Thursday, February 12, 2009

Beer Review: Upslope Pale Ale, AKA Looking Gift Horses in the Mouth


That's right, it's a beer review. No bike content today. Tune in on Monday for the end of the seat sleeve excitement - if you dare!

So in exchange for helping him assemble his new 5" travel "watch the Brit die spectacularly" 29er, Redcoat brought me over a bottle of wine (as yet unopened) and a sixer of the pale ale from Boulder's newest Brewery - Upslope.

So last night I drank a couple of them, whilst watching "Lost" with some folks from Sarah's lab.

And it's terrible. I feel kinda bad saying that - I like local breweries, I want these dudes to succeed, I love having more beer options, but, it's awful.

It reminds me most of someone pouring half a bottle of Avery IPA (one of my personal favorites) and half a bottle of Icehouse into the same glass. A little bit hoppy, a lot cheap and funky tasting. The fact that it's in a can, to me, doesn't help, but pouring it into a glass didn't make any difference.

To be fair, I'm a hoppy beer guy, and this beer is very low on the hoppiness scale (at least for a Pale Ale). Upslope also makes an IPA which might be better. But given that Avery is about 1/2 mile from my front door, I think I'll stick with the reigning champion of Boulder breweries for now.

As a side note, I have a Thomson 31.6mm x 330 Masterpiece seatpost that was accidentally shipped to me for sale. $85, shipping included. Drop me a line if interested.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Considerin' that you're working towards a racing/climbing weight, you sure do talk about pizza & beer a lot. I like that. (Mid-'lantic hoppiness = Victory HopDevil and/or Troegs HopBack.)

Walt said...

Kurt -

That's a good point. I am (tentatively) planning to cut out the ethanol entirely soon here.

To be fair, I used to have at least a beer or two several times a week. I'm only have 2-3 total beers/week now.

Winter (IMO) is a crappy time to drink anyway. I prefer a beer after a long hot mountain bike ride.

Anonymous said...

+! on the Victory. half hour away and some absolutely top notch brews. hoppy is good. these guys are not dumb.

I hope you don't have the kind of influence to take this poor brewer down. But DO have the influence to put them in hustle mode to improve their beers.

now put aside the swill and build my bike.

Feldy said...

Bad local beer, eh? Reminds me of the time a friend and I wanted to get some Flying Horse (the Indian beer that's in 22oz bottles). Couldn't find it, so we figured getting an IPA was sorta like getting an Indian beer (not really). And why not just get a sampler pack that included IPA?

We went with Great Divide. Cool names, bad beer. We didn't like any of the 4 varieties of beer. Rather than not drink them, our reaction was to drink them quickly (and thus quicken the time of our suffering). That turned into a totally rad impromptu party where I drunk dialed several people to invite them over. No, I didn't call you Walt. Maybe it's 'cause I really hate you, maybe it's 'cause, even in an inebriated state, I knew you'd never come.

Yes, I'm not doing anything at work right now.

MikeQ said...

You ungrateful miserable old git. I am never talking to you again. Prove your love of Avery IPA and help drink the Hamilton keg tomorrow.
-Redcoat

Walt said...

Redcoat -

I'm babysitting tomorrow night.

Hah!

I mean, wait. Crap. Have fun...