Axe Pic N Stout
Gold Hill Brewery

Had this in the tasting room at the brewery- which is located at a winery in the gold region aound Coloma. After talking with the guy pouring the wines and beers, I discovered that this is almost a homebrew set-up with a 7bl system and beers produced on draft for the tasting room only as well as in 22 oz bottles. Pretty ambitious for an out of the way location like this and fairly interesting. Unfortunately this particular beer needs to go back to the drawing board. Pours black with a good head that eventually fades to nothing. Smells roasty and a bit nutty, but unfortunately there is a bandaid aroma from an infection as well. Taste is similar- nice roastiness followed by a bit of band-aid. Mouthfeel is a bit astringent. This is not something I could drink very much of. Some more stringent quality control is called for here- especially important when you are so small. I'd rather they produce less variety of beer but have all of it better. Sometimes you just gotta dump what didn't work.