The Mystery 5-pack (Pt 1)

We picked up this intriguing little item on our trip to the grocery store today:

From Blogger Pictures

Intriguing in that I don't know what's in the bag, specifically. The bag is opaque, and stapled shut, and is labeled clearly with the word "Mystery". But there are clues. Clue #1: the $5.99 price tag. Clue #2: the motivation of a store to package a variety of beers in this way is most likely to get rid of slow-selling beers. The combination of the two clues leads to the conclusion that the bag contains slow-selling, modestly priced beers. In short, a gamble. Of course, I took one look at the bag and thought, "Mystery six-pack plus long weekend equals blog post!" and quickly snatched it up.

Here's the contents:

From Blogger Pictures

As would be predicted, IPAs account for half of the beers. I've had the Alaskan White before, and I'm not much impressed with that company anyway. The Caldera is interesting due to the packaging. Two of the IPAs are duplicates, from the Terminal Gravity Brewery in Portland OR, making it a Mystery 5-pack. The most intriguing of the offerings, by far, is the Stone Levitation Ale, so that's where I'll begin.

I've had the Stone IPA and didn't like it, but I've not tried any of their other offerings. The label on the bottle is enough of a pain to read (very tiny, approximately 2 point font, stamped in grey paint right onto the amber bottle) that I just skimmed it looking for some clue of what to expect. It was, unfortunately, about 400 words of blather that basically informs you that this beer is made of the ingredients that beer is made of, and it has wonderful flavor. Can't understand why it's a slow-seller.

Let's pop the cap and check it out...
Stone Levitation
It pours a burnt caramel with very little head. Not a lot of hop character evident from the pour, except for a slight juniper note. Aroma is mildly malty. Huh. It took three good sips before I could begin to define the flavor. For such a dark beer, it's surprisingly light ("Levitation"?). There's a foamy lightness contributed by the carbonation that takes a while to settle out in your mouth. It first leaves behind the malt character mingled with the spruce-like hops, then it slowly turns slightly sour, but mostly clean. But the overarching quality is light. I think they were successful at hitting the fine line between light and watered down (ABV 4.4%). The verdict: I doubt that I'd go out of my way to get this, but if it was on sale, I could see picking up a six.

Terminal Gravity Brewing IPA (ABV 6.9%).
The label says nothing more than "Live Beer Keep Cold". It pours light amber and a little viscous, as you'd expect from a beer with a crap-ton of hops packed into it. Maybe I'm a little stuffy, but there's not a lot of hop character on the nose. That bodes poorly, as I only really enjoy IPAs when there's a strong citrus/floral aroma to fool my brain into liking the astringent hop bitterness. Now, to taste...you know, this is not bad. It's slightly sweet with a clean finish, and is fairly malty. I'd characterize this as an English-style pale ale, not an IPA. Carbonation is on the low side, and the body is fairly heavy. Pretty tasty. Verdict: Work on your branding, Terminal Gravity. That label screams THIS BEER SUCKS. It's a nice beer, but not an IPA.

I think I'll take this downstairs and see if I can catch Apolo Ohno being absolutely OWNED by the South Koreans.

OK, one more before I turn in (you see how I suffer for you?).

Caldera Pale Ale (ABV ?%)
It's pale, I'll give it that. Looks like cloudy Budweiser when you pour it into a glass (the label informs you that it's a "Live Product: Keep cool, just like you". Right on, boss. It has a nice, floral aroma, which is the signature of Cascade hops on the finish. Unfortunately, upon tasting, it's clear that they don't understand balance. I don't mind being hopped through my skull if they do it as the second act, but when your first response upon sipping is "This tastes funny", followed by your tongue shriveling up from the hops, it's a fair guess that the target has been overshot. It really doesn't help that they put it in a can, since they didn't use one of those new sort of cans that keeps the flavor of the can out of the beer. Verdict: I'm not sure that I'll be finishing THIS one (my mouth is angry with me). I'll definitely avoid it in the future.

More to come tomorrow...