We, Stoutmeister and I (E-Rock), decided to head to Dave’s Electric Brew Pub on the first night of our stay in the Phoenix metro area.  By the time this was possible, we had already driven for over seven hours, sampled seven beers and had a large lunch at Beaver Street Brewery in Flagstaff, and met up with my family for a large dinner at a sushi restaurant in Phoenix.  Needless to say, the idea of drinking more beer was a little daunting at this time, but we were on a mission and beer drinking had to be done.

We got to the brew pub, located by the Arizona State campus, at about 10 o’clock.  The Web site advertised that the brew pub is open daily until midnight, however as we got close to the outdoor portion of the bar, we noticed that there were no patrons and the bartender was putting up chairs.  For good measure, I asked the bartender if the brew pub was still open.  He said he would serve us while he was still closing.

Stoutmeister started with the Old Frog Grog Oatmeal Stout (shocker there).  As that was the only dark beer on the menu, I tried a variety of ales.  First up was the Trident IPA.  Again, this IPA was much weaker than I was used to. Stoutmeister attributed the bite-less IPAs we kept running into to the fact that both breweries we visited were located by universities.  He reasoned that college students were more interested in drinking a lot of beer than they were interested in complex flavors and hops.

I was pleasantly surprised by my next beer, the Industrial Pale Ale.  This beer was advertised as being complex in flavor.  Indeed, this was the tastiest lighter beer I had so far this trip with the possible exception of Beaver Street’s imperial red.  The Industrial Pale Ale turned out to be the best beer I had at Dave’s Electric Brew Pub.  I finished with the night with OK Ale.  This one had a little more bite and taste than the Trident IPA, but it paled in comparison to the Industrial Pale Ale.  With tasting done for the night, Stoutmeister and I headed back to Chandler to crash at my parents’ place and some sleep before several days of baseball and breweries.

(Stoutmeister’s stout review: The Old Frog Grog was good, but not great. It lacked any bite, but ended up a smooth batch with some calm, good flavors; it is the type of beer you would expect college kids to indulge in. Not bad, not great, just a drinkable style that is fine after a long day of pretending to be a real college student at Tempe Normal — side note, Stoutmeister is an Arizona alum; BEAR DOWN!)

Cheers!

— E-Rock