Beer Tasting – Left Hand Brewing Company

I stumble upon a beer tasting at the Plymouth Meeting Whole Foods earlier this month. And took a liking to all of the selections Dan Conway from Left Hand Brewing Company (Longmont, Colorado) was pouring, although if I had to pick a favorite, I’d go with the Milk Stout.

I asked Dan if I could record his descriptions of all the brews and he agreed so here it is:

Milk Stout – Made with lactose sugar (milk infused sugar) which gives it the creamy texture – aroma is of brown sugar and vanilla cream, with hints of roasted coffee.

Sawtooth Ale: An English style bitter. We aim for a perfect balance between malt and hops. First year out this beer won a Gold Medal at the Great American Beer Festival.

Stranger Pale Ale – This is the first beer I got to work on to help perfect the recipe. Nice rye, malt backbone. A lot of dry hopping involved with cascade hops which gives it this nice grapefruit, citrus flavor.

T & T: What’s dry hopping?

Dan: It’s kinda like making tea – hops are added into the beer after the onset of fermentation to create more aroma. Great for cask ales.

Black Jack Porter– This is what I drink typically. Easy take on an English style porter. Little higher in alcohol, but we are an American company so we do what we want 🙂 Nice mix of chocolate and coffee malt. One of the smoothest that I’ve tasted. It was my favorite even before I started working for them (Left Hand Brewing).

I wanted to buy a variety 6 pack as a Christmas gift for someone, but they didn’t have the beers available that way, at least not that evening at Whole Foods.  Will have to go back and check again, only thank goodness Christmas is over, so when I go back the purchase will be for me!