Kevin "the Porter" of Porters on Liberty Street-
Liberty Street was by far the most surprising location for several reasons. First of all, the facility was nearly pristine. Nothing out of place. Every surface sparkled with cleanliness. I’m not sure how that’s important for a microbrewery but it certainly makes it stand out from the crowd. The other shock was the beer itself. Amongst the brewery standards (IPA, Amber, Porter, etc.) were a couple of flavored options that might raise a few eyebrows. Typically, for me at least, if a brewery tries to add some sort of exotic flavor to a beer it pretty much spells disaster. If you’re going to mess with a beer it had better be something extraordinary or let it be anathema! Therefore, it was an eye-opener to me that Liberty Street’s flavored options were outstanding. It was the first time in this Octave journey that both Neil and I wanted to take some of the beer home with us. The final surprise was the number of people who came out to join us. Since this was our longest distance location to date, I had quite expected it to be only Neil and I so I was pleasantly surprised when we ended up with about a dozen fellow Octivites gathered together for our fifth outing.
Unfortunately, due to other scheduled events, we were not able to spend as much time as we would have liked at Liberty Street. As a result, this review is a bit abbreviated as well. I know I would be eager to visit this place again soon and to spend more time enjoying all they have to offer.
With that, here are a couple of the reviews we gathered in our brief time at Liberty Street:
Kevin on the Vanilla Berry Stout - “Laffy Taffy and Leather. Shockingly good!”
Neil on the Stout- “The most unique flavor I’ve ever tasted in a beer. Very very sweet, like cotton candy, but smooth and refreshing.”
Neil on the American IPA - “Tastes like a block of sharp cheddar cheese.”
Anonymous on Liberty Belle Blonde - “It’s like I’m eating Pixy Stix.”
Lea on the Vanilla Berry Stout - “Just how I like it - dark, strong, tinge of sweetness, definitely unique.”
Kevin on the Clementine Lemon Thyme - “Like chicken dinner with Stove Top Stuffing.”
And here’s Neil with a brief review on Liberty Street, and another uninteresting rant on unrelated topics....
This is where you come when you’re done playing 18 with your country club Volvo driving buddies. This place is for chumps... that’s what I thought until I tried a tyme flavored beer called the Clementine Lemon Tyme. Let it be proclaimed on the mountaintops, “let the beer be fruited!” During a week of constant (moderated) beer drinking, I almost bought a gallon of this to take home... for my friends... to drink. At the first sip, a song welled in my deep stomach “oh the summertime is coming! And the leaves are gently turning, let’s pick wild mountain tyme, all along the purple heather, will you go lassie go?”
and now for a rant on how...
Beer is the Linchpin of Society
...Here’s one reason why=
Men need fraternity, and beer produces fraternity (..and fraternities but that’s not what we’re here about).
Without brotherly interaction, the world would be in trouble. We need some time with our own kind. We cuss and discuss and get stuff figured out. We share good ideas and tear apart dumb ones. We hold each other accountable to our duties to our wife, our family, our work, our faith. Interaction with our brothers makes us aware of any irregularities in our character that we would otherwise develop in seclusion (I pick my nose in public, but thanks to brothers at least I realize it’s not right). Basically we would be crap without each other.
But in 2013 Midwestern America...
...men need an excuse for social interactions with other men. Most men don’t call each other up and have hour long conversations. Phones are for utility. We say what needs to be said and move on (Ruth are you reading this?). Men don’t retire to the drawing room and have pillow talk (although I will admit I can differentiate the drawing room from the music room in Downton Abby- I realize that’s wrong too). Men need a reason other than conversation to have conversion. Even if I do want to discuss relationships, or work, or whatever with my brother, I need to play it off like we’ll just shoot the shit while doing something else. I’ll find a UFC fight to watch with him because I know he likes that crap, or ill ask him to help me paint my living room (once I get one), or I’ll tell him to meet me at Casey’s because it was #1 on the Octave of Burgers’ top 8. These are excuses I need to make for it to be okay to have man-to-man intercour... I mean a confabulation.
Beer is another great excuse- maybe the best because it’s the easiest to find. Sure, I’ll come over and try your new raspberry cherry espresso bacon pale ale. I’ll invite you back for a bud. It works.
And so the Octave of Breweries is our best expression of our idea of the Octave yet. We want to get people together - to create community....thank you to everyone who has joined us this week. Stay tuned for the last few reviews, final rankings, and octavite (you) review awards!
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