Tapping the 12th South Tap Room in Nashville

Last night we had tickets to see the "Queen of Mean" Lisa Lampanelli at the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville, but beforehand my wife and I met our firend, Nate, at the 12th (Avenue) South Tap Room for dinner and, of course, some beer. I had been wanting to check this place out for a while and last night was the perfect opportunity since Magic Hat Brewing was advertising that they were going to have a sample tastings there as well. Magic Hat products are high on my favorites list, so it was a no-brainer.

We arrived a little after 5 PM and got our first Magic Hat sample - their new summer seasonal ale called Wacko - great name. It had the red color of a fruit-infused beer, but the light, crisp taste of a clean summer-style ale with a nice subtle finish. Zero fruit taste...interesting with that crazy color. Next we tried their Odd Notion Summer Ale which was a Belgian-style pale yellow brew which was nice and light. Unfortuately, that was the extent of our free tastings, although they were running some happy-hour-like deals on their other beers that the taproom carried, but those weren't anything I hadn't had before so I moved on to a few others that I didn't recognize off their fairly-impressive beer menu.

My first choice was the homerun of the evening. A superb hoppy elixir from Victory Brewing in Pennsylvania (just outside Philly) called "Hop Wallop." It wasn't labeled an IPA, but it might as well have been. Excellent hoppy aroma and taste from a bottle - now surpassing my current favorite bottled IPA from Sweetwater. Unfortunately, I don't think Victory beer is readily available in this area (yet, hopefully) since the tap room had a large sign on their door proclaiming that Victory beer was "finally" in Nashville. My friend, Nate, is a stout lover and he went for the Victory Storm King Stout of which he graciously allowed me a sip. Another excellent bottled product. It was ultra-smooth despite it's jet black appearance and heavy body.

I wanted another Hop Wallop (love that name) bad, but decided to do a bit more menu-exploring and moved on to Lakefront Organic ESB. An ESB (extra special bitter) is an English-style ale - the most well-known of which is Bass. Lakefront is a Milwaukee, Wisconsin microbrewery and this concoction was very solid in taste and texture. I stand by this proclamation fairly strongly because I had bought an actual gold medal winning ESB from England earlier this week from our new Wilson County real beer store, Cheers. It's called Fuller's ESB and I have enjoyed the pricey six-pack of it I bought so far. It's actually a bit more actually "bitter" to me than Lakefront was, but you get what you overpay for I guess. As you can tell, I am a little peeved over the price of the Fullers (it wasn't marked and I will ask next time), but I am trying to move on beyond that because one of my mottos is that life is too short to drink cheap beer...but it is long enough to not overpay for it either. My other purchase at Cheers earlier this week was a bargain pint of an excellent Octoberfest hefewiezen actually from Germany called Georg Schnieder's Wiesen Edel-Weisse (boy, the Europeans aren't into the "cutesy" names for their beers are they - Fuller's ESB and Schnieder's "Noble White"). This product is proclaimed "organic' as well by the USDA (you won't find that moniker on the processed crap of Bud, Miller or Coors, folks).

One other great find this week was a bottle (and then another one) of Abita Jockamo IPA I had at the WOW Wingery in Mt. Juliet. The WOW Wingery is a great little place for good pub food before or after a movie in the new Providence Marketplace. They have a decent selection of beer in bottles and on tap. Since they deem themselves a New Orleans-style eatery (never thought of New Orleans for chicken wings?) they have everything carried by Abita Brewing out of Abita Springs, Louisiana. Jockamo is an excellent IPA with good hoppiness and a nice finish. The Abita folks are pioneers in microbrewing and their Purple Haze and Turbo Dog are hugely popular. Should have known that they would do a great IPA as well.