Ohio Trip – First stop, Kentucky

Since we took the 9 am out of Newark to Cincinnati on the Thursday before Memorial Day, we had lots of daylight to start our adventures.  For those of you who were unaware, Cincinnati airport is actually in Northern Kentucky, about 20 minutes south of the Ohio border. And this is O.K. by me because we’re officially in Bourbon Country.     

Boone County Distillery (Independence, KY)

Being equal opportunity alcoholics and in Bourbon Country, our obvious first stop had to be Boone County Distillery of Independence, KY.  While yes, it may be 20 minutes in the wrong direction but the breweries haven’t really started opening yet since it’s only noon-ish. The cozy tasting room is a welcoming sight after flying coach and the cheap tasting and tour warmed up our hearts (and livers).  The flight of 3 was included with the tour so we sampled the Tanners Curse White Whiskey, the Eighteen 33 Straight Bourbon and the White Hall Bourbon Cream. We were also given a taste of the Tanners Curse Rye which happened to be my favorite. Melissa particularly enjoyed the Bourbon Cream; go figure.

Hitting up Boone County is really your call.  If you want to get a small taste of the Bourbon trail, certainly stop here and grab the Official Bourbon County Trail Passport.  If bourbon really isn’t your thing, perhaps you should just skip on over to our first brewery stop.

Braxton Brewing Company (Covington, KY)

At first we had thought Google Maps was incorrect; there is no way a brewery opens at 8am.  Do people in Covington, KY really drink beer that early? Well, Braxton Brewing Company of Covington, KY is certainly open at 8am, but you won’t find fermented beverages that early.  Braxton is also a fully functional coffee house; making the perfect stop both to-and-from work five days a week.

Braxton has 20 taps, a 30 bbl production system, huge space for private events (with self-serve taps in your private space) and is a super aesthetically pleasing brewery to visit in general.  They’re also dog friendly for those traveling with their pooch. We took a seat at the bar, discussed the options with our host, Tina, and ordered the first round of drinks, closely followed by the second round of drinks, and learned about the history of Braxton.  But let’s talk our favorite four beverages first.

• Buzz:  This peach Kolsch style beer is extremely light and sweet.  The little pour had a relatively big peach flavor and was a great summer beer.     
• Scooter – Blood Orange:  Shandys are the cheaters of the beer world, and this blood orange is no exception.  It stole the show with bold orange flavors and smells and we don’t care if it cheated to get here.    
• Summertrip: Was your subtle sour Berliner Weisse that was palatable by myself and could have been a little more sour according to Melissa.
• Kickback Rose: The Braxton house cider is a beautiful color, sweet, tart and bubbly.  It falls in the quality comparison realm to the best in show at New England Cider Company; an extremely high cider quality benchmark.  We certainly recommend getting a small pour even if you’re not a cider person.
• Kentucky Home:  This is an honorable mention, and buyer beware.  The beer is a golden ale, packs a whopping 9.5% punch and has been aged in the bourbon barrels.  The catch is that the concoction has been fermented on mint to simulate a Mint Julep; and it comes pretty close.  The detractor in our opinion is the overly boozy notes. Perhaps if they could drop the beer down to the 8% realm, and keep the body, they might be sitting on something truly special.  

Out of the 8 drafts we had here, there were none that we didn’t like.  So how did Braxton come to be? Tina, our bartender is mother to the brewer who started his career at a ripe old age of 16 with his father.  One day, the young brewmaster thought he could get away ordering a homebrew kit, and hide it from his folks. Naturally his mother discovered it, had words with his father, and the young brewer was encouraged to pursue a hobby instead of discouraged; bravo mom and dad.  We think it worked out for the family. Braxton Brewing earns a 4.25 “Mom don’t open that!” out of 5.

Wooden Cask (Newport, KY)

Only a few minutes down the street is Wooden Cask Brewing Company of Newport, KY.  The spacious taproom was well designed, and had 16 regular drafts available as well as two nitro lines.  Wooden Cask seems to be fancy AF because it’s few and far between that we encounter more than one nitro line.  Also there was a notable collection of Boone County barrels in the corner, so I’m thinking barrel aged beers on this flight.    

Immediately, Melissa and I selected three drafts to try in our flight of four, and we went dealers choice on the fourth with the help of Taylor, who is our bartender.  

• Pacific Time IPA is a run of the mill, slightly hazy IPA. It clocks in at 6.8% and was decent overall; but nothing notable.
• Next up were two house brewed ciders; and Melissa is really liking the cider theme out in Kentucky.  The PineAPPLE cider, and the Wine Barrel Aged Cider. The PineAPPLE was severely lacking in the pine department, and the apple part was really all that came though in flavor.
• The Wine Barrel Aged Cider was had a great musk flavor piercing the cider, and was certainly our favorite of the two ciders.  
• The real victor of Wooden Cask though was Corruption Batch 3.  This R&D Scottish stout was bourbon barrel aged (Boone County) and was really “thicc.”  The 12.4% was surprisingly masked and a full body of vanilla and coffee; really where did they hide the 12.4? We’ve had numerous BBA stouts, and without a doubt this batch ranks up there with the heaviest of players.

Wooden Cask has a pretty standard lineup, and with the exception of the Corruption series, I don’t see a whole lot of beersnobbery coming from this KY brewhouse.  Certainly worth a the stop, as it’s location is conveniently between Braxton and Braxton Labs (yeah, we will get to that below). Wooden Cask earns 3.5 full Boone County barrels out of 5.  

The Liquor Store

Bellevue, KY is home to the largest liquor store in the United States; The Party Source.  This is a must hit stop for two reasons:

1. The liquor store is massive.  It’s like a grocery store but all booze.  It is also packed with whales; beer and other alcohols I’ve never heard of.  Bring a suitcase or start shipping bottles back. If this was our local liquor store, I would never make the same drink twice because there is just so much here to try.  
2. It’s home to our next brewery.  Yeah, this liquor store has a freakin brewery in the back.

Braxton Labs (Bellevue, KY)

Nestled in the back of the massive liquor store (The Party Source) is our next brewery stop.  Braxton Labs of Bellevue, KY is the R&D, funk lab arm of Braxton Brewing Company. Shout out to Tina for pointing us towards the lab because it wasn’t even on our list!

The lab flights come in beakers and honestly we could have stayed here all day because the beer list was extremely long; house and guest taps plus bottles galore.  Sure there are more breweries to be had today, but we could have chalked it up as an educational experience by conducting scientific inquiries into things like, “how much beer will fit in Andrew.”

We chose a flight of four R&D beers only available at the lab and here’s what we discovered:

• Grodziskie:  So this was a weird beer.  The Style is Gratzer/Grodziskie and according to Untappd, we’ve only ever had the style 3 times previously.  It’s a Polish style, smoked wheat beer that clocked in at 3.3% and it came as advertised; smoky. It wasn’t our cup of tea, and it’s probably that way for a lot of people but it’s always fun to try new things.
• Lemon Meringue Berliner Weisse: a light, tart, kettle sour that’s filled to the brim with lemon and vanilla.  Sitting at mild 5%, this “dessert beer” will satisfy your palate for something creamy and refreshing; as long as you like lemon.
• Strawberry Gose: Another kettle soured beer with a pinch of sea salt, a dash of coriander and a whole lot of strawberry.  This 6.5% gose was a vibrant color, delicate nose and a face puckering punch. Naturally, Melissa was a huge fan of the strawberry splendor and even if you’re not a fan of sour beers this still falls in the realm of a should try.  
• New England IPA- Mosaic:  I know what you’re thinking; juice bomb.  As someone who lives in the North East, we have juice bombs everywhere.  Every brewery is making one because they’re selling like hotcakes at the moment.  So what makes this one different? The ABV clocks in at 6.5%, and the IBU comes in at 25.  Despite the lower than low IBUs, the beer is a full blast of Mosaic hop flavor. In layman’s terms; this beer is all dank, no bitter.    

If you successfully make your way to the back of Party Source, Braxton’s R&D arm will really knock your socks off.  If we could do it over again, we would have made this a two hour stop and brought lunch; the beer selection is really that interesting.  Braxton Lab isn’t no 8th grade science class but we graded it like it was; 4.5 out of 5. *Bravo Sticker* *Smiley Face* *Alcoholic teacher*

Ok, what is Kettle Souring?

A few years ago we noticed that a lot of beers started being branded as “kettle soured.”  So what is Kettle Souring? This fancy term isn’t as artisinal as one might think; it’s a technique for safe, consistent production of sour beers.  A beer that has been “kettle soured” starts it’s fermentation a lot sooner than the normal souring process.

Wort is brought up to normal boil temperature (212 degrees fahrenheit) for a few minutes, and then immediately crashed to 110-115 F.  Lactobacillus bacteria (lacto) is introduced to the wort at this time and the wort must maintain the warm temperature for several hours.  Some beer descriptions come right out and tell you that the beer was kettle soured for 12 hours, or even as long as 48 hours. But the key factor is knowing when to kill the lacto.  A brewer (through science, and experience) has a specific pH in mind that the beer must achieve prior to ramping the boil back up. After the ideal pH has been achieved, the beer resumes the boil, and hops are introduced as necessary.  Additionally, fruit or other additiatives are also induced after the initial souring either in the boil or post-lacto fermentations.

Now there is a lot more science behind this process, but we’ve never performed a kettle sour before, so we’re not exactly experts in this process.  We do know that kettle sours are safer for production environments; there aren’t wild yeast strains running amok in fermentation vessels or lines. Wild yeast has been known to cause several drain pours over the years; most memorably the Bolero Snort incident in late 2017.  A wild yeast strain caused several beers (of varying styles) to ferment post bottling and canning causing explosions in liquor stores across New Jersey.