Southern Star Brewing Company's Buried Hatchet Stout

Sweet, I've been looking forward to this one. I'm lame and never get out to good beer bars, so I was glad to see it in cans at Spec's. I've often bemoaned the lack of a year-round stout in Texas that was readily available, so this will give Southern Star a leg up over St. A's in Houston in this category. At least until St. A's decides to make theirs year-round, which I hope they do.

This one pours deep black with a hint of brown, with a nice small-celled head. It pours soft, smooth.

Smells very nice. Deeper and more substantial than a standard stout, it has a fairly heavy roasted coffee smell. Nice malt to it, but overall the coffee stands out.

The feel is a little lighter than the appearance would indicate, more in like with a standard stout. Moderate bitterness that still doesn't compete with the roasted coffee taste except in the aftertaste, where the roasted coffee and grain flavors fade off quickly.

Very good beer. I'll have to try it on draft, I bet it picks up even more.

A Note About Southern Star Brewery

Alright, I know I've been a little rough on Southern Star. I'm not too wild about Pine Belt (never was, but I liked their first batch better than any subsequent batch, no matter how much they claim there's no difference), and the blonde isn't my style. I have yet to try any other offering, and I'm hoping for the best.

But regardless of any of that, I wanted to point out to the one other person who may ever read this that they're a damn good group of folks.

This weekend they participated in a charity softball tournament for a five year old girl with an inoperable brain tumor. I don't know anything about the girl, but decided to play when the e-mail came across. The owners were there, as well as the usual suspects for the brewery, a couple of their chicks, some dude and his teenage son, and one or two other folks.

They suck ass at softball, but had a good time for a good cause and seemed to be a good group of people. You should make an effort to support them, and I know I will buy more of their beer as well.

Southern Star Brewing Company's Bombshell Blonde Ale

I hope this one fares better than Pine Belt Pale Ale did post-hops shortage. Pine Belt was too piney, but solid, until the hops shortage killed it. Some say it's back, but not the last time I tried it.

Anyway, their Blonde Bombshell has some great nose art on it, and I've been looking out for it because I've heard good things.

Pours pretty deep for a blonde, with a solid amber color and a huge light tan head that throws off a floral sweetness with a hint of slightly grassy hops and grainy malt. Most blondes ae closer to lagers, lighter in color and feel with a fizzy head that recedes fairly quickly. This one sticks. Pine Belt was strong for a pale, and I think his one is shaping up to be strong for a blonde. An Imperial Blonde? I've drank (drunk?) weirder things. Looks loosely filtered and I guess the head took pretty much all of the carbonation out of it, as there's just a few bubbles rising slowly.

Yeah, it's hoppier than a blonde should be. A hollow bitterness, with a hollow aftertaste that ends up tasting about like wet cardboard smells. Like a lot of blondes with big hoots, it looks promising but is kind of vacuous. And the more I think of it, the bitterness comes more from the cardboard taste than the hops, what with only 20 IBU's, but that's even worse than a beer that's overly hopped.

For Texas blondes I'll reach for a Shiner next time.