Tempe's Four Peaks Brewing Company
Over the past week, the SFB Editorial Board „¢ set out on a covert fact-finding mission in the Southwest. Gems were found, dirty secrets uncovered, and… Well, it’ll all be documented here as we see fit.
First: Tempe. Tempe is of course part of the Phoenix metro area. “Of course” being… Well, Roger from American Dad put it best when talking about Mesa, a town similarly hidden in Phoenix’s shadow: “Well, I lived in Mesa. but when you say ‘Mesa,’ people don’t know what ‘Mesa’ is, but… It’s… It’s, I mean, it’s Phoenix. I lived in Phoenix.”
Tempe is home of ASU, and then not surprisingly the home of many cheap-eats spots, a lot of which hold a pretty decent quality. You might not mistake the town for NYC, but then again, that’s hardly the point.
Four Peaks Brewing Company is located just off campus, and is one of a handful of Phoenix area breweries. And frankly, while it wasn’t awful, it probably isn’t causing Northwest breweries too many sleepless nights.
The red flag should probably have been raised when I overheard a waiter mentioning that the brewers don’t really like “flavor bombs.” It didn’t take us long to figure out that he certainly was right about that. Most of the seven samplers were watered down, and just a bit dull tasting. The Oatmeal Stout, for example, was labeled the “regulars’ choice” which sort of suggested it’d be a stand out, felt watered down, and anything but stout-y. Had it been a blind taste test I would probably have guessed it was a dark lager.
The peach ale? Just too sweet. The Hefeweizen? Tasted more like a dull Belgian white. And so on and so forth.
The one standout was the Hop Knot. What was suggested to be the hoppiest ale of the lot was really pretty average on the hop count, but, that aside, it did not feel watered down and had a pretty deep flavor to it. If you ever were to grab a pint at Four Peaks, then Hop Knot is the one to go for.
As for the food, we only sampled a pretzel with mustard sauce. The sauce was actually really quite nice, and had a good kick to it that we felt in our noses. Not too shabby.
Four Peaks wasn’t too bad, just a bit so-so. Worth checking out if you’re a traveling ale hound at any rate.