Review Date 6/3/2012 Last Updated 2/5/2015
Try?
Re-buy?
So here’s the deal. About a month ago, I got an alert that a new brewery was opening in Georgia: The Burnt Hickory Brewery in Kennesaw, which is about 17 miles from my home. Such things always get me excited, and I wanted to know more. A Bing search quickly located the company’s website for me, and I was further excited to see their beers, draft only, would be hitting store shelves soon.
Fast forward a few weeks, and I’m popping into Sherlock’s liquor store on Barrett Parkway in Kennesaw, not far from the brewery actually. Did I need more beer? Not really, truth be told, but the wife wanted to hit the scrapbook store across the street, and given the choice between browsing their aisles and those at Sherlock’s..well, the rest is history.
As I am normally wont to do, I ended up with a few choice brews under my arm (Victory Dark Intrigue and Anchor Old Foghorn anyone?). An affable enough looking fellow with a long flowing beard (or should that be beerd?) came up and announced his status as a Sherlock’s employee; furthermore, he said, he brewed at Burnt Hickory.
“Are you an owner?” I inquired, to which he replied no, and simply said he brewed there. He told me he was often called “Beer Jesus”, and I can’t deny the resemblance the beard provided. Anyway, he told me of all the wonderful brews they had planned, that none would be under 7% alcohol by volume, and that they were a “nanobrewery”, smaller than a micro.
I tried to explain I was well versed in the way of very small breweries (I often referred to my old hometown brewery in Rhode Island, Emerald Isle, as a “picobrewery”). At any rate, he told me they had a launch event the following Tuesday night at the Chastain Road Taco Mac.
Sadly, I could not make it that night. Still, I was encouraged when I saw Burnt Hickory Ezekiel’s Wheel Pale Ale when I popped online to Taco Mac Canton’s beer list. Thus, I raced on over to try it posthaste. Much to my delight, the bartender told me it was on tap, much to my chagrin, it was a paltry 11 ounce pour for a whopping $7.
The description from the brewery that Taco Mac had posted said:
“Clear with fine citrus hops. We just call it Zeke. Compare to Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. 3 Floyds Alpha King.”
Oh boy. Therein lies a big, big problem for me. When you are just getting started and you compare yourself to a classic like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, you are definitely setting yourself up for high expectations. Not to mention the fact the beer has an alcohol content of 6.5% by volume (underneath the threshold “Beer Jesus” had set).
Anyway, here are my thoughts.
Burnt Hickory Ezekiel’s Wheel pours a bright golden orange color with a moderate head formation and a very faint malt nose. This is styled as an American Pale Ale, a style normally bursting with hop aroma, and I got none of that here in the nose.