NoCal Brew Tour: Day 2, Sierra Nevada

To be safe, responsible people, we decided to do tasters of all the beers instead of drinking ourselves silly trying pints of everything. This is what Sierra Nevada has to offer. (written by Tony)

• Crystal Wheat
  • A filtered wheat beer. Light wheat beer, not fruity at all.
  • Your standard American wheat.
  • As someone said, "It's something you'd want to shotgun."
  
  
• Ruthless Hef
  • Very clean and crisp. Much more so than a normal wheat beer.
  • Very fruity with a hint of clove
  
  
• Wheat Beer
  • More aroma than the crystal wheat, but similar flavor
  • A small amount of spice to the beer
  
  
• Summerfest
  • Mimi: "It smells like the monkey cage at the zoo"
  • Just a lager. Nothing all that exciting.
  • Easy to drink with flavor similar to the wheat
  
  
• Blonde Ale
  • Kenji did not like this beer.
  • Very little flavor. It has beer flavor and that's about it.
  • It's not bitter, though.
  
  
• Best Bitter Ale
  • Nice malt flavor, and hope flavor, but needs to be more bitter.
  
  
• Draught Style Pale Ale
  • A good, drinkable beer. Straight forward pale.
  • An excellent sideline beer.
  
  
• Pale Ale
  • You have all had this beer before. It's the Sierra Nevada beer with the green label.
  • Slightly more bitter than the draught style pale.
  
  
• Early Spring Beer (ESB)
  • "Tastes good for you"
  • It's like eating a salad
  • Much better than the best bitter ale, more hop flavor to it
  
  
• Southern Hemisphere
  • Wonderful Hop Aroma.
  • Citrus Hoppy
  • It feels like you drink it through the nose
  
  
• IPA
  • Doesn't taste like an IPA
  • Very sweet and not very bitter
  • Not as good as the Southern Hemisphere
  
  
• Torpedo
  • Well balanced is the best way to describe this beer
  • It is a very good beer to sit back, relax, and enjoy
  
  
• Brown Ale
  • A well balanced brown
  • Good and tasty, but a bit too watery
  
  
• Porter
  • Pretty thin
  • "It's not Black Butte Porter"
  • No foretaste, just a sort of burnt aftertaste
  
  
• Stout
  • Kind of more like a porter than a stout
  • Decent chocolate balance, but lacks the burnt, roasted aftertaste
  
  
• Bigfoot Barleywine
  • Good floral aroma
  • Fairly mellow barleywine, but nicely balanced
  • Mimi, "Whew!"

The overall winner of the tasting was by far the Torpedo. We ordered a pitcher of it since the only thing left for us to do was go to the campsite and drink more there.