Beer of the Week! 03/14/23
Two North Carolina Brews
Casita The Red Ale of Ulster
Regularly $13.99 / Now on Sale for $12.96
Irish Style Red Ale
After Mahalia Witter-Merithew graduated from college, in 2003, she was living in Greenville, NC. Signing up with a temp agency, she found herself placed at a beer distributor, and there her adult life journey began.
Fast forward four years, Mahalia was still in Greenville and working on a masters degree. One night, in a pub, she ran into Ryan, who, it turned out, had also worked for beer distributors. Most recently, he had brewed at the esteemed Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery in Farmville, NC. He was new town, and he and Mahalia had something in common, something they could build on. They took to working craft beer festivals together — the best date option of the late oughts that we missed out on.
In 2009, Mahalia and Ryan married, and it was, “Goodbye, North Carolina!” They moved to Denmark and then to England as Ryan chased head brewer jobs. Finally, in 2015, the pair landed in Greensboro, VT, where Ryan got a job with Hill Farmstead Brewery. By this time, they were already one daughter richer, but something else was about to be born.
As a way for Ryan to make more money, Hill Farmstead allowed him to start his own brand under their roof. A generous offer, but Ryan was all for brewing and not much for running a business. “Running a business?” said Mahalia? “Heck, I can do that.” Casita — the “little house” inside of Hill Farmstead — was born. Two years later (2017) the pair (daughter and brewery in tow) moved back to North Carolina, and in 2020 they opened a taproom in Mahalia’s home town of Wilson.
Brewed in honor of Mahalia’s “very Irish” father, the Red Ale of Ulster sports “a variety of malts and just a kiss of hops, ready to celebrate the little bit of Irish in us all.” As dry as a Belfast spring, this red ale rides the line between bread and fruit notes. Light in body and character, have this brew cool but not cold to get the most of its flavor before you easy-drink it all down.
Bonus Beer of the Week (‘Cause we thought it would make you happy, and we just wanna’ be liked.)
Dssolvr Pyramid Games
Regularly $20.00 / Now on Sale for $18.96
Hazy IPA
Dssolvr was founded in 2019, in Asheville, NC by Vince Tursi and Mike Semenec. The first is the brewer, and the second is the marketer, and it looks like both areas of expertise are well-worked on their joint project. Here’s Semenec.
“The DSSOLVR brand is an adventurous exploration into surrealist concepts and imagery pulling from centuries of art history, adding a heavy dose of contemporary culture, and throwing in a subtle injection of psychedelic satire. We take our beer very seriously so we can have as much fun as possible with the world we’re creating for our customers.”
Aaaaaand here’s his ad copy …
“DSSOLVR IS BREWED UNTIL SURREAL
“It’s our forever quest to bring you the most SURREAL offerings we can craft, highlighting the best and greatest of both OLD SCHOOL and NEW SCHOOL brews. That means Lagers, IPAs (clear AND hazy), Wild Ales, Big Ol’ Stouty Stouts, Super Sessions, and everything in between. In our surrealist endeavors, we work with local farmers, artisans, and makers of all kinds in an effort to expand our tastes and visuals beyond your average horizons.
“With DSSOLVR, you can expect the unexpected as we crush our way through the whole spectrum of tastes and flavors.
“Don’t expect any more vowels, though … no matter what your spell check says.”
If your stouts don’t taste like fish, if your packaging isn’t 4 1/3 - packs, if beer pours out the of your cans instead of grain moths; then your brews are not SURREAL. Lord, save us from marketers. Fortunately, he’s not brewing the beer.
The Pyramid Games is a bit of a kitchen sink IPA. Tursi has thrown a whole bunch of things into it. He starts with Riverbend 2-Row malt and then continues with Golden Naked Oats and “mountains” of Flaked Oats. Finally it’s a touch of Dextrin malt before liberally hopping and dry-hopping the concoction with Sabro, Idaho 7, and Eukanot hops.
He brings it all together well. Despite being dry, you still get a persistent tangerine or mandarin orange juiciness in the beer. Plus, where other hazy IPAs might finish with citrus notes, the Pyramid Games relies on a zest to bring it home. The beer ably straddles the line between New England IPA and non-NE-but-still-hazy IPA. Not surreal, per se, but definitely not so bad. Not so bad at all.
Remember!
You can see our entire beer inventory on Untappd.com!