Kros Strain Barrel Aged Imperial Stout

Kros Strain Barrel Aged Imperial Stout.

13% ABV, Kros Strain Brewing, La Vista, NE. 

So, there I was, minding my own business, doing my job, and someone asks me to help him pick out 24 beers to take back home to Omaha. New England IPAs, preferably, and some weird, stuff, too. Okay, so, 6 4-packs, that should be easy, and I grab from Modist and BlackStack and Falling Knife and Lupulin, it's fairly quick and pailnless, and he thanks me, pays up, takes it to the car and returns to give me this can, from his brewery in La Vista, Nebraska. I never would have heard of them, if not for this incident. And now I will drink this beer. 

First of all, what kind of name is Kros Strain Brewing? I'm going to make a wild guess and say that a guy named Kros meet a guy named Strain. I might be wrong, though. 

Imperial Stout aged in Willett barrels for 20 months. With toasted coconut and hazelnuts added. I am eternally grateful that they did not refer to it as a pastry stout.

Strictly Stygian appearance, absolute opacity, slim to no head. 

In the nose: Coconut bomb. Flavor comes screaming out of the glass. Let's go in deeper. Coconut smothers everything. Not even getting any hazelnut, let alone the other barrel flavors or RIS flavors. It's all coconut. 

In the mouth: HUGE coconut flavors, with more trying to escape form underneath. Rich malt, thick, impenetrable, and sweet, with possibly some small hazelnut flavors showing, but I am also not really picking up any bourbon effects, either. It seems that everything has been swallowed up by the coconut. That might work for you, but, as for me, I'd like a little bourbon feeling in there somewhere. 

If you're coockoo for coconuts and in the Omaha area, go for it. 

Imperial stout aged for 20 months in Willett Whiskey barrels then finished with over 100 lbs of toasted coconut and hazelnut. Dessert in a glass! 

Nebraska Eos Hefe Weizen

Nebraska Eos Hefe Weizen, 5.2% Alc./Vol, 13 IBU. Brewed and packaged by Nebraska Brewing, La Vista, NE, USA.

I poured it into a traditional hefe weizen glass, but the contents of this 12 ounce can don't quite fill it, nor does the head take over half the glass, as it ought.

Appearance: hazy, straw yellow to gold coloring, with a large white head that drifts down to nil.

Aroma: banana and clove are right on time, with orange and lemon just behind. Sweet, fruity, wheat-y, and delightful. Lovely.

Taste: Sweet wheat malt, tantalizing wizen yeast, low to moderate hops, fruit and spice, excellently consumable. Medium bodied. Hits all the marks for an on-the-money hefe weizen. Kind of beer I can drink in plentitude come summer time.

Time to decipher the verbiage on the side of the can, what we call here at the Nib, the gobbledygook: "Eos, the Goddess of the Dawn, is fitting for the golden aspects of the color and sticking aromatics this unfiltered Bavarian-style hefeweizen beer delivers. Medium body and a huge banana-like aroma creates a wonderful drinkability unlike many others. Immensely pleasurable."

Beer's good. Can copy's atrocious.

Nebraska Cardinal Pale Ale

Nebraska Cardinal Pale Ale, Nebraska Brewing Company, La Vista, NE. 6% ABV, 48 IBU.

Here's my first entry from this brewery. I've seen their bottles on sale in Wisconsin liquor stores, but the prices that exceed the 25 dollar mark have scared me away. At last, they're here, and they're in cans. And I owe this one to my neighbors at the Beer Dabbler St. Paul event at Midway Stadium, a few weeks ago. I was representing Harriet with Joe and Jody, and at closing time for the festival, some of the other breweries didn't feel like bringing home their leftover wares. Lucky for us, they were giving them away. I never say no to free beer. Especially when cash is short and thirst is long.

Appearance: Clear, bright golden coloring, slim white head.

Aroma: floral, citrus-y hops and nothing but. touch of pine, too. Grapefruit and forest floor, my, oh, my.

Taste: Brisk hop attack up front, with slightly sweet malt flavor just below. Clean, smooth, and delicious. Tasty, tasty hop-kissed goodness, and supreme ease of drinking. Right on the money pale ale, right here. Clean finish. Good beer.

Hey, what's the gobbledygook? Around the neck of the can, the slogan: "World class in every glass." More: "Our pale ale is deep golden in color and characterized by a huge citrus-like aroma, with medium maltiness, and elevated bitterness. Cardinal Pale Ale, the heart of Nebraska Brewing Company, is where it all began so many years ago."

Empyrean Dark Side Vanilla Porter

Empyrean Dark Side Vanilla Porter, Empyrean Brewing Company, Brewers if Fube Ales and Lagers since 1990, Lincoln, Nebraska.

"Hello Darkness, my old friend. Smooth, dark and roasted with highlights of coffee, chocolate, and vanilla." 14.5 OG. 23 IBU, 5.7% ABV.

Finally available here in Minnesota, though I'm looking back at notes from May or 2003:


Dark, earthy brown color, lighter 'round the sides, with a grand, lasting, creamy head. Aroma: smack-full of vanilla, with some roasty elements, and additional flavors of nuts, cocoa, and more.

It stuff my nose in the glass to further get a feel for it, and then I'm left with a touch of rum...no, rum & coke...no, rum & vanilla coke?

Vanilla feel is dominant on the palate, and while there is some of the bitterness I look for in any good porter, it's lying very low. All other parts of the picture do their job very well, but it's the particular vanilla flavor that this beer is all about, and it never quits. So, if you like vanilla, here you go.

Lucky Bucket Barley-wine

As with the Left Hand Ambidextrous Ale, this is a beer that perplexes me with it's anonymity. At the time I ordered and received the keg, there was no information to be found anywhere. No reviews online, nothing on their website. Eventually, I found it on untappd, so people are out there drinking it, but no one is writing about it. Are there no BeerAdvocates of RateBeerians in Omaha? Or does no one care, at all? It sat in the cooler for months, until Imperial March, and now it's back on, so I'm sitting down with a glass of it, and yet, all this time later, still no reviews! It is actually listed on RateBeer, with no ratings, and this information: COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTION
A whopping 10% ABV this darkly malted monster will be good for years to come, but you can enjoy now. A meeting of the malt minds Nebraska stopover : from the West coast where we hop it up, to the U.K where the style is born, Zac’s genius pins the beer, and whorls the styles, in a balanced display of layered malt, and robust rich grain sweetness balanced by hops and culminating in a very drinkable high octane beer.

Still, no rating, and they are not a stingy bunch. But then, they don't do a ton of ratings at a bars, and I believe this is a draft-only release. Nonetheless, I suppose I should be the first to write about it, shouldn't I? Away, we go!

Deep  crimson coloring, under a solid, off-white slab of froth. Looks great, so far. 

Aroma: sweetness and hops, rich malt, but nothing too huge or hot, and I'm getting glimpses of the flavors I find in the biggest and baddest barley-wines, but here they are fairly muffled. Red wine, cognac, dark fruit, wood, leather. 

Taste: thick malty flavor floods the mouth...to a point. This should be a common refrain in any deep analysis of this brew. Has this flavor...to a point. Delivers that feeling...to a point. It's no monster, no kin to Bigfoot, only a little brother of baby cousin, or something. "How about if we made a dainty li'l barley-wine", they seem to be saying.  Hops are here, alcohol is, and malt is definitely working it, but the pursuit of balance and drinkability hobbles this effort some. 

A surprisingly smooth barley-wine, and drinkable despite the 10%. Unfortunately, it's meekness makes it rather forgettable. Very clean, flagged with the classic flavors, but unremarkable. Not likely to impress anyone. 

But, hey, it's beer, and you can drink it!

Lucky Bucket Snowsuit

Lucky Bucket Snowsuit. Tapped last  Thursday afternoon, finally getting around to sitting down and examining it. Called a Belgian single, or pale ale. Additionally, spiced with cinnamon, clove, allspice, and nutmeg. 5.5 % ABV.

Clear, reddish-brown, negligible head. Starts as something, gets to nowhere quickly.

Aroma: sweetness and spice. Like a pumpkin pie. Nutmeg dominates and drowns out anything else.

Taste: sweetness and spice again, and, well, almost too much. Body is lean, malt holds no particular presence, suggests no true character, nothing comes through from hops, and yeast is not present either. Thin, and watery, with the spice standing over everything.

Here's the thing. I took a chance, decided it had every possibility of being good. Tapped without ever drinking it (doesn't happen that often), sampled it, and thought, "hmmm, maybe I made a mistake." Later, had a full glass and changed my mind. "No, no, this is good, people will like it." No one who had it seriously complained.

Right now, I'm wondering what was in my glass four days ago. This is so much thinner in body than I remember, there's nothing to suggest it should be classified Belgian anything, no character at all. The only stand-out flavor is the spices, and they can cover up any flaw you choose to mention, if you pile them up hight enough.

I bought another LB beer untasted/untested (my way of saying "sight unseen"), and that's their barleywine. Maybe I should hook that up before I start promoting it as anything it isn't.

Hopefully, this keg will be gone without much delay, and we can forget about it.

But, to frame it succinctly, there's nothing horribly wrong with this, except that there's nothing really good about it, either.  Taste starts turning sour further into the glass. Does that count for Belgian character?

Lucky Bucket Certified Evil

Certified Evil is an undomesticated beast, a dark, ominous and oak aged creation. It's aggressive hops battle it's massive malt profile, Flavor assaulting all those who bear witness." Do I want to get assaulted with flavor? Hmmm, maybe, maybe…
"Malt beverage brewed with brown sugar, raisin juice, molasses, cardamom and orange peel and aged in wine casks." It's called an Imperial Porter, rings in at 9.6%, and has been aged in Cabernet barrels. Let's get cracking' at it…

Solid blackness, dark as sin, with a thin, brown ring for a head.

Deep and rich aromatics, dark fruit foremost, with molasses, chocolate, espresso, and more making up the mix. Raisins, figs, brown sugar…cocoa powder. Well balanced, nothing is dominant, nothing too loud or too callous. Even tempered all the way, aromatically.

Now, let's taste…in the mouth, it's a thick morass of flavors, sweet malty flavors kept in check, well maintained, tremendously balanced. Some berries in here, too, all that dark fruit, the raisin, the brown sugar, the molasses, the deep, dark richness all comes out on the palate, the cocoa and coffee. And before you know it, you start to pick up on the wine barrel aging, too.

Some tannins pop on the palate, we're getting some of the grit and the grab of the wine flavoring for sure. It wraps around the other flavors lovingly, coats them, covers them and makes them all get along. A little pithy twinge of sweetness rings it out. Sip again, the complex mix comes together on the palate, they all show themselves and make themselves known among this behemoth blend, stick their necks out and take a little bow. Then the wine barrel bit sweeps them up again, and we're picking out favorite cameos from that previous performance. "Ah, wasn't the coffee delightful? Did n't the cocoa shine? Remember the raisin, and wasn't molasses in top form?"

And now, at the end of the glass, the bottle drained, the alcohol comes booming in, …glad this is the last beer of the night. I'm off to bed, and dream of happy things, hopefully, with no evil creeping into my slumber.

Lucky Bucket IPA

Lucky Bucket, Est. 2008, Craft Brewery, Full Hop Flavor IPA, Original American India Pale Ale, 6.3% ALC by Vol.
"It's no secret that IPA is all about the hops. American Craft Brewers have been especially adept in the ways the humulus lupus can be used to make a spectacular beer for hop heads to enjoy. Our Original American IPA celebrates this interesting diversity in hop flavor. The final result is big, bold, and, shall we say, in your face….as it should be."

Blah, blah, blah…let's open and see.

Clouded, apricot to amber-ish appearance, nice, large, strong, lasting pillow of snow-white head. Looks good, no question.

Aromatics: Lovely delivery of essential oils and flavors of that aforementioned wolf weed. Piney, prickly, bitter, and only slightly sweet, citrus and tropical fruit associations. Quite a potent thrill in the nose, without going overboard.

Taste: Bam! Hops deployed, bitterness boards the tongue, a trickle and a tickle on the palate, then all is mellow once more. Up with the brew to the lips we go again…and it hits the same. Generous blast of hop, terrific drinka---CONSUMability. Down it goes, happy all the way. Orange and lemon, peach and pomegranate. Grapefruit and mango. Little bitter, little sweet, hoppy all the way up and down.
Medium body, medium finish. A bit creamy in the end, making for a perfectly sessionable IPA. I'd be a happy Nebraskan with this.
One more Lucky Bucket brew to go. Can't wait.

Lucky Bucket Lager

Lucky Bucket Brewing Company Craft Brewery Lager, Est. 2006, Original taste, Pre-prohibition style., Brewed and bottled by Lucky Bucket Brewing Company, La Vista, Nebraska. 4.5% ABV.
"A lot of things go into making a great beer, This pre-prohibition style lager, for example, communes 100% malted barley with just the right amount of hops, making it smoother and more flavorful than today's typical lagers. But the most important ingredient isn't on the label. It's our passion for quality that goes into every Lucky Bucket brew. So take another drink and savor what real beer is all about."

Let's do it.
Clear and yellow look, slim whitish head. Not much else.

Aroma: cereal grain, typical lager-y smell, very malty, pleasant and all that.

Taste: a little sweet, a trifle corny, but not bad. Just enough sweetness, but not enough hops. A tasty lager, though, and very consumable. A little dry, then a touch sweet, …a kiss of the hops, a tiny touch of bitter. Not even tiny, but plenty more than you'd get from a non-craft lager.

Great balance, excellent pad de deau between the factors. Ultimately satisfactory. I can drink this, that's for sure. As a non-lager-lover, I'm not ultimately going to turn to this often, but it's fine for what it is.