After raging on the road through a rain storm and other epic weather conditions, we finally landed on our friend’s couch around midnight, and immediately cracked open a couple things I brought up from NYC with me.  We decided to call it a night pretty quickly given the amount of beer we were planning on consuming the next day, but not before I was able to impress my friend with a year old bottle of Captain Lawrence Xtra Gold, which he had never been able to try, and a few other miscellaneous treats.  After a booze-free brunch the next morning, our beer day began at The Independent Pub in Union Square with a big round of Founder’s Red’s Rye P.A. I was supposed to write up a big batch of Founder’s a while ago and never got around to it, which is a shame, as they are one of my favorite Michigan breweries.  Founder’s produces a nice stable of both year round and seasonal beers, and besides the Centennial IPA, I’ve gone for their Red’s Rye Pale Ale more than any other.  Red’s pours a deep reddish brown color, clear as a beer could possibly be.  The nose is pure citrus/grapefruit/tropical fruit explosion from the insane amount of Amarillo hops used in the beer, without much malt or spice to be found, but only small hints of both.  The flavors this beer packs are more balanced but it’s still more or less a fantastic citrus bomb that stas crisp and smooth throughout.  Drinking it a bit warmer will make it seem more malty and balanced, but no matter the temperature, the bitterness is never harsh or overpowering.  A new fangled, more modern version of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is a good touchstone — more in your face, less concerned about mass market drinkability.  All in all, an awesome start to a great weekend of beer.

After the Independent we started to make our way over to the Cambridge Brewing Company, a rather storied institution whose beers I have tried only once, at a festival, far from their home base.  CBC has been around for 20 years, which is a hell of a lot considering there are hardly any functioning brew pubs that have been going continuously for that long.  What makes CBC special, besides their focus on beer’s relationship with food, is their obsession with producing a vast array of beer styles, not specializing or focusing too heavily in one area.  In one night of moderate drinking, my friends and I were able to taste a classic-styled Kolsch, a barrel aged Sour Kriek, and more.  Here’s a recap:

Regatta Golden: I’m starting to appreciate it more and more when I can go to a place like CBC which sells a lot of far-out beers and also try a more classic style, like this Kolsch styled German Ale.  Kolsch is like the Pilsner of the Ale world, if that makes any sense, and the Regatta Golden is a pretty damned good take on a difficult to pull off style.  There’s a common understanding amongst home brewers and even profressional brewers that sometimes the simplest beers are the hardest to brew.  Sure, you can easily pull off a super bitter IPA, a fruity Wheat Beer, or even a gigantic stout, but can you balance your Kolsch? Can you produce a flawless Pale Ale?  CBC clearly can, and the Regatta golden is as clear and crisp of a golden ale as I’ve ever had.  Very refreshing, balanced, and, damn, I gotta say it again, CRISP, there’s also a nice touch of bitterness, spiciness, and breadiness to keep everything together.  Awesome with food, before food, or after food — just awesome.

Jedi Mind Trick: The terrible name aside, the Jedi Mind Trick is actually a Belgian Styled IPA or an American Styled Tripel depending on who you ask or how many versions of this beer you’ve had before.  The combination of American Hops and Belgian Yeast is probably my favorite innovation in the past few years, and with excellent breweries like Stone, Green Flash, and other West Coast pioneers perfecting it, it’s always nice when an East Coast example steps up.  Since CBC doesn’t have the overwhelmingly insane track record for dealing with massive amounts of hops, I was surprised and delighted to be … so surprised and delighted with this beer.  It’s a difficult balance to pull off, that of balancing Yeast and Hops, and the JMT is a great example of a beer that can pull you in one direction one minute and then another the next without being overwhelming, inconsistent, or fatiguing on the palate.  There’s nice malt sweetness, Yeast spiciness, Hop bitterness, and a nice amount of Hop flavor as well that all swim together in your goblet to give you a great picture of the amazing conversation going on right now between Belgian and American brewers.  Fresh and delicious, JMT skirts enough lines without crossing too many boundaries and becoming muddled, to the point where I’ll even forgive them the name.

Arquebus: Arquebus is definitely the beer I heard the most about before ever trying any of CBC’s beers, and with good reason.  It’s billed as a “Summer Barleywine,” and the CBC website explains that it’s produced with a lot of local honey, enhanced with white wine grapes, and then aged in chardonnay barrels for 18 months.  The result is a massive 11% ABV beer that pours a beautiful deep golden color like an Itallian white desert wine.  There are oxidative, fruity, and phenolic notes when you sniff, and a whole kaleidoscope of flavors when you sip.  Arquebus is smooth and deep, not too overwhelming but hardly something you could drink a full pint of either.  Really one of those beers that needs to be experienced in person, it is by far one of the most wine like brews I’ve ever had, and one of my favorites of all time for that matter.  Just absolutely intense and if I had a stock of 33ml bottles of this, I’m not sure I’d ever leave the house.

Cerise Casee:  Anytime I see a “Barrel-fermented Sour Wild Ale” on any beer menu, I’m excited, but after seeing all that CBC had to offer, and reading about their process for producing this beer, I was out of my mind stoked and shocked at the same time.  I’m not sure why CBC doesn’t get more credit in beer circles for doing some truly unique things with Barrel-aged and Sour beers, but Will at Cambridge is easily on par with Vinne at Russian River and Ron at Jolly Pumpkin in terms of truly pushing the envelope.  Cerise Casee is produced using the “Solera” fermentation system, which, like the system used in Belgium to produce Gueuze, has young, middle-aged, and older Lambics mixed together to produce the final product. CBC takes this further with an insane sour mash, and barrels that go back 6 years, producing a concoction that is just not attainable had these techniques not been employed.   When you add fresh cherries into the mix, the resulrs are just spectacular.  There is an aged, sherry like quality that accompanies this beer, which serves very nicely in balancing the sour tartness natural to the fermentation style. There is also a noticable amount of flavor from the wood, and a good amount of aroma as well.  This is going to be a once in a lifetime style opportunity for most people who try this beer, and it should be savored.  Make the trip and find out how good it is and how shitty I actually am at describing beer.

After a ridiculous helping of beer and some pretty damned good presentations of local Sea Bass, we called it a night at CBC, hit a local loft to see some out of town friends play an excellent show, and called it a night.  The next morning we hit another brunch spot and then did some shopping before hitting the road.  We had been talking about hitting Publick House Provisions, the retail arm of the well-renowned pub and bar in Brookline called the Publick House.  After a nice coffee at a friend’s coffee shop, we wandered in to Boston’s Beer Mecca.  Provisions is a very clean, well stocked shop that focuses on Beer, Glassware, and Cheeses, which, aside from the glassware, of course had me thinking of Bierkraft.  I was mainly in the market for Pretty Things beers, of which I was able to score a few bottles, but was also pleasantly surprised to find a bottle of Cascade Kriek.  I wasn’t very impressed by the “display only” case of Westvleteren beers behind the counter, the somewhat asshole-ish attitude of the guy behind the counter, or the outrageous prices on glassware ($12 for B. United glasses? What the hell? Should have checked before I walked out), but hey, this is a beer store, not social hour, so what am I expecting? All in all I would be excited to have this place as my local shop as I’m sure Brookline heads are, and I walked out with a nice haul.

I was very impressed with the beer offerings Boston had, especially it’s focus on pairing awesome beer with awesome food.  The beer culture there is strong and I’ll be back soon to hit it again.  Thanks to KFW and Robyn for the hospitality!

When I showed up I was pleasantly surprised to learn that minds behind 12 Percent Imports (who I raved about here) were behind bringing Hopfenstark into the city, and more than just a “tasting,” this was the celebration of the beer being available in NYC now — very cool.  We don’t get much great Canadian beer down here, and as I made my way through the list, I was pleasantly surprised by everything I tried.  Hopfenstark has a real knack with differentiating his beers from each other, and for not going too deeply into one “category” of beers to the point where other categories suffer.  Each beer had distinctions that led themselves to their styles — varying carbonation levels, varying means of fermentation and yeasts, lots of varying flavors.  I’ll give a brief rundown here of some of those selections, and will add, as usual — DRINK THIS BEER! It’s fantastic.

Blanche De L’Ermitage (5.0% ABV Witbier) – After completely overdoing the Witbier thing last year, and drinking an insane amount of Schneider-Weisse, it’s been kinda hard for me to drink Wheat Beers lately.  Hopfenstark’s Blanche De L’Ermitage, however, defied all of my expectations by providing a very unique and interesting drinking experience.  This is the beer that really had me praising the brewer’s tenacity and talent — this is a very rustic, not very integrated beer, but that doesn’t bother me at all.  It had all of the right peppery, spicey notes without overwhelming the banana (in fact it was barely present) and the spiciness and fullness of flavor kept it very drinkable, while finishing very dry and keeping you coming back for more.  Maybe the most “Saisonish” Witbier I’ve tried, with nice brisk carbonation, a tendency toward the browner side of the spectrum, and overwhelmingly exploding with flavor and aroma from spices.  Awesome.

Post Coloniale (6.0% ABV American IPA) – After seeing a big list of Saisons, I was excited to see styles like Porter and IPA represented as well.  The Post Coloniale is one of the “roughest,” most rustic IPAs I’ve ever had, and while I hate to keep harping on that term, there is a certain aggressive quality with these beers which tend toward representing all of the ideas the beer has to offer without much concern for balance or other typical designations of “quality” which I never really care about anyway.  An American IPA with a French Canadian via Belgium twist, the Post Coloniale is  a cloudy, intensely flavored beer with a very nice melange of hop aromas.  There’s not an overwhelming amount of bitterness present, whcih supports a nice malt backbone and is dried out by a low finishing gravity and a very nice piney, citrusy note at the end of the sip.  A little bit difficult to explain, but a very interesting brew, Post Coloniale is a glimpse into what other Saison Producing breweries might do if faced with the task of making an IPA, where the hops become as much of a spice as anything else.  Very nice.

Loulou Porter (5.0% ABV Porter) - A very delicious selection on cask, the Loulou had the perfect amount of carbonation, roastiness, and sweetness to make it one of the best new porters I’ve sampled in a very long time.  A nice Mapley nose is complemented with a similar initial flavor on the tongue, which dries out and makes this a very drinkable beer.  Not an overwhelming amount of chocolatey or bitter notes keeps the affair very smooth, and this dark, almost still beer could be a huge winner to replace any number of flavorless, bubbless beers anywhere in the United Kingdom, but I’d be happy to keep it all for my own.  By this point in the night, I’m very “warm.”  Let’s keep going.

Brewer Fred brought in a small quantity of a few bottles which he brought down for the events, and this included 3 Saisons, named with different numbers, for different reasons.  I’ll break down the two I tried:

Saison Station 7 (5.0% ABV Saison) – Thusly named because it is “made with 7 spices,” Saison Station 7 actually kind of refutes the points I made above about rustic, unbalanced beers and produces a mixture of spices, wild yeast, and malt that is one of the most complex and interesting Saisons I’ve had from outside of Belgium, or anywhere.  After pouring a ruddy orange color with a lot of bubbles, the nose has a good amount of spice and interesting yeast notes, and as you sip the beer, more spices poke out at you — is there Ginger? Coriander? Peppercorns? Some other traditional Witbier spicing? Or none of these? I’m not sure what the 7 spices are, but the soup is improved, as opposed to being too muddied up with all of that flavor.  A true Saison that is produced seasonally and just with whatever the brewer has around, Station  7 is an awesome selection.

Saison Station 55 (6.5% ABV Saison) – Station 55 gets its appelation from containing 55 IBUs, and this awesome, bitter Saison is one of my favorite selections of the whole night.  Similar in color and carbonation level to the 7. Station 55 marries the spicy yeast notes from the Saison yeast with the herbal, spicy, and citrusy flavors from the hops, creating an awesome marraige of classic Belgian and West Coast USA flavors, in a package with a hint of wild yeast, a hint of spice, and a hell of a lot of complex drinkability.  Another score.

I’m interested to see when this beer will be around NYC more regularly, and whether we’ll get bottles, kegs, or both.  I’m going to make it a point to try all of them — and I recommend you do the same.

My craft beer journey began with a healthy hop obsession.  Here are five IPA that I wrote about, and five that I didn’t:

Green Flash West Coast IPA -The first beer I wrote about, one that really got me going.  An intense bomb of an IPA in session beer clothing.  Green Flash is one of my top breweries of 2008 and is one of the most consistent representatives of the amazing San Diego movement that really lets the hops flow.

Ithaca Flower Power IPA -The beer that I think about when I hear clueless west coast bloggers say that “there are no good east coast IPAs” or “when will east coast IPAs match up with west coast examples?”  Flower Power is transcendent on tap, amazingly sessionable in bottles, and well, it’s just fucking great.  We get it fresh and it kicks our asses.

Mikkeller Stateside IPA – One of the first beers that I grabbed based on how it looked, even though I had never heard of it.  I thought, “whoah, beer from Denmark, awesome.”  And it turned out to be a winner.  A delicious European take on an IPA, the concept of which proves the complexity of the craft beer industry and makes the “is beer as deep as wine” debate seem completely ridiculous.

Two Brothers Heavy Handed IPA – One of the best breweries in the country right now with one of the most delicious examples of a wet hop beer I’ve had.  The freshest hops in one of the brightest, most drinkable floral IPAs I’ve had, ever.  And that’s almost a year’s worth of experience talking…sorry, I can’t keep that up.

Bell’s Hopslam – I chased this beer like a madman, and it was worth it.  I finally ended up with it in a serendipitous manner, as an “extra” in a beer trade.  I was not disappointed at all — I shared it with a good friend, and it lived up to both of our expectations.  Honey, bitterness, sweetness.  Wow.

Five beers I didn’t review but fucking ruled:

Russian River Blind Pig & Pliny the Elder – Believe the hype, enough said.

Bear Republic Racer 5 – One of the first West Coast IPAs I ever heavily sessioned — very memorable.  Crisp and delicious.

Victory Yakima Twilight – A tiny cup of this from a cask at Bierkraft was enough to put it near the top of my list.  Very generous bitterness and incredible hop character flavor and aroma wise as well.

Lagunitas Hop Stoopid – One of my first IPA holy grails that I drank out on the west coast first but have since had the pleasure of drinking on tap and from growlers a couple times since.  Seriously, it’s Stoopid.

I began my stupid blog by saying I didn’t like lagers, and I ended saying I wish I drank more.  I really have an affinity for Bocks and Doppelbocks, and the goat phenomenon on the blog has been duly noted.  Namely Ayinger Celebrator, which is pretty much completely lifechanging.  But there’s also Sierra Nevada Double Debockel and Smuttynose S’Muttonator Doppelbock, which both bring their own new world perspectives.  Embrace them and drink them often.

Sour, “funky,” or “wild” brews made a big splash this year, and I was lucky enough to sample some of the best examples around.  Here’s a list of them, in list form:

Jolly Pumpkin Calabaza Blanca -Probably in my top 3 favorite beers for the year.  Extremely drinkable “infected” Wheat Beer from one of my favorite breweries and the shining star of Michigan’s amazing brewing scene.  Everything from them is spectacular, and there’s always something special about an interesting beer that you could drink a lot of.  Superb.

New Glarus Unplugged Berliner Weiss – When I started trading beer, New Glarus was at the top of the list of breweries I needed to get my hands on.  I wasn’t disappointed by their more popular Raspberry Tart of Belgian Red beers, but this specific “ungplugged” beer really struck a chord with me — also a very sessionable sour beer.  Beautifully complex and acidic, and very wine-like.  I hope this comes back next time around.

Hanssens Mead The Gueuze – Spuyten Duyvil in Brooklym has become one of the holy beer grails of the entire city, and for good reason.  One night I went there to drink Cantillon and ended up drinking a lot of Hannssens instead.  An amazing blender of lambics and gueuezes, Hannsens made this specific gueuze with mead, which was an inspired choice — the deep, musty flavors from the honey complimented the over the top sourness and acidity of the gueueze with which it was mixed.  Any Hannsens is worth drinking, but this is my current favorite.

Russian River Beatification – Russian River is just completely unstoppable.  One brewery having the top entries for me in both the IPA and Sour Beer category is just fucking ridiculous.  Vinnie, you’re killing me.

Captain Lawrence Cuvee de Castleton – I didn’t write this beer up fully, but I wrote about going to the brewery for its release, which was a great time.  Opened another 750ml bottle of this recently and was very impressed by it’s grapey complexity.  A lot of different flavors and aromas going on, like a tamer Beatification with a bit more bright acidity.  Excellent, local, and another example of a brewery that can master both Sour beers and other, maltier or hoppier styles.

The following beers were inducted into the BDB “Life is Beautiful” Hall of Fame: Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock, Russian River Damnation, ’t Gaverhopke Extra, Three Floyd’s Alpha King, Three Floyd’s Gumballhead, Orval Trappist Ale, De Dolle Stille Nacht, Rochefort 10.  Read about them, drink them, live them.

We attended many events this year.  Spuyten Duyvil, The Gate, and Blind Tiger have taken the show with their amazing dedication to breweries, regional beers, and beer styles, which are all showcased at various times at these fine establishments.  Even though New York City gets an amazing amount of beer, it’s always a treat when something special comes in — and these places love to share.

To wrap it up, I have a few 2009 Beer Year Resolutions — brew more, drink more, and visit the west coast on a full beer trip.  Until next time, thanks for reading.

The first time I ever came across the Bear, he was pretty sweet to me.  We were on his home turf, and a bar I was at had extremely fresh kegs of Racer 5, their “session” IPA, on draught.  For undisclosed reasons I was afforded copious amounts of this beer for free, which went down smooth and truly gave me an appreciation for fresh, bright, amazing West Coast IPA.  Since then I’ve flirted with the Bear some more, finding some on tap here and there, drinking the bottles that I could, with Racer 5 and Hop Rod Rye far outweighing the others in terms of what I consumed.

Needless to say I was not prepared for the intensity of the beers that The Gate had on that night.  There were TWENTY lines of Bear Republic to choose from, plus three casks which were tapped in series.  Having chased the fabled Racer X for so long after loving it’s younger brother, and having none of my friends around to discourage me from burning my mouth with hop insanity before I drank anything else, I had to go for it.  A pint of Racer X is as close as I have gotten in a long time to the completely sublime freshness of IPA on the West Coast.  There was a clean brightness about Racer X that sets it apart from the other big IPA, Apex, that I had at the Blind Tiger a few months back.  A beautiful amber color that belied the beer’s easy drinking finish, Racer X is perfectly carbonated, relatively light bodied without being thin, and finishes with an insane hop wallop dryness that is damaging but not tongue destroying.  Of course the nose on this beer is what I was after and I was not disappointed.  Didn’t have the wherewithal to try and figure out what kind of Hops went into it, but there were massive amounts of resin, citrus, and just insane fresh Hop aroma.  Wow.  I tried to drink this slowly but that didn’t go so well.

Next I was encouraged by Pat and others to try the cask, Hop Rod Rye, already mentioned as one of my favorites from the brewery.  It took me a few minutes to warm the beer up and try to recover my taste buds, but both kicked in in sufficient time and I was pleasantly surprised by how great the cask treated this beer.  Or rather, how untreated it was — it was a beautiful ruddy brown, hazed and dark.  Regardless, the natural, light carbonation and preserved freshness did wonders for the round Malt flavors, and the lack of heavy carbonation allowed the Rye to come across in a gentler, less astringent fashion.  This Rye IPA is a great example of how malt, bitterness, and spice can all come together to form a sessionable IPA without leaning to far in any one direction.  Bear Republic is masterful at balancing these properties…when they want to.

When they don’t want to be balanced, they aren’t.  After not taking it easy for my first two selections, I went for the 11% ABV Barrel Aged Old Scouter’s Barleywine next.  As shocked as I was by the first two beers, I could never have expected how perfect and wonderful this barleywine is.  I was literally walking around stunned, telling everyone who would listen that I would rather “frame this beer than drink it.”  Massive amounts of malt and barrel funk are the first thing you smell when you bring this beer up to your gullet.  The malt was so thick and heavy on the nose that I couldn’t stop smelling it, like the time I visited a sugar shack in Massachussettes and wanted to bathe in the steam of the Maple Syrup cooking down.  Touted as 120 IBUs, Scouter’s didn’t dissapoint in the bitterness department, but as unbalanced and insane as this beer intentionally is, it actually finished pretty clean.  Delicious, warming malt coats your palate first, which is then washed away by strong bitterness.  Genius moves all around.  I’m not sure how old or how common this is, but wow, wow, wow.  One of the best Barleywine’s I’ve ever had, and definitely my #1 Bear Republic beer, even though I don’t think I’d have the heart to drink another anytime soon.

Bear Republic completely mauled all of us at The Gate that night — and I learned a lot about beer in the process.  Honorable Mentions go to EZ Ryder, a 100% Rye Beer (yes, and it was…balanced, ridiculous) and Pete Brown’s (a winner as always).  For more action, check out Beertender Pat’s pictures from the event for completely superfluous heavy crew shots.

So a few friends arranged a chance going away party for a very close friend who is off to the left coast in his greasecar to occur in the backyard of the bar, and the chilly October day provided the perfect backdrop to the array of mindblowing beers that were to come.  I personally tried 10 or 11 beers for the first time, as a nice sized group of us went several rounds, trying to diversify our selections and share.  Spending the day drinking almost entirely German Lagers is something I’ve never come close to pulling off, and it shows the amazing dedication of the SD people to bring things in that are different, rare, and unique.  Check out their Grocery Store or the bar on an average day and you’ll be shocked. Here’s a rundown of some of the things I drank, remembered, and enjoyed (Note: I took these names from this list – posted by the Bar – http://beeradvocate.com/events/info/20776) :

Weissenohe Klosterbrauerei Monks Dunkel - Coincidentally enough, on the morning of hitting the bar for the festival, Stinky had accompanied me on an errand which involved going to a local brewery.  Getting dropped off around the corner, we remarked at how awesome it was that we could smell the mash for several blocks around the brewery.  I mention this because sniffing, tasting, and sniffing again, this beer reminded everyone at the table who had brewed of the smell of “mashing in.” The fresh, you-know-you’re-making-beer-now smell that happens when you heat up water and add it to malted barley.  This was a very dark, mildly carbonated Lager with an awesomely focused malt taste with the right amount of Lager crispness to make it insanely drinkable and actually interesting.  My first offering from Weissenohe and a stellar endorsement for a brew I might never have again.

Weiherer Rauchbier – One of my favorite styles of German Beer is the Rauchbier, that is a Lager made with a portion of smoked malt, or smokiness acheived by some other means.  This Rauch was an awesome example — another surprisingly subtle take on the style that allowed all kinds of action to shine.  Definitely not the kind of Rauchbier that kicked you in the nose with smoke flavor or reminded you of drinking liquid bacon (hardly a bad thing), the Weiherer Rauchbier (brewed, I believe by Brauerei Gasthof Kundmüller) has a mild hop and malt presence, with a good amount of smoke on the nose and a bready maltiness besides.  A good introductory beer for the style, perhaps, or a great beer to help kick off a session of Lager Drinking.  Would have gone great with the sausages they were selling outside at the SD — I think of Rauchbier as a killer food beer.  Not sure how this one is out of the bottle, it was served here on cask.

Pine-Tar Pitch Lined Wooden Cask of Weissenohe Klosterbrauerei Altfrankish – Definitely the most bizarre beer of the night, and actually in the top 3 most bizarre brews I’ve ever had the pleasure of consuming, this Altfrankish, which I believe is a Keller beer, an obscure, unfiltered style of amber German Lager, was served out of an imposing looking pine-tar pitch lined wooden cask, which was hanging out at the end of the bar.  Stinky started out with this beer and our friend Alex, who loves sour and Belgian beers, couldn’t get enough, ordering two consecutive pints.   The Altfrankish poured a cloudy, hazy brown with zero carbonation or head.  Served at slightly colder than room temperature (or maybe it was the cold outside), I’m having a hard time conjuring up the right adjectives to describe this one accurately.  There was a maltiness, both “bready” and “caramelly” whcih was not erradicated but rather supported by a funked out sourness that verged on the “vinegary.”  Kind of sounds like someone’s failed homebrew Lager, but in reality, it tasted ancient and just right — Franconia has the largest number of small breweries on the planet, and at one time more people were drinking beer like this than the Pilseners that dominate today.  A pure glimpse into a historical method of serving a historical beer, I felt very lucky to have tried this beer and major props to SD for going through the trouble of transporting or helping in the transport of such a fragile product.

Mahrs Der Weisse Bock – Stinky admonished me for ordering an “available” beer, but I really didn’t give a shit.  I wanted to drink a familiar style from a familiar producer at the end of my beer “flight,” and this was perfect.  Besides having arguably the label with the drunkest goat of all time, this Weisse Bock, probably my favorite German Ale style, and the only Ale I believe I drank all day, is a perfect capper for a long cold day.  Insane amounts of dried fruit and malt are present in this dark, beautiful beer.  This is widely available in bottles and I feel no shame for finishing the day with it – it was a great counterpoint with its dark richness to the other beers we were drinking, and had the right amount of bright fruit notes to keep me going.  Plus, drinking anything while starting at that goat will just make you feel better.

Of course I’ve been drinking beers while I haven’t been writing, and those notes are stacking up.  I wanted to write up a few, and my head pounding from too much coding is giving me a good reason to do so.  I also wanted to shout out osme other resources that I’ve really been into lately.

Beer Podcasts: Yep, I’ve gone that far.  I spend a lot of time listening to these on the train now, and my reading has been suffering a bit for it, but that’s okay.  The Brewing Network is the home to some great shows, including The Session, Brew Strong, and the Jamil Show.  Experts such as John Palmer, regular guest brewers, and knowledgeable fans all make these shows very informative.  I’m not as much into the pseudo-shock jock aspect, the loud and shitty rock music, or the repetitive and not-so-funny commercials, but hey, what can ya do.  I listen a lot anyway, and if you listen closely you realize these guys really know what they’re talking about, and they are passionate about what they do.  And hey, I am generally entertained by those goofballs — awesome stuff.  Basic Brewing Radio at first struck me as being pretty conservative and almost boring, but that was before I ever listened.  It’s a reliable source for good information, the host has a very soothing voice that makes your cares melt away, and it’s concise, entertaining, and fun.  They have a video component as well which is finding its stride, and I’ve learned a lot so far.  Well done.  Craft Beer Radio is an old standby that delivers personal perspectives on beers, with a focus on tasting.  Also great for the train.

Unsurprisingly I’ve been reading beer books too — How to Brew by John Palmer, Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher, Brew Like a Monk by Stan Hieronymus, Farmhouse Ales by Phil Markowski, and Wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow are all essential.  Look them up, absorb them, and live them.  You won’t be sorry.

My own beer is coming along quite well.  I have my “Bitter Farm Cat” Hoppy/Sour Saison in secondary, where it will stay while I’m gone.  I’m hoping more sour character will come out as I’m gone.  The “Rye Farm Cat” Rye Saison has been in bottles for over two weeks and is round, spicy, a bit funky, and delicious.  I’m very pleased.

So what have I been drinking? A bunch of new stuff came through, including four legendary west coast IPAs I’ve never had the pleasure of having — Alesmith IPA, Russian River Blind Pig, Russian River Pliny the Elder, and 21st Amendment’s “Brew Free or Die” IPA.  All four are excellent, and in their own way.  Alesmith is beautiful, floral, and well balanced.  Blind Pig and Pliny deserve all of the hype they get, two sides of one amazing hop bomb of a coin, and the crisp freshness of the 21A IPA in a can is hard to beat, period.  All essential to track down, and drink them fresh.

East Coast love from Captain Lawrence and Sixpoint have been big players lately too — with Smoke from the Oak: Rum Barrel from CL topping the list for me of their Barrel Aged porters.  Small bubbles, black pour, fruity rum on the nose, and a wallop of hot booze make for a very complex drink.  A Trappist Beer on a binge in Barbados might be a good description.  Sixpoint’s Gemini Double IPA, Belgian Rye, and Belgian Double IPA are all fantastic, as is the Belgian Flavored “Sweet Re-Action,” a throwback to an older recipe for one of their most popular and sought after beers.  Sixpoint continues to impress — but you wouldn’t know that if you don’t live in NYC or Boston.  Rumors of expansion abound, but will it happen?

I’ll keep a list of what I’m drinking on the road, and I’ll hopefully be bringing back some treasures.  Here’s to hoping that I can sample Orval and one or two Lambics on draught, score some Westy’s, and get freaked out several times by the beers I find.  Wish me luck.

The beer is an “American Wild Ale” or an “American Sour,” but whatever it is it ain’t normal.  Oak Aged for a year, refermented with Muscat Grapes, dosed with other beer-consuming creatures, etc.  Captain Lawrence produces what is in my experience the first East Coast beer that rivals the insanity of a Belgian Sour beer.  Not quite as intense as a Lambic or Gueze, but super intense, tart, acidic, balanced, dry, and just delicious.  It’s a great sign for the brewery, and a great time to be around and obsessed with beer.

The event itself was pretty fun and highlighted some of the best qualities of the craft beer community.  Awaiting the first people to show up pretty early on a saturday morning for a beer release was a cooler with the first bottle of the batch inside.  The first people to show up opened it up and shared it — awesome! The parking lot turned into a tailgate party, with people sharing brews they had to share, talking shit about beer, and enjoying a beautiful Saturday morning.  Next time CL has a release, I’ll probably be there! If you will be too, let us know!

I almost missed Ithaca’s Brute, having forgotten about it and skipped it on my first circuit, but thankfully a friend reminded me and I ran back to get a taste. Get psyched for this one, people! The next bottling in Ithaca’s wholly amazing Excelsior series, Ithaca calls it an “American Golden Sour Ale,” and it marks an awesome entry into the expanding American market for sour beers. It pours cloudy and has a fully barnyardy and acetic funk to it with some mild fruit to back it up. It was one of the last beers I had after decimating my mouth with hops all day and it’s puckering sourness did a great job in helping to get that bitterness off my mind. This is a tight tight brew with everthing going right for it, and I am super psyched to be able to get a sour beer of this caliber out here on the east coast once they start bottling in August. It’s getting too expensive having Russian River bottles shipped from Cali in trade!

Lagunitas is a super-reliable purveyor of heavily hopped IPAs, DIPAs, red ales, and pretty much anything they can run across a hop-back. Their Hop Stoopid, which I had from the bottle while on the west coast in the spring, can be considered their ultimate paean to the hop flower. We try to keep drug references at bay here at the BDB, or at least keep them subtle, but the smell of this brew poured from the tap at the beer festival was straight-up dank weed. It was uncanny, and intoxicating, so much so that it was one of the few samples I felt compelled to try more than once all day. The flavor was heavy on the grapefruit, which is how I like my DIPAs, with the bitterness perfectly balanced by the malt and a finish that leans back towards tight and piney leaving you wanting another sip. I love, love, love this beer and love the freshness it had on draft, now if only I could find it on cask somewhere…

The final brew I want to bring to everyone’s attention is Bear Republic’s Crazy Ivan, a beer which makes no fucking sense, but tastes so fucking good. Bear Republic is another west coast brewer that is heavy-handed with the hops. Their Racer 5 is another of my favorite day-to-day IPAs and I am still waiting to get a taste of the legendary Racer X. This brew is a blend of their Racer 5 and Red Rocket worts fermented with Belgian yeast. I know, right? The smell has some nuttiness and banana to it, owing to the estery Belgian yeast used, with some hops detectable as well. The flavor is like an American-Hopped Belgian Ale, just so totally out there and different from anything I have ever tried that it really threw me for a loop. I’d highly recommend checking it out if you ever come across it.

And there you have it, notes from my first ever beer event! And lest I leave you wanting for more beers to seek out, here are some honorable mentions:

Avery 15 – Awesome in the bottle, was even better on draft here.
Sixpoint Hop Obama – Indefinable ale, Scottish yeast, Pacific NW hops, change you can believe in.
The Livery Carvacious – DIPA/Sour blend, actually everything from this Michigan brewpub was great, can’t wait to get out that way to check it out.

I had seen Brooklyn’s BLAST! on the list but hadn’t heard about it previously, which is odd for a hometown brewer that I keep an eye on. Calling your beer a “San Diego Style IPA” is pretty bold, which is never a problem for Garrett Oliver, but delivering on such a claim is a whole ‘nother thing. I was definitely psyched to check it out since Green Flash’s IPA has been in heavy fridge rotation for me lately, but sadly this guy didn’t come close. There was enough hop aroma on the nose for sure, but mostly piney, and there was a woody and musty undertone that was immediately unsettling. Hop flavor was piney as well and very bitter, not balanced at all by any malt sweetness, and there was a bit of sourness to the brew as well that didn’t play at all. Total bummer vibe.

Another interesting item on the brew list for me was Magic Hat’s “experimental” Berliner Weiss, which they were serving with a squirt of either raspberry or woodruff syrup. I’ve been trying to get a handle on this style lately so I was definitely interested to see the perspective that an American craft brewer could bring to it. I tried it first without the syrup and had to take 3 sips to be sure I tasted anything. It did smell a bit sour, but the flavor was insipid, mildly wheaty if anything. The woodruff syrup wholly obliterated any flavor that might have been present and didn’t add to my enjoyment of the brew at all. Oh well, back to German Berliners.

I decided that giving the previously reviewed Southern Tier Cherry Saison another shot on draft would be a good way to see if the other brew dogs’ opinions about this one still held true. They did. On draft the oddness of the cherries on the nose seemed to be magnified. Flavor was still pretty straightforward saison, but I couldn’t get past the nose. Perhaps it was mental, but now that I’ve given this one it’s fair shake I’m ready to move on in the Southern Tier world. (Perhaps to this years Uber Sun, where is it guys?)

Stay tuned for the good stuff. And damn was there some good stuff.

Next I went for the Ichor Quad, which I had tried once before at the Kelso Cask Festival a few months back. My mouth was overwhelmed that day by the unholy amount of Green Flash Imperial IPA I was drinking, so I didn’t really get it. This time, I really did. Ichor is a thick black mass of delicious, lightly carbonated brew. It has fruit, vanilla, and some spice going on and the carbonation is light and tasteful. This beer is really immense at 10% ABV and it definitely catches up with you as you drink it. A nice pint glass full of this really set me straight. Sly Fox shows their strength here in making beers that are balanced yet opinionated, and it was cool to see a Hop forward beer and a Malt forward beer back to back. I sat on the Ichor for a while and talked a whole bunch of shit while it just got smoother and mellower, and the heavier aspects crept up as time went on, some caramel appeared, and then fruit took over. Two great beers from Sly Fox.