Lost Coast Brewery: [8 Ball] Stout

I don't know what took me so long to try this brew. Lost Coast has a stout with a giant 8 ball on the label. Right up my alley: I love sampling California brews, I savor stouts, pool is a great bar game, and '8' is my favorite number. Well, Lost Coast only sells this ale in 22oz bombers, so it can be difficult to locate. I found a store that sells 'em and it's time to give the brew a review.

Not surprisingly this stout pours with a pitch black color and is topped off by a decent sized head; evoking imagines of a liquid 8 ball. While the head is more a light tan than a true white, I still like the title. The beer is very carbonated and bubbles dance around on the tongue during the first sip. Flavors of dark chocolate initially emerge and are followed by bitter hops and coffee. A coffee bean after taste lingers in the mouth for a few seconds after each sip creating a very strong overall flavor. While the stout is initially too carbonated for my tastes if you let it sit for a while, the fizzyness dissipates and then the beer has a creamy body to compliment the powerful flavors.

With a title designed for my liking, after drinking the beer I was hoping to shout: "Eureka, I found it!" However, this Lost Cost offering is not the best stout I've ever sampled. But it's pretty good. Definitely worth a try. I definitely get behind the 8 ball again. Cheers.

Lost Cost Brewery & Cafe: Great White

We all love sharing a beer with family and friends. However, sometimes it can be difficult to find a beer that the whole crew will love. Especially if that family or friend group is comprised of both men and women.

To generalize, most girls don't enjoy especially hoppy or malty beverages. Thus, ancient man invented the witbier (more commonly know as the Belgian White Ale). This style is lighter than most beers and is always refreshing. Girls love this stuff. It's not super heavy, has a lighter coloring, and most bartenders will add fruit to it without the purchaser even asking (think Blue Moon or Hoegaarden).

I know three things: Girls love witbiers (see above). I drink a lot of beer. And my girlfriend does too. So recently I have purchased a lot of Lost Coast's Great White because it's a beer we can both agree on. Great White has that Coriander flavor that girls enjoy but is also an unfiltered brew with bready and doughy flavors to provide enough taste for the male drinker. It actually reminds me more of New Belgium's Sunshine Wheat (an American Pale Wheat beer) than a witbier.

As Hofer mentioned, Lost Coast Brewing and Cafe is a California brewery that makes a lot of quality beers. For some reason Great White is their flagship beer. This could be because the beverage can cross gender barriers. Never know. However, with the recent invention of the 'build your own six pack' at World Market and City Beer, sharing a sixer with a chick is no longer a necessity. But if you are off to your local Northern California Safeway with a woman, may I recommend the Great White; you both won't be disappointed. Cheers

Lost Coast: Downtown Brown Ale

I come back to California for a few weeks but the miserable weather seems to follow me home. So I find myself still in the mood for darker, roastier beer rather than a dry and hoppy one. But so long as I'm back on the West Coast I'll sample something from out here, and so I stumble upon Downtown Brown. Downtown is a nut brown ale, and not being all that familiar with the genre, I'll just give my first impressions.

The beer has a fairly light mouthfeel, but still manages to pull off a fairly complex taste. it's very nutty and carmelly, and has only barely a hint of hops. This is the kind of beer that you want to go for if you're in the mood for something darker, but for whatever reason a stout sounds like just a little bit more than you're ready for. It's also missing the much stronger bite and the thicker feel of an amber ale (i.e. Fat Tire), which makes for easy drinkability. So even if it doesn't ever register as one of my big favorites, I imagine I'll be picking it up again in the future just because it will fit just about any occasion.

Downtown Brown is brewed by Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka, CA. Lost Coast is also well known for their Great White Ale, though from the looks of it, Downtown has actually won more awards.