I've just remembered this post from a little over a year ago that I never got to publish, due among other things to how bad the Blogger app is with pictures, so I'm publishing this now.
As I've been mentioning lately, I'm cash poor on account of my impending nuptials. However, that will not stop me from visiting a few craft beer places this summer while I'm in Charleston, precisely using the wedding as the perfect excuse to explore cool spots that I can recommend people. All for the benefit of my guests, of course.
The first of such stops (and probably the most important one in the grand scheme of things) had to be Holy City Brewing, one of my favorite breweries here and the one I've chosen to stock the open bar at the wedding. I needed to stop by to talk to the guys and try to figure out the specific beers we will be serving, based on availability and my own preferences. In other words, I had to go and drink as much of a variety as I could. Holy City probably has the widest variety of beers at one time here together with Westbrook, so it was a pretty hefty task I had ahead of me.
Holy City is actually located in North Charleston, in a very cool space in Dorchester Road. It has a pretty big tasting room. In fact, the brewery itself is the tasting room, as they share the space. It is equipped with an in house kitchen, although they also get food trucks to park in front, making for a pretty decent food selection.
Today they had 18 beers on tap, including 2 IPAs, 1 DIPA, 3 saisons, their famous Chucktown Follicle Brown brown ale and a collaboration with Frothy Beard.
I went with my fiancee's brother, so between the both of us we were able to cover quite a few:
- The Holy City Pilsner, dry, refreshing and with a slight hint of caramel.
- The Pluff Mud Porter, my fiancee's brother's personal favorite and winner of the gold medal in the 2012 Great American Beer Festival in the category. Slightly hoppy and fruity, refreshing and still nutty and mildly roasty.
- Slanted Porch, an american pale ale, hoppy, fruity, mildly bitter, not bad, but not my favorite.
- The Overly Friendly IPA, a tropical fruit and grapefruit smelling and tasting IPA, with a little spiciness and plenty of bitterness.
- Chucktown Follicle Brown, their signature brown ale, hoppy and roasty, a little too bitter for my taste.
- The Washout Wheat, a wheat beer similar to the Belgian wits, very refreshing and dry.
- Olfactory Hues, a light IPA, with less of a bitter bite and a very nice hop aromatic.
- Simcoe Blonde, a light blonde ale available also in nitro version, which in my opinion improves the smell and the taste, letting the Simcoe hops shine through more clearly.
- White Choconaut, a blonde beer with an incredible taste of white chocolate, sister to the Choconaut, a stout which is a collaboration between Holy City and Frothy Beard.
- Madam Basil, a very interesting saison with basil that tastes and smells just like it should: spicy and full of basil. I suspect that anything more than a 4 oz. flight glass of it may get a little tough unless you really like herbed beer.
- General Saturday, another saison, this time more traditional, dry, spicy and, at only 5%, great for the summer. It's also available as a cask ale, with chili powder and brown sugar.
- Yeast Wrangler, their incredible double IPA, fillled with tropical fruit (mango and papaya at least as fr as I can tell) and citrus fruits, with a nice bitter middle, a more relaxed finish and an long bitter after taste. A definite choice for my wedding. I bet that, at 10% ABV, some people are going to forget about the spirits in the open bar... myself included.
- Manuel Fantastico, a malty, nutty and easy drinking barleywine that nobody would think has a 13% ABV. That, I'm laying off for the wedding, coz it could be a shit show.
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| the awesome Manuel Fantastico |
Update: I am now back for my second visit this summer (this is why the beer descriptions are so extensive.. Cough, cough) and, as I write this, the guy next to me is having some Putine which smells delicious. I'm gonna have to come back a third time just for lunch it seems.
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