Left Hand Brewery. Caleb's take.

So we move on to the Longmont Breweries. Longmont has always had a special place in my heart because it was always a town that would mark the point in my journey to Boulder where I would take my ecstasy so I would be rolling by the time I got to the Root. Ah memories... or lack there of. Despite some quality beers, I have had a fairly stupid grudge against Left Hand Brewing Company for two fairly stupid reasons.
Reason the First-The Logo
To me, this logo has always either needed fingernails, or palm lines. I understand the minimalist thing, but this could clearly be either a left or right hand depending on the point of view.
Reason the Second- I have never been a "switch hitter" if you catch my semen infused drift. I don't trust lefties. Never have, never will.

Random Left Hand Fact #1- 15% of people are left-handed, males are twice as likely to be left-handed.

This was not a favorite brewery (despite my love of Milk Stout). The guy who took our order was kind of dickish and said he would look for stickers and then promptly forgot about us. Unlike the wonderful people at Oskar Blues (review next week). They did not respond to my email and have not since responded in the weeks tat passed. It's a good thing they have some good beers though.

Random Quote- "Fucking cunt brought delicious looking cupcakes and did not share" I said this after a lady at the table next to us brought a massive tray of cupcakes but did not share with the rest of the class.

In the spirit of the beers being reviewed
Left Hand Fact #2- left-handed people are three times as likely to become alcoholics.

400 Pound Monkey 6.8% ABV
Drawing upon my extensive watching of National Geographic videos that my grade school teachers put on when they were presumably too hung over to teach. I believed that there was no way a monkey could get to 400 pounds. An ape, sure. But no monkey. After pointlessly arguing this with J, I promptly forgot about it until now. Give me a second and I will see if I am an idiot or if J is an even bigger idiot than I had previously thought. Ah HAAAAAAAA. According to National Geographic's website, Howler Monkeys are the largest species of monkey and only get to around 22 pounds. 400 pound monkey my ass. The beer was pretty darn good though. A nice floral smell and a subtle fruity flavor. Not an overwhelming IPA. Good start to the tasting. Suck it J, suck it.

Rating: 8/10

Polestar Pilsner 5% ABV
I have become a fan of pilsners over the years. Besides the three day binge of drunken behavior, a good pilsner is a major reason for wanting to go to Germany for October Fest. The Left Hand pilsner did not disappoint. It was not a "wow" but pilsners seldom are. They are just good beers. This smelled and tasted like Germany, without all the shit-porn and old American bomb remnants.

Rating: 7/10

Random Left hand fact #3- Left-Handers reach puberty an average of 3-4 months after right-handers.

Fade To Black porter 7.2% ABV 1,984 Scoville Scale rating.
I'm not sure why they included the scoville units on this beer. The chili flavor last long enough for you to start to make a comment about it and before the words can leave your mouth, it's gone. This feels like a gimicky beer. Disappointing.

Rating: 5/10

Milk Stout 5.9% ABV (or I I like to call it, The Reason Left Hand Exists Beer)
I have been a HUGE Milk Stout fan for years. This is easily their best beer and it is in my top 5 of all time favorite beers. I went to Ft. Collins last weekend and was very happy when two of my good friends Leah Grossman and Erica Mather ordered a Milk Stout before I even advised them to. It is a very smooth and creamy stout. The flavors are subdued but balance very nicely. They do not over carbonate it so it goes down smoother than J's mom on a fireman's pole (levels to that joke). If you have not had it, go get one. Best stout I have had so far.

Rating: 10/10

Random Left Hand Fact #4- 3 of the last 5 presidents have been left-handed

Wake Up Dead Russian Imperial Stout 10.2% ABV Yowza!
This beer made me drunk just smelling it. I think they had to have a massive quantity of alcohol in this beer so Russians would confuse it for vodka. This had a licorice flavor to it that was not at all appealing. It was very bitter and harsh. I have no idea why they released this beer. It's like they made it and someone tried it and remarked that it was bad enough to "Wake up the Dead" and they could not let a good name pass. I'm fairly certain they called it Russian Imperial Stout because no one actually knows what Russian beer tastes like.

Rating: 3/10

Smoke Jumper Smoked Imperial Ale
As J pointed out, this beer clearly wished it was an Oscar Mayer wiener . That is what it truly would like to be. For if it was an Oscar Mayer Wiener, everyone would just eat it and not drink the fucking thing (kinda screwed up the rhythm to the song). This beer tasted like a New York hot dog vender poured his 5 day old left over hot dog water into the mixing tank. There are some beer flavors, but in the end, all you taste is lips and assholes. What further confused me was the name. Really? Smoke Jumper Ale? If there is one thing that I think people should do before hurling their bodies out of a plane and parachuting over a burning forest to then land and fight the fire, it's drink a lot of beer. Morons.

Rating: Kobayashi/10 (look it up if you don't get the joke)

So that does it for Left Hand. The leader in the clubhouse for hot dog flavored beer. Fairly disapointed in them because I love the Milk Stout so. Oh well. Next week, we review what is actually becoming my favorite brewery in Colorado... maybe not favorite, but it is giving New Belgium a run for their money. Oskar Blues. Easily our best tour and tasting yet. We will keep everyone updated as to our future travels. For now, take care of yourself, and each other.

LeftHand Brewing (Jason's Take)

Location:1265 Boston Ave Longmont CO 80025

Website: www.lefthandbrewing.com

The Story:
Despite growing up in Colorado and seeing Lefthand stickers on nearly every pickup truck and pickup truck with camper shells in the state, I had never really given Lefthand much consideration. I knew that they made beer, and I knew they were somewhere in Colorado. Until January of this year, that is the entirety of my knowledge of this brewery. However, last year I started working about a block from Lefthand and have since attended a couple of "company meetings" at this place. The first time I went, I had the Black Jack Porter, which is a damn fine beer. That is the most review you're going to get for it though. Why is that, you may ask. And the answer is because Lefthand hasn't had it available in the tasting room since GODDAMN JANUARY! I swing by every couple of weeks to check if they've got it, but the answer is always, ALWAYS no. How you not gonna have one of your "standard" brews available for 3 FREAKIN' MONTHS?!?! But I digress.

As I said, I work really near here, so I thought I would lure Caleb into my neck of the woods with the promise of beer. It's amazing what you can get that guy to do for a beer. Seriously, I once saw him stab a hippo in the eye for a Klondike bar, and he doesn't even like those. So you can imagine what he'll do for the ambrosia of the gods (hint: he would drive to Longmont). We hit three places on this day and Lefthand was the first. The last was your mom's house, but you knew that already.

The Beers:

Cost: $4 for four, 4 oz samplers of your choice. (That's the triple quadruple! Take that, Ice Cube).

1.Sawtooth Ale (4.8% ABV)

The description of this beer given by Lefthand is that it's a good "session" beer. I read that as a good "drinkin to get drunk and forget my myriad problems and either cry or get into a fight later" (or, "country song drinkin") beer. Though the name doesn't state it, this is listed as an English style ESB (Extra Special Bitter). This one is a very malty beer, but I find that flavor pleasant. The smell can be off putting, since it smells like an entire brewery fell into the glass, though. Upon drinking, it's got a crisp, bready mouth feel and a malty, smooth flavor that would make it good for heavy drinking, as long as you're not trying to get drunk off the good stuff.

Rating: 7/10

2. 400 lb Monkey (6.8% ABV)

I respect the idea behind this IPA. The statement of that idea is that Lefthand considers a lot of IPAs right now to be nothing more than a bunch of monkeys throwing hops into a pot, and, as you know, I have to agree with that assessment (excepting the lack of the words "cat" and "pee" anywhere in there). Lefthand wanted to make an IPA that was hoppy and bitter, but balanced. I can dig that. I also think they did quite well with this one. It starts with a very strong smell of flowers. Then this IPA continues with a strong, but not overpowering bitter hoppiness, with undertones of butter and daisies (yes, you read that right, shut up). The flavor fills out and mellows quite a bit after the first sip and becomes surprisingly drinkable I don't think it will be in my regular beer rotation, but the Monkey is a solid IPA that will not make me claw my eyes out if I see someone buying or consuming it.

Rating: 7/10

3. Wake Up Dead (10.2% ABV)

This one's the Lefthand Imperial Porter. Why an imperial porter? I dunno, maybe the Emperor needed someone to carry his bags aboard the train (crickets). Actually, in beer parlance, "imperial" means "extra booze" because the Russian Emperor was a huge drunk. After really enjoying their other porter, I was looking for a lot in this beer, and boy, was I ever disappointed. Firstly, it smells like paint thinner mixed with pool water. To follow on to that idea, the thing tastes like chocolate covered raisins that have been soaked in Everclear for the "Everything Looks Like Rabbit Poop" party down at the Kappa house. It's a very mediocre beer and frankly, if I had to choose between this beer and an ice pick in the head, it would be a tossup.

Rating: 4/10

4. Smoke Jumper (9.2% ABV)

What's the correct follow up to a mediocre, boozey imperial porter? Why a smoked imperial porter, of course. And this particular smoked imperial porter is worthy of a three step review.

Step one: All you need to know about Smoke Jumper in a single picture:

Step 2: Short, accurate review.

Smells like hot dogs. Tastes like hot dogs.

Step 3: Righteous Indignation

Seriously?! A hot dog beer?! I can't believe that there's a brewmaster behind the scenes at Lefthand who tasted this and was like, "Hmmm, hot dogs...fuck it! Bottle this shit up and ship it!" There has to be something I'm missing here. Is there a section of the population that's thinking, "I love drinking blended up hot dogs out of a glass. The only thing that could make that better is if, instead of it being a blended up hot dog, it were a beer, and that beer tasted like hot dogs. Boy, oh boy, what I wouldn't do to drink a nice tall glass of hot dog beer right about now..." It can't be. It just can't be. And yet it is.

I'm starting to really question the wisdom of the smoked beers. Maybe I just haven't tried the right one, but I've been underwhelmed with the quality of them so far. I'm not sure the smoking really adds anything to the beer, and it just makes the beer taste like food. Honestly, guys, if I want hot dogs, I can go buy hot dogs. It's not like I don't have hot dog money. There's really no need to cater to my hot dog cravings with a beer instead of hot dogs. I don't think we're really gaining anything there.

Rating: hot dog / 10

5. (not pictured) Polestar Pilsner (5% ABV)

Because I drank this immediately after the hot dog beer, my first reaction was that it would go well with hot dogs. The pilsner is a nice summer beer, and this was a nice, warm day. We sat outside in the sun and drank some beer and some hot dog, and this pilsner made a nice compliment to that. It was crisp and light with a slight bitterness to it.

Rating: 7/10

At this point, I saw yet another person bringing a baby into a brewery. Why do people keep bringing their babies to breweries?! Do they not know they can drink at home after the child goes to sleep?

6. (also not pictured) Fade to Black (vol. 3) (7.2% ABV, 1,984 Scoville units)

That's right, folks, Scoville Units. That's because this is a pepper porter. I forgot about that before I took a drink of this beer. Even the very sharp nose didn't serve to warn me that I was about to consume a pepper beer. Then I drank it, and it got hot, and then the hot went totally away before the beer had finished going down my throat. This was the third porter of the day, and it made me wish Lefthand stopped with all the "experimental" porters and went back to making the standard porter available. At least that one was good.

Rating: 5/10

On a side note, during this tasting, I half overheard the most hipster conversation about music I may ever witness in my life. It was pretentious and douchey, and contained the line, "I'm kind of angry with At The Drive-In right now."

Next up, Oskar Blues, where we took a tour and drank some vanilla beer. And then we wrestled a bear. Or did we? Stay tuned to find out. Good night, and good luck.