Back in Town, DVR Marathon

Just loved the trip with the family to Central Florida. Lot's of great beer in Walt Disney World Resort. A brewpub, a couple of beer bars, a good cigar bar. Not to mention I found some decent beering out on the town. Anyway, I'm back home and will probably just spend a few hours recapping all the beering and travelling I've done this year since I haven't had the chance to do more than microblog (@beerbrotha) much this year.

But I'm back here with the wife at the house and we doing a DVR marathon. While we are here, we are going to hit some good beers in the cellar.

Boulevard 21st Anniversary Fresh Hop Pale Ale

Enjoying this in my Stella Artois goblet. Yes I know Bully's anniversary is a year ago and one should probably drink a fresh hop beer as soon as you get it. Moving on. Amber color and kind of cloudy with a huge tan head. Nose has a huge flowery hop head. Just awesome. I get a pinch of chalk just before a rush a great caramel and grassy hop goodness. The beer is rather simply done with a nice caramel malt (reminds me of bread pudding or something with that caramel topping) and with another sip I get a pine cone thing going on. Must have been all the pine trees in the Magic Kingdom influencing me. The mouthfeel is still a chalky yet finishes incredibly dry, which begs you to have another. Low 4 stars. Probably would be all aces if I drank it immediately. Won't let that happen with the next round.

...and later on

Saint Somewhere Lectio Divina

Sounds divine? Smell that jolly rancher once we pop the cork. Ruby amber color with a highly effervescent rapidly dissipating head. Taste has a moderate sourness with a regular old school bubble gum taste. It has a nice moderate caramel to it. It's like someone took a red jolly rancher and cherry coke (two things I typically don't like) and made a beer out of it. Very nice. High 3 Stars.

Spring Bock Beer Tasting

It's the most wonderful time of the year! BOCK SEASON BABY! After the dog days of summer and the 58 minutes of winter we get in Houston, nothing NOTHING is better than late February in Houston, Texas. 70 degrees outside, crawfish are starting to pop up, and I can be found on the golf course on my Friday's off. But that also means that the Spring Bocks are back. Sweet, malty, low hops, crisp, easy to drink, clean, pure. I absolutely love. So let's make it happen.

Beer Log: Right now

State: A little loopy from last nights beering, especially the Saint Arnold Farmer's Brown

Abita Mardi Gras Bock

Clear amber, kinda great malt nose, a pinch raisiny taste, low hops. Has a nice water thing going that Abita is known for. Nice light body, good mouthfeel. Sure could use some crawfish right now. Light bitter aftertaste that barely lingers. High 3 stars.

Boulevard Boss Tom's Golden Bock

Golden, pinch more straw. Good caramel malt and raisin thing going on. Smell something like wheat. Good chewier beer. Has a light bread thing going, seemingly noble hops and whatnot. Nice cookie thing going on. High 3 stars, but not as high as Abita's Mardi Gras.

Saint Arnold Bock

Tinged amber color. Syrup sweet thing smell. Big caramel/cinnamon thing, with a pinch of brown sugar. Great meld of sweetness with crisp crisp aftertaste. After you drink it, it's like sipping a new one. 5 stars.

Breckenridge Pandora's Bock

Even a darker amber, copper color. Head waned quickly, so not much nose. Much stronger sweetness than SA, but a little more cloying. Has some chalkiness to it. I like the way it comes together, just that the water is not there. It's actually great, just came after the SA Bock. 4 stars.

Sierra Nevada 2011 Glissade Golden Bock

Great golden straw color. Nice lasting head. Cookie sweetness thing again. Much softer beer, better taken care of than b-ridge. Has a light hop and light sweetness to it. Extremely drinkable. A little more balanced with the hops. Has a lemony hop I'm getting now. Palate getting low. High 3 stars.

Gordon Biersch Blonde Bock

Very clear straw. Very tasty caramel malt, nice sweetness, low hops. Has a little honey thing going on as well. Great light mouthfeel as well. Has some light bread to it, but more of a oatmeal raisin bread. Funny thing is I don't care for raisins, but I love the flavor in the beer. Kinda running out of taste buds there. No rating right now.

Dark Star Stout

Beer Log: Right now
State: Just ate some spaghetti and watching TV with the family

Boulevard Smokestack Series Dark Truth Stout
Another big beer from our boys at the Bully. This Smokestack Series is great stuff. I could drink this stuff all the time. Pours milky and smooth with the bubbles falling down in the head like Guiness, but much better looking. The head is HUGE and not moving. The nose on this beer is a great malty caramel and chocolate, with a cinnamon. Oh yeah man. Great chocolate and caramel and brown sugar taste. Just awesome strength with a pinch of peppery alcohol. I notice something akin to cherry and moderate hops that are there just to balance. The beer is very strong with bold smooth flavor. Moderate to full body. Light choco and hops aftertaste. With my palette working it's way toward stouts (in the summer?), I'm going to give this one a huge 5 Star.

I cannot emphasize how much this beer does such a great job to put together the bold flavors of a stout. They went ballz-to-the-wall on this thing, and I cannot get enough of it. It's rare that everytime I take a sip, the beer tastes brand new all over again. Russian Imperial Stouts will do that to you, and sure enough this one hit's it perfectly.

Bully Saison-Brett

I just had a couple of wins on a project, so time to celebrate. I break the absolutely wrong glass for a Saison (champagne flute) and go for a Boulevard Saison-Brett.

Beer Log: Just a few minutes ago
State: Trying to relax watching 30 for 30 drinking number 06883 of 13400 bottles produced

Gold-orange and a pinch cloudy. Big white poofy head with a big fizzy head that overflowed nearly everytime I poured another one. Sugar sweetness and a light brett nose. It has some moderate sourness but no banana like a belgian tripel on the smell. The beer has a moderate carbonation, goood candy sugar, and a light-moderate jolly rancher taste. Wraps up with some sourdough bread thing goin gon. Minimum bitterness that leaves the tongue a bit gritty. I just can't stop drinking it. Probably one of the best brett beers we've had so far. 4 Stars.

BeerBrotha Movie Review: Beer Wars

Beer Log: Right now
State: Watching Beer Wars on Netflix Streaming video

Boulevard Long Strange Tripel
Orange color with a thin white head in my goblet. My nose is starting to get a little stuffy, but it has a great orange and banana nose. Nose is also plum alcohol and peppery. Let's go get 'em. High carbo and fruity (fruit as in orange, apple, and banana). I get an easy drinkability despite it's bubbliness. It has some hint of sourness and brown sugar/white sugar taste I've come to associate with Tripels. 4 Stars baby.

Beer Wars
I know I'm probably the last American beer blogger to have say about this movie, b/c frankly it sounded like a simple documentary one would see on the History channel. Just by the title I could see that this would basically paint the bigger brewers as evil bastards using their resources to crush the Mom and Pop brewers just trying to live a dream. And sure enough, that's basically what it is.

As much as I am in support of the micros and regionals, we can't sit around and cry woe is me if a business tries to do... business. As much of a capitalist that I claim to be, I think that although this film can put up a sob story, it will hopefully energize folks to try these new breweries. And yes we must fight to keep the laws from busting our chops, but dammit we better be ready for a fight. No business, whether they are selling beer, baby bottles, watches, cocaine, or women (you can tell what's around my house right now) is going to let someone chomp into their market share. In this very film they started out with how A-B, Miller, and Coors went at each other. And it was brutal. Sadly in some internal promotional video for A-B, they showed a guys cutting out JAX beer, which of course was a local brewery in New Orleans which is now a mall for teenie-bopper shorts and rip off voodoo merchandise.

A-B and MillerCoors are getting into craft beer and going directly at the local guys. These somewhat familiar sounding beers with no buzz or anything just happen to show up at every ballpark and taproom in the city. The local A-B brewery here makes Zeigenbock to go right after Shiner Bock. And dammit it makes perfect sense to me, and I would be ashamed if Spoetzl and Saint Arnolds folks were caught by surprise when this stuff hit the scene. They've got more money, they've got hotter girls, they've got more resources, and they've got you in their sights. I'm just wondering how long before a big dog is just going to buy someone like a Sierra, Dogfish, or even Stone.

Boulevard Smokestack Series: Wheat Wine

Taking dictation because the Brotha was too lazy to go get his own computer or get his beer log from the car. He owes me.

Review:

Lighter hazy amber color with mondo white head. The nose is a mixture of wheat bear characteristics (orange, coriander, yeasty) and white grapes (a la a chardonnay or pinot grigio). Excellent. I like that.

Carbonation is moderate and the taste is a mix of wheat beer (sans orange and coriander) and white wine. White wine flavor wins out over the wheat beer flavors. Smooth drinkability, probably best served cold. i like it a lot. It's a fantastic mixture of the styles.

4 stars!

Live Blogging: A couple Oktoberfests

Sitting here feeling pretty good on the weekend overall. My undergrad got blasted by South Carolina State, but Georgia Tech showed out against Virginia Tech. Now all we need is THE U to have a bad day and Tech is in the drivers seat for a BCS bowl bid. Not to mention that the Texans beat down on the Bengals, Carolina got the win, and now Randy Moss just got a third touchdown and he's on my fantasy team. My fantasy team last week got about 11 points, today we are over 100 and Isabella FC is right back in the drivers seat for a playoff bid.

Anyway, I'm been slacking just a bit on my Oktoberfest posts b/c my friend has all the good pictures on his camera, and he's studying for the PE exam, so I don't think we'll be seeing him until October 24 at Dontoberfest, my annual beer party.

Last night we went to an EXCELLENT beer dinner hosted by Pappas Steakhouse. This steakhouse is constantly rated as the top steakhouse in Houston. And in a city that has cows and ranches inside the city limits, that's really saying something. Post about that one coming soon.

So today I think I'll kick back and have myself a few Oktoberfest beers, get ready for the long work week.

State: Eating some spaghetti with Shiner 100 turkey meatballs

Bob 47 Oktoberfest

Boulevard Brewing is back on the um... boulevard, with another seasonal. I still can't get over how great their beers had been, as I just did not like the first couple Bully's that I had. Anyways...big poofy head in my Tar Heels 2005 Championship Mug. Clear amber color with some maltiness on the nose. It's pretty toasty for an oktoberfest, and has a nice caramel finish. Moderate to high carbo. I actually get something akin to chocolate on my tongue 60 seconds after drinking it. Very lightly hopped. With the spagh it doesn't quite hold up as a foil or a compliment. However pleasant slightly weaker Oktoberfest, but still true to style. 3 Stars.

And while we're at it...

Left Hand Oktoberfest

Rather light caramel malty nose despite the mondo tan head. Clear amber beer.

(Sidebar: I used to hate on Brett Favre for coming back and toying with teams' emotions. But now, you know what, if you still want to your thing, whatever it is, and there is an organization willing to give you that opportunity...why not. What are you going to do when you retire? Travel and play golf. Okay that covers 2 months, so what about the other 20 years?)

I get a chewier okto compared to the Bully's. A thicker body with a nice sweet Munich malt (basically caramel) and light hops. No real aftertaste. On second slug I'm getting some sourness lingering under the bread and malt. Aw man. Low 3 Stars

Drinking Beer while Brewing Beer

It's like eating while watching the Food network. It's like playing touch football during the halftime of a football game. It's like having sex while watching porn.

Is there ANYTHING better than drinking beer while brewing beer? Right now I'm heating up the water for the specialty grains while disinfecting the fermentor. Which means I'm really just sitting here listening to Walton & Johnson podcasts and about to crack open...

Beer Log: Right now 11:51AM
State: Waiting on the water to heat up.

Great Lakes Eliot Ness
I picked up a six pack of this while in Buffalo. I tore through about 4 of them while I was in Buffalo prompting my mother to think I'm an alcoholic. I had a few left so I brought them along with me back to Houston. Nice to see that they have some great beer in my old hometown and birthplace: Cleveland, Ohio. Nice malt and delicate toastiness on the nose. Copper color with strong white head in my cupped pilsner glass. Damn I needed that. Moderate to strong malt with just enough grassy hops to balance. Moderate carbonation and whatnot. Finish has a sweetness to it, almost cloying. The bottle says it's an amber lager but if the brothas told me it was an American Brown Ale I would believe it. I just really enjoy this sweet amber lager, though not as crisp as I figured out. But I like the gentle bitterness and toastiness. 4 stars. CLEVELAND ROCKS!






I think the challenge with drinking beer while brewing beer is not to get plastered as you'll be sitting around for a while, but you can't exactly leave the house for a few holes at the golf course as you'll burn your house down. I'm looking through our kegerator and we have hardly any new beers that we have more than one bottle of. In other words, I can't just go drinking all these beers we brought from the ATL and Buffalo and Maryland while the wife is not here. We actually have some GB Blonde Bock and a sixpack to boot. I haven't reviewed this one since I was back in the ATL for some recruiting.

Gordon Biersch Blonde Bock
Pours a tinged straw color in my NORTH CAROLINA 2009 NCAA BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPION mug. I last had this beer in a sampler, but on its own I imagine it will be a little better. Strong poofy white head. Has a kind of Munich malt smell and German noble hop thing going on. Think of those random green bottle German beers (link) you get at the liquor store, just without the long plane ride to the states. Taste has a nice syrupy sweetness to it characteristic of a bock. Totally messes with your head considering the light color. Low carbonation a lightly hopped. Seems like they have it down. High 3 Star. Fantastic purity law beer.


I just got off the phone with the wife about Oktoberfest, and it turns I actually drank the last of the Eliot Ness. She hadn't tried it yet so I kind of screwed up there. As such I'm slugging down a can of Fat Tire right out of the can along with my Enchiladas from Sylvia's. I'm telling, I go into WITHDRAWAL if I do not have some good Mexican or Tex-Mex at least once a week. If your town doesn't have at least 10% illegal immigrants, your Mexican/Tex-Mex food is probably not up to snuff. I'm doing a full 5 gallon boil on the stovetop, so it is taking FOREVER for this thing to reach a boil. And it will take forever again after I add the extract. So I'm sitting here listening to 2 Live Stews podcasts and watching UFC Wired.

Just added the hops, got a little boil over, so the beer won't be as hoppy. But then again it's for the wife so it should be all good. I may slap in the other hops a couple minutes early to get it going. How about some Zon.

Boulevard Zon
Coming out of Kansas City. Banana yeast nose. Quick dissapearing fizzy white head on a cloudy yellow beer. Strong yeast flavor like my old Belgian witbier homebrew before it fermented out. Beer is much more pleasant than I remember. Nice poofiness to its body and whatnot. Dammit I hate boilover. Low 3 Stars.

Well, I'm still cleaning up the Zon I just spilled on the carpet. Backed right into while watching UFC 101 for the 20th time. I poured myself some Anchor Bock with it's roastiness and whatnot in my Carolina mug. It's 3:30PM and I'm out of ice and the lowest I can get the temperature is 82 deg F on the wort. The OG is 1044. Tastes super sweet and moderate hops on the wort. Already added a gallon of 42 deg F wort. I have not freezer or anything for temperature control, so I'm just going to live with 82 deg F and pitch the yeast. Whatever happens happens.

Ok. I need another drink...some Oskar Blues Mama's Little Yella Pils should do the trick.

This is some BULL SHYT. I made ENTIRELY too much money to be sitting her trying to cool down my wort with a bunch of ice in the kitchen sink whatnot. Dammit I was hoping to hit my IPA as well today, but screw that. I'm pitching yeast at 82 deg F like an idiot. I've got to get some better equipment going. Mama's pils is much better out of the can btw. This is terrible. Will let you know how it turns out.

UPDATE: 6AM this morning

The beer is fermenting up a storm right now. Temperature is down to 75 deg F. I do expect the Golden Ale to be a little fruitier than normal, but that's okay. I may try to get my IPA going tomorrow morning. We'll see.

UFC Beering: Lagunitas and Boulevard

Ok I'll admit it. I always pull for the black guy in a UFC fight. Unless it's against Clay Guida, I just kinda gravitate towards the brotha (nullus).

Hey, I don't know any of these fighters from Adam, and hardly any of them are from my home town, so I may as well figure out some way to get emotionally involved. So if you are a UFC fan, you can only imagine how much alcohol I've been consuming over the last few months. Lighter alcohol beers have not been cutting it. Rashad Evans and Cheik Kongo have been getting jacked up. The night Rashad Evans got totally destroyed by Lyoto Machida, I was drinking some high gravity stuff as it was evident early that he wasn't going to win...

Beer Log: May 23, 2009
State: Dammit the brotha is losing again!

Lagunitas Undercover
Strong hop nose with alcohol lurking about, thank goodness. Ruby brown color with a white low head. Fruity nose as it warms up. It tastes of strong malt and hops. It is somewhere betwixt an American and English barley wine. Not cloying but moderate alcohol in the flavor. So don't give it to the girl at the bar, she'll taste the alcohol a mile away and you'll never get her... um, nevermind. Bitter and fruity aftertaste. 4 Stars.

Long Strong Tripel
By the Kansas boys at Boulevard in a 22 ouncer which finished me off. Light gold color, high head. Finally a damn tripel. Who do you have to sleep with to get a good tripel around here? Great banana and ester nose. The taste is a nice banana taste, light citrus, and a high champagne carbonation. Cloudy like it is bottle conditioned. A little bitter tasting aftertasting along with being sweet. High 3 Stars.

Of course Evans was destroyed, so that's that. It turns out they'll have the Evans-Rampage fight anyway and have them go through the Ultimate Fighter as coaches. They'll even have my boy Kimbo Slice on the show. I think this is first Ultimate Fighter season my wife will actually watch. So we get to see the Evans-Rampage fight we all wanted to see anyway. Love Lyoto Machida, but he ain't selling no rent.

IPA to the Rescue

Who doesn't like peaches or peach in beer. If you combine your peach beer with apricot beers, you're really kicking arse. About the only brewery that truly screwed the pooch with peaches this year is ironically Dogfish Head, probably one of the best craft breweries on the planet. But we are ready to rock and roll with another peach beer and from the Dawgs no less.


Beer Log: Today
State: Glad we got the AC fixed, still a little loopy after running at 10K in 95 deg weather earlier today.

Dogfish Head Festina Peche
The wife picked up this one in Maryland during the Wife Out of Town Weekend Extravaganza. I wouldn't have let her back in the house but she brought home about a case worth of craft beer. This one has a veggie and sweet nose on it. The color is slightly cloudy with a straw color and a thin white head. The wife said this one was a Berliner Weissen, so I wasn't fired up. The taste is rather sour and puckering, just opened my eyes. A nice slight breadiness on the aftertaste. I don't taste no peche though. It actually reminds of those Pinot Grigios we had in the Hill country, just on steroids. Kinda has a "feet" thing going on. No rating here as I just have not gotten into sour beers. I think I may be hitting the Saucer again, so I may have to do a flight of sour beers or something.

But luckily we always have some IPA in the house in the event of a bad tasting (to me) beer. The only one in the whole damn house we have that is chilled is from Boulevard. All these IPAs I bring into the house and the woman has my kegerator stocked with chocolate beers and whatnot.

Boulevard Single Wide IPA
Orange color with some chill haze. Seriously strong white head. Nose is pleasantly fruity and flowery (nullus). And a touch of lace as well. Now that's a citrusy balanced IPA right there baby. Great moderate to high carbonation and light body. Great malt that goes with strong hops. I don't need a beer where the dudes just threw in buckets of hops without any regard to balance. Maybe it's b/c of all the hop forward beers I've been having recently, or it's hot as all get out these days. But this nice. Easily the best Boully beer I've had so far. Amazing how I can't stand their Pale Ale. 4 stars for what I'll call a great basic IPA.