Nice clean hop sweet aroma. Earthy kind of sweetness. No sharp edge, just a moderate hop sweetness with a mildly hoppy aftertaste. Stable malt background, but this is really a showcase for the hops. A hint of a clean that taste complements well.
4.5 out of 5 Stars.
We went out to Chelsea for an afternoon of walking around the downtown shops. There’s plenty to see there to keep the whole family entertained, as well as the Purple Rose Theater which is a cool up-close setting to see a play. So once you’ve made an excuse to go out to Chelsea with the family, here’s a great place to suggest for lunch (or dinner). We went there on a Sunday afternoon. We found that some of the shops are closed on Sunday, so maybe if you plan a trip, plan for a non-Sunday.
The Alehouse is decent sized place. It’s located just at the north end of the small downtown, nice walking distance if you park on Main by the shops. It’s in a quasi strip mall/industrial park, so nothing that exciting from the outside. But inside is a very nice space. High ceilings, warm colors, and lots of seating options (bar seats, small booths, big booths, small tables, or pull lots of tables together for a big group). There was a small stage in one corner and based on the flyers posted around, they have live music from time to time.
The lunch menu had a good variety of sandwiches, and there was a decent kids menu with about 5 different choices. We all had something different, and they all were delicious. The pesto chicken bacon sandwich I had was quite amazingly tasty.
With a number of beers I wanted to try, I went for the taster flight that let me choose from 5 of the 8 different beers or 2 ciders they had on tap. They also had a collection of wines from a Michigan winery (can’t remember which one). Of the 5 beers I had, they were all pretty good with the exception of the Black IPA, which I didn’t really care for. The others seemed good for their style, and a couple of them were quite delicious (see my ratings/comments here).
This is definitely worth a return visit. With the atmosphere and high ceilings, it worked out very well with the kids. They could be a bit noisy and rambunctious without disturbing other people around, which meant as parents we could relax and just enjoy the place.
Slightly strange bitter fruit flavor mixed with dark malt. Kind of too much going on.
3 out of 5 Stars.
Very nice smooth dark malt taste, with a hint of coffee flavor in the background.
5 out of 5 Stars.
Slightly tart and hoppy with a minor orange flavor.
4.5 out of 5 Stars.
Mild hop taste, light and refreshing.
4.5 out of 5 Stars.
Slightly tart with a moderate grain flavor.
3.5 out of 5 Stars.
Nice thick head, sweet aroma of clean fresh hops. Taste is just as great with full fresh hop flavor, but no hint of harshness. Smooth flavor with a bit of malt and a bit of hops hanging out, but finished very clean with no real aftertaste. Amazing fresh hop aroma and flavor with no bitterness.
5 out of 5 Stars.
Nice clean dark malt aroma, nothing overly sweet or “black licorice-esque” like a lot of these can be. Nice even grain flavor with no harshness, with a minor dark malt aftertaste that lingers slightly. Good hop crispness that cleans the palate but stays out of the way. This is from their 2015 seasonal, drank on 12/23/2015, well before the best by date of 05/06/16. Having had this on tap before at the bar, I know these go down really well and you don’t have any idea of the 9% ABV, until you feel your head buzzing a bit.
5 out of 5 Stars.
I switched to all-grain brewing because I was trying to have more options/control of my brews and I wanted a better tasting beer. My day job as an engineer makes me particular about process details and wanting to be able to repeat successful recipes/brew days or look at detailed notes and figure out where things went astray if I end up with less than expected results.
One of the first details I started chasing when I switched over from extract to all-grain was conversion efficiency, or getting all the extractable sugars out of the grains and into my wort. After honing in on a few common aspects and correcting them, I started studying the grains to get clues of how to further improve repeatability in conversion efficiency.
Looking at a batch of spent grain in my mash tun after ending up with a much lower OG that predicted, I noticed a lot of my grain kernels were still whole/uncracked. Since the husk doesn’t dissolve in water, if you don’t get it cracked before you mash, all those sugars stay trapped inside and don’t dissolve into your wort. And this is a possible reason for lower than expected OG.
Most homebrew shops will crack your grain for you for free, and if you’re like me, you assume they know what they’re doing and don’t bother looking at the grain. But the reality is it goes beyond knowing what you’re doing, and gets into the mundane aspects of your workday. If a particular grain needs a smaller roller spacing to get the husks cracked, or if over time they’ve drifted apart, the only way you know if you’ve got a good crush is looking at the product on the other end of the mill and checking it. If it’s not crushed enough, you have to adjust the roller spacing tighter and run it through again. If you’re an employee in a homebrew shop filling lots of orders, you might assume the guy before you set it up right and not really look at it- just grind and bag.
After finding a low OG and seeing a batch of spent grain after mashing that looked like this, with a large number of whole, intact grains-
I decided I wanted to take matters into my own hands and buy my own mill. Not everyone wants to fork out $100 to do that. But if you don’t, you really should take care to examine your grain BEFORE you brew. Seeing it after mashing like I did, you’re too late to do anything about it.
However, if you see it before mashing, like this- 
you can adjust and correct it. You also do this check immediately after milling the grain. I learned the hard way that checking it the moments before I was about to add it to the mash tun left me scrambling to run inside and re-mill, and trying not to let the water overheat or cool off that was at my strike temperature.