The antithesis: Phoenix, AZ

I want to talk this week about what makes a good brewery... or at least what I think makes a good brewery.  See, a couple weeks ago I stumbled in to Los Gatos in San Jose and... well I think I made it kinda clear that I just wasn't a fan.  It wasn't a terrible place by any means, but it was just lacking.  Small selection of rather ordinary beer, a sterile upscale atmosphere and all for a lot more then some much better places charge.

This week I'm talking about a place that is almost the opposite of that.  Papago Brewing in the suburbs of Phoenix might be a little hard to find.  It's nesled into a strip mall a few miles from Sky Harbor airport.  But find the address, plug it into a GPS and find your way there, because it's worth a visit.
First of all, I just dug the atmosphere.  Nothing special, per se, just a nice relaxed nieghborhood bar feel.  The kind of place that just puts one at ease immediately.  Besides a fine selection of their own beers, they actually have a fairly large amount of beers on tap from all sorts of breweries.  While I was there, they actually had four years of Stone's Vertical Epics on tap.  I think they were left over from a tasting earlier that week, but still.

This is a place to relax and have a beer.

The other cool thing is that the food is good and swings from 'fairly normal pub fare' to 'okay that's different...'
I had a Belgian pizza which is pizza with carmelized onions, ham, sour cream and swiss cheese.  I'll give you a moment to react to that combination in your own way.

 It was one of those things that had to be really, really good because otherwise a combination like that just means someone's drunk in the kitchen again.  And it was really good.  Unusual, but good.

So let's talk beer.

Orange Blossom:  I think this is the only time the lightest beer in the bar became my favorite, but I enjoyed the hell out of this.   The aroma... well the only thing I can describe it as is, it has a creamcicle aroma.  The texture is very smooth and creamy.  It's on the sweeter side as far as flavor goes, but it has some citrus a flavor more like a light lager. 

Oude Zuipers: A belgian strong ale with a very light bannana aroma.  The flavor is much, much stronger and pretty simplistic.  It's basically just a burst of esters.  There is a little bitterness in the back, but otherwise those that are not fans of that fruity Belgian yeast are not going to find anything redemeable in this beer.

Elsie's Stout: One of the two coffee stouts available.  Not just two stouts, but two coffee stouts.  That's commitment to a flavor profile, that is.  This one has a coffee and cream aroma.  After a taste, I tried to tell the difference between this beer an a cup of coffee.  1. Temperature.  2. Type of serving vessel.  3. My coffee is never carbonated and fairly rarely alcoholic.  That's about it.

Coconut Joe: The other coffee stout.  This one falls on the bitter side of the equasion, but otherwise it's exactly the same.

El Robusto: A dark lager.  Also has kind of a chocolate coffee aroma.  Thankfully this isn't the coffee in a pint glass from earlier.  The flavor is smoother, sweeter with some caramel and chocolate sweetness and a lighter flavor.