Pizza and Beer

Tonight is pizza night. Homemade dough, homemade sauce, homemade cheese. Doesn't get any better than that.

While we wait for the dough to rise, we try some more Maine brews from the recent road trip:

Casco Bay Brown Ale: Chocolatey and nutty in aroma and flavor. No hop aroma or flavor. Just the right amount of bitterness in the finish. A tiny, tiny bit of diacetyl - not at all unpleasant. A real easy drinker. I'll look to pick up some more of this when the weather is a bit more "brown ale".

Brown Hound Brown Ale (Freeport Brewing Company): A bit hoppier, this one, though still a malt balanced beer with chocolate flavors. Hop character is a neutral - not typical American hops. If I had to guess, I'd go with Northern Brewer. A bit too much carbonation and finishes a bit too dry for my taste in a brown ale. Still a beer worth drinking.

I drank both of these from my new favorite glass. This past weekend I picked up an Aventinus glass at the always impressive Nurnberger Bierhaus on Staten Island. Really sweet wheat beers like Aventinus are not exactly my cup of tea (or beer, as it were), but this glass is right up my alley. The bowl at the top really holds aromas in nicely. And plus it just looks cool as hell.

Also, forgot to mention that last night I tried an import that we brought back from Maine. Eisenbahn Escura from Brazil. Unfortunately I don't think I can give this one a proper review as it was fairly oxidized. The underlying beer seemed to have too much of the roasted character of a porter or stout, not what I'm looking for in a dark lager. I tasted it alongside my Munich Dunkel... I won.