2 O'Clock Tasting:
Deep Ellum Brewing Co.
Written in Dallas' Deep Ellumb Brewing Co.'s "beerfesto:" "To never waste your time with gimmicks [and] to let our beer do the talking." Perhaps that mantra best explains the Texan brewery, which makes a serious commitment to make craft beer to a higher standard.
Deep Ellum is the first brewery to open in Dallas in a generation; the previous brewery, the Dallas Brewing Co., opened in 1889. Talk about tall shoes to fill for one big, thirsty city. Deep Ellum's brewpub taps plenty of year-round classics, such as the Double Brown Stout and the (controversial) Dallas Blonde ale. That doesn't meant the brewery doesn't also experiment with some of the more trending beer styles, like a big rye IPA, a barleywine, and a barrel-aged Belgian.
We were lucky to smuggle back some Deep Ellum back from a trip to Texas, and picked up two of the brewery's year-round styles: the Rye Pilsner and the Deep Ellum IPA. What we thought:
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IPA
7% ABV
Oh, how this IPA made us long for spring. This amber-hued brew flooded our noses with scents of grapefruit, pineapple, and citrus, which makes sense given the long hop bill of Citra, Amarillo, Chinook, Palisade, and Summit hops. And the fruits just kept on coming when we tasted it, almost like biting into a big juicy grapefruit. Although it had a bitter finish, it was still pleasing and balanced -- dare we say, even a tiny bit peppery. What we thought would be a mild IPA was anything but.
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Rye Pilsner
4.6% ABV
This no-fuss pilsner was everything you'd want in a pilsner: a nice golden straw color, a bready clean scent (although devoid of really anything else aromatic), and a balanced taste between hops and malts. Deep Ellum prides itself on perfecting, and reinventing, the traditional Czech pilsner, which it does by using American hops born of the German Noble variety. It's overall a clean, balanced pilsner that does make you wonder why you never pick a pilsner at the bar. We know we'll be ordering this one again.
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