Beer Diary #22 - Mike - Triton, Barley Island, Perennial, and The Civil Life

The world of better beer is one in which nothing stands still. New breweries and new releases fill the calendar, making it impossible to keep things under our thumbs. Nevertheless, we soldier on, knowing that it's the journey, not the finish, that keeps us coming back.

Well it sounds noble, anyway.


18 September 11
Location: Triton Brewing Company, 5764 Wheeler Road, Indianapolis

Triton began operations a couple weeks ago, and have been bringing on their new offerings in quick succession even since. We stopped in on a Sunday afternoon to sample their Fieldhouse Wheat, which was the only house beer available at the time. (They've since added their Magnificent Amber, Four Barrel Brown, and Deadeye Stout to the lineup.)


Triton'S Fieldhouse Wheat is an Amarillo-hopped wheat beer, balanced, with medium body and a citrus hop flavor. It's bigger than your standard wheat beer, but not quite gumballhead either. Oftentimes, the first beer out of a new brewery shows flaws - not the case here. A really nice introduction to Triton.

And the space looks awesome.


18 September 11
Location: Barley Island, Noblesville

We had to return a used HBG5 keg to Barley Island, so a trip up north made sense. What we found inside was Barley Island's Barrel Fermented Rust Belt Porter on cask. A beautiful bourbon nose, brown sugar and molasses, flat cask front, then vanilla - not a lot of wood comes through, just balanced bourbon flavor. Very nice.


Part of the fun of HBG is taking photos of people who don't want their picture taken.
20 September 11
Location: Tomlinson Tap Room, Indianapolis City Market

As part of their first anniversary, local coffeehouse Bjava Coffee and Tea has worked with a number of brewers around the city to put together a series of coffee-flavored beers. An excellent idea!


Flat12 Bjava Blond - This is a straight up coffee flavored coffee beer, almost just a cold cup of coffee. Really nice coffee with cream nose - strong on the coffee, golden lemony color, cloudy body. Roasty from the coffee, not from the beer, leans more towards the blacker side of coffee.

If you really dig coffee, this might be the beer for you.


20 September 11
Location: La Revolucion, Fountain Square

I was in need of tacos. Rumor had it that Revolucion's veggie tacos were excellent. I decided to investigate.

Tacos need beer. Rogue Dead Guy - the first hbg review? No, the tenth. Nevertheless, there's something about a Dead Guy in Fountain Square.

This one is domestic light lager colored, sweet malty nose, surprisingly deep in flavor - expected less from the nose. Earthy on front, then an explosion of sweetness in the finish. Grassy earthy. The quicker you drink it, the less fruity comes through though, so it seems like maybe the palate needs time to reset in there, somewhere.


16 September 11
Location: Perennial Artisan Ales, 8125 South Michigan, St. Louis, MO

As one of the benefits of running a slightly successful beer blog, we've met many folks, amongst them the large crew that regularly associates with STLHops.com's Mike Sweeney. Some of them, like former Itap/Lohr Distributing manager Cory King, even help run breweries.


Perennial is a recently opened example. Situated in a warehouse turned apartment and brewery space, the brewery plans to focus on "production of farmhouse ales, seasonal styles, and cellaring varieties that are intended to improve with age."

We're always up for a different approach, so we stopped in to check it out.


Southside blonde - straight-ahead belgian blonde, reminiscent of barley island's sheetmetal blonde.

Strawberry Rhubarb Tart - big strawberry out front on the nose - smells like strawberry chapstick. Sippin' in, definitely bringing out the rhubarb. Interesting.

Hommel Bier - star of the show, hints of citrus, chewy, the hops really shine through - super drinkable.

Each of these beers are very early in their lifecycle - I'm excited by the approach, and will be back to Perennial in the future.


17 September 11
Location: The Civil Life Brewing Company, 3714 Holt Ave, St. Louis, Mo 63116
Website Highly Recommended. Like this page.

This was a brewery opening. An anxious crowd gathered about a mile from the brewery location, where we we treated to a re-purposed beer-influenced Gettysburg Address before the parade started.

Yep, a parade.


We walked a block and were given a beer. The crowd continued to grow. We continued to walk. We were given another beer. We turned a corner - now just a block away from the brewery - and were greeted by a band of bagpipers. They lead us down the street to the brewery, where a pirate climbed onto the roof and raised a pirate flag.

BREWERY OPEN!


This is Carl on the second story balcony/seating area.
The Civil Life aims to be a neighborhood brewery in a neighborhood in need of one. Brewing sessionable beers, I expect them to do very well. The space was beautiful. The beer was tasty. We left happy.