Acopon Old Pounder

Over the weekend, my wife and i celebrated 11 years of marriage by ditching the kids with their grandparents and venturing out into the Central Texas hill country to take in some breweries we'd not been to before.  Out of the bunch, my favorite was the relatively new (2 years old) Acopon Brewing in Dripping Springs.  Country meets goth in the best way possible.  I enjoyed everything i tried, but the brew that hit me in all the right spots was the Old Pounder, a 5.4% ABV old style ale and variation of an ESB.  Pouring a copperish brown with a white head, the beer smells of malts and notes of toffee and chocolate.  The flavor combines said malt with some biscuit notes and some subtle chocolate vibes.  Delicious.  I'm going to have make the drive back out there again and soon.

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Grain Shed Purple Egyptian

Whenever i travel, it's pretty much a given that i'm going to make it to a brewery or two or fifteen.  That's what i did in Spokane, Washington over the weekend, and out of all of the beer consumed, tried, and tasted, the Purple Egyptian from brewery/bakery called The Grain Shed left all other brews in the dust.  A 6% ABV old ale, the beer pours gold with a frothy, slightly off white head and smells of grain and notes of fruit and molasses.  The Purple Egyptian grains, harvested from the Nile River Valley in Egypt, bring out subtle dried fruit notes to the flavor, that along with the malts makes for an earthy, complex, yet very refreshing beer.  You could drink this one for breakfast...and we did.  I can't wait to get back there again.

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