Golden Avalanche Brewing Company – June visit
The family and I took a scenic road-trip to the Eastern part of the US this summer to visit some of my relatives and, of course, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit at least one brewery while I was there. I actually tried to make a point of sampling as many non-Colorado/East-coast-centric beers as I was able to, but the Golden Avalanche Brewing Company was the only brewery I made it to.
NOTE: Technically, I made it to two. I also visited the oldest brewery in America, Yuengling, in Pottsville, PA, but only went into the gift shop to buy some swag. We made it to the brewery at about 1:30 on a VERY hot afternoon and I didn’t want to make the family wait around in the heat for the tour that started at the top of the hour. C’est la Vie. I tried a can of the lager at a later time and, honestly, I wasn’t too impressed and subsequently wasn’t too disappointed that I missed the tour. I hear the Black and Tan is pretty good, however.
Anyway, on to the beers. I decided to try a flight of six. I’ll be talking about them in the order of the picture below, from left to right.
(I feel I have to apologize for some of the comments I’m about to make. There has been a few weeks between my visit and when I’m writing this post and when I did visit I was with a group of family so I didn’t want to go full “beer nerd” and spend more time taking notes than visiting with loved ones. As a result, some of my comments are going to be a little vague.)
Blonde Lager – 4.8% ABV 10 IBU – I’m still deciding if I’m not a fan of lagers, or if I’ve just been subjected to not-great lagers. As with most others that I’ve tried, I found that this one has a weird, astringent (I believe) after taste. I didn’t hate this beer, but I’m glad I only got a taster.
Du Wit – 5.1% ABV 0 IBU – According to the blurb on Untappd – “Du Wit is Pennsylvania German for “You want this”” and I completely agree. This one was the star of the show, in my opinion. I love witbier and this seemed to be true to the style. Light with a little citrus and coriander.
A Most Agreeable IPA – 6.2% ABV – In contrast to the Du Wit where I totally agreed with the name, I can’t say the same for this IPA. Not that I found it objectionable, but it was simply “meh”. Considering this seemed to be the only IPA on the list (which is, in and of itself, a remarkable thing in these days of the IPA wars) I thought it would really assert itself with some hops. Not so much.
Blueberry Lager – 5.3% ABV 10 IBU – To paraphrase the old commercial: “Where’s the blueberry?”. I was hoping their one “fruit” beer would be a good representative of fruit beers. Alas, I couldn’t taste any blueberry. That notwithstanding, the beer was tasty, but I was really hoping for more of a blueberry flavor. At least I didn’t get the weird aftertaste I got with the Blonde Lager…
Gloria Duplex (Hoppy Wheat Ale) – 5% ABV – This one was not too bad. I didn’t get too many hops, but as a straight wheat, it was pretty good. I would order this one again.
Ursa Major (Belgian Strong Ale) – 8.3% ABV – This one was a bit on the “hot” side, as I believe a Belgian Strong ale should be. This definitely tasted Belgian-y to me. I quite enjoyed this one.
