An American Experience

During the second to last weekend of November, Melissa and I had the opportunity to go to an Indian wedding for some friends of ours. If you know anything about Indian weddings, they can be VERY long and have multiple events. They "Americanized" it somewhat by taking out alot of the long parts, and we only went to the main ceremony and the reception. I guess the ceremony was long, but it was very interesting, and alot of fun, so it didn't seem like it. After the ceremony, we had a few hours before the evening reception. A couple of Melissa's MCG classmates were there, and we decided to walk on over to Max Lager for an afternoon snack.

In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to get a picture of the actual building, or the equipment inside, but I didn't. It was an older looking brick building in downtown atlanta, only a couple blocks from the Omni hotel where the wedding was. The weather was a little chilly, so it was nice to get into the warmth once we arived. They have their brewing room showing through a glass wall, so you can see the big vats of fresh beer.

Being only mid afternoon, after lunch, but not yet dinner, there were not many people in the whole place. We got got seated away from the vats in an area with no other customer, and free to be as loud as we wanted.

Upon sitting down, Kevin immediately pointed out that the huge flag hung on the wall only had 48 stars. The waitress had never noticed, or had it pointed out, and was very impressed. I thought it was a really neat wall piece that added to the overall warmth and friendliness of the place. So I got Melissa to take a picture of me with the flag and an IPA. (That's what I'm talking about when I talk about AMERICA!)

Max Lager has a number of different brews on tap, although I think they are primarily brewed in the lager style- I am not really sure. They were nice enough to give us a few free samples before we had to choose what to buy. I went for my traditional favorite, the IPA. This IPA was overall a good IPA. Unlike the dogfish head/stone/great divide IPAs that I have been drinking recently the hops in this IPA were not piny, but more citrusy, or fruity as I recall. Overall, enjoyable, but it wasn't really my favorite. I got a craving for some french fries, so we ordered a side to split between melissa and I. It came in a small tin bucket, and they were GREAT! I think the salt from the fries also helped to open up my taste buds a bit, and I really enjoyed the beer even moreafter I started eating them. Good buy.

After the IPA, I gave the Max Black a try. I am not sure, but I think this was a black lager. It certainly shared a number of characteristics of the Shiner Black Lager I reviewed a while ago. It had a distinct dark beer flavor, but had the body and aftertaste I associate with a lager. In general, another decent beer, but not my favorite.

Overall, I would recommend Max Lager as a nice place to go visit if you are ever looking for something to do in the atlanta area. I really liked the atmospher in the resterant. But I think the most enjoyable part of the whole experience was being able to spend time with friends.

Maybe a little TOO arrogent...

I mentioned in my preview post that I was really looking forward to tasting this beer. I like the sound of "Oaked," and I know Stone Brewery's other less expensive beers to be pretty good. Plus, I mean, just listen to the name! Arrogant Bastard Ale! It just has to be good. To start off, here are the stats:

Arrogant Bastard Ale:
Brewery: Stone brewing company
Style: American strong ale
Alcohol: 7.2%
Serving type: Bottle poured into pint glass
price: $2.99

I think it is worth noting that I do not look at the beer advocate page before drinking the beer, and I don't read reviews before writing my own.

I got to drink this beer this past weekend while I watched another Celtics game. So far every beer I have reviewed here as been drunk while rooting on the C's. Maybe I need more beer drinking friends.

I popped open this bottle and poured it into my pint glass. As you can see from the picture I actually got a decent head on this! This is the first time I have used the hand washed pint glass. I guess that tip paid off, thanks Aaron!

I didn't really detect much aroma from the beer. A little but of hoppyness, but nothing to distinct. The taste was very hoppy, as I expected, but lacked much character. Mainly I just tasted the hoppy bitterness without any of the undertones (such as the pine I tasted in the dogfish head 60 minute IPA). To my disappointment I didn't get ANY oakyness. The hops seemed to overpower any flavors that the malts or the oaking might have given it. I wonder if this was not due to the beer being too cold as Aaron suggested previously, but the taste was pretty consistent all the way through, and it took me about half the game (minus commercials) to drink it. So it should have been warmed by the end I would think.

Overall I was let down given my high hopes for this beer. It reminded me alot of the Stone IPAs, which can be had for $1.99; I really didn't get much of a difference between them. I MAY give this another try some time, just to be sure, but unless someone has had other experiences to convince me otherwise, it probably won't be for a while. My overall rating: Mediocre.