Unrepentant beer drinkers, rejoice! Each week, Clean Plate Charlie
will select one craft or import beer and give you the lowdown on it:
How does it taste? What should you drink it with? Where can you find
it? But mostly, it's all about the love of the brew. If you have a beer
you'd like featured in Beer of the Week, let us know via a comment.
I'm about to get all gushy beer nerd on you this week, folks. Because when I sat down to write this week's beer column I couldn't think of just one beer to write about. No, I had too many great beers in the past week to choose a single standout. And I'm going to talk a little about them all.
It was my fiancee's birthday last Friday night, so we hauled down to the Pompano Beach beer garden and gastropub, Brother Tuckers,
and had ourselves a killer beer party. The tiny, monastery-themed bar
has a small but smart selection of mostly Belgian and European ales --
stuff like Chimay Reserve and Delirium Tremens and Piraat. But they
also have a sizable list of beers on special as well as a few choice
draft ales. Prices aren't super cheap, but for a selection this good,
it's hard to complain.
We sampled so many different beers that night, it's hard to keep track.
On tap we tried a sweet Maredsous Brune, a Belgian brown with nutty
overtones, and Weihenstephan Hefeweizen, a crisp, tart wheat beer from
the World's Oldest Brewery. Each were great beers, and maybe a little too easy to drink for their high alcohol content.
After a taste of the Old World we moved clean into the new with
Victory's Hop Wallop. The Pennsylvania IPA so hoppy the mouthfeel
becomes slick and oily -- ah, in a good way. Another citrusy, easy to
drink IPA that nears the 9 percent mark.
From there it was a hop, skip, and a jump over to a crazy selection
from Victory called Wild Devil. It's a brew based off of Victory's Hop
Devil, only the fermentation is done naturally instead of with
controlled yeast. As a result the beer has some truly crazy flavors you
wouldn't get in either a normal Belgian or an IPA. Hoppy, citrusy, and
herbal, with a very strong licorice and lavender aroma, Wild Devil is
about as wild tasting as beer gets. Yet the natural bacteria is really
well controlled, and the beer has a balance I wouldn't expect. Nab this
if you can find it beer fans.
After all those beers, the flavors started to blend together a bit (not to mention I was crocked). But it was truly a case of beer heaven at Brother Tuckers that night. And there were tons of beers we didn't even get to try. If your a beer fan and you haven't been, you owe it to yourself to check out their very cool selection.
