647. Fat Orange Cat Brew Co. (North Haven, CT) - Pumpkin Chai Latté

Nothing but the brief description on the can—Oatmeal Stout with Pumpkin Spice & Chai—and I don’t see much online, either. I saw this in the cooler at the coffee shop in Red River Gorge earlier this week, and picked it up on a lark. I checked my notes when I got home, and found that this is my first beer from Connecticut. I thought that got me to 34 states, but I apparently marked Alaska on the chart when I should not have. When I went back through the notes, I could not find an Alaska beer—so I’m holding at 33 states. The beer is just okay…the pumpkin and chai flavors they’ve used don’t mix very well together, and there is an odd aftertaste that I can’t quite place. I also don’t get the mouthfeel I look forward to with a beer that has oats in the grain bill. It’s not bad, but it is disappointing.

646. Dreaming Creek Brewery (Richmond, KY) - Natural Bridge

“Our flagship American IPA is named for Natural Bridge State Park and is generously hopped with Amarillo Hops giving it a floral and citrusy character.”

We got back today from a “three-day weekend” in the Red River Gorge region of eastern Kentucky, and I happened on this beer by accident. After six miles of hiking Tuesday morning, we headed for Cliffivew Pies and Pints for lunch, only to discover that it was not remotely the pizza place its website made it out to be. It was one little room with a handful of a tables, a cooler that had a few beers in it, and a guy behind the counter who didn’t seem to care if we ordered or not. We elected not to stay, and went back down the road to Hop’s Farm to Table. This was also an order-at-the-window kind of place, but with an infinitely more interesting menu and some interesting beers on tap. To one side of the window where you place your order, there are several dozen empty beer cans displayed, and this was one of them. I noticed it because the can has a picture of the Natural Bridge on it, which we had just seen that morning on one of our hikes; and I found some in cans at a liquor-store-slash-gift-shop the next day.

I don’t know that the beer is anything to write home about…but it’s not bad. I was mostly interested in the picture on the can. Amy and I had a really good time at Natural Bridge State Resort Park and the surrounding area, and I wanted to have one of the cans as a memento of our trip. It’s a pretty standard American IPA; I get mostly pine resin and sort of a general fruit thing that might have some floral notes mixed up in it. Some citrus shine starts to emerge as it warms up, and there might even be some tangerine in there. It’s perfectly fine, it just ain’t my first rodeo with this style of beer. I’m going to throw in a picture I took of the Natural Bridge this past Tuesday, but it’s not a very good one, unfortunately.