Beerbrotha Sports Review: NCAA Norfolk St. vs UF

Ok so Norfolk State is getting run out of the gym right now. I think Billy Donovan told his boys that if they lose to NSU, someone is going to die. I'm so proud of the Green and Gold, let's grab something DEEEEEEEEEEEEEP in the cellar. A 3 year old vintage of:

Beer Log: Right now

State: Eating homemade tacos with the HEB tortillas (WINNING)

Sweetwater Dank Tank DP Barleywine

I think this only came out once. Only 19 check ins on untappd. Let us beer. Hmm, smell those malts. Beer has a thick but thin white head on top of an orangish amber beer. The beer has a thick caramel flavor, moderate hops just barely holding the balance. This beer is huge but those hops must have mellowed those 142 IBUs over the years. The beer is very piney and big caramel, some ginger, and a pinch of cherries. I'm sure they kept this one pretty simple ingredient wise and let it simmer. Low carbonation and it drinks very good (as they say in Alabama). It mellows out the spiciness of the McCormick taco mix. I'm sure this beer could have been called a Double IPA when it was first bottled. No hot alcohol, very mellow, damn near takes the place of wine for me. I do wonder if they wanted us to age it or drink it now. I wish more brewers put comments on their labels like Pliny the Elder (DRINK IT NOW). 4 Stars for the second version of the Donkey Punch.

By the way, whatever you do please do not use your work computer to Google Donkey Punch and Sweetwater.

Oh, and for the record, let's get in the review from yesterday

Beer log saint patrick's day
state: March 17th at Onion Creek coffee house outside trying to watch a little basketball with the family

Independence Lupulust Tripel

Amber color with great effervescent carbonation in a perfectly white head. They messed around and put a lemon in it boo. Nose has a great lemon with a little bit of lemon zest, I enjoy the great light sour this is well as the grapefruit hops in the finish. This beer tastes fantastic, and I get a good feeling it would really help when I'm the dusting the furniture back at the house. No hint of a 9 percent alcohol content. This one could really sneak up on you in the summertime. 4 star for Independence once again!

Beerbrotha Sports Review: NCAA Norfolk St. vs Mizzou

Well I can't smoke cigars in the house and we never got around to building that outdoor deck, so let's do the next best thing.

Beer Log: Right now

State: Still fired up with the Norfolk State win

Cigar City Humidor Series India Pale Ale

I think this is a 2010 vintage, but I cannot find a date on the bottle. Had to reach waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the cellar for this puppy. The beer smells as sweet and malty as an HBCU victory in the NCAA Tournament. The beer has a Virginia Pine nose like that of a Spartan shield. The beer has a huge foamy head just like the huge win of the Norfolk State Spartans. The first taste of this dark amber beer and it tastes as bitter as Mizzou's loss in the Big Dance. The beer has a nice sweetness to it, very very piney hops but with SERIOUS caramel cookie malt. It's cloying just for a few seconds before the dryness comes out making you want more. Beer so good it makes me think of when my Grandfather was the longtime Dean of Arts and Sciences at Norfolk State. Makes me remember when my Uncles and Aunts went to NSU. Makes me remember when NSU was my #2 choice for Undergraduate education but I chose FAMU, another school in the MEAC conference. High 4 stars!

Black College Ball ALL DAY BABY!!!!

(and Duke is losing too)

Beerbrotha Sports Review: NCAA WKU vs MVSU. More Brown than Black

Oh Lord Jesus!

When I sat down to write about an in depth post about some grand personal beer experiences I had a year ago in Saint Louis. I'm talking careers and counselors and money and martial arts and tears and empty apartments and drunken weekdays and smokey rooms and.... But we'll save that for later.

While I'm here, I figure I'll go ahead and fire up the Mississippi Valley State play-in game. I'm brimming with Black College pride as MVSU from the SWAC is destroying the Toppers from Western Kentucky. They put my school FAMU in this jacked up play-in game a few years back and I'm glad we won. Every year we get a Black School in the Play-in and all of us Black College Alums gather up our pride to root on our brethren.

As I sit here there are only 2:15 minutes left in the game and things have gone to hell in a hand basket. The Delta Devils are falling apart like a house of cards in the last 5 minutes. And add to that, THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT IS IN THE DAMN CROWD! This is a mess.

The wife is getting a beer for me to review in a minute, but while I'm here, let's rant a bit about the status of Black College Sports....

Is it not true that you only need like 3 good players to have a DECENT team. Is it not true that 98% of the best basketball players in the country Black? Is it not true that teams with hardly any gym at all is fielding decent teams (say Fordham). How is it that WE are the BOTTOM of the BARREL every damn year in Black College Basketball. It's not like football where you have to have castle-like field houses, epic stadiums, whores posing as co-eds, and 40,000 member booster clubs. It's just basketball.

Ok here we go, 40 seconds left and WKU gets the shot and the foul. If you are going to foul, take his KNEECAPS out. This is so much fail right now.

If you asked me 5 years ago what would we have first, an HBCU that was a 10 seed in the NCAA's or a Black President? I mean come on. And the game is OVER! And the President is leaving the game! Damn damn shame.

Beer Log: Right now

Beer State: Watching Real Time with the wife and pissed off

More Brown than Black IPA by Stone/Ninkasi/Alchemist

I can get a whiff of those hops a full 3 feet away from me. I can see the deep brown beer has a very very lacy tan head. The beer has a very strong pine and grapefruit and grassy hop nose. Barely any hops fitting in there. This beer is incredibly good and balanced. The hops are as strong as the nose, but it works well with the darker roasty malts. I'm getting what would likely normally be strong roast, coffee, and caramel with a pinch of toast, but those hops are just killer. The beauty is that this beer is nice and dry enough that you can drink a lot of it. The ABV is 7.4% which is a bit high for session beering, but damn it works for me. As one's tongue gets used to impact (no homo), it gets to be like a beer cookie thing. I wouldn't be surprised if they snuck a few oats in there as well. You know what, give me 4 stars, a high 4 stars.

Feel free to read here about the story of this beer.

Shiner ALE?

Looks like our friends at Spoetzl got a hair up their you know what and made a fricken pale ale! Shiner has always been that ice cold lager of Texas, but I cannot wait to blog this one up.

Beer Log: Right now

State: Watching UFC 143 Pre-fight press conference on youtube, pretty sleepy.

Shiner Wild Hare Pale Ale

Man I hung out with the boys last Saturday night very late, and I don't think I have recovered, and it's THURSDAY. Dammit I must be getting old. Moving on. Beer pours with the hugest head I've ever seen on a Shiner beer. Lasting power with an amber color. The beer has a very nice oatmeal cookie and English muffin thing. I'm getting something like the cinnamon toast the baby likes so much. The beer has a light english muffin and toast flavor. The hops are moderate and it's very balanced with the moderate caramel malt. Extremely clean with no butter flavor that I get from so many craft pale ales. I think the Southern Star Pine Belt has it beat in intensity, but this one is very sessionable. I could see me slamming a lot of this at a tailgate in the summer time. High 3 stars.

Paris in Conroe? Le Mort Vivant

So I was waltzing through the Specs near my house and it turns that Southern Star has a new seasonal. This thing totally missed my gaze before, so I copped a 4 pack and promptly drank two of them. Now the official review.

Beer log: Right now

State: Anti-multitasking talking to a friend of mine on the phone while trying to blog.

Le Mort Vivant by Southern Star

Beer comes in a 12 ounce can with a cool looking design. Cloudy amber with a slightly tinged offwhite head. Nose has a little bit of cinnamon, caramel and a pinch of sour apple. Beer has thin body with high carbonation. The flavor while fleeting is pretty refreshing. I need to think hard about what I had in Paris a few years ago, but I am more into this. Beer leaves my mouth dry and chalky with something akin to apple and sour apple, but very subtle. Subtle flavors and refreshing beer must mean we are coming up on my favorite time of the year for beer, Spring. I hope to have my new kegerator fabbed up and ready to go in time to score some serious spring bock. Hell I may get two. So the beer flavor has a bit of grainy malt and very low hops. I'm sure they put some hops in there, b/c ya just gotta. I'm going to give this a low 3 star. Probably just too cold outside to get the most out of this puppy. Put an indie rock band outdoors in June at Petrol or Hubcap and slap this beer on tap and it may be the best ever.

Sam Adams New Beers

Beer log: Right now
State: Watching the Outback Bowl 2OT.

Come on Michigan State, please beat the Dawgs. Man I hate U(sic)GA, not to mention the SEC.

Samuel Adams Alpine Spring
Enjoying this one in my Brewing Network glass, splitting a bottle with the Misses. Tinged straw color and a little cloudy. Beer has a vegetal, grass hop, and something like a light cracker thing going on. Not the saltine crackers but like those fancy ones the wife buys that have wheat in them and little grains in them. Goes great with hummus. Moving on. Taste of the beer is a moderate hop with some of that same cracker thing in the middle. After about 60 seconds I'm getting a funky bitterness aftertaste, kinda like orange rinds. Oh he made the kick, going to the third overtime. The more I drink the beer I get a light sugar sweetness as well. Nice beer but the aftertaste kills it. High 2 stars.

Ok, so Georgia LOST the game baby! I'm fired up. Now we are watching the first season of The Wire on HBO Plus. Righteous!

Samual Adams Whitewater IPA
Apparantly keeping with the water theme. Huge white head this time, cloudy again but with a more orange look to it. No clue what hop I'm smelling here, but it smells like (I'm sorry), kind of a dumpster outside a restaurant, that eerie sweet smell. Taste of the beer is not bad, strong hops, low malt, something I would like if I were on my Extra IPA kick. With this weather though I'm nearly ready for Bock season. The hops on this one are pretty tough for me, probably a big amount of American and German hops. I don't taste the apricots they say are in there. High 2 Stars.

Ok, now the last one. About 45 minutes have passed and I chugged some Crystal light, so after a few I'm going for the last new SA Beer in this Variety Pack.

Sam Adams Mighty Oak Ale
Clear deep amber with a tinghed white head. Nose has a huge caramel malt with some slight oak. Beer taste has a light caramel, a little thin on the body, and a light chocolate powder and vanilla flavor (I imagine from the oak). Beer is lightly hopped and actually is kind of dry. A drinkable session oak aged beer is a welcome change to the high gravity oak aged beers that we can rarely find occasion to drink. 3 stars.

Infinium 2010

At long last I'm having some Infinium.

Beer log: right now

State: eating spaghetti, watching Luther

Infinium 2010

Amber and clear, big white head. Nose is lemony sour. Taste has a great jolly rancher sour and green apples thing going on. I'm even getting something like white grapes as well. The more I drink it I get something like a light smoke as well. The more I drink it, the more I like it. Not too dry and a quick end to the mouthfeel. Well put together, barely notice the 10% abv. 4 stars. The more it warms the more grain and cinnamon I get. Nice stuff from Sam Adams and Wiehenstephan.