whatchudrinkin?

Last night Sarah and I headed to Tap it Tuesday at the Cascade Brewing Barrel House. They had a special cask of Cherry Bourbonic Plague, which I enjoyed while Sarah sipped the Barrel Aged Fruit. 

The Bourbonic Plague had a great vanilla smell from the bourbon and some great cherry notes. The taste was surprisingly dark, chocolate, smoke. Maybe a bit of tobacco, like red wine. The sour was subdued, tart but not sour. There was almost no burn from the eleven percent alcohol. The head was a lie. This beer was almost completely flat, and almost completely unlike beer. More like wine than any beer I’ve had.

Sarah’s Barrel Aged Fruit was much lighter, much fruitier. The base was a Flanders style red, but the cherry flavor of the red was covered by the fruit, apricots and peaches. The acid was more pronounced, sour and tart, like a strawberry rhubarb pie.

I also tried out one of their normal ales, Red Eye Rye. It reminded me of English breakfast tea, dry tannin. The fuggle hops add to the tea-like bitterness. There was also a bit of nuttiness, walnuts. The body was pretty light, too light.

My one complaint with Cascade — aside from bewildering complexity — is that many of their beers are flat and watery. Like homebrew that hasn’t been properly carbonated. The Rye, and to a smaller extent the Plague, suffered from a metallic, mineral water taste. I don’t know if that’s a consistent problem or just the beers I’ve got.