Detroit Fall Beer Festival (Oct. 22)

Yesterday was the Detroit Fall Beer Festival, and it was a good time. Over 300 beers from over 50 Michigan breweries, many of which brought out special brews for the festival. I went with my dad, and tried to each get different beers so we could double the number of beers we tried. Lucky for us, we got in early on some retailer passes. There were some great beers available, and I wanted to list many of the ones that I had before I forgot.

• Arcadia Ales
  Cannonball Gold (fresh hopped ale)
  B Craft (black double IPA)
• Atwater Brewery
  Conniption Fit (double IPA) - this one was kinda gross, tasted watered down
  Shaman's Porter
• Bastone Brewery
  Peanut Butter Beer - Smelled like peanut butter! Tasted kinda gross
  Infernal Chili Beer - Very potent chili taste on the back-end. Dad had more of it than I did and could taste it for a while.
• Bell's
  Hopsolution - This was pretty awesome. The only beer of the day I had twice.
  Winter White
  Java Stout
• Copper Canyon
  Cedarbock - This one was way gross.
  Shillelagh Stout
• Corner Brewery
  Olde Number 22 (altbeir) - Kinda gross
  Larry Hoppe (DIPA) - Pretty good. Since Dad's name is Larry, they gave him a full glass pour on this one.
• Dark Horse Brewing
  Carmel Apple Ale - Smelled real good
• Detroit Beer Co.
  Milkshake Stout
  IPA
• Founder's
  Harvest Ale (IPA) - super fresh, huge pour, awesome!
  Dirty Bastard - still gross
• New Holland - I'm really disappointed they weren't tapping the Hopivore until 4pm
  Barrel Aged Poet (oatmeal stout)
  Oak Aged Mad Hatter (IPA)
• The Livery
  Barrel Aged Grand Reserve Maillot Jaune - So, so gross. It's a sour beer.
  Anvil IPA
• Millking It Productions
  SNO (Belgian wit)
  AXL (pale ale)
• Mt. Pleasant Brewing
  Trainwreck (IPA)
  Steam Engine Stout
• Saugatuck Brewing
  Neapolitan Milk Stout
• Sherwood Brewing Co.
  1492 IPA
  Jamocha Cocoa Coffee Stout
• Short's Brewing
  Chocolate Wheat porter
  Pistachio Cream Ale
• Tri-City Brewing Co.
  Hell's Half Mile German Helles
  Charity Island IPA
• Wolverine State Brewing
  Oktoberfest
  Dark Lager

b[acklog] #2

Well, it's time for another installment of my b[eer]log b[ack]log! Here's more stuff, some recent, some older.

Drinking Beer While Making Beer

I started my second batch of beer today (more on that tomorrow) and I enjoyed one of these while brewing it. Very good. I'd buy it if they made it regularly (I know Torpedo exists, but this is different).

Despite the fact that I hate black licorice, I was enticed by the mentions of vanilla and chocolate mint. The chocolate mint and vanilla flavors were definitely present, but unfortunately, it was black licorice first and foremost. Joe would probably like it. As I said to my wife: I've spent more money on worse things.

Sam Adams Summer Ale

Enjoying a Summer Ale on this cold-ass day for my sister's birthday, and her beer is slightly larger than mine.

b[ack]log #1

Would you believe me if I told you that I kept a bottle of almost every beer I've ever had?

Well, believe it.

I once had grand dreams of having a bar in my basement and lining the walls of the bar with these bottles, but then I got into homebrewing and needed bottles for my beer, and this turned out to be the most ample supply available. (Also, this solution is much more wife-friendly than my other idea!) However, since I also have this blog, I figure I might as well add to the content and throw some pictures of them up here as well! So, here's the first batch of backlogged stuff. This is actually a lot of recent drinks. I've had most of these myself, except for a few where other people may have had them from my fridge, or left a bottle at my house. There's several cases in my garage, so as I go through and clean them up for homebrewing, I'll post pictures.

Last week’s drinks

I had a 2009 Pere Jacques, which supposedly can age for up to five years in the bottle. It was good, much more carmely than it originally was. Also had a Troeg's Troegenator, which was also good.

I also split the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp mix-pack with a couple of coworkers, which came with three each of four new beers, and I had two of them this weekend. Both of them were highly enjoyable.

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

The wife and I decided to celebrate the 1862 Mexican defeat of the French by eating some Mexican food and drinking some Mexican beer at our local Mexican restaurant. Someone should tell Mexicans about microbrews and maybe we'll have some better stuff to import.

Tröegs Dream Weaver

Another pickup from beertrade, this one comes from a New England Pennsylvanian brewery. It's an unfiltered wheat, and I could barely see through it. Very citrusy aroma, and tastes a lot like the Hefeweizen from the WAB, since they've both got very pronounced lemon flavors. Good stuff and great label art! On Ratebeer, the old art it had was pretty standard, and I think the new art is pretty rad.

Terrapin Hopsecutioner

I can't write full paragraph posts for everything. This was pretty good, I had it Monday with dinner. It's a good, full flavored and very hoppy IPA. I love the artwork on the Terrapin stuff, so I'm glad I got a handful of their stuff on beertrade.

Pliny the Elder

Rated #3 on BeerAdvocate and #13 on RateBeer's USA beers list, this is one of the most sought after beers in the country. Trades on BeerAdvocate and /r/beertrade are often searching for this beer. You would imagine that, given a reputation like this, it is something like magic in your mouth. It comes in a pint bottle, and runs about $8 according to my source. So, is it a beergasm or not?

No. It's very good. It's not the second coming in beer form. Great color to it, a very bright straw-like color, with a thin head on it. It's got a very strong fruit and pine aroma to it. Very similar to Aprihop, but with a heavy dose of pine on top. It's very crisp, with a nice bitter kick to it. It's got a good level of carbonation to it that makes it very drinkable. However the taste is nothing to write home about. It tastes like a lot of other standard IPAs/DIPAs. I would take Hopslam or Aprihop over this any day (which is great, because they're more readily available around here), but I can appreciate it for what it is.