Flying Saucer in Arlington

I enjoyed hanging out with some of Bryan’s New Jersey chums at The Flying Saucer in Arlington on Saturday. The Flying Saucer is well known for having almost 100 beers on tap (and another 100 available by the bottle), so I really looked forward to trying some of them.

Since they have their entire menu online, I spent some time on Saturday afternoon and cross-referenced their beer list against RateBeer.com’s Top Accessible Beers list — it’s a list of their highest-rated beers with at least 300 ratings (that way, you generally have half a chance of being able to find them).

I realized that there was also the chance that some of The Flying Saucer’s beers may have been highly rated but not by as many reviewers. So, I also checked on every other beer on their menu (which didn’t take as long as you might think, since you can search by brand at RateBeer and it’ll show the ratings for all beers under that brand).

I put all this info in my Palm and headed off. Once there, I ordered a Schneider Aventinus to start. It’s in the 98.3 percentile of beers at RateBeer, but also with 8% alcohol. It was strong, but almost had a creamy texture. It was the type of beer that would go well with food (I had a sandwich, in this case).

I hadn’t eaten dinner beforehand, so I looked over their food menu and ordered a Space Club. It’s described as having “ham, turkey, bacon & tomato with cheddar and jack cheese”. Its description made it seem like a club sandwich, but it was no club sandwich. A classic club sandwich generally includes thin toasted bread cut into triangles but the Space Club’s bread was actually a bulky white roll.

And, the sandwich may have been “oven baked”, but that only made it a bit crispy around the edges. The menu mentioned both ham and turkey, but I only detected ham (and no bacon, either). It was like a ham & cheese sandwich on a crispy white roll.

So, the sandwich was a bit of a disappointment, but the beer was still enticing. And, after the Schneider Aventinus, I had an Arrogant Bastard Ale. This “only” had 7.2% alcohol, but it’s in RateBeer’s 97.8 percentile. The label describes the brewer’s philiosophy well:

This is an aggressive beer. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth.

One reviewer described it as a “hops bomb” and that’s about right — this beer was chocked-full of hoppy flavor and probably not particularly suitable as a sipping-on-the-beach beer ;).

No subtle use of hops to be found here. Very sharp hoppy aroma (grapefruit/pine), with some raisins. The flavour is pretty full on, hops everywhere, quite bitter and very sharp and a bit sickly, particularly as you work your way through it, the amount of hops throws the balance out a bit. Pretty much everything i was expecting, a massive hop bomb. Did i mention it was hoppy?

I had finished my sandwich by this point, and my intake of the Arrogant Bastard was self-governing. The beer was tasty, but my palette could only take so much at a time. Really, the Arrogant Bastard would have worked better along with food (perhaps a hamburger or… hawaiian pizza?).

I had a good time at The Flying Saucer, and I’d go again. If nothing else, this is one bar where I could order different beers every time — for nearly eternity ;).