Beer Review: Guadalupe Brewing Texas Honey Ale

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: 7.32 percent

Appearance: This brew poured a nice golden brown with some toasty brownish hues. There was a mountainous head that could have been classified as either a very light beige or a white color. It had some amazing staying power and was strongly fueled by some swiftly moving carbonation bubbles. It was almost as if this beer was on nitro except that it actually came from a bottle. I peered in for a closer look at the head and visually plucked out some thick and fluffy lacing starting to cake the inside of the glass. Very visually appealing.

Smell: This smelled quite bready and grainy. A few roasted notes provided a toast-like essence (I realize that sounds entirely too geeky). There's some sweetness from the honey that was obviously used in this.

Taste: I was kissed by the honey quite fast up front. That sweetness quickly translated into that toasted grain flavor. With that came some bread notes of the medium to dark variety. There was also a slight bitter finish from the hops. The intense carbonation rushed into my mouth to provide an awesome layer of texture. The bubbles still continued to dance as I drank. I swear they even caused a tickling sensation as each sip went down. The after taste was dry and toasty (as in bread toast). I've never once thought a beer could resemble toast with honey on it. This did the job nicely.

Overall Rating: 

This was absolutely amazing. This beer wanted to get dark, but still stayed sweet. Had an interesting grain flavor. Hell, it even had that dry scratchiness that toast seems to give you when you eat it. The honey didn't dominate, but only complimented the other aspects of the beer. The texture was among the best I've ever experienced in my few years of drinking craft brews.

Brigade of Brew

"Fix bayonets, my brave Texans! Forward and take those heights!"

Words proclaimed by Confederate General John Bell Hood on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg while galloping past the ranks of the famous Texas Brigade before the entire division stepped-off. Bell originally hailed from Kentucky, but as a big Gettysburg nerd I still found this pre-battle quote to his former brigade fitting for what I'm about to write about.

I recently came across a small stash of beer from the Lone Star State. There is someone that'll read this at some point that's deserving of some thanks. So, first and foremost thank you for for making it easier for me to get a hold of some awesome beer! You know who you are. I ended up with four different beers. One of them was the famous St. Arnold Pumpkinator which I'm saving for the Thanksgiving holiday. The other three I've been able to try and they were excellent!

Guadalupe Brewing Co.'s Texas Honey Ale

This was easily my favorite of the batch. I've never really had anything from the Braggot style until I had this one. If you've ever had honey on toast for breakfast this is pretty much that in liquid form. It featured a very textured dark bread backbone. The bread flavor seemed very dry (i.e. toast), which definitely amplified the other flavors of the brew

The honey just went from there and complimented everything else. It didn't dominate the rest of the beer with sweetness. There was just a slight kiss of t in each sip. I was very happy to have come into contact with this. I'm getting hungry and thirsty just thinking about it

Branchline Brewing Co.'s Shady Oak Blonde

This one led me to believe that the general theme of this stash of brews was one ingredient - honey. Honey is certainly one of my favorite flavors to come across or add to a beer. I have quite a few homebrew recipes stuffed somewhere here that have a generous helping of clover honey on the bill.

This brew featured Wildflower honey, according to the Branchline website. This had a much lighter color and a ton more carbonation. Lots of foamy head. The main difference was the honey was paired with some fruity esters and a lot of yeast flavor. Everything worked out just fine.

Real Ale Brewing's Devil's Backbone

This was the one of the three that had some amplification in both the hops and alcohol department. This is a Belgian Tripel named for a ridge just outside of Blanco, Texas. This was very spicy and fruity, but still had the touch of sweetness to help balance things out in the end.

Real Ale's website says a nice helping of Czech Sazz hops was used as well as some candied sugar. It plays like honey like the overall theme was, but packed a little more punch. All three of these were excellent. I'll try to go a bit more in depth when I get a chance to review these. Hopefully I get two of them in sometime next week!