Welcome back everyone to Week 9 of the Friday Craft Brew Series. I was able to make it to a new brewery this past week so I'm focusing on beers just from there.
The brewery is Mikerphone Brewing, and as the name suggest, everything is music related. Rock music specifically. The place is decorated with amps, guitars and microphones all over the place. The taproom is pretty small, but we didn't have any problems finding a place to sit. All of their beers come in 12 or 6 ounce pours. I usually never order the small tasting pours, but there were so many beers I wanted to try I ended up ordering a couple of the 6 ouncers.
From talking to the bartender the place is usually a little more crowded than it was when we were there. They have a pretty big following, and I saw multiple people come in just to buy a few of their bombers to take home. But enough about the brewery.
First up this week, Special Sauce Viv Secret, a New England Style Double IPA coming in at 8.5%. This beer has the look of a NE IPA for sure. It is Golden Amber in color and opaque with a small foamy head.
For a Double IPA the hop smell is not as strong as I expected. The hops are definitely there, but only slightly, you get more of a citrus and spice smell than anything.
The beer initially has a citrus flavor that evolves into the bitter hoppiness you would expect with a Double. On top of the citrus and hops is a spice flavor that hangs around the whole time. The spice definitely balances out the bitterness of the hops. All in all, with the citrus and spice this is one of the lighter flavored Doubles I have had in a while. The combination of flavors works for me. This is a good beer.
MK Beer Scale: 91/100
Next up, Weisse Weisse Berry, a Hefeweizen style beer coming in at 7.35%. This bee was a dark orange color, real opaque and had almost no head. It was a little darker than I was expecting for a Hefeweizen.
There was almost no smell to the beer, but what little scent you do get is spices. For having berry in the name there is no berry smell at all, kind of surprising.
To me this is not a Hefeweizen beer. The initial taste is sour, not extremely tart, but sour nonetheless. There is berry flavor for sure but not nearly as much as I expected. This is not a sour beer, but I don't know how else to describe the initial taste. It has more sour characteristics than any other beer style. The second sip I took actually ended up tasting sweeter than the first, and with more berry flavor, more along the lines of what I was looking for. The flavor actually balances out as you drink it and the sweet berry flavor lasts a medium amount of time. This beer started out strange, but actually ended up being great. This is something I could drink a fair amount of.
MK Beer Scale: 93/100
Last beer for this weeks post, (Nothing but) Flowers, a Berliner Weisse with Hibiscus Flower (man, I feel like a hipster typing that up), coming in at a lowly 4%. Still being on a sour beer kick I was really excited to try this one.
The beer is a vibrant red color, semi-opaque with very little head. Visually, it is exactly what I would expect to see for a sour beer. The smell is right on point for a sour as well. Tart smelling with notes of fruit and berries.
The first sip is TART! Very tart, and that tartness builds! It has a pomegranate taste to it, without any sweetness. The tartness is good when you have the beer in your mouth, but once you swallow the aftertaste ends up being slightly bitter, again, similar to the feeling you are left with after you eat a pomegranate, just without any sweetness at all. Overall this beer was kind of disappointing. It was a really tart which would have been fine, but the aftertaste ending up bitter kind of ruins this one. It is still a good beer, just not up to the sour standard of a Paradox Brewing or even a Une Annee in my opinion.
MK Beer Scale: 90/100
Thanks so much for checking out the beers this week everyone, I hope you enjoyed hearing about them as much as I enjoyed drinking them! I still have a couple more beers from Mikerphone in my notes, so I may put up a midweek post to finish them off. In the meantime, enjoy this pic of my friends and I at the brewery!
Part 6 - Bubbler, Hoptronix, La Seul X
Part 7 - Apex Predator &Margarita Gose
Part 8 - Cloud Buster, Bottom Up Wit, & Hop Slice
