so i finally got to get a taste of some Whale's Tale Pale while camping last week. very nice and refreshing. also had Crazy Mountain's Mountain Livin' Pale which was also tasty and incredibly sessionable. although i've found that everything kinda tastes better when you're camping.



my haul from yesterday:



finally got my Love Child #2. grabbed another Saison-Brett to age a bit, plus Boulevard's collab with Pretty Things, Stingo. cans are Santa Fe's Freestyle Pilsner. not sure how far their distribution is, but i've yet to be disappointed. and at ~$6/6 pack, they are frequent purchases. the j. marie saison is from a new brewery down in denver, River North, which i've heard nothing but good things about.

looking forward to trying more Cisco brews too...their Summer of Lager will be next up.

Love that top pic - great job setting it up. Yours?

Which reminds me...

Me having a Hell Or High Watermellon as Derris pool-dances:


So then at 3am after the festivities, Derris runs to his room at the hotel and comes back with gifts for a few of us who played. 7 year old Aventinus Wheat Doppel, wrapped in these special tan paper jobbies. All fuckin' class, that guy.

thanks! that was a small walk from our campsite up at Pearl Lake, about 30 minutes north of Steamboat Springs. still a beautiful spot despite how devastated the pine beetle infestation has left it.

I picked up a bottle of Stone 16 Anniversary and another Russian River Supplication last night.

I got a new one from Pretty Things - a "regular" IPA. Shit was GOOD. They bill it as their first "american" beer, the result of a cross-country trip full of bbq and hoppy beers.

This has been my go-to beer every time I hit up the local Wegmans this summer. It really burns my ass that the summer brews are replaced by the Oktoberfest beers in early August.

I went over to Bell's for lunch today and tried A Bit Of Heat off the tap. It was the winner of a home brew contest Bell's had some time back, and is an IPA with some habanero in it. The flavor and heat were there, but were not overpowering. All in all, it was a nice brew, but not something I would want to drink all of the time.

Coool. I enjoyed the habanero beer that Night Shift here in town.

I grabbed one of those and a bomber of the Boulevard Doublewide IPA (they finally got some Boulevard stuff at my local store)

I went to a Boston Beer Company limited release tapping party last night for Norse Legend Sahti and Black and Brew coffee stout. I thought both were decent, but I was clearly more impressed by the coffee stout. I was hoping for a little more Juniper in the Sahti, rather than something more sessionable, but the Sumatran coffee really gave the stout a smokey taste along with the heavy coffee flavor.
They were handing out lots of swag but most of it was for plus sized folks. They really need to start bring smediums for folks like me.

I guess they just released it in bottles, though I haven't seen any yet.

I also just read about their collab with Backlash in the new issue of Beer Advocate.

http://www.oncemadebeer.com/

Drinking a 4 year old Kuhnhenn Solar Eclipse stout that weighs in at 18%. So good.

Oracle and BB Best Brown are fantastic.

I'm going to a tapping party for the Alpine Beer Company/New Belgium collaboration Super IPA. It is a 9% ABV Imperial IPA that has been triple dry hopped and includes Columbus, Amarillo, Simcoe and Centennial Hops.

The Stone Anniversary was typical Stone for me--good not great. I didn't really get the "lemon verbena" flavors.

Doublewide on the other hand is pretty great: A malty double IPA that just tastes a little dangerous. I'll definitely be picking up a four pack.

Had a quick decision to make yesterday with 20 spare minutes before toddler pickup. Couldn't decide on a new beer so I went with Tank 7 again, probably the third time I've had it now. While I missed a rare (these days) chance to try something new, Tank 7 is fucking GOOD.


Reaffirmed.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/ ... 1886.story

Article is a little vague - I can't tell if this means all beers will be available everywhere or just the ones that they will be producing at AB Plants. I want the Bourbon County Stout out here.

seems to me that it's just going to be the regular brews, which are pretty uninspiring, which are going national.

Yeah, I saw that and clearly they are saying that there is a larger market for the regular brews at a lower price point thus the need to move their production to a larger facility. I don't know whether that means automatically though that they won't try to expand the distribution of the other beers too and perhaps moving the production of the regular brews increases capacity for brewing Matilda, BCS, Sofie and the other higher end beers at the chicago brewery.

Drinking one now and you can tell Alpine shooed New Belgium away from the lab and took over this beer. It's awesome!

Had the Lagunitas A Little Sumpin' Wild Belgian IPA...It's got that good quality hoppiness we've all come to know and love from Lag (and packs a nice punch at nearly 9%), but is sort of lacking in the "Belgian" department; like they need a little more funky yeast.

A little bit of a disappointment but I'm not pouring them down the sink or anything.

I had a Summit Saga IPA on tap while I was at the Alpine/New Belgium collaboration tapping party, and it was surprisingly good. I liked it better than the Super IPA, since it was well balanced and less of a hop bomb. It gets great marks from Rate Beer as well. Here is the commercial description:
We’re proud to announce the new Summit Sága IPA, a decidedly different hop-forward brew due out in early May 2012. The beer has pronounced hop flavors and aromas of kiwi, passionfruit, apricot and gooseberry. Clean, assertive bitterness with balancing Pale malt characteristics. We hop it with the rare New Zealand Rakau hop along with Citra, Centennial and Amarillo. Named after the Norse Goddess of Poetry, who was the God Odin’s drinking companion... also, it was quite a saga to pick a name!

Went to a beer tasting on Saturday. I don't have the list of the ten beers poured but it included:

Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales "Calabaza Blanca" Witbier
De Struise Brouwers "SVEA" IPA
Drake's Aroma Coma
Stone 16 Year Anniversary
Port Brewery Hop15 DIPA
Mikkeller "Spontankoppi" Wild Ale with Coffee
Mikkeller "Spontankriek" Wild Ale with Cherries

and a handful of Saisons from CA and Belgium that I'm forgetting

I share Bloor's good not great opinion of the 16 year anniversary and Stone in general. The Jolly Pumpkin Witbier was really pretty good. The Aroma Coma was interesting enough but not enough to get me to buy it. The Hop15 was a monster at around 180 IBUs. I'd imagine Kyle would probably really dig it but it was too hoppy for me. The Mikkelers were interesting but more interesting than great. The De Struise Browers was the star. Delicious Belgian IPA, complex but not overly hoppy. I ended up buying 5 of them.

Also got around to trying a can of Golden Road's Wolf Among Weeds DIPA. Pretty good for a local canned beer, but not something I'm gonna crave a lot more of.

Bought a few more today:

1 Almanac Beer Company Honey Saison, California 12oz @ $2.79
1 Brouwerij De Proef/Hair Of the Dog/Bockor "Flander Fred" Collaboration Ale, Belgium 750ml @ $15.99
1 De Struise Brouwers "Tsjeeses" Belgian X-Mas Ale, Beligum 330ml @ $4.99
1 Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales "Noel de Calabaza" Special Ale, Michigan 750ml @ $9.99
1 Brouwerij Van Honsebrouck "Kasteel Rouge" Sour Cherry, Belgium 330ml @ $5.29
1 2011 De Struise Brouwers "Pannepøt-Old Monk's Ale (Danish Version)" Ale Brewed with Spices, Belgium 11.2 oz @ $6.99

Had to try some others from De Struise Brouwers after loving the IPA and I'll buy anything from Hair of the Dog. I think most of the others were inventory reduction closeout flyers.

Spent some money today...