Had the last two Ithaca beers in the box last night while playing Trivial Pursuit (80s edition, God help me, but the men kicked the women's butts, so not all bad). The first was Oaked Nut Brown, an oak-aged version of Ithaca's year-round standard Nut Brown. Sorry, guys: this was a mistake. The beer was sour; not wildly, spit it out sour, but tangy, like incipient infection problems. Granted, the beer was bottled in September, and may have been better then, but...four months? Should hold up that long. Thumbs down on this one; we tried a second bottle, got the same results (and swore), and moved on.
We moved on to the Ithaca Pale Ale, which was much more likable. No surprises here: American Pale Ale (Cascade, Willamette, and Centennial, according to the website) that wasn't over the top, but certainly not wimpy either. In fact, it compared rather well to the somewhat underwhelming Southern Tier IPA we had after it (which was disconcerting: STIPA is, in memory, a solid IPA, firmly bitter and buoyantly hop-fragrant; this was none of that). I'd be very happy with a sixtel of this at a Summer party (or a winter party, for that matter).
More tourist stuff? Not right now, but we may be driving thru Ithaca shortly; maybe we can get some pix. Meantime, we're not done: I've got a couple big bottle Excelsior series to do yet. Oh, and by the way: happy anniversary to Ithaca, they just celebrated their 10th anniversary earlier this month!
2 comments:
I always find Southern Tier's IPA to be unbelievably good on draft, and somewhat ho-hum in a bottle. I attribute that to freshness.
Pictures? Pictures of Ithaca??? Let me see: Purity Dairy, Farmer's Market, the late great Ralph's Ribs, Museum of the Earth, Buttermilk Falls, Sciencenter, Doug's Fish Fry (in nearby Cortland), the hill, Cornell hockey, Glenwood Pines.
Good Lord. Gotta get back down there.
Alan
Post a Comment