Soaring Wings Vineyard and Brewery (Springfield, NE)

Soaring Wings tasting room at the top of the hill.  

7/5/12

After lunch with my mom and sister at Pizza Ranch for the 4th of the July, I spent the night with the folks in law in Sioux Falls before heading down early to drink Omaha the next day en route to Denver.  To my surprise, my mother in law Jo had a beer recommendation for me.

On a recent trip, Jo and her sister Truede stopped at Soaring Wings Vineyard for a bus tour and the guide boasted that the beer was very good as well.  They liked the wine and she wondered if the beer bragging was true or not.

Springfield is a short drive from Nebraska Brewing Co in Papillion, and very quickly I was in the corn and gravel roads.  According to my mother in law, the owner was a former military pilot that was making wine and beer in his retirement. Nice facility at the top of a hill with a view of the area. 

The tasting room deal is five samples for $6--wine or beer in any combination.  I tried four beers and ended with a wine recommendation from the friendly and seemingly knowledgeable server.  The recently retired marine at Nebraska Brewing had said the DIPA was ok, so made sure to save a sample.  Of the four brews, the Blackbird, vaguely labeled a dark stout, was the best, but that's not saying much.  

All of the beers suffered from a common brewing error that I was having difficulty pinning down, but there was definitely a problem.  And, the Hop Zeppelin was possibly the first Double IPA that I didn't finish.

Ended with wine since the beer conclusions were clear.  Based on a recommendation from the server, I tried the Chambourcin Special Reserve 2009. Heavy legs in the glass. Pretty, deep, two tone red. Good but I like my local Cannon Falls wines much better. I'm not a knowledgeable wine drinker, but this seems to be simply average.

As I was leaving, one of my fellow tasters was wearing a Pleepleus shirt.  We had a nice chat from the inside beer joke from the now defunct Three Sheets show.  Overall, a fun stop and an interesting beer hunt, but I won't be going out of my way for Soaring Wings again.