Tag Archives: Strongsville

Beer Review: Summer Soulstice – The Brew Kettle

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Beer Name: Summer Soulstice

Brewery: The Brew Kettle (Strongsville)
Beer Style: Belgian Style Wit
ABV: 5.3%
IBU: ?
Size: 12oz Bottle
Beer Advocate Score: n/a
RateBeer Score: 72

We’ve seen some pretty damn hot days this summer, and with temps in the hundreds one needs to find a nice crisp beer to make these sweltering days a little more bearable. This can be quite a task for a man like myself who prefers his beers dark or hoppy (or both?!), but while checking out what The Andersons had to offer in the Ohio beer section of the adult beverage department, I came across The Brew Kettle‘s Summer Soulstice. Now, like I stated above, this isn’t my go-to style of beer, but it being so hot out I needed something to cool me off.

This Belgian wit pours a a hazy yellow with a solid white head that slowly dissipates. The aroma is heavy clove with hints of citrus, banana, and pepper. The taste reminds me of a hefeweizen with a lot of clove and banana up front, and more of a wheat flavor coming in with a slight taste of spicy to finish off. The beer is nicely carbonated with a nice refreshing feeling each time you take a sip; the beer also appears to have some lacing as it works its way down the glass.

I feel like this beer would be better labeled a wheat than a wit; based on the color of the beer and the taste, I feel like it falls better in that category. That doesn’t take away from the beer at all, because it met my expectations as a beer prefect for the dry heat wave we are experiencing this summer.

Ratings:

Sessionability: This six pack was going down a little to easy, I would attribute some of it to the heat but I could have easily finished off this sixer without breaking a sweat. 5-pack.
Overall: Even though I could taste a lot of the ingredients in this beer, nothing really stood out flavor-wise. It kinda gave me a watered down vibe, and I wish the flavors would have popped more. 3-pack.
Would Be Best Consumed: Anytime this summer when the mercury is rising higher than 95 degrees.

Beer Review: One Eyed Jack – The Brew Kettle Production Works

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Beer Name: One Eyed Jack

Brewery: The Brew Kettle Production Works (Strongsville)
Beer style: Porter
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: 30
Size: 12oz bottle
Beer Advocate Score: 83
Untappd Score: 4 caps

Getting over a major work hurdle feels great: no more late dreaming about PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets, no more scrambling at work to piece one presentation together to justify the last 20 paychecks, and no more missing out on Twitter conversations while a work. As good as that feels alone, the beer after feels so much better.

Tonight I sat down with a beer from Brew Kettle Production Works, One Eyed Jack. They call it a “robust porter.” It pours a nice, very slightly transparent dark amber color with barely any head (there was almost none; the pic above was taken less than 30 seconds after I poured it), and with no head there was also no lacing. The beer smells like caramel and coffee with no hop smell. I didn’t notice a heavy chocolate smell, but somehow I knew it would taste like it.

This beer has a very smooth mouth feel; I am not sure if this is a function of the dark malts or the lack of carbonation, but it does make for a very nice initial impression.  The first taste that comes across the tongue is the caramel sweetness, but then the tastes of bitter takes over. You can taste the coffee notes and the chocolate notes heavily on the back end. Even though you can taste both coffee and chocolate, the bitterness your mouth is left with is much more indicative of a dark chocolate bitterness more than that of an espresso. This is a bit of a downer for me, as I like coffee much more than I do dark chocolate.

Overall this beer is pleasant to drink, but not one of my favorite dark beers; however, a person with a love of dark chocolate may enjoy it more than me.

Ratings:

Sessionability: I give it a 3-pack. Not a super alcoholic dark beer, but I would get tired of the bitterness after a few.
Overall: I give it a 4-pack. Not one of my favorite porters but a solid beer, I would pick this off a beer list at most average bars or restaurants.
Would be best consumed: This might be very very good with some blueberries or raspberries.

Beer Review: Dark Helmet – The Brew Kettle Production Works

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Beer Name: Dark Helmet
Brewery: The Brew Kettle Production Works (Strongsville, OH)
Beer style: Imperial Schwarzbier (Black Lager)
ABV: 9.0
IBU: 30
Size: 12 oz bottle
Beer Advocate Score: 83
Rate Beer Score: N/A

In a galaxy very, very, very, very, very far away, there was a brewery who decided to make a beer based on everyone’s favorite spoof villain, Dark Helmet. Okay, so actually they are not that far away, only two and a half hours from Columbus. You have to respect a brewery paying homage to what I consider the best spoof flick of all time. I always have beer when I watch radar! You know that!

The beer pours with relative ease and forms maybe an inch or so tan head. The aroma is pure malt.

When the beer first hits your mouth, you will feel a very faint carbonation. The taste is almost all roasted malt. Coffee notes and vanilla follow. This may seem like a simple combination, but there is not a ton going on here. What is here works very well though. If you told me this beer was a porter, I would believe you. I have suspicions that Brew Kettle only calls this a Schwarzbier so that they can make a Spaceballs joke. Either way, it is a very enjoyable beer. It is high enough in alcohol content to almost make Joan Rivers voice tolerable – ALMOST.

Ratings:

Sessionability: I give it a 3-pack ( You will not be consuming this beer at ludicrous speed)
Overall: I give it a 4-pack (4 out of 6)
Would be best consumed: While watching Spaceballs and eating a steak. May the Schwartz be with you!

Beer Review: Four C’s — The Brew Kettle Works

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Beer Name: Four C’s
Brewery: The Brew Kettle Production Works (Strongsville, Ohio)
Beer style: American IPA
ABV: 6.0
IBU: 55
Size: 12 oz bottle in a 6 pack
Beer Advocate Score: N/A
Untappd Average: 4 (out of 5)

So today was one of those days: You worked outside at work all day in the heat, making inch-by-inch adjustments to a test fixture for hours only to have the computer taking the data fail on you mid-test. One of those days where you can just taste the bitter on the back of your tongue, like some sort of alcoholic Pavlovian response to leaving work. Get home, kiss the kid, kiss the wife, change your clothes, and head to the beer fridge in the garage looking for the cure to all that ails you: hops.

So I grabbed a beer out of a 6-pack that I picked up over the weekend, Four C’s by The Brew Kettle (TBK) Production Works ($10–$15 at The Andersons). According to the label, it was made with the 4 “C” hops: Cascade, Columbus, Centennial, and Chinook—hence the name, those clever little devils. I have had the White Rajah by TBK—another of their IPAs—and liked it a lot, so I was interested in what this one would taste like.

It pours nice in a classic pint glass, a classic amber color with about an inch of head. It smells like Cascade hops, piney and citrusy with little flowery notes. The pale ale malts are balanced nicely with the bitter hop finish, and it even finishes a little dry in your cheeks after you swallow. As a whole, this beer has a drinkability that lead me to want to have a second, or third, or… I’ll never tell. It’s a solid AIPA; it’s drinkable and refreshing but doesn’t do anything that would knock your socks off. I like the Rajah better for sure, but this is another solid entry into the TBK IPA arsenal.

Ratings:

Sessionability: I give it a 5-pack (I could drink a few before it got to be too much)
Overall: I give it a 4-pack (4 out of 6)
Would be best consumed: In a hammock after mowing the lawn