Kitz's ramblings August 22

The past week started South with delicious beer at Moon River Brewing in Savannah, GA. If you get there you'll enjoy a great Fest Bier German style almost-Oktoberfest beer, or maybe a yummy Slo-vannah Pale ale with only 4% alcohol as a wonderful session beer on a hot Georgia day. We were lucky the seasonal Belgique was on tap as a tip-of-the hat to the great Chouffe brewery of southern Belgium.

Okay, not so far, you say! Traveled to Louisville to judge beer for the Kentucky State Fair with some great folks including our own Anita J of Great Fermentations and Sam C. one of the brewers at Bluegrass Brewing. Sam made some great contributions to what might have gone wrong with some of the homebrew we judged. But nothing was wrong when we stopped in at the downtown Louisville brewpub for BBC sampling their winning American Pale, a fairly hoppy American Pale at 55IBU (or just heavy hops for those who don't want the technical stuff. Also tried the seasonal "Unnamable Maibock" (hey, that's there name for it). A very tasty beer even if it is way past May. Had to finish the meal by sharing a Bourbon barrel Scotch Ale, one of my favorites, and Jerry and Sam have barrel aging down to a science!

On the Indiana side of Louisville Buckhead Mountain Grill had Nut Brown Ale on tap, a solid version of this style. Also had 3-Floyds Alpha King, Dogfishhead IPA, and Dogfish 60. Wow! So many choices right off of I-65!

Had to stop in downtown Indy this week and visit BWs at 7 E. Washington to see what was on tap. This week's hophead delight was Founders Red's Rye! Solid grapefruit notes at 77 IBU and done with four varieties of Belgian malts! Double-WOW. Also had Dogfish 90 on tap!

Bloomington's Crazy Horse (with 20+ on tap) is serving up Spaten Oktoberfest now! Yogi's Bloomington has (among the 20+ on tap there) Brooklyn Brewing's Sorachi Ace Brewmaster's Reserve. The beer made with one Japanese hop variety of this name comes out with a unique citrus/herbal flavor.