Posts Tagged ‘Saranac’

I’m calling this the “Western Mass. Edition” due to a weekend OAB roadtrip to the I-91 corridor of Massachusetts. We decided we needed to get out of town for the weekend and decided to use the beer map in Yankee Brew News as our guide. There are many upcoming articles about the trip, but I decided to kick things off with a beerventory update that is now decidedly Massachusetts heavy.

As we were staying in the Northampton area, we THOUGHT we would do the beer run at Spirit Haus in Amherst on our way out. No such luck. We’ve see great reviews for this place, but the selection on a Sunday morning pretty much sucked. Perhaps we missed something other than the weak selection of bombers and 6/12 packs on the floor near the register. Perhaps it had been a heavy Saturday night – though to me most of the shelves looked stocked.

Thankfully, we had gone to Greenfield, MA on Saturday and looked around in Ryan and Casey Liquors. So after the Spirit Haus disappointment, we hit the highway, headed up to Greenfield and stocked up before heading back to OAB HQ. Looking forward to the coming weeks and drinking these. (Also looking forward to another beer run to Massachusetts.

Bombers
Berkshire Brewing Hefeweizen Ale
Berkshire Brewing Coffeehouse Porter
People’s Pint Pied pIPA
People’s Pint shWheat Ale
People’s Pint Natural Blonde
High & Mighty Two-Headed Beast Chocolate Stout
High & Mighty St. Hubbins Abbey
High & Mighty Purity Of Essence Lager
High & Mighty Beer of the Gods
Pretty Things Baby Tree Quad with Dried Plums
Pretty Things St. Botoisph’s Town Rustic Dark Ale
McNeill’s Ruby Ale
Southern Tier Mokah Stout
Southern Tier Creme Brulee Stout
Jolly Pumpkin La Roja Amber Ale
Arcadia Ales Cocoa Loco
Arcadia Ales Cereal Killer
Southern Tier Jah-Va Imperial Coffee Stout
Ommegang Biere de Mars
Flying Dog Wild Dog Weizenbock

40 oz.
People’s Pint Tap & Die Malt Liquor

12 Pack
Opa Opa Sampler featuring Opa Opa Light, Red Rock Amber Ale and Opa Opa IPA

6 packs : cans
21st Amendment Brew Free! or Die IPA
21st Amendment Hell or High Watermelon Wheat

6 packs : bottle
Saranac Summer Brew

Brewery: Saranac Brewing
Location: Utica, NY
Style: Lager

Switching up from the recent run of big beer reviews – but staying in a New York state of mind – I present one of my latest favorite session beers: Saranac Summer Brew. My friend Peter Wohelski first introduced me to the concept of mixing lemonade with lager for a summer drink. Few bars are actually equipped to do this either lacking a decent lager – or more often – lemonade worth mixing. So, finding a brewery putting together in one bottle seemed like kismet.

Let’ get one thing out of the way at the start: I would have preferred this use REAL lemonade and not a flavoring. Of course, that would have introduced a number of issues that I’m sure someone like Dogfish Head might want to overcome, but just don’t make sense for a session brew from Saranac. The end product does suffer a little from the flavoring factor, but not so much to fail the beer.

It should come a no surprise that this pours a clear pale yellow with a frothy bright white head. While the heads falls a bit quickly, it’s not a real issue for me with this beer. It’s not about the head here – it’s the beer. There is a definite lemony scent combined with a simple lager aroma. I wish the lemonade to lager balance of the scent came through in the taste. Unfortunately, the lemon flavor dominates here. I suspect it’s the flavoring versus a real lemonade. I’ve had well made lager and lemonade with fresh lemonade and the beer and citrus balance perfectly. Think Ale and Stout or a proper Snakebite to understand. The lemonade flavor lends a bit of a soda pop edge to this – not quite Zima territory but bordering dangerously close.

Thankfully, it does not enter the dreaded Zima Zone and stays in a very nice utility beer DMZ just outside the ZZ. This is nothing challenging – nothing extreme – nothing more than a simple crisp beer perfect for a summer drinking while kicking back on the deck next to the BBQ or fire pit. The 3.5% ABV keeps this firmly in the “have a few category.” I had the one for this review while eating Cha Cha Hut Fish Tacos and the pairing was brilliant. Clean simple citrus brew with well grilled fish on a nice summer night. I rarely gets better at the OAB HQ.

I haven’t really done much of a restock lately to the cellar. We’ve been a bit too busy around OAB HQ drinking various foamybeers – our own line of brews. A recent trip to pick up more brewing supplies lead us to drop by Oliver’s discount Beverage in Albany. so, the latest beerventory…

Growlers
Cave Mountain Hefeweizen (bought at the brewery on $8 browler Sundays)

6 packs
Widmer Drop Top Amber Ale
Widmer Drifter Pale Ale
Saranac Summer Brew
Wolaver Ben Gleason’s White Ale
Sherwood forest Friar’s Belgian White ale
Boulder Brewing Hazed & Infused
Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA

12 Pack
Smutty Nose Sampler featuring Shoals Pale Ale, Old Brown Dog, IPA and Robust Porter

Bombers
Long Trail Brewmasters Series Double IPA
Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere
Jolly Pumpkin La Roja Amber Ale
Arcadia Ales Cocoa Loco
Arcadia Ales Cereal Killer
Southern Tier Jah-Va Imperial Coffee Stout
Southern Tier Iniquity Black Ale
Smuttynose Really Old Brown Dog Ale
Smuttynose Gravitation Belgian Quad
Ommegang Biere de Mars
He’Brew Jewbelation 12
Elysian Bifrost Winter Ale
Flying Dog Wild Dog Weizenbock

Brewery: Saranac
Location: Utica, NY
Style: Summer ale

While I am off at the Andes Hotel American Craft Beer Fest and up in Albany hitting Hennessey’s Homebrew for a few supplies, I’m rolling out a couple of ale reviews. These are basically utility ales with little opinion or boldness, but perfectly serviceable for what they are. Today, it’s Saranac’s Summer Ale. Tomorrow: Hook and Ladder’s Golden Ale.

The Summer Ale comes as part of Saranac’s “Beers of Summer” sampler. It’s a limited release and not available in six packs. This is a nice clear gold ale with a very light head. Very carbonated. There’s a decent malty scent balanced out by a small bit of flowery hops. It’s a very light bodied ale with a clean crisp taste. Tones of citrus and spices combine with the maltiness and light hops to make for a very refreshing ale. at 4.7% ABV this is certainly in the session category.

Not comething I would necessarily seek out, but certainly a fine ale for anyone looking for something light bodied with a bit of flavor but not too bold.

Brewery: Saranac Brewing
Location: Utica, NY
Style: Ale

Saranac is a staple of upstate grocery and convenience stores. If there are no other crafts to be found in a store, one can almost always expect to find some Saranac in this neck of the NY woods. I’ve been drawn to their 12 packs since moving upstate as I consider them simple beers for when you just want something refreshing. Saranac makes solid beers – nothing amazing but definitely worth drinking.

The “What Ales You?” is a seasonal 12 featuring 2 beers each of 6 ales. Why exactly they chose to waste one of those beers on the minorly disappointing Saranac Stout is beyond me. Unless – like I do – Saranac doesn’t actually consider it a stout but more a dark ale. In any case, I would rather have had another ale choice.

The other five selections carry on the simple beer tradition I’ve come to expect from Saranac. All are fine beers that are easy to drink. Sure, nothing here will shake the beer world to its very core – but sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes – you just want a cold beer.

Saranac Pomegranate Wheat
As has been stated in the past, Mrs. Ohabeer is quite the fruit beer fan. She started out drinking Lambics, moved to ciders and finally broke through the beer barrier with Sam Adams Cherry Wheat and Saranac Pomegranate Wheat. What I like about the Saranac is the subtleness of the fruit. This is not a massively fruited beer. Just enough Pom juice – and it actually tastes like real juice not extract – adds a tartness to a simple wheat. Fairly light body and low alcohol (4.7% ABV) makes this an excellent deck beer.

Saranac Brown Ale
My first homebrewed beer was a brown ale. I chose that because it was a simple all extract beer, easy to make and a good way to get started in brewing. Thing is – I do not really like brown ales that much. They generally fall into a darkish beer without much of an opinion category. Saranac’s Brown Ale is pretty much like all other brown ales I’ve had. A tad thinnish with not much in the way of a discernible flavor. It certainly has maltiness – but without any sort of malt complexity. It is – however – a great cooking beer.

Saranac Irish Red Ale
This is the newest in the Saranac line and the only beer in the set I have not had previously. The color is a beautiful deep red and there is a slight head. Very nice malty aroma. While Saranac asserts “caramel and toffee notes”, I just get a solid malty sweetness. Again, a solid drinkable medium body ale. The 6% ABV gives is a bit of a nice edge but nothing an experienced brew fan will find daunting.

Saranac Pale Ale
This is a core Saranac beer and one you’re most likely to find in 6 packs at the local store. Great copper colored ale with a quick falling foamy head. The taste nicely balances a fruity hoppiness with a sweet maltiness. Light on the body side of things, it is extremely drinkable and a perfect hot day refreshment. 5.5% ABV keeps this low enough to enjoy a couple.

Saranac India Pale Ale
Finally, we head back toward the my 2009 Hopfest with Saranac’s hopped up version of their Pale Ale. By “hopped up” here I mean noticeable hops – not a massive hop bomb. As I’ve said – Saranac is not about extreme beers, just good simple beer. This India Pale Ale has a crisp light gold color with an pale white head. It gives off a decent hop scent. The taste is definitely a hopped up Pale Ale but still very balanced and nothing extreme. A good refreshing ale with an extra zip.

Brewery: Saranac
Location: Utica, NY
Style: Stout

When I moved to upstate New York, one of the first local crafts I fell in love with was Saranac. Their beers rarely disappoint even if they do not exactly always impress. Saranac is a simple solid brewery making solid beers with the occasional amazing brew. Sort of like an upstate Sam Adams.

The Saranac Stout comes as two bottles in the “What Ales You?” 12 pack sampler. This is – as you can see above – the stout component of their infintiely drinkable Saranac Black & Tan. Unfortunately, when separated from the Amber lager of the Black & Tan, this turns out to be a bit of a lackluster stout.

It pours dark brown with a light brown foamy head. Not much in the way of any aroma – just kind of a malty ale scent. The head has very minor creaminess and disappears fairly quickly.

The overall taste is more of a dark ale than a real stout. Not much creaminess, boldness or stoutiness. None of the chocolate/coffee/roasted malt tones prevalent in every stout this week. You can really even say is has a bitterness or sweetness. All in all, it’s a sort of unremarkable – yet unoffensive – brew. At 4.8% ABV, it certainly gets sand kicked in it’s face by all the other stouts on the beach.

We encountered someone buying a “What Ales You?” sampler recently and mentioned we wished Saranac had put a something other than the Stout into the sampler. He asked why and stated he liked it. Then he went on to say he really does not like stouts.

So, if you are a stout fan (and OAB HQ is), you’ll find this somewhat disappointing. However, if you’re not a stout fan, perhaps this is your gateway stout.