The brewery is located up in Amherst in the middle of
Wisconsin. Having been founded in 1998, it is part of a cadre of Wisconsin breweries
that seem to be going through a mid-life slump. I'd put Tyranena, Ale Asylum,
and O'so into the group as well. Perhaps Milwaukee Brewing Company too. I have
absolutely no idea what the bottom lines of these companies are like nor their
production volumes. They all have good reputations, as far as I can tell. But
their popularity and growth seem to have stagnated.
For example, remember when Ale Asylum built their new
brewery that had an easily detachable south wall to accommodate future
expansion? I believe the brewery is the same size as it was when built. And back
in the day Tyranena was poised to be the IPA king with citrus-flavored IPAs
before that trend was widely embraced but seems to have remained largely a south-central Wisconsin phenomenon. For their part, Central Waters made quite a name
for themselves with barrel aged beers before a couple batches of their Peruvian
Morning, a barrel aged Imperial stout with coffee, were recalled due to
infection. This seemed to really take the wind out of their sails.
No doubt the rising number of craft breweries slowed the
growth of these established outfits. At some point the novel became fetishized and so the tried and true were often passed over in favor of the new and this
surely affected these more established brewers as well.
All of these breweries make some very tasty beers and
perhaps they are not looking to grow by leaps and bounds and are instead more
or less contented with their size. More or less, I say, as Central Waters recently
announced that they're opening an outpost in Milwaukee.
Last autumn I visited friends in Stevens Point, near Amherst, and we
made a trek out to Central Waters HQ on a whirlwind tour of the area's zymurgological
attractions. There was a Helles on tap then and of course that was my choice.
It was unremarkable, to my taste, and I found their barrel aged barleywine to
be much better. But I believe in second chances and was happy to try the beer
again thinking that perhaps the recipe had been tweaked.
But I can grab a Spaten Münchner Hell or a Dovetail Helles,
iterations both of the Platonic ideal of a Helles, and drown in melanoidin
gluttony so why should I settle for an inferior beer? Maybe the fault lies not
with the brewers but with me. Am I making the best the enemy of the good? It is
this profound Cartesian doubt I have that leads me to keep buying lagers from
breweries that don't seem to make a lot of them despite my experience that such
breweries don't brew them well.
Or do they simply not brew them to my taste?
Damn you René! Damn you to hell!
Tomorrow River Helles is named after a river that flows into
Amherst and emerges on the other side as the Waupaca River. Or some such thing. I'm no fluvial
expert.
The medium-light body was in line with an almost benign
biscuit taste and a mild spicy/grassy hop flavor. There was a hint of honey
sweetness as well. The finish was surprisingly dry with some spicy hop
bitterness joining a lingering sweetness.
This was a very mellow beer to me. It was slightly watery as
every flavor can be adequately described as having been "mild". It
was a bit like an American pilsner without the corn. The promised rich
maltiness of the Helles was nowhere to be found. I don't recall the version of
this beer I had last fall at the brewery tasting like this. Granted, it wasn't
a hotbed of Maillard activity, but it wasn't this watery either.
I looked at the bottom of the can and it said that it was
canned on 1/29/21 so it was just shy of 6 months old when I sampled it. Was I
simply tasting the results of age? When I think of beers that are too old, I
think of them as having oxidized. The beer tastes like wort with a large dose
of vermouth added to it. That wasn't the case here. This isn't to say that what
I tasted wasn't age, merely that it, if it was, it was a new set of stale
flavors for me. Perhaps it wasn't stored at the right temperature at some point
in its life.
Anyone else out there try this beer?
Junk food pairing: Pair your glass of Tomorrow River with a
box or Ritz Bits Cheese. These mini crackers sandwiches with cheese stuff in
the middle will give the beer a grainy boost. And it's Wisconsin so you need
cheese.
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