The Buffalo Brewpub

We went to The Buffalo Brewpub as a birthday surprise from Rachel to me. It had a very homey feel, you were able to seat yourself and service was prompt. Our waitress asked what we would like to drink and I asked for a sampler of there beer. She told us they did not have a flight of beer; however, she could bring individual samples over and they'd be about $1.75/each (actually $1.00/each). I told her that was fine and she brought back their Buffalo Lager (a Helles), a pale ale, a red ale, Nickel City dark, and oatmeal stout.

On with the show...

I started with the Helles, which had a rather fruity smell and some corn-like taste. I don't know if this was traces of DMS, but I did not like it.

Next, I went with the pale ale. It smelled, looked, and tasted just like caramel and imparted no noticeable hop aroma or taste.

The "brown", I mean red, which was the same color as the pale ale, but had zero flavor. I have no idea what this beer was about. And still don't.

My next stop on this flavor "adventure" was actually the oatmeal stout. Okay, not smooth or velvety, it did have a nice head and decent retention and that's about it. They could have done soooo much more with this beer! Give it some Crystal 120 malt! Some Melanoidin malt!

And we end with the dark. So, this beer and the oatmeal stout shared the same level of color, until held against the light. Both had deep, deep garnet highlights, but the dark was a notch or two lighter. (Why wasn't that damn stout opaque.) When I sniffed it for the first time, I picked up some dark fruit notes - like prunes and dates - that had been heated in a saute pan. However, the taste... the taste... GEEZ , LOUISE! How much roasty, burned funky flavor can you cram in a beer? I don't know, but I can tell you that this beer could probably reign supreme in that category. Icky, icky.

To add insult to injury, they did not include their seasonal offering - an Oktoberfest - in the flight; which is okay as I didn't have room for it anyway.

I will give The Buffalo Brewpub kudos on the guest beer selection - somewhere around 25 taps. I wanted to try the Rohrbach Scotch Ale, a local, but again, had no room.

I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but coming from a out-of-towner, I wasn't super impressed.