Just Outstanding Kern River!

Hey everyone, join me for another installment of CJ writes about beer instead of doing her job! This week we will be visiting Kern River Brewing Co.

Kern River Brewing Co is located in the tiny town of Kernsville, at the southernmost tip of Sequoia national forest. The Eastern mid-California area is pretty much one giant national forest, I haven’t been. According to Google, I can drive to Kernsville in about 3 hours, so maybe one day. I do aspire to live forest adjacent someday, though. Me, my faithful pooch, and the boyfriend relaxing on our porch throwing seeds at the wild birds whose cries pierce the air. Oh, a girl can dream.

Since living in Los Angeles, we haven’t visited any of the national parks or deserts. I’m not much of a hiker, but getting a chance to see some native flora and fauna would be nice. Especially seeing that the only sounds I hear from my apartment are the not so dulcet tones of the native ambulances courtesy of LAFD.

Despite my sleuthing skills, I couldn’t locate any information about the brewery’s history other than the fact that KRBC is Kernsville’s first brewpub. Their “About” page on their website reads like a vacation advertisement for Kernsville CA:

“Established as a mining settlement in the mid 1800’s and continuing as a ranching community through the 1900’s, Kernville remains a town of adventure, offering a wide variety of outdoor activities. On any given day, the outdoor enthusiast enjoys activities ranging from the excitement of whitewater rafting, kayaking, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, horseback riding, attending rodeos, windsurfing, water-skiing, mountain biking and climbing. If a more relaxing day is preferred, people can enjoy fishing, hiking, camping, sailing, antiquing, and bird watching or simply kicking back and taking in the spectacular views of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.”

Sign me up for some rodeo and a day of bird watching, please.

I was impressed reading through their tap list offerings, there seems to be something for everyone. KRBC definitely highlights their IPAs, but that isn’t atypical for California. KRBC also offers two restaurants on-site, The OG Pub, and the Backyard. I like the look of the original pub better, reminds me of an old western saloon. I get the feeling that KRBC reaps all that sweet adventure tourism money from rich people who want to live like a wild man for a week.

Today’s selection is a flagship IPA “Just Outstanding.” Is it, though? Read and find out. This beer poured like an absolute dream, no glugging or sloshing, just smoothly filling up my glass. The color is gorgeous, just look at that picture. Hazy burnt sienna, like a smoggy Malibu sunset. I measured that whipped poof of cotton candy head at 1.5 fingers (I have fat sausage digits so mileage may vary.) There are definitely visible carbonation bubbles, but not a ton, which I’ve come to expect from thicker, hazier IPAs.

Everyone knows what’s up next. Yup, bring on the wafting. Waft! Waft those aromas like you’ve never wafted before. Suck up those scent molecules like a stripper at Crazy Girls with a fluffy dish of Colombian White. JO has one of the more unique aromatic profiles, in terms of notes I identified. First came grapefruit, both the sweet bitterness of the juice and the bright zestiness that comes with a squeeze of the rind. Next came the notes of peach. Peach in my non-lactose milkshake beer of all things! I have a love/hate relationship with peaches. A fresh summer peach is sweet, juicy, and delicious, while peach flavored foods are often terrible. The last note I detected I can best describe as bitter lemon meringue. I liken it to biting into a lemon and getting an abundance of pith, topped off with some sweet marshmallow. Weird, and yet JO smelled wonderful. I think the bitterness from the citrus helped to take the cloying edge off that peach can have.

The mouthfeel of JO was an unexpected blend of textures. Overall, I’d place the viscosity of the beer around medium, any more than that, and I’d be spitting out the liquid. Thick IPAs are filled with malt, an ingredient I tend not to care for in large doses. This bitch went down like a new pair of silky statin sheets in the boudoir.

But, it’s a dry satiny feeling. There is a palpable astringency to the beer. After the silky, satiny sip is swallowed, the beer does not linger in the throat, it cleared out as though you never took a sip at all. The flavor remains, without the maltiness, I like it.

Like many IPAs, JO is dry-hopped, in this case using Simcoe and Amarillo hops (according to KRBCs website), which contributes to a looming floral pretense, in both taste and aromatics. Imbibers get more floral and less bitterness in the hop profile. In this case, the hop combination works. I do have strong feelings on dry hopping, though. It is my personal belief that the rapid rise of the IPA in American breweries was aided by dry hopping.

Brewers can take a subpar beer, dry hop the shit out of it to mask any undesirable ethers or smells. Any Tom, Dick, or Harry who can throw malt in a pot opens a brewery and begins pumping out double IPAs. This is not to impugn skilled brewers who use dry hopping in their beers, there are a plethora of superb IPAs that happen to be dry-hopped. And I do enjoy a complex floral profile, over a bitter one. But it can be used to hide mistakes.

Now how does the beer actually taste? I first detected notes of toasted malt and biscuit. I love a good toasted cracker; this is always a flavor I expect. Next up came an unexpected treat – key lime zest! Yes, this is very specific, but as someone who has access to key limes in my neighborhood supermarket all the time, I have learned to discern the difference in flavor form a boring old (not boring) regular lime. A pie made with key limes is far superior, ask me how I know. I also discerned a bright floral essence, which complemented the key lime nicely.

At this point, it’s almost like drinking a key lime pie mixed with a jasmine tea, as the lime essence pair nicely with the toasted malt. Woe is me though, the sparkling floral, juicy zing quickly faded into soft bitter notes of tropical fruit and citron rind. I liken to taking a bite of pie and finding a large piece of rind in the crust, unexpected, but not undesirable. Let’s call it an outstanding light. If I find myself up in Kernsville, CA sometime, I’ll be stopping in for some other tasty beers.

4 out of 5 rodeo clowns