Monday 24th of February 2014 06:39:30 PM

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Ramona, California.

The little burg sitting about 30 miles east of San Diego has inspired a book...a movie...a training camp....a national tennis match...and now, a brewery of its own.

ChuckAlek Independent Brewers is named for the owners 2 grandfathers. Open just over a year, they have taken on an ambitious task in 2014; brewing a new beer each month based on porter and stoud receipies 100 years old.

This was the reason wife Persimmon and I decided to spend part of our gorgeous Sunday afternoon away from our little beach town. A new brewery with hopefully, flavorful and unique beers.

Sadly, this was the 3rd brewery of the day's exploration that fell short.

Although sporting a wide variety from Altbier to smoked Bock to Farmhouse and Stout, the 11 different styles have little personality. Even the 1890 DS (Double Stout) Archive Series beer for February was dark but watery with a flat odor. The Baltic Porter or Conductor was the only intriguing beer of the day; robust with different levels of tobacco, licorice and figs. The nitro version was, as our most, flat and mediocre.

The Weiss comes with green, red or purple "sauce" to fruit flavor the beer which, naked - resembles and tastes a bit like champagne. Ice cold, it would be a refresher on one of the too many obscenely hot days Ramona experiences in summer. Others however taste like chimney (Bamberka) or burnt rubber (Breton) or smells delightfully of bananas but is closer to dirt in taste (Heritage).

This is strictly a tasting room and our bartender was very generous as we asked for just a 2 ounce pour since Persimmon and I share and never finish the beer. When we taste, it's always at more than one place and we have long since learned to not over-indulge. As a result, we get looked at with un-believing eyes from the purists at other tables but, as so often happens (and usually when a woman is serving!) we are never charged the full amount. That is not the reason we drink less than the expected 4 ounces...but it can and often does pay benefits.

With all that said, I am still anxious to sample the upcoming beers in the archive series with hope that they will produce one outstanding beverage on which I can lavish un-qualified praise.

Until then, I can only say that I didn't like the book...hated the movie...thought Archie Moore's boxing training camp "The Salt Mine" was aptly named and that Bobby Riggs got lucky when he defeated Margaret Court back in 1973.

I can't recommend their beer either....although Ramona was home to Ross Martin, the actor who played Artemus Gordon in that '60's TV western, "The Wild, Wild West" so there is that!