Someone asked me recently about Third Street BrewHouse, before I ever tried their wares, before they released anything, this question: "Do you think they have anything to do with Cold Spring Brewery?", in that they are in the city of Cold Spring, Minnesota. I said something along the lines of, "they'd have to be, no one would ever take on that poisonous association." Cold Spring Brewing has been long known as one of the nation's worst breweries, at least when it comes to the online internet beer geek reviewers, (a subspecies I belong to, naturally). They were once the makers of the Gluek line of crummy brews, and finally lost all vestiges of that brand a few years ago.
Well, I was right. Cold Spring created this new brand, built an entirely new brewery, and hired very competent hands (Horace Cunningham, formerly of Summit). Perhaps the hand-drawn lettering and rough pencil artwork is meant to suggest honesty, raw integrity, deep-down craftsmanship? Maybe so.
Well, let's find out what they're all about, with some Bitter Neighbor Black IPA India Pale Ale. Careful perusers of this blog will know of my constant struggle with the still very new sort-of-style. We're teeter-tottering between the well-mashed and the utterly imbalanced. I need to research my own notes to find out just how this pseudo style has fared, good (in my opinion) versus not so good.
Let's crack this and find out…
6.5% ABV.
Appearance: Fully black, no light escapes, unless you really, really try, nice cocoa/tan head, tight 1/4" , lasting long.
Aroma: cocoa and cream, and a faint whiff of grassy hops. Smooth and balanced.
Taste: No real threat from hops at the start, fairly mild, but there. Pleasant on the palate, then the malt comes in, again, very well-mannered, not brash or brusque and rude in any fashion, just knocking on the door and taking it's shoes off. Well comported body, medium, with a lightly hoppy, chocolatey finish. Toasty, just-a-little-bit-bitter malty flavor.
Taking a break now to read the label. "The Story. You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family. You can pick where you live, but you can't pick your neighbors. That is, until now. When you pick up a glass filled with frothy, dark-colored bitter neighbor black IPA, it won't leave a bad taste in your mouth. In fact, it's quite good. (Sorry, we can't help you with the family part.)
Malts: Pale, caramel, Munich, Roasted Black. Hops: German & US (Magnum, Hersbrucker, Amarillo, Cascade.)
(Quick note about that copy. Breweries should never describe their beers as "nice" or "good." Just tell us how you made it and what flavors we might find, let us make the judgement about how nice and good it is.)
I've downed a few of these already, without taking notes, just drinking. And it drinks well. But considering what they expect that we get from this, and comparing this against others in this loosely collected category, I find Bitter Neighbor lacking. For one, not bitter enough. Hardly enough hops or bitterness to warrant calling it any kind of an IPA. Black it is, though, and actually quite tasty, and consumable, indeed.
If we just want to rave about beers that aren't bad coming out of a brewery known for awful crap, then we can do that. If we want to talk about something memorable, we can't do it here.
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