Beer!

[Ryan Ruck]

Been a little bit since I've done a review. Not that I haven't been drinking much beer, just been drinking plenty of Oberon.


Tonight was a new one though. It is a beer from Evil Twin, Imperial Doughnut Break.



Poured dark and thick into an English Pint with a deep brown, moderate head. Head didn't last long at all but a persistent topping remained. Aroma of fudge, alcohol, and some roastiness. Taste is sticky, sugary sweet fudge. At 11.5% the alcohol does come through. The flavors become more pronounced as it warms up, especially a smokey flavor and some coffee. This is really tasty and I definitely recommend it!

[Ryan Ruck]

I've had tonight's beer before but this is the 2014 release of Stone's Imperial Russian Stout.



Poured black into a snifter with nearly no head. Smells of coffee, cocoa, roasted malts, and booze. Taste is smoky oak, chocolate, slightly bitter coffee, and just a touch sweet. Not too thick, not too thin. Weighs in at a fairly hefty 11% ABV. Stone recommends serving at 55F. I started off a bit colder and slowly sipped as it warmed. Taste becomes even more rich as it warms up. Overall this is a damn fine, well balanced brew. Damn fine! Very highly recommended. You just can't go wrong with it.

[Ryan Ruck]

I just opened up a very limited release brew from Bell's called Black Note Stout



I actually had to wait in line a couple months ago to get this due to it's scarcity!

Here's what Bell's says about it:

Black Note blends the complex aromatics of Expedition Stout with the velvety smooth texture of Double Cream Stout. The combination is aged in freshly retired oak bourbon barrels for months. The result is a malty harmony of dark chocolate, espresso and dried fruit notes, all buoyed by the warmth and fragrance of the bourbon barrel. Aimed squarely at the stout aficionados, Black Note makes a grand statement about the art of the dark.

Poured a deep red-brown/black into a snifter with a thin brown head. The nose on this is heavily bourbon, some sweet fruit, and coffee. Taste is very much like the aroma with notable maltiness. The bourbon flavor is great! A warming sensation which comes as no surprise since this is 11.4% ABV. I decided based on this being the type of brew it is, a high alcohol stout, it would be best to let it warm up a little and I believe that was a good idea. This is a really delicious brew. It's a damn shame it is so hard to get a hold of since everyone should enjoy this!

[MinutemanCO]

For some reason, it's difficult in Colorado (at least the places I shop) to find most of the brews you describe in this thread, Ryan. I'm not sure why. Perhaps, the local outlets stock a whole lotta CO microbrews and not so much of everything else. Too bad. I enjoy a change in scenery now and then.

That said, I did pick up a tall bottle of Stone Brewing Co's Ruination IPA. Very hoppy. I enjoyed it thoroughly with my pan-seared burgers and home-made fries.

[American Patriot]

Remember that a lot of beers are regional.

I'm thinking we can list a lot he won't see anywhere in Ohio.

[MinutemanCO]

Remember that a lot of beers are regional.

I'm thinking we can list a lot he won't see anywhere in Ohio.

Good point.

[Ryan Ruck]

For some reason, it's difficult in Colorado (at least the places I shop) to find most of the brews you describe in this thread, Ryan. I'm not sure why. Perhaps, the local outlets stock a whole lotta CO microbrews and not so much of everything else. Too bad. I enjoy a change in scenery now and then.

That said, I did pick up a tall bottle of Stone Brewing Co's Ruination IPA. Very hoppy. I enjoyed it thoroughly with my pan-seared burgers and home-made fries.

That sucks... No international food markets nearby? That's one of the main places I get mine at, the Jungle Jim's you'll see me reference.

Any Whole Foods? They're good for a decent selection but you won't find any deals there.

Remember that a lot of beers are regional.

I'm thinking we can list a lot he won't see anywhere in Ohio.

That's one thing Jungle Jim's and Party Source are good for, getting beers outside of their normal distribution regions.

I know between the two of them, they both carry a number of CO area beer. Jungle Jim's is better at breaking them into regions than Party Source.

If you can rattle off a list of your local offerings I can probably tell you if they get them.

The only odd thing is that in Ohio we can't get the very high alcohol brews like Dogfish's 120 Minute. Something to do with the alcohol content being higher than what is allowed for beer by law.



In other news, I just got my first Oberon mini-kegs of the season!

Bought the only 3 my local Kroger had on the shelf.

Forgot to take a picture in my enthusiasm.

[Ryan Ruck]

News of this hit my inbox earlier...

Bell’s Planet Series, Inspired By Music Of Gustav Holst, Will Debut In August

June 6, 2014



In the same tradition as our Batch and Wheat Series,’ we are proud to announce The Planet Series.

It will feature seven different beers each inspired by a different piece of music from the composer Gustav Holst. Each beer will be limited and released both in six-packs and on draft according to the arrangement of Holst’s composition across all areas we distribute to.

The first Planet beer will be released this August with each successive entry debuting about every two months after. The final beer is scheduled for release in July 2015.

“Our two most successful brands come from a couple of my great literary references. This time, I took inspiration from a great piece of music,” said Larry Bell, Bell’s President and Founder.

“This piece, being in seven movements, gives us a lot of freedom to innovate and create,” he added.

Holst conceived the idea for “The Planets” in 1913 with the first complete performance occurring in 1920. Each movement of the suite is named after a different planet and its corresponding astrological character

The lineup:

"Mars, The Bringer of War" – Double IPA

"Venus, The Bringer of Peace" – A Blonde Ale brewed with honey, apricot, vanilla and cardamom

"Mercury, The Winged Messenger" – A Belgian Single

"Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity" – A malt forward Brown Ale

"Saturn, The Bringer of Old Age" – A Bourbon Barrel-aged Barleywine

"Uranus, The Magician" – Black Double IPA

"Neptune, The Mystic" – A beer inspired by Dr. Bell’s Medicinal Stout, one of Larry Bell’s homebrews that also helped inspire Eccentric Ale

More information will be released as it becomes available.

[American Patriot]

A lot of stores here aren't licensed to sell beer. There's a couple of "World Markets" in my area. To the best of my recollection they sell vitamins and stuff like cheese, but no beer.

[American Patriot]

Thought this relevant....

Opinion 6/16/2014 @ 10:33AM 74,025 views

Quackmail: Why You Shouldn't Fall For The Internet's Newest Fool, The Food Babe.


She made the front page of the Financial Times as the blogger who humbled Big Food and whose latest campaign for transparency in beer ingredients left “The King of Beers,” Anheuser Busch InBev, and close running rival SabMiller clamoring like Neville Chamberlain to appease a bully. “The rapid response by AB InBev and SABMiller—which capitulated to Ms Hari’s demands within 36 hours—underscores the growing power of social media over corporate policy,” wrote the FT’s Consumer Industries Editor, Scheherazade Daneshkhu.


Ironically, one of the key factoids in blogger Vani Hari—aka, “The Food Babe’s”—attack on Big Beer was that they “even use fish swim bladders” to make their product without putting this self-evidently dodgy fact on the label; the implication is that beer should not from fish bladder be made. Yet, isinglass—as dried fish bladder is Tolkienesquely called—has been used to clarify beer, wine and liquor since the early 18^th century, and its manufacture was widespread in Colonial America (a versatile compound, it was also mixed with gin and used as a glue to repair broken china). While this may cause vegans to pause before a draught, isinglass has been used and consumed without incident for centuries.


Unfortunately, this kind of clarification, where a blogger takes something commonplace and gives it a nefarious social media friendly twist to advance an agenda, did not make the Financial Times, Business Insider, USA Today, NBC News, and undoubtedly many more news stories that uncritically reported the Food Babe’s victory.


Budweiser – Before 1968 (Photo credit: roger4336)




Fortunately, there are real experts on the Internet, and they are not pulling any punches. The Food Babe “is the Jenny McCarthy of the food industry,” writes “beer snob” and cancer surgeon David Gorski on Science-Based Medicine. “Of course,” he adds, “I don’t mean that as a compliment.”


As Gorski notes, Hari’s strategy is to “name a bunch of chemicals and count on the chemical illiteracy of your audience to result in fear at hearing their very names.”

Anti-freeze in beer? Propylene glycol has many uses, but the reason it’s used in de-icing solutions is that it lowers the freezing temperature of water. That’s it. There are no concerns about toxicity because you’d have to consume huge quantities of it very quickly to have any effect. More to the point writes Gorski, it’s not, as Derek Zoolander might think, in the beer, it’s in the cooling system for the beer; it just appears that propylene glycol is an ingredient because the law requires listing every production process.


That the media should give The Food Babe a free pass as an expert or as a credible consumer watchdog is especially troubling when you look at some of her other claims, as recorded by the doctors at Science-Based Medicine. As infectious disease specialist Mark Crislip MD noted, Hari out goops Gwyneth Paltrow on the feelings of water by claiming that if you expose water to the words “Hitler” and “Satan” it will change its physical structure in exactly the same way as if you microwaved it. She believes getting the flu shot will give you cancer from all the “chemicals.” She is, naturally, against GMOs.


As Gorski notes, “companies live and die by public perception. It’s far easier to give a blackmailer like Hari what she wants than to try to resist or to counter her propaganda by educating the public. And, make no mistake, blackmail is exactly what Vani Hari is about.”
Actually, a better word would be “quackmail.”


So when are journalists going to hold truth up to this new self-promoting social media juggernaut? Why have so many news stories avoided questioning her claims as they would question her targets in the food industry? Surely, someone who believes that saying “Satan,” repeatedly, to a glass of water will alter the water’s physical properties needs to be treated with a dash of skepticism—no?

[Ryan Ruck]

I could have sworn an article about the beer I'm trying tonight was posted here but I could not find it. I thought we had even discussed it briefly.

Oh well...

Tonight I'm having Rogue's Beard Beer.



This is the official description from Rogue:

Beard beer is brewed with a yeast created from Brewmaster John Maier’s beard. No need to freak out, brewers have used wild yeasts in beer making for centuries. John has had the same old growth beard since 1978 and for over 15,000 brews, so it is no great surprise that a natural yeast ideal for brewing was discovered in his beard. What does beard beer taste like? try it, we think you’ll be surprised...

That's right, yeast from the brewmaster's beard.

Poured into a Trappist Glass a darker gold with a fairly thin white head. A notably Belgian aroma with fruit and malt. Taste is interesting. Belgian spice is predominant followed up with citrus fruit, hops, some malts. It is an interesting combination of sweet with a touch of sour. It is a little on the watery side but not overly. Also heavy on the carbonation.

Overall, not bad. Nothing overly special in the grand scheme of beers but it is a clever one.

[samizdat]

OK, I'll confess here. I saw some apoetizing "Rolling Rock"_ best beer known to man last week, and had {w/ negative results}, pride, gluttony, greed, envy etc. I mean REELY SERIOUS, fleeting thots to buy a six, but WTF? @ WTF? Almost 20 pesos per brew? And I recall six full .355ml cannisters at 2 bucks a pop? I'll be 60 this 31 Jan., so I was too "Christian" to give the greedy mob a williow. So later someday, probably, I'll sin and wish I had a rollin rock.

On the side, I'm doin hard work most Mexicans wont do, and altho I'm skinny in the first place, I've been readin a bit as well as experimenting on {hi-fat, low carb} regular protein gig. imho it is a go-gig.
so I peeked at the beer thread. Hmmmm. That rogue beer foto looks just like me. Send me a case. Nah! forget it. Looks like rough stuff. 11.5% ...maybe in about 30 years. When I'm areal small fry pint only.

[MinutemanCO]

Samizdat. It's been a while. Good to see you posting. Yeah, watch the 11.5%. It'll sneak up on you.

[MinutemanCO]

Ryan...

I need a good brew for the 4th and you're just the man to do the recommending. Would you mind throwing a couple options out there and I'll go attempt to find them at our local beer hole? I don't mind shooting in the dark. I trust your palate.

[samizdat]

I swore off the beer thread @ ayear ago. Figgered I'd never taste those luscious brews, so why get hot about it. Then when I saw the rolling rock, (guiness too), I reckoned I'd already cheated. When I get to heaven, I'm gunna try a few sips of that rogue & doughnut beer, then a quart of rollin rock. Half shot of "oregano oil"...well be careful if you do this. I now harvest a good bit of oregano. If you pick the stems carefully, leaving about three buds at the bottom of each stem, you can cultivate and harvest @ 10 times extra of the rich in carvocral violet flowers. I store it dry on stems & in a cheap sugar cane alcohol @ 4.5% alcohol. This is hard to find. Most "aguardientes" or cane alcohol is @ 40%. It works for storage, but too strong for me. I beez wobbling after a few sips.

[Ryan Ruck]

Ryan...

I need a good brew for the 4th and you're just the man to do the recommending. Would you mind throwing a couple options out there and I'll go attempt to find them at our local beer hole? I don't mind shooting in the dark. I trust your palate.

Okay, let me go look through the bottle collection and see what I can come up with.

I'll report back shortly...

[Ryan Ruck]

Ryan...

I need a good brew for the 4th and you're just the man to do the recommending. Would you mind throwing a couple options out there and I'll go attempt to find them at our local beer hole? I don't mind shooting in the dark. I trust your palate.

Okay, since I know you don't have Bell's, the obvious Oberon is out.

With what you can get in mind, my top recommendation would be a local: Breckenridge's Agave Wheat. It's no Oberon but it is a good, solid wheat. Had plenty on tap at a co-worker's going away party last Summer at a local Northern Kentucky eatery while we chilled out on the patio with burgers and fries.

Another recommendation from Breckenridge would be their Summerbright. Nothing at all complex, just a straight forward brew. With orange and lemon flavors in the summer, hard to go wrong.

Since you said you can get Dogfish, they've got a couple Summertime beers that are pretty good - Aprihop and Festina Peche. Apricot and peach flavored beers respectively. Their new Sixty-One with its grape flavors wouldn't be bad either. And, of course, the 60 Minute and 90 Minute are good go-tos.

[MinutemanCO]

Excellent!! Thank you. I'm truly psyched to go on the hunt for those. I've gotta whip up angus burgers and home made fries to go with the brew. After that, it just doesn't matter for at least one day.

[Ryan Ruck]

Sounds delicious and glad I could be of help!

In other news here, the weather forecasters are calling for a pleasant 79 and sunny for July 4th which is going to be perfect. I'm having a good sized get together (about 20 people) at my place. It's been a couple years since I've put on anything for the 4th (since my mom died 4 years ago truth be told) and I decided it was time to.

We all pooled money for fireworks and we have over 100 aerial shells to set off with about 20 of them being double shots. Gonna be a lots of stuff blowin' up!

Beer served up will be Oberon, of course.

[Ryan Ruck]

MMCO,
Another recommendation that I had forgotten about, Kona Brewing Company's Koko Brown. If I can get Kona out where I am I'm sure you guys have it out West.

It's got a great coconut taste that goes perfect with grilled sea food but works with anything grilled during the warm months.

It's good enough it scores an 89% on RateBeer.

Only problem is that for 2014 it isn't being released outside of Hawaii so they can meet their demand at their island locations. A real bummer because it's a brew I really like myself.

I've got one bottle left from a 6 pack I picked up early Spring which I have a feeling was a left over from last year.