It’s been a busy 2009 so far, beer readers. I’ve had time to sample some new brews, but I haven’t been able to tell you folks about them. My humble whatevah. Anyway, here’s a review for you. Enjoy with a side of beer.

Mission Street’s beers are very good. You may recall earlier this month when I discussed their Pale Ale. Well, what’s the logical progression? Yeh… India Pale Ale. These beers run you$5.99 a 6-pack. Good recession brew.

This IPA is a good kind of “standard bearer” brau.* Nice amber body and a dissipating white head in top. It’s very hop heavy, as is to be expected. Pine and floral hops dominate the aroma and initial flavor. The body has enough malt to stand up to the hoppy invasion** but this beer is not for those who don’t like hops. In the finish the character grows slightly more citrus in taste and the sip ends rather dry. The 6.1% ABV is surely adding a bit of taste to the beer but it’s subtle enough to remain anonymous. The active carbonation keeps the flavor movin’—serve it cold when it’s hot. Awwwwww yeah.

A  fine young beer, friends! And a Trader Joe’s-available (in fact, it may be an exclusive… someone research that and get back to me*) beer at that, so we’re talking $5.99 a six pack. Most affordable! But let’s not muddle around over who paid what for who when and why and where and let’s focus on this very decent brew. Mission Street’s Pale Ale defines its category: it has a nice golden-amber color beneath a white, medium-thickness head. The body is light and full of active carbonation. The aroma of hops defines its scent—pine and mildly grapefruit hops, to be precise—and its flavor is a lovely interplay of hops bracing a mildly sweet bready malt. It finishes hop-dry and refreshing.

Now I drank this beer in “Winter” if I may call it such here in southern, CA, and that may have been a disservice to the brew. This baby has refreshment written all over it. Or maybe it says “Mission Street” and “Pale Ale” but whatever—this would be a perfect “lawnmower beer” as I call them.** The ABV is relatively low at 4.6% and doesn’t much affect the flavor of the brew. But hey, you can have an extra one and still operate heavy (or lawn-care) machinery. Not that we at Hall of Beers condone that. Unless it’s a golf cart or jet ski or something awesome like that.

* Yeah, it’s exclusive. Those lucky skunks

** You know, “I just finished mowing the lawn and it’s hot and muggy and boy do I need a good BEER BEER BEER!”

Yo I said yo. I took this beautiful picture in my studio, I did I did. OK… so… as we have established, the good folks at Sierra Nevada CAN’T MAKE BAD BEER. It’s all good. Mostly great, in fact. BUT… I gots me two little issues with this one. First… Early Spring Beer? ESB… that stands for Extra Special Bitter, man. Always has (er… for as long as that specific beer has been produced and denoted as such) and always will (until the sun collapses into a plasma-consuming white dwarf and then ultimately a dying pulsar and then: Pffffwaaugh! Ghosts! Yeah…). And second… this beer… it tastes a lot… hmm… read on…

OK… it tastes a LOT lot like another beer. A very good beer indeed, but you sort of can’t help comparing it to CLICK HERE, BUDDY! This, the Early Spring Beer… it is delicious, it is wonderful, I recommend it until the cows are all home, warm in their barn with their lattes (cow lattes) and such, but it tastes a LOT like their pale. 3 malted barleys—two role pale, crystal and Maris Otter (I gotta learn more about that’n)—give the beer it’s canvas, if you will, which the palate of hops and alcohol play across. Clocking in at a decent 5.9% ABV, the alcohol braces the floral hops, provided by FIVE DIFFERENT HOP VARIETIES! Damn. That’s some good hopping; no one can take that away from ‘em. M-mm.

I think what I need to do is set one of their ESBs next to one of them Pales and reeeeaaaaally compare. Down n dirty! Like with water and bread to clear the palate and leather pads on my blazer’s elbows et all. And maybe some reading glasses. And nice silk couch and arm-chair set around a mahogany coffee table in the middle of the desert. Just because that would be awesome.

I think that perhaps I have been too harsh in calling these beers quasi-the-same, but they are very similar in their overt hop aroma, hop and malt body with a nice, unfiltered mouthfeel and that lovely, bitter finish. Indeed being similar to a great beer is not even a bad thing… just when they’re by the same folks… at any rate, complexity is afoot!… and maybe without standing these beers side by side I’m just a no-good carpetbagger. Or rather you are. Yeah, you’re the carpetbagger. No land here and no work neither. Dried up in the dust winds of ought-fowah… move along their, glove socks!