We were hit with a late afternoon sun shower here at Beer Rant HQ today. The sun hung low in the sky and a rainbow appeared in the east. Nice.

I haven’t posted an honest to goodness beer review in quite a while so I think comments on a noteworthy western beer are in order.

Green Flash Brewing
Stout
I remember the first Green Flash product I sampled was from a little convenience store down on the pier, just outside main post at Camp Pendleton. Mrs. Beer Rant and I spent a good deal of time in California visiting our daughter and her family a couple years back and of course during those visits we needed to eat and drink. There is a terrific little pizza joint down at the pier and it’s the sort of pizza place that, despite the fact that they goof up your order nearly every time, you still love their pizza so much you don’t care if it’s wrong and you keep going back for more! Well, just around the corner from this pizza place was a little convenience store and I remember the first two six packs I bought there were from Green Flash and Ballast Point. The same fellow seemed to be running the place every time I stopped in – a strangely happy guy, a bit hip, perhaps a doper but always with an easy smile and a kind word or two for an out of town square rambling about local beers. I wish him the best wherever he is.

I didn’t get this particular bottle of Green Flash Stout from a little convenience store on the pier; I picked it up closer to Beer Rant HQ – I think at Total Wine – and I believe it’s the best of the Green Flash product I’ve tried so far.

Beer book notes read thus: Malty, roasted smell. Opaque brown with a robust, tan head. Initially sooty, smoky tasting going into a burnt/roast coffee taste. Medium to thick mouth feel.

This one tips the scale at a respectable 8.8% abv so it’s no guzzling beer but by the same token, I don’t recall that this bomber sized serving knocked me on my keester, either. I liked this one and I'll seek it out again.

Here’s what other, more sagacious beer folk have to say about Green Flash Stout:

If a “98” is a high rating, then I guess the boffins over at Rate Beer really like this one, too.

Booze Reviews also had nice things to say about Green Flash Stout, as did a bunch of folks who posted comments.

The masses over at Beer Advocate rate it a B+ (with only two reviewers checking in), and although “the brothers” haven’t bothered to sample this they’re eagerly waiting for you so send them a sample. (Ah, gotta love beer welfare.)

For you Green Flash obsessives out there, here’s the link to their WEBSITE.

I’m a little peeved at:
The local Gordon Biersch outlet for sending me an email reminder about tonight’s tapping party….at 4 PM today. Bit late folks!

The local Total Wine chain for sending yet another store catalog without a single beer coupon. Seems when they first rolled into town there was a dollar off coupon for six packs of beer in the paper every week. Lately? Nothing. Not to worry, I’ll still swing through there to get those rare and unusual things and the odd bargain now and then, too.

I’m on cloud nine because:
I stumbled on bombers of Nogne O Winter Ale at a local specialty store for the bargain basement price of $3! Three bucks, people! That’s less than half the going rate at Total Wine. I snagged 24 bottles. It’s grand!

The local Sunflower Market continues to have nifty beer sales in their weekly mail flyer. This week, two six packs of Boulder Beer for $10. Probably grab a couple of those and squirrel them into the garage locker. Twelve packs of Session Lager (regular and black) for $8.99. Fun. I always check their advertisements!

By the way, Happy Birthday Norman Rockwell!

American Craft Beer Week Day 5: Green Flash Nut Brown Ale

Uggggggh. Imagine the pain and sickness of a hangover without the lingering pleasant memory of a night of overindulgence.

I’d planned to make a post on all 7 days of American Craft Beer Week, each day sampling a different American Craft Beer – well, sure I did.

On Friday (Day 5) I enjoyed a light lunch with a glass of Green Flash Brewing Nut Brown Ale. All well and good until about a half hour later.

For dessert I came down with the stomach flu and pretty much slept through Day 6 and Day 7 of American Craft Beer Week and the better part of Day 1 of the unnamed week that typically follows American Craft Beer Week. (I think I’ll suggest that the week after American Craft Beer Week be called American Hangover Recovery Week for those who might have enjoyed ACBW too much, or American Groggy Emergence From the Stomach Flu Week, for poor saps like me who didn’t get to enjoy the entire Craft Beer experience for its full 7 days of glory.)

At any rate, I was eating lunch but paying attention and taking notes when I sampled the Green Flash Nut Brown Ale. A bit of a disclaimer here: unlike the other beers I sampled on Day 1 through 4, I have actually had a six-pack or so of the Green Flash Nut Brown.

Here are the highlights from my notebook:

Smells of hops in the bottle and grass and hops in the glass. Dark tea color. Head thin. Tastes of bread. Flavor gone quickly. Not too heavy.

This isn’t a bad beer. Obviously I’ve purchased this beer before and would probably do so again. I will not seek this particular beer out in the near future because thoughts of it currently evoke strange flu like symptoms that are all in my head.

To your health, and mine!