Sunday, April 8, 2012

Beering in Pittsburgh: Downtown

So we actually stayed Downtown in Pittsburgh. And damned if there wasn't a little something going on out there beer and bar-wise. I did not rent a car so I had no opportunity to check out any brewpubs, so we had to stay true to the local bar scene.

Beer Log: March 28, 2012
State: At Sharp Edge Bistro

I would say this is the best beer bar I could find within walking distance. It had several dozen beers on tap and some pretty nice food as well. It wasn't too packed this night so I could just belly up to the bar, watch the Pens game, and chill out.

Big white head with good IPA style hoppy/malty nose. Cloudy and orangish amber color. I was attracted to the beer by the name, sounds like it should be hoppy. Beer tastes very hop forward with a simple high hop bitterness. $5 says it's a Single Hop beer. I'm getting somewhere between grapefruit and grass with the hoppy flavor, which I will now dub grassfruit. Low oatmeal cookie malt. Give me 3 stars.

Oh GOOD LORD! Big malt and hop on the nose. (Yes, I am East Coast IPAing it on this trip). The malt is a huge caramel. Flavor is not as imposing. It's big but not as crushing on the ops. Hops are kind of soda like. Though I suspect my palate is blown. No rating.

Other locales and beers that I had but did not get notes on:
Double Day Famous Burgers (I had the cheeseburger with fried egg) with the Troegs Nugget Nectar (love that beer). Had a little Marzen from Penn Brewery.

Later on we made it back to Sharp Edge for some coffee beers, like Full Pint's Perc E Bust and the Bells Java Stout. I was with some friends and short on time, so I felt it would be rude to be scribbling a lot of notes.

Lastly, I had what I think was one of the best simple brown ales I've ever had:
Cucapa Obscura. We found this one at this very trendy tapas bar called Seviche. Too bad I didn't have any notepad and my phone was dead, but it's a DAMN shame I had to go all the way to Pittsburgh to get some Mexican Craft beer. I don't get that beer in Texas, I didn't get that beer in MEXICO!

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