This Is What I Drink : 49

A Trio of Not so Local Beers.

First up is a Summer Orange Honey Ale from Rogue which wins the award for longest and most literal beer name that I've had in a while. I've been a big fan of Rogue which hails from Newport, Oregon for a couple of years now. Since the weather was getting nice and disgustingly hot, I thought a sweet summer ale would be a great thing. I ended up a bit disappointed with this one, however. I've never been a huge fan of wheat beers, and this unfiltered version keeps me in that mindset. It just wasn't as crisp or clean as I was expecting or wanting. Rogue definitely makes better beers than this and hopefully I'll get to one or two of them in the near future. Note how much Slovenia's coach disapproves in the background (yes, this means I was watching the soccer game at 10 AM while drinking a beer on a weekday.)

Next is Choklat from Southern Tier. I'll admit that I've had this one as recently as this past December, but those were the pre-blog days so I had to revisit it. I also had to revisit it because it tastes really great. Choklat falls into my favorite beer category, the imperial stout, and also emphasizes one of my favorite stout ingredients, chocolate. This stuff absolutely lives up to the hype. It pours a deep black color and tastes like a rich dark chocolate beer should taste. At 11% ABV it's scarily easy to drink as well. It's possibly one of the better beers that I've had all year.

Last, but not least is Anchor Steam Beer from San Francisco, CA. I think it's one of the first microbrew beers that I ever drank, and it's renowned as a bit of a classic in the microbrew community. It's a pretty unique tasting beer, not like many I've had. and I suppose that is one of the reasons that I enjoy it. It's not unique in that it doesn't taste like beer, it just doesn't seem to fit in a category as easily as the other two beers I just reviewed do. It's pretty light and easy to drink at 4.9%, but I think that works perfectly for its flavor profile.