So the holiday season has started and its been a long time since I posted anything... I took a short time off to just kick back and enjoy some of my favorites before coming back strong in 2011! But this doesn't mean I haven't had a chance to try anything new...On a recent trip home I ended up at a family gathering at a local brew pub known as Rudder's, in good old Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Ive had good word that they had some fine brews here so I was excited to get started on them! Conveniently they had a sampler pack which was 3 7oz glasses of any of their brewed beer. I opted for the Yarmouth Town Brown, Rudder's Red and one that was not on the menu which we will call the Rudder's Irish Ale.
First up I had the Irish Ale, it was a somewhat cloudy, pale brownish color and with little head (which seemed to be caused by the small portions) and had a small aroma of dry malt. The taste was sub par for what I expected and again of just dry malt, a fair alcoholic taste and not much else, very simple. It did however go down eays and wa snot very heavy. 2.5 out of 5
Secondly I had the Rudder's Red which was a nice deep red color as expected with a retaining head. The aroma was gentle yet distinguished. The taste was surpassed expectations, I expected this to be your average amber ale, and I was wrong. It had a nice complex and smooth taste with just the right amount of bite from the hops. It had been a while since I had an amber ale of this quality 4.5 out of 5!
Lastly was the Yarmouth town brown. Now i'll tell you what, I love the name, it just has a great ring to it. The beer itself unfortunetly did not carry the same ring... The beer was a brown almost oak-like color and had a heavy aroma to it. My first sip was not where I thought this beer was going. It was fairly heavy, with an earthy taste to it and was missing some hops to add complexity. I see where this beer was trying to go but It needs a little more "umph" to it. Overall tho it could have also been much worse. 3.5 out of 5
For simplicity's sake these will be going up as 67, 68 and 69 but I have had others in between... More to come on those at a later time ;)
