Last Days of Autumn Brewing

Beer aside, the best thing about this blog is the people we get to meet. When we get to meet cool people AND share a few pints, it doesn’t get much better. Seems beer, craft beer, is one of those things that can pull people together from all walks and backgrounds of life – we dig it.

A week or so ago we were contacted my Mike Frede who told us about plans for Last Days of Autumn Brewing. Through the conversation it was determined that we should meet and after multiple schedule conflicts [COUGH: DON], we were able to meet up with Mike and his quality assurance manager, Lee Strange, out at Vic’s off of Clinton Highway. While Don may have caused us to go back and forth on the schedule a bit, he did beat me there and had already downed half a pint with Mike and Lee. We quickly shook hands and I handed Don a 22oz bomber of his almost BCBS Intelligentsia clone that he had given me and later asked me to bring along. I say almost only because he didn’t hit the ABV mark BUT, wow, a fine beer indeed – glad I have another of these set back. This, naturally, opened up the door to talk about *homebrewing, what styles we gravitated towards, Rwandan political affiliations and correct pronunciations of “potato.”

Then Mike brought out a few of his own creations. We began with what he called a pre-prohibition ale. While switching from Don’s beer to this was a bit of a palate shock, what struck me about this beer was it’s subtle sweetness and how it finished very clean. I’d put this on on my list of appropriate “dock beers” during the warmer months. Next up was a white IPA – probably my second favorite beer he brought. Great flavors, good aroma, very true to it’s name. After this came what we later called “screw up saison.” This beer hit all the right notes of the style – excellent aroma, banana, a little orange peel – awesome, my favorite of the group. This beer is definitely on the high side of the ABV range for a saison at above 8%. A great beer and one I would definitely enjoy again. We ended with a double IPA lovingly called hop nobbler, which was pretty good as well.

So, what’s the deal? Mike wants to setup a small nano brewery, most likely somewhere north of downtown, but a location hasn’t been determined yet. He’s also got some paperwork to knock out but says for the most part he hopes to have all of that done and some of the other items off his list by the end of the year. That said, if I were a betting man, I’d say we’d be seeing these beers sometime around mid-2015 and we’re definitely looking forward to that.

Cheers!

*some of these things may or may not have occurred.