Thursday beer tasting at Mezze

Headed to Mezze with my Hop15 in hand thinking that I might need it as I’ve tried almost everything they have. I was pleasantly surprised that not only did Mezze have some new brews on hand but Nancy had procured an amazing selection of Dogfish Head and Bear Republic beers for an awesome impromptu beer tasting. Friends and 8 beers to taste, how can you go wrong. We worked our way through the selection mainly commenting on the similarities and differences.

The Dogfish Head line up included: Shelter Pale Ale, Indian Brown Ale, 90 Min IPA, Raison D’Etre, and the Aprihop.  From Bear Republic we tasted Racer 5 and the Hop Rod Rye.

I think the hit of the night was the 90 Min IPA, hard to beat this one.  We noted that the Dogfish Head beers were on the sweet end of the styles.  This is something I had never really noticed but as my friends started mentioning the sweetness my only option was to agree with them.  The Racer 5, which I had had before was a disappointment in comparison to the rest of the lineup.  I am a fan of the Indian Brown Ale.  It’s smoked sweetness and hoped bite is something to be admired.  The Aprihop, which I can’t remember trying before was a pleasant surprise.  The apricot is not as noticeable as anticipated, which was a good thing.  Instead it gave the beer a slight tartness and very dry finish, nice.

Thanks to Nancy at Mezze for a very enjoyable evening of fine beers.

BTW… At the end of the night I threw all that was left in the bottom of the bottles together and it tasted rather fine.  You will note that these beers have a lot of similarities so it worked well.