Two weeks ago, my brother-in-law surprised me with an out-of-the-blue call: “Hey, do you want to go try that new brewery tonight?” Note to all readers, if I ever say no to an offer like that – shoot me. Trying out the new brewery – which also happens to be very close to my house – no-brainer. I mean, this is quality research for the blog, right?
The brewery in question is Pontoon in Sandy Springs, GA. From the outside, it looks pretty similar to a lot of modern breweries: it sits in an office park (which is admittedly nicer than some of the industrial park locales that we’ve grown accustomed to.) Once inside, the large & open tasting room is bright and inviting. There is a good crowd for a Saturday night, but it’s not over-the-top crowded, and we were actually able to score seats at the bar.
That night, there were about a ten options on the list, which means one thing to someone like me: flights. Let’s taste as many as we can and see what percolates to the top of the list. Challenge accepted. What we quickly learned was that the options listed were not all different beers, rather different incarnations of about 6-7 ‘standard’ beers. I’ll explain.
I ordered something called a Bro-mosa, assuming that the server would pull one tap handle and serve me the sudsy wonderfulness. Negative, ghost rider. The Bro-mosa is a compilation of three different liquids: a mix of their Flotation Device Berliner Weisse, Surf Rock Candy Shandy (with mango and pineapple), and topped with plain ole regular orange juice. I’d never seen anything like it. Being a brave and intrepid soul, I ventured in and found that … it was good. No – it didn’t taste like a beer – more like a mimosa. Beer-based mimosa which is obviously the reason for their naming convention. Well-played, Pontoon. Well-played.
Next on the list was something called the Cadbury Caramel Egg. It tasted like a smooth beer with 18 gallons of chocolate dumped into it. Just too much syrupy chocolate flavor in it. This beer, as it turns out, was the standard Sweet Mild of Mine English Mild Ale. I just think that the mild ale didn’t have enough backbone to withstand the onslaught of chocolate added to it. It wasn’t bad per se, it just wasn’t for me.
Don’t get me wrong – some of their standard beers are fantastic and worth the trip (I’m looking at you, Galaxy Drifter and Combustible Pineapple.) And it’s not that the mixing of flavors was a bad thing – it was just different for me. Loved the visit, and I will be back. I think you’ll begin to see more and more experimentation like this from breweries in the future. Bottom line on the visit: the staff was next-level awesome. They were very friendly, enjoyed talking about the beer, and seemed happy just to be there. It really made for a great evening.
And to close today’s diatribe, I took a page from the Pontoon book and combined two of their beers for my own experiment, and it totally worked. Their Black Squall Imperial Stout was a little on the strong side for me (had too much of an edge to it.) But create a mix of 75% Black Squall and 25% Cadbury Caramel Egg – the sweetness from the Cadbury perfectly balanced out the flavors of the Squall. A really nice combo.
So, what do you think? Do you combine beers to meld flavors? When you do, do you mix competing flavors for balance, or do you mix two beers of the same type to try to marry similar flavors? (Example: I combined two competing Oktoberfests last year and was very pleased with the outcome.) Does this conversation offend the beer purists out there? I’d love some comments on this topic.
by Mike Pennington 
by Russ Webb 
