The holiday season found us out in Cypress near northwest Houston. As a result, we wanted to make a visit to a local brewery to take advantage of Black Friday. We mentioned last Wednesday that Town In City was having $1 off all pints from 12:00 to 6:00 for their Black Friday special, so we wanted to give them a shot.
This was our first time to enjoy their brewery and we had only ever sampled their Chipped Tooth IPA once before at Underdogs Pub, so getting an idea of the full range of their beer was of utmost importance to us. Instead of doing the pint special, we decided to sample the flight of their staple beers, Mosquito’s Revenge Pale Ale, Chipped Tooth IPA, City Amber, and City Porter.
One thing I can say about them is that they do hoppy beers very well. I found Mosquito’s Revenge to be the hoppier than the Chipped Tooth and they both had a slightly bitter finish. Both of these beers were a hazy golden color and we were told that all of their beers are brewed unpasteurized and unfiltered for immediate drinking. We loved the fact that this commitment will keep their beer only available in the local vicinity for some time.
The City Porter was a stellar beer that had a strong chocolate and coffee flavor due to the roasted English malts and American hops. This dark beer fit perfectly with the cold and rainy weather outside and provided a nice respite from an otherwise dreary day.
However, not everything was roses with our visit. We found the City Amber to be odd in taste, especially with our first sampling. We took a few drinks and found the nutty flavor to be off and ultimately strange in the aftertaste. Even the bartender looked at it and said it looked strange, so he changed the keg and gave us a new one since he said he knew the yeast settles at the bottom of the keg and provides a strange taste from time to time. We got a new sample and still found the same flavors, so we’re not sure if the batch was off or not. Talking to others at the brewery, many said that they found the taste to be a bit strange so we’re thinking the batch recipe may not have been executed to perfection. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that it may have been a bad batch and we’ll try it again in the future.
To be honest, we were a bit indifferent on the brewery and will need to return to see if the sheer fact that the brewery was very busy impacted service and beer quality. Even so, we still enjoyed three out of the four brews we sampled and look to enjoy more in the future.