12/2007 BROOOKLYN BREWERY LOCAL 1
We’ve long been fans of Broooklyn Brewery’s brews. When an old New Yorker friend of ours returned to the states recently, we celebrated his return with good chow and Brooklyn Lager. So, we approached this latest Garrett Oliver creation with greedy anticipation. Our conclusion? LOCAL 1 is good, but it’s nothing special. This 9% ABV brew is gold colored, slightly frothy of body, and quite pleasant. We could drink an awful lot of it while gobbling light cheese, berries, and, perhaps, some mild poultry dishes. But, we paid a whopping $9 for 25.4 ounces of it. (Perhaps we could have got it for less at some retailer other than Whole Foods.) We sniffed, slurped, and squished but just could not find the “dynamic complex” of flavors that the label brags about. For $9 or even $7, we could have done just as well if not better- the market offers many nice golden and saison ales from Belgium and elsewhere (think UNIBROUE) So, LOCAL 9 is good, and we hope Herr Oliver keeps working at this one, but, next time around, we hope it will offer more nuance for the nickel. (Rating ***1/2)

To see if our retailer carries BROOKLYN BEERS, click SHOP and type “BROOKLYN” in the search engine and click the magnifying glass. Don;t bother surfing to BROOKLYN BREWERY’S sluggish website; we couldn’t find any mention of LOCAL 1 on it.