hop aromas are prominent, but not overpowering like an IPA.  

Appearance - This ale has a deep amber colour, and a cloudy appearance, similarly to my previous encounter with Custom Brewcrafters.  I'm pretty sure now that this is due to bottle-conditioning, a process whereby a little yeast is retained in the bottled product to essentially keep the beer fresh.  As for the head, it was very modest, but it was there - slightly more present than it was with the Scotch Ale.

Taste - A delightful malty hit mellows into a mild hoppy bitterness.  There isn't as much 'oomph' in this beer but that's not a bad thing - a milder or more subtle taste makes for a great session beer, in my view.  These sorts of beers are also usually a better accompaniment to most food, as they won't crowd your palate when you're enjoying that amazing marinara sauce, or swordfish steak, or sushi, or...you get my point. 

Mouthfeel - Like CB's Scotch Ale, very little carbonation is evident.  This is a smooth English-style ale, true to its name. 

Finish - A bitterness lingers, reminding you of the malt in the aroma.  It's not a strong, toasted-barley taste, but a more pleasant, subtle flavour.  Very enjoyable.

I'll give this a 4 out of 5 - it's a very good, solid session beer, which satisfied this Englishman's high standards.  Like I said, I prefer less hopped English ales, which did affect my judgement a bit, but still - I can thoroughly recommend it.

Saranac Big Moose Ale

I have 2 more Saranac brews to sample from their '12 Beers of Winter' collection - Big Moose Ale and India Copper Ale.  Shooting unsuspecting wildlife sounds like a fine way to prepare for travelling to the far east, so let's go with the Big Moose today.


The brew is an American Pale Ale, with less of a hoppy hit than the IPAs I've recently been trying.  It's milder and has some fruity hints. 

This was probably my favourite of the Saranacs so far -it's exactly the kind of ale I was hoping to get from a brewery in the Adirondacks; for me it really conjured up images of hiking in the woods and communing with nature.  While drinking beer.  Which probably isn't a great idea if you're hiking, but as long as you don't run across the eponymous Big Moose, you'll probably be safe.

Here's the lowdown:

Aroma - Malty, less hoppy than some other winter beers from Saranac.   Faint whiff of pine, appropriate for a beer from the Adirondacks.

Appearance - reddish gold with a moderate head.  Some mild carbonation.

Taste - malty, subtle, with citrus notes becoming more prominent as the beers warms to room temperature. 

Aftertaste - slight bitter finish, but pleasant nonetheless.  Pine and grass notes work their way in too, making for a subtle and enjoyable palate.

I'm giving this 4.5 out of 5 - a really thoroughly enjoyable brew which I can't wait to try again.