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Brewologist | Flight of beer reviews

Steve Goble
USA TODAY NETWORK-Ohio

If you visit a brew pub and are not sure what you want to try, they usually have a good option for you.

It's called a flight — usually four 3-ounce samples of a variety of brews for about the price of one full-sized beer. You get to try a few brews without making a huge commitment to any of them.

This week's column borrows from that idea: three short craft beer reviews.

Mash Appeal, a Kentucky common ale.

Mash Appeal

First up is a brew called Mash Appeal, a collaborative effort between Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland, Lager Heads Brewing Company in Medina and Oskar Blues Brewery in Colorado and North Carolina.

My expectations for this beer were high. I am a great fan of Great Lakes brews, and I like Oskar Blues' Dale's Pale Ale quite a bit. I had not previously had an opportunity to try Lager Heads, but beer-drinking friends assure me I should.

Alas, Mash Appeal did not do a lot for me. It is a Kentucky Common Ale, a style brewed in and around Louisville, Kentucky from the 1850s until Prohibition. It typically was sold soon after fermentation, with low carbonation, and usually was dark and sweet.

I knew none of that before trying Mash Appeal, which my wife included in a mixed six-pack in her ongoing effort to make me the happiest man on Earth. Indeed, I apparently misread the label and thought it was a California common ale, a style exemplified by the venerable Anchor Steam Beer, and so was somewhat surprised to see my glass filled with a very brown ale.

Mash Appeal is 4.3 percent alcohol and about 19 International Bitterness Units., making it a very good choice for a session beer. It is mild and drinkable and perfectly capable of washing down a cheeseburger. It is not, however, a particularly memorable brew and certainly not the big mind-blower I expected from a three-brewery collaboration. Your mileage may vary, of course. and this brew might not be a bad choice if you are taking your first baby steps beyond Budweiser.

Pataskala Red X IPA.

Pataskala Red X IPA

The next beer in our flight sounds like an Ohio brew, but it hails from California.

Pataskala Red X India pale ale, named for the Ohio city where Stone Brewing Company co-founder Greg Koch grew up, is a very nice, very hoppy and very red brew. Using German Red X malt and a heaping helping of Mosaic, Cascade and Amarillo hops, this brew has a big citrus hops bite. At 7.3 percent alcohol  by volume and 75 IBU, it compares very favorably with one of my favorite seasonal brews, Nosferatu Imperial Red Ale from Great Lakes. The flavor profiles are similar, although Nosferatu has a tad more bite. Pataskala Red X certainly finishes strong, with a nice bitterness in the finish.

Hop Nosh IPA.

Hop Nosh

Our last brew this week is Hop Nosh, an India pale ale from Uinta Brewing Company in Salt Lake City. At 7.3 percent ABV and 82 IBU, Hop Nosh packs a solid citrus hops punch balanced nicely with a backbone of rich caramel notes from the malts. There are bigger, bolder IPAs out there, but for about $11 a six-pack in Ohio markets, Hop Nosh is a pretty good deal.

Until next week, prost!

Steve Goble writes Brewologist, a weekly craft beer column, for Media Network of Central Ohio. Email him at sgoble@gannett,com. Follow @Brewologist on Twitter.