Civility in Threes: A trio of ales by Civil Life Brewing

In a previous post, I noted that, even if I could not go to St. Louis, I at least could enjoy a Dunkel from that fair town.

However, a friend of mine could go to St. Louis and, indeed he did recently. In addition to eating at Pappy's Smokehouse to his stomach's content, he made a stop at Civil Life Brewing. They don't distribute here nor to Chicagoland so their beer is something of a treat since it can only be obtained after a 5 hour drive south-southwest and I hadn't done that in several years.

 

Shortly after my friend's return to this side of the Cheddar Curtain, I was gifted with about half of a sampler case. My refrigerator was full of porter and brown ale and more porter and ESB and so on. Civil Life tends to brew English-style beers and some American interpretations of them. I had not delved deeply into their offerings until I received my gift.

The first brew I sampled was the IPA. My reasoning was two-fold: 1) if it wasn't an English IPA then I would get it done and out of the way as American ones, generally speaking, are not my cup of tea and 2) it had been a while since I'd had an English IPA and, since I liked the one I'd tasted, it'd be hoopy to have another.

 

I was quite surprised when I poured some and found that it wasn't just hazy, it was turbid. Was this really a hazy-juicy IPA? From Civil Life?

"Well, they've gotta keep the lights on somehow," I reasoned.

The mega-haze dulled what I think would have been a very pretty gold beer. On the plus side, the head was this big dollop of just off-white foam that lingered. I took solace in the fact that I didn't smell Hawaiian Punch as I inspected the glass. Taking a big whiff, my nose was greeted by pine, something like mango, and a malty sweetness. The mango wasn't unpleasant and it was in the background behind the pine.

My first sip found a medium-light body that leaned towards the former. Instead of being a hazy IPA, it was more like a West Coast one with the pine and some grapefruit being the prominent flavors. I appreciated that the malt was a bit restrained and didn't have that syrupy sweetness in the background trying to be the hops' foil.

I was pleasantly reminded of Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale with this one.

Next I tried Civil Life's American Brown Ale.

A lovely deep amber with a big, light tan head. Looked scrumptious. It had an aroma that I've smelled in beer before but I don't know what it is and can best describe it as musty plum, but in a good way. Also, a little spicy hoppiness and some leather.

Every beer I've been drinking lately seems to have a medium-light body and this one did too. Some milk chocolate was joined by coffee flavors and caramel too, though the beer wasn't particularly sweet.

If I recall correctly, this is Civil Life's best-seller. No wonder as it's very, very tasty. If their IPA brought back memories from the mid-90s of drinking Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, this did the same only for Pete's Wicked Ale. Does this stuff taste like that pioneering beer? I don't recall. But it is decidedly retro to have a brown ale as your best selling brew.

I enjoyed how easy drinking this was despite having a fuller malt flavor. Astringency was mild, sweetness was kept at bay. It was malty without being cloying and it had just the perfect amount of hops for balance with a pleasing bitterness at the end.

This trio of Civil Life brews will be rounded out with their Goal!den Ale.

The goofy name comes from the fact that this beer was originally brewed for the Amsterdam Tavern in St. Louis, a place where folks like to gather to watch soccer. Er, football.

A very pretty beer with a big white head and light gold color. It was hazy, but only just. Smelled great too with notes of biscuit and honey as well as a faint bit of grass.

This one was light-medium - ha! A slight sweetness along with the taste of biscuit and something else. Just as there was that scent in the brown ale that was familiar yet undefinable, this stuff had a flavor that made me think there was corn in it. (The brewery disabused me of this idea via email.) It had a vague resemblance to Corona. When your beer's malty taste doesn't have a clear baked good analogue such as a biscuit or a cracker or bread and instead has more of a muddy, doughy taste - well, this is it. There was also a hint of lemon and some gentle herbal-peppery hops.

There are times when the lines between a golden/blonde ale and an American light lager are thrown into sharp relief. This is not one of those times. Goal!den Ale is crisp and clean with everything about it light and easy going. OK, I'll cop to it having a fuller malt taste than most American light lagers meaning it's not the same species or even genus, but definitely the same family.

A fine lawnmower+ beer.

Sam's Wicked Summer: Summer Ale by Samuel Adams

For a business named "Boston Beer Company", they sure do produce a lot of boozy drinks that are not beer. It appears that their Truly hard seltzers are all the rage these days and make up the bulk of their sales. This taken together with their also popular Twisted hard iced teas and Angry Orchard hard ciders means that poor Sam Adams beers make up a rather small percentage of total sales for the company. And now they're making alcoholic Mountain Dew which is apparently rather popular.

While beer isn't the big performer, I don't know if Boston Beer is brewing less of it or if they're simply brewing a lot more seltzer and whatnot.

Their beery line-up is in near constant flux seemingly because of a need to jump on every craft beer bandwagon. I don't keep a sharp eye on their offerings but it feels like every time a particular variation of an IPA becomes popular, Sam Adams is all over it like a fly on shit and releases 3 or 4 versions. Beyond IPAs, Sam Adams has some fine beers. I like Boston Lager quite a bit, though I've heard they have tweaked it. Sam ’76 (which appears to be called Wicked Easy now) led me onto the path of refreshment a few summers ago when I was in Indianapolis and it was quite balmy out. I suppose my favorites, though, are their winter seasonals. Winter Lager and Alpine Lager are fine brews for snowy days. The former as well as the white ales they offer in the colder months feature the fruits and spices we associate with Christmas cookies and mulling and so they have that holiday taste which offers a nice break from hops.

But those beers are months away and 80+ degree highs are here. That means it is time to drink Oktoberfests. Ha! I keed, I keed. I recently took a break from my summer standards (mainly Bubbler and Kid Kölsch) and bought some Sam Adams' Summer Ale for the first time in a while.

Summer Ale, a wheat ale, is like the younger sibling of their winter seasonal Cold Snap, also a wheat ale, which features a whole host of ingredients beyond the ones we usually think of when we think of beer. It has citrus zests, bits of flowers, and spices such as the highly uncommon Grains of Paradise. Summer Ale pares the unusual ingredients list down to the citrus zests plus some Grains of Paradise.

Grains of Paradise are the seeds of a West African plant that is a member of the ginger family. They taste a bit like ginger but with more of a woody component, to my tongue. I've purchased them at The Spice House in the Milwaukee Public Market but have never seen them for sale in Madison, though they must be around somewhere.

There is much about beer chemistry that escapes me. I learned way back in the olden times that wheat, as a rule of thumb, produces a bigger head than barley. Proteins or some such thing. And so, with that little tidbit of knowledge I have since gone on and assumed every wheat beer will have this big fluffy pillow of foam on top and, without fail, I am shocked – SHOCKED! – when a wheat beer doesn't despite it having happened countless times.

Well, count Summer Ale in this group that shocks. The head was naught but a small, white disc of foam. ☹ Otherwise, the beer looked delightful with its refulgent yellow hue that had a slight haziness to it. For me, the beer smelled of wheat and the woody bit of Grains of Paradise with a little citrus underneath.

As expected from a summer beer, it had a fairly light body along with ample fizz. Again, wheat and Grains of Paradise were most noticeable with the spice having a more gingery flavor to them in addition to the woody/earthy aspect. The citrus was more prominent than in the aroma with an emphasis on the lime. I didn't taste much in the way of hops until the finish when a little peppery hop flavor was joined by a mild bitterness. The citrus came closer to the front and gave my sip a bit of tartness at the end.

I quite like this stuff. It's mellow and refreshing with the citrus being an accent flavor instead of sitting front and center. And the Grains of Paradise are novel and tasty and they work well with the wheat and fruit. I like it that there's something different here that isn't simply a tropical fruit pulled from obscurity on some island for the sake of novelty. Refreshing restraint at its finest.

Junk food pairing: Pair Sam Adams Summer Ale with a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

A Cure For Your Midsommartime Blues: AweSummer Ale by Capital Brewery

First things first. As I was poking around the internet for some info on this beer, I discovered that Ashley Kinart-Short, whom I thought was Capital's brewmaster, was, in fact, no longer inhabiting their brewhouse. She had departed back in March or thereabouts to be the May Queen in some small Swedish village. Well, either that or she went east to continue her brewing career in South Carolina.

I am unsure if my ignorance about this is because her exit was done on the down low and she left town under cover of darkness, the local beer media never reported it, or it was noted in local media and Twitter and I somehow managed to remain completely oblivious to it. Or perhaps some combination of the above. When Full Mile got a new brewmaster earlier this spring, it got virtual ink. Yet when one of the few Wisconsin brewmasters who is a woman and who happens to have worked at the oldest craft brewery in the state (I don't think of Leine's, Minhas, or Point as craft brewers) bails, it seems to have gone unremarked upon by the local craft cognoscenti. What did I miss and when?

Regardless, I wish her well. She was approachable and pleasant to chat with from my experience.

This brings us to AweSummer Ale, Capital's new summer seasonal. A new beer from Capital induces a certain amount of fretting and pearl clutching on my part. It replaces Lake House, an unexceptional yet perfectly quaffable Helles so I cannot honestly say that one of my favorites beers has been displaced. But I recall the days after Kirby Nelson left the venerable brewing institution and a "Wisconsin lager brewery" was suddenly throwing every trend against the wall to see what would stick. They adopted a nautical theme because Middleton has such a rich and storied sailing history with tales of Norwegian pirates on Lake Mendota where bass boats meet their fate in Davy Jones' Locker.

Sven was going for his morning walk one day when he walked past Ole's house and saw a sign that said "Boat For Sale." This confused Sven because he knew that Ole didn't own a boat, so he finally decided to go in and ask Ole about it.

"Hey Ole," said Sven, "I noticed the sign in your yard that says 'Boat For Sale,' but you don't even have a boat. All you have is your old John Deere tractor and combine."

Ole replied "Yup, and they're boat for sale."

As I was saying, Capital went from having no IPAs to having a whole armada of them: a regular one (Mutiny), a black one (Dark Voyage), a white one (Ghost Ship), an imperial one (Capsized), and a red one (Grateful Red). They even jacked up their beloved Maibock by adding some doppelbock to it that had spent time in a non-Reinheitsgebot bourbon barrel. And this transpired (well, mostly) when I was still reeling from Bavarian Lager having been retired leaving the Madison area without a local Helles.

I have no idea what the powers that be at Capital have in mind. A new summer brew may be the extent of the changes we see in the near future. Or my beloved Munich Dark may go the way of the dodo tomorrow so that a hazy IPA (likely to be named "Press Ganged") can step up and take its place. We'll see. Whatever happens, 90 degree heat looms threateningly in the forecast like Donald Trump awaiting "reinstatement" in August so appropriate liquid refreshment will be imperative.

AweSummer Ale is a blonde ale brewed with orange peel and, to complement the exocarp, it was hopped using Mandarina Bavaria, a German variety known for its citrus taste.

As befitting the style, it pours a lovely straw yellow. The brew is clear and I spied a goodly number of bubbles. My glass had only a small, white, loose head that went away quickly. My nose caught citrus and honeyed sweetness in nearly equal amounts along with a grainy scent.

With all of those bubbles, it was unsurprising to find that the beer had a nice, firm fizz to it. It's light body featured the expected bitter taste of the orange peel along with a more general citrus flavor from the hops. There was also some grain to be had in there. Overall, it was clean and crisp not unlike Next Door's Bubbler, one of my favorite blonde ales.

On the finish I tasted a gentle herbal bitterness from the hops that was complemented by a slightly more intense zesty bitterness from the orange peel. The grainy taste of the Vienna malts were also more prominent here. The citrus flavors moved to the fore as the beer warmed.

To be blatantly honest, I was very weary when I first learned of AweSummer Ale. The orange peel and Mandarina Bavaria hops led me to believe that the emphasis here would be on fruitiness. Thankfully a light touch was used in the application of citrus. You can't miss it, but it doesn't hide the blonde ale away like the Ark of the Covenant in Hangar 51. The light body, the generous fizz, and the mellow flavors make for a very refreshing beer and an ideal bulwark against the heat.

Junk food pairing: Bring on the heat to go with your AweSummer Ale. I recommend pairing it with a bag or 4 of Late July's Bacon Habanero Tortilla Chips.

My Blonde Period: Bubbler by Next Door Brewing

Picasso had his Blue Period and a Rose period so this must be my blonde period because I have recently reviewed at least three blonde ales and I have now found another to add to the pile.

There are times when I get the feeling that the blonde ale gets a bad rap. Sometimes labeled Kölsch-style, golden ale, or summer ale, it is a frequent denizen of craft brewery taprooms. But blonde ales are dismissed too often as the beer for non-beer drinkers who find themselves stuck at a brewpub or for macro lager drinkers who end up at a Bud-free joint with friends who are there to get lost in a juicy haze.

You taste some malt, a little fruitiness from the yeast, and some hops with a bit of bitterness. There's balance with no flavor dominating the others and it's light, not only to the eye, but also on the tongue. While I am sure that some American craft brewers somewhere have barrel aged them and even made them dark so as to have a black blonde ale, they generally seem to be left to themselves, thankfully. However, I do recall Vintage Brewing here in Madison steeping sumac in their Sister Golden several years back and Sam Adams has used/uses Grains of Paradise in their Summer Ale so the style is not additive proof by any means.

This time around we have Bubbler from Next Door Brewing. While not next door, Next Door is only about a mile and half from my house so it is my local brewery. (Well, until that person in my dreams opens a zoigl brewery when the Voit Farm property is developed and it assumes the title.) I don't frequent Next Door that often but they have always had good food when I've eaten there and you can take your meal in the company of total strangers as they offer communal seating. I have enjoyed the beers of theirs I've had and I like to go there during the summer to order a Berliner Weisse sampler with a variety of syrups. I'm a Waldmeister man at heart, but a little mango and whatever the blue flavor is makes for a nice summer treat.

About five years ago there was a trio of Wisconsin brewed beers called "Bubbler", including this one. Considering the Wisconsinness of the term, I am surprised it took so long for the name to appear.

Bubbler is a classic example of regional English. It refers to a drinking fountain that has the water bubble up from a spout instead of shoot out towards a drain. Having grown up in Chicago, I always said drinking fountain as opposed to the decorative kind like Buckingham Fountain down in Grant Park. "Bubbler" is a Milwaukee-area word owing to Kohler fountains (made in Kohler, WI, just north of Milwaukee) that bubbled the water and Milwaukeeans taking a shine to the word.

And so at one time we had a blonde ale from tiny Plymouth Brewing, a hefeweizen from New Glarus Brewing, and Next Door's blonde ale all having this name. I have no idea how that shook out trademark-wise but I haven't seen a New Glarus Bubbler in a while, Plymouth either doesn't can/bottle its beer or distributes in a very small area, and Next Door's Bubbler is a common sight in beer coolers around town.

My glass of Bubbler was a light gold and a tad hazy. Atop the beer was a nice-looking, loose white head that proved to be in no hurry to go away.

With smells of biscuit and straw, it was not totally unlike, say, a Miller High Life. My nose also caught a bit of fruit – like apricot.

In a 180 from my last beer review, Grainne's Special Bitter, Bubbler had a firm fizz to it. I tasted cracker and a touch of white raisin sweetness. It had a smoothness to it as well and I caught some berry in there on subsequent sips. A grassy and slightly spicy bitterness came out on the finish which was fairly dry.

Of my recent encounters with blonde ales, I must admit my preference for Bubbler. It's got a really nice cracker taste with restrained sweetness and fruitiness. The carbonation and judicious hopping keep things on the dry and crisp side but not overly so. Balance is the watchword. There's simply a tasty harmony amongst the malt, hops, and yeast here. A little bit of everything but never too much.

Junk food pairing: Bubbler will pair well with Ruffles Poutine Potato Chips.

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.

Just Goes Without Saying: Everybody Loves A Blonde by Hillsboro Beer

I've been seeing beer from the Hillsboro Brewing Company around Madison for a while now. And I've always meant to try it. But I kept saying to myself, "Oh, it's that newish brewery out by Waterloo. I want a lager this time. Next time I'll give them a try." And I'd buy some lager and return to the liquor store the next week, see Hillsboro beer and say to myself, "Oh, it's that newish brewery out by Waterloo. I want a lager this time. Next time I'll give them a try." The sheer predictability of my time at the liquor store was like Groundhogs Day.

Well, I finally burst the chains of my beer buying rut and went out and bought some beer by Hillsboro Brewing Company. When I got it home, I inspected the label and realized that the Hillsboro Brewing Company is, in fact, located in – quelle surprise! – Hillsboro, Wisconsin. For months I had been confusing it with Hubbleton Brewing Company which lies 20 some odd miles east-northeast of Madison. Hillsboro, on the other hand, is on the east side of Vernon County about 80 miles northwest of Madison. D'oh! I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my brewery names. Just one little H and I was totally confused.

Now that I am confident that I am writing about the right brewery, I can say that Hubbleton Hillsboro opened in 2014 and then moved down the street to larger and fancier digs and reopened in 2018. And now just to put a Phildickian spin on things, I look at the can and see that it has "Hillsboro Beer" on it, not "Hillsboro Brewing Company". Plus it has "Established 2020" in friendly letters there on the front. Brewed by Potosi. So does Potosi own the Hillsboro brand? What happened to the brewpub? I'm beginning to feel like Time Out of Joint's Ragle Gumm as everything I thought I knew about a brewery in Hillsboro is turning out to be an illusion.

Everybody Loves A Blonde is, not surprisingly, a blonde ale. The style is the bastard child of the craft brewing scene. It is often referred to as being "light" and "approachable" – beers for macro lager drinkers or those who aren't out to have their palates wrecked. This reputation is a real shame because the restraint of the blonde ale is virtuous and tasty in its own way.

While I wasn't surprised to see that Everybody Loves A Blonde had a lovely straw color, I was not expecting it to be slightly hazy. It seems more beers are a tad cloudy these than in years past. Is this a trend I've just not picked up on? Is haze the new craze even when it's not an NEIPA? Or am I doing something wrong? Atop the yellow liquid was a creamy white head that last a minute or so.

The beer had a very nice crackery aroma with a little berry mixed in.

Taking a sip, I noticed the carbonation right away. Not of champagne magnitude, but a good, firm fizz. There was some fruitiness that tasted like grapefruit and pineapple to me. Restrained and not juicy. There was also cracker to be had as well. It was light-bodied and a little on the watery side. I thought I caught a hint of corn too. The finish was moderately dry with a little hoppy bitterness.

Either it needed a bit more of grain taste or it needs to be warmer outside. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the fruitiness which was tasty yet not ostentatious. By and large, everything came in moderation and was in its proper place as I'd expect from the style.

Junk food pairing: Get yourself a bag of ghost pepper tortilla chips. Everybody Loves A Blonde will go down easy as you try to extinguish the flames.