FYI, my folks texted me last weekend and said they went to all 3 locations I gave them in Waterbury and even found the brewery.

No dice on Heady Topper anywhere.

*sadtrombone*

They even texted me a pic of the "sold out" sign.

Jeeesus.

Speaking of:

http://7d.blogs.com/biteclub/2013/09/he ... wards.html

I'm going to attempt to find some Heady up there this weekend and also visit Hill Farmstead.

Things are getting wierd for those guys.

Had one of these last night:



Conflux Collage 1 - a collaboration between Deschutes and Hair of the Dog. Hair of the Dog contributed Fred and Adam. Deschutes contributed The Stoic and the Dissident. They aged the components in a large variety of casks (sherry, port, bourbon, cognac) for about 2 years (i think) and then blended them in equal amounts. I gave it a little over a year of bottle aging after that.

Holy crap. it was great. Really complex -- lots of rich dark malty goodness, tons of vanilla from the oak, bright fruit, and a slight hint of sour from somewhere. I kind of regret drinking it as I opened it at 11pm as a last drink of the night after already finishing a half bottle of wine and a cocktail. I was looking for something good but not great and in a 12 oz bottle, and this seemed to be the closest thing to fit the bill that was in my fridge. I had thought that I remembered buying two last year -- drinking one and thinking it not that special and saving the other to put some age on. I was wrong though -- I only bought this one and had never had it before. Damn it was good. I would have saved it for a first not last drink of the night if I'd known how good it was.

Conflux is supposed to be a series of collaborative beers. I haven't ever seen any other releases but keep your eye open for them because this one was great.

Holy fuck that sounds incredible. Seriously jealous.

I tried the Smuttynose Homunculus, a Belgian IPA in their Big Beers series. I liked it, not too funky, nice hop profile and most importantly, not overly carbonated (which a lot of Belgian IPA's and APA's seem to be). A very dangerous and barely perceptible 9.3% if you happen to pick one up. Smuttynose also has a great price point on their big beers. Win.

Picked up another of that Uinta Birthday Suit sour (i liked it enough to buy another) and a couple of Bruery Tart of Darkness. Looking forward to giving one of those a go this weekend.

It's LA Beer week this week which is something a bunch of the craft beer bars and breweries started a few years back. Basically, every night for a week they hold 5-10 events nightly -- beer dinners, tap takeovers, etc -- through out town. It started Sunday and runs through next Sunday. It's already half over and I haven't made a single event yet. I missed the Grand Tasting which was on Sunday because of a Scotch tasting I was committed to that night, was too tired Monday to feel like going out, wasn't that interested in Tuesday's events and last night missed out on a Craftsman Beer Dinner, A Farmhouse Ale Beer Dinner, a Firestone Walker Tap Takeover and a Ballast Point Tap Takeover because of an early evening conflict. By the time, I had dinner it was after 10pm. There was a Kern River Brewing Tap Takeover that I still considered trying to hit after dinner but thought better of it because I'd already had a couple of glasses of wine so I probably couldn't have had more than one beer and felt comfortable driving home afterward. Just didn't seem worth the drive, hassle of finding parking, etc for one beer -- so the Conflux was a consolation prize I was giving myself. It was much much better than I was expecting.

I'm hoping that I can still make some event this week but it's hard to figure out, where and when. There's an Epic Beer Dinner tonight at a really good ceviche bar but I don't really like the Epic Beers I've had other than their pumpkin porter which doesn't go with Ceviche plus they aren't pouring anything rare or hard to find. Firestone Walker is pouring all of their sours on Saturday and I would love to go but I have a Scotch dinner that night and am not sure that I could really drink many sours and still make that. Maybe I'll gamble that I can find the Kern River beers still on tap tonight and the FW sours still on tap Sunday. Too many booze events in LA this week. I guess that's a good problem to have but I hate missing out on this stuff and wish they didn't schedule these events all so close together.

That's my favorite beer by the Bruery so far...

Think I found my LA Beer Event for tonight:

Ultimate Flight Night showcases hand selected craft beer flights from the top craft breweries around, and we will be joined by some of the top Beer-Leberties for the evening. This is one LA Beer Week Event you should not miss.

Beachwood BBQ and Brewing with special guests Co-Owners Gabe Gordon and Brewmaster Julian Shrago

Foam Top Cream Ale
Mind Melder IPA (CoLAb with Drakes)
Denver Jackhammer DIPA
Mocha Machine Imperial Chocolate Porter

Stone Brewing Co. with special guest Mitch Steele

Stone 08.08.08 Vertical Epic Ale
The Perfect Crime Aged in Red Wine Barrels
Stone EnjoyBy 10-25-13 IPA
Stone IPA Ruined on Cask with Blood Orange Zest (50/50 Blend of Stone IPA and Ruination)
Stone Ruination IPA with Grapefruit

Ironfire Brewing Company with special guests Co-Owners/Brewers John Maino & Greg Webb

Cucumber Ale
Nu Hell IPL (India Pale Lager)
51/50 IPA
Barrel Aged 6 Killer Stout (Served on Nitro)

Monkey Paw Pub & Brewery with special guests Owner Scot Blair and Brewmaster Cosimo

Low & Slow Rauch Bier
Bonobos San Diego Pale Ale
I-5 Hoppy Black Ale
Cornelius DIPA

The Bruery with special guests Brewmaster Tyler King and Director of Marketing Benjamin Weiss

Bottleworks XII
Windowsill
Oude Tart with Cherries
Praecocia

Kern River Brewing Company with special guests Eric and Rebecca Giddens along with Brewmaster Kyle Smith

Just Outstanding IPA
Dirty Hippie Imperial Red Ale
5th Anniversary/Winter DIPA (Super Fresh)
Class V Stout on Cask

Eagle Rock Brewery with special guests Jeremy Raub and Ting Su

2013 Unity (Official Beer of LA Beer Week, Red Mild made with Honey and Hibiscus)
Tart Noir
Yearling
Threes
Populist on Nitro

Dogfish Head Beer with special guest LA Rep Megan


Midas Touch
Black & Blue
Palo Santo Marron
Burton Baton
120 Minute IPA

Firestone Walker Brewing Co. with special guest Mr. David Walker

Barrel Aged Velvet Merkin
Double Jack
Double DBA
Parabojava (Parabola with Coffee)

Agree - that much cool stuff to try should not be crammed into 1 week.

I picked up a Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin that's aged in bourbon barrels, a Green Flash Green Bullet Triple IPA (it's really good and hoppy but I expected it to be more than 10.5% abv) and a Mystic Will O The Wisp, their autumn saison that's brewed with rye and brown sugar. I was hoping to drink that last one tonight but I may have had too many Weyerbacher Double Simcoes.

This is where I'd be all night. Just Outstanding and that 5th Anniversary DIPA are incredible.

I was hoping that they would allow me to create custom flights across breweries but that wasn't an option. I guess that would have been too much of a pain in the ass to price. So I opted to do the Kern River and Bruery flights and was thinking that maybe I would then get a full glass of the Firestone Walker Parabojava. Parabojava was 13% ABV though so I realized after I had two flights that there was no way I could have that and safely drive home so I stopped at the two flights.

The Kern River beers were all really solid. Class V was my favorite of the pours. The Dirty Hippie my least favorite which was probably strongly impacted by my lazily reading "Red Ale" and thinking it was going to be a flanders and thus being disappointed when it wasn't. IPAs are not one of my favorite styles but I enjoyed both Just Outstanding and the Fifth Anniversary and would put them very close to Russian River in quality.

The Bruery flight was also good. My favorite of those was Windowsill which was a collaboration beer between them and a local LA chef and was designed to be a beer equivalent of a raspberry rhubarb pie thus the name "Windowsill".

I also had my Uinta Birthday Suit when I got home. Mine was the 19th anniversary sour cherry version, which is different than this years that Bloor has been raving about. It was ok but not great. It's pretty low ABV (under 6%), a little thin, and seemed much more like a fruit beer than a true sour. I'm not 100% sure but I'd be surprised if this spent any time in oak. It was fine for what it was but it wasn't what I was expecting and I wouldn't pay $15+ for it again.

I had no luck finding Heady Topper either but at least I got a taste at the brewery. Afterwards we went to Prohibition Pig and they had cans of it but stupidly I decided to get a mixed drink first and by the time I got around to to the 2nd round they had run out. Oh well, at least we got to Hill Farmstead.

Also, I'm attempting to drink that Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin right now but I assume Pugsley had nothing to do with it because it's kind of awful. Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much bourbon taste to it. I feel like I should be watering it down with some ice.

Forgot, I had this on the train wo Wisconsin with Neuro. Had others too, trying to remember. I've stopped photographing EVERY new beer I have.

Boulevard - Terra Incognito


I recall it being big, loud, smooth enough but not "smooth" like I expected from them. Seemed ok but not their best beer. Huge punch to it, too. Certainly made that trip go by faster. We also had some cans of Brooklyn Summer, a bottle of the always-incredible Maine Beer Companys stout "Mean Old Tom." And I brought something else but now I don't remember what.

More recently at home, I've run out of homebrew, so I've bought more. Last good one I had was this...

Mystic - Old Powderhouse (Wheat Wine, 11%)



These guys are newish locally, and this is (I think) the first of theirs I've had. It was very, very good. Booze didn't burn you up, have a nice spicey complexity to it from the wheat, and yet wasn't imbalanced. Nicely dry without being astringent. I'll bet it would age very well... I may buy another one to hang onto and break out during a good snow storm.

I've recently found a brew that I'm in love with, and it comes in a sixer:

The Duck-Rabbit - Schwarzbier


The Duck-Rabbit was one of the first breweries I noticed hop the TN border after our craft beer tax was slashed. That made me happy. I'm hoping Founders and Bell's are next.

Duck Rabbit is good shit. I wish they were sold up here. Schwarzbier should be very dark brown, and sweet, from what I recall. Bitburger, where I worked in germany, owned a schwarz called Köstritzer, so I got a lot of it for free.

Well cool. I should email my buddy Brandon (head terrapin brewer) and ask him about it.

Speaking of cider (speaking of from the Homebrewing thread), what are some of the best of the commercially available hard ciders? My wife is going through a cider phase...

Crispin makes some pretty good ones using specialty yeasts and various barrels, and I have liked most of the Angry Orchard varieties I have consumed. Fox Barrel isn't bad, and Ace is fairly decent. I'd generally stay away from most Woodchuck products and Magners.

Craft Beer + TV related: I'm enjoying Brew Dogs on the new Esquire channel
http://tv.esquire.com/shows/brew-dogs

Look very hard for J K Scrumpy cider. On the sweeter side but delicate and special. Angry Orchard is Sam Adams mass produced stuff. Woodchuck etc is sweet garbage. We have some great choices out here, I wish I could get her samples. West County especially... Over a dozen single varietal styles.

I want to check that out.