Doriee L.
Yelp
I was visiting the Bay Area for a short weekend and chanced upon Great Notion's Mango Coconut Mochi beer at Caps & Taps in Dublin. I loved it! We've never heard of Great Notion until that night so my husband starts googling them. Great Notion is from Oregon and it looks like they specialize in IPAs, tarts, and sour-smoothies. My husband found this location during one of his searches and we just knew we had to come.
We came at around 1-2PMish on a Saturday and it was busy! They were new too! I think one of the guys there said they opened 6 weeks ago!
They had a good selection of beer on tap and they're pretty reasonably priced. You could get a flight too! For a flight, you can choose 5 different beers at 5oz each pour.
My husband and I decided to share a flight with:
Orange Creamsicle Fruit in a Can (sour-smoothie)
Blueberry Muffin (sour)
Blueberry Cobbler Muffin (sour)
PB&Jammy Pants (Raspberry) (sour)
Mango Fluff (sour)
I'm not a huge fan of sours as many that I've tried made me pucker. However, Great Notion's versions are actually pretty decent. While it still holds that tart element, they don't overdo it to where I look like I ate a warhead.
I especially really liked the Orange Creamsicle -- I actually got a 13.5oz draft ($9.50) of it after we went through the flight. It was a tart orange juice with a vanilla cream finish.
The Blueberry Muffin smelled and tasted like blueberry muffin. If you like blueberry muffins, blueberry scones, or blueberry cake, this is the one for you.
The Blueberry Cobbler Muffin was more tart than the Blueberry Muffin, most likely due to the cobbler. I wasn't a huge fan of this one but that is probably because I'm not a fan of cobbler.
PB&Jammy Pants tasted and smelled exactly like how a PB&J sandwich would taste like but with a tart raspberry jam. Not my favorite flavor but definitely impressed with the product.
Mango Fluff was also a favorite and with a 8.4% ABV, it can definitely get dangerous. It tasted like semi-tart mango but you can also taste that it is stronger than the rest of the flavors.
They also had 4-pack of cans for you to purchase if you choose to. As an FYI, the sour-smoothie types need to be kept in the fridge to keep the fruit from fermenting. Once the fruit ferments, there is a chance that the original taste of the beer will differ. The prices are a tad high for a 4-pack but seeing as they're specialized, it isn't so bad. They actually had cans of the Mellifluous, which is a blend of apricot, peach, banana, passionfruit, and tangerine. It's unfortunate that they did not have it on tap to be sampled but it's OK, I purchased it anyways.
What is unfortunate is that they were out of the 4-packs of the Mango Coconut Mochi. That beer tasted exactly like the Chinese dessert with mango sago with tapioca. They only release the batches twice a year or so from what we were told so hopefully we'll be able to catch it when it comes back.
While we were there, there was a pop-up going on with Rucolina. Since the brewery didn't really have food options (you could buy some bags of chips), we decided to get a Hanger Steak Sandwich, which comes with wild arugula, parm, calabrian chili aioli, and herbed focaccia. The sandwich was absolutely delicious. The steak was tender and flavorful, the arugula provided a freshness to the sandwich, the parm added some salty element, the aioli went great with the steak, and the focaccia was crispy! Even though I was full from half of the sandwich and beer, I wanted more! But they ran out so we couldn't go for seconds :(
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the beer and the food from the pop up. Definitely recommend them! If you like sours/IPAs, definitely a plus! If you don't, this may not be the place for you. I can't wait to visit again when I'm in the area again!