S.O.B.

Part two of my Oak Hill Beverage tasting is Atlantic's Special Old Bitter, or S.O.B. Their take on the Extra Special Bitter has a reasonable 5.5% abv, which is about average for this brewery. I'm surprised I'd never tried this before. I'm a big fan of Atlantic's Bar Harbor Real Ale and Coal Porter. The blueberry is pretty good, too, but I've never had the courage to try the Island Ginger.

Anyway, I was pleased with this. Head was thin, but had a nice hoppy aroma. Not bright and floral, but bitter. Crisp on the tongue, with moderate bitterness like an ESB calls for. A hint of pale malt under all that hop, but the hops really dominate here. Their Web site says they use Northdown hops for bittering. I'm not familiar with that variety, but it kind of reminds me of the Amarillo I've used in my last two beers.

This beer is nice and light bodied, and I've long felt bitters had just the right amount of hop character. I'll get around to reviewing Andrew's English Pale Ale soon. Might be my favorite summer beer.

Although if this one came in six packs, it might manage to steal that crown.

Brown Hound

Unfortunately, the first local beer I tried for this blog was a bad experience.

I went to Oak Hill Beverage in Scarborough for the first time because I was downstate to get some brewing supplies. Turns out I could have saved a stop because they have a good selection of brew stuff there. Picked up two tasty-looking 22oz. beers because they were Maine beers I hadn't run into before.

After bottling some funky old Schwarzbier I made weeks ago and don't have much hope for, I cracked open the Brown Hound. Not really brown- more like a cloudy red. Thin head. Tart, surprisingly floral smell. I took a sip and-

-what the hell?

This beer is sour. Like a Warhead or one of those candies I had when I was a kid. I'd chalk it up to age, maybe, but it doesn't taste skunky. Just thin and sour. A disappointment because I love a good brown ale. I kept sipping searching for some sign of caramel malt, but I kept coming up short.

I don't know if I got a bad batch (possible) or maybe someone at the brewery accidentally put a really intense lambic in the bottle by mistake (unlikely). I'll search for this on tap to hopefully get a better idea about it.

Anyway, I sipped away at this for about an hour. The beer didn't improve as it got older. Finally, I threw in the towel, dumped the rest out, and poured myself an Old Thumper. Mmm. Apples. Almost buttery. I'll write more about Old Thumper later.

This was a bad first experience with Brown Hound as well as with Oak Hill Beverage. I noticed they had some expired beer in there. Their Wolaver's, which I've been meaning to try, was dated November 07. And the Sierra Nevada Harvest, which originally prompted my visit as I'll be making a fresh hop ale in the next week, was from SN's 2007 batch.

Still, they had the best selection I've yet seen in Maine, especially with 22oz. bottles. I grabbed a Young's Oatmeal Stout -- I'd only had their Double Chocolate Stout -- which was heaven in a bottle, but I won't review it here because the plan is to stick to Maine beers.