Back in Maine for the spring semester, conditions outside are anything but spring-like. You can be forgiven if you're angry or confused.
Over winter break, I'm sure you had plenty of time to indulge in the potent alcoholic delights forbidden in our residence halls, but now that we've returned to our warped version of reality, you've no doubt steeled your stomach for the ubiquitous aluminum aftertaste of the 30-rack.
Before I let myself backslide completely into mediocrity, I thought I should take a look at the beer many of us consider our local brew.
Sea Dog Brewing Company is based in Bangor, Maine, but its location just across the bridge in Topsham is probably the one most familiar to Bowdoin students.
To inaugurate the semester, some friends and I paid Sea Dog a visit this past Sunday to ease ourselves into our final semesters with some good beers.
Sea Dog has roughly 10 of its own beers on tap at all times, which creates quite a nice variety to choose from, but also presents a conundrum if you don't know what to order.
Luckily, Sea Dog offers a comprehensive 10-beer tasting selection, for the affordable price of $10.
This format, while certainly convenient, yields only about four ounces of each beer, too little for my usual detailed review, so what follows only reflects my first impressions of each of the sampled brews.
We decided to tackle the beers starting from light and heading dark.
First up was the Light Ale, which had a bare minimum of flavor that offered no compelling reason to continue past the first sip.
The Blonde Ale tasted a tad grainy with a hint of caramel or brown sugar. The flavor was rather complex, and while it definitely clocked in as a light beer, it was still quite flavorful.
The Blueberry Ale is easily Sea Dog's most recognizable beer, and provided a respite from the unfamiliar flavors in the rest of the tasting.
Surprisingly, my companions' feelings about fruit-flavored beer were more varied than I expected, and you, the rare loyal reader, should keep an eye out for an upcoming in-depth review of the genre.
The Pale Ale was similarly complex, hoppier than I expected, but the flavors were rather standard really. I wouldn't go to Sea Dog and order it, but I wasn't upset to drink it.
The Brown Ale had a very pleasant flavor that was lightly malty (but not syrupy sweet), and had no aftertaste. Perhaps the best part of this beer, though, is that it absolutely shines in comparison to Newcastle, the only other Brown Ale I've tried.
The IPA was largely disappointing with no characteristic hoppy bite and an unpleasantly sweet lingering aftertaste.
The Winter Seasonal was lightly hopped, slightly sweet, and had a clean finish. However, it lacked the complexity and depth of flavor that I have come to expect from a winter beer.
The three stouts and porters that rounded out our tasting were all rather similar and ultimately underwhelming.
They blended together in both my mind and my notes, but the hazelnut was surprisingly my favorite.
Overall, this tasting revealed that Sea Dog's beer misses the mark for me more often than it delivers.
However, there are certainly a few gems at Sea Dog, and I can heartily recommend the Brown Ale and the Blonde Ale, along with the Blueberry if you don't mind the dose of "natural" flavor.