Coaster Palooza Posted February 29, 2008 Share Posted February 29, 2008 Hi, Sorry I haven't been on here in a while, but I have thought about you guys. Here is something you might enjoy. Wine or Water Ben Franklin reputedly said: In wine there is wisdom. In beer there is freedom. In water there are bacteria. In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists are said to have demonstrated that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. coli) - bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop. However, we do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer (or vodka, tequila, rum, whiskey, or other liquor) because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting. Remember: Water = Poop, Wine = Health Therefore, it's better to drink wine and talk stupid, than to drink water and be full of POOP! There is no need to thank me for this valuable information. I'm doing it as a public service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nay Posted March 1, 2008 Share Posted March 1, 2008 I went out to celebrate a friend's birthday this week and had some Magners Cider. Very good! Sorry for the poor quality cell phone photo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParkTrips Posted March 2, 2008 Share Posted March 2, 2008 just one beer for me earlier tonight... did a good share of drinking Friday night, but without pics I really liked it, despite the fact that saisons are not typically my style. Citrusy and yeasty with a low abv and it went down easy for me. A nice beer but not among the elite by any means but it was a good one, Carevale, my first beer from the Lost Abbey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekRx Posted March 2, 2008 Share Posted March 2, 2008 Friday may have been Leap Day, but for us it was Growler Night. Time to head over to Heath's place to enjoy some Friday Night Pints featuring stouts. Lots of burnt character in this one, along with some dark fruits, a touch of chocolate, and coffee, but to me it was just lots and lots of burnt marshmellows and soy sauce. Though maybe the Valdez acted more like Exxon and less like Juan and crashed my tastebuds. next up, the much acclaimed High Desert from Sweetwater as always, Kim made enough food for an army. But when the food is this good, it goes fast! and holy Jebus is there coffee in there! Sure beats the free stuff they were giving away at Dunkin Donuts on the same day! A gift from Deuane who ventured down there the week before, returning with Valdez, a big old coffee stout First up was a growler all the way from Pisgah Brewing in Asheville, NC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParkTrips Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 another beer that came via PA... And it kicked ass! It really was, to steal from the hot rod theme, a supercharged version of my beloved RPA. Loaded up with hops (but not overpowering, despite IBUs in the 90+ range) I really liked this one, and the rye malt just balanced it out perfectly to come together to produce 22 ounces of awesomeness. If only we had this in GA!! Thanks Derek for another killer beer! MY first Bear Republic beer, the Hop Rod Rye! A double IPA loaded up with Rye malt... one of my favorite beers is the Terrapin RYE pale ale so I was very excited for this one.. as you can tell by the pour Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekRx Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 ^No problem, Joe! Thought I'd give you more thanks for your gift by enjoying one today. I figured it was time for another theme, so the new theme of the week: Brews From Some of My Favorite Breweries. Sadly, there are more favorite breweries than I can cover in a week (and some I don't have any beers from right now), but here will be 7 of them over the next 7 days. It's hoppy yet it's a wheat. It rules. Now if only they would make themselves more readily available instead of constantly giving little tasting spurts to areas and then "cutting back" Next up, even though Three Floyds has a major ego about how great they are, they brew some great stuff, like Gumballhead so I can't deny them One fine hoppy red ale with lots of malty flavor as well, thanks Joe! First up, Big Hoppy Monster from Terrapin, who just recently opened up their brewery in Athens, GA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugged One Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 All right, I'm finally going to start up Imperial Stout week. First up, some California love... And this was a good choice to start the week out with. This guy was big and beefy with deep notes of chocolate, dark fruits, and heat. Good stuff! Ryan O'Sullivans Imperial Stout from one of my favs in North Cali, Moylan's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParkTrips Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 Well since everyone else is going with a theme I guess I'll join in This will be Tripel week for me, since its getting warm down here, and I currently have 6 of the top 10 tripels on the BA list in my fridge, including 4 in bombers, so that will make for a week. (tripels as a style rank pretty low with me, hence them building up in my fridge so damn much ) A very solid tripel. Has the taste of a hefe with Belgian smoothness and alcohol kick. A good beer but far from my favorite First up, Tripel Karmeliet, an authentic Belgian tripel. I hit the ceiling uncorking this bottle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bubba83 Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 Yarrr, I guess it's time for me to catch up on some pictures. I am sadly out of beer again, and will need to go somewhere soon to get more. I do have a bunch of pictures from the last week and a half though that I will post. I had a big job interview today and I think it went fairly well. Were those egg rolls that Kim cooked? They looked awesome! Onto the pics we go! By the way, Brian Campbell's got legs! Nice lemon and yeasty spicyness out of the gate that mellows into nice pineapple and other tropical fruit flavors. Beautiful beer on the pour. A sticky white head with an absolutely perfect color and nice lacing too. And finally a new beer back at my place during last week. North Coast's Le Merle, a Saison. Seriously good flavor. Seriously. The hops didn't seem quite as harsh this time around which led to a better malt backbone and fruity qualities. Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot Barleywine, mmmmmmm.... Jee, I hope they don't use cyanide in this beer. Hi there, I'm Rasputin and I am the awesomest beer North Coast makes. Pretty awesome yeasty flavors with a nice wheat background in the finish. Even better as it warms a bit. And we'll follow that up with Aventinus' Weizenbock. It's always amazing to me how white the head is on this for how dark the beer is. A little better than I remember it being, still ranks up there with Samuel Smith's for me. These pics are still from the saturday before last. Anderson Valley's Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout revisited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekRx Posted March 3, 2008 Share Posted March 3, 2008 2nd night of My Favorite Breweries Week brings us to Surly, fairly new to the beer scene, but they sure have raised a raucous in the industry. Can't wait to check out more from these guys from Brooklyn Center, just a short drive from Minneapolis. Wow, that's one funky Marzen, but it sure is good! Lots of hop character as well as rye, but also with that nice Oktoberfest sweetness mixed in. Luckily I grabbed one when I was in Germany 2 years ago! Surly's SurlyFest, what appears to be an Oktoberfest style, though BA lists it as a Rye Ale. In any case, it's canned and needs to be let free, in a stein so says the can Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bubba83 Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 ^ Speaking of Surly... Do you know if they plan to distribute out west? Is it all over the place out in PA or are you guys stocked up from a trip of some sorts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugged One Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 ^ I procured the recent Surly stuff in a trade. As far as I know, they only so far distribute in the greater Twin Cities area and then a more limited distribution in the Chicago market. There are rumors that with their recent expansion, one of the first places they will expand to may be PA. We shall have to see. Imperial Stout week continues. This time with a little something courtesy of Hotlanta! And this wasn't too bad. Lots of chocolate sweetness that is fairly well balanced by a good sized hop presence. It's just wasn't quite as deep and dark as I like though. And as usual, they get their point across on the label. Hey, you gotta get around those crazy Georgia laws somehow! The latest from Sweetwater Brewing with yet another sexually suggestive name. The Happy Ending Imperial Stout. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcjaco Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 ^ I procured the recent Surly stuff in a trade. As far as I know, they only so far distribute in the greater Twin Cities area and then a more limited distribution in the Chicago market. There are rumors that with their recent expansion, one of the first places they will expand to may be PA. We shall have to see. Imperial Stout week continues. This time with a little something courtesy of Hotlanta! It's not down here. I can't find it, and I gots hook ups. Guess I'll just have to go to Minneapolis..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugged One Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 ^ It's was only available on draft. No cans. I know that they shipped some stuff down there (including Darkness) this past fall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekRx Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 Tonight's participant in the "My Favorite Breweries" theme comes to us all the way from San Diego. Again, another place I haven't had 1 bad thing from and wish the stuff was distributed directly to me here in PA. Big thanks to Heath for this Christmas present, I've been holding off on drinking it for long enough! While it's no Pliny, this beer definitely holds its own as a double IPA. Lots of pine and citrus hops with a great sweet malt backbone and even a little hint of peppermint. Makes me wish it was 366 days ago and I was in San Diego right now Alesmith's Yulesmith, a double IPA released twice a year (at Christmas and at Christmas in July). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scaparri Posted March 5, 2008 Share Posted March 5, 2008 Since I'm a champion procrastinator, I thought I'd procrastinate my homework and finally do some of the beer TR's I've been procrastinating. A week and a half ago, I went to ATL and spent the weekend drinking with Joe. It was a serious good time, and he hooked me up with some awesome new beers to take home and try. Thanks again, dude! Simply amazing. It's such an incredibly full, complex beer with great malty flavors. It reminds me of soft red wines in the way that it has a really strong, amazing taste that goes down sooo smooth, despite it's 10% ABV. Definitely my favorite beer to date. Yeah, it's like that... Lastly, to celebrate the open-wheel racing unification last Wednesday, I enjoyed a St. Bernardus Abt 12, which I was sure wouldn't disappoint after having the special edition the previous weekend. It didn't disappoint! I was very much surprised. It had a good malt flavor that was capped off with some really nice floral notes. Judgment time... I can't lie, I was a little nervous about trying this one, because it was quite possibly the worst smelling wheat beer I've ever had. The last beer I had with an aroma like this one turned out to be extremely disappointing. Next is Heavy Seas "Hang Ten" Unfiltered Wheat, a weizen dopplebock from Clipper City Brewery. I enjoyed it a lot. The first few drinks had an average malt flavor, which was good, but it didn't set itself apart. However, as it warmed up, the malt flavors really grew strong and made me wish I had taken more time to drink it! I wish I had another. Definitely a solid doppelbock. First up is the Celebrator Doppelbock from Ayinger Brewery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
65skylark Posted March 5, 2008 Share Posted March 5, 2008 Had some Terminal Gravity X Bar Stout tonight at a local restaurant, sorry no pictures. BUT, I did get a lot of pictures from our trip to the Oregon Coast last weekend so look for a BTR real soon. Oh, and a nice little package from PA arrived at my door today! Lots of new Imperial Stouts makes Justin very happy. A few IPA's and some Nugget Nectar doesn't hurt, either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParkTrips Posted March 5, 2008 Share Posted March 5, 2008 awesome, I'm glad the beers were enjoyed and out of my fridge Im lazy and tired so I'll post my pics tomorrow to vcover the 2 days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bubba83 Posted March 5, 2008 Share Posted March 5, 2008 ^^ I am getting jealous of all the Nugget Nectar! Must acquire some tradeworthy beers soon hehehe! I look forward to seeing the BTR from the Oregon Coast. Also, I know it's a bit early but I am planning to come up with my mom to visit my Aunt, and we'll be there during the Oregon Brewer's Fest in July. I was just wondering if you're planning to go to it because we could meet up! Catching up on pictures from this past weekend now. On Friday I finally bottled my porter, which took quite a bit longer in the fermenter than I thought it would. The original gravity was 1.055, and the final gravity was 1.018, making the beer an even 5% ABV. Taking pictures while doing this by myself for the first time proved to be more difficult than I imagined. I tried again with more dough and was able to get it a little less thick, but the same deal happened with it not being done on top. I am about ready to give up on pizza making as I feel like I am not building the proteins in the dough well enough even after 25-30 mins of kneading. All the better pizza makers use those Kitchenaid mixers, but they cost $200! I baked it anyway and yummy as it may look the crust was way too thick and did not cook through, leaving the top doughy and uncooked. I attempted another pizza, but failed, the dough just would not stay thin enough despite my stretching, it would just curl back up into a small circle. How ironic, he died from hypothermia but he'll warm me up on this rather chilly night. Ahh, he just won't go away will he? Shoot him a few more times in the back and throw him in the river! Yummy! Chocolate is the obvious dominant flavor here which is just fine with me. Big Bear Black Stout makes another appearance as the local liquor store has stocked back up on some Bear Republic. I like their porter and their bock better. It just has less flavor to me than anything else they do, albeit some decent spices. Saturday we'd find something from a while back in the bottom drawer of the fridge. Anchor's Christmas beer. Phew, that was a close one. Wonderfully complex in every sip it seems you can taste something new if you can get past that hop wallop and let it warm a bit. Oh no, my bigfoot's on fire! Quick, put it out! Extreme flavors that you can never really pinpoint any which way. It's all here, chocolate, coffee, pine, and roastyness, in just the right amounts. We've been seeing this guy a lot recently, and are really appreciating the local liquor store a few blocks away carrying the four packs. Hands down the best organic beer I have had. It makes use of mostly roasted barley which is a more irish taste than american. Overall pretty good. North Coast's Old Plowshare Organic Stout. Picked this up at Whole Foods and I don't think they carry it at BevMo. My uncle and I are surprised by how low key this is compared to how extreme we once thought it was. Moving on to Friday night we'd start with a Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout. My army of bombers will be conditioning for 3 more weeks before I send them into battle. I might try to get some labels to print on from my computer and make a cool logo and name this batch. And at last, capping my first bottle of homebrew. It was certainly more work than I thought it would be. I did sneak a taste though and it tastes a bit under-developed still but the flavors are all there, and more importantly I didn't notice any off flavors that could have been created if I had screwed up somewhere. I must have forgotten to take a picture of the bottling bucket with the tubing and bottle filler attached to the spigot at the bottom, but here I am filling the bomber sized bottles one by one. A closeup picture of the racking cane's connection with the tubing and the sanitized air filter snugly connected on top of the primary fermenter which I blew into to create pressure in the glass carboy in order to start the siphon. Here is a picture of me racking the beer into the bottling bucket, using a siphon. Look at all that yeast and hop vegetation at the bottom! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugged One Posted March 5, 2008 Share Posted March 5, 2008 ^ Hey, looking good Kev! Let us know how the final product comes out. It's time to travel to the Great Northwoods of Wisconsin for our next Imperial Stout... ...and that's exactly what it delivers. The unfortunate thing is that the dark fruits just run rampant through the whole beer and could use some more roasted malts to even it out. Still, not bad and one I'm glad I got a chance to try. Especially since people in some parts of Wisconsin couldn't even get it! Close-up of the label. Hmmm. It promises chocolaty goodness and dark fruits... Most of you probably know Leinenkugels as that brewery that makes all those tasty fruit flavored beers, but sometime over the last year, they've decided to push the envelope and release a couple of limited edtion Imperial styles under the "Big Eddy" moniker. This would be their RIS! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Amicks Posted March 5, 2008 Share Posted March 5, 2008 To Bubba83: you'd better send me a bottle of that, or your life has been forfeit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugged One Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 All right, so I'm going to throw up the last Imperial Stout of this go around. I was actually going to do it all week but well, I've got other stuff besides Stouts that I want to drink! But don't worry, I'll still got a lot of great Imperial Stouts to showcase, so I'll probably fire another one up soon enough. And this was not bad. Like a lot of other Euro Stouts, this was fairly light of body and ABV but still packed a nice punch of flavor on the palette and was quite quaffable! We'll go international with this last Imperial Stout. It's the Nils Oscar Imperial Stout from the Nils Oscar Bryggeri & Bränneri AB in Nyköping, Sweden. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParkTrips Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 couple beers tonight, and not exactly the best night It was good! Lots of cherries if you take anything more than a sip, and the honey was more present than I expected. Lots of sweetness and fruit in the taste, this was a nice ending to an otherwise blah night. Lastly, and thankfully, Troegs Mad Elf holiday ale, a belgian style ale brewed with cherries and honey. (by way of Derek, thanks( It was... different. The bottle says its made with caramel, that may be it. It started out nice, but the aftertaste was pretty meh to me. It didn't seem like a typical doppelbock, and overall it was just ok. Not one I plan to buy again. Tommyknocker's Butthead Doppelbock came next, one of the Tommyknocker singles I picked up in the same run to Total Wine. A good doppelbock is a sign of a good brewery... However, this is a porter with coffee, so I made that face. Oh well, it was only a buck fifty or so, worth a shot! First, the Left Hand Black Jack porter. Left hand tends to brew good stuff, so I picked up a single at Total Wine the other day... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugged One Posted March 8, 2008 Share Posted March 8, 2008 Well with last Friday night's growler of Pisgah Valdez being a big hit (and just a damn fine tasty brew) I knew that I had seek out some more offerings from these guys. And my, oh my, was this nice. Just a wonderful mix of fresh fruit (raspberries and cherries) with some slight tartness, a backing sweetness, and just a smidge of bready yeastiness. Another work of art from Pisgah! And naturally, since it's a growler, I'm going to need all the help I can get from Kim! That's cuz this is the Pisgah Red Devil! An 8% fruit beer from those nut jobs down in Ashville. This is definitely one of their more special offerings and not cheap at $25 a growler. Unlike the Valdez growler, this one didn't come with an outside label. The only clue is this hand drawn letter R on the cap with little horns coming out of it! Uh oh, another Friday night and another growler of goodness from Pisgah. So what could this one be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParkTrips Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 currently.. a stone ipa. i had a red trolley ale from carl strauss yesterday both are pretty good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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