Breakfast at Northdowns

Backstage at the VMA's.........

22 oz bottle out of a box. Step one, you cut a hole in a box, two you put your junk in that box, three make her open that box, and that's the way you do it.

Crimson pour with a nearly no head and Vega showgirl legs. See I'm wise enough to know when a gift needs givin'

Sweet caramel, some vanilla, more rum than bourbon, and some plum fruitiness. And I got just the one. Somethin' to show you your second to none.

Bottom shelf bourbon here. Hot, hot, heat. The underlying winter warmer base is overwhelmed by the barrel presence and the best parts of the beer are left crushed under a blanket of hot booze. Near room temperature it was akin to taking shots. After a trip back to the fridge, she became more tolerable. However, the margin for error is razor thin. A prime candidate for some quality nap time.

Mouthfeel itself is nice, weighing in as medium bodied with low carbonation.

Drinkability suffers from the aforementioned symptoms. To all the fellas out there with ladies to impress, It's easy to do just follow these three steps.

My Nemesis (and no, I'm not talking about any of you .... or am I?)

Had an '010 Nemesis the other night. Not sure what to make of it. I'm bracing myself for an onslaught of "black _______(fill in the style)" beers in the next couple of years. Black barleywine looks suspiciously like regular barleywine but has a slight burnt toast-ness too it. I think this would have benefitted from a little aging, but wanted to try one while the hops were still hot.

In retrospect, I don't think I drank it at the right time... had it when I got home from being at work from 6am to 8pm and during the brief period before I passed out from exhaustion, thus didn't really so much get to savor it as drink it in a hazy fog. Unfortunately, I only was able to get 2 and kind of want to save the other one for an eventual Nemesis vertical, so the world may never know my true thoughts.

Grade: Incomplete.

Back to Basics

"I'm back."

HopArt

Pours quite hazy medium orange with a nice head and consistent bubbles throughout.

Slightly faint on the nose. Sawdust, bitter tangerine, and plenty of bready malt. Continual agitation reveals the bottom of a Del Monte tin and a fair share of alcohol fumes. Good, but not as vivid as I'd hoped for.

HopArt comes ready to fight. Rough and tumble bitterness and citric rind on a heavy wave of malt that shows itself as caramel and wafer crackers. Finish is slightly boozy, but appropriately so for the abv and never really detracts.

Sticky and slightly chewy body makes this near full bodied. Carbonation is well done and helps carry this pummeling fight through to the finish. A-

Knuckle Sandwich

Burgundy with a consistent quarter inch head and minimal bubbleage

Once opened and even prior to being poured, this beer can be detected from across the room. As odd as it may sound, predominant scents include fresh sliced pineapple and hot oven baked pie. Really it's quite appealing.

Tastes like it smells. Caramel sweet pie, pineapple, whipped cream, and crust. Drinks like a dessert. Minimal heat on the back end is very welcome considering the 10% tag. Certainly not a hop bomb, but all the elements of a solid DIPA are here. solid A

Smooth and viscous; an enjoyable treat.

And the wasabi wasn't bad either

막걸리

Last year's list of what I had at Great Taste

Just to get everyone in the mood...

Tea furious
Hopmouth
Bent river trappist
Diggers 20/20
Shoreline rye curse
Carlyle rauch
Town hall RIS
Desrihl barleywine
J pump roja
Red eye thorn RIS
Tyrenena imp choc st
Shoreline bourbon curse
Thirsty pagan spruce Willis
Kuhnhenn 4th dimensia
Central waters bourbon barleywine
Surly 3
Shoreline boubon barleywine
Distihl hoperation overload
Goose bourbon sherry
Kuhnhenn grand cry
Three floyds vanilla dark lord
Surly bourbon smoke
Flossmore collab evil
Floss anno unum
Blind pig smokey the beer

If only Kerry had won the election, this is the type of utopia we'd live in:

http://beeronomics.blogspot.com/2010/07/taxes-again.html

So we've all become teetotalers then?

Apostel Bräu

This is a lager, German style.  Erstmals gebraut 1713.  I wish it came in a can the size of the one pictured on the label.  It's humid here and I'm thirsty.

I'm totally out-posting you all.  And you're apparently hanging out without me this weekend?

Oh hell yes.

But what's inside those bottles....?

Think I might.

Darkness

Drinking an 09 darkness - good, but not as good as they were with hot hops. It's a little Too mellow now I think, but still tasty. Mental note: next year drink the full allotment on day one.

Barrel of Monkeys

Duane & I did the Mikkeller barrel horizontal on Sunday. Luckily these were 12oz bottles because it is a very diesel beer. It was pretty cool to see how different the exact same beer tasted out of different barrels. We ranked them:
Bourbon>Wine>Rum>Scotch

I thought the bourbon ones were great and highlighted the coffee. The wine was a little fruitlet and more mellow but kind of plain. Rum was too sweet and highlighted the honey too much in a weird way. Scotch was a drainpour - tasted like celery juice or like it had been in treated deck lumber barrels. Awful. Crazy how different bourbon and scotch could be though.

I also decided something with peppery hops would be good in tequila barrels.

Trpoical Fruit Bomb!?

So our efficiency was quite poor, but here's to good things a comin'. Preliminary tastings, I shit you not, this beer tastes like Guava. Make of that what you will.

Immort

REALLY sweet ; peppery hops ; campfire smoke - like a slightly better new holland smoked doppelboch