Actual Brewing Co. – Radigan’s Irish Red Ale – This beer was part of my St. Patrick’s Day celebration. It was harder to find “Irish” beers than I had anticipated as most seasonal breweries are trotting out spring beers that don’t take any clues from the traditional Irish beers in Guinness, Murphy’s or Harp’s. This beer is more similar in nature to the Irish in origin Killian’s Irish Red or Great Lakes’s Conway’s Irish Ale. That is great for me since that means a malt heavy red beer with very little hops. They don’t list the IBUs but it’s not necessary with this beer. They do make sure you can drink all day for St. Pat’s by leaving this beer at 5.3% ABV. They are a local Cbus brewery and don’t distribute far. That’s good for me, bad for everyone else. In my opinion, this is their best beer I have tasted yet.

The Brew Kettle – Four C’s – This fine beverage is an American Pale Ale. People do still make them from time to time but it seems you need to hit the IPA before going Pale these days. This beer gets it’s name from the 4 C’s of hops used in it. The Brew Kettle uses Cascade, Centennial, Chinook and Columbus to arrive at a very nice taste. It’s solidly hoppy at 50 IBUs so it’s not overwhelming. It helps that some of the hops have the grapefruit edge to help cut some of the bitterness. The malt is none existent but that is to be expected. It has an ABV of 6.0%. They’re out of Strongsville OH near the Cleve of Lands and distribute at least down to here in Cbus. It’s worth hunting down because it is a delicious beer.

Rhinegeist Brewing Co. – Truth – I tried their Fiction Belgian Extra Pale Ale recently at the Grandview Digfest despite the fact that I drank this one back in March. Truth is one of their Core beers instead of being a Rotational beer like Fiction. This one is also a more familiar style since it is an IPA. They say that the beer is intensely hopped. I’d go with “You aren’t missing the hops but you’re head won’t explode either.” To me that is confirmed with the 75 IBU. They achieve that with Centennial, Citra, Amarillo and Simcoe hops. They blend quite nicely with the additional peach, mango and passionfruit flavors that are added. I normally expect grapefruit in the role of cutting through the bitter hops so this was a different but similar nod to citrus. This beer will help you tell the truth since it’s 7.2% ABV. This company is out of Cincinnati and distributes in these areas so give them a swig if you get the chance.

Seventh Son Brewing & Rockmill Brewery – Urban Cowboy – I posted the video of these two Columbus (Rockmill is in Lancaster which isn’t too far outside of the 270 Belt) brewers video of the making of this beer earlier this year. I’m not sure it really showed too much but that’s just fine by me. I just want a good product and that certainly happened with Urban Cowboy. This stout came out very nutty. Like a good stout should be, it had a nice creamy thickness. Rockmill contributed a Belgian yeast to this concoction but it’s one of the few times I can say that flavor didn’t stand out. As with most stout, it had very little hops in it though neither company gave out the IBU so I have no way to confirm that aside from my taste buds. I do know that if you drink this beer, you’ll be feeling it. Urban Cowboy weighs in at 8.0% ABV. I haven’t seen this one on tap at Seventh Son recently but I sure hope to see it again because it was very good.

As usual, go out and enjoy a local #SippyTimeBeer in your neck of the woods. – Kevin