Dos Perros Ale

 

Review Date 2/19/2008    By John Staradumsky

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned in my many years of travel (especially beer travel), it’s to always ask the locals about the best places to eat and drink. And so it was when I recently traveled to Nashville, Tennessee to spend a night taking in the local beer scene. While sitting at the bar at Bosco’s Restaurant and Brewery, I had the pleasure of meeting up with a fine fellow named Josh who really knew his beer.

We got to talking about local beer, and Josh mentioned that I should not miss the beers of the local Yazoo Brewing Company. Yazoo? I asked. I had seen a few of their beers listed on the Flying Saucer’s website, and therefore made a mental note to check them out when I arrived there. Josh was explaining that they were a really neat, tiny little microbrewery nicely ensconced in an old factory building. Having a fondness for tiny little breweries hidden away in old mills and industrial parks (Emerald Isle Brewing, Dogwood Brewing, Olde Wyndham Brewery, sadly now all defunct), I was eager to sample some Yazoo brew.

And so I did, as soon as I parked myself on a stool at the Flying Saucer. I asked the barkeep to bring me a pint of the mysterious Yazoo Dos Perros Ale, which he described as something like Dos Equis. Dos Equis, of course, means “two x’s”, and the name of this beer is a play on that, meaning “two dogs”. As it just so happens, I have a thing for beers named after dogs, too.

I think they might have done better to compare Dos Perros to Negra Modelo, which I think is a better example of a Mexican Vienna Lager than Dos Equis is, but there you go. More people are familiar with Dos Equis I assume. In either case, those two Mexican beers are lagers, while Dos Perros is an ale. But Vienna lagers accent the nutty taste of Munich and Vienna malts, so you can get away with something like this easily enough.

Yazoo Dos Perros arrived to me light brown in color with a faint creamy head and a soft, nutty malt nose. The palate was mostly smooth and clean with just a hint of fruit poking through, something you wouldn’t find in a lager, but only a hint of it here mind you.

The malt profile was spot on, with plenty of nutty, slightly chocolaty elements from the specialty malts mentioned above. I noticed a very agreeable fresh cracked malt flavor, too, and a balanced finish that kept the beer from being sweet without adding a lot of bitterness.

All in all, this was a tasty effort, and it served very nicely to wash down a plate of Usinger’s bratwursts, German-style potato salad pungent with vinegar and bacon, and savory sauerkraut.

And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.

*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.

(B)=Bottled

(D)=Draft

 

 

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