Lake Havasu City

Yesterday's trip to Lake Havasu City was mostly inspired by Mud Shark's Desert Magic IPA, which I tried when I visited Arizona in August. Mud Shark is located about an hour and a half south of my current abode, an easy day trip. That IPA was about the only local craft beer Mike had been able to find.

Wandering along the waterfront in Havasu, we stumbled upon Barley Brothers Brewery while walking across London Bridge and decided we'd try that out before heading over to Mud Shark. This place was great. We tried the tostada style nachos (really nicely done) while we each had a pint:

Kickstarter Oatmeal Stout: all of the warm, roasted, mellow flavors one could hope for in a stout. It was strong but not overwhelming. This was such a nice stout.

Big Horn India Pale Ale: This also had big, strong flavor, but in a really good way. That floral taste that some IPA's have is not usually something I like, but it was so well balanced with the rest of the bright, refreshing hoppy flavors that both Mike and I agreed, this was really, really good.

We walked back across London Bridge and headed over to our original destination, Mud Shark. We really enjoyed this place too, but found it to be way more user-friendly than the strong flavors of Barley Brothers' brews. We got the sampler, which included a good spread of styles: lager, hefeweizen, Belgian white, amber in addition to these--

Solar Red IPA: As mentioned, the flavors weren't particularly strong or risky at Mud Shark, but this was interesting, kind of a solid red beer with the extra hoppy flavor of an India Pale Ale, so a little more malty than a typical IPA but definitely more pale than red. It was good.

California steam style: This was different, and we really couldn't figure out why. Apparently it's a different brewing style popular in California ("Yeah, I don't know, they're weird there." -our server, when I asked more questions). It was pretty plain, but a little sweet. Just... different.

Abominable Winter Ale: We tried a flight of this because it sounded awful. It's brewed with dark chocolate, white chocolate and mint. All we tasted was coffee with a really weird aftertaste, which lead us to be believe there had been a mistake-- we knew there was a coffee stout on tap, too. We asked for a sample of that, just to see if we were right.

Morning Buzz Coffee Stout: We weren't right. This was a REALLY strong coffee flavored stout, probably the most remarkable beer we had here. The others weren't bad-- just nothing particularly special. This was a nice, strong stout that finished way better than the Abominable.

The food at Mud Shark was great. Mike liked the wings, but we were both really impressed with the real onion rings (like, huge slice of vidalia onion dipped and fried) and the garlic fries (oh man oh man good). Good trip. I'd go back to either, or both...