Butternuts Snapperhead IPA (NY)

So says the website:

Our India Pale Ale packs typical IPA balls but strikes better balance between
dryness and drinkability. It’s every bit as rich but a little less better than
other American interpretations of the breed

I always assumed "IPA balls" were the bitterness, but apprently not. The above is accurate, though. Snapperhead pours hazy orange-copper with a slight head. This tastes a lot like other American IPAs, but without the pine or grapefruit hit at the end. It's not a pale ale -- it does bring a full flavor -- and it's not an English IPA. It's more like an American IPA that seems unfinished. There's a lot of mostly grainy malt, and some hops too, but really bitter. You could make a case that this one's balanced and all the other IPAs are not. Overall, I like it, but it's sure to piss off a lot of the hopheads.

Butternuts Moo Thunder Stout (NY)

There's nothing like a can of stout on a cool, wet November afternoon. Yes, Butternuts Beer & Ale sells its products in cans, following the lead of Oskar Blues. I'm all for it as long as you pour the beer into a glass. (See here for a Washington Post article about the can issue.)

The can also calls this a farmhouse ale, and this brewery -- located south of I-90 between Syracuse and Albany -- affects a fairly corny barnyard theme. The website descibres Moo Thunder as such:

This stout beer pays tribute to the Butternuts Brewery's former life as a dairy farm, thus the sexy cow on the can. It's a lighter, more drinkable version of the Stout breed than its heavy, boorish and smelly European sisters. Not too strong, not too viscous (oooh...viscous...creepy).

Unlike a true bovine it has a malty, roasty aroma and a dry finish but no tail or teats, and leaves no unsightly cow pies laying around the yard for you to step in.

The beer pours very dark brown with an unassuming beige head. There isn't much aroma to it, and admittedly not a ton of flavor. It's mostly coffee, maybe with a little milk and sugar for the sweetenss. But as the brewer says, the finish is dry. The CO2 also seems to provide a slight acidic aspect to it. Still, I think I prefer the texture of this to that of the Nitro stouts I reviewed recenlty. The carbonation is nicely restrained, though the body itself could be thicker.

I'd have preferred a richer stout. The taste isn't offensive to me, just weak. Still, this might have some value as a sessions brew ("lighter, more drinkable"). I certainly could have downed a bunch of these.