5 New Beers (to me)

Tuesday nights is one of my beer drinking nights. Not sure how it evolved into it, but that's the way it is. Originally (oh so long ago) I was on a pool team that played on Tuesday. Me and a friend (or a friend and I) were looking for a place to kill time before going to pool, and after going to several crappy fast food places, we finally went to the Hooters in Champaign. This was back in ... oh... 2001 or so.

I've been going there (pretty much) every Tuesday since (see the article below on OCD). Most of the girls who work there are my friend, and they are some of my drinking buddies. One of them (Amber) thinks of me when she goes to buy beer, she'll actually go to the mix a six and pick some stuff out, instead of just getting the regular fizzy yellow water. My good friend Megan has a favorite beer of Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat. So I might be influencing their drinking a little. I have influenced the beer selection there. Champaign Hooters has a pretty darn good beer selection for a place of it's ... um... style. It's the only place in town (that I know of; and I know most places in town) that has Bare Knuckle Stout. Lots of places have Guinness, but it has Bare Knuckle (granted it's an AB product and a Guinness clone, but hey, it's something different). They've also got Hoegaarden, Bass, Shocktop (another AB), Stella, 312, Boulevard Pale, and the second new beer that I had last night, but I'll get to that in a bit. For being a place that initially appears to be just a fizzy yellow piss place, they've probably got at least a beer you'd enjoy having (at least if you are reading this blog).

Well, as it was Tuesday, I did my usual ritual of watching Creation in the 21st Century, while drinking a beer. Last night's selection was Big Sky Brewing Moose Drool Brown. I poured it into an Avery India Pale Ale Glass. It came out a dark cherry wood brown. It didn't have a huge amount of foam, but what stayed behind left a nice Belgian lace on the glass. (I like the term Belgian as opposed to Brussels lace). It smelled slightly woody, with a little dirt and smoke, almost like pulling a slightly damp log from the pile. It seemed somewhat thin on the tongue, not nearly as thick as the Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron, but then again, what "brown" is? It seemed to have some scrubbing carbonation bubbles that cleaned off the tongue pretty good.
It had the taste of a biscuit malt. Like a "brown sugar" cookie. There was a slight bit of tartness at the end of the sip. Bitterness from the hops was nearly absent. It was mostly sweet. The flavor remained on the sides of the tongue for a while after each sip. This was definitely an easy to drink beer. It would go great with most light brown colored foods. Anything that's battered would go great with this. It would lift the grease from the frying and go well with the slight burn that battered foods routinely get. It'd be too thin to go with a desert and too thick to go with a salad. All in all, it's a good brown beer.

The second beer I had was .... Bud Light Lime. this I had at Hooters. Hey, it's a beer I hadn't had before, gimme a break. I may be a beer snob, but I still drink with the masses... Although this time, I really wish I didn't. This stuff was horrible. It smelled like lime juice, and tasted like ... bud light with lime juice. Whoever the marketing geniuses that came up with this to contend with Miller Chill, should be rounded up and shot. The lime was overpowering. Miller Chill has a strong lime flavor, but nothing like that. Imagine taking a bud light and squeezing have a bottle of lime juice in it. It was that potent. Everything tasted like lime for the next hour. It looked like bud light, smelled like lime, tasted like lime, and remained tasting like lime. You could probably use a bottle of it to make a friggin ceviche it was so lime-y.

After we finished up at Hooters, we went down Neill Street to Radio Maria. Radio Maria has 27 taps, most of them rotate, but there are some staples, including #27, PBR. One of the neat things about RM is the bar (it's also one of the bad things). RM has a neat blue lit bar that looks really .. um... cool. It will give a beer a greenish looking tint to it. Unfortunately, the lights under are really hot, and will heat up your beer if you leave it on the bar to long. I normally look for a dark spot where there is no light, as it's much cooler. If you get a glass with a stem, the heat is normally not a problem. It is definitely noticeable in pint glasses though. So If you go, get a coaster and put your beer on a dark spot... or just drink quickly.

The first beer I had at Radio Maria was the Issaquah (rogue) Menage a Frog Belgian Triple. Let me preface this by saying, I'm not a fan of this style of beer. Some Belgian triples are ok (mostly the Trappist style) however Duvel, La Fin du Monde, Piratt, those beers I don't like. I thought my tastes were changing and I could enjoy it, but I couldn't.

This beer was the color of a regular macro lager. It looked like... beer. The picture doesn't do the color justice as the blue bar light darkened the beer (you can see just a hint of the green in the bottom left part of the foam ring). It didn't have much head, and what it did, didn't cling to the glass very well. It smelled like Piratt; definite coriander. It tore through my tongue, like it was removing any flavors left from the bud light lime. Then, it sat there, waiting to be joined by the next sip. Each sip cleaned off the previous, and replaced it with another. Like changing socks.

Kriddy said it tasted of banana, I thought it more of citrus flavor, possibly grapefruit. After it warmed up a little it had more of the coriander and other fruits. When I burped, it was the exact same flavor as a hot dog burp, disgusting, but true. (Thanks to chipper dave for the burp check). As I said, I'm not a fan of this style, so I won't be having this one again.

The second beer at RM was Eugene City Hopped Red Ale. We were warned against having this by our bartender, Chris. He said it wasn't that good, didn't go into details why, just said it wasn't that great. When he brought it over, I thought it looked almost like a glass of cranberry juice; Kriddy said it looked like grape soda, and this was before we set it on the bar that adds a blue hue to everything. Holding it up to the white lights it was still dark red to purplish. It had a decent amount of head, but it quickly dissipated into nothing. It smelled like a spiced flower. As it's been a long time since I've smelled flowers, I'm not sure which one it was. This one had a very light presence on the tongue. It didn't seem very carbonated, and was very dry. Not only was it dry, it had a drying quality to it. As I drank it, I got thirsty.
The taste was pure hops. There was no malt to be found. It was a red in color, not flavor. If you got this thinking you were gonna get a Killians, man, would you be shocked. The hops were bitter and stingy. The floral smell was deceptive. It smelled like a flower then punctured your tongue with pine needles. It was like a spiced Christmas tree. This is what I assume a gingerbread man would taste like if he spent all winter hanging on the Christmas tree (and the tree dripped sap on him). The bitterness linger long after the sip. The burp test proved peppery. Chris warning us against this brew probably improved the quality of the beer. As though he challenged me to like this. "I don't like this, so you won't either" "oh yeah, I'll show you!!!" Or, with his warning, he set the bar so low, that there was no way it couldn't be better than crap.

The final beer for the evening was back at the house. Samichlaus Helles. Meat seemed to really like this beer, so him setting the bar high, probably led to my disappointment in it.
It poured out completely flat. Absolutely no head whatsoever. It looked like apple juice. Whatever head came from the pour quickly went away. It smelled like skunky beer and fruit. It felt like I was drinking applejuice, except there was no sweetness to the feel.
It didn't drink like the other Samichlaus, that one has the upfront presence of the alcohol, this one didn't have that. It was still 14% ABV, so you'd expect something, but this didn't initially have that alcoholic taste to it. It had a slight pilsner taste with apricot and maybe some pear. As the glass warmed up, it became sweeter. The beer didn't stick around long, after the sip the flavor was gone, perhaps because of the 14% it evaporated? After about 20 minutes of sipping on this, the alcohol showed up. It was originally poured after coming out of the fridge, so it probably needed a while to get warm. When it did, it got sweeter and alcohol-y. I was only able to drink about 1/3 of this. As I poured the rest down the drain, it fizzed like crazy, so there was the carbonation.

All in all, it was a bad beer night. The highlight came first and everything else was sort of a let down. After finishing the Moose Drool, each of the other beers wasn't empty when I couldn't drink any more of it. If you like La Fin du Monde, you'll probably like the Menage a Frog. If you like lime juice straight, you'll like Bud Light Lime. If you like... well, I don't know what you'll have to like to like the Samichlaus Helles.

OCD- Obsessive Compulsive Drunkenness

I'm somewhat OCD. I've also probably got a slight case of ADD. This combination means that I do things really hard and really fast, but then my focus shifts and I do something else.

There was a time when I was the cleaning kind of guy. I once cleaned my bathroom five times in a day, the friggin mirror just wouldn't stay clean, and as long as I was in there, I might as well clean the toilet, and vacuum, and get the soap scum... and... and... I've always kind of been this way; I'm a collector.

When I was in high school, I had a nice yo-yo collection. Some were good, some were cheapo's but if I saw a new yo-yo, I'd get it, even if it was the crappy five-cent one at the pharmacy; I'd get it.

There were (and still are) periods in my life when I wouldn't be collecting anything. I'm not sure how that happens, but it seems when it does, I spend a lot of time watching TV. (Yes, I like Monk).

Other things I've collected have been Clive Barker books (I got one in Thailand back in 1994). Magic books and card tricks; unfortunately I have tiny hands so most tricks are beyond my ability. Yo-yo's again, originally in 88-89, the second time in 99; I've got the SB2 , it's a great yo-yo.
At other periods, I've read; I've made "artsy" things; ran; swam; and played computer games. During the games phase, it would be common for me to spend 18 hours a day, each day of the weekend on the computer.

Well, now it's beer. Everything now seems to revolve around beer. Oh, how I love beer. And what's really great is how beer lends itself to compulsion nicely.

There are so many different makes of beer, just look to the left at this years list. How many different ways are there that one can be OCD about beer?

First, you can try to sample as many different beers as possible. This one is pretty fun. You go somewhere new and get more beer. It's also a rather interesting conversation piece, for example, last year I probably had 1199 (or possibly 1200, because I found a bottle that isn't on my list) different beers. Counting the ones I had more than once, I probably had about 2000 pints/bottles/glasses of beer last year. That's a lot of fluids. You may say it's not possible to drink that much, well, it's ONLY 5 a day. Sheesh.

Second, you can collect things with beer. There's cool bottles that make great decorations. How many "good" beer drinkers have a collection of some of the bottles that they've drank? Heck, even crappy beer drinkers have been known to be collectors. Look at that Coors Light guy.

He drank 24 a day for 8 years. That's more than 70,000 cans of beer. And I thought I had a lot of beer-aphanalia.

I've got a spare bedroom that's full of some great bottles, most empty. Some are in storage. In addition to the bottles, the bottle caps are also collectible. This guy has a lot of caps. I took part of my caps and covered my coffee table. I should have enough to do my end tables soon. Collecting beer caps is easy for beer drinkers, they don't take up much space, and most are somewhat unique. If you have a decent memory you can tell a story for most of the caps. Or you can probably BS one.

Next part of beer that leads to OCD is the beer cellar.

I just started my cellar last year. The first beer I stored for later was/is Three Floyd's Dark Lord 2007. My cellar started with 6 bottles. There are two remaining. Every time someone asks if we can crack open a bottle, I turn into a different creature.Give me the beer, my precioussssss.

I've got quite the nice collection of beer going now. Most of it is under a year old, but at the rate I'm gathering my cache of beer, I'd be set for beer for years... that is if I ever drank it.

The thing that probably lends itself best to OCD is brewing beer. If you like to wash things, I've got just the thing for you... brewing beer. If you like to stand over a stove and stir for hours just so that you can ensure one step of the process comes out good; I've got just the thing for you ... brewing beer. If you like to clean (did I mention that) ... brewing beer. When I brew, the first step is to wash everything you are going to use. When I brew, the last step is to wash everything that I've used. There's pans, buckets, spoons, wort chillers, tubes, a hydrometer, and a bagillion other things that you can clean. Not only that, but it leads to perfectionism too. You don't want to put your grains into water that is too hot, nor too cold. What could be better for a person who has a collection of pre-moistened cleaning towelettes than to have to clean something twice? At least twice.

Now you may think, that a person who hates change as much as an OCD person wouldn't want to do all the different beers, but that is actually comforting too. The always having a different beer is just as soothing as the person who never does anything different. It's almost discomforting to have the same beer. Have you ever had a panic attack because there was only Bud, miller and coors products available?

One of the best parts about Beer related OCD is that just the process of having a few beers will help numb some of the anxiety that can come from other parts of it.

So how much BOCD do you think you have?

The May Beer Crawl 9-10

As you probably remember (if you don't just look right below here... sheesh, what do I have to remember everything?) we went up to Chicago on Thursday to go see MINISTRY!!! The concert was awesome. We didn't really pay attention to Hemlock, but then the second act was MESHUGGAH. In attendance was me, hippy, kriddy and my brother Jim. We originally found a spot on the wall by the stage left bar and settled in for Hemlock. We were camped out pretty close to the stairs that lead to the main floor. At one point I looked at a guy coming up the stairs and said "hey, I think you are somebody?" I looked closer and said "oh yeah, you ARE somebody." It was John Bechdel, keyboard player for Ministry. So I got to shake his hand. That was kind of cool. I don't think anyone else recognized him. He's probably the least recognized "member" of the band.

When Hemlock ended, I told Jim to keep an eye on kriddy and hippy and I were going to go try to find my concert buddies, Fred and Tom. Hippy at first didn't believe that 1. I'd know anybody at the concert and that 2. they would actually be Fred and Tom.

Well, I found them, they were on the rail on stage right, directly in front of where one of the Meshuggah guitar players (Fredrik Thordendal) would be. So, we watched Meshuggah from there. It was awesome. The lead singer for some reason reminded me of Gullom (the evil version) in lord of the rings.

We stayed in that spot for the first 2 songs of Ministry. But I couldn't stand to be there much longer, we were getting crushed. The second row on the rail isn't the best place to be during the stage surge.

Ministry performed their songs well. There were no surprise guest artists, so that was kind of sad. When "So What" started, it took a while for Al to come out, so I was hoping, as I'd guess most everyone there was hoping, that Chris Connelly would be coming out. But alas, no surprises.

After we left the pit, I headed to the restroom. As I came out, I said "hey rick" as Rick Nielsen of cheap trick was walking around. So that was cool.

We made it back to the hotel and slept until about 10. Woke up, got dressed and then Thad, kriddy and I headed north... to Wisconsin.

First stop was in Whitewater Wisconsin at a Randy's Restaurant and Fun Hunters Brewery. Randy's was a nice place with a decent selection of beers. There's nothing too great or too horrible about their beers, they are just pretty good beers. (The list should be over at the side). The Warhawk Wheat was ok, except the lemon wedge killed any of the original flavor and smell. The Oatmeal Stout was on a nitro tap, so that gave it that Guinness fizzyness to it. There was another flavor in it that none of us could pick out, possibly licorice, or some other taste. It wasn't horrible, but was just hard to place.

We made it there in time for lunch. I had the fish and chips, which were pretty good. Kriddy had Hippy had the fish sammich. Kriddy had the chicken strips and also the cheese kurds. Most of the foods we got seemed to go best with the Amber Lager and the Pat's Brown ale. The cheese kurds were also good, except eat them quick, they aren't as good when they get down to room temperature. The chicken came with fries but the fish came with their house chips. Seasoned nicely, with a little lemon. We were there around lunch time, and right around 2 the place clears out as everyone heads away. The bartender was friendly and tried to offer me a glass of their barleywine, but it had just run out earlier in the week.

Our next stop was in Madison. Ale Asylum. I had at some point before had their Ambergeddon, and at one of the recent Champaign Beer Clubs had the Hopalicious Pale. Well, they had ten beers on tap, so I got the full load. Their samples are $1 each and around 3-4 ounces, so for $10 it's a hearty portion of beer. We didn't eat anything, but they have a deli in house for custom sammiches and also make pizzas.

The Gold Digger Blonde had a slight banana flavor and was nicely fruity, it'd make a great summer refreshing beer. Kriddy got the Big Slick Stout and it was a nice black stout. Hippy had the Madtown Nutbrown, Which I thought had a nice Butterscotch or Caramel malty flavor to it.

Our next stop was in Mount Horeb Wisconsin at the Grumpy Troll. The Grumpy Troll wins lots of awards at beer competitions. It's worth a trip if you are anywhere near Wisconsin, or Northern Illinois. Hippy had... man, what did hippy have there? Dunno. Kriddy had the Brandy Barrel Aged Spetsnaz. The Captain Fred is their tribute to PBR. The Spetsnaz is a great Stout. It gets even better in the Barrel Aged. It was so good, that I spent about $40 on a growler of it. Growlers aren't made to last that long, so in the next week or so, it's gonna be opened. Let me know if you can make it...

Our final Friday stop was supposed to be New Glarus. In New Glarus, Wisconsin. As you pull into town from the North (I think we were coming from the north) you can't miss the brewery, it's the HUGE building on the left. Unfortunately the brewery was closed. There was a sign in the window that said something like "We're closed, look for our beers in town". So we turned right and went into town. Almost immediately after turning, there's a bar. Puempels Olde Tavern. While it's a smaller bar, and serves up the regular macro swill (most of the people at the bar were drinking Coors light, it seemed) they have some of the best beers in the world available to them.

In the beer cooler was almost every New Glarus beer you could want. From Dancing Man wheat, Fat Squirrel, and Spotted Cow to the stuff that I hadn't heard of: Road Slush Stout, Hearty Hop, Snowshoe. Hippy had a draft of the spotted cow (I think) I went with the Hearty Hop, and kriddy had the Road Slush Stout.

The bartender was really friendly, and very accommodating to us flatlanders. They also had the Edel Pils on draft, and she was nice enough to give us all a sample. Since we were not townies, she pulled out a bottle of the New Glarus Unplugged line, specifically the Belgian Quad. She set three glasses in front of us, and then something interesting happened.

The bar has a tradition of sticking dollar bills to the (it seems) 20 foot high ceiling. They do this with (I think it was) a 50 cent piece a bill and a thumbtack. Push the tack through the center of the dollar, then wrap the dollar around the fiddycent piece. Then throw as hard as you can ... UP! The dollar should stick in the ceiling, if it doesn't try again... and again... and again. If a bill falls on you while you are there, you get to keep it. (There's supposedly a $100 bill above the front left of the door). Well, as were were sitting there, shortly after being given the Unplugged and three glasses, someone gave the bartender a buck to put up, so she tried to do it, but failed. As the bill and 50cent piece came hurtling back towards the bar, it decided it didn't like my glass, so it hit that and shattered the glass. Well, she was very embarrassed so she gave us another beer. This time, the Snowshoe. She must've liked us because she continually gave us stuff. We took a poster for one of the New Glarus beers, the Totally Naked, we bought and apparently took a pint glass; and she also gave us a nice map to the city, along with a city brochure with a large writeup on the brewery. As you can see, it's a high tech operation, as they now accept credit cards! Don't go into the town with a low battery on your cell phone, because there is horrible cell coverage. But that kind of adds to the charm of the place.

New Glarus is known as America's "Little Switzerland". The people were probably some of the most friendly we had met all day. Hippy chatted with a local customer, while another bought me a shot of Appenzeller, which is some kind of Swiss drink that is probably illegally imported by some guy who goes to Switzerland each year and brings back some bottles for his local bar.

After New Glarus, we considered possibly going to another brewpub in Rockford, but it was getting too late. So we headed to my sisters where we spent the night. Woke up the next day, and it was off to try to pick up some presents for the wedding thingy we went to last week. But the person who's place it was, wasn't home, so we tried to find Two Brothers Brewing. We failed at finding it. We turned on the wrong Calumet Road, and then when I tried to figure out where it would pick up again, I picked wrong. The GPS on the phone couldn't find it, so we plugged in the address for Goose Island Clybourn.

I can't believe they are closing that place. It was my/our first time there and it was awesome. The place was somewhat full (fuller than the other places that we'd been) and had a massive beer selection. 17 house beers on tap, is an amazingly large number. Just the ability to store that much beer that they made themselves is amazing. We made it there in time for the end of Saturday brunch, so our food selections were an eclectic mix. To drink, Kriddy went with the Russian Imperial Stout, and she ate ... pancakes. Hippy started out with the Six. Which is a session beer at 2.5%, he had the fish and chips to eat (no, I didn't prod him into it). They surprisingly didn't have a reuben sammich, so I went with a sausage plate. I have no idea what the sausages were, but they were outstanding. there was also some sauerkraut and new potatoes on the plate and some bacon. The bacon went great with ED, which was their smoked Brown Goose ale. The 20th Anniversary Ale was almost a little too bitter/hoppy (though I hate to say "hoppy") to go with the sausages. The 2.5% Six was a nice brown color and did go well with it. I had 2 samplers (4 glasses each), and Hippy had a glass of the 20th anniversary.

When you order the sampler platter, of beers, it's four beers of your chosing, in the 2-3 ounce glass. The bartenders will do their best to arrange it from light to dark, to save the beer drinking palate, and give the best beer enjoyment experience.

After finishing up GI, we went and picked up the presents, then headed back to my sisters to get my brother and cousin to head out and go see Hemlock, Meshuggah and Ministry again. (Wow, nice run on sentence there dummy). Before the show, we saw Sin, the guitarist for Ministry walking around, and we got to talk to him for a couple of minutes (well, it seemed like a while, but it was probably only a minute). We were camped out at the back bar in front of the stage, so we had a much safer vantage point than the pit, and a much better viewing point than under the TV on the right. Kriddy could actually see the stage. Meshuggah had the same set, but it was done perfectly. Ministry had the same set and it was also done well. I actually think I looked more forward to Meshuggah each night than to Ministry. The new Revolting Cocks song "I'm not gay" is good too.

After the show, we headed back down to CU. Kriddy drove mostly the whole way, while I was slumped forward passed out. We dropped off Hippy around 3:30 and got to my place shortly there after. Sunday was mostly uneventful. I left my glasses up at my sisters, and then there were no contacts cases at kriddy's so I went home. I wasn't quite sleepy, so I checked some email, and then transferred my Welcome Back Pat Wheat from bucket into carboy. That thing is pretty darn good.

Afterwards, did the clean up and laid down, finally around 2:30.

When I woke up I was 37 (ok, so when I went to bed I was 37, but ... eh, you get it). Happy Birthday me. (My wish list is over there <---)

MINISTRY

Tonight, in chicago, at the House of Blues... MINISTRY (with opening acts Hemlock and MESHUGGAH!!!) The last time I was at House of Blues, was KMFDM with Combichrist. That was a good show. The biggest problem with HOB is they have a horrible beer selection. If I remember correctly, it's all bud and miller products. They have cans of Guinness, but what's the point?

The last time I saw Ministry there, my brother and I were right on the rail, in the center of the stage. Standing with our buddies Tom and Fred. We drank Guinness with shots of flavored vodka and schnapps. Which isn't horrible, it's just really expensive there.

For seeing a concert and having a decent beer selection in the Midwest, I'd recommend going to St. Louis to the Pageant. They have several ciders, and quite a nice row of taps and a decent bottle selection too.

Other places in Chicago that I've seen concerts at were the First Midwest Bank Amphitheater in Tinley park. Saw Ozzfest there last year, that place was horrible. The most interesting beer there was Pilsner Urquel. As I was standing in line for whatever beer they had, there was this guy in line who saw the sign for the beer, who OBVIOUSLY was a beer guy, and said something like "Oh, they have Pilsner Urquel, they have some good beer here". On a hot day, all sweaty and nasty and listening to death metal bands, drinking a skunky ass PU isn't on my list of things to drink. It's ok sometimes, but I wouldn't consider it a good beer.

Reggies in Chicago. We saw Chemlab/U.S.S.A/Project .44 there, it's a nice little venue for a show. They have a pretty good beer selection for the size of the place. I hadda Smithwicks draft there. I think they also had Newcastle and some other decent brews for the size. Tomorrow night Belladonna will be there.

In Champaign, the only place you'd want to see any sort of show would be the Highdive. Don't go to a show at the Assembly Hall expecting beer, cuz there's no beer. Go to the Highdive, it may be crappy beer, but at least there's some beer. And it's walking distance from all the other bars.

I checked the gravity in Welcome Back Pat Wheat and it's right where I expected it to be. It's a lovely color for a wheat too, the picture doesn't do it justice, but it's a beautiful yellow-gold. After I get back on Sunday morning, I'm going to transfer it to the carboy and rest it on some orange peel, lemon peel, crushed coriander and maybe some crushed blueberries.

Did I mention tonight was Ministry.

Tomorrow Wisconsin breweries. We definitely will be going to New Glarus and Grumpy Troll.

If you have any suggestions for some others, let me know.

But do it quick, cuz I'm outta here at noon.

Man, I keep forgetting to add stuff (this is my third edit). Last night at crane alley, had a draft pint of Rogue Imperial Stout. Followed that up with a draft tulip of Dark Horse 2x Crooked Tree IPA. I ate the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich along with onion rings and neither of those beers went well with the food. The 2x was way too fruity. Grapefruit and bubblegum (juicy fruit?) mixed together with hot sauce isn't that good of an idea. Also the thick chocolate coffee mix of the Imperial Stout didn't sit well with it either. I'm still looking for a great beer to have with buffalo wings. So if you have any suggestions...

V

A Paradox, well maybe more of a conundrum

After work, stopped by the Corkscrew to see if they got in the O'fallon's Smoke whiskey aged, they didn't have it on display, so I guess they didn't have it. But I picked up a 4 pack of Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree IPA and a bottle of something else that I didn't write down. Do'h!

Got home and put the bottle of whatever it was into the fridge, and put the Dark Horses (the ones with the green wax) into the box in the spare bedroom, you know, the box that has some Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout, Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron, Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout... and some other things. It's a very nice box.

Well, while I was at the Corkscrew the girl who runs/owns it says that Mike and Molly's
has Founders Breakfast Stout on draft, so that changes my plans around a little for the evening.

I get home and shower to get the little hairs off (I get a haircut every Tuesday) and get dressed and have my beer for the evening at home, whilst watching Creation in the 21st Century with Dr. Carl Baugh, on TBN. I missed the title of the show last night, so I wasn't sure when to drink. (He says the title of the show over and over and over, and I've turned it into a little drinking game.)

My beer of choice last night was Brew Dog Paradox Islay Batch 009 (which is apparently the Ardbeg version). I drank it in my Ommegang tenth anniversary glass. As you can see, it had good carbonation and made a pretty good head. Kriddy thought it looked red, but I thought it quite black. There was hardly any smell to this, which was odd.

The taste was huge on smoke. Almost nothing else (which was odd that there was so little smell). It was nearly like beef jerky, smoked salmon or hickory smoked bacon in flavor. Really really powerful smoke flavor. In a beer this black, you'd expect to come across some classic stout flavors like coffee, chocolate, vanilla but none of those were present. It was definitely smoke.

It wasn't syrupy thick like Dark Lord (but then what is) it had small carbonation bubbles that lasted the whole drink. It had the consistency on the tongue a little thicker than a soda, and kind of reminded me of Dr. Pepper (not that I drink Dr. Pepper a lot).

As I was drinking it, I thought it would go great with a steak, or bbq, or a BLT. It definitely wasn't a desert beer. It would go horribly with chocolate or coffee. But with a main course that was cooked over an open flame, it would be outstanding. (Chipper Dave, as bad as it would be to waste it, this would be almost perfect for cooking brats in).

After finishing that, went to Hooters for Tuesday Night Trivia. Trivia was canceled due to not enough people there, so I had one beer, (I think the Boulevard Pale) and ate. They have some new "southwestern" menu items. The southwest eggrolls are outstanding. The quesadilla with the southwesty stuff is also really good.

After eating we went to Seven Saints to drop off four bottles of Dark Lord for Andy, the manager. While there, we asked what the Dark Horse was on tap, Chibuisi at first thought it was an IPA, but poured a little glass and it came out black. So he checked down at the keg and said it was a smoked porter. So Kriddy and I each had one of those. As we were drinking it, we talked him into putting a drop (or two) of Pappy Van Winkle 23 into our glasses, to give it a slight bourbon barrel aged hint (like the O'fallon smoked whiskey aged). It was barely there, but almost noticeable.

While inside, Noah from the Champaign Urbana Beer Club stopped in to find out when Whiskey Wednesday was ending and it would become bourbon. 7S has all their whiskey half off on Wednesday. Chibuisi said it would be switching in like 3 weeks. Noah then said great because he had a friend who wanted the Pappy Van Winkle 23 year old. It's normally $30 a glass. So the drop or two that we put in our beer was about a dollar's worth. Noah mentioned that it was the Beer Club's Happy Hour Tuesday and they were all next door at Mike and Molly's. He at first joked that they had drank all the Breakfast stout, but then relented and said there was some left.

So we closed out and went next door. Kriddy and I both ordered the Breakfast Stout. It seemed a little smokier than I remember, but it was still outstanding. While drinking that, I went to the jukebox. Played some PIG, Ministry and Revco. The music seemed to be a hit, so someone offered to buy me a shot. As I don't do shots, the guy relented and bought me a beer (more on that in a moment.) As I drink two beers in the time the GF drinks one, I got a second beer to drink while she was finishing her Bfast stout. I went with Brigand. It was a belgian strong pale. Pretty good in flavor. The bottle was the same shape as Duvel/Piraat/gulden drak. The main flavor note that I remember from it was it had a hint of hotdog water flavor (which comes from the coriander).

Finished off the evening by playing some Front 242, Combichrist and more Ministry and Revco. The beer I went with as bought for me was... Mickey's. Man, I hadn't had one of those in AAAGGGES. Not since, um, like 91? Drinking it reminded me of sucking the water out of a can of mushrooms. Not that I don't like mushroom water, I don't necessarily like it in my beer.

So the flavors that I got last night from beer was; bacon, beef jerky, hotdog water, mushroom water, coffee, smoke, chocolate, and maybe a little honey. That's a flavor EXPLOSION, in anyone's mouth.

After all that, how can anyone say they don't like the taste of beer?

V

Fermenting nicely

One of the things I dislike most about brewing in buckets is that the fermentation isn't nearly as cool as when you have a carboy. In the bucket it's like every 5 to 10 seconds the airlock will bubble/percolate. The one brew that we did in the carboy was awesome. It'd build up so much pressure that the airlock blew off, and it'd be completely full of foamy yeasty goodness. Buckets just don't provide that cool visual.

Back when hippy and I first brewed, he took out the airlock (or it shot out like a bullet, I can't remember) and he was looking down through the opening and got a facial of foam that shot up and out of the carboy.

5 gallon carboys are a lot more fun than 6 gallon ones, and way more fun than buckets.

Well, after a week or so I'll transfer it into the carboy.

It's going to be the Welcome Back Pat Wheat.

I put 2 bottles into the fridge for tonight. The first was the Samichlaus Helles; the other is (I think) brew dog paradox batch 009. So those should be good.

Skot really liked the Helles (he loves the high ABV's) and I'm looking forward to the Paradox.

In other news, I really need to mow my front yard. I think Wed. is the first (and only) time I have available to do it.

Last night at softball, we split, won the first game by a run, and lost the second by 10 (do'h). After we went to Hooters and the team drank a lot of crappy beers. I started out with a Boulevard Pale, then had a Bare Knuckle Stout (AB) it's amazing how many people will refuse to even try to drink a beer that dark (it's a Guinness clone). Several people commented "it's like 3 day old coffee" "eew" "how can you drink this". Kriddy's like shaddup you pussies, this isn't dark or stout! It's a waste of her time to drink it. I also wound up drinking some "ght" and some bud select.

Josh, the manager, said they'd be getting rid of 312 and replacing it with Shocktop. Those are similar products and are both distributed by AB, so they aren't really changing a tap. Granted Goose Island will be losing a tap, but it wasn't sold a lot anyway. They soon will be losing the Sunset Wheat tap which will be replaced with the Hooters 25th anniversary beer.

If you look off to the left, you'll see my beer list for this year. I'll keep adding several to it each day until I get caught up.

V

Sink de M Yo!

Ok, so at the corner of La Grange and 159th street is some sort of thing that has a sign with several of the letters blown off. It says

"Cinc de M yo"
"free nach"

So, as it's cinco de mayo, I thought i'd reshow one of my older "conceptual" art pieces.

I did it (apparently) 2 years ago. The sink next to my bar, I filled with 4 jars of Flavorite Mayo (from county market). It's real mayo. After I took some pictures I threw it out. Yes, that much mayo is a lot of fun to play with. I prefer this textured picture, as opposed to the one I took when I smoothed it out, it was hard to discern what it was.

Oh well, on to beer

Since I last left you, went to Crane Alley and had an Issaquah Bullfrog Ale. Which is apparently an American Wheat Ale. I think while tasting it, I thought it to be that. Maybe, I could be wrong. The bottle doesn't say it's style. So I hadda guess. It poured almost completely flat. Decent yellow to gold color. Slightly floral hops flavor, but really tasty. Slight coriander flavor, not enough to turn into a hotdog water beer, but it was just barely there. After pouring the bottle had sediment in the bottom that didn't look like normal yeast gunk, it was grey-ish, and looked like the sludge that I used to have to clean out of the Chenoa swimming pool when we were cleaning the diatomaceous earth filter.

After finishing that, went to softball practice, where we wound up playing a group of people who wanted to also practice, and we destroyed them, in the second inning, each guy batted 3 times. We kilt them. After that went to hooters and had a Boulevard Pale Ale. The more I drink that beer, the more I enjoy it. Pine-y, flowery, a little pepper, it's a nice blend of hops.

Then went home and brewed a wheat (that may wind up being a wit). It was the weizenbier kit, but in addition to the included yeast, I used the Whitelabs Belgian wit yeast. So hopefully that'll turn it into something Blue-moon-ish. Not that I like blue moon, but it seems to be popular. Hoping it'll either be blue moon-y or maybe a little Leinenkugel sunset wheatish.

Hadn't brewed since hippy and I last redid our Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Stout back in December. If I was a purist I wouldn't brew in the summer, but thanks to air conditioning we don't have to not brew in the summer! Take that Marzen's!

I haven't determined how I'm going to "offer" the beer. Will I put it into bottles, or maybe I could get a couple of those mini-kegs that Heinekin comes in and see about refilling/sealing that... that'd be awesome.

My OG is supposed to be just over 1.050 so I'm spot on, which is nice. FG should drop to around 1.010. It should be right around 5% so that'll be fun.

Tonight is first men's softball game. Not sure who exactly we are playing, but we'z going to hooters afterwards (as that's the sponsor).

So, happy cinco everyone. Hope you are as excited as I am...

Whoo hoo!

(Insert Witty Title Here)

Friday afternoon, the GF and I went up to greater chicagoland to go to a wedding reception.



(Horray that worked)

Well, this one did have an open bar, but it was the usual suspects. I've been drinking a lot of not GREAT beers in the past week.

It started Tuesday with the Coronas, then Wednesday with the Old Styles, Thursday was Leinenkugel, Friday ... oh what a mess Friday was.... the highlight was Sam Adams Boston Lager (of which I have a new appreciation for) also a bud light or two, a miller light or two, it was just a bad beer night. Then after the reception ended we went back to the hotel bar, there I ordered a Birra Moretti and a La Rossa, and was given a Birra Moretti and a Peroni.

(Side note) About a year ago, when we helped drive the bride and groom to their new place in Asheville, NC, the GF only drank Bud Light. We went to a place in a mall (it seemed) called the biergarden (i think) and in there she had a Birra Moretta (i thought she had a la rossa, but she claims it was a BM) so it was about a year ago, that she had that beer, and that was her introduction to beer outside of the AMERICAN MACRO STYLE. Oddly enough the last time she had it was May 3, 2007, and now she may have had it again on May3, 2008. *how do i get one of those weird spooky whistling noises on here???*

Well, after the wedding we drove back to my sisters, and spent the night.

*Insert interesting anecdote here*

As we were driving to find the reception place, we had 5 miles down a road near Chicago, and the GF noticed I was looking out the windows of the car, just sort of looking around. To which she said something like "Stop looking for liquor stores and keep your eyes on the road". So I was like, "how'd you know i was looking for a liquor store" and she didn't really have to answer...

Ok, after waking up, we had determined we were going to go to Granite City to sample their beers. On the way we stopped at a liquor store I had seen a few times before. It had a good selection of beers I had never seen before, from locations like Lithuania and Romania; unfortunately it was all in 6 packs, so I didn't get any. I did pick up a bottle of Three Floyds Alpha Klaus, and a bottle of Oud Beersel's Gueze and Kriek.

I've recently determined that the way to appreciate a brewpub is to have one of two menu items. The Reuben sammich or the Fish and Chips.

(The reuben at Harrisons was AWESOME; the fish and chips at gordon birsch were horrible. The fish and chips at Flossmoor station are great!)

Granite City doesn't have a regular Reuben. They have a smoked turkey reuben, but not corned beef and cabbage. Granite City doesn't have "fish and chips" they have "Granite City Walleye Dinner" but it doesn't look like fish and chips.

We ordered the sampler platter and had their beers.

Northern Light Lager
Brother Benedict Bock
Duke of Wellington IPA
Broad Axe Stout
Two Pull

Apparently the two pull is a mixture of the Northern Light and a maibock (which isn't on the menu; or they have Brother Benedict listed as a Bock when it's a maibock.) I thought Brother Benedict was just a straight bock (it seemed that way) But the waitress said it was a maibock, when presenting it... eh, who knows.

None of the beers were spectacular. The Broad Axe at first seemed to be smokey and somewhat coffee-ish, but after a while that just gave way to tasting burned. The Bock wound up being my favorite out of the lineup. It went really good with the french onion soup; and also paired well with the smothered beer sammich. The GF had the three cheese ravioli, which she seemed to enjoy.

We then hadda drive back for a Cinco De Mayo party (ok, so it was a few days early). And we took the three beers with us. The Alpha Klaus was as good as ever. Afterwards went with the Gueze, which just ripped the tastebuds off my mouth and pounded my tongue with tart sour-goodness! Kriddy took a drink (i made her; so i could see the look on her face) she didn't want to, but she's a trooper. It's the same face that kids get when they eat those sour patch kid's things. It was so delicious and refreshing. Carbonation wiped off any previous flavours in my mouth and replaced it with that classic Gueuze pucker. Followed that up with the Kriek. Which wasn't nearly as sweet as I had expected. It was like a cherry version of those sour patch kids (without the sugar coating). Deep dark red, pink head. It was awesome. A nice finishing beer. (Also at 6.5% it is 2.5 stronger than lindemans, so it was totally a different drink.)

Then we went to go see Ironman because a friend wanted to see it for his birthday. The 8 p.m. theater was full, so we went into the 7:30 and watched it, probably missed the first 15-20 minutes, so other than not know why anything was going on, we enjoyed the flick). Was supposed to go to drinks after, but they went to Guido's, which isn't horrible, but we weren't in the mood for a Meet Market, so we went back and crashed.

Softball practice today, and I might be brewing tonight.

Otherwise, tis all

V

Meet the author

Nothing beer-wise happened last night, just softball and then went to B-dub in the hopes of getting the 6th bottle. Also went to friar tucks to see if they had the 6 pack (they didn't) so i picked up the "you could win tix" 12 pack of old style. yay. Had 3 Leinenkugel Summer Shandy's at B-dubs. That's one of the most refreshing brews out there. And that's it for beer last night.

So, who am I and why would you want to read a beer blog by me?

Last year a friend discovered the website 365 beer challenge so I thought, what the heck. Well, I started drinking beer (and keeping track) around Jan. 8. I had already been drinking different beers, but this really started me on a quest for new beer. (Meat, who works on the other side of the cubicle also started)

Along the way, several milestones happened. On Jan. 25 I had my 100th different beer of the year. 200 happened on March 6. 365 happened on April 1.

Then I took some time off and actually went a week without drinking any beer. Mostly just to prove to myself that I could.

Beer 1000 came on November 9. I finished the year with 1199. One beer short of averaging 100 unique beers a month. I average just over 3 beers a day. These weren't normally just samplers, it was real full 4-12-16-22 oz beers. I got pretty toasted several times.

After a while, meat and I found the beer advocate top 100 list. Since most of our research was done at work, we had to fight through websense; web filtering. Hence we went of the top 100 list from May of 2006.

Well, from that list we had 81 of the beers.

So we didn't just have a large quantity of beer, we also had some of the best beers in the world.

Our year was finished with a bottle of Sam Adams Utopias. (So we had some of the most expensive beer too).

So far this year I've had 183 beers that I didn't have last year. Originally I wasn't going to keep track, but I just sort of started.

So far this year, I've visited the following breweries/brewpubs.

Destihl
Shoreline
Mishawaka
Barley Island
Flossmoor Station
Alcatraz Indy
Barley's Smokehouse and Brewpub
Elevator
Harrison's Brew
Gordon Biersch Bollingbrook
Three Floyds

Next week we'll be going to either Michigan or Wisconsin to visit breweries. Last year went to Founders and Bell's, but we might be going back to those.

I love beer. (If you couldn't figure that out). It's currently my passion.

I say currently, because I probably have OCD; I've also probably got ADHD so I wind up doing things all out, and then find something new. (I used to have a large yo-yo collection; used to collect magic books/tricks; used to clean my house a lot; used to do some artwork; used to do a lot of things; now I do beer). I've got my wall o' beer, I've got a room that's full of empty bottles (because I have difficulty throwing things away), full bottles, and my brewing equipment. My bedroom used to be the bar/living room, but I moved into that, my headboard is a bar. Behind the bar is more of my beer collection/cellar.

I've got family in Georgia, so I look forward to travels there, not just to see my family, but also (if not more) to see what beers I can get there that I can't get here. We've got friends that we visit in Asheville, and I definitely love to go there for beer. My trips have lots to do with beer.

I recently got the Verizon LG EnV phone, and it comes with the Navigator, it has a brewpubs search function, which is awesome!

Last year I entered the Wynkoop Brewery Beer Drinker of the Year competition. I didn't make the finals, but was named the Rookie of the Year (I'm wearing the shirt in my pic). So that's my beer claim to fame now.

I guess that's enough "I" and "My" for the day. If you have any questions, let me know.

V

Crappy Beers

Last night went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Cubs (as kriddy hasn't much food in her place and I don't either, oh and I don't have cable) beat the crap outta the Brewers. They have a decent beer selection, but they just got in the Cubs Old Style bottles, so I drank those.

To us... um... beer snobs, Old Style is a fizzy yellow piss beer. Old Style is very refreshing, it's not horrible to taste, but it's a low brow beer. It is in the same category as Hamms, PBR, Strohs, Old Milwaukee... the list goes on... and on... and on... Oddly most of those cheap beers are made by Pabst.

Sometimes I enjoy the low brow beers, they are often harder to find than the mid-range "craft" beers. Around central Illinois, most bars have a version of Sierra Nevada on draft. Killians is ubiquitous. Stella Artois has weaseled it's way onto taps throughout town. Newcastle, Hoegaarden, Bass, and Guinness draft and bottles are in most bars. But if you really want to have a beer at a place, I think you need to try the "crappiest" beer there.

In Champaign Urbana, you can get Hamms at D.R. Diggers; Strohs at Esquire Lounge; Schlitz at the Brass Rail. Natural Light is available at Billy Barooz (thank you Illinois head football coach Ron Zook). You used to be able to get Lone Star at the Rose Bowl. There's no shortage of these beers in town, and you can pretty much drink all you want for about $10 a night.

If I go over to someone's house when they open the fridge and offer me a beer, I'd rather have one of these crappy beers than a Miller or Bud product. Normally there's a can of Stroh's or PBR hiding back behind the pickles. Or it might be waiting for them to use in a beer bread or in a soup; they won't waste a Bud light in beer bread, but Old Milwaukee is perfectly acceptable for that.

I don't drink these all the time, but they are a nice palate cleanser in between other beers, normally.

(This was originally going to be about pairing beer with hot wings, but I got side tracked)

So as I'm sitting there enjoying the shellacking the cubs are putting on the brewers, there's a guy behind us who is REALLY loud. I think he had 3 different beers during the night and was trying to impress his date with his beer knowledge. I didn't want to say anything to him except to shut up (he was really loud). I'm not sure what all he had to drink, but the last thing he ordered was "that Leinenkugel sun thing, you know the one that comes with an orange". To which the server asked "sunset wheat?" and the guy replied (loudly) "yeah that's it". He then went on to extol the virtues of this beer, that he couldn't remember the name of. He talked about how light and refreshing it was. I thought to myself, if you want a light refreshing Leinenkugel, drink a Summer Shandy. I thought to myself, this guy knows nothing about beer, he's just obnoxious, that's not REAL beer... then I looked down at my table and saw the empty bottles of Old Style...