Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Tasting

My last up to date tasting was my Sierra Nevada Beer Camp night. I got my hands on some Beer Camp, so I thought lets try them all in one night..but I cant drink them all alone so I invited people over. Then I saw Sierra Nevada has a mixed IPA 12 pack which included Torpedo, Black IPA, White IPA and a Session IPA. So I bought that! Then I said screw it I'll grab every Sierra Nevada beer I can find and we will make it a Sierra Nevada night!

The hands down winner of the night was one I wouldn't of picked and it was the Beer Camp beer with New Glarus called There and Back...it was an ESB.  It had a good flavor, slight hop and was real smooth.  A few other contenders included the Beer Camp collab with Ninaski which was a coffee milk stout called Double Latte, Nooner which is their Session IPA, Beer Camp collab with Bell's called Maillard's Odyessey which is explained as an imperial dark ale and the Beer Camp West Coast DIPA.  The Porter and Hoptimum also were well liked. 
Easy to say the least liked of the bunch was the Beer Camp collab with Cigar City called Yonger Bock which is a tropical maibock and the Russian River collab beer called Yvan the Great which was a belgian blonde.
It was fun to actually try all these Sierra Nevada beers. I have been turned off by them as of late, and while I probably won't go run out and buy them again soon I do appreciate the efforts they have made it's just unfortunately a lot of their beers have the same type of taste to them. But it did inspire me to do more brewery-themed tastings...just need to find breweries that have such a wide variety..perhaps Stone will be next!

New Holland Brewing - Holland, MI

First brewery on Day 2 was New Holland about 40 minutes outside of Grand Rapids. I really like the location of this brewery..it's a cute little town with lots of small local shops and just a comfortable, clean feeling to the entire area.

-Walking in there's a decent sized gift shop on the left and the right is the restaurant with plenty of tables and a very long bar with plenty of seating. We took a seat at the bar. The waitress was very helpful and polite.

-As for the beer, they have a LOT of beers on tap and they're all listed on an electronic screen which I haven't seen til now.

 I luckily was there for IPA month which is during June and they have a whole lot of different types of IPAs on tap, they also bottle all these IPAs which all have a Alice in Wonderland feel to the labels.  First was the Black Hatter IPA which is a black IPA it was real nice, Farmhouse Hatter which is a Belgian Style IPA it was light and smooth, Michigan Hatter made with Michigan hops was smooth and light, Oak Aged Hatter had a good oak taste and was very smooth, Rye Hatter was kind of hoppy and wasn't bad, Mad Hatter IPA was good, and the Imperial Hatter was my least favorite of the IPA collection just a little too thick and malty for me.  Other beers I tasted were Monkey King which had a nice bite to it and had a banana after taste, Sundog Amber ale was kind of yeasty wasn't a huge fan, Oatmeal Stout was smooth, Four Witches Black Saison was okay, and Dragons Milk Stout you can taste the bourbon, it was good.

-We had some sandwiches, they weren't anything spectacular, fries were kind of cold but the veggie burger is homemade and it was good.
-They have lots of cool merchandise from t-shirts, magnets, stickers, glasses and posters.

-I highly recommend New Holland...good beer, nice area, decent food, it was a very nice brewery to visit and has a good variety of beers for everyone.  Check out their website...newhollandbrew.com/