So this post is biased, there it is right out there and I may eat my words later. In all honesty I hope I do eat my words or maybe a better analogy drink them later, but here it goes anyway. The reason I started this project is because I love beer and I like Utah and we have some great breweries across the state. The newest one is EPIC Brewery. Strike One--The Name. Not bad in itself but if you are going to call your brewery EPIC it had better put out awesome beer, nothing but awesome beer. I intentionally waited to try the beers from here because I was worried my expectations are high and I didn't want to be let down. All of that because of a name. Strike Two--Only available in bottles. Now this may work out for them and really I hope it does. I like big beers so I like the fact that is what they are making. However there are quite a few lower gravity beers that I enjoy as well, beer does not have to have a high alcohol content to have great flavors. So here comes Strike Three-- The beer, well maybe it is not a true strike because the beer I had was not bad, and I did only have one so I am not writing them off yet. This is still a beer I would take over almost any mass production beer but I just don't feel it was epic.
So there I said it, here is what I had- 825 State Stout
Now I love Stouts and Porters, I am Irish Guinness is still my favorite beer, and I hope a craft brewery, maybe one in Utah can come up with a beer that dethrones Guinness to me but it has not happened yet. So I know this style of beer and saw it at one of our new DABC stores, (The one in Holliday just off Highland Drive AWESOME BEER SELECTION!) so I grabbed it and the Galloway Porter that they offer as well (haven't tried this one yet, I am waiting for my disappointment to wear off.) and opened the Stout last night. The first thing I noticed was an alcohol smell off the head which surprised me since it is less than 6% ABV. Then after tasting it I realized that the flavors just didn't last and that the mouth feel of it was very thin almost watery. The flavors were not bad, and there were some very nice chocolate, and coffee noted in it but they just did not last. Those issues alone would not make me completely write this beer off but then came the kicker. The aftertaste....The alcohol notes carried over into the finish of the beer and killed the good flavors it has at the start. The other issue is that the competition in this style is stiff -Captain Bastards Oatmeal Stout from Squatters- and -Madame X Stout from Hoppers- are both amazing and a few seasonals we have available are very nice as well.
I intentionally waited to write this so I could think it over before I put it all into words but there it is. I am going to try EPIC's other beers in the future I will probably wait a little while to cleanse my mental palate so to speak and look at them on their own merit and leave the name out of it, it really isn't fail to hold them to a higher standard just because of their name.........but then again you guys named it EPIC not me so not my fault. I am going to try the Porter and probably get their IPA as well and give that a shot and I will definitely do a review of those and hopefully it will even out my opinion of this brewery.
If anyone has experience with EPICS other brews especially those that you liked please let me know with a reply on this post so I know what to try next or maybe what to try them with, I really want to do this new brewery justice and not discourage anyone from trying their brews for themselves.
So good news Mike over at Utah Beer brought this info to my attention. Hopefully that means I just had a bad experience with EPIC and there is good beer to come!! Check it out he has a great blog about the Utah Beer Scene.
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