I will not profess to have the most discriminating palate when it comes to craft beers, but what I lack in refined tastes I more than make up for in curiosity.  And so it is that, when faced with a weekend in the Phoenix area, I passed at a chance to revisit the well-established Four Peaks Brewery in the hip suburb of Tempe in order to try out the brews of SanTan in the less-than-hip suburb of Chandler.  For those unfamiliar with the Phoenix area, Chandler is a rather unremarkable suburb tucked south of Tempe and Scottsdale.

I made the trek to SanTan with my sister and her boyfriend, who area both Phoenix-area residents.  My sister noted that many of the suburbs of Phoenix are looking for business that they can build a downtown around.  Mesa and Gilbert may soon be looking to support breweries to beef up their downtown areas, too.

The most striking thing about the space that SanTan occupies is that it is basically an open-air bar.  The clientele is young and the waitresses are hot.  At one point, people came in for an “eighties retro club run/crawl.”  The place was packed on a Saturday night.

As for the beer, SanTan offers a sampler tray of seven standard beers and one seasonal beer.  The 12 Daze Caramel Spiced Amber, Winter Warmer Ale, and Sex Panther (a double chocolate porter) were the three winter seasonals.  The Winter Warmer came with a glass filled with ginger snaps.  The sampler had all the regulars except the Negro Nitron (nitrogenated black IPA).  In place of the Negro Nitron, the sampler had the Sex Panther. We did not eat any food, although there was a full menu.

We each started with individual beers, then we had the sampler, and after that my sister’s boyfriend and I had two more beers.  In addition to the sampler, I had the Sex Panther, the Negro Nitron, and the 12 Daze.  All of these were great beers.  In general, the seasonal beers were amazing.  As for the regular beers, the HefeWeizen Wheat was really good with a taste of oranges, and HopShock was the best IPA as it had bite and flavor.  SanTan cans two IPAs called Devil’s Ale and Epicenter.  In general, those IPAs were not as impressive.  The darker beers tended to be better than the lighter beers.  At the end of our visit, my top three included the Winter Warmer, Sex Panther, and Negro Nitron, in that order.  If you actually have to be in Chandler, SanTan Brewery is definitely worth a visit.