Bootlegger's Brewery Review

I thought I would write a more in depth review of the actual 23!  beers I tasted at the Bootlegger's Brewery 2nd Anniversary Tasting.

The first thing I want to make absolutely clear was that ALL of the 23!/30 beers I tasted were really good. Did I like all of them? No, but there was not a badly made beer in all of the beers I tried. Pink Funkasaurus(By Bootlegger's own admission)? In a word, funky. But, it tasted EXACTLY how it was described. Ok so it wasn't sweaty sweet strawberries but I new it was going to be weird going in.


That was definitely a very pleasant surprise with every single one of the beers. All of them, and I mean all, tasted exactly how they were described. If it was supposed to taste and smell like liqourice and molasses I could close my eyes and unbeknownst to me, be handed the Blackstrap Porter and pick those exact flavors and aromas out of the beer. So many beers nowadays seem to just have the merest suggestion of the flavors and smells but Bootlegger's does flavors big, and without being cloyingly sweet or overpowering what a beer should taste like.

I'm not one for fruit infused beers but their Plum Riot smells salty and fresh with a hint of plum on the nose and enough on the tongue to make it be noticed but not NOTICED. I enjoyed it and it was the best out of the fruit infused ales.

The lambic #2 was fruity and sweet and funky like a good lambic should be but the sweet didn't overpower the sour and vice versa. I haven't had too many lambics but this was the first one I've enjoyed.

If I had to pick one fault with the beers that I tasted it would be that all of the IPA's and dry hopped beers had nearly the exact same aroma and level of bitterness. I don't know for sure but I would bet the same hops were used for all of them. Whether they were supposed to be over the top or lightly hopped they had the same wonderful grapefruit aroma, not much pine, and the bitter bite didn't fluctuate from brew to brew. That's not to say they weren't good. They were, they were great IPA's. The best being the Dr. Tongue. I grew up in NorCal so pine is no big deal to me but I love when the citrusy grapefruit is there to balance the bitter.

Being an anniversary there had to be a special anniversary brew. I didn't come to(if there was one) last years bash but they had last year's brew on tap and they couldn't have been more different. I liked that they were different too. Where's the fun in brewing a slightly modified version? Last year's 76 Anniversary Ale(on the right) was a malty sweet coffee colored brew with coffee on the nose and suspended sediment that coated your tongue. A really good drink. This year's 77 Anniversary Ale was a hoppy, citrusy, bubbly IPA style brew that I actually ranked as my top IPA of the day even though it wasn't labeled as such.

All in all the best beer of the day for me was the Black Phoenix which is a coffee chipotle stout that I reviewed in the previous post on Bootlegger's. It tastes just like it sounds with the perfect level of each ingredient and at 6.7% this will be my next growler fill.

Thank you Bootlegger's for your well crafted and imaginative beer. I may not have liked them all but I guarantee each beer was liked by someone, because the only funk there was, was intentional, and there was not a fault to be found. Go check out Bootlegger's if you are in Southern California