Fitgers Brewhouse. I really like it again.

For those of us not lucky enough to live in Duluth, Fitger's Brewhouse beer was a treat. Whenever someone was going up there, they offered to bring back growlers, and they usually had a bunch of friends willing to take them up on the offer.

Duluth, early fall.

Maybe a couple of years ago, there was some grumbling that maybe Fitger's had lost a step. True? I don't know. Maybe they really lost some degree of wonderfulness. Maybe people just got jaded. Who knows.

Duluth, later fall.

This fall we were lucky enough to get up there twice. And I got to hang out at the Brewhouse, actually for the first time. Don't know why it took me so long, except that we've always just been though Duluth on the way to somewhere else.

Anyway, I don't know if it was just that I was so glad to be out of the Cities, or hanging out by the lake or what.  But I really, really liked the beer, and I got to try pretty much everything. Here's what we had -- or at least what I took notes on -- during the last trip:

The wife and I were clearly born in the
wrong era.

• Mariner's Mild (3.6%).  Really nice -- I wish more brewpubs did a mild.  This one is estery, with hints of chocolate.  It has just the right mouthfeel: light, soft, almost watery but with complex flavor to back it up.  Immensely drinkable.  The esters in the aroma got a bit too much as it warmed up for me.  But one of the best commercial mild's I've had.
• Ely's Peak Pale Ale (Don't know abv).  Served on cask.  Low hop aroma, but big spicy hop flavor.  Nice.  Highish carbonation for cask ale.  Juicy malt, with a touch of crystal malt sweetness.  Hops not over the top -- fresh, "green" and firmly bitter.
• Starfire Pale (6.0%).  My favorite of the beers.  Less bitter, but with a lot more hop flavor and aroma than the Ely's Peak.  American hops, not sure of the variety but I'd love to know.  Relatively big, but it doesn't seem like 6%, nicely attenuated.

Along the way we also had a bunch of the other beers.  The Lighthouse Golden Ale (4.4%) was really nice -- these beers get a bad rap as "starter beers" for people who don't like beer, but this was crisp and clean, with a delicate malt flavor.  The  El Nino Double Hopped IPA (7.0%) was good, but I liked the Starfire better.  There was a porter and a stout as well.