I think it's one of the better Terrapin beers I've had. Seems like most of the best Pumpkin beers are huge ABV% beers but this one is pretty drinkable yet retains some pretty good flavor. I've got a couple in the fridge now.

I bought ingredients, and I'm brewing 2 batches on Thursday:

- 5 gallons (48ish beers) of something I just sorta cobbled together using Maris Otter and some rye, mostly I just wanted to NOT follow a recipe this time and try for something unique but chuggable. Should have around 5% abv.
- 2 gallons of stout. Aiming for about 8% abv, modeled largely on a KBS clone, soaking some oak scraps I charred in the wood burning stove now in some bourbon, and I'll age it on that for at least a month. Goal is to have it ready as the snow starts.

Judging from that list, Paste's offices must be on the East coast.

I just bought

Logsdon Farmhouse Ales "Far West Vlaming" Flemish Red Ale , Oregon 750ml
Logsdon Farmhouse Ales "Cerasus" Flemish Red Ale With Cherries, Oregon 750ml

I had over the weekend:

Pretty Things "X Ale November 22nd, 1838" English Mild Ale, Massachusetts 22oz
Haandbryggeriet "Haandbakk" Wild Ale, Norway 500ml



I'd give the Pretty Things a B and the Haandbryggeriet a solid B+/A-. I prefer my sours with a little fruit but it was very good for what it is which is a basic barrel aged dark sour.

Decatur, GA (Atlanta)
co-founder of PASTE runs Wild Heaven brewery. They make really fucking good beer.

Don't bother.

The older of the 2 Pretty Things Milds is way better, you chose well. I liked it too.

Yeah, from their "About us" page and the can design, seems like it's just an excuse to have a cool can and package design and the beer is an afterthought. Is that an accurate prejudgement?

I'd had the newer one once before. The older one is better but much less representative of what I generally think of a mild to be. It actually tasted more like an ESB to me. It was good enough but I don't think I'd rush to have it again.

Had a couple of new trys last night.

Noble Ale Works Fire & Desire

It's a local So Cal DIPA based on their standard DIPA and infused with Ghost Peppers, Habaneros, Scotch Bonnett Peppers and Chocolate. Fairly interesting flavors that surprisingly were well integrated. I was expecting some heat from it but it really didn't pack any.

Cismontane Black Dawn

Cismontane's another So Cal brewery. This is their Coffee Imperial Stout. It was pretty sweet, heavy and overall very good. I think this is the first thing I've had from them and I was pretty impressed.

Craft Beer Expanding Faster Than Any Time Since Prohibition Ended + 20 Top Selling Craft Breweries

read above, or if you just want a numbered list:

US breweries in 1887: 2,011 / US breweries in 1978: 89 / US Breweries in 2012: 2,216 (and growing)

1. Boston Beer Company aka Samuel Adams (Jamaica Plain, MA)
2. Sierra Nevada (Chico, CA)
3. New Belgium (Ft Collins, CO)
4. Craft Brew Alliance aka Redhook, Kona, Widmer Bros (Portland, OR)
5. Spoetzel aka Shiner (Shiner, TX)
6. Magic Hat (South Burlington, VT)
7. Deschutes (Bend, OR)
8. Matt Brewing Co aka Saranac (Utica, NY)
9. Bell's (Galesburg, MI)
10. Harpoon (Boston, MA)
11. Lagunitas (Petaluma, CA)
12. Boulevard (KC, MO)
13. Stone (Escondido, CA)
14. Dogfish Head (Milton DE)
15. Brooklyn (Brooklyn, NY)
16. Alaskan (Juneau, AK)
17. Shipyard (Portland, ME)
18. Abita (Abita Springs, LA)
19. Long Trail (Bridgewater Corners, VT)
20. Great Lakes (Cleveland, OH)

I'd be curious as to what kind of effect that has had on the big boys like Anheuser and Miller.

Clearly they're aware of the rise of craft beer in the US but does it ultimately even register in their sales?

I mean, I didn't really start drinking this stuff until a couple years ago so Budweiser has easily lost a couple grand from me alone during that time.

So far their response has been to buy off the biggest ones they can, ala Goose.


Brewing from home today. This stout wort smells like burnt toast, raisins, and chocolate in the BEST way.

Also having a pumpkin beer from Cambridge Brewing Co. Proud of myself for waiting til after 10.

Very interesting. I've definitely never made any correlation between Sam Adams and Repubs. Figured they all drank Bud Light. Coors isn't surprising since Joseph Coors founded the Heritage Foundation.

Heineken and Dems, huh?

Apropos of nothing, but I had a Corona a few weeks ago for the first time in probably 12 years and MY GOD was it terrible. Like I cant believe how fucking bad it was.

You know the main demographic where that intersects, right?

Guess I didn't pick up on it. Enlighten me.

First, all this talk of pumpkin beer got me. Grabbed these two again to see how this year's crop is...


Shipyard (the always excellent Pugsley Series) - Smashed Pumpkin, 9%

Fuck this is great. Maybe the best pumpkin beer, would have to try this and the Weyerbacher back to back. But it's clean and balanced, and packs a delightful whallop. It almost tastes TOO good, like I wonder how he got such a clean and "standard" flavor out of pumpkins, unless he cheated somehow with artificial flavors? Most pumpkin beers have that pumpkin-esq flavor that is different than baked pumpkin. This was like delicious, alcoholic, liquid pumpkin pie.


CBC - Great Pumpkin Ale

Good, not great, and when you compare it to the Pugsley it just doesn't hold up. Too thick and murky by comparison.


Also, two quick shots of brewing the stout yesterday. It should come in around 7% I think. I was going to keep it stronger than that but something odd happened... I took a gravity reading when it had cooled to about 94F, and it was registering almost off the charts. Like "this is going to be 18% alcohol if it ferments fully" high. It was thicker than warm, used motor oil. So I cut it with another half gallon of water (was 2 gallons, went to 2.5) and suddenly it read at a more normal level, where it is now at about 7-8% potential if it ferments normally. Anywho, here's the stone ground chocolate I used, along with a SMALL portion of that cinnamon stick, and then the Willamette and Nugget hops.



And here's what the specialty grains (as opposed to the normal lighter base malt) looks like for a 2.5 gallon batch of stout...


It doesn't take much black malt to completely darken a beer. This stuff was DENSE. Can't wait - the stout and a rye pale are bubbling happily in the closet today.

Just saw a friend in the hall at work and we talked a little beer.
Got me craving one of these:

My favorite "drinkin' beer."

Curious what the furthest folks here have or would drive for a beer related event? Not talking a weekend trip that happens to include a trip to a brewery or a great brewpub, but a get in your car and drive to the event and then get back into your car and drive home afterward.

I ask because Logsdon Farmhouse Ales is coming to a brewpub 25 miles away from me this evening. I love their beers but I can't decide whether it's worth it to try to drive there at happy hour on a Friday on carmegedon II weekend.

That's like going from far South Atlanta to far North Atlanta.

I'd do it for say, Russian River coming to a brewpub for a night.

Then again, I'd make that my evening. Leave at 4, miss a little of the traffic, get a good buzz on, grab some nosh, take it to the house.

Russian River came to this same brewpub on Monday. I had forgotten about it although I'm not sure I would have gone anyway. Annoying though that the two best breweries to participate in LA Beer Week are at the brewpub the furthest from the city.

LA traffic is terrible though at rush hour on a friday. It's taken me 90 minutes to drive similar distances before. It's staggered on other days as people will stay late to avoid the traffic. Friday everyone just wants to leave and get their weekend started. It could be worse this weekend because of Carmegedon -- a stretch of the 405 is closed all weekend for construction so other freeways are going to have to pick up the added traffic. Logsdon and Russian River are probably the only two breweries that I'd even consider making that drive to. I'm having a hard time deciding though.

There's no brewery except maybe Westvleteren I'd do anything like that for. If I can't bike there there's just VERY little chance I would 1) drag my glutarded / underage family to a brewery to watch me drink or 2) leave the wife with the kid so I could go try a beer. I've gone to the belgian beer fest a few times, but I took the subway.

I would have to drive that far to go into the city for a beer event anyway, so yeah. But would I go to say, Athens (90 minutes away), for a beer event and then come straight home? No.

I ride a bike and rely on public transport most of the time, but I'd be making routine trips to Council Bluffs, IA for beer and to Omaha for tapping parties on a regular basis if I had the funds for a substantial beer cellar collection.
So I guess my answer would be at least 50 miles via the Interstate.