2 Great beers at Alcatraz Brewing in Orange

[backyard brewer]

Went to Alcatraz Brewing with a few friends last night and tried 2 really good beers.

The first was a Orange Blossom Honey Ale. This was really fantastic. If you've brewed with honey you know how hard it is to keep the honey aroma in the final beer. A testament to both Rob and the honey he used, the boquet of the orange blossoms themselves was quite strong in the nose of the beer. The honey flavor was delicate and not overpowering which seems to be harder to come by in honey beers these days. This was all set off very well in a nice crisp ale. Really well done and refreshing.

The second was a strawberry wheat beer. Now I think Rob was just showing off because the nose of this one was really rich with strawberry and again, if you've used strawberry's they are also a delicate aroma and difficult to keep around. I really like what he did with this as this was a very crisp and slightly tart wheat beer. I find that strawberrys are tart more often than sweet and so not having much sweetness to this beer really did the strawberrys justice in my opinion. Unlike the aroma, you really had to search for the strawberry flavor but it was there in the background and I really prefer this in a fruit beer. If I wanted a glass of fruit juice, I'd have a glass of fruit juice...

So, two winners there at Alcatraz. If you're near The Block you'll do yourself a favor stopping in. They have the parking lot all jacked up though. Save yourself a lot of frustration and either park by Dave and Busters or on the other side by the theater and walk through.