Brewpub Visit: Moon River Brewing

Brewery/Brewpub:  Moon River Brewing

When: 2014-01-18

Where: 21 W Bay St., Savannah, GA

Favorite Ale: Captains Porter

Notes: 

While the Beer Page has some introductory notes, I will be making many posts, such as this one, to share with you my experiences with the breweries and brew pubs I visit.  It is my hope that you will get a feeling for what I like and how my tastes compare with yours.  We have a wonderful explosion of new breweries in the US and Canada today and many of us are glad for our chances to visit them but are then challenged with a huge assortment of ales that can’t possibly all be sampled, at least not at the pint volumes.  Maybe this will assist you in selecting an ale during your visit.  It is also a great boon that many places offer tasters.  I will often try these and be able to provide my thoughts on a larger number of a breweries offerings.  Lets enjoy our bounty and share our experiences...

Savannah seemed like a good stopping point on our trip down 95 from Virginia to Dade City, Florida to see Celina’s Mom.  We had never been there and upon posting this as a possibility on FB, we received a large number amount of encouragement for the visit.

We rolled into town at around 16:00, checked into our hotel, and then went downtown with this brewpub as our dinner location.  They offer a generous taster, which on this night made up of nine “ales” (one was actually a cider), served on two crescent moon boards.

Here are my thoughts on their ales:

Their Slow-Vannah American Pale Ale (4.0% ABV) was a bit curious to me as it seemed to have an unusual malt flavor which I would characterize as Asian, almost like Sobo noodles maybe.

Road Trip Hard Cider (6.4%).  While we were very pleased to see that they had their own cider, Celina was not very pleased with it.  Note that Celina likes Strongbow and Magner’s. She does not like the sweet American varieties.  Celina thought this particular cider was almost vinegary and not properly carbonated.  I thought it was OK but not great.  I noted the “off” taste was present, but found it, maybe, interesting.  I wondered if they had used a Belgian yeast.

Belly-Washer English Golden Ale (5.1%) - How do you make a 5.1% ale with no flavor?  These folks have it figured out!  I’ve never seen a more blonde ale with less taste.  Watch out Coors!

Apparition Pale Ale (4.8%).  I like that so many of these ales were at reasonable alcohol levels, including this one.  Apparition Ale was served both on tap and as a cask ale.  While I usually love the choice of having a cask ale, I found that the ale on tap was tastier in this case.

Our server was friendly but not as knowledgable as I would expect.  We ordered Shrimp and Andouie Creole and Sausage & Potato.  Neither was served with the sausage that was indicated, but both were very good.  The shrimp were very large and tasty, the slaw was creamy, good but without much vinegar, but the string beans had not been trimmed and consistently included the stems.

While I would consider visiting Moon River again, there are other interesting places to visit in Savannah as well.  We specifically noted an English Pub close by and stopped into an Irish pub down on the river, called Kevin Barry’s, for dessert and music.