Ho Ho Ho, Merry drunk-ass Christmas!

I tried Wasatch Ghostrider White IPA last night and this year's version of Lucky Bucket Snowshoe Winter Ale, which is a spiced Belgian Abbey Ale.
I enjoyed a the Ghostrider, for what it is, a nice sessionable hoppy wheat beer with lots of zest and a great hop aroma.
The Lucky Bucket was decent, but lacking a little in the malt profile. The ABV is only 5.3%, so they clearly sacrificed some malt to keep the alcohol level low.
I'm going to be checking out the latest craft beer bar here in Lincoln on Saturday to celebrate my birthday. It has Cask ale, a decent bottle selection, and comes highly recommended by many of my brewing friends.

How many real craft beer joints do you have to choose from? Curious.

If you don't count brewery tap rooms/brew pubs, we have four bars now that actively promote craft beer.
It was down to one for a short time due to relocation/changeover, but it usually stays pretty close to four or five.
There will be six breweries open here by the end of 2013, and the distribution of Green Flash and Lagunitas has been more widespread than I would have initially thought. There are some bars that barely carry local craft beer that have at least one Green Flash or Lagunitas product on tap right now, and that would have been unheard of a few years ago.

Omaha, on the other hand, will only have four breweries going by the end of 2013, but the Dundee Neighborhood in Midtown Omaha has become a mecca for craft beer bars. There will be at least four bars there in a two block radius that have a craft beer selection that equals or surpasses the best places in Lincoln, and two of them are owned by the same people who own the best craft beer bar in Lincoln.

That's fascinating. I love these microcosms of beer activity. It may be a partial bubble but I really think people are going to give a shit about beer, in general, more than they used to for a long time.

On the other hand, Derris and I ate at a place called Watershed in Atlanta last weekend with our chicks that had the worst beer selection I've ever seen for a nice restaurant. It was a fucking travesty.

Wife's company had their 2012 wrap-up / 2013 kickoff for all the participating companies monday night. Second year in a row I've been invited to come and eat (drink) for free if I shoot pics for them. This year it was at Legends, a sports club thing inside the TD Garden. Beer selection: Bud, Bud Light, Bass, and Stella ... and Stella was dry.

Also I just pictured your faces and reactions and got a good chuckle. [table upended]

relatively new brewery in the twin cities.
http://www.indeedbrewing.com/
surly gets lots of well deserved love here, but i think they are going to have to step up their game soon because the black ale and the pale ale offered by these guys are the best i've ever had of either style.
i've been reluctant to pick any up because it comes in cans and i can't reuse the cans. but after having it on tap a few times i had to.

Meh. It wouldn't have been so bad if what they had were solid and reliables but it was like 8 offerings, 4 of which were from Lakefront Brewery, 1 Sweetwater (420), Bell's Java Stout (which Bloor and I agreed was one of Bell's weaker beers), and a couple of randoms.

In 2012's higher end restaurant scene, that just doesn't cut it.

So what's the deal with these beers. I read a tiny bit about them, being #1 on a bunch of beer lists and only recently available outside Belgium. My go-to store is on that retail list, and if they pop up in inventory, I should be able to buy them online and pick them up in the store. I'm not sure that I want them that bad though. I've been spending a lot of money on wine and booze lately and am feeling a little fatigue with chasing things like this down. Do I need to buy these and why?

Anyone ever have much success making beer cocktails? I screwed around trying to make a couple last night. The first one wasn't very good -- too many competing flavors, but I did end up making one that I liked.

I wasn't exacting measuring but it was something like:

1.5 - 2 oz Espolon Blanco Tequila
3/4 - 1 oz Pierre Ferrand Curacao
3/4 - 1 oz Cherry Herring
Juice of one medium size orange
4-5 oz Golden Road Hefeweizen

in a Highball glass with one ice spear and an orange peel garnish

Kinda a beer cocktail take on a Tequila Sunrise with Cherry Herring substituting for the Grenadine

man Lakefront has SUCH a great property / brewpub going on, and they're so damned likeable, but their beers are meh at best. Really fucking sucks.

So a case of Goose Island Bourbon County Cherry Rye stout became available to drink on premise at one of my favorite bars tonight, and several members of my homebrew club are meeting up there to split a few of the $20 bottles.

Fuck yeah.

Yeah, you guys have always said that, so I've always stayed away, but forced to make a choice I ordered the IPA at the bar before dinner and it was just that: Meh. Switched to wine.

This will be the only time you can get these beers at a reasonable price. You can ebay them, or find an online place in Belgium, but you get eaten alive with shipping costs. This beer really is the shit. It ages like a champ too... I have a few from 2003 stored away and it's gotten better each time.

The two Binny's in Chicago went through 600/700 in under 3 hours. Not surprising.

yeah i got a growler of it tonight and have been sipping on a pint of it for the last 2+ hours. finally had to open something else (fireside chat) to get a break from it. i think this growler is going to go bad before i finish it.

Wasn't even close to getting one in Chicago at release but did try it at the Festival of Barrel Aged Beers where it won best in show. I'm not sure why... it was good but my least favorite of all the BCS treatments. Still, it's an absolute steal at $20/bottle... and that price at a bar?!?!

8 ounces is plenty.

And strangely, I sorta want another one.

Thanks for the info. I think it was probably a moot point. I never saw it enter the inventory and the store posted on their blog that they had about 5000 calls from people about it yesterday.

I had the Good People Mumbai Rye the other night. Awesome. Noticed that the club has Founders Breakfast Stout on tap now, too.

Kyle, I really want to take you on a tour of Alabama breweries. If I'm driving we can count it as public transportation, right?

I have a feeling that the craft beer rep for the Budweiser distributor gave the case to the bar for free or next to nothing for customer loyalty and that the bar didn't mark up the bottles to recoup their cost, since there was such a limited quantity available here.
They didn't publicly advertise that they were available, and only a handful of local beer geeks became aware of their existence on Wednesday.
Speaking of Chicago, one of the Goose Island reps with local connections reserved one of the bottles, since he couldn't even get it there.

Edit:
I should also mention that this bar is currently selling the 2012 Goose Island Bourbon County stout for $10 a glass, so they can easily make up for a loss on the Cherry Rye.

Would LOVE to see that. And yeah the truckster is about the size of a subway car, right?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/1 ... 00275.html

The story is kind of dumb, but the Sierra Nevada promo featuring a Mercury Rev track is pretty cool.

Yeah, I tried calling the store in Bowling Green that was carrying the Brick and they basically had their phone off the hook