Seems Like a Decent Day to Talk About Beer

A nice friendly discussion about beer seems to be in order! 

Over the last month I've been lucky enough to try some outstanding beers.  Many of my friends are certified beer nerds so we usually go all out when we are in the same room.  

 Brothers Craft Brewing is located in Harrisonburg Virginia.  That is relatively close to a few of my friends so they are part of the Brothers Horizon Society beer club.  This gives them access to many special release beers and the ability the buy this awesome bourbon barrel stout.  For the most part Resolute is only sold on Resolute day (which happens this weekend).  You show up and are given a ticket that designates a time when you can get in line to buy the beer.  Horizon members are allowed a bigger allotment and can buy special variations like coconut, vanilla and apple brandy.

The beer is fantastic and comparable to some of the more well known bourbon stouts like Founders KBS and Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout.

 Draai Laag is out of Pittsburgh and super unique.  The founder went the extra mile studying the fermentation process and finally started mastering the technique of making unique sour beers. Of the the two I tried, The Plague was the best.  It was one of the better beers I have had this year.

 You know you are a beer nerd when you have a glass that matches the beer.  The glass was actually purchased straight from Founders because I was looking for some unique Xmas gifts for some friends and coworkers. I ended up ordering some cool glasses for myself.  When a buddy of mine saw that I had this glass he offered to bring a bottle of this beer for us to try.  The ultra cool thing is that Sweet Repute was last brewed 2013.  You know you are a beer nerd if you treat your beer like wine.  I've been known to do this too.

The beer itself was very sweet, but in a good way.  The style is considered a Wheatwine aged in bourbon and maple syrup barrels for 16 months. Very unique, and I hope Founders brews it again soon so I can get a few more bottles.

 Barleywines are one of the harder styles for beer drinkers to get into.  It is a unique flavor profile that turns a lot of people off. It took me a little while to get my pallet in order, but now I actively crave this style.

Cubano Walker is a beer made by Olde Hickory brewing in North Carolina.  My parents vacation in NC almost every year so these are relatively easy for me to accumulate.  While this beer is good and has nothing on the great stouts that Olde Hickory makes.

Have you guys seen crowlers?  Basically the same as a growler but in a can. No one is doing these in my area, but a close friend can get them in DC at his favorite beer shop.

Ocelot brewing is located near Dulles Airport right outside of DC. I've been there a couple times now and absolutely love it. For one, one of the brewers is a WVU grad and even names some of the beers after locations in Morgantown. The other is that the beer is delicious.  This particular IPA is one of my favorites.

Remember beer makes everything better.

Thanks for reading.

San Diego is Just About Perfect

It really wasn't much of a surprise that I liked San Diego. The weather, beer and food are all top notch. While the locals said it was unseasonably warm, I thought it was perfect.

We took the first flight out of Pittsburgh so with the time change we landed in San Diego a little after 10am pacific time. Our hotel was in the Gaslamp District so we had plenty of things to do within walking distance.

Couple pics of the outside area of Petco Park.  We had a lot of time to kill before game 1

Hotel beer! Right before we checked into our hotel I checked out a local beer store. The beer was bottle 3 days before we opened. Fresh IPAs are the best.

A picture of  my first flight of beer from a gastropub called Hoppin Pig. Great tap list and some tasty food.  It came recommended from a good friend of mine who traveled to San Diego back in the late fall.

I think I had already ate half this meal before I took a picture.  Needless to say these were awesome tacos.  One was fish and the  other carnitas.

This was a Modern Times brewing company beer. More from them later. I think their beer might have been my favorite from the entire trip.

Here are some pics from my seats from game 1. The Pirates would lose the game 5-4 it what was probably the longest 9 inning game I've even been to. The game had no flow mainly because of replays and a prolonged argument about a balk call which caused Padres manager Andy Green to be thrown out. I thought only the Red Sox and Yankees played 4 hour 9 inning games.

The plan for Day 2 of the trip was to head to the North Park area of San Diego.  It is home to a ton of breweries and restaurants. Since we were on the clock everyday to make sure we were back for the game in time we really had to prioritize where we wanted to go.

First stop was Modern Times. This wasn't their main brewing area, but it was still one of my favorite stops on the entire trip. The beer was fantastic. I'm a big coffee stout fan so the nitro Black House beer was probably my favorite.

The good thing about the North Park area is that once you are there you can walk to everything.  Next stop was one of the more famous craft beer bars in the US. Bar Toronado.

My first beer at the bar is not pictured because I was too busy enjoying it. It was called Pliny the Elder from Russian River. It is a pretty famous beer and one that is very sought after by craft beer nerds. I had had it once before out of a bottle, but it was nice to get it on draft.

The dark beer pictured is called Old Rasputin. It is a pretty easy to get imperial stout, but what made it unique here is that it was on Nitro. Creamy Deliciousness!

The bottled beer is a peach sour from Almanac. It was fantastic. The only drawback to Almanac beers are the price, but usually no matter who makes the sour it is going to be pricey.

Yeah, Bar Toronado was really good.....The interesting thing about this place is that it gets a lot of beer snobs who are ultra annoying. The main bartender working must have seen me shake my head at one of the beer douches and it made him laugh.  He gave me a free beer!

The last stop in the North Park area was Mike Hess brewing. This came highly recommended from my friend and rightfully so.

 The beer was delicious and you get a free glass with every flight purchase!

Cool view of the big vats.

I don't have any pictures from game 2 because my phone was dead. The seats we had were right behind the Pirates dugout. The unfortunate part was the Pirates didn't show up. They were shelled 8-2.

Day 3 was split in two parts. First was the Little Italy area of San Diego.  It was about a 2 1/2 mile walk, but it was so nice outside we decided to enjoy the weather.. The main stop in this area was the Ballast Point taphouse.

Ballast Point has several locations in San Diego, but this one is unique because they do a lot of their research beers here. I tried beer with ingredients like pepper, fig and passion fruit. It was a really cool spot and the prices were better than any of the other places we stopped.

Since we hit Ballast Point I felt obligated to hit the other big craft brewery in San Diego, Stone Brewing.

This was another satellite brewing area, but the plus was it was right next to Petco Park.  I've had a lot of Stone beers over the years so I was interested more in the rarer releases in which they had plenty of. The only negative from this stop was the price. They priced their small pours at around $3.75 a piece. For a high abv stout that wouldn't be bad, but for the ipas and pale ales that is a little pricey. It still didn't stop me.....but just a warning if you go..

Our seats for the final game were in right field.  For the price you really can't beat them. Close to all the good beer, great view of the scoreboard and you can yell at Matt Kemp for being overpaid! The Pirates must have been pissed about the first two games because they won 11-1.

Overall it was a great trip. As with any trip you always wish you could have a little more time. My wife wants to go there at some point with me so I didn't hit any of the tourist activities like the zoo and naval area. I don't think she would have liked brewery hopping so I tried to get as much in as possible this time.

When it comes to beer I would probably put San Diego at the top of cities I've visited. The only other cities that I've been to that could compare is Portland and Chicago.

I got a lot of catching up to do this week card wise. I still have several cards to send out including Tony Burbs and Greg Zakwin. My wife also put a huge stack of incoming mail that I'll be working on all week. Yay cardboard!

Thanks for reading.  Go to San Diego!

Afternoon Beer

The Pirates are off today and I've been too busy to catch up on some scanning.  Let's have some beer. 

I did not have any Sam Jackson.....

These beers were consumed over the last two/three months mainly with my beer tasting group. 

Stone Xocoveza is a milk stout brewed with coffee and spices and has been one of my favorite winter releases since they started distributing a few years back.  The "Extra Anejo" version is taking the base beer and aging it in Bordeaux and tequilla barrels.  This was a pretty wild beer with lots of flavors coming at you from different directions.  The tequilla taste is noticeable, but it is mellowed by the sweetness.  Overall I liked the beer, but found the base beer to be a little more enjoyable.  

 This wasn't a Troegs beer, I just happened to use my Troegs glass.

The beer in the glass is actually General Braddock's ipa from Brew Gentlemen Brewery out of Braddock PA. My brother was nice enough to bring me back some growlers to share with some of my friends tomorrow, but gave a little taste out of a growler he opened when he got home. It was easily one of the best ipa's I have ever had.  As you can see the beer is super hazy and had a subtle tropical flavor.

 Courtesy of my pal Rob in New Jersey.  Stouts are always my preferred style and this was a very good example of how good a non imperial stout can taste. Carton Brewing makes damn good beer.

 Another beer courtesy of my pal Rob that blew me away.  If you are a beer nerd Hill Farmstead is one of the more desirable breweries in the US. Earl was a coffee oatmeal stout that overwhelmed all of us with flavor without being a huge alcohol bomb.

Magnify is another hyped brewery out of New Jersey.  Big thanks to my pal Keith who shared these with me. My favorite of the bunch was the Double Dry Hopped Rock Me Dr. Saic.

 Fellow blogger and beer lover Oscar (All Trade Bait All the Time) hooked me up with another huge can from his local brewery called Progress Brewing.  The beer was a double ipa called Ernesto that came in at a hefty 9.3%.  Oscar told me that it hid the alcohol well, and boy was he right.  The damn thing drank like a session ipa.  DANGEROUS.

This was a picture I shared when I went to the Pens playoff game last month.  Fat Heads brewery has long been a personal favorite that I get to partake in quite a bit since they have a satellite bar in Pittsburgh.  The beer pictured is a hefeweizen called Goggle Fogger.  Very refreshing.

 Surly is a well known Twin Cities brewery that was sent to be by fellow blogger GCRL.  Bender was a perfect example of a brown ale. Very sweet and malty.

 Last but not least is a small sampling of beers sent to me by Peter from Baseball Every Night. Peter lives in the Boston area which is in close proximity to so many great breweries.  One such brewery is Trillium.  Peter has sent me quite a few of these bad boys and I've loved every single one.  They are known for super hazy/juice bomb ipas.  They are soooooooooo good.

If you ever are interested in trading beer drop me a line.

Cheers!

Beer

I'm caught up with trade packages so lets talk about beer!

I don't have many hobbies outside of my love for baseball and cardboard. My wife and I like to travel, but our days of taking long trips have been put on hold until our daughter gets older. Right now I have to settle for wherever work might take me and some long weekend getaways.

The only other activity/hobby that has been a consistent part of my adult life is beer. Now I'm not talking about drinking a 12 pack of Keystone every other day, but enjoying a nice craft brew. The days are long gone of college style partying so my beer choices need to emphasize quality over quantity. I'm far from someone who can break down a beers taste to excruciating detail, but I know what I like. Seriously, have you read some of the beer reviews on beeradvocate.com? Beer snobs are just as bad as wine snobs.

I'm very fortunate to have friends who enjoy beer so it makes for fun outings when we are all together. My big disadvantage is being in West Virginia. While things are getting better in terms of beer distribution, WV still has trouble getting some of the higher end beers on the shelf because of archaic laws and taxes. Fortunately I'm only about 10 miles from the Pennsylvania border and 25 from Maryland. Both states usually have top notch variety. My other perk is that two of my friends are from DC and NJ which have nice options as well.

One thing I've been doing lately has been organizing beer tastings on Friday evenings. This has allowed me to try a ton of beers that wouldn't have even been available to me before. Being that I work at a University many people that participate are from all over the US and often contribute beers from their area.

So with that being said, do any of you have a favorite go to beer? What about harder to find high end beers? Here are a few of my favorites in no order...

Founders Breakfast Stout
Dogfish 90 Min
Bells Two Hearted Ale
Deschutes Black Butte Porter
Mothman Black IPA (my favorite WV beer)

Has anyone ever traded beer? I have a friend that did this, but it seems like pain in the butt.

Beer Me

I've been gone most of the evening so I didn't really have access to my cards to complete a post.  In the meantime I threw this together during my lunch today. Beer porn!

The funny thing as I glanced and it looks like several of us had beer on our mind tonight.

The only bad thing about Bell's Hopslam is the price. It is a double ipa that has a very smooth honey taste. Super drinkable for 10%

Most people know Bell's because they have a pretty big distribution, but if you don't they are out of Michigan. For whatever reason Michigan is home to a lot of great breweries. Must be that cold weather.

This was my beer of choice for the WVU/Kansas Big 12 Championship game. Kind of hard to see but this is a sour beer from Almanac called Simcoe Sour.  It may have been the best sour beer I've ever had.

Almanac is out of California

This Brewery is called The Bruery.  All their beers come in the bomber format so they are great for splitting. Mischief is a Belgian style that pours with a big head and packs some great flavor. 

The Bruery is out of California. 

 Ballast Point is another well known brewery that is well known for IPAs. Sculpin is the flagship beer and has spawned several variants. Pineapple is the newest of these flavors. At least to me the smell was more pineapple than the taste.  Still a great ipa, but the original is still the winner in my book.

Ballast Point is California.

Deschutes is another craft brewer who has been in the game way before it got cool. This was a very special tasting that involved several of my friends. The Abyss is an imperial stout that is as dark as the night. My buddy who is the biggest beer nerd I know was able to get us a 2011, 2014 and 2015 bottle to compare. In case you are wondering beer nerdom has matched wine snobs with the aging. 

It was pretty cool to taste the difference in the three. My pallet is not as refined as some of my friends, but you can definitely tell a difference. The 2011 was much smoother.  

Deschutes is out of Oregon. 

I've been trying to branch out and try more ipas. I'm more of a stout/porter guy.

With that being said this is probably the best ipa I have ever had. The brewery is Fat Heads and the beer is called Hop Juju. Everything about is just perfect. Of all the beer listed this is probably one of the harder ones to find as Fat Heads is more of a regional brewery. I don't think they distribute anywhere out west. The cool thing about Fat Heads is that they have a couple of restaurant/tap houses and one of them happens to be in Pittsburgh.  The place is a diet killer, but it is nice to indulge every once in awhile.

Fat Heads is out of suburbs of Cleveland OH.

Cheers my friends.

Beer, The Kid and Piazza

I held an impromptu beer tasting at my house Friday. My pal Keith and I had been accumulating beer from our travels and thought it would be a good time to try a few.

"Bruery" beers are great for tastings as they can only be purchased in large bottles. This was a sour beer that was very tasty.

A friend of mine who recently took a trip to Portland Oregon brought this back for me. I believe most of the Hair of the Dog beers are named after people who work at the brewery. The was a barrel aged strong ale that packed a punch to the taste buds. 

 This is a beer I've been wanting to try for a while.  Foothills brewery is out of North Carolina and actually distributes to WV, but mainly only their core beers. Recently my parents and two brothers took a trip to the Outer Banks area of NC and my brother picked one up.  If you are a fan of malty ipa's this one is for you.  It was top notch.

 Founders is probably my favorite brewery. If I were to make a list of my top ten beers at least 3 of theirs would make the list.  This beer was by far the worst I've had from them. The beer is supposed to be a mango/habanero mix.  The actual taste was decent but mix of heat and weird mouthfeel was too much to handle.

 When I was in DC last week I always make a point to stop at a Total Wine. They are basically the size of a supermarket but all booze related! I always try and pickup a few DC beers.  This pale ale was actually on the darker side and had a great taste.  I'm pretty sure I grabbed this one right after the Mango beer to get us back on track.

I stole this pick off the internet as I didn't take one myself.  Redankulous was a red ipa and it was fantastic. Helped me forget the Mango beer.  

Overall a pretty solid lineup.  

With the HOF induction ceremony tonight I figured I would share a few cards. Griffey was by far the most influential player when I was growing up.  You weren't cool unless you had a Mariners had to turn around backwards. 

I loved watching Piazza. The thing that pops up second in my mind (first is Clemons throwing that bat) is all the opposite field mammoth shots he hit.  I don't think I remember another player that could pulverize baseballs going the other way.  

Congrats to Griffey and Piazza.  It was a shame Piazza wasn't a first ballot guy.  Hof voters are the worst.  

Thanks for reading.