Wednesday, January 21, 2009

A Flyte of Fancy and More Frugal MacDoogaling


Flyte Restaurant in Nashville is one of my wife and I's favorite places to eat and now with the discovery of beer flights there along with wine and champagne - it just moved up as place to imbibe as well. We met our friends, Woody and Linda, there for dinner recently (this was Ashlee's second visit in the same week and she's the one who discovered the beer flight on the earlier visit - thanks, babe!) and I chose the flight that most appealed to me - "The Hop N Skip" - what else? This flight as it name indicates focuses on the almighty hop with a trio of 4-ounce selections with increasing "hoppiness." I skipped the recommended pilsner to start and replaced it with the Classic Ale from Hitachino Nest - a "real" Japanese brewery. Until I had this nice ale I had about zero success in liking Asian beers which are usually of the cat-pee pilsner/light-colored lager variety. This one was quite nice and I definitely want to get to know this microbrewery more. Second up in the flight was Red Seal Ale from California's North Coast Brewing. It was a decent offering, but nothing to get too excited about. Last, but definitely not least, was Mojo IPA from my new friends at Boulder (CO) Brewing (I recently reviewed their Hazed & Confused and loved it). It was a great IPA . So much so that I ordered another pint of it since that was the conclusion of my flight.



Another great thing about Flyte Restaurant is that it is across the street from Frugal MacDoogal's Discount Liquor and Beer. A great thing about the beer side of McDoogal's is that they will let you pick out a six-pack of randomly selected microbrews from all over. I introduced Woody to this little corner of beer heaven and being the dark beer lover that he is, he went heavy on the stouts. I kind of followed his lead since the IPAs were few and far between. Here's the line-up and a quick review:

Stone Pale Ale - California - excellent brew - Stone is easily one my favorite craft breweries and a pretty much a legend in the field

Milk Stout from Left Handed Brewing - Colorado - not too shabby, a little bitter to start but it smoothed off nicely

Bluegrass Brewing's Dark Star Stout - Kentucky - BBC is definitely one of my favorite regional breweries and this offering was solid.

Wild Goose Oatmeal Stout - Maryland - nothing great, nothing bad

Never Summer Ale - Colorado - my boys from Boulder Brewing strike again!! - that's three for three in excellent brews - I got to go see these guys!!

8 Ball Stout -Lost Coast Brewing - California - cool beer and brewery name, average beer

2 comments:

Craig and Alison Harris said...

Hmmm, did you consume all of these beers in one night? I wouldn't be able to write with anything but a crayon if I had half that much beer!

I think I recall that I like Oatmeal Stouts... I have had a couple but have forgotten what they tasted like. I am sure one of them was downed at Lazlo's Brewery in Lincoln, Nebraska, but other than that, time has erased it.

Rob and Ashlee said...

One bottle a night was my limit on the MacDoogal six-pack. Time has erased a lot of the names of beer I have consumed as well - hence, the creation of this blog.