A Brace of Blondes: Local Buzz by Driftless Brewing Co. & Golden Ale by Potosi Brewing Co.

After tasting a golden ale from the Wisconsin brewing company that has "Hillsboro" in the name, I found myself in the mood for the style. Something tasty to drink after shoveling as opposed to a big, heady brew to fend off the cold. I proceeded to stumble across Potosi's Golden Ale and Local Buzz, a blonde ale made honey from Driftless Brewing Company. Both breweries are in Wisconsin's Driftless Area in the southwest part of the state. "Driftless Area" refers to how the region was left unscathed by glaciation during the last ice age and so we're left with a beautiful landscape full of valleys, ridges, and streams full of trout.

I recently had one of those heady brews from Potosi – their doppelbock – and have enjoyed their beers for years. Despite having been around since 2013, Driftless is still a newcomer to me. A couple months or so ago I had their Driftless Lager and was disappointed to find that it was an American pilsner/macro lager or whatever you call the style that is Miller, Bud, and Coors. Does this happen in any other sector of the food industry?

Microbrews emerged to some degree or another as a response to macrobrews, i.e. - Miller, Bud, and Coors. They were made (crafted, even!) in small batches with less or no automation and didn't cut corners with adjuncts. These beers had more flavor than Miller and associates. Microbrewers became craft brewers and changed the beer landscape in not only this country but worldwide. And now some of them are making the equivalent of High Life.

I went shopping yesterday and realized that coffee seems to have undergone a similar transformation, at least here in the States. It used to be that coffee was coffee. Packaging didn't tell you anything about how it was prepared. Juan Valdez did his magic behind the scenes and you just bought a tin of a ground brown powder. But Starbucks and small roasters have changed things so that Folgers now offers gourmet coffees. Folgers even now admits that you can roast beans to varying degrees instead of having just one generic product that is ground coffee.

Do small, independent coffee roasters offer bags just labeled "Coffee"? And when you go home and brew some, do you find it tastes just like Maxwell House or Sanka? Do "craft" coffee roasters try to mimic the mass-produced stuff their coffees exist in opposition to in the same way "craft" brewers brew Bud-like swill?

Huh. I had meant to discourse on the tastiness of a relatively simple un-barrel aged, non-double dry hopped blonde ale but ended up with a mini screed. Ooops. Let's get to the beers.

Driftless' Local Buzz describes itself as a blonde ale while Potosi refers to their Golden Ale as a golden ale. I am not sure if "golden ale" is a marketing term or a distinct style recognized by the brewing clerisy. I took it to be a synonym for blonde ale. Whatever the case, it was funny to see that Local Buzz was a clear gold color while Golden Ale was more yellow and quite hazy. When I raised the latter to a light, I saw a little vortex of what I presumed were proteins doing a slow swirl. It was oddly mesmerizing and reminded me of the creation of the universe scene in The Tree of Life. All I needed then was a sylphlike woman to stroll through a field of barley, her lithe hands brushing the tops of the plants.

Neither beer produced much of a head, at first, anyway, so they didn't look great. But a second and more rigorous pour of Potosi yielded a lovely white bit of foam that improved the visuals immensely.

The Buzz had a honey smell to it along with caramel. I'd also swear there was just a hint of banana. GA smelled like cracker, a little bit of grass, and corn. Honestly, it smelled like Miller High Life.

The honey served Local Buzz well. It had a nice earthy honey taste to it along with a little bread. While there was some fizz, it was quite smooth and medium-bodied. The finish was slightly bitter and just a tad dry. GA, on the other hand, had a really nice finish which started on a creamy note before ending with more bitterness than Local Buzz that tasted grassy and spicy. Prior to that I tasted a fairly light-bodied brew with a little cracker flavor along with a touch of sweetness. Plus, it tasted like corn to me. Honestly, this stuff was a lot like Miller in flavor in addition to aroma.

Golden Ale impressed me with how well it mimicked an American macro lager and a Terrence Malick film. Otherwise, it is not a beer for me. Local Buzz fared better in my mouth. Although I feel it needs a little more grain flavor (and more fizz too), I really liked the honey here, both in strength and quality, with its earthy, floral qualities.

Junk food pairing: Lighter beers fare well with lighter fare so grab yourself a bag of Honey Mustard & Onion Pretzel Crisps.